Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay - The “Big” Disappointment at the Olympics, RFK Jr.’s Bear, and MOVE’s Legacy With Mike Africa Jr.

Episode Date: August 6, 2024

Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay start the episode with some updates from the Olympics, including the disappointment of Sha’Carri Richardson’s silver placement in the 100-meter race (06:02), the pole vaulter whose legs and manhood knocked him out of the competition (21:52), and a special proposal for a Chinese gold winner (27:50). Then, they talk about the tragedy coming from the U.K. (33:05) and touch a bit on the bizarre RFK Jr. bear story (41:25 ). Later, Mike Africa Jr. joins us to talk about his new book, ‘On a Move: Philadelphia's Notorious Bombing and a Native Son's Lifelong Battle for Justice’ and the importance of MOVE’s legacy (1:05:45). Hosts: Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay Guest: Mike Africa Jr. Producer: Ashleigh Smith Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yo, yo, yo, thought warriors. What is that? I learned it is on. It's I. Van Lathen, Jr. And it's me, Rachel and Lindsay. What should I do with this gum? Spit it out? Is it distracting you?

I want to chew gum into the thing, but I don't want to just... Hold on. You got something? The paper for the gum. Gum, gum, gum, gum, gum, gum, gum, gum. Here it is. Oh, give me that. Oh, thank you, Rachel.

Oh, this is a ticket. Oh, Beverly Hills. Okay. Oh, daddy. Whatever. What's up? What's up? We're going back in town.

We've been going to wait. Yeah, I've been doing my thing. North Carolina. Bojangles, we talked about it. Shout out to North Carolina, Chicago. I would like to say shout out to Black Mike the Barber. I think I talked about him. You did.

You did? You did. Out there in Chicago. You had a good time in Chicago? The rest of the convention was good. It was fine. Free of controversy. Was.

What did you do this weekend? What did I do this weekend? I had a good weekend. Friday. I went to a dinner. It was like a Macallan dinner or something like that. Macallan, Macallon. I don't know why I said something like that.

Macallan, they hosted it for like some people. My friend put it on for people in the entertainment industry. It was good to see friends because I don't really see them as much because I don't work the carpets anymore. Right. And then Saturday, I don't know what I did during the day, but I went to, oh, I went to Calamigos. Was that? It's a ranch. Oh, Calamigos Gesserench.

Mm-hmm. I went there, had massages, spent some time with my girlfriend. Shout out to Shannon. And then I went to the fight. Oh, you went to the fight. The fight was fun. I got to say shout out to a couple of people. Shout out to Terrence Crawford.

Did you think he won? Yeah, I thought he won. I thought he won. It was a little controversial. I thought he won. Okay, you got to throw punches to win fights. Madrimoff wasn't throwing that many punches. Shout to Terrence Crawford.

Shout to Matt Barnes. Shout out to Andre Ward, who I saw was there. A lot of people were at the fight. Oh, you're shouting out who was there. There. Also, shout-offs, you know who the biggest shout-out I give to for that whole night is? Who? Martin Bacoli.

Who's that? Martin Bacoli is a Congolese heavyweight. 6'4 pounds. I'm trying to see if I saw him. He fought, that was earlier on the car. Oh, the no. He fought Jared Big Baby Anderson. There are two big babies fighting.

Drell Miller, who actually got robbed. Drell Miller, big baby, who actually got robbed. Drell Miller, big baby, who actually got. robbed. Martin Bacoli fought Jared Anderson. Jared Anderson up-and-coming young American heavyweight. So impressive. Beat Jared Anderson silly. I think Jared Till has a long future ahead of him.

I think he's going to be okay. But wow, I was so impressed with Martin Bacoli. Congolese, fight not a skutin. We missed those. There were a lot of fights before. Started at one. Main fight wasn't until later. You know, fight wasn't itself wasn't as eventful. to be honest.

Technical boxing fight. Yeah. But there were a lot of people booing. People really want... Madrimoff was in front of Crawford a lot and he wasn't doing very much. He wasn't throwing punches. Yeah. So, but overall, like great people watching.

We happened to like park behind Karamo. So we hung out with him. We happened to be sitting next to two people that we knew. We had seats next to them. I went with Nina Parker. We had a good old time. That's fun. I can't complain.

So some of your friends, I ran into my friend who I've been with since I was 12 years old. Who? Name Chase. Shout out to Chase. Chase? He trains a lot of people out here, Trace Weber. Chase Weber? He trains people for boxing?

No, just like in general. Just trains when they get up. What's your opinion of trainers? I don't have an opinion. That's their job. Yeah, he trained people. But he trains like. People.

Yeah, he was like ringside. I'm like, who you trained? Chase Weber. Okay. Oh, Chase Weber. Okay. Shout out to Matt Barnes. Shout out to like, come on.

First of all, no diss to Chase Weber. Shout out to you, Chase Weber. I tell you, I saw you boy Tay. Taye. Taye Dez was there? Oh, well, daddy. How'd that go? He goes.

What do you say? He goes. He knew in the show. And then I was like, hey. And he was like, I know you from the Instagram. And I was like, no. No. No.

I was like, I'm very. friend from higher learning. And he was like, yeah, yeah. This is what I mean in the Instagram. Yeah. I was like, okay. So what did you say? Good to see you, is what I said.

How long did the interaction last? Super quick. He said he was like he was all over the place because it was a lot. Like it was a lot. It was over stimulating to just be in the event. And it was like closer to the fight. He had a son with him. Yeah, interesting Walker.

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See terms at Fandul.com slash predict slash bonus dash offer dash terms. The Olympics are going crazy right now. We've got to get into the Olympics. Many stories. So many stories from the Olympics that we have to talk about them all. First of all, let's go updated medal count. China, 52 medals, 21 goals. United States, 75 medals, 19 goals.

The rest of the countries have other various medals. Question for you. Would you rather win the overall medal count, or would you rather have more gold medals? More gold. more weight. That's just my opinion. Not to diss on a silver and a bronze.

Let me be clear. It's an accomplishment. Yeah, it's a huge accomplishment. But I don't know. There's a reason that the way this is included on here is overall in golds. Overall and then goals. You want to win goals. So we're still down.

I mean, we're going to get a gold medal in basketball, hopefully. So I don't know if we'll, it seems like we'll be able to catch up to Chinese. Let's see. Yeah. We have to talk about Shikari. You sound disappointed. I was very disappointed. Whoa.

Yeah, not in her, but just that she didn't win. So you're disappointed in her? That's different. Like, you're upset she didn't win. I'm disappointed. And the only person who was in control of that is Shikari. I disagree. I'm disappointed that she didn't win, but I'm still proud of her.

Nice save. I'm proud of her. I'm proud of her. What the fuck? Because you're playing it. I'm not playing it. If you're disappointed. Don't play it.

No. No. No. No. I'm not disappointed. I'm not disappointed. You're disappointed in her performance. Am I,

am I, I'm disappointed that Shikari didn't win? I'm not disappointed in Shikari. Does this make sense? Or am I tripping? I get what you're saying. But I also, it's the only person who is in charge of her not winning was her.

So you have to be a little bit disappointed in her. No. that's actually not true. Okay. Because she was running against other people. It's completely plausible that she ran the best race she could have, which I don't think she did. That she ran. She's never had a strong start out of the blocks.

She ran the best race. She could have. And someone could have just run faster. I mean, shout out to University of Texas. Well, that's who won? Julian Alfred. She plays, I mean, plays, runs at Texas. She's from St. Lucia.

She's from St. Lucia. She runs. Just like Sonia, you know, Jamaica, but she ran, she went to Texas. I mean, she's an American citizen, whatever. So if there was one person that I wanted to win gold at the Olympics, like I would have taken Shakari Richardson winning a gold medal in the 100 over the United States men's basketball team winning gold for basketball. I understand the sentiment.

I want her to win so badly. I understand the sentiment. I did too. I mean, obviously with her not being able to run last year when, you know, I assume, I would assume she would have won gold, not last year, but last Olympics. I would assume she would have won gold then. Yeah, you know, she came in. There was a lot of hype, but not a lot of hype.

It was people were excited for her. They were rooting for her because it wasn't fair, in my opinion, what happened in the last Olympics. She should have been able to compete. So I get it. I get the disappointment. She's also running well. And also, I, and no, she's running great, but also I feel like you didn't hear about her. anybody else that could have

possibly beat her. It always seemed like it was going to be Shikari, it was going to be Shikari. Not saying she didn't have competition, but it just seemed like it was hers to win. So, you know, when Julian came out and, you know, she won. Yeah, she wouldn't got that thing. Yeah, like, she won. But Shikari had a bad start

of the blocks. It, uh, it seems that there's some controversy, Rachel. Apparently, both her and Shillian Fraser Price weren't allowed to warm up. Oh yeah, they couldn't get in. So there's a rule, apparently, that you must travel with your team on the team bus. You arrive to the facility there to be let into the team entrance. Shikari and Shalaya and Frasier Price were not staying with their teams in Olympic Village.

I think they're staying somewhere else. They said, fuck Olympic Village. Okay. A lot of athletes, by the way, are doing that. Okay. They fuck, fuck, like, fuck,

like, fuck Olympic Village is what they're saying. I'm hearing also behind the scenes that Paris is a mess. Yeah, but every year

they talk about how bad the Olympic village is every year. I mean, every Olympics. Well, do every Olympics

the people get E. coli from diving into the river or that people are supposed to do a triathlon? Oh, I was like,

why are they diving in the river? The triathlon, yeah. So, and so Shillian Paris couldn't warm up.

And so she pulled out the event. She said, I'm out, I'm done. I'm not doing it. And some people are saying that not being able to warm up, she had to walk around to the front.

It was a long walk. It took her like half hour to an hour to get around there to get into the thing. And that might have taken a toll on her in some sort of way. Mentally for sure. But you don't think physically. Oh, well, no, I can't speak to it. But I can just say I would imagine like you're already in a mindset, you're focused on the race, you know, and then now that's stressful.

That would make me anxious. to have to do all of that. But I also couldn't imagine being Shelly Ann Fraser Prize, who you've already said, this is your last Olympics and you've made it this far and you pull out

because you can't do warm-ups. I mean, I think it speaks to the volume of how crucial it is to have those warm-ups that you make it that far and you pull out because you didn't get it. Like, she knew

how much that could affect her race. So I think to what people are saying, I'm sure it did affect Shakari. I am sure it did. Did she say anything? A lot of the things, is just talked. There's also reports that she has an injury. Shelly Ann. She didn't talk about it. It's difficult for me to find words to describe the

death of my disappointment. I know that my supporters share and shoulder this disappointment with me. I'm truly blessed. I've had the stepfast support of my fans since my Olympic debut in 2008. Every step and win, you've all been there for me. So there's lots of stuff going on here. So maybe they couldn't warm up. Maybe there's an injury. Maybe Chicago just didn't have the best day that she needed to in order to win the goal. But she won silver, she'll be back again, hopefully in Los Angeles for 2028. But we did win, when I say we,

I mean, the United States, and this kicked off the diaspora wars. You know how much I love them. You love to stoke the diaspora wars. You know, you know why I love the diaspora wars? I love the diaspora wars because they're fun and meaningless.

Some people really take it seriously. I get it. We're all different, but we're the same, but we're different. Yes. And there's nothing better to divide us and bring us together like Twitter. Like Twitter brings us together, but then Twitter also like rips us apart. Noah Lyles won.

The men's 100 meter dash, shout out to Noah Lyles, who is a very controversial figure himself. By the slimmest margin you could basically win by, right? Chess. Yeah. He run by a nipple, a titty. It didn't look like it. I mean, that's...

At first they said he didn't win. Well, it didn't look like it. You know, they had to go back. Do you think it's fair that it's your chest and not your foot? Shouldn't it just be anything that gets over the line? No, because then somebody could throw their whole body. Then why don't they just do that? Well, I'm saying if anything gets you over.

I mean, listen, these are Olympic runners. They know how to run it. I mean, like, that's why they, you know, like push their chest forward and they duck. They know that. So it is fair because that's understanding how to run the race. Well, he won. and he beat out Jamaican.

First time America has won since 2004. That's it. We got it. We're not giving it back. You had a good run, Jamaica. It was good. I got to be honest with you.

I fuck with Jamaica hard. Jamaica is dope. Jamaican people have a very specific spirit. You love Jamaican people. They have contributed so much. And I hope that they continue to contribute. in all the different cultural ways

that they can because there's nothing Jamaican food, you're making dance, you're making political movements, okay? Very important political movements over there. It's not just about the arts,

political movements, science, culture, all of that stuff, it's great. Sprinting, though, we back. Why is that the one thing you want to take away from them? We back. Sprinting.

In the men's. Sprinting, we're back. The whole thing is about to fall apart. They had their run. Now, I'm not saying that we're going to put out anybody that's as fast as bolt. Okay? The freak of nature. All right.

It's not. It'll be 30 more years. Okay. But as far as everything else, sprinting, look, man, shout out to my Jamaicans, man. I fuck with y'all. I love Jamaican people. We used to go to club culture in Baton Rouge, and we would get there.

We whine, you know, lots of the girls. Wang get up. Allison, my roommate was Jamaican. I want to make sure I want no smoke with the Jamaican people. No smoke with the Jamaican people. Well, I will say this. That sprint shit is over. It's Carl Lewis, nigger.

It's Michael Johnson, nigger. We back, we back to the old days, nigga. We back to the days where niggas would run, and they would be from America, just run straight, and then we will win that shit. That's the days that's back. The days of fast niggas from Miami, from fucking South L.A., from Baton Rouge.

You know what I'm saying? I'm talking Santa Monica Track Club. I'm talking, really, we back. Okay. And I hope that all of my Jamaican friends out there are still friends with me because they talk about 28. It's going to be worse than 28

because we're going to be even backer. Okay, I didn't realize how serious this was for you. No, it's been serious for me that we can't win sprint. We're supposed to be able to win spring. we're supposed to be able to win sprint. Once again, I would rather also lose in basketball than lose at sprinting. We're supposed to be able to run.

I love Usain Bolt. By the way, it wasn't just Usain Bolt. If not for Usain Bolt, it was Asafel Powell and then Johann Blake. Johann Blake, we talk about American sprinting. There should be nobody who is more pissed at Usain Bolt than Johann Blake. Because if not for Usain Blot, Yohan Blake is Usain Bolt.

We back is the bottom line. Okay, well, I'm thrilled. Look, we still got the relays to come up, right? I know. Yeah, well, yeah. We're going to bust assing them relays. Yeah. We taking it.

What are you going to do if Jamaica wins the relays? But the Diaspora Wars on Twitter were hilarious. I think they were all in good faith. Sometimes all in good fun. I think sometimes people take it too far, but it's like what people were like, and fried chicken is better than jerk chicken and all of that stuff, which is true. Okay. Let's move on.

Nothing better than moxtails, though. You don't like oxtails? So you don't like oxtails. Because I don't like saucy food. So, like, I don't like that it's, like, dipped in the gravy or whatever it is. I don't like all that. You go, what type of anti-black fucking, I can't deal with it? Nonsense.

Well, the fact that you're trying to make us a monolith that all black people have to like oxtails is the problem. There are certain things that all black people have to like. Well, it's not oxtails. Oxtails is one of them. No, it's not.

It's high on the list. Okay, what else? What else? Do all black people have to like? Do all black people have to like? Hmm. R&B. Okay.

If you say, if you're, you can't just say straight up, I don't like R&B. Okay, fine. If you're black, you have to like, Like R&B. You have to like that.

I'm going to have to say you have to like black people. You have to like black people. Because there are some of the dogs. These are the things that all black people have to like black people. You have to like R&B. It is not Ox Tales. You have to, Ox Tows. It's in there.

You have to like your ancestors. Like and respect. R&B. You have to like and respect your ancestors. What else? These are things that are non-negotiables. These are non-negotiables. I would say that there has to be some things that you understand.

Okay. Right? Like little things. You know, on social media, you know, kind of like you know you're black or like if you used to do this. Like there's certain things that are particular to the black community that you have to,

like when you go grab a plate, do you grab the top plate or do you grab underneath? You know, like do you, do you, let me tell something. You have to like your grandmother. Yeah.

I know a lot of white people. don't like their grandma, don't like going over their grandmother house. If you are a black person that doesn't like going over your grandmother house, I judge you. You have to like going over your grandmother house. So there's some people who'd be, I don't want to go over the grandmother. That's like, that's for white kids. I don't want to go she's grandmother.

Grandma's old and all of that. Nah, that don't exist in our culture. We need to come up with a top 10 list of. Oxales is not going to be that far down the list. It's got to be another food. Macaroni and cheese probably, but oxal. No, no. there are a lot of us who do.

A lot of black people are lactose intolerant. Wait a second. Wait a second. So are you telling me you don't like macaroni cheese? I don't like... I don't eat cheese. And you know this. Okay, if we're talking dressing, greens, sweet potato pie, or just sweet potatoes, like a casserole.

Stop doing that. Don't like oxtails, don't like macaroni and cheese. Like, I could eat the meat. It's the gravy and everything that it comes in. It's just I can't eat that. I don't like that. I'm like saucy food. The grandmother's house is very important.

We'll get this list down. We'll consult people. Help us, thought warriors. I'm talking about these are some non-negotiables. Black thought warriors. You know, these are some non-negotiables. What about church? Church is different.

Like at least growing up. I think. I'm not saying as an adult. Church is an interesting one. Because a lot of us were, like, forced to go. You know, like, there's, that's what I say when you're young. That's like I'm older. Church is an interesting one.

And then there's some, there need to be some things that we get in there. That are maybe not in there. It needs to be some stuff that we put in to, we need to change the standard a little bit from being some of this stuff and maybe put some other things in there. Like, I would say if, like, Like you said liking black people. I said we need to define that very, very distinctly.

Okay. What that defines. Like you don't exploit and take advantage of and fuck over other black people. You know, maybe that's too much to ask. We're all human beings. But these cultural things, I feel like some people might grant you the oxtails, but the macaroni and cheese you're going to have a tough situation with in terms of that. But white people really like macaroni and cheese as well.

They don't like the same macaroni and cheese. But they like it. Nah, see, it's different though. No, I know. Just like they don't like the same potato salad. They, they, and the soy does kind of doesn't count. You don't eat potato salad. Saucy foods.

Like, I don't like mayonnaise. I don't like Caesar. I like, I don't like any egg in it. Like, I don't like whatever's in potato salad. It looks disgusting to me. Have you had potato salad? I don't like the ingredients in potato salad. Let me ask you a question.

I'll just ask again. Have you eaten it? Have you had it? You've never tried potato salad. No. It has things I don't like. Okay, but, okay, so I'm going to shoot you some bell on this because you don't even know if you like it. I don't like it.

Boiled eggs. I don't eat that. I'm looking at the ingredients. It looks disgusting to me. It's insanely good. Like really good. Like, so good. This episode is brought to you by sweet cream.

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Olympics beat. I'm going to give you your choice. What you want to talk about? We got to talk about the bounce back. The what? I got to talk about the pole vault. Oh, you want to talk about it? Go ahead.

No, no, no, no. I'm just saying. We have to talk about both. This is going to be super quick. We cannot cover the Olympics and not talk about what had my group chats blowing up. I don't even know if my girlfriends were watching the Olympics until the moment that Polvalter, Anthony Amarotti, took flight. Now, he was disqualified because he missed his. the height, the target height of the full of all.

Lost. But as he was coming down, it hit his, how are they referring to it? Manhood. It is, his, it knocked. His cockwagon. It knocked it. And when I tell you, it,

let me just read some of the things you were saying in my chat. Do you see the freak nasty dog? No, I'm not. It just was so. Did you see, like, Rachel, I want you guys to, Ashley, do me a favor. Run that back. It knocked it.

And when I tell you it. See, I always get the blame. But you're Rachel's freakiness. No, I'm just saying. But the Rachel, she's blushing. I'm already shiny, you know, from the sunscreen. Listen, I was told we had to discuss this on the pot. These are the messages I got.

I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I saw this. This man is bound to succeed in other areas after this. Nasty. People are saying he needed, someone said he needs an olefans now. I heard you got that nasty woman's disease. Someone said the way they would have had to escort me out of the stadium because I'm outside the locker room.

Someone said they would have been on the track with towels and water. Someone said they would have pretended to be a chander in the locker room. These are the things people were saying. It is one thing that he was disqualified, but it was that it hit his manhood. Then you saw it. It was just, I just never seen anything like it in the Olympics.

Like a situation like that. It was like an Olympic sport within an Olympic sport. Yeah. I was wondering, because a lot of times I think about the Olympics, I think, oh, you work your whole life to get there and then. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. But for him, did he lose? Absolutely not.

I mean, I'm sure he wanted to win the pole vault. But now he's the cockwagon hero of like the entire world. And now he probably has all kinds of different opportunities. because of that. When one door closes, another one opens. Yeah, it's probably going to have to open pretty wide for him, too. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, look, he said it's a big disappointment. The conditions were good. It was the first time I started a competition without any stress. As I was a total outsider, I had one goal to play with the audience. This man knows, this man is a menace. This man is a menace. Come on now. Yeah. Yeah. It's a big disappointment.

He knows what he's going on. had one goal play to play with the audience. Who says that? So your friends in the the dick chat is not what it's called now. The dick chat.

They want to date him. They want to be with him. They want to see him. They didn't say they want to date him. They just wanted to be in the vicinity. Maybe a closer look. To see what the... Yeah.

They might have to change the equipment for pole vaulters. Maybe that nigger could just use his dick to jump over the pole. Because what he didn't say is that he was hurt. He didn't seem injured by this. Do you think his dick is impervious to pain? Yeah.

It was two poles hit. And then one pole lost. It's funny. It's funny. I've never seen, but I've never seen someone's physical attributes get in a way of something like that. I've never seen it happen. Man, shout out to him. That man, he'd be the man.

You want to see it? Okay. See? Freak shit. This is what I'm talking about. Just remember, whenever I get blamed or vandal, because they say it on Reddit that I'm a sexual degenerate. You're a sexual deviant.

I'm a deviant. But you get down and dirty with it. You've been flying. You're moving around a lot. That happens to me. But you get down and dirty with it. I'm like skating over it. You know, I'm not getting in the thick of it.

I didn't even say dick. I said manhood. It's still at the end of the day is still dick lust. See, this is what I don't like about people. Yeah. is dick lust. It's still dick lust. And that's okay.

My thing is this, it's okay. You got the dick lust. Your group chat got the dick lust. I know I probably know some of the girls who are in that group chat. That's the dick is not in it. I just want to be very clear. It's like you guys got the dick lust in there. I don't have a problem with the dick lust.

But like you guys got the dick lust. It's cool. When we get the ass lust. I don't say anything. Or whatever. Just let us have it. Because we know that y'all get the dick lust too. Everybody, you know, shout out to Anthony Amarotti.

I want to ask you about something. What country was he representing? See, now you're about to go, you're about to go stop the man's native country. I think he's French. Yep. I think he's French. Last thing.

There was a lady who. Sorry. I'm just looking at what the headlines say. What's the headline say? Viral poll, Walter, Anthony Amarotti, He breaks silence after Bulge-related incident. Boles relate his dick and the thing. Break silence after bulge crushed his opportunity.

Bulge, just what they get said. He gets $250,000 offer from a porn site reported by TMZ. You got to take it. You have to take it. When one door closes, another one opens. So that was a badminton lady. She won gold at the Paris Olympics. I'm not saying her name because I don't want to butcher her name.

She won gold and she had the gold medal around her neck. She was walking out. Yes. Another member of China's badminton team, she's from China, another member of the badminton team, proposed to her. Okay. It was a proposal. She won gold and then she got proposed to.

She said, for me, the proposal was very surprising because I have been preparing for the game. Today, and I am an Olympic champion, and I got proposed to. So that's something I didn't expect. There has been all types of talk on the Twitter sphere, the internets, about whether or not this was an appropriate proposal. I saw Mandy. Shout out to Mandy, Weasie over there at the Horrible Decisions Podcast. Mandy was like, how dare he make it about himself?

Yeah, she said, I would never. want a man kind of who makes it the moment about him. Her moment about him, he's proposing your thoughts. I think people are like getting two up in arms about this. I don't think it's that deep. A proposal is personal and it's particular to that couple. If you choose to do it a different way, that's absolutely your prerogative. But it doesn't mean that you should shit on other people for them to do it.

One, I'm not sure if people are familiar and I'm not. with the customs of how proposals are done. Maybe he had spoken to her before about the type of proposal that she wanted it. I, despite having been proposed to previously in a very public way, I always wanted a private proposal. So this wouldn't be for me. But I'm not going to knock these people for doing it. Some people like to do proposals on memorable days.

I've seen people do it on birthdays, maybe on a first date, maybe on a first vacate, a lot of first. So you can tie it to a memory. For her, this was a huge achievement. and he also maybe wanted to elevate that experience. Who knows? Do you think it was self-centered? Because people are necessarily...

I don't think it was self-centered at all. Proposals are about the... Usually, well, proposal is about the person you're proposing to because I can't say it's gender specific. It's not... It's heroin if it won't be there. But it's about the person you're proposing to. So, like, how can it be about you?

Like, you're down on one knee. It's all about that person. You know, like, it's dependent on them saying yes. It's about... them. They are the moment, no matter how you see it. I saw two different things. I saw some women saying that a public proposal, especially in a situation like that, it kind of forces her to say yes, which I don't know what she said. She said she was taking, she had a picture with her with the ring on her finger. They kind of forced her to say yes. And then secondly, people are saying it's her moment,

let her have her moment, proposed back in Olympic Village, proposed after the cameras aren't there. Don't make her moment about you. Most of these people, I pray for their loneliness. But I can see, I can see at least someone going, okay, it's her big deal. Now it becomes their big deal. Let her shine.

She was shining in the biggest way. She had a gold medal around her neck and a ring on her finger. That woman was shining. And I just think it's wild that people would say, so like what constitutes not making it about you.

So you can't do it on her birthday, basically. There are rules now. You can't propose on the birthday because what you're making it about you and it really is her birthday. I don't really understand the logic behind that. I don't get it. No way was this about this man. This is what I say.

I guess you're saying, sorry, it interrupt you. I'll just say this. I guess they're saying he centered himself. This was all about her and he injected himself. But for her to get this ring on her finger. Like, she got two things now to be excited about. Yeah. This is what I say.

Hey, I get it. So I'm going to talk about. I'll say this all the time. Just everybody be okay with being by themselves. And I'm not saying this in a mean way. Just know that like, and this is men, women, like, everyone. Just everybody be okay with being by yourself. Because that's the main thing.

thing. And the only reason why I say that is because like, it just not going to go every way your way the entire thing. That perfect shit don't exist. People are a little fucked up. They're a little crazy. It happens.

Okay? Well, relationships come. Relationships go. It's no big deal. But I do see a lot of people just shrinking the pool of acceptable things down to a limit that isn't possible for anyone to really adhere to because people just, they people sometimes. Yeah.

You know? Yeah, yeah. We got to move off the Olympics now. That was a lot of Olympus coverage. My back hurts, God damn it. Yo, I want to talk about a story just real quick. And it's not in the rundown. This is a racial surprise.

I want to talk about the violence that's going on in Europe. I'm sure you've seen it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I just want to let people know real quick. We're not going to harp on this because we'll talk a little bit more about it in depth on Thursday. But there were a series of stabbings that happened a terrible, unimaginable crime. That happened at Taylor Swift dance class. Children stabbed and killed, a rampage.

Just a ridiculously despicable disgusting abhorrent. Just the worst of the worst. Misinformation has led to all types of unrest and rioting and violence by far-right groups in the UK. It was reported that the person that committed these crimes was an asylum seeker that was in the UK. That is not true. It was someone that was born to Rwandan parents in Wales. So this is someone from the UK, born in Wales. The misinformation exacerbated long existing xenophobic xenophobic.

xenophobia and racial tension that has been existing that has been coming to a head in the UK for a while. The same far-right movements that exist here that are popping up in different parts in South America, all of the places, those same far-right movements exist in Europe

and this sense of they will not replace us. xenophobia and violent thought has been rearing its ugly head for a long time. And now what you see is the Southampton stabbing's leading to violence in the UK. And violence at random. They're just picking people that have dark skin and beating the shit out of them, hurting them, harming them, destroying businesses over a lie, over something that isn't true.

In fact, this was not someone who was an asylum seeker. And by the way, they identified the person, the suspect in this because the suspect is under 18. And typically they would not identify him in the UK. But the judge made the decision to identify this person to quell some of the uproar, the criminal activity that's going on over there, so that people would know that this wasn't an asylum seeker and you shouldn't beat up your Muslim, Indian, or whatever neighbor, your neighbor from the Middle East,

your neighbor from Africa, your neighbor from a different country that might be there seeking asylum because you think that the asylum seekers killed three young girls at a dance class. Guys, the misinformation that you're being fed All of that stuff, it's coming to a head.

That's all I'm going to say. It's coming to a head. It's very important to hold accountable the lies. That's why you hear people say, let's fact-check Donald Trump. Let's not just give Donald Trump the ability to go on any platform. If you're going to interview them, interview them, fine. But the lies, the misinformation, all of these things. It's very important to confront them head on because if not, they're inculcated

into people's intellectual truths and those type of things end up becoming a powder cake that explodes. It catches on like wildfire. I mean, we literally on the last podcast were just talking about a story that dealt with misinformation and the way that just,

I mean, even after it has been proven in regards to Amani, the boxer, even though it's been proven that she's a woman and like, there's no transgender athletes and it's illegal in the country and all of these. And she's lost to other women, all these things. I'm sitting in the getting my hair done

and they're still talking about it. And telling lies, I'm going back and forth or my sister's going back and forth with my uncle on social media. Still like, well, I saw this on YouTube. The way it gets fixated, these lies, because it fits a narrative or a bias or prejudice that they already have and just feeds into that is so dangerous. And that's what you're seeing in the UK. And that's what scary is. How do we are so connected as a world, things catch on

so quickly that once people make up in their minds something to believe, they don't want to believe anything else. And we need to understand how dangerous that is. That is a scary place to live because, or scary place to be, because you could be subject. to that. It could fall into something that, you know, who you are, who you represent, and then you become a victim of this. We can't live in a world where we believe the first thing that we hear without doing any type of research, questioning, fact-checking. Just these two incidents alone is like, it has me shook. That is, and obviously this has been going on, but to see it catch on like this and then not catch on just in the way people think,

but that people are acting on it makes it the scarier part. Rioters have attacked hotels used to house asylum seekers. They beat people up at random and we should say these are far right groups that are leading this attack,

this unrest. By this point, there has been enough out there for a lot of these groups to know that this is a lie that they're basing this on. This is what they want to. do. So the misinformation, the xenophobia, the racism, there's always an outlet for it. There's always a place that it goes. Yeah. So it's very important for people to prioritize others' humanity in the ways that we're having these political debates that we're talking about it. Look, I'm not going to say

that it's not appropriate in a country to talk about borders. Or to talk about immigration or to talk about all of that stuff. You're going to have conversations about that. It's always been a part of the conversation here in the United States and the beyonds with you. The United States has had in its past some really, really terrible laws and regulations surrounding immigration. The country of immigrants give us you're tired and you're weak and you're broken. that's largely PR. I'm not saying that America is not a place that's made up

of a lot of different immigrant groups. What I am saying is anytime America is threatened or anytime the white power system of America is threatened by anything, be it procreation, be it immigration or whatever, that white power base is going to hit back. And it's not the first time that we're seeing that happened. It's happened in the past, too. But even within those things that are coded xenophobic or coded races or whatever,

it's important that the truth is used as a disinfectant because people will die. And another thing is, last thing I'll say about it, is we're not even talking about the beautiful young girls, the innocent young girls that were killed in this situation and what needs to happen in order to keep our children safe and how something like this could have happened. And then all, we're not even talking about that now because that's been hijacked by people who just want to go bust a nigger's head in. Mm-hmm.

There's a cost. The most bizarre political story I think I've ever heard of. Is it a political story? It is. It is now. Okay. Okay. I want to say something.

I know a lot of people that have been trying to get me to do different events with RFK Jr. And look, shout out to them because these are some great people. Some great people. You mean events? I don't want me to come. want me to, you know. They want you to interview? They want me to interview, RFK, and all that

stuff like that. It was more, it was more of, it was a different interview when he was polling a lot of 20%, but I wasn't being asked at him. It was different times. I want everybody talking to RFK. I'm out on it. I don't want to. And these have got some great people. So this is, this is what pushed you over the edge.

Yeah, this is what pushed me over the edge. Okay, I was already out, but okay. I was on, I know, I was, but this is what pushed me over the edge. Look, it, uh, RFK planted a dead bear in Central Park 10 years ago there was a dead bear found in Central Park

and it was quite a story and no one knew what happened to this bear cub was a bear cub six months old no one knew what happened to this bear and it was a big story no one knew how he got there It turns out, R.FK Jr. fucking put the bear there. Are we fucking, is this true?

Like, the man is wild. He's a menace. This nigga wild as fuck. Could this really be happening? And guys, it's not like he just came out to say this story. It was going to be leaked. The New Yorker was going to run it. They called him because they were fact-checking this story that was going to come to,

that they were going to release because you have to call him, fact check on a written story. And then he decided to jump ahead of it by putting it on social media. Yeah, he put it on Rosa. Give us the audio. And talking with Roseanne Barr. Of RFK Jr. describing fucking clean over Yogi's pal boo-boo.

It's not even Yogi. It's boo-boo. It's Yogi's little homie. This niggas is a sicko. Like, play the video. Play the audio. Just taking a group of people talking about. And up in the coast in New York up in Hudson Valley,

and I was supposed to meet them there at like maybe eight or nine. I was driving up maybe, you know, really early, like seven. And that woman in a van in front of me hit a bear and killed it, a young bear. So I pulled over and I picked up the bear and put him in the back of my van because I was going to skin the bear. And it was very good condition. and I was going to put the meat in my refrigerator. And you can do that in New York City.

You can get a bear tag for a roadkill bear. And so then we went hawking, and I had the bear in my car. And then we had a really good day, and we went late. We were catching a lot of game, and the people really loved it. So we stayed late. And instead of going back to my home in Westchester, I had to go right to the city because there was a dinner. at Peter Lugar's steakhouse. And at the end of the dinner, it went late.

And I realized I couldn't go home. I had to go to the airport. And the bear was in my car, and I didn't want to leave the bear in the car. Because that would have been in bed. So then I thought, you know, at that time, this was the little bit of the redneck in me. There'd been a series of bicycle accidents in New York.

They had just put in the bike lane. and saw people, a couple of people that couldn't kill and it was every day and people had gotten badly injured every day it was in the press and so I thought I wasn't drinking of course but people were drinking with me who thought

this was a good idea and I said I had an old bike in my car that somebody had asked me to get rid of it and I said let's go put the bear in in Central Park and we'll make it look like he got in by a bike fun funny for people So everybody thought that's a great idea. So we went and did that and we thought it would be amusing for whoever found it or something.

The next day, it was like, it was on every television station. It was the front page of every paper. And I turned on the TV and there was like a mile of yellow tape and there were 20 car cars. There were helicopters flying over it. And I was like, oh my God. what did I do? And then there were there was some people on TV

and tie back suits with gloves on lifting up the bike and they're saying they're going to take this up to all they did have a famous friend and I was worried because my friends were all over that bike and luckily

the story died after a while and it stayed dead for a decade. And the New Yorker somehow found out about it. And they're going to do a big article on me, and that's one of the articles. So they asked me the fact trucker said, you know, it's going to be a bad story. What? Let's go put the Barron's Central Park and we'll make it look like he got hit by a bike.

And they laughed and said it would be. be amusing for whoever found it. In what world? Why do these, because he's a libertarian, these, do politicians hate animals? We had the lady who killed her dog. Oh, yes. What was her name again? She was the governor of South Dakota or something like that.

Find the name for me, Ashley. I forgot her name already. She lied in the book. Then she said she met Kim Jong-un, and then she didn't really meet him. She took it out of the book. she had a bad little go of it. She's, Christy Noem.

She said that she met Kim Jong-un, and then in the book she wrote it. And then she took it out of the book because people were like, that's a lie. And then whenever she got asked about the fact that she took it out of the book because it wasn't true, she would just be like, I'm not talking about the book anymore.

I'm not talking about my meetings with world leaders. It's weird. It's weird. But she killed a dog. She killed a dog. Two things about this. I think he's lying. I think he hit the bear.

100%. That's number one. Well, one or two. Either he hit the bear, because when I watched the report from 10 years ago, I could have sworn they said he was slashed. So I don't put it above him

just like full out killing. He's just fucking with ape shit on a bear. Like either way it goes, there was no van in front of him that hit that bear. He killed, first of all, I strongly believe there's an allegation I strongly believe that RFK Jr. killed the bear.

Sadly, yeah. Okay, strongly believe. If you took any one part of that story, it's fucking crazy. First of all, they're going hawking. They're going falconing. They're hunting game with hawks. Who the fuck is this, Nick? Is this a Batman villain?

They're going hawking. They had so much fun hawking all day that they didn't want to leave. He puts the bear in there. He goes to Peter Lugar Steakhouse. He goes to a meeting. Would you know he valeted? Was he valeted? The bear was in the car.

The bear is in the back of the car. The whole day, you guys, I've hunted, okay? I've hunted. I've hunted. I've hunted, deer, hunting, all kinds of stuff. You take the game. I've never in life. I've killed deer.

I've killed rabbit. I've killed squirrel. I have never been in any situation where a deer had to be or rabbit had to be in the truck the whole day. never on the ride home we getting them we we dressing them the whole not don't hunt anymore by the way I stopped hunting at 15 when I had a face off with a 16 when I had a face off with a rabbit I don't know if I've ever told that story before I think so but this guy's fucking nuts a bear he said he wanted to skin it it was in good condition

not a lot of people eat bear that's also something that's little he's he's okay let's say all that happens the way that it happens okay let's say RFK Jr. kills bear. Bear is in the car all day long for whatever reason. You go to Peter Lugar you go to a meeting. You're in the city. You're in Manhattan. Peter Lugar, well, not you're in New York.

Peter Lugar is in Brooklyn, but you're in New York and you've got a dead bear. Okay. You take the bear and then you dump the bear in Central Park and frame an anonymous. bike rider for it.

R. F.K. Jr. is the fucking Joker. I'm sorry. You can't tell me right now that RFK Jr., besides all of the other crazy shit that he has said that's come out of his mouth. And it's been a lot of crazy shit that he said. But this is actually, there's a picture of him making the dead bear bite his hand. Did you see the picture? No. You didn't see a picture? I didn't see a picture. I didn't see a picture of the... I didn't see a picture of the...

It's a picture of him playing with the dead bear. Hold on. Oh, no. Rachel. That's not what I saw. I saw a picture of him holding up a dog talking about eating a dog. Rachel, look at him. Look at him.

Look at this guy. Like, I don't want to attribute to the fake. R.K. Jr. is a sick motherfucker. There's a really interesting article in Vanity Fair that goes along, like kind of gives a history of R.FK. Jr., starting from the fact that, you know, he was a 14. years old when his father died and how at 15 he started heroin for 14 years before he got off.

And it just talks about how there was a documentary that his sister Roy was doing and when they fact-checked the documentary like, you know, they're like, he was saying all these wonderful things and people were like, wow, he's so captivating, he's so charming, so well-spoken. Turns out none of this shit was true. They had to take out everything.

So he's been wild and whether it's attributed to childhood trauma, whether it's drug abuse and addiction for years. This man has been off the rails. It ain't just a tapeworm that he said, was in a said. He's been off the rails. There are stories in there of, like I said, I saw him taking a picture. He's holding up what looks to be like a dog.

It's cooked. He sends it to his friend who's on this way to Korea and says, South Korea and says, I hear they have good dog on the menu and shows himself biting into a dog. He says that's a goat. He said it's a goat, but why would he? He do, like the friend, the friend to this day who he sent it to says it was a dog. Like to the point where he sends so many bad images that one of the friends lost their phone and was afraid somebody would see it and see all the bad things that RFK Jr. does.

This man is unhinged. It's an allegation, but deranged. And it just. The bear isn't an allegation. The bear happened. But you talk about childhood trauma. But I'm talking about all of this. And the family is so private and secret if they've distanced themselves from them, but they won't do a tell on him.

They won't talk about him. talk about all the bad. They just cover it up. I'll tell you something right now. I'll tell you that's childhood trauma. That poor little bear. Okay? Wow.

That poor little bear. And you, there's a certain, I'm sorry, man. I don't want to, I don't want to, there's a certain respect that you're supposed to have. For the animals.

For the animal, for something that's alive, for something that was there, it's just, it reeks, of privileged white frat boy bullshit just to not even give a fuck and just to it's funny to throw the bear in Central Park. The bear story became one of the biggest stories in New York. Everybody covered it.

Everyone's looking for the culprit of the bear murderer. And I think we know who it is. I don't fuck around when it comes to animals. RFK Jr. It's a sick of. You said the white privilege thing because, or you maybe said privilege, I had it at the white. Okay, the white privilege because he refers to himself as a redneck in the clip, which also offended a lot of people. Like they were like, he's like, I guess it's just the redneck within me, which is why he felt like he needed to do this.

And there were people who were like, I consider myself that this is something I would never do. Also, Kennedy grew up on the Kennedy compound. Yeah. Nothing about you is from the sticks or whatever, or however rednecks identify, I don't want to do that. for them. But like to label yourself and say like, oh, this is something that a group of people would do and you're not and you don't even know anything about them because you didn't grow up that way.

You're up in Massachusetts and Virginia. McLean. Does I say it? We have an interview coming up with Mike Africa Jr. Who has a fantastic new book about the 1985 bombing that targeted the move

organization in Philadelphia. The legacy of that his involvement in move. All that's coming up in a second. Then get to Mike before we do. Harris is surging. Harris is surging. 538, which is run by Nate Silver,

now has Harrison Trump effectively tied in their polling averages. And something even more significant has happened to 538. For the first time in 538's predictive model, which predicts the winner based on a percentage, Harris is beating Trump. Great.

And that, of course, is making Donald Trump and his campaign fly into racist attacks. They're attacking Kamala Harris' laugh. They're attacking her blackness. They're using sexist attacks, all different types of things. They have not found anything yet. that seems to be denting the surge in momentum. She still has to pick the vice president. I think that by the time this podcast drops,

that choice might have been made, it seems like it's down to two people. Wasn't it leaked who it was? And then they took it down, or was that just a rumor? No. So it was Mark Kelly had seemingly said that he was out of it.

This was before then. I don't know. Right after we finished the podcast, there was something like that leaked that it was Shapiro. Josh Shapiro. And then like somebody accidentally leaked an interview or something and then they took it down. And I don't know if that was real or not.

So here's the deal with all of this goodwill. And this is why there's probably so much nervousness about the vice presidential pick. The right can't find anything to really ding Kamala Harris on just yet. Nothing's really sticking, right? Right. It's not going to go from being Joe Biden's border to her border. Right. Like the, she's not really. really black thing. That's kind of an

odd take, right? Some of the other stuff, like some of the sexist stuff, it's not really going to work, and it's going to alienate a lot of people. I personally think that the bigger issue for Kamala Harris is not going to be what the right

uses to attack her. It's going to be issues from within the party. For sure. It's going to be everybody who's loving her now figuring out in a couple of days or in a week reasons not to like her. And that's either going to be attached to any tweaks in her policy platform that she's made in the last couple of years in terms of what she believes. If she's not quite progressive enough for some, if she's not moderate for others. That'll be with the pick of the vice president. whether or not that person has a clean enough bill of political health for whatever they've done.

Yeah. I think a lot of the criticism, because the rights attacks don't seem to be really registering right now. Mm-hmm. But the most difficult game she's going to have to play is going to be within the party. I agree. I think it's going to be the progressive issue. That's what I think. And I think a pick like Shapiro will upset progressives.

And I think, and maybe people who are maybe in between liberal and progressive, what she would call that, who might be thinking, or just Democrats period, that might be thinking she's a little bit more progressive than she is. And with a vice president pick, I think it's going to be more revealing because you're going to have to attach their ideals to her. And I guess I'm more so speaking if it's Shapiro. Chink Uyghur from the Young Turks wrote an article for Newsweek. And it was about why Shapiro actually is.

is the progressive choice. He's all over him. He says that Shapiro has a history of taking on different corporate interests in Philadelphia, excuse me, in Pennsylvania. I don't think a lot of

people know very much about Josh Shapiro, other than two things that don't seem very progressive at all. One is his stance on school choice, and the other one is his stance on Israel. I thought

Chink's article was very interesting and I also thought that the fact that Fetterman, something else that Chink said, well, he said

this, I'd seen Fetterman attacked Josh Shapiro before and the question is like why. And I watched a video and Chink said that's probably

an attack that came directly from Benjamin Net and Yahoo. So I'll let people know. I do not know Josh Shapiro. I have never had any type of interaction

with Josh Shapiro. I think they're safer choices than Josh Shapiro. What do you mean about Nanyahu? What are you saying? This was what it came. So, okay, Shapiro has obviously been very hawkish on Israel and some of the things that he said, right?

He's also talked really bad about protesters and comparing them to the KKK in situations like that. Also, when he was a younger man in college, he had written an op-ed in his school paper. And the op-ed said that he doesn't think that the Palestinians will ever be able to self-governed because they're too warlike. I'm paraphrasing, but that's basically what he said. When asked about that, he basically said he's changed a lot since then, obviously he was a 20-year-old kid,

and things are different now. However, he obviously is a lover of Israel. There was also another report that he spent some time on an IDF base or something like that. He went and trained with the IDF for a day for some odd reason. He was staying on one of the kibbutz in Israel,

and for some reason he went and trained with the idea, whatever. So people were saying he's very, very close and tied into Israel. He also, though, said, and this is just based on reading that I've done, that Benjamin Netanyahu was the worst leader in the world. And there are some people that think that Josh Shapiro's love for Israel might be a way to actually get to a two-state solution. And everybody just rolled their eyes when I said that. But what Chink and some other progressives that I've heard is not just Chink,

but some other progressives that I've said that I've heard, I've said that this is a guy who might actually be willing to bring some sort of stability to Israel and urge them to change their reputation on an international stage because he thinks that that's the best thing for the long-term safety of Israel. Israel. See, that's kind of not the way people talk. There's a school of thought that the best thing for the long-term safety of Israel is the obliteration of Gaza, the complete annexation of the West Bank, and the massive genocide and ethnic cleansing of close to 7 million people. I don't see any way how anyone could

believe that. because then you have a country that no matter how big its friends are has a perpetual bad reputation or excuse me it has a terrible reputation in perpetuity right which never stops the terrorism which blah blah blah blah blah blah the best way the best thing for safety in the region is the sovereignty of the the Palestinian people that's the best thing for safety in a region.

But if you're too hawkish on it, you don't believe that. There you go. So some people are saying that Shapiro is that guy. Gotcha. And that he might not necessarily be the anti-progressive choice. That's just a little bit of...

Interesting. Interesting. I don't know that to be true or untrue. It's interesting. I just know that I've never, ever, ever met a school choice Democrat. And I'm not a one-issue guy, but I've never met a school choice Democrat.

a school choice Democrat that I had much in common with. Because, but there are other things. He gave like a billion dollars to public schools. We just don't know that much about him. Sure. We don't know that much about him, and he's a very dynamic figure. So that pick right there comes with a lot of intrigue from some people. I wonder since, you know, Trump is now, you know, backing out saying he only wants to debate

Kamala Harris on September 4th and it's got to be on Fox News, even though he had previously agreed on September 10th. And I don't know what will happen with that, but I wonder if the vice presidents will debate. And that could, I mean, I'm sure whoever the pick is will learn more about them prior to that. But that would be a really interesting way to like challenge someone on, you know, their issues and their stances and for the public to get to know. Yeah, I mean, if you're thinking about who looks better in a debate in front of the American people, if you're thinking about running a score up like that, I mean, Shapiro would find with the other guy right now. is down at two. The other guy is Walsh from Minnesota, which you think

progressives would be all four, but then there's some baggage with him in terms of the way he dealt with protesters doing the BLM protests. But even that wouldn't be something that the right could hit him on. It would be something that made people

within the tent mat. But Shapiro would fucking dog walk J.D. Vance in a vice presidential debate. That would be great. he would fucking dog walk him. That would be a 21-0-nothing swacking that would happen. All right, before we get to Mike Africa Jr.,

just let you guys know, Kyle Rittenhouse has reversed his course. They bullied him into supporting Trump, or maybe Kyle was just looking for some attention. Attention at that time, but he seems to have gotten it. And now he is back on the Trump badwagon. We reported the other stories, so we had to report this one too. So I guess my whole big theory that he was being bullied into distances of himself away from Trump was wrong. He's died of Woolmaga.

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We have joining us on Higher Learning right now, one of the most sought-after writers and speakers in America, in the world, has a new book coming out August 6th called On a Move, Philadelphia's notorious bombing and a native son lifelong battle for justice representing the move organization out of Philadelphia.

We have Mike Africa Jr. joining us today on Higher Learning. How are you doing, my brother? I feel great. How are y'all doing today? We're good. We're really good. And thank you for being here.

You know, what happened in Philly with the move bombing back in the day is one of the most like you say on the cover of your book, Notorious Happenings in the History of Black America, and the History of America. It also ranks very high on the list of things the uninitiated would not think had ever happened

or were possible in America's history. As you continue to tell this story and continue to do the work that you're doing right now, what do you think is the specific importance of Moves' legacy and, you know, and and of recognizing what happened during, with the bombing? Well, I think the thing that probably sticks out for me to most is that the things that that Moved was talking about wasn't, wasn't the kind of thing that you would think of as as unreasonable as, you know, clean water, you know, food, clean food, good education. it really wasn't unreasonable things.

But in this society, as we've seen, you know, Dr. King was talking about equality. I want to drink from this clean water fountain. You know, Ruby Bridges, can we get some schooling? You know, why I got to go to school, you know, so it's like, it's, you know, it wasn't unreasonable, but to the people that's in power sometimes, you know, simple ass can be, can be unreasonable.

And I think the biggest takeaway for me on this is that the people that committed this atrocity and dropped this bomb, nobody served any punishment for it. You know, the police commissioner that put shrapnel in the bomb to make sure that it did the most harm that it could possibly do upon detonation. The fire commission that's let the fire burn, the mayor that was a part of the orchestration of the bombing that shot 10,000 rounds of ammunition by the police. nobody except for the lone adult survivor Ramona Africa served anytime in prison the children that were killed five children were shot to death

burned to death the 10 medicine museum stole their body parts and put them in the museum you know and there was no punishment for the people who did these things and you know it's kind of right it's like

It's unbelievable. It's hard to believe in a country that is supposed to be so free that we're dealing with issues like this right now in 2020, 2020. You know, when we heard about, when we learned about slavery and, you know, the Jim Crow South and all of these things that are in our parents and grandparents' time period, you know, it's like those things don't happen anymore. But right here today, 2004, we're still dealing with Penn and Princeton stealing the remains of children that were bombing victims from 1985. And no accountability. There's nobody suffering any punishment for it. That's a crime.

Take it back a second because it's embarrassing for me to admit this. And I'm sure a lot of our listeners might be hearing about move and what happened in May of 1985 for the first time. I didn't learn about it until a few years ago watching the documentary you did with Tommy Oliver. That was the first time. And I was incredibly upset that something like this happened the year I was born and I had no idea about this. And I would imagine I was actually talking to someone because I was saying we were going to interview you and they had not even heard about it. And it's so troubling that this happened in our own country and people don't know. So for you and for some of our or for our audience members who might not know,

can you talk about why now you're writing the book because it's my understanding that this is the first time someone from Move is telling the story. Right. I'm glad you asked me that. One of the things about Move is that move is just like any other group. Move is just like any other family. Everybody's got the uncle and the aunt that they really don't want to see on Thanksgiving.

give in, but you kind of got to invite them because they're family. You know what I mean? And so Move has a lot of people in an organization that just don't like each other. And, you know, there's kind of a hierarchy too. And some people kind of dictate about what should be done and what shouldn't be done. And I just like kind of bucked the whole system. It was like, you know what? I'm not listening to y'all stupid.

I'm not listening to y'all no more. So like when I was working on some of the projects like, you know, fight for political prisoners, like Mumi Abu Jamal and my parents were in prison for 40 years and all these things. It just hit me. Like, we always complaining about the system telling our story wrong or lying about something. We read the paper. It didn't happen that way. And then I'm thinking about it. I'm like, yo, nobody has ever written a story about the history of move. Ramone Africa survived a bomb. She never wrote the story of Moved. My mother and my father and other Move members spent 40 years in prison. During that time they were in prison, they never wrote a book

about the history of Moved. And with John Africa being my great uncle, he founded the organization in the 70s. And my grandmother was, uh, is his sister and my aunt Louise. She owned a house on OCE Avenue. We are nearly 50 years in of the history of Moves existence. And I'm just like, you know what? Somebody got to do it. You ever hear the story of Dory Miller? Dory Miller, Dory Miller was a cook on a on a naval ship, a black cook on a naval ship. And they were being attacked by kamikaze's Japanese air fleet. And while he was cutting potatoes in the mess hall, the person that's supposed to be on the gun is under the table. hiding, shivering.

And Dory Miller's like, if you under the table, who's on the gun? So he ran up above deck and he started firing and he shot. shot down six or seven kamikazis and stopped them from destroying the naval fleet. And when they asked him as they giving him his awards for his valor and all of this, they asked them, they said, what made you go up there as a cook? What made you decide to get on the gun? And he said, I did what had to be done. And that's why I wrote this book on the move, because it hadn't been done and I did what had to be done. Yeah. I think I, you know, I learned about that. It's funny. I learned about that because Cuba played him in a movie, I think.

I think Cuba Gooding Jr. There was a movie where Cuba Gooding Jr. goes and grabs a gun and my dad. I'm sitting down with my dad. My dad goes, boy, that really happened. That's an American hero right there. There you go. Yeah.

So you were born into the movement. You were born into the movement. What was it like growing up around so many people that were so deep into the struggle for liberation and equality? It was terrifying. It was terrifying. Every time you turn around there's a fight, there's some kind of confrontation. You don't know if people are going to go to this demonstration and come home or go to jail.

It was terrifying. And, you know, there's a lot, when there's a lot happening and the kids are not the primary target for information, a lot of information you find out later. And I think that was the kind of big disservice for me. It was like, you know, neighbors knew more about what was happening with the, external side of move because they were reading the newspapers and they were watching the news. So it was like certain things about the organization, they knew that we didn't know, even though we were members in the organization.

And, you know, you always knew that something was going to get worse. That's what it was like. You know, the move members are yelling at neighbors about something. They're fighting with the police about something. We're in court for something and a fight breaks out. The dogs are coming to attack dogs on the. police. It was, there was always something. And you just had that feeling that one day something's going to get really bad. Even as a young person, you just felt it. And, um, you know, it was,

it was terrifying. But I think that the, the security of knowing that you got all of these other people, even though you're going through these things, you got people with you. You got people got, they got your back. Everybody is down for, okay, if it's going down, we're going down together. and if it's going and if it's not going down, we're going to be victorious together too. So that was a positive aspect, but it was terrifying,

man, to know that, like, at any given moment, everybody that you know and love could just be swept off and taken to jail and you never see them again.

You know, people died. People got, you know, hurt really bad. People, arms got broken. People got burned. It was terrifying, you know, and,

and, and just because that error is over doesn't mean that the trauma, that the trauma that I experienced is over. You know, I still live with it. I still wake up sometimes thinking about things and trembling. It's terrifying. But, you know, but the important thing is we've got to keep moving.

Yeah, you kind of alluded to this a little bit, but if you can discuss the aftermath of the bombing and the impact that it had on the organization and you and your family and just the community in general. Yeah, you know, that's a wound that never, that has never healed and never will for the people that remember it. If you talk to anybody about the bombing that remember when it happened, they know exactly where they were when it happened, they know what they were doing when it happened, and they

never, they can always, there's always a sense of discomfort around the topic because children died, you know, I mean, you could say whatever you want to say about move. Move was crazy, move was violent, move was terrorists. They were over. over the top. They were, what was it, radical, but, you know, you can't say that about them kids. The moved children, you're talking about nine-year-old kids, 10-year-old kids, they didn't deserve to be shot and bombed and burned

and their bodies being stolen by a museum and preserved on somebody's trophy room. You know, so the impact is devastating. anybody, and not just by like the community members of move or their surrounding area. When the government dropped that bomb, they let that fire burn and it burnt down 61 homes and left 250 people homeless instantly. Today, you're at your friend's house, you're at your cousin's house, spend the night when you go home to no home. And those people haven't forgotten about that.

They, you know, they still feel the effects of that. Their houses were never rebuilt the way they were before. They always had issues with it. They had the trauma of going to school and people asking them questions about what happened on your block. I mean, it's a whole, it's a boy that will never be filled. There's no amount of time that will pass that can fix what happened on that day. You know, so, you know, we all still feel. And the police officers.

I know there's a lot of police officers who did not know what they were going out there to do that day that feel the effects of what happened out there too. I know some police officers actually committed suicide after the bombing and after the testimony of other officers that admitted to shooting at children. You know, and so the firemen, the doctors that nursed people to health that have been victims of the burns, you know, everybody that knows anything about that bombing when it happened still feel the effects of it heavily. The book is On a Move Philadelphia's notorious bombing and a Native Sun's

Lifelong Battle for Justice is out August 6th Justice is in the title What And you don't have to give up too much Because we want to go out and get the book We'll have to give us too much What would be justice

What justice do you feel like You're searching for and looking for The justice for me In this book comes from part of the struggle for me in life was that

during some of these confrontations between move and the city of Philadelphia as police my parents were arrested and they were put in prison

and they were given 100 years sentences for a crime they did not commit and justice for me was seeing my family free and that was

you know that, you know, I was, listen, I was born in the jail cell. My parents had been in prison longer than I've been alive. And when I was 13 years old and started to learn about their imprisonment and that they were in prison, these two black people were in prison for killing a white cop, even though everybody know they didn't do it. The mayor of the city said he know they didn't do it. The judge that sentenced them said he didn't believe they did it, but they were still going to be sentenced. with this 100-year sentence. And when I was 13 years old,

I started working to free them. I started trying to find the needle in a haystack. I've traveled around the world, trying to get support from people with Ramona Africa and other move members and trying to get their freedom. And for me, justice would have been to see them come home from prison.

Have your parents read the book? And if so, like, what are their thoughts? They don't like to read it because it takes them back to a time that was really uncomfortable. I mean, imagine you're in a prison cell and you're trying to get information about your family members that were bombed.

You don't know what happened. You can't rely on the news media. Anybody that you would call to get information are people that were at the house that was bombed. So who do you call? So it's just, for them, most of the book is just torment. And, you know, as they would send me letters and talk about what they,

thought of it, you know, I could feel the pain through the pen. I could hear the pain in their voices as they talked about it over the phone. So they don't really like to read it, but the accuracy of it, they respect. Mike, the movement's taken so much from you, man, so much from people. What has it given you? I don't think the movement has really taken anything from me. I think system has taken something from me. The movement has given me love. You know, I get, I get love and support everywhere I go from people in the movement and the struggle.

I know every child of the children of revolutionaries, the daughters of Assad of Shakur, the son of Fred Hampton, the children of Russell Maroon Shouts, Dr. King, Nina Simone, I know everybody

that are children of revolutionaries. Malcolm X's kids. I'm in connection and community with people, Sonia Sanchez and everywhere. And the movement has given me life and support and love and hugs, and I love it. But the system, you know, they've taken my parents away from me. You know, they've taken opportunities for me to get to know my other moved brothers and sisters by taking their lives. You know, they've taken a lot.

But, you know, listen, I have a thing that I developed when I was a young person. And it is happiness is a choice. And we're all going to go through things. everybody's going to experience sadness. Some people may just experience depression. You know, there's a lot of negative thoughts that will roam through our minds as we live this life. But I believe that happiness is a choice. And you can either get busy trying to wrap your mind around why this system exists

and does the type of things to black people and to us that it does and use that as an excuse to wallow and self-pity. Or you can get busy building the structure to create your own. own mental satisfaction. And I really believe in that. And I use that as a tool to keep myself feeling better about the situation and the life that I live. And I have some great achievements. You know, if you read the book, you'll learn a lot about the achievements that I've come up, come across for myself. And I'm very proud of the person that I've become over these years. I was going to ask you, but it sounds like you kind of answered it in writing this book if you felt like it was a healing process for you in any way.

I know writing can be very therapeutic, but if helping to tell this story in your words and somebody who lived it healed you anyway, but I mean, you kind of already answered it. It does. It's helpful because when you have to remember and revisit certain thoughts that you had, One of the things that I found about writing this book is during the research process, even though I know the story, I still have to research certain things. I have to ask my family members what happened on this day. Certain things happened before I was born. So even though I might know the story, you still have to, you know, do that due diligence to learn and investigate. And I learned that a lot of people didn't hate us as much as we thought they did. a lot of the issues that we had with people were simple misunderstandings, that without the tension that was created by like the news media and city hall, we wouldn't have actually been enemies. There is a person by the name of Andino Ward.

He is the father of the son, the kid that survived the bombing. His name was, the kid's name was Bertie, Africa, and later, when he reunited with his father, he became Michael Moses Ward. And I had never known Andino Ward before. And all the stories that I heard about him were like, people just told me these stories that he was like a monster. After the smoke cleared and some time passed, I reached out to him. Just, you know, found a way to call him on the phone. And I really wish I knew him then because some of the same issues that Moved complained about

or dealt with, he was doing the same thing. It's mind-boggling to me that there wasn't a good relationship between him and some of the members of Moved because when I talk to him now, he's got a show on the actual factuals, kicking the actual factuals. And I'm listening to him, And I'm like, he sounds like us in a lot of ways talking about some of the issue.

So it was really, really important that I learned that lesson because Bertie was one of the big brothers to me in the organization. And I never got to see him again after the bombing. And so to learn that his father is this amazing person that has, I mean, moving him will never get along because he believes, you know, what he believes about how things went wrong and move and it, you know, created a situation that harmed his son. But that being said, the ideologies around certain things are so similar is scary. So I think that community, it's like a relationship, like a marriage.

I've been together with my wife for 27 years. And communication is the most important aspect of our relationship. We, we, in the beginning, we would argue while we were. agreeing about something. Yeah, it's crazy, right? He doesn't know how to communicate. And that's something that I learned to be very valuable for writing this book. Last question for me, and you've been so generous for your time.

On a move, Philadelphia's notorious bombing and the Native Sun's lifelong battle for justice. Philadelphia now, as a city, move had very specific goals in dealing with things worldwide across the diaspora, all that very specific world, but also right there

in the city of Philadelphia. How do you feel like Philadelphia is now for the young black male, the young black female, the poor kid from the north side or anything like that? What do you see in the city now and what work is left to be done in Philadelphia? You read so many headlines, but I feel like a lot of those get kicked around like a political football. How do you think of the city? I think the city, as far as politics, has progressed. In the way of, you have more black politicians.

Philly had his first black mayor in 1985, which was Wilson Good, who was the mayor when the bomb was dropped on move. Since then, they've also had John Street and Michael Nutter. And now they have the first black woman mayor, Shirel Parker. And there's a lot of politicians on the lower level that are black. but I also believe that without like the uprisings of George Floyd

during that whole 2020 era Philly hasn't really changed that much Frank Rizzo was the mayor that sent my parents to prison and everybody in Philadelphia knows how notoriously racist he was just recently within the last few years

the statute the 13-foot bronze statue of Frank Rizzo was removed. Philadelphia is a city that is 50 or so percent black. There are over 2,200 monuments or statues of a figure of figures in Philadelphia, and only six represent black people. And one of them is a very, very new placement of a statue of Joe Frazier. But Rocky, a fictional character, a white fictional character, gets more visits to his statue than Joe Frazier, the man who gave Muhammad Ali the greatest of all time his first loss. So I think Philadelphia has a long way to go when it comes to the disparity of racism, when it comes to the disparity of women.

There's a whole lot of women's movement in Philadelphia that women are underpaid. they're undervalued. There's a whole issue of drugs. Philadelphia has a huge issue with drugs. And these issues haven't been, it's hard to say, like they haven't even scratched the surface of some of these major topics.

Philadelphia has a lot of work to do. I don't think that just because there's black politicians now, that is enough to say that we've succeeded in any major ways when the issues that people raised, which is why we wanted to get these black politicians in office, are still there in the city. We have a lot of work to do. Mike Africa Jr., thank you so much for joining the show.

Everybody go out and get the book. Tell them where they can get the book, where they can follow you, and how they can support you. You can get the book at www.w. www.m., there's a pop-up. It'll show, and you can click that button.

It'll take you to HarperCollins.com, and you can pre-order the book. You can follow me on Instagram at Mike Africa, Jr., here. And I'm on Facebook and Twitter. I don't usually do a whole lot of social media stuff myself, but I'm on there. You can find me. And then, of course, like, you know, we have other activities that we're doing. If you're in the Philly area, I'm doing a book signing at Temple at the Charles Library, and I'll be around. Come see me. Hollat you boy. All right, brother. Thank you, man. Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you all for having me. Of course. Take care.

All right. That's enough show. No more show. No more show. You got to go get some rest. I got to go to sleep. You got to go get some rest. I got to go to sleep. Rachel and the Dickluss chat are going to talk more about it. You guys should just start sharing some images in there. You already do.

No, no. I told you the pictures don't do it. Oh, wow. We've had the conversation about Dick Picks. It's like not really. Do you know what? We had a conversation on a midnight boy. What?

Jomey. You know Jomi from the Midnight Boys. Jomi. Jomi says he only uses his imagination. He doesn't watch anything? Doesn't watch anything. You know what that means. He's a freaky-ass.

He's a freaky-ass nigger. That's a freaky-ass nigger. Wow. What an imagination Jome has. That's a freaky-ass, Nick. We was doing the podcast. We were talking to him today. And he's like, and he's like,

like yeah you know sometimes you just use your imagination i was like joey brus you sick dog you're sick joey you didn't think that we was gonna let that one die jones that niggum jones all right we're out of here take these caps off but do not stop learning on van lincoln i'm rachel lynny lind lindsay hi guys