Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay - ‘Sinners,’ Jasmine Crockett, and the Black Panthers
Episode Date: January 13, 2026Van and Rachel kick the show off with some awards season reactions, check in on the situation in Minnesota, and react to some criticism of Representative Jasmine Crockett. (0:00) NAACP Image Awards... nominations (5:47) Awards season reactions (38:28) Kristy and Desmond Scott’s divorce (53:13) Minneapolis update (1:10:08) The Black Panthers and knowing your rights (1:24:04) Bowen Yang, Matt Rogers, and criticisms of Representative Crockett (2:08:23) Steve Nash and capitalism Hosts: Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay Producers: Donnie Beacham Jr. and Jade Whaley Social Producer: Bernard Moore Video Supervision: Chris Thomas Vote here for the NAACP Image Awards: www.naacpimageawards.net Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Yo, yo, yo, thought warriors.
What is up?
Higher Learning is on, is Ivan Lathin Jr.
And it's me, Rachel and Lyndon.
So as we sit down, the NAACP Image Awards are out.
We're nominated for Best Podcast.
Yet again, I think this is...
Guys, four years in a row.
Is it three or four?
I'm pretty sure it's four.
Four L's in a row.
Look.
Don't manifest the fourth one already that we're already out.
Guys, it's a voting thing.
and we don't do a good job of reminding you guys
to go out and vote.
You got to go out and vote
listening to the podcast,
share it with other people.
You like what you hear.
We're four years nominated.
We've lost three times in a row.
It's a very good podcast, I will say,
but we also deserve to win.
We lost some podcasts as all right.
Look.
Yeah, you shit on Lovar Burton.
No.
No, remember you cursed him out.
You were like, fuck Lovar Burton.
No, I know you like him,
but he won.
He beat us.
the first time and you, you know.
He can't be LeVar.
Lovar got me through the pandemic.
Have y'all ever listened to his podcast?
There was a podcast where he would read short stories.
What was the name of the podcast?
I think that is that one.
It's fantastic.
Like a great, great, legitimately great podcast.
All right, so shout out to the NAACP Awards.
Very important to be nominated and respected by black people,
El Blacks.
Hopefully we go to the award show this year.
Maybe we will.
Maybe we won't.
Look.
This is the thing.
If you guys want to see us win the award,
you got vote.
You vote for the NAACP Awards,
vote for higher learning.
Really,
just like, if everybody voted,
we would probably win
because I wonder if this is a high turnout thing.
It's probably a low turnout voting situation, you know?
But at the same time,
we're up against, like, people who are pretty famous.
And let's be real.
It's probably not going to happen.
The stack category, but we should try.
Golden Globes last night.
I don't leave a vote for us.
I forget to do it.
Golden Globes that sign.
Yes.
Amy Poehler from the Ringer wins.
Shout out to Amy Poehler.
Shout out to Alea.
Shout out to Kea.
Alaya.
Everybody, Kyya, Kaya,
everybody who makes the show that we know over here,
good hang with Amy Polar.
But, you know, that's a show that is a show
with famous people and celebrities and stuff like that.
And podcasting is something that a lot of people don't pay a lot of attention to.
I'm serious.
What do you mean?
They don't pay a lot of attention to.
attention to it? The industry. Oh, the industry doesn't pay live attention to
but people do. That's why they are having to start to recognize it. If I was going to do a
Golden Globe's nominee of podcast, it would have looked completely different. I think most
people who really like take in podcasts and really listen to it would have a different
list. Now Good Hang is a fantastic part. Oh yeah. It's a good part. It's a lot fun.
But if you, it's kind of like podcasting at these award shows is it's kind of like
I mean, that's not to say we have a better podcast than anybody in the NAACP honorees with us.
I'm not saying that at all.
But I'm saying it is something that I don't feel like a lot of these places have as stronger grasp on as they do other things.
It's kind of like hip-hop at the Grammys.
No, I mean, they're just behind.
A lot of times the industry can be behind when it comes to these things.
But they're starting to recognize it.
I mean, Golden Globes, it took them this year.
NACP has been doing it for four years.
But the NWACP is better about it than the Globes.
The podcasts are in that category, normally podcasts that people are really listening to
and enjoying and stuff like that.
The Globes is the first time.
It'll be interesting to see how it is.
They don't have political.
Like they don't want to rock the boat, you can tell.
Who doesn't?
The Globes.
So I would be interested as it goes on who they put in there because a lot of
people do consume their news and their politics and that kind of information,
current affairs from podcasts.
And they did have up first in there,
but I just wonder if they'll move towards inserting more of those podcasts in.
Or will they be more interview celebrity-led podcast?
Well, you also don't want to nominate any podcasts if you're the globes that are going to cause
too much of a stir.
Right.
Yeah, I know.
Yeah.
So if you, well, I mean, is that, you know, you put Rogan up there.
People are going to be like, why the fuck you're putting Rogan up there?
If you put other podcasts, they're going to be like, why are these fucking podcasts nominated?
They hurt people or, like, put out misinformation.
It's going to be political.
But maybe they do what NACP does where they have categories of podcasts.
It's not just lumped all in one.
They separate it.
Like they do their TV shows and movies for the Globes.
Well, the NWACP, like I said, they understand the scope of black cultural interests.
And so they try to in these different nominating categories, like hit those interests.
I also want to say the AFCO Awards.
They wanted us, they want us to present at the AFCO Awards, you and I.
When's that?
That's February 8th.
Super Bowl weekend?
That's Super Bowl Sunday.
I won't be there.
Oh, Rachel's not coming to the AFCO Awards.
Well, first off, I'm just hearing this from you and I will be.
They wanted me to tell you.
I'll be in San Francisco.
Oh, you're going to the actual game.
I'll be there for the weekend, but by the time I usually fly back on Sunday.
Oh, that's true.
Yeah.
You normally follow because you do the whole Super Bowl week and then you do the party at the house.
Yeah, yeah.
It's that morning, I think.
It's the morning.
Super Bowl Sunday, I think it is.
It's going to be tough.
That's what Nick told me.
Nick May told me this.
I'm going to do it.
Oh, wait, it's Nick.
Well, it's Nick and it's Gil.
It's AFCA.
See, when it's Nick, I'm like, well.
It's tough.
I do these favorites for Nick.
I do these things for Nick.
Nick asked.
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You got to do it.
Okay, let's start with the Golden Globes then.
Oh, before we get into the Golden Globes,
Crosman said that I'm a sociopath.
No, he did not say that.
He said, I told Crosman some things.
Shout to Crosman.
I just want you guys to know.
We share this.
We share therapists.
Because I need them to understand why you're just saying about the first thing.
We share therapists.
Right.
I don't know if that's good for us or not.
Krausman, I started going back and he looked at him and he was, yeah, there's some
there's some sociopathy there.
Have you ever thought about that?
I was like, no.
It makes a lot sense.
Maybe I don't talk about you in therapy, but maybe I should.
Maybe I should go in there.
Wow.
That's a big, you need to unpack that because.
Well, I can't unpack it.
You have to unpack it with him.
I don't know.
Not with me.
But I mean, like, you have such a big heart that, like, to me, that is something that is lacking
of a sociopath.
So I just.
Maybe, maybe I'm a socio-impath.
Okay.
Let's come up with something new, a new terminology here.
Socio-impath, you know?
The way you did spin it, though, that's something a sociopath would do.
God damn, I'm so fucked up.
Somebody help me.
Okay. The Golden Globes were last night. Everybody looked great. You know who? You know what? I liked about the Golden Globes. I saw niggas that I know on the red carpet doing big things. Like who? Let's shout him out. Justin Sylvester. Justin, he kills it.
Evans. Evans. Scott Evans. Scott Evans. Justin Sylvester and Scott Evans. These are guys I was just with. I was just with Scott Evans at the Spotify party.
We shut it down. We shut it down. We shut it down.
went home.
Y'all shut it down.
By the way, I heard some shit.
Yeah.
It went, who.
I heard some shit.
Y'all shut it down.
I was at the house.
Oh, God, everybody had left.
Y'all, I'm so washed.
Like, I was wearing my cowboy boots
and I couldn't put my,
um, my custom orthotics into the cowboy boots.
Why?
Because they weren't fit.
Okay.
So that ended my night.
Yeah, cowboy boots are tight.
That's tough.
That's tough.
That's tough.
That's tough.
Also, it was a lot of talking.
Like, I just,
sometimes at those parties
there's just so much talking
I just want to dance
and float around
which we did do
towards the end
me, Kalika
Scott
Melvin
leaving some people out
but that's okay
when I was in a hotel
no personal business on the podcast
no personal business
but I saw Scott
I saw Justin Zvestor
I saw
Nichelle
Michelle Turner
Michelle Turner.
Kevin Frazier.
Kevin Frazier.
People I know, people I know doing great stuff.
It was, it's a very, I saw a lot of black people interviewing on the red carpet.
I love that type of shit.
All right.
Quickly down the winners.
For Best Motion Picture Drama, Hamnet won, okay?
One over Frankenstein.
It was just an accident, the secret agent, sentimental value, and sinners.
Best Motion Picture, a musical, a comedy, one battle after another.
Blue Moon, Bologna, and Marty Supreme, No other choice.
Nouvelle vague.
I haven't seen that one yet.
Best motion picture animated.
That was the easiest one to call.
K-pop demon hunters.
Cinematic and box office achievement centers one.
It's an interesting category.
Yeah.
Which combines the whole thing.
Avatar F-1, K-pop, more of a box-office type of...
A newer category.
Newer category.
Motion picture, non-English language, secret agent.
Best actress, Jesse Buckley, motion picture drama.
Best actor, motion picture drama.
Wagner Moore for the secret agent.
I have not seen the secret agents yet.
I have not seen.
No, I haven't either, but I hear it's great.
Most of these movies I've seen.
That one I have not seen, a couple others.
A handful, maybe like three of them,
three of the big ones.
I've got to see them in the next couple of weeks.
Of course, in that category,
Michael B. Jordan was nominated.
The Rock was nominated.
Joel Edgerton was nominated for Train Dreams.
Great movie.
Jeremy Allen White, Springsteen,
Delivered Me from Nowhere.
Terrible fucking movie.
That's what everybody says.
And then Best Actress in a Motion Picture,
musical or comedy, Rose Byrne, if I had legs, I'd kick you.
Best Actor in a Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy, Timothy Shalameh, Marty Supreme.
So he has won that one.
And then, of course, Tiana Taylor won.
Best Supporting Actress in any motion picture, she won for one battle after another.
Got up there and was very charming in her acceptance speech.
She's always charming.
Very charming in her acceptance speech.
Best actor in a supporting role was scaling.
Scars, Stirling Scars, Schar, Shard,
shall say, for cinnamon with value.
Best director, Paul Thomas Anderson,
best screenplay, Paul Thomas Anderson.
A lot of people thought that was a little bit of a,
of an upset.
Score, Luke Wig for Senters,
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
original song, K-pop, demon hunters,
television, we could get into all.
Basically, look at it.
All of this stuff is there.
The studio one big, the pit one big,
and TV and all of that stuff.
Adolescence was a fantastic show.
Adolescence is just sweeping.
Adolescent is, so is the pit.
The pit's great.
The pit's great.
The pit's great.
It's great.
Allelescence is limited.
The pit is an episodic.
It's coming back or maybe it's all right.
Yeah, no, it's just, the premiere just happened.
Any surprises last night for you?
I think I expected more from sinners, just overall.
Nominated a lot.
One, for an award category that we said was newer that a lot of people felt like it was a
throwaway award.
I don't want to take that away from them just because of what they did obviously
accomplish at the box office at a time when people are saying they're not going to
the movie theater.
People aren't. Actors aren't drawing names, big names and actors and actresses aren't drawing people to the theater. That is a huge accomplishment. They did what people think, thought they couldn't. So I don't want to count that as a throwaway. But I really thought that Ryan Coogler, especially because people kept mentioning him too in their acceptance speeches, Ryan Coogler for Best Director, I thought I was a little surprised. I thought that he could win that. And then original screenplay. Some of the other movies I haven't seen as much.
you so like I can't really comment on specifically of like Jesse Buckley winning in Hamnet I haven't seen that yet and I was going to until you told me about how devastating it is and I just I'm not in a place where I want to see that so the best cinematic achievement I've seen all year actually the two best cinematic achievements I've seen all year are sinners and F1 I knew you were going to say that okay F1 was that shit people fuck what y'all talking about um but in terms of sitting in a movie and being just a
emotionally
enthralled and engrossed
and what was going on
Hamnet's the best movie that I saw all year
but it's also supposed to do that for you
yeah it's it's
there's a
I can't say that
I can't say that
it's two different types of movies
but sitting there being just
destroyed and completely
connected to characters and what was on the screen
Hamlet was just it was amazing
now it's not as
perfectly constructed a movie
at sinners or even one battle after another
because there's a whole first hour
of Ham that where they're kind of just kind of putting you
into the world and connecting you to
William Shakespeare
and his lady and all that
stuff played by Jesse Buckley
but at the end of that movie
I just had to sit there and
contend with my feelings for a second
ugly cry at the end of it
you just felt for the family and the movie
also tells the story
of catharsis
through art and how it feels sometimes to deal with things in the way that Shakespeare dealt with
them, which was through art and the ministry of scene and then being in connection and relationship
to people who just don't live in that world. People who live in a world where the art can't
save you, expression can't save you. Like the thing is the thing. Family is the thing. Taking care of
people is the thing, the thing, the world is the thing.
And so that relationship between an artist and how they deal with stuff and what they need
to do in their life and the family that that artist has that's not into that, it's pretty
profound.
At the end, you know, they kind of bring it all together.
I mean, you're really selling the movie.
It's a fantastic movie.
I just have to sit with it.
I don't know.
I don't want to cry like that.
And I cry in movies very easily.
I just think it's interesting, too, because there's so much that wasn't
known about Hamnet, even like what's written.
So they had to take a lot of liberty.
I know this is based off a book, but they had to take a lot of liberty with this movie.
And then the way that you're describing and how they did it, I think that's pretty cool without knowing much about Shakespeare's actual son.
Since he passed away.
Passed away so young.
I didn't want to spoil it.
Now, variety, speaking of sinners,
Variety has said that sinners will, we can nominate for.
15 Academy Awards.
Projected. It's projected.
These are the predictions
from variety.
15 Academy Awards. They predicted
wins for
Best Picture,
which would be, in my opinion,
fantastic.
Best Picture
wins for
Autumn for Best Cinematographer
who we've had on this podcast. I asked
her if she wanted to come back. I say I
reached out to autumn, I said, listen,
hire a learning podcast, we discovered you.
So it's only fair that you come back.
And she said, yes, but at a later time when she's, you know,
all over the place.
Yeah, she's in the thick of it.
It's a word season.
But I think also they predicted wins for sinners in best original screenplay,
which is a category with sentimental value weapons.
Marri Supreme and Blue Moon
And they say that
Centers will probably take that one home
So they predicted I think 15 nominations
Wins they predicted for
Screenplay for Best Picture
For cinematographer
And for casting to which
It's awesome that casting is
A category now
The casting directors of America
fought for a long...
Casting directors of
of this industry fought for a long time
for what they contribute to movies
to be recognized by the Academy.
I think that's awesome that is being recognized.
When you saw this tweet for Variety, right?
Variety's getting a lot of attention, obviously,
because of their original tweet about sinners
that people to this day are still bringing up.
You saw Chelsea Handler bringing up at the Critics' Choice Awards.
Totally called out Variety for how ridiculous their tweet was
regarding sinners and how biased it was.
Do you feel like when you get this tweet
that you just read, that they're projected to get
15 Oscar nominations and have an all-time record for movies all the way from like All About Eve to, you know, as recent as like a la la land. If you consider that recent.
Do you feel like they're doing this as damage control?
It's a thought of mine. I'm not saying that they won't get it. But it just seems like we've got to almost overcompensate.
Because there were some other tweets that I saw people bringing up with variety that they continue to kind of put, talk about sinners.
it feels like they're doing damage control from the original tweet and continuously
getting called out on it.
Yeah.
There's certainly some of that.
I looked at this and I laughed.
I think a lot of people did.
But, you know, I guess the question is, how do you want it, right?
What is it that you want?
The original tweet and framing of center success from variety was so cynical.
it was so overly cynical
that a lot of people are like
what the hell is going on here.
And to do that with the movie
that was so ambitious
that in a lot of ways
tested the presence
of the industry
meaning what the industry is right now
in terms of what it'll be
from the business part of
the way Ryan packaged the film
the proximity media packaged the film
the fact that the film is
both
genre film, a horror movie, and then also a love letter to the black inhabitants and the
non-black inhabitants of the Delta and just an investigation that's so many things.
To see all that and to see them react to it so cynically, it was like, what the fuck y'all
on?
Like what are y'all doing?
Like, why are y'all doing?
Like, every time something does cut through and manages to hit this critical,
mass and this critical appreciation
and this box office stuff
we kind of kind of get smacked down
by somebody sitting behind the desk right and shit
like what the fuck is this, what is this?
And so there was, I think,
appropriate examination of why they did that.
But this is always what happens on the other side of it.
What happens on the other side of it
is not like a deep conversation
about what the fuck went wrong
is what happens on the other side of it
is here, niggers.
Like here it is.
Like, and that to me
it bothers me.
It bothers me that we,
shout out to Michael Harriet.
I went on this podcast
and we had a conversation
about this whole thing.
It bothers me
about why we can
never talk about the thing,
why it seems like
once we're given a bad meal,
the only thing
that whiteness knows how to do
is give us like a really sweet dessert.
Like, okay, this is what you want.
So is the 15 nominations that for you?
No, no, no, no, no. The 15 nominations, they don't even know what the Academy is going to do. They have no fucking clue. I don't know whether or not it's going to get 15 nominations or not. I think Variety. First of all, the 15 nominations also has to do with the fact that casting is in here and that wasn't a category before. So there are some different things that. But I don't know if Variety knows any of this stuff. But the fact that this seems like an overcorrection is sometimes annoying to me because what I think people really wanted was amazing.
them to be up front about the thinking that went into that, whether or not, or even if they decided that they needed to defend themselves.
It's like a real conversation about why the framing around that headline and that thinking towards centers, like why that happened.
If they are nominated for 15 Oscars and they set this record.
Yeah.
Is it a sweet dessert that they get the nominations and don't have like and have one or two wins?
Like is it?
Because that's another way I was looking at it.
I mean, I'm using your sweet dessert example.
But I looked at it as if they do get these 15 nominations, does it look bad that they were, they set a record, an all-time record in nominations at the Oscars, but then barely win anything?
It all, like, does it cancel it out?
I don't even know if you can answer it.
It's just a thought.
These are thoughts that popped up when I saw this tweet.
Like is it going to look bad that yeah, they got all these nominations, but then you don't reward them with much when it comes to actually winning.
Is it a, is it, should they just be grateful that they set a record?
Are you giving this to them?
Again, these are just all the thoughts in my head.
Are you giving this to them to say that they set a record, but you're not going to award them with the trophy?
You know what a difficult thing is to do for me and for a, um,
people at large.
It's difficult to not care about something
that you shouldn't care about,
but that actually matters.
Like, you shouldn't care about it, but it matters.
Here are the two things that are up against each other.
Winning Academy Awards matters.
It's matter. It matters.
You know this firsthand.
Quick story on that.
So we are trying to do two distant strangers.
I'm sure I've told everyone this
We're asking
At the outset
From people based upon
A brilliant script by Trayvon
And the fact that we have
Martin and Desmerle and Dirty Robber
Working with us
We're asking people for $150,000 right
Now movie ended up costing way more money than that
And I ended up having to put
Like a lot of my own money
Obviously into it
Me and Trayvon are the ones who were first
money in on it, right? So we're asking people for like $150,000, $200,000 to do the script.
We're sending the script around. We're talking about the time and all of that and why it's
important and all that shit that you got to do when you're asking different people for money.
This is a very important movie. And we can't get the money from the places that we're sending
the script out to. We can't get the money. So we changed strategy and I put money in. Trayvon puts money in,
and then we start going to get money from people that we know. We run the money and we end up making
movie. That's how you should make your movie if you have the network, by the way, to make a short.
Once the movie gets nominated for an Academy Award, the movie then gets bought.
The movie gets bought for millions of dollars. When I say legitimately, millions of dollars,
like it was funny on the backside of it. I remember walking down the street and thinking
they could have had to film for 150 grand.
They literally could have had it for 150 grand.
There were people, a lot of places,
that I asked for money that could have had that.
I don't know.
They didn't do it.
But once the nomination came in,
the nomination came in and people were like,
the movie's going to win.
And then it suddenly became worth millions of dollars.
Would it have been millions just with the nomination
if you had not won?
What do you mean?
Because it was bought before you won?
No, it was bought when it got nominated.
That's what I'm saying before you won.
So, right, it was what, but I think the nomination is worth that much, but also the fact that this movie will probably win is worth that much.
I'm saying all it is to say that those trophies are currency in this industry.
Those accolades are currency in this industry, more so than even the box office.
not even not more so than the box office nothing matters more than a business but I'm saying
sometimes as much like two distant strangers you could not put that in theaters and make any money
off of it is a short but it's still worth X amount of millions of dollars to Netflix like as
Academy Award winning short right because saying that we won this many we've been nominated for
this much this is a stamp of quality so when we're having conversations about movies like
sinners and we're saying it doesn't matter if it's awarded
or not, that's just not true.
It does matter.
Okay.
It does matter.
But for us, it can't.
And that's the hard part.
It matters.
It matters.
It matters in a real way.
That recognition from the Emmys,
from the Oscars,
it matters.
But for us, it can't matter.
It really can't
because all it does
is center the voices and the power structures.
that I've never really understood the art that we do.
And that is such a bitter pill to swallow.
It can't matter because right now,
if sinners was those,
if sinners was,
if the white vampires and sinners were slave masters and overseers,
sinners would win 10 Oscars.
If sinners, if you put sinners in a different situation.
So you're saying you have to be a,
it has to be a certain.
category to win. What I'm saying is, it's like if the, if everybody black and centers were
slaves and all of a sudden, the masters became vampires and we're trying to run and get the
slaves. And then the slaves overthrow the masters. And then after that, it's one last scene where
they walk out. And now I was like, well, what is we going to do now? We don't kill everyone.
We don't use the steak. And then we didn't use Jesus.
to kill everyone.
Sanders wins 10 Oscars.
Those movies, those slave movies,
those movies about
that are inherently about black struggle
against systemic whatever,
those movies are kind of about whiteness.
They're not directly about whiteness,
but white people can understand them
because it's black people struggle against them
and they go, oh, look, we can see it.
We recognize it.
Sure.
And so those movies are easy,
easier for them to access.
But films that are made that are about black joy, black beauty, even black struggle.
What about the black struggle of being disillusioned?
Forget about the black struggle against what happened on the subway or racism.
What about the black struggle of being disillusioned?
What about the black struggle of not understanding your purpose?
Like a movie, I keep saying it's like a nomad land or something like that.
where you're a widow woman is out in the world trying to find who she is.
Just figure it out.
Trying to figure out.
Does Taraji get to do that?
Does Regina Hall get to do that?
Does Regina King get to do that?
Do they get to be ladies that are just out trying to find their purpose and stuff like that?
Like those movies when they come to black people, when it comes to black people, they don't get it.
So you're saying that they can only understand black people in one way, in certain ways?
I'm saying it's easier for them to understand it in that way.
Even our movie.
No, I know.
We talked about it.
It's about a struggle.
Our movie is about, our movie is a creative and artistic interpretation of a loop that white people can understand.
The police kill black people.
We don't want to be thought of as that.
So let's reward something that criticizes that.
We don't want to be thought of as the slave.
masters. So let's reward something that criticizes that. They're in the middle there. But if it's
just about us, if it's about these two brothers that come down back to where they're from,
and they're asking questions, Senors is about black mysticism. Centers is about black love.
It's about black regret. It's about black entrepreneurship. Senators is about Asian entrepreneurship.
centers is all of these things
this is about black music, black culture,
black expression.
And I'm sorry,
the movie is a brilliant expression of all those things,
but there's a limit to their understanding of that.
Interesting.
So you can't not care,
but you have to not care.
You have to watch the movie and be like,
it's excellent and it's amazing.
And it's going to win big in places that people understand it,
but you lying if you say
you don't want to be at the Golden Globes
you don't want to be at the Oscars
you don't want to be at the critics choice
you lying if you say that don't matter
you lying sure sure
yeah and they're not I'm just
I'm just asking these questions as I
saw this tweet and it made me think of that
but what do you think
what do you like with all the movies
that you've seen what are the best films
that you've seen this year
well because I've seen so many
I've seen so many films
Literally the only films that I've seen this year are wicked
F1
Okay
Obviously sinners
Okay
Housemade
Okay
Let's do Rachel's best picture
Well that's four
I'm sure there's something else that I've seen at home
But I saw those in theater
Okay so let's do what are those movies again
F1
Okay house made
Wicked
Sinners
These are Rachel's
Best picture.
There's got to be something else.
So we're gonna, you know what we're gonna do before the Oscars come out?
We're gonna do Rach's Oscars.
Oh, no.
Oh, I saw one battle after another.
You saw one battle after another, so that's five.
And I saw Bologna.
You saw, nika, look at you.
I saw it home, but I saw Bagonia.
I loved it.
See?
Okay, so we're gonna do-
Because I love Jesse Plymonds.
Jesse Plymonds is the man.
Like.
Jesse Plymins is the man.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I see him in a movie and I'm like, it's great.
It's gonna be great.
Jesse Plimms is like, you're American.
Yeah, well, what kind of American?
I'm like, oh, shit, this nigga.
I'm scared.
He's going to kill these people.
Okay, so of the movies that you saw, what are the best ones?
Sinners.
Sinners is the best one you saw?
Then Begonia.
Then Begonia.
I just thought, that movie doesn't even take place in that many different places,
but the acting is so compelling.
The emotion is so compelling.
It takes you on a ride, even though there's not that.
much movement, like in the beginning and at the end, yeah.
I just, I just thought it was phenomenal.
I was not expecting that.
Then I would say one battle after another.
Then wicked, then housemaid.
How do you feel about the discourse over one battle after another?
Profitia Beverly Hills is a character that I've criticized when I was talking on the big
picture.
I made a big reaction from people.
Tiana Taylor won for that portrayal.
She won't go to the Golden Globe.
What was your criticism?
My criticism was that the, you know, not to rehash the entire thing, but my criticism was that
the movie treats not just revolutionaries, but black women with such callousness.
The character was such a white man's fetish portrayal of a black woman that was hard for
me to connect with it.
And a lot of people said, a lot of people.
said a lot of people agreed, but there have been some very strong voices who have disagreed.
Yeah, I haven't seen a lot of the discourse as far as comparing the two, but why are they
comparing the two centers in one battle after another? Is it because they feel like those are,
those are the two competitive ones to possibly win Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay,
best director, or is it because one battle after another is considered a black movie?
Is it?
I was thinking about this when you were talking about.
Because remember we've had this conversation in the podcast, what makes, I mean, sentences without a doubt a black movie, that's done.
But remember we were like, what makes a movie a black movie?
Is it the director?
Is it the starring actor?
I don't think one battle after another is a black movie.
No, I don't think it's a black movie at all.
I think there's like a theme there.
The question is whether or not a movie that's directed by somebody who's not black can be a black movie.
There's a question about theme, the black experience, black culture, and all of that stuff.
I think it's interesting to go movie by movie.
One battle after another is not not a black movie.
It's specifically...
Sure, there's black storylines within it.
It centers black women in a way.
Well, not really.
No, it does not.
It doesn't center black women at all.
Look, there's a lady on Twitter
that people have been sending me this,
particularly the white guys that were mad
that I criticized the movie.
I'm fucking with y'all.
And her name is at ULXMA.
She goes,
this expectation that every black female character
must act as a moral arbiter
or exemplary figure for black girls
reflects internalized racism.
They should be allowed the full range of complexity
which includes being messy, flawed or even evil.
Fictional characters are not required to serve didactic purposes
in order to be worth engaging with.
This lady, this black lady is right.
Hmm.
And I take that criticism
and examine it through the same lens
that I chose to examine the movie through.
She's right.
I do feel like there is, on the other side of this,
a criticism of the laziness
and sometimes the one-noteness
in which White Hollywood portrays black characters,
particularly black women.
I think that's something to be criticized and unpacked.
But at the same time, like,
we should not have to be
when we say that we're embarrassing ourselves
or embarrassing, who are we embarrassing ourselves in front of?
What does the portrayal of these characters mean?
What does it mean for us to center
how, what we are or the essence of who we are
in every single thing?
How can I say this?
It seems that whenever we criticize
how black people are portrayed in the media or whatever,
like that is in some way us flogging ourselves.
Like we need these positive portrayals
so that people will think on us in a positive way.
We need these positive images
because in some way that's gonna make people
look at us positively, right?
And meanwhile, we hold ourselves to these standards,
and I've talked about this,
we hold ourselves to these standards
that are oftentimes unrealistic.
And we look down on each other,
if we don't meet a certain black standard of decency
because we think it's up to you to present yourself in a better way.
But the question always is for whom?
Yeah.
No, no, no.
I mean, the question definitely is for whom.
I guess I understood the criticism that came with Tiana Taylor in this movie.
I understood it.
But I think you could also make the argument that she was a powerful character in the sense, too.
Like, yes, her power was taken away from her and she had to make a decision,
but she made a decision.
She made a decision to leave.
She made a decision to like tell on the rest of the group.
She made certain decisions within it.
I could make an argument that she also was a very powerful character.
Interesting.
I totally understand what people are saying.
And I'm not saying that I disagree with it.
But I also think that there was power in what she did.
It was selfish powerful.
It was selfish in what she did.
But she made those decisions.
She decided not to meet him when he came for flower, when he had her in the house.
She used what she could to get out to save herself.
It was selfish, and I think sometimes it's hard to see that because you get lost in it.
But she did what she needed to do, and there was power in that.
Don't agree with it.
I'm just saying.
I actually think that her role, even though, again, I'm not necessarily saying I agree with the decisions made it,
and I actually think it was a very powerful role.
Can we do a movie episode?
We got to come back to this.
Can we do a movie episode?
I'm interested to hear.
I'm interested to hear what.
And maybe because I saw it late.
Like, I didn't see it the first week that it came out.
So I had time to see what some of the criticism was.
So I went in with the different lens.
But I was expecting more than what I actually saw.
And I was like, I actually can make an argument that there's power in the decisions that she made.
Okay.
Okay.
Like, we got to move on to something else now.
that she was supposed to do something
and she selfishly's like, no, actually I'm going to do this.
I don't want to fucking do that.
You bitch-ass.
Now, there was loss in that.
She lost her friends.
People died.
She lost her family and all of that.
But she did what she wanted to do.
Okay.
All right.
Like, I want to revisit one battle after another.
Yeah.
I'll watch it again.
Donnie, you get us into this one right here with these two people.
I wonder what Rachel, if Rachel cares about this.
Yeah.
So, Influencers Christy and Desmond Scott.
they announced that they're going to go their separate ways.
This is after more than a decade of marriage.
Christy cited alleged infidelity as the reason for the pair split.
Yeah, tell us why we should care.
Oh, shit.
I'm not going to tell you why.
So, Donnie does not care.
Donnie does not care.
Donnie, you don't like the light skin couple to want me to be flipping?
I don't know much about them.
So this is like...
She flip around the heels and he goes...
He goes, what are you doing?
The videos are funny.
And he has a laugh.
I actually don't think they're funny.
I mean, Jay Bernard, do you all follow them?
Do you watch that you consume their content?
Consume their content.
It's interesting.
You know, it has this moment.
It's redundant.
Oh, shit.
I think it's funny.
I think you don't follow them.
Well, no, no.
I see the videos, though.
I see the videos when, of course, it's fake.
I see the videos when she, she's in there.
There was one where she, uh,
She was trying on shoes and it was in the shoe store.
And then all of a sudden she flips in the shoes and does a split.
And he goes, the boys.
I'm like, it's funny.
It's funny.
Yeah.
And there's probably 75 more of those videos.
And I think that if you follow them, if you follow them like that, like it's, we get the
clip because we don't follow them.
I probably became aware of them in the last couple of years, but they're very popular.
Like together they have like tens of millions of followers.
Like together combined.
People really love them.
They love their family.
They love their relationship.
All of that.
I, the humor is not necessarily for me.
I like pranks, but it's just interesting to see how people become divided when something like this happens.
So this couple, they've been together since they were teenagers.
I knew that they were Jehovah Witness.
I heard what?
Hold on for a second.
We down at the Kingdom Hall?
We died at the Kingdom Hall.
Hold on.
And I read that, I knew that they were Jehovah Witnesses, but I read that, and I don't know, I'm pretty sure.
it's true that she was that and he
converted. He converted
to Jehovah Witnesses. But they definitely are both
Jehovah Witnesses. Man, shout out to Jehovah's Witnesses, man.
I'm not even going to start. Go ahead.
You already did. I'm not even going to saw. I didn't
know that they was at the Kingdom Hall.
Yeah. I didn't know that. Shout out to them, man. They've got two children.
Like, people have seen them
built their empire, big new house, like all the things.
They have a film company together. They have a lot of joint ventures.
Their entire public persona is built on
their marriage, their relationship. They don't really show their children. So it really is just about
them. That's tough. That's tough. And it's, it's interesting to see people talk about it because now
they're all being honest about how they feel like we just were. Some people are like, oh, I was so
tired of the pranks. Oh, I never thought it was funny. Oh, she's this. Oh, he's that. She filed for
divorce. She alleged infidelity. He has put out a statement to where he said that they've been having
trouble. They tried to work on it. He wanted a separation. During this separation, he says,
is when he was unfaithful. He was up front with her about it. He, in his statement, he does not,
clearly does not want to work on it. He wants to move towards divorce as well. But he said he was
upfront about being unfaithful during the separation. And then she filed for divorce,
chose to get a divorce. I mean, I think that it brings up a couple of things that are worth talking about.
We don't know them.
We don't know them as individuals.
We don't know what their relationship is like.
We don't know.
We only know what they present to us, what they choose to show us on their social media.
We get the best of them.
We get a highlight reel.
We get what they want to give to us.
That's it.
We don't know anything else about them.
And I think that it can be harmful when people have these parasycial relationships with certain
figures or certain couples.
And they think that that's ideal.
that they want to be just like them when they actually know nothing about them.
This is a couple that monetizes off their relationship.
That's a fact.
They are always doing ads.
They go to events together.
And this is no shame to them.
This is their hustle good for them.
I can tell they've made millions and millions off of it.
But their goal is to show themselves or present themselves a certain way and they make money off of it.
You don't really know anything about them.
And so that's, I think it's harmful to model yourself.
after people that you don't know
when they are paid to present themselves
a certain way for you.
And then the second part of it is,
I literally just lost my train of thought.
The second part of it is that
I think it's dangerous when couples do this.
I think that the odds are against you
when you monetize your relationship on social media
because you start living in a world of likes
and views and partnerships and hashtags rather than the reality of what the actual relationship is.
It becomes we have to film this.
And I'm not saying every social media couple relationship that monetizes their marriage off
of this or partnership off of this is like this.
But I think the odds are against you.
How do you start to separate the two?
You've got to make sure that you're always on.
People are watching you.
I know the pressures of having to feel like you have this perfect.
relationship when you know at home everything is not great because people are watching you because
that is what you've built your empire off of. That is almost like building it in sand because how do you,
when the line starts a blend of social media or the internet versus what's real, like which one
are you? Right. Do you see what I'm saying? Like it can just be very problematic. So I don't know if that's
what happened with them or not. I don't know if, you know, when I started looking at this once they
announced a divorce, you could see that she was starting to do a lot of individual stuff,
as opposed to just them together. He was starting to do it. He's a chef,
starting to cook and show himself in what he is separate from their marriage. But I think that also
this setup takes away the individuality of a person because it was about their marriage
and not about who they are as individual people. I think that maybe they were doing things for
an audience, maybe than rather doing things for themselves. It's tough. So I can see how this could lead to
the dissolution of a marriage.
But at the end of the day, we don't know.
So don't hang your hat on people you don't know.
You have no idea what they struggled with
or what they went through in your marriage.
And you can't pick sides in this either.
You know, I know a couple of, as all well said,
I know a couple of social media boxers.
And you watch these guys,
and if you watch a pro boxer, like a real pro boxer.
I'm talking a lot of, okay, when I say real pro boxers,
let me tell you what I mean.
I work out at the gym,
and there are a lot of guys in there
who are pros and then there are a lot of
lowercase pros and then they're
like uppercase
pros. What are you? I'm nothing.
I've never had a pro fight. But a lowercase
pro is a guy that comes in a gym,
fights around in the gym and then one day
he goes, I'm having my first pro fight.
And then you go and you see him wherever he's at
he's, wherever he's at, he's having a
small fight or whatever.
And then there are like
uppercase pros. And the uppercase pros are
people that are like they box
for real. Like they are in training
all the time. They are running.
They are watching their nutrition and all of that stuff.
Those guys are normally different. They normally have
bigger promotion, bigger management, all of that
stuff.
But some of the, so when you see
those guys fight,
the uppercase pros,
if you see them hit a heavy bag, you're going to see
what an NBA player
looks like on a basketball court.
Like they look crazy like that.
A lot of those guys have big social media
a following because it looks super dynamic when they are training or doing whatever.
Then they have a couple of fights and they lose.
And when you go into the comments and you see people react to some of the losses that they're having.
I'm not saying all of these guys, you can take a loss as a boxer, right?
But when you go into the comments and you see the comments with people that, you know, saying,
hey, you look crazy on IG.
You look crazy when you're in sparring.
You look like you can't be beat when you're in headgear.
But we just watched you and you just got your shit polished.
We just watched you and you couldn't do shit.
You gassed.
I've seen it all the time.
That's because people judge, particularly people in that type of situation,
when they have an aspirational view of who you are,
the opportunity to disappoint them is like fourfold.
Anytime, anywhere, that's why I tell people,
if you want people to aspire to be who you are,
or if you set yourself apart from people,
and you don't say, hey, I'm just like one of you guys,
that aspiration that people have for you,
when they think that somebody has figured it out,
when they think someone's living in some sort of truth
that they can't get to with their body,
it's like the liver king guy,
When he was talking about this is what I eat
and people were like, oh, this guy's on steroids.
And people were like, what the fuck?
When they think that you have an answer
and they realize that you don't,
they tend to judge you super duper harshly.
So just be careful doing that.
I will ask you this before we move on.
Did you feel pressure in your relationship?
You said that you did.
But do you think that people's view of like you and Brian,
did you ever live in authentically in any way?
to live up to what people thought about you guys?
So in the beginning, when we first came off the show,
it was like, I remember,
and I think I've shared this on the podcast before,
we were like ordering an Uber
and like we were trying to figure it out.
And so like if you watched it,
it was kind of like we were like,
no this, no this, no this.
And somebody wrote about it.
And I remember being super self-conscious after that.
I was like, we were just trying to figure out
where we were going and how we were going to get there.
And I remember walking through the grocery store
and being like, oh, if this person recognizes,
are they going to be like they're not together, they're not doing this. And so I felt like we had to
always make sure that we were either holding hands or that we were so on in the very beginning.
And then I quickly was like, I don't want to feel like I have to perform or be somebody I'm not
for social media or even for the public. It's why we rarely posted. We did not post as much.
I mean, of course, I shared things, but you didn't see us doing like a lot of joint videos together
or stuff like that.
I did not monetize our relationship
when I so easily could have
and made so much money
because I wanted to focus on what was real
and I didn't want to feel like I was performing
or doing something for somebody else
just to make a dollar.
I'm just not into monetizing stuff in that way.
And Brian actually hated that.
He wanted to do that kind of stuff.
And I was like, no, I'm just,
that's just so not me.
So that's why we didn't post.
as much and everyone's like, oh, they're not doing well. That's not why we, that's not why we
didn't post. It's because I made a conscious decision at the beginning not to. Now, to answer the other
part of your question towards the end, people were like, oh, you never post. Oh, and we were having
trouble. Well, I just kept the same, you know, narrative that I had from the very beginning. We just
don't post a lot. Like, that's just not like, we keep it private. Everything else was so public.
We keep all of it private. But the story had changed. We were keeping it more private because we were
having issues. I went on Nick Viles' podcast a couple of weeks before the divorce was announced,
not realizing it was going to happen right then at that moment. So when I went on, I was honest.
I think I was like, oh, yeah, we don't really spend as much. We live different lives. That's what I
said. And people held on to that. But then I also talked about how I still wanted to have kids.
And people were like, oh, she was lying to us because two weeks later, she's following a divorce.
No, I did want to have kids. But I wasn't going to be like, okay, let me tell you all the problems
that we're having.
So I felt like I was still playing into
everything was all good
when it wasn't to answer your question.
Boy, tell you what,
I didn't know, I'll be honest with you though.
I didn't know that Jehovah's Witnesses
to be cheating like that.
We don't know how he was cheating.
It sounds like they have a different definition
of what separation was, separation is.
Because he's, his claim is
she filed for infidelity.
Yes, we were still married,
but I said I wanted to separate.
So we were separated.
And it seems like,
for her. What's your take? If you're separated, can you be with other people?
If you tell, if you, if you tell the person that we are separated right now, then you are separated.
If, but are you? It's up to you to establish the dynamic that we're separated. And after I deliver
these watchtowers, I'm going to deliver some dick. Well, I guess it's the attention to the
separation, right? Are you separating with the goal of working on your relationship to get back
together or are you separating and moving to divorce?
That's the difference.
And it seems like they were on different pages.
It's like you would have to tell your wife, like, listen, I can't accept any birthday
gifts, but what I can accept is some pussy.
Yeah.
You hung up on the Jehovah.
I don't know what, what, what, what, I need to look at what it is.
I'm sorry.
Okay
I didn't know that
I mean shout out to my man Dakota
And his
They was Jehovah's Witnesses back in the day
And I never
Dakota was like a real stand-up guy
Like I never knew that man
I thought
I thought they had to figure out
But I'm trying to look and see what
Particularly
John's witness was
I look hey
I'm not coming at anybody's religion
It just was funny to me
It was just funny to me
All right Donnie
I knew you would completely be taken aback, but when I said there with Jehovah's Witnesses.
There's a certain connotation that just comes with that, even if you don't fully understand.
Shout out to the Jehovah's Witnesses out there, man.
Y'all doing that thing.
Shout out of you.
I keep doing it.
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Yeah, I think.
All right, yeah, let's switch gears to Minnesota.
Homeland Security Secretary Chrissy Knoem said over the weekend that hundreds
more federal agents are on their way to Minneapolis.
The community is recovering slash protesting after ICE agent who was identified as Jonathan
Ross fatally shot Renee Good last week.
Kristianom also posted, or actually the department posted another video from moments before
the shooting.
This looked like this was cell phone video from Jonathan Ross.
And as I previously said, thousands of people are out there protesting on a regular basis.
They did such after this weekend.
Thoughts on the situation in Minnesota.
You know what plays where the white people don't play?
Where? Minnesota.
Can I ask you this?
When we got the video from, that clearly came from the killer's phone,
the news outlet that released it, do you think that they were releasing it for or against him?
I don't know.
I think they just were releasing information that they had.
Well, because I've seen people, I'm seeing some people talk about this.
And even when I was watching, I think it was Morning Joe, they eludes.
to they released it thinking that this was going to help the case of the killer.
I can't know his name, so I'm just going to call him what he is.
Well, he's a killer.
Right.
No, but I'm asking you, do you think they alluded to, they thought that this was released in support of his defense.
Well, I would hope that any news organization wouldn't be releasing information in support
or in condemnation of the killer or in a good.
I would hope that the news organizations
would be releasing information
that they thought was pertinent to the public.
Well, because this came from his phone,
so he gave it to them probably thinking
that he thought that this was in defense of him.
Like, I think that that's how he saw it.
And, you know, I'm sure you watch Christ, you know,
I'm sure you watch Chris, you know, I'm on Jake Tapper
and watch her talking circles,
and he really did challenge her.
Because I know some people are critical
if they don't believe that Jake always does that,
but he really did.
And she really didn't have an answer for anything
when it came to how she's handled this entire shooting
that happened with Renee Good
and killing that happened with Renee Good.
But I think the thing that continues,
when this video came out,
and you have some people like a Stephen A. Smith,
who are like, oh, it is very obvious
that he was in fear of his life.
and no matter what kind of angle they see or this video,
they still want to give so much grace to the officer,
but no grace, even after hearing the last words of Renee Good,
even after seeing that she is clearly turning her wheel away
out of the direction of the officer and moving forward,
that they even after hearing him call her a fucking bitch
after he shoots
in front through her window shill,
point blank range twice through her window on the side, they're still like, well, we want to give
him grace and we can totally understand his intent, but they have, for some reason, they have
no ability to understand the intention of her even after seeing that. I think that's one of the
things where I'm like, how, make it makes sense. I mean, none of this makes sense, right?
What makes sense what you mean? Make it make sense that you can understand his intention,
but you can't understand the intention of her. Okay. Well, so this is what I'll say. Number one,
I watched that video and I clearly see what I think to be is a murder.
Yeah.
I say that unequivocally.
What you just said to me is interesting because when I see the video, I see law enforcement.
We'll talk about law enforcement.
There's a video from out of Philadelphia that we want to talk about.
I see law enforcement.
I'm not going to lie and act like my opinion of law enforcement doesn't influence
the way I look at that video at first glance.
The way I view law enforcement,
the way I view ICE, particularly,
is as of people that aren't rational.
I don't think what ICE is doing is rational.
There's also a higher standard that should be applied to the police force.
I don't think that's a bias.
That's the standard.
But that's a separate thing, though,
which is I'm glad you said that, right?
Because if what we did a second ago,
what we did on the podcast,
a second ago was say,
Some people look at that and they say that it's what did you say exactly?
You said some people look at Stephen A. Smith looked at it from the from the standpoint of law enforcement without giving anything without yeah without giving anything to the other side despite all the the video right.
So what I'm trying to say is I think that when we discuss situations like this number one we should discuss what you just said which is that there's not.
an equal standard that should be applied to a civilian in a car and to a law enforcement officer,
right?
There's not an equal standard.
The law enforcement officer has the responsibility to de-escalate.
And honestly, most law enforcement, I'm not sure how we view ICE on this, has a standard of the safety of the civilian, right?
So an officer saying that their life is in danger to me is an incredibly high standard.
And it has to be obviously demonstrable that that is the case.
Yes.
And it is not here.
No.
It is not here.
In my belief, it's not at all here, right?
You get out of way of the car.
He shoots once.
You could almost, if you were the most soft-hearted, we stand with the police observer of all time.
You could almost say that the first shot was like, oh, my God, I'm trying to defend myself, which I do not agree with.
Yeah.
right but the shots that come after that
are connected to the fucking bitch thing
fucking bitch how dare you you have no more life yeah
that's what the guy did in my opinion what I would want though
more than anything is for a situation like this
to be looked at with a critical eye and what I'm starting to do
what I start when I'm starting to want more in my life than anything
is just to get all of the information that is readily available
and be able to look at all of the information from trusted sources,
both from the news and from the political sphere,
and have somebody that I know that wants me to be more informed than I am outraged.
The video itself is already outraging to me.
What I want is to be able to look at the situation and make decisions based upon information
and not people manipulating my feelings for their own outcomes.
Now, look,
There's a lot of shit that's going on with the case.
To me, the most interesting thing is whether or not Renee Good has even a chance at justice.
And I don't think that she does.
Because there is a battle in Minnesota right now over the jurisdiction of the case.
If, in fact, the case is handled by the feds.
By the feds, it's a dub.
The guy who is the U.S. attorney up there is a gentleman by the name.
of Daniel Rosen.
He is a Trump appointee.
By the way,
Cloberchard supported him.
Clobetar supported him.
He's a Trump appointee.
He's a seasoned attorney.
But he's never really been a prosecutor like that.
He was appointed by Trump.
The U.S. attorney that was up there before was a Biden appointee.
He resigned a week before Trump took office or something like that.
Then there was an acting guy and Daniel Rosen comes in.
This is interesting.
So the Minnesota B.
which is the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension,
they were going to open a concurrent investigation into this.
Rosen stepped in.
This is according to reporting from the Minnesota public NPR news.
NPR news reporter John Collins said that Rosen stepped in and barred this agency
from cooperating with officials on the probe.
They are now out.
They cannot conduct an investigation because they don't have enough access to evidence.
They need evidence that the feds are not letting them have.
So I am preparing people for the fact that it is almost impossible as it stands right now.
If in fact the feds take this over for Renee Good to get justice,
for her to even have the opportunity at justice,
for us to hold ICE accountable for any way
because what Trump has done,
and it started in the first administration,
is embed like-minded individuals
in all different types of levels of the court
and appellate situation
to where he is essentially in control of this
or people that feel allegiance to him are in control of this.
And they're going to rubber-snap what ICE does.
It's very likely that.
they do that. Yeah. It's, I mean, I knew the feds were going to step in when it came to this. It's
just one of those things that's so hard because the truth is, the facts are, he can say his side of it.
Renee Good can't. You killed her. We'll never know specifically other than this video,
which I think is very obvious, but he is going to, when he is investigated, he is going to say that he
believed there was an imminent threat and he was reasonable in the decision that he made. And the
courts normally give or investigations give a wide legal deference when it comes to fast moving
situations. And that's what they're going to say. Now, that's for the first shot. I don't know
if they're even going to get to the second and the third. But I would think that an investigation
would determine, I would think they could, how she was killed. Was it first? The autopsy is going to be very
Yeah, the first or second.
And that's what's going to be what is really they need to investigate as well.
Because otherwise, if you just go on his testimony, he'll say all the things that he needs to say to say that he felt like he was in fear of his life.
And sadly, Renee Good cannot counter that.
All you have is video evidence from bystanders.
And weirdly enough, the video from the officer who shot her, who, why are you filming with.
in one hand and have a gun in the other.
Like that also goes, when we talked last podcast
about him placing himself in front of the car,
why are you also filming it?
Completely not what an officer should be doing.
Well, what you should have is a body camera on.
You should have had a body camera,
but also like, for what purpose were you filming it?
But to me and Christy Noam had no answer to this.
Like she talked with word salad to everything else
Jake Tapper did, but when he called her,
when he brought to her attention,
what that officer said,
she was like, yeah, that appears
to be what he said. He called her
a fucking bitch. If that doesn't
show intention or how
he was feeling about her from the get-go
or what he thought of her,
period, not as somebody
he should have protected,
not of somebody he should, where he was de-escalating
the situation, nothing that she was doing
matched what Nome or J.D.
Vance or anybody in the Trump administration
is saying she did not appear
to be radicalized,
threat, a threat, a domestic threat,
all the things that they were saying, all the language.
None of that was there.
But sadly, she doesn't get to talk about it.
Yeah.
I mean, the reality is that ICE realizes that they're operating with absolutely,
like, no oversight.
They realize that.
They realize that they're operating with no oversight.
This is not the first time ICE has been involved in the shooting.
ICE has a lied on people that have accused them of things before.
only to have those people provide evidence that ICE was lying.
And then it just kind of goes away.
They realize that they are able to operate in these places with impunity.
And that is a part of the plan.
ICE is a strong man's militia.
And that strong man has been able to glamour everyone.
And the outrage is part of it.
The outrage is part of it.
The outrage is part of it.
It jenies up in motion.
It makes us reactive.
We have to make sure that we never get,
um,
we never get complacent about this stuff.
But at the same time,
we need real reporting,
real political action,
and real movement on all of those levels
to be able to look at all of this stuff for what it is.
And,
and to me,
I've talked about this before
the disintegration of the institutions
that surround all of this stuff
you guys that is going
to be here long after Trump is gone
that's going to be that like the
disintegration of these institutions is by far
to me
the most concrete and durable thing
that comes out of this maga-trumpism
is the fact that the fact that
weakening of the FBI or the IRS or USAID or any of these things, that stuff is hard to undo.
So in this position right here, before this even happened, MAGA was in the lead.
They were in the lead because the legal intelligentsia that exists up there to a degree is captured.
We'll see what the state is able to do.
It is not completely out of the question that the state is able to have some type.
of accountability for Jonathan Ross
or at least get a fair trial.
Because a lot of times, to your point,
when we take these things to trial
and we think that they are open and shut,
they do not go our way.
But what you want is the belief
that that is possible.
And that is just not a thing right now
with the way shit is going.
No, you do.
And back to the original thing that you said,
yes, one thing you said,
what did you say,
where white people don't play around?
Is that what you said?
Yeah, Minnesota.
Minnesota, like, you got to continue to keep that energy.
Because I've seen, I mean, the videos, the protest, the confrontation.
I saw a man at a gas station, video of him.
He's pumping his gas, ice rolls up on him.
Demands, he's like, I'm a citizen.
I have a driver's license.
They take his driver's license.
They ask him where he's from.
He's like, I have a driver's license.
Like, I'm a citizen.
Surrounded completely by Minnesotans.
That did they say it?
Minnesotans.
Minnesota?
I guess so.
At the gas station.
They're on megaphone screaming.
Ice, ice.
All of a sudden people around,
like getting all the evidence they need.
That's a way of fighting back.
The girl in Minnesota who ordered DoorDash and her door dash driver came running into her house.
Did you see that one?
In Minnesota, she's screaming, she's screaming, neighbors come out.
They've got their cameras out.
Ice ends up leaving.
Now they do take her husband, but she saved that woman that day.
And she's updated since is that the woman's okay.
But like that's also the kind of ways we have to fight back.
Well, I mean, there's no way to, there's no way to respectably resist.
No.
That's the biggest lie is that there's some type of respectable resistance.
That you will be treated a certain way.
Yeah.
There's no way to respectfully resist.
Yeah.
Like if someone feels like they don't have to respect your rights, then you can't respect their authority.
And that's it.
But look at Ren.
good. When you are saying
I'm not mad,
they gun you down with three
shots. So it's like, it doesn't, if you
surrender peacefully or you're like,
hey, I'm trying to get out of your way. I'm not
mad at you. I'm telling you. I'm not mad at you. This is not what I'm trying to do.
You still
end up dead.
Speaking of that out, this video I want you to see.
Click the link that Donnie just put in there. This
video shows to me, American citizens
asserting their rights. These are the Philadelphia
Black Panthers, and they're talking to the police.
I can hold my gun like this.
It's the law.
Philadelphia Crime Code 6108 says I can hold my own in my hand.
This can't hit my finger on the finger.
So don't ask me to do nothing this against the law.
And I help people.
It's in my business.
My head was control and watch you.
You guys like beating up my teammates.
Somebody sent it to the video of y'all beating up to me.
Huh?
It was y'all.
You part of that.
You part of that.
It was y'all.
It was y'all.
be labeled in with the slave-catchers you shouldn't
accept in their hole, sell-out.
You are sell-out. You're wearing their shit.
You are, sell-law. You ain't protected shit.
You got to do whatever they tell you to,
including hurt your people.
Because you're walking up to me, and I don't like you,
and I don't trust you, and I don't got no conversation with you.
So unless you're investigating the crime,
leave me the fuck alone.
I don't care. I don't care.
I got a gun license right here.
This is legal.
Philadelphia crime called 6108.
Move your car out of people's way
and get the fuck out of my face.
Thank you, officer.
Have a good day.
You have a bad one.
Sell out.
Fuck out of here.
You're smiling for a sellout.
You know where you came from?
Slaves catchers hired you to help catch their property, which was us.
Slave catcher controls the origin of that bad.
You get that ass, niggins.
The fuck out of here.
Don't where you are needed.
We don't need to help.
Get out the fucking street.
Like your stuff you are saying, get out the fucking street.
Get out the fucking street.
Go win her.
Go winner.
Get out the fucking street.
You black and black.
Get out the fucking street.
W.P.A.
to fuck out the street.
So this is the debate.
And I posted the video, and the debate is between some people who think that those brothers, the Philadelphia
Black Panthers, were too hard on the police.
That they saw two young black police officers, and they treated them harshly when what we need
is young black law enforcement officers
to change the narrative of police in communities.
We need community policing and all of that, whatever,
and that they were too hard on them.
And then there are other people that are like,
we need to stand in the gap
and hold the police responsible
for the space that they've occupied
for too long in American cities.
And people are saying that,
is the video was disrespectful to the police,
to those young black police,
and some are saying that the Philadelphia Black Panthers
are policing their communities
and keeping the police from acting
as the militaristic unit that they often act as,
should I say, in communities.
What is your take?
I don't have a problem with the Black Panthers
and what they're doing.
I think that it's actually something,
like this video's titled,
Black Panthers know their rights, do you?
I think that is a very valid question.
question, we should be more equipped to know our rights and heightened situations. Doesn't mean
necessarily, as we just talked about what happened in Minnesota, that they will respect it,
but at least you can stand there and shout out your rights. You saw what happened. They backed
away because with everything that they were saying is true. They were doing nothing that was
illegal. I'm not, I'm not mad at that. I'm not mad at them calling them a sellout. I'm not mad at
the language that they were using. People are upset. People are angry. People are tired of being
Maybe it's not those particular police officers,
but people feel like they're being,
are tired of being terrorized in their own communities by law enforcement.
Not mad at it.
Now, what I will say is I do think I don't look at them as sellouts,
but those might be two good cops.
No such thing.
Okay, that's fine.
You say that.
I'm not going to sit here and say that every black police officer
is necessarily against.
the community. What I would say here is, let's just say that they are good. Let's say they're new,
they're good, whatever. Take that. Take that back to your, to your law enforcement. Take that,
take back what just happened. If they're really about it, I would call a town hall meeting. This is
just me being creative with it. You're a cop. I'm both, I'm both, I'm, you could maybe say I'm both
sizing it, but I definitely agree with what the Black Panthers were doing. But if the goal is to get on the
same page, if the goal is to be able to work together and not against each other, then you and the
Black Panthers should do something where you're like, just because I'm black and I'm in a police
officer doesn't mean that I'm a sellout. I join this because I do want to make sure that we do
have good people inside the department. We do need representation. And I would like to work hand in
hand that we make sure that we are protecting the community. That's what I, that's to me what should
happen. Black Panthers should be able to stand on the corner and then they should be able to work with law
enforcement, particularly the black ones, come together and show how can we fight work together rather than
fighting against each other? How can we build back trust if it's even possible at all? You could never have
the answer of it at the end. But do we stay in the place where they're in the corner yelling at them at the
sellouts and we never try to bring it together? Or do we try to do something that could possibly, if those officers
truly are about representation within the department and linking it together,
that's something that should happen.
All right.
I think that that's, I hear you.
I do.
This is the kind of way I look at it.
So, you know, I don't like binaries.
I don't like binaries.
Bynaries a lot of times rob a situation of nuance, and I have to be better about that.
I need jerks to say there are no good cops
but that's really what I believe
and the reason why I believe it is because
the structures and culture
of policing is just riding to the core
and it's been riding for so long
and it's been deteriorating for so long
it would take a while to build
it back up
I obviously have no problem with the video
I think that
the rage in the video is actually more useful than politeness would be.
Because from a group like the police,
respect invites victimization to me.
When you show too much deference to a police officer,
in my opinion, most police officers,
the power trip that they often are on,
to me is heightened.
It's heightened.
When you show too much deference,
too much respect to a police officer,
the power trip is heightened.
There should be a stern and a direct interrogation
of what are you doing here
whenever you are stopped by the police.
Now, I'm not the type of guy
and hurl insults at people and do all that stuff
that's just kind of like not my way, right?
But I would prefer that way
than anything that seemingly accepts the authority of a police officer in a situation
where you're not doing anything wrong.
If I'm not doing anything wrong, get from out of my face.
Like legitimately, no, hey, officer, we're just right here doing right here because what
happens after that is, okay, I know you guys are just right here doing this, but I don't
want to see this in, you know, we're around here, blah, blah, blah, no, no, no, none of
I'm not doing anything wrong.
I well within my rights.
Get back into your cruiser.
Break out.
As a matter of fact, what are you doing wrong?
In the middle of street, can't do that.
Whatever, get out of my face, break out.
To your point, though, everybody has different jobs.
Everyone has different jobs.
And when I say I don't like binaries,
I also don't like one size fits all way of looking at things.
Meaning, we have to have brothers like the parents,
and what the Panthers have always occupied from a historical point, which is self-reliability,
programs to feed children, programs to educate youth, programs to make people politically aware,
but also guns.
Like the gun laws in California changed because brothers with guns said we are not going to let brothers and sisters,
excuse me, with guns said we're not going to be intimidated in the communities that we live in.
And Reagan and then was like, nah, we can't let motherfucking black people have weapons.
So we got to take that away and make guns very, very hard to get, right?
But these are people who say my rights and my freedom is not up for debate.
And I'm not going to politely ask for it.
As a matter of fact, when you were encroached upon it, I'm going to say, get the fuck out of my face.
and why are you doing this?
Like, I'm going to say, get the fuck out of my face.
Like, what are you doing?
I'm not doing anything.
I haven't done anything.
I'm not going to do anything.
Get out of my face, break out.
That's here.
Also, though, if you want to be somebody
that works in concert with the police or policing or other structures like that,
have at it.
Like, have at it.
Go for it.
Have at it.
They have to be people that say,
defund the police
and then there also have to be people
that say abolish the chokehold
meaning there has to be a re-imagination
of public safety
but there also has to be an understanding
that the police are here
and then you have to have people
who are trying
trying in ways to reduce the harm
that police can do to communities
all of these mayors that we talked about
on the last time these guys are working with the police
these guys are sitting down and having
conversations with the police
and the stuff that they're doing
in these communities, that stuff is working, right?
But at the same time,
you either are an American
or you're not.
There is no middle.
Malcolm X said that.
Malcolm X said there's no such thing as a second-class citizen.
There is a citizen and a non-citizen.
It doesn't come in a way.
Either you can be like, I'm not doing shit,
get the fuck out of my face,
and the police get back in their cruisers
and get the fuck out of your face,
or the police say, nah, nigger,
you can't talk to me.
like that, you are dead.
The second person is not a citizen.
The first person is.
Your anger as a police don't
give you the right to do anything
differently than uphold the law the way
that it is written. And so when I watch
this and I saw a lot of people go
because there are two things that are happening.
One thing that is happening is people
are responding to this
looking at those two brothers as
police. But another thing
is people are responding to this, looking at
those two brothers as black men.
And I completely understand, I completely understand,
when people don't like to see black people talk to each other like that.
Sure.
Yeah, I do.
I call it out, though, because I'll be honest with you,
there are certain black people that you don't give a fuck how,
what kind of names we call them or what kind of,
and there's certain black people we don't care.
And the question is, why don't the police meet that standard in this situation?
Maybe you don't believe.
that there's no such thing as a good cop.
Maybe you do think that they're a good police.
Maybe you think the police,
a lot of black people that I know at the peril of rambling here,
which I'm good at,
a lot of black people that I know when I would go back home
and I would say, hey, let's reimagine, defund, abolish, whatever.
They would be like, hell no.
The only thing that's like protecting us from these niggas
is these cops.
And they would say that.
They would say we would actually prefer,
So this is not an issue where there is as much cultural oneness as we think that there might be.
But there also doesn't have to be.
As long as we're properly educated on what policing is,
as long as we're properly educated on what policing was.
And the way policing really affects communities,
then deal with it in the way that you need to.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, we don't have on the issue.
What you mean?
I thought the sellout was funny.
Nah, the best part of the video was.
the best part of the video to me was
have a good day. You have a bad one just like that. You can't tell me.
We didn't get there on that. Oh my God.
At the end. I have a good day. You have a bad one. Fuck out of here.
But they have that type of energy
against the state. People who abuse
their authority. And we, last thing I say,
it's not just about the worst case scenario.
the death of a black person at the hands of the police.
It's about all of the ways,
both soft and harder,
that police assert their authorities
in ways that they are not allowed to or shouldn't.
It's a verb. It's more than that, absolutely.
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Oh shit.
Okay.
Donnie?
Yeah.
We still haven't got Keith on the show, but Keith would love this next topic.
Keith, what's his name?
Keith what?
Edwards
Thank you
Keith Edwards
Keith Eighty
Keith sweat
We're getting back into
Tala Rico and Crockett
Cause of
Bowen Yang
It's not Bowen
It's Matt Rogers
Matt Rogers
Oh Matt Rogers
Was the other guy
That was talking
Bowen Yang was in that shit too though
Bowen Yang agreed
Don't try to stall Bowen out like that
I know them both
I'm not
Oh you
These are your people
I know them
I know them
I know
One first thing
You know Bowen Yang
Yeah
You're not your man? I mean, I know, but I don't have his phone number. I mean, we'll talk
DMs, but he's a, he's a lover of reality TV. Oh, okay. I didn't know you was on it like
that. Okay. This makes it even better. Bowen and Matt. Bowen and Matt. And they do
Los Colouristas. Yeah. Um, I watched this entire podcast, by the way. I listen to
because the whole first part is him exiting, talking about him leaving S&L. So I didn't really
listen to that part. Then they get into housewives and stuff like that. Oh, okay. So, so
know them from, okay, they've been fans of yours.
Yeah, like we, I had to interview Bowen once, and then that's when I realized, he's a fan.
I was like, what?
So we could, because he loves reality TV.
And so, yeah, we have that a call.
Bo Yang.
Okay.
They got a little, don't give it to us.
Yeah, there was a clip that's gone around that's gotten viral that they ended up having
a walk back.
Some of their criticism for Jasmine Crockett after a segment, which they were also taking
aim at Gavin Newsom and his presidential bid.
Let's hear from Bowen and Matt.
This is another thing about early days' last culture that I regret is being a Hillary stand.
I can't believe I was.
I think we were trying really hard to just win.
I know.
But I feel so silly.
Here's what I'll say.
The president should, I believe the president should have been Elizabeth Warren.
You and many, many of the smart Brooklyn gaze are aligned in this.
I'm sure we all like share like a certain, like, I.
ideology about all this.
But the fact is, like, the reason
we were Hillary stands is because at
the time, like, the Bernie grow thing.
You remember 2016?
I remember. Like, it was like, it got
a little thick there with like the way
people were talking on the Bernie side and it was
misogynistic and it was tough and I think at the
time there was a very girl bossy
like Obama coreish
like, hey,
don't talk like that.
We're going to crash the glass ceiling girl.
And.
I pulled my hair back.
Check my nails.
It was a very that.
And so I don't look back in regrets because we were part of the culture we were part of.
Should we have listened to the populist message all along?
Is that ultimately what would work for them?
Yes.
It's not going to be Gavin Newsom.
And when any time a politician is making it too obviously about themselves, I'm already done.
And don't waste your money sending to Jasmine Crockett.
Do not do it.
I must agree.
Don't do it.
You're going to waste your money.
Take it from someone who sent Sarah Gideon like a ton of money in Maine.
Like just don't do it.
Don't waste your money.
Don't do it.
It's hard enough to come by.
And by the way, I am not being like fatalist about the Democrats' chances.
No, no, no, no, no.
I'm just saying it's not gab.
They are giving us a wide open opportunity here.
Let's not flop by putting up what they said, what everyone said.
they hate it in the beginning, which is an establishment, like, California Democrat.
Like, it's, it doesn't work.
Who was doing it in the same way that, like, they've all been doing it where it's always
failed where it's like, like, Colbert was asking him point blank, like, will you run for president?
He's like, that's not my focus right now.
And by the way, that is a version of his voice that's like, sounds like crystal clear.
I mean, get a fucking surgeon.
Okay.
All right.
So, they got their asses.
kicked for this? Yes, because they go on war to say he's like, let me clarify. Let me just
qualify the Jasmine Crockett thing. She's not going to win a Senate seat in Texas, you guys.
Like if Beto O'R. couldn't do it, like, Jasmine Crockett is not going to do it. She is in a,
and it's nothing against her. It's just that she is a politician and that she is like,
you know, like very well defined already. And I think it's my opinion that we are going to need
someone who is less defined at this moment that then rises up.
Like, I'm interested in this Tala Rico guy from Texas.
Oh, I don't know him.
I'm just interested in him.
You know what I mean?
I'm like, oh, I haven't seen him before.
It would be hard for them to define him as anything other than what he is,
which is like a rising Democratic politician from someplace like Texas,
who is like, yes, speaking a little bit to the middle,
but at least he's someone that, like, we can't define already.
You know what I mean?
Like Gavin Newsom is defined.
I believe Jasmine Crockett is defined.
And this is what had people ticked off about it.
And so he's like, if Beto O'Rourke couldn't win in Texas,
Jasmine Crockett is not going to win.
So this is what had people all up in arms,
the well-defined comment.
And the fact that he's like, he says,
I don't really know that much about Tala RICO,
but Tala RICO is not as defined.
He's a Texas Rising Party.
Politicians.
Did Matt Rogers say, Matt Rogers both said he didn't know as much about Tala Rico?
Bowen said, oh, I don't really know him.
And Matt Rogers is like, he, Bowen had never heard of him.
Right.
Matt Rogers is like, I don't really know that much about him, but this is what I do know.
Right.
So he doesn't either.
He just knows what he looks like that he's up and coming and he's in Texas.
Right.
But people are reading through the lines.
This is how people were taking it of, well, what do you mean by well-defined?
because it sounds like you're saying
if Beiro O'Rook couldn't win,
Jasmine Crockett can't win.
Jasmine Crockett's well-defined.
You throw those in Gavin in there.
But it makes it seem like she's defined
as a black woman politician
from the state of Texas,
whereas James Tolariko,
who's less defined,
he defines him as a rising star.
You could say the same thing about Jasmine Crockett
in the party.
And he's like, he's not as defined.
Kind of like,
he's going around basically
what people feel like
describing his physical features.
He's a white man, white man up and coming.
She's a black woman in Texas who is also still a rising, like she's up and coming.
She's a newer politician, more well known, but she's still, her star is still on the rise.
She's further than James, but she's still, I would consider her a young rising star now.
Okay.
I mean, yeah.
Okay, a couple of things.
Number one, that podcast was two hours.
So, like, that bitch was 157.
and I thought that it was going to be all politics,
but it was not all politics.
Okay.
It wasn't.
Like, I listened to a lot of shit about SNL.
I didn't really give a fuck about.
But it was interesting.
It was all at the end.
It was all of this came out.
So, obviously I don't see why people are upset.
People are calling him racist,
calling Matt Rogers racist and a misogynist.
Okay, so this is a problem.
I agree.
So this is an issue.
and I think it's also an issue that they had to come back and apologize.
Well, that's kind of what Bowen said.
So Matt puts out the statement because he's getting the bulk of it because he said it.
Bowen agreed it.
But Bowen repost Matt's apology and makes the comment that should not have curiosity weighed in on this,
understanding the platform and we'll use it more responsibly.
But he makes it kind of like, should we not have been more curious about what it is that Matt is saying and the point that he's making.
And I still stand by the things that I said with Keith Edwards.
because I again said, we can't jump to saying somebody's racist and misogynist.
You just can't do that.
Like, that really takes away from the argument that you are trying to make.
I don't agree with what Matt Rogers was saying, particularly because he is not informed.
I think that if you're going to speak on a particular subject and you have this platform, there's a responsibility and you need to be informed.
You can't say this about Jasmine Crockett and then say, well, I really don't know much about this guy.
you can't do that.
That should be the thing
that people should be picking apart
more than they should just jump to
oh, you're for him because he's white
and you're against her because she's black
and you're a racist
and you're a misogynist.
That cannot be it.
It takes away from what you're trying to do.
There are problems in what he said,
but if you listen to it in the entire context,
you know the meaning behind it is,
hey, you can't be so passionate,
you can't vote necessarily
from an emotional or passionate place.
You have to vote for
I think what he was saying
is what he believes is going to win
because he did say that. He's like, oh, we voted for Hillary
because we thought she was going to win.
But I totally disagree.
And people would be surprised, but I did also say this with Keith.
You cannot jump to name calling.
It's not a smart argument.
It's not an effective argument
unless it is obviously well warranted.
So a couple of things.
Number one, Jasmine Crockett is
a newer face on politicians,
but she has probably the strongest
political brand in the Democratic Party.
Like, Jasmine Crockett has probably
the strongest in the party?
She, to me right now,
the reason why
what she was doing
or
the strongest brand in the party
of her ilk, right?
Meaning,
I feel like there's a cultural understanding
of who Jasmine Crockett is.
and to me there is.
You know why?
The only reason I like kind of turn my head at it is because I think people
in the same way we talked about the way she rolled out her brand, right?
It was very much so me versus Trump.
This is all the things Trump has said.
But then if you watched her entire speech,
you realize there is so much more that she wants to accomplish her
that she believes in or that she's trying to do.
I don't know if that many people grasp that side of her brand,
which is why I say I don't know if she has the strongest brand.
You're talking about politics.
I said brand.
So what I mean is to know somebody's politics, you have to get granular.
Like you have to get granular to know their politics.
So what's a politician's brand?
A politician's brand is like anybody else's brand.
A politician's brand is part of, if I was to tell you, if I was to ask you,
have you ever seen 12 monkeys?
No.
That's Brad Pitt's best performance to me.
Okay.
But if I said if I, so when I'm thinking about Brad Pitt,
I'm thinking about him as a star, great looking, married to Angelina Jolie, might sell you some perfume or some cologne or something like that.
That's Brad Pitt's brand.
His Brad Pitt is dashing movie star.
People know, you might know who he's with.
But if I asked you about who Brad Pitt is as an actor or that's a part of his brand.
But if I ask you what that is, you'd have to know which movies it was in.
you'd have to know the movie that made Brad Pitt a star.
You'd have to know he popped out at Thelman Louise.
You'd have to know all how Brad Pitt rose, pitfalls, movies that he did that he thought was
going to break him, meet Joe Black, didn't work, all of that stuff like that.
You'd have to know all of that stuff to be able to get granular about who Brad Pitt is as an actor.
Okay.
And when you ask someone about who somebody is as a politician, then that is going to get super
into votes that they've made, the constituency that they represent.
there are a bunch of people who know that Jasmine Crockett is a fighter against Donald Trump
that don't know what congressional district she represents.
So what's her brand?
Her brand to me is one of the faces of the resistance Democrats against Donald Trump.
That has defined her brand.
Her brand has been defined as someone who don't take no shit from the president
and who's messaging in that regard cuts through.
Like who's messaging in that regard cuts through to people.
Right? Fierce fighter against Donald Trump and someone who has been specifically attacked by Donald Trump.
When she gave two different, which you could also, you could almost agree is kind of smart.
I actually think that the video came off bad, but it's actually not a bad strategy, if you ask me.
She gave two different videos, one that spoke to her brand and she used it as branding, which is how Donald
Trump has attacked her and how she's unbothered by it, which is what a lot of people connect with
with her.
And then another one that got more granular into her story, into her politics, into who she is.
Now, she can melt those things and create a different brand, right?
I would argue that in Barack Obama's presidential, his presidential campaign, the vast
majority of it was branding.
Sure.
Oh, for sure.
Sure, there was policy.
There was policy.
There was policy.
in terms of Obamacare.
There was policy points that he talked about a lot.
He's a very thoughtful and brilliant man, right?
But a lot of it was hope and change.
I was going to say it was hope.
A lot of it was hope and changed.
Barack Obama stood on the stage and said,
hey, you know what?
We are the ones that we have been waiting for.
That is the type of thing that people are going to respond to it.
I'll never forget it.
There was a white lady in the back fucking crying.
I'm like, ah, he got it, right?
And when you look at the fact that the unknown of Barack Obama
was positioned against the very well established
with all warts and all political realities
of Hillary Clinton and John McCain,
what people were able to vote for
was what they thought represented the promise
and a different way of looking at things, right?
Sure, sure, sure, sure.
And a lot of times in these situations,
your branding can work for you, can work against you.
So I think that Jazz and Crockett is definitely maybe not the same as Nancy Pelosi or Maxine Waters,
but she is one of the most powerful and established right now in terms of messaging brands in the Democratic Party.
Sure, she is one of the most influential right now.
I will say that.
So when I look at what they're saying, to me they're saying we know her and we don't like her.
And so and to me they're saying, I know this other guy less.
I know this other guy less
and what I get when I've gotten from him
I've liked so far
as far as the electability portion of this
that's
this is precarious
like the electability portion of it
is kind of like
if you looked at two candidates
and you said one looks like they can win here
and the other one doesn't
one looks like they can win in this state
and the other one doesn't
Is that offensive?
No.
This is my issue.
Difficult. Vans about to piss you off again.
This is my issue.
We can protect Jasmine Crockett as a black woman, and we should.
We cannot protect her as a politician.
We can't.
I just, I'm not saying.
I'm listening.
We can protect Jasmine Crockett as a black woman.
If somebody comes out and says,
Jasmine Crockett is low IQ.
Jasmine Crockett is a ghetto, Chenequa.
No way.
We're protecting her as a black woman
as an attack on a black woman.
Yeah, that is racist.
As a politician,
no politician deserves any quarter in any type of way.
Because it wouldn't even be
Jasmine Crockett trying.
It wouldn't even be James Talarico trying.
If you protect somebody that has that type of power,
the insulation that you are giving them,
they get addicted to that.
And to me,
what we have to do,
especially right now where the world,
where the world order is in peril,
all others,
oh, democracy is in peril,
all that stuff is in peril.
We have to be able to analyze these people for who they are
and make cogent decisions
on who we want to represent us
wherever they are. Yeah. No, I agree with you. And that's why I say, this is my, you know,
I'll go back to what I was saying about Matt and Bowen. If you're going to talk about it,
people are going to say, oh, you're being, because it does even sound like that to me.
I'll be honest. When you say, when I'm like, what does well defined mean versus a guy who's
less defined who you're also saying, I don't even know anything about. Like you're not,
you didn't say much about Jasmine Crockett other than she was well defined. I need you to say more.
Because what happens is then people are saying, well, wait a second. What are you saying? And
I'm not saying that they're right because I don't agree.
I don't think that this was racist or a misogynist comment.
But it leaves the door open when you're not as well research about the people that you're talking about to kind of talk in such a broad way where then people start putting their own connotations and assumptions on the thing that it is that you're saying.
They start lumping you in with a Keith Edwards or whoever else it may be.
I think that and the reason I said that when we shout out things like, oh, this is racist or oh, this is.
is misogynist when it's not, oh, she's a Shinikua or O-I-Q or stuff like that, I'm not saying,
I'm not saying that every person who speaks in her in a critical way may have some of these
undertones and the things that they're saying. I don't think that that's what's going on right
here. But I think that it's ineffective because we should be able to critique our politicians,
this is to the latter part of what you're saying. I completely agree with you. You want them to
be better. You want to know what they stand for and you want to know that they're going to represent
you in the way that you want to be represented. You can't coddle
them or be so protective over them just because they come from our community. I don't even think
that Jasmine Crockett would want that from you. I would like to think that she would want, doesn't
want to think that she is above any type of constructive criticism or critique. Because going back to
who Jasmine Crockett is and her brand to use that word that you use, she is somebody who can hold her
own, who is willing to step up to the challenge. And I would say that she welcomes that challenge.
So why are we coddling her when she has shown us that she is ready to step up to the table and show you exactly who she is?
I think it's problematic when we start throwing those words out there because back to what I was saying, it's ineffective.
Let Jasmine Crockett be Jasmine Crockett and show you who she is and what she's about.
What's the difference between what they did and what Keith did to you?
So Keith, to me, one I think, well, one I think that they have two different platforms.
One, I think they have two different platforms.
Keith presents himself as somebody who speaks on politics, who talks about top politics,
and he's clearly liberal and a Democrat, but from, and I don't deep dive, I don't follow him in that way.
I don't really see him taking sides in that sense.
And again, I'm not.
He certainly does.
Okay, who else is he taking a side for?
Within the Democratic Party.
When you go down and you look at his page, he gives.
I think it's very difficult.
I don't know anyone.
Like, I legitimately don't know anyone.
Anyone who comments on politics and doesn't take sides.
Okay.
For example, if I'm watching...
But I'm asking you who else that he's done it with.
Because this is...
And I'll just finish it because I'm going to be really short and brief on this.
What...
And I want to like stay on this subject.
The Lost Culturistas do a podcast about pop culture, reality TV.
That's more of their thing than it is politics.
So to me, it was coming from more of a ill-informed place, which they admit to as they're talking about it.
That's not their platform.
With Keith Edwards, that is what his platform is.
That is who he has positioned himself.
I believe he's even worked for campaigns or worked as a strategist.
That's who he is.
And so for me, having that type of platform, I'm not saying he can't be for James.
But the way he presents himself is I'm just presenting out.
here what the news is with these two politicians running against each other within the Texas
Democratic Party. I'm just showing you what's out there. It doesn't feel that way. It feels very
biased towards just James. The information he continues to put out there about Jasmine is all critical
or points to why you should vote just for James rather than just putting what Jasmine's doing
out there. Like he didn't post her speech. He posted the criticism of the announcement. And
used this podcast to further that position. He didn't say, oh, here's also this 40-minute speech that
she did where she even, you might not have liked how she rolled it out, but here's 40 minutes of her
also talking about what she stands for. He has an informative platform. And to me, when it comes
to Jasmine and James, it doesn't seem to be as informative as it is bias. That's the difference.
I hold them, same way we hold up certain people like we talked about earlier in the podcast
at different standards. He is not Bowen and Matt. They don't have a political.
political platform, political YouTube show, Keith Edwards does.
Okay.
Okay.
But I don't think he's racist or misogynist.
I don't see very much of a difference.
I'm looking at him right here.
Now, obviously, he takes sides between liberal and.
Right.
Right, right.
Okay, cool.
But I'm looking at videos right here where he's talking about Chuck Schumer,
where he's talking about Chuck Schumer versus AOC,
where he's talking about, you know, there's one video called Chuck Schumer just new to his career,
where I'm looking at him.
I'm seeing in almost every political,
every political person that I follow,
them saying that they're,
now they are straight up news journalists, right?
They're straight up news journalists who will come on there like,
I don't know,
actually,
to be honest with you now,
I can't think of anyone that I watch
that doesn't editorialize.
And that just has to do with the state of political news.
That doesn't go,
hey, these are the set of things that I believe in,
and I do not align with whatever person.
Go back to it.
I think a lot of people had already decided
that Tala Rico was the type of guy that could win in Texas.
I think they had already decided it.
They decided it after he went on Joe Rogan.
I think we kind of talked about it that way.
We did.
They talked about it.
And I think Jasmine Crockett getting into the race
makes them contend with something
because maybe they don't think that she is the type of person
who could win a Senate race in Texas.
I know there's several people.
including black people who feel that way in Texas.
Right. So my thing is when I look at what Keith was doing,
I think the standard that we're holding him to or the standard that,
well, that we're holding him to that people got mad about is something that we really honestly
kind of don't do. Like we on the podcast right here,
we spend a lot of time kicking the shit out of Kim Jeffries,
kicking shit out like Chuck Schumer, talking about the type of Democrats that we like, right?
I've talked about it at Nauseant before.
We've talked about this.
We've discussed it, right?
We don't, I don't really spend a lot of time talking about things I agree with
Hakeem Jeffries over.
I don't like that type of Democrat.
If it's Richie Torres, I don't like that type of Democrat.
I don't like that type of centrist corporate establishment Democrat.
And if it is unfair to criticize that him or say that I prefer or Zora Mamdani-style Democrat
or a Cory Bush-style Democrat
or a Jamal Bowman-style Democrat,
I am more to the left.
I don't ever really feel the need,
and maybe this is wrong on our part
and other people's parts,
I don't really feel the need
to do the whole,
this is kind of that I am looking at that age
of democratic politics,
and I'm saying it's kind of over.
I don't fuck with it.
I don't deal with it anymore, right?
And if anybody shows themselves to be that for me,
I'm not really going to be down with them.
It's kind of a tough thing.
We've also criticized guys like Graham Platt,
on what I believe his terrible response as it relates to black people over some of the racial
scandals that he had.
We've done all that.
The key thing is like, I'm, do I think that there is something that is deeply ingrained
in white America and also in black America that in America period that propagated, that
propagates massaging noir and all of that stuff.
Yeah, for sure.
For sure.
I definitely believe that that is the case.
In the case with him,
what I saw was a lot of people kind of getting mad
because he went, I don't really like her that much.
It felt more than that.
But what I'm telling you is what I'm thinking.
It felt like he was campaigning more for him.
But even if, but my question is this, though.
Even if he was.
Let's say that he was.
I just didn't know he had to.
that kind of platform. Let's say that he was. Let's say that he was campaigning.
Because really, my point is that it's no different than what Bowling Yang and...
They have different platforms, which is why I think it's different.
They, I will say this. If we look at it that way, we're kind of treating them like babies a little bit.
No, I literally said that they are so wrong because that you shouldn't be talking about a topic you don't know.
Well, I don't... Here's a deal.
this is kind of a thing that we get into too.
It's like when that started,
Boeing Yang talked about how silly he thought,
how silly he felt for supporting Hillary Clinton, right?
And then he talked about what he would support
is what they should support is a more populist movement.
They talked about regret that they had
over candidates that they supported before.
They analyzed politically the changing landscape
of Democrat politics,
politics, talked about like why they didn't like Gavin News and they talked about all of this stuff.
They didn't get into the guts and the viscera of all of the policies, but they have a political
point of view.
They have a political point of view and their political point of view led them to believe
based upon past experiences that they don't like candidates like Jasmine Crockett.
They didn't say why.
They also didn't say really why they liked the people that they did like.
it is assumed that there's a sort of leftist liberal populism that they that they are endorsing now that they haven't endorsed in the past.
And to me, they have a right to say that and it doesn't have to jump directly into you must be flogged and apologize.
Okay.
Unless they are directly and overtly to me, I can't even detect any racism from what they said, right?
I agree with you on that part.
But all I'm saying is there's really no difference.
And the reason why I'm...
We'll just disagree.
Yeah, there's really no difference between that and what Keith did.
And the reason why I'm pointing back to that is because we cannot do anything at this point right now.
I don't think engaging in or investigating massaging the war, I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
But we can't get into raise reactions that stop us from, you know, coming to politics and engaging.
aging in politics in a way that it sharpens these candidates and holds them accountable for things that we might not like.
I think it's detrimental to the politician, which I just explained about Jasmine Crockett.
I agree with you. We see the Keith Edwards things differently because when I look, you're looking at his YouTube page, I believe.
When I look at his threads and I go down, he seems to report a lot more than opine. I think he's more opinionated on YouTube.
but one of the things that he did post,
like today it came out that here's why Kevin put out today
that I guess James Tolariko sent a letter
to his Jewish supporters in support of Israel.
I am looking at Keith Edwards page.
That is reported nowhere.
But what he did report was a picture of Jasmine Crockett
and said, is it progressive to accept an all-expense trip pay?
trip to Israel funded by A-PAC, it has got Jasmine Crockett in it.
That's the kind of thing I say, and you might not agree with this, but that's the kind
of thing that people are saying.
You're pointing all this, it seems that you only put out negative stuff.
He is so in his right to do that.
I'm just saying what people are saying.
You're pointing out negative stuff when it comes to Jasmine Crockett, but then you're
not reporting the other side of it.
He can do it.
But is that because she's black, though?
I'm telling you what people are saying.
Because I was of the assumption.
And maybe I just don't know the Keith Edwards platform.
And my God, Keith, if you came on here, we could talk about it and I could have a better understanding.
He's not being pussy.
I could have a better understanding.
Yeah, I could have a better understanding of you.
I could ask you these questions directly with rather assuming.
I could tell you why people think this way because I, it was my impression that you were somebody who informs about your, you're a fighter of democracy and you inform things about the, about, yes, about the Democratic Party.
and it seems a little biased
in your reporting,
Jasmine versus James,
and people believe
that it is because of a certain thing.
I'm not going to put that on you,
but it does feel like it leans more way than the other.
I'm not going to say the reason why,
but I would ask you that if you came on the podcast.
So I'm not saying that he's giving equal time,
just so people know.
I'm not saying he's giving equal time
to Tala Rico and Crockett.
I'm saying that he doesn't have to.
That's what I'm saying.
And I agree with you on that.
And I'm saying we,
if if we have a conversation with Keith
and we like investigate
whether or not there's something underneath
the fact that he doesn't support,
I think that's a fair conversation to have.
But I think to make that leap sometimes to me.
I agree with you.
I think both of these,
in both of these cases,
to make that leap when we're talking about a politician,
I know our knee jerk is to be supportive of our sister,
I think that leap sometimes is limiting.
Let me ask you this.
But we agree, guys.
We should be critiquing a politician no matter gender or race.
That is, you're being detrimental to yourself.
Do you think we have to critique them equally is the last thing I'll say.
What do you mean equally?
Meaning should we have done?
I think if you're going to post that Jasmine went on an Israel trip,
then you need to be also talking about James Talariko sent out a letter say he supports sending Israel has the right to defend itself.
Let me ask you this.
If you were voting today, who would you vote for, James Tala Rico?
Oh, I can't say.
You have no, you don't know.
I actually cannot say.
You don't know.
You're in Texas.
You don't know who you will vote for.
I really don't.
They are debating in a couple of weeks, and I am very much so looking forward to it.
Did you read the James Hallorico email?
I read, yeah, I read it.
Okay.
I don't know why I'm like, I didn't read it.
Read the email.
Okay.
This is what I'll say.
First of all, how much time do we have?
We got to go?
We got a little bit of time.
Okay.
Okay.
First of all, let's talk about this real quick.
Before we get off this, let's just talk about this issue real quickly, really quickly.
in this James
Hallorico email
he was talking to his Jewish
supporters
and he reiterated Israel's right to defend
itself
to state solution
to state solution
and he said that he is
open to sending
defensive weapons to Israel
to protect and then he
specifies like like the Iron Dome
okay do you make any
difference between sending
defensive weapons. We've had this conversation
before. And at the time when
we talked about it, I said
I could get down more
with defensive weapons
like an Iron Dome, but I'm
totally against offensive. That was a
different time. Right now,
nothing should be sent. Absolutely
nothing. I don't know
how you can say that right now.
And I might have been wrong when I said it
what, six months a year ago.
You could argue that I'm wrong. I'll
go and say, baby, I was wrong then. But right
Al, I would never send out a letter like this.
So I would not vote for James Salarico, okay?
I wouldn't vote for James.
Because of this.
Let me not say I wouldn't vote for him, because it would depend on who he's running against.
This to me was, it's a red line for me.
Sending weapons to Israel.
It's a red line for me.
The entire American-Israeli relationship has to be re-evaluated, the entire thing.
the whole thing has to be re-evaluated.
Geopolitics aside, right?
Geopolitics aside.
Also, this demonstrates to me that James Tala Rico is closer.
And, you know, we talked about the Miriam Ails and stuff before.
Which do you see he differentiates in the letter?
He says, but I won't accept PAC money.
That's the way around it.
You're not accepting PAC money.
You're accepting it from someone.
from an individual yeah uh so this to me um defines james salarico as the same brand of democrat centrist
uh liberal corporate democrat that had existed before now listen you guys don't have to look at it that
way there there are things to me that are indicators of this type of stuff this is one of them okay there is
No issue whatsoever with wanting the Israeli people to be safe.
If you have an issue with that, you are a disgusting person, right?
If you have an issue with any group of people wanting to be safe.
The military weapons and the technology that we send Israel is not used responsibly in the region.
Israel has gone to war with all of its neighbors, all of its neighbors.
the protesting that's going on in Iran right now,
people are just monitoring the situation and waiting for Netanyahu and his regime
to take the opportunity to go in there and try to get involved in some kind of way.
America has to take a real, real look, a real look and stop all of the military support that we give to the state of Israel.
has to really even before this well before october seventh when we talked about um iron done technology
and all of that stuff we didn't talk about that in the context of Israel continually taking
settlement land in the west bank and when obama tried to talk about it they kicked this fucking
ass got his ass kicked kick this fucking ass when you when we tried to say hey stop in a stop uh
violating international law stop violating international law by going to take lands that don't belong to
you under international law this open crime that nobody pays attention to that no one even pays
attention to just like kicking people out of their houses taking more land building settlements
It's kind of like this nasty thing that nobody is supposed to discuss,
but we're supposed to maintain the same type of relationship that we have with Israel
and not demand that Israel stop breaking the law and taking more land, right?
So when I see this from Tala Rico, I say, no, bueno.
No, bueno.
No, bueno, right?
A couple of questions.
Number one, how big of an issue is for this?
for this is for a lot of people.
I've talked about it before.
Israel is not an issue for Texas voters.
They don't care.
Okay.
Fair enough.
Number two, if we were talking about Tala Rico versus Jazz and Crockett on Israel,
you are probably, if you're outside of the people that care about it,
just going to have to punt on geopolitics in any regard.
This is why I'm saying this.
Last thing I say.
I don't think people are looking at this race as a race for the Texas Senate.
They're looking at this race in particular, which is why things are so ratcheted it up,
as legitimately the future of the Democratic Party.
Like a lot of people feel like Jasmine Crockett represents the future of the Democratic Party,
and there was a thought about that way before she got into the Senate race, right?
Actually, the Republicans were trying to, in a way, promote her as that because they think,
think that a lot of Americans will find her unpopular, right?
Yes.
But beyond that, to me, when I looked at her,
she was the only one that was consequential.
She was legitimately the, she is the most uncorny Democrat that they have to me.
Besides my squad people, Jamal Bowman, Maxwell Frost.
There's others.
There's others.
But in terms of being somebody that doesn't seem like the stuff that they're doing
is completely contrived and nauseating,
way ahead of the rest of the people.
she cut through and was able to rattle cages a little bit like that about it.
Tala Rico came through with a sort of base Christian appeal to all type of charisma.
Very Christ-like.
Very Christ-like type of charisma that really made people think that he was the new wave of Democrat.
Because in a different way, right?
She cuts through, if you're talking about brands, her brand is she cuts through.
She's no BS.
She's calling it like it is.
she's not afraid of you in any kind of way
and she's going to be true to who she is in all of that, right?
She's not going to bend in any kind of way.
Whereas James is the other side of it where it's like
he's not as, what's the word I want to use?
I want to use this word right.
Help me with the word.
Bombastic?
I don't like that word.
Soften it up.
That's why I'm having trouble with the word.
I mean, you want to.
What words you want to say?
No, it's just that I think people, I use the word, I was like, when they see James, they see Christlike, right?
He's always backing each policy that he believes in or issue is backed by scripture.
That's why I say Christlike.
And people look at him.
I don't even know if they looked at him as the future of the party, but definitely what could be the future of blue in Texas.
He could cross the line to a Texan and as a white religious man and speak to them.
in a language that Jasmine necessarily,
they don't want to hear.
I don't know if, it's interesting,
now that I'm talking about it out loud,
I don't know if I even looked at James
as the future of the entire party,
but definitely the future of a Texas blue party.
That's fair.
I'll tell you, I'll tell you this,
this is truly the last thing I'll say.
It's okay, I keep talking to.
It's a truly the last thing I say.
It would be idiotic for me, for anyone,
for Bowen-Yang, Las Culturistas, Matt Rogers.
Y'all have a new fan in red.
I whip my hair back and forth.
That shit is funny when they said that.
I'm sorry.
That a part of the appeal of James Tala Rico is the safeness that people feel with white male orthodoxy,
with the belief in the leadership of white males.
It's white male plus religion.
But there is, because Gavin Newsom,
not that religious at all.
Exactly.
But there has been a shock to the system on the left.
And that shock to the system has made people say, you know what?
What we need to do is just pick the right white guy to fight these other white guys.
What we need is Gavin Newsom, who is a polished, slick, cut from the fucking 1985, 1995,
political
fucking handbook
type of candidate.
We need a grand platinum.
We need to find
the right white guys
to replace the wrong
white guys.
Because what we need now
is a white guy.
We've tried everything else
and it hasn't worked.
We've run women twice.
We even got really spicy
and ran a black woman.
And America said no.
The only time they said yes to us
on a national stage is when we ran a white guy,
so what we need to do is find the right white guy right now
because that'll stop all of this.
That reaction makes sense.
Not intellectually to me, it feels bad.
I see why people think that.
Of course, of course.
But if we can't talk about how fucked up that is,
if it makes everybody squeamish,
not just to talk about the reasons
why we should be able to talk about Jasmine Crockett as a politician and not as a black woman
and why we should be able to talk about James Talarico as a white man and not as a politician,
then what we are doing is tucking our tail yet again.
It's almost over.
I want people to know.
It's almost over in a real way.
It's almost over.
You've almost lost it.
If you don't, and I need to do this more than anyone, tuck your emotion.
to the side a little bit,
stand up straight and have some tough conversations,
you're going to get a whole store away
by doing what makes you feel good in the moment.
So all of this stuff is fair game to me.
And the more we kick people's asses
and make them give apologies
rather than explanations
don't exist in conversation about this stuff,
we're propagating some of the old stuff
that kind of got us here.
The reason why the Democrats can't get a hold
on who they're supposed to,
to be as individuals and as a party is because they don't know
what people are going to respond to.
They look, maybe that's too much.
Last thing.
Maybe that's too much.
Let's go.
Let's go.
I don't want to, it's not you guys as far.
I don't want to make, if you listen to my voice right now,
I don't want to make you the culprit.
No, it's an understood you.
Yes, I guess.
Yeah, that's too much.
All I'm saying is all of us.
We're having this identity crisis.
But the main thing is...
Because we're panics.
We don't want to keep the regime in place.
We don't want it to happen again.
Yes.
All right.
All right.
I think we've got to go.
What time is your pot?
Like 12.30.
1230.
Can I talk about one thing before we go?
What do you want to talk about?
Just one more thing, guys.
Last thing.
Can we make a montage of him saying?
Can I talk about it?
Six last thing.
This is the last thing.
I'm sorry, guys.
Thank you, Dottie.
Dottie's keeping track.
I'm curious on this runoff because we had several.
We had a lot of topics on the rundown today and there's a lot we didn't get to.
So I'm very curious as to the one you just got to do.
So we got, just let y'all know, we got Donnie McClurkin in here.
We got Yolanda Adams in here.
Do you want to hit on any one of those?
No, no, no.
I was done.
Okay.
Which one is like, it's so on your mind because it's Donnie McClurkin.
It's Yolanda Adams.
It's Steve Nash.
break it down the issues within the NBA.
And then there was Jesse Wu and Cardi B going at each other.
Which one just has you so fired up.
Oh, and Russell Simmons also, demanding his 100 million,
which from the lawsuit that he sued,
HBO on Warbur's last year.
Which one is it, fan?
It's Steve Nash.
Okay.
It's sports.
Okay.
But it's not sports.
It's not sports.
Can you tell people,
Not everybody knows who Steve Nash is, man.
If you don't know who Steve Nash is, then you shouldn't be.
Steve Nash was one of these.
He was like, oh, ah, ah, 50, 40, 90.
Who knows?
In this room, who knows what 504090 means?
So hold on for a second, man.
See, this type of shit I'm talking about.
So, so wait a second.
In this room right now, how many people, Donnie, do you know what 50, 40, 90 means?
I don't.
Rachel?
It's stats.
Stats.
So I know it's stats.
I'm just trying to...
Think of which.
Come on now.
50, 40, 90.
Well, he's the assist king.
He was the assist king.
Well, was when he was playing.
Yeah, he was the man.
Boom, boom.
50, 40, 90.
These are percentages.
Okay, okay.
Okay, so he's...
It's shooting.
Yeah.
It's assist.
No, no, no.
Okay.
These are all shooting stats.
Oh.
Okay.
So three points.
There you go.
Free throw.
Well, okay.
And.
From the field?
Yeah.
That's what the fuck I'm talking about.
Races on top of it.
Okay, so he's 90 at the free throw.
90 at the free throw.
He's, uh, a 40 in the field.
No.
Oh, it's switched.
Damn.
He's 40.
Yeah.
He's 40 in the field, three point.
40 from the three point, 50 from the field.
Yeah.
So that's like a hyper-release shooter.
See, that's what the fuck I'm talking about.
Y'all.
Y'all could have guessed it with stats.
Yeah.
So, the guys are 50-49.
Not like I just had it like that.
54-9 guys.
All right.
Steve Nash was on TV
and he was talking about the limits of capitalism
and he just couldn't bring himself
to have a full-throated criticism
of capitalism.
And it was so interesting.
He was on Amazon doing this,
which is even more interesting.
I know, I know,
but I want you guys to hear this.
And when I heard this,
I thought about how I think,
how I talk to myself
and how I want to talk to myself.
Play with Steve Nash.
Now, hold on, before you play it, Steve,
Steve Nash is talking about how youth basketball has changed,
comparing it to the United States and overseas,
how youth basketball and basketball development has changed.
Play what he said.
It's frustrating.
That's the highlights.
That's the mixed tape.
That's not the game.
That's not what makes Donovan Mitchell great, right?
It's being simple and playing the game.
But this is about structure.
You know, it's pay to play.
It's pay to play in the States, you know.
capitalism is wonderful.
It's not great for player development.
In Europe, to play, it's free.
You go to your local club.
It's subsidized more or less mostly by that community.
So there's no hidden motives.
There's no, we got a winner.
The kids leaving to the next club.
Everyone's here for the long term to develop more or less.
And so I think what you get is coaches.
There's thousands of amazing coaches in the United States.
It's not like there's only coaches in Europe.
There's amazing coaches here.
But they have a structure over there where you stick with your coaches more or less,
generally.
and you learn to play the game the right way under the right pretenses.
You know, here it's just been totally commercialized
and it makes it really hard for coaches to get their hands on a program or a kid
and say, we are going to develop you the right way as a group
to play skill basketball, team basketball, and play a variety of ways.
Over here, it's very much, like Swin said,
get in your bag, learn the skills, some skills coach is going to charge you by the hour
at the park, whatever it is.
I mean, it's gotten out of hand.
Unfortunately, I don't want to take any money at everyone's pockets,
but it makes the structure really difficult
to teach kids to play the long game.
You guys, at its core,
that is such an easily digestible
criticism of gangster capitalism run amok.
What Steve Nash is essentially saying there
is the overall quality of basketball
here is deteriorating
because not everybody,
has access to the type of capital that sharpens or even develops your basketball skills.
And the fact that the money is the focus over the betterment, evolution, and ascension
of the player overall hurts the individual person and the product.
And there are places in Europe where their concern is twofold.
one, the player, the person, the people, right?
And two, the game, the institution, the purity.
And because of that, they are learning quicker, they're developing better,
they're doing stuff that we're not doing.
That is, when I heard him be like, hey, I love capitalism,
but let me tell you the problems of it.
Hey, don't want to take any money away from anyone,
but the fact that it's all about money
is actually hurting people's personal and sports development.
Do you know how many industries in this country
I could take that exact same structure and apply it to?
Sure.
And part of the American money religion,
when we got out of actually orienting our society
around what the average person could do and around what a billionaire could make,
part of that is the belief that an influx of cash into everything will solve all of our
problems.
The competition will give you better schools.
That competition will give you more housing.
That competition will give.
And it's just a lie.
It's not working.
It hasn't worked in a very long time.
But the Oprah Jordan Jackson dogma of American excellence has blinded us.
to the fact that America chooses who is excellent by who they invest into.
And he's saying that, but he just can't bring himself to say it.
He can't bring himself to say it because he's on Amazon.
He can't bring himself to say it because he's made so much money.
There's this thing to where we're right there.
We see it.
Like right now, we see it.
Like we see an American economy that's all invested into AI and not into the person.
We see an American economy that doesn't work for anyone.
We see four or five different Americas.
We used to talk about two Americas and black and white.
But now there's a rich black America and there's a poor black America.
There's an educated black America.
And I guess there's always, this has always been like this.
And there's a sort of ignorant black America that you can't talk to or try to connect with.
There are people that we have to leave behind.
All of this stuff, it's.
But because we all have the same wants that are.
bred into us.
Yeah.
We just can't bring ourselves to say, hey, we thought that taking a kid and that making
basketball about shoe contracts and money and all of this stuff and not about the game,
that that would help the game.
But it's not it's hurting the game.
It's actually hurting the game.
And what would help the game is the focus on the person, the focus on the sport, the focus
on the warmth of collectivism.
I don't even know if they really,
I think it got past the point of thinking it could make the game better.
I think it was, at the end of the day, it really was just about capitalism.
But I totally agree with everything that you said.
I think Steve Nash did say it.
I don't think Steve Nash could, like, the way you just spelled it out and what you did,
he's never going to be able to do that on a television show and on prime.
The moment he said the word capitalism, I knew exactly that he meant everything that you just said.
I think that was the best that he could do in that space.
and he was very intentional and purposeful in doing it.
He wanted to say that and get that out there.
And he did.
But once again, last thing, he's also.
Dallas Mavericks.
He's also a Canadian.
He knows what's like to come from a country where you can get sick and go to the doctor.
Not perfect health care, all of that stuff.
Whatever it is, we all want to make money.
We all want to get money.
But the single-minded focus of attaining in America on your own in competition with your community,
We just have to get to a point to where, in my opinion,
we can, like, full-throatedly analyze that.
Okay, that's enough.
You know what?
Feel better?
Yeah, I'm good.
Shut up, Donnie.
Donnie, you know, you say you're a sports fan.
You don't know what a 50-40-90 dick is.
Read the rundown.
That might be outside of their, like, that might be a, well, you're Gen X.
It might be a Gen X thing.
What's a Gen X thing?
You're not a millennial.
You're Gen X.
You know that, right?
Like, I've heard you refer to yourself as a millennial, and I've let it slide.
But you're Gen X.
I think I'm Gen X.
I mean, well, actually, hold on.
It depends on what you look at, right?
It's 1982.
Okay, well, I'm not, well, honestly, but the Gen X thing, a lot of times stops at like 78.
And there's sometimes.
Oh, you're just in the, there's nothing.
There's nothing for 78 to 82.
I've never heard anybody say that.
Hold on a second.
No, you got to go.
Well, no, I mean, fuck it.
I'm Gen X.
I don't care.
And I mean, what I meant, what I meant,
was that terminology might not have trickled down to our gen Ziers in the room.
Oh, 50, 40, 90?
Mm-hmm.
Oh, y'all just don't know shit about sports.
I mean, if that, hold on.
You're saying, I'm too old.
No, I'm not, I'm just saying it might be a.
I bet you if I ask Logan, hold on real quick.
That's what Logan does.
That's his expertise.
Logan is the youngest person in his room.
He's well versed historically in basketball.
So he might not historically.
Historically basketball.
We got that.
Can I call Jomi? Can I call Jomi?
If I call Jomi right now and ask Jomi with a 54.
We have an adery we got to do. We really got to go.
Okay, fuck it then.
Like, don't get on me because y'all don't know.
Hey, take your thing caps off, but do not stop learning about basketball.
I'm Van Lathen, Jr.
And I'm Rachel Ler-Lansy.
Bye, guys.
Ryan Reynolds here from MnMobile.
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