Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay - The Forever Fight for Voting Rights and Kate Sosin on Ending Violence Against the Trans Community

Episode Date: January 14, 2022

Van Lathan’s riding solo this week as he and producers Trudy Joseph and Donnie Beacham react to Joe Biden’s speech on voting rights and Senator Tim Scott’s predictable response (18:54), plus the NFL coming out of the war on race unscathed (34:18). Then, LGBTQ+ journalist Kate Sosin joins to shed some light on 2021 being the deadliest year for transgender people (52:15).  Hosts: Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay Guest: Kate Sosin Producers: Trudy Joseph and Donnie Beacham Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yo, yo, yo, thought lawyers. What is up? Higher learning is on. It is I, Van Lathen. Oh, you guys heard that. Okay. Normally, when I say it is I, Van Lathen, that means it's time for the woman of the house, Rachel, to say, and it's me, Rachel Lynn Lindsay. I say Van Lathen, Jr., and Rachel says she's Rachel Lynn Lindsay.

Now, I'm not going to do her voice again because the last time I did that, we had to have a family meeting about it. And it ended up not being amazing. Wasn't a good time in higher learning history. But Rachel is indisposed for this particular podcast. Okay. She is not going to be joining us today. A lot of stuff going on in the world of Rachel right now. She has a new book getting ready to drop.

It's called Miss Me With That. I think the book is coming out in a week or two weeks. She's got a lot of stuff going on. And we've heard it on the podcast. podcast before that with someone with so many different irons in the fire, Rach can sometimes get a little overwhelmed as we all can. So she decided that for this one particular podcast, not that she was going to take the podcast off, but that she was going to give herself an opportunity to get some things done that she needed to do. So she is currently indisposed at the moment,

but that is okay because even though it's not going to be the full higher learning experience, because we have to have rage for the full higher learning experience, we're still going to We're going to get through this together as a family. As a family, I can hear the Reddit threads already. I guess you don't hear them. It's interesting. Hold on for a second. Trudy jump in here.

When you read something, do you hear it or do you just read it with the words? A lot of times when I read something, I hear the words in my head. Do you hear the words when you read something? Well, I make up a voice based on what it is that I'm reading. And that's the voice that I hear it in. So if it's a condescending, you know. Wait a second. Just hold on one goddamn minute here.

So you're reading something. You as Trudy, you're reading. You're telling me that you make up a voice in your head depending on what, like, what does this mean? Like, give me an example of this. Like, when you say you make up a voice in your head, are you saying that like you do special voices like my mom did when she was reading me like a children's book?

Now you make me sound like a nutgy smell. I'm not making you sound like enough case. I'm asking you to clarify, because I've never heard of anyone, you make up special different voices. So if you're reading a book, if you're reading the book and the book has different characters, do each different character, does each different character get a distinct voice? The Reddit specifically I make a voice for it because there's all kind of different takes. And I feel like some of them are spicy, some of them are sassy. Some of them are, you know, I just make a voice based on that. But if I'm reading a book, it's just my voice.

So let me tell you something about that, though. I think that's interesting because I could argue that you making up different voices when you're reading the thread is actually it biases what it is that you're reading. If you're assigning the specific voice, you're not just reading it. Let's say you read something and it comes across like the first sentence is kind of abrasive. And if you read something and you put the wrong voice on it, you might take it the wrong way, right? Possibly. Yeah, see, it doesn't make it. in a sense.

Trudy, I think the more we we learn about you, the more we learn it, a lot of the shit you say, you're just shooting from the hip. I'm not.

This shit is founded in thought. It's founded in truth, my truth. And that's what matters. And I'm going to save it with my chest every single time. Shout out to the truth.

Truddy, child. We love you. Wow. Did you just shout out your own personal fan base? Wow. See,

this is what happens. See, this is what happens. This is what happens. You find something new, and then all of a sudden people get too big for their britches. Trudy, look at Trudy out there. Shout out to the Trudy Tribe. Shout out to the Trudy Tribe.

I just love polarizing things. I love it when people have to make a decision. Do you like something or do you hate something? We don't have Rach. We're playing her, so I'm going to ask you guys about something. I have a couple of topics going into our first time. Before we even get into it that I want to discuss. Jason Mamoa,

and Lisa Bonnet broke up. They're not together anymore. Okay. This is going to sound bad when I say this. When Jason Mamoa and Lisa Bonnet broke up, do you know what my initial reaction was? My initial reaction was, ha, ha, and I'll tell you why I thought that.

Okay. A lot of people use a term that I think is one of the most dangerous and destructive terms that we use in our internet-based social media society today. And that term is couple goals, relationship goals. I hate that. I hate it when people say that. I hate it when people say, these are my, this couple is my relationship goals. I hate it when people say, hey, couple goals.

I hate it. I hate it. Now, I'm not like happy that Lisa Bonnet and Jason Momora broke up because they seemed like a pretty in-tuned couple. They seem happening. I don't know what goes on in their relationship, but they seem like a happening couple. And they're two human beings. So if they were together, I would assume that they were happy together. And if they're happy, I want them to be happy.

If they seem happy, I want them to be happy. But the term relationship goals and couple goals really bothers me because when people do that, I think that stops them from having realistic expectations about the relationships and the friendships and the situations that they're in like one-on-one. I think you look at Jason Mamoa and Lisa Bonnet and you say that these people are so beautiful. They have it all figured out. They have a whole family that's really the most beautiful family that we have walking on the planet Earth. You want to look at it. Just objectively, you got Jason Mamoa, you got Lisa Bonnet, you got Lenny Kravitz, you got Zoe Kravitz. You got all kinds of people who look great coming together and like, let's just share genes.

Let's share genetics and propagate this on a couple of more people. So, you know, generations from now, your great, great grandkids can be better looking than everybody else. They keep doing that, right? Which always doesn't work. I've got to be honest with you. We've seen it before, but whatever. And people say this, and it, for me, personally, sometimes I feel like when you do the couple goals thing, it puts certain people on a pedestal. and it puts certain couples and certain relationships on a pedestal to where if these relationships don't work out, A, you feel, wow, love is dead.

No one can get along anymore. And then B, having a goal that you don't really know what's going on between the sheets or, you know, behind the current, you have no idea what these people's relationships are. All you see is superficial to me sometimes makes people gravitate towards. a lot of superficial things in terms of having goals for their relationship. Like, when we say relationship goals, when we talk about a celebrity or a group of celebrities or something like that, we don't really know what's going on. And that's kind of what they sell you. And then when they break up, the fall is even harder because you've put these people on

the pedestal. So when I look at a relationship like that that so many people had as goals and it falls, The only reason why I say hi, it's not because I'm reveling in the fact that they broke up. It's because of the fact that I know they're having a relationship is hard. That making a relationship work is hard. It's very, very difficult. It's to be celebrated when people tell you not only about how great things are going, but when they tell you about how they've overcome things,

how they've gotten past things, how they've endured parts of their relationship, that were very, very tough. But that's never, ever, ever, what's highlighted. Never, ever, ever what's highlighted. I don't feel like it's ever what people have overcome the stay together, the trials and the tribulations that they've been through the stay together.

I don't feel like we highlight them. I feel like we highlight them when they're on vacation together. I feel like we highlight them when they both have, when the lady's in the bikini and the man's got a shirt off and they both look or whatever. or we highlight sometimes when they do small gestures for one another. Like, oh, he put down her like his jacket so she could walk over a puddle. Of course he did.

It's 50 million cameras watching them. When they got in a taxi cab, what was it like on the ride to the hotel? They look at her and he say, hey, God damn it, you better buy me a new fucking jacket. That was a Burberry limited edition and I need another one. Like what happened then? I want to know what happens then. I want to know not how great it was in Paris. I want to know what the fuck you've been through

and what you've gotten over. That to me is the couple goals. That is the goals to me. Now, I've been rambling now. There's no rage to keep me a check. I'm going off the reservation. Trudy, what do you think about what I just said? Donnie, you can jump into because Donnie's newly married.

Donnie just got married. He's riding around right now, still on a newlywed high. Am I wrong about this? Am I a cynic when it comes to this stuff? I don't think so at all. You kind of said exactly what I was thinking, but in a much more eloquent way. Like you kind of, you took us on a journey. You changed my mind on your reaction.

When you said aha, I was thinking, bands coming at this for shallow reasons. But in reality, you spoke truth. Like, a couple goals, saying couple goals is you're going based off of what people put out there, them showing them their best selves. But you really don't know what's going on in somebody's home. Yeah, and I just want to say Sometimes couples do talk about the stuff that they go through But a lot of times when they do

What we say is I would have never stayed around for that I can't believe he put up with that I can't believe she put up with that I can't believe that the putting up with it And the staying around of it That's what the whole fucking relationship is built on Not getting used by the way Or letting somebody walk all over you

Or trample you or fuck with your feelings Or anything like that But the decision to stay in a relationship Or marriage or free friendship, even a friendship. Forget about a relationship or a friendship or a marriage. Even a relationship like with your, I just lost my dad, right? I just lost my dad. And let me tell you the most difficult thing about losing my father as it relates to the relationship between me and my dad. Let me tell you the most difficult thing. The most difficult thing about losing my

father was that our lies are eternal now. Like the lies that my father and me told each other, they're eternal. They will now last forever until I meet him again. Now, hanging out with Jesus and Moses, we run around. By the way, I have ideas of what I want to do with, like, Jesus and Moses when I, like, when I see them, when I get with Jesus and Moses. Because it's going to be Jesus and Moses. Those are really the only two that I really want to, like, hang out with. There's a lot of other ones that are cool. You know what I mean? But, like, I want to, like, I want to play catch with Jesus and I want to wrestle Moses. Don't ask me why.

I've always been the kid. Like Moses came down, a mouth sign and I look strong. I think I can overtake him. But Jesus, I want to play catch with because I know he could throw the ball hard. Anyway, he's lean.

Got a lot of range of motion. But back to what I was saying, the lies that me and my father told, they're now going to exist forever. That's a decision that him and I made in our relationship subconsciously. We made that decision to make our lies last forever. Growing up, my father was

an unbelievably responsible man. He really cared about family. He really cared about seemingly doing things the right way. He cared that I did the things right, did things the right way. But more than that, he cared that like I,

that I looked at the world the way he did because he was very resolute and confident as insecure as I am sometimes. it seemed as if my father was that confident. He was as confident as I am insecure.

That's what it seemed like. So he was sure that his way of looking at the world was the right way of looking at the world. He was positive, absolutely positive, that that was the right way. So when it became obvious that I didn't look at the world that way because I was too influenced by my mother who looks at the world in this very open,

beautiful, egalitarian, spiritual, soft, pliable way, which is more the way that I turn to, tend to look at it. Other than my father, who looked at the world as a series of structures, as a series of rights and absolute wrongs, as a series of things that you do and you don't do, there didn't seem to be that much room for color, didn't seem to be that much room for art, didn't see that much, that much room for nuance. This was the way things went, and this was the way things weren't supposed to go. So what I had to do was I had to lie a little bit to him and he had to lie a little bit to him and he

had to lie a little bit to me. And we had to keep this lie going in order to maintain the relationship or the sort of idea of a relationship that we had. So I had to pretend that I got what he was saying. And he had to pretend to not be disappointed in me. And we had to do that for a very, very long time. Now, eventually what you hope is you get into a point in a relationship, any relationship, but particularly this relationship, where you're going to be able to tell him your truth and he's going to be able to tell you his truth, meaning he's going to be able to say, you know what, son, I had it in my mind that things would go differently for you in this way. I thought that things would go differently for you in this way. I figured that you would be more this way. And yeah,

that was a little disappointing, but I'm happy with the way that you turned out. But him admitting to me that he was actually disappointed that I wasn't more like him would be a very tough thing for him to say because he doesn't want to push me away. On the first, he's not. flip side, I looking at my dad, was saying, hey, you know what? I realized very early on that everything that you're talking about is bullshit. Every single thing that you were saying to me, I really feel like it was bullshit. Not necessarily everything, but the ideas that the meat of it, I don't believe it. It's not how I am. It's not my way. But what I chose to do instead was I chose to say, hey, you know what, you're just a guy that I could never be.

I chose to be with my dad insufficient rather than be rebellious. Not that I didn't agree with it. I told him that I agree with it, but I just couldn't do it. Right. And that made him happy because that reaffirmed sort of the manhood that he had. You know, that made him happy. That made him happy. So he lied a little bit to me.

I lied a little bit to him. And then he died. Those lies are forever. Like they don't, there's nothing. You can't take him back now. Somewhere I'm sure he know the truth. And I definitely knew the truth. I love them to death.

I think he was Superman. But that's what a relationship is about. The relationship to me is not about like goals or pictures or estates or anything like that. It's about finding out how to tell somebody your truth and find out how to make space for their truth. And sometimes those truths are ugly. and sometimes those truths are are soul destroying sometimes those truths

push you away from those people but like when I see relationship goals that's what I see like I see I feel I want to know the slog of it the muck

all of the shit that you went through all of the goddamn disgusting stuff that happened in order for you to get to the next spot that that you you were at and what it took from you and what it gave to you. I was listening to Robert Downey Jr. one time talking about his wife. We always talk about Robert Downey Jr., but we never talk about Susan Downey. I don't think it's Junior. He's just Susan Downey, but we don't talk about

Susan Downey. We don't talk about the fact that for Robert Downey Jr. to be Iron Man, to come back and being kiss kiss, kiss bang, and being a senior detective and all of that stuff. For Robert Dowdy Jr. do that. It took someone to get with him and get down with him and believe in him when Hollywood had turned the page. And that person was Susan Downey. Now, a lot of people would say, hey, I'm not going to devote my life to rehabilitating someone who seems to want to be addicted to drugs. And a lot of people, they don't have the bandwidth to do it, but she did. She believed in them. And I'm, you know, I'm not going to reinforce the whole misogynistic idea of behind every good man as a good woman. But I tell you,

that behind every good person, there's somebody who fucking believed in them. To me, that's kind of relationship goals. And other people that have been through stuff like that, you know? But yeah, so I just thought about that when I saw that they had broken up, that people were going to be very upset about it.

Don't be upset about it. Don't be upset that they broke up. Don't be upset when you hear about all these couples that you thought had to figure out. Don't be upset. If Russell and Sierra break up, don't be upset. Don't be mad about it. Because there's a couple on your block that's going to stay together.

And they've been through a lot of shit. Like, they fucking light's about to get cut off. Okay, let's take a break. All right. Joe Biden. Did you know about one in three people with plaques psoriasis may also develop psoriotic arthritis, which causes joint pain, stiffness, and swelling? Does this sound like you?

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You guys are out there. Joe Biden is sick of the bullshit. Donnie, he's sick of it. Trudy, he's over it. Rachel, wherever you are right now, if you can hear me, Joe Biden doesn't give a fuck anymore. President Joe Biden is tired of being quiet is what he said. He says, I've been having these quiet conversations with members of Congress for the last two months.

I'm tired of being quiet. Slamming his hand on the lectern. Lector. Is it lectern? I think it's a lectern. Without philobuster, without changing filibuster rules, it's unclear how Biden, who wants voting rights passed, has got unclear how it's going to get done. And he's sick of bullshitting around it.

And he went on to quote this. He said, do you want to be on the side of Dr. King or George Wallace? do you want to be on the side of John Lewis or Bull Connor? Of course, George Wallace, former governor of Alabama, who was at least in the early part of his career, vicious racist and ran on segregation. Dr. King or George, excuse me, John Lewis or Bull Connor. Bull Connor, of course, who's the legendary,

I think was the sheriff there in Selma. Check that for me, Donnie. Bull Connor, sheriff of Selma or mayor of Selma, or make sure we know that before I get on here and sound like an idiot. pretty sure Bull Connor was the sheriff there in Selma, Alabama. He was the commissioner of public safety for the city of Birmingham. And he went on to serve, have a career in policies. Okay, cool.

So Bull Connor, who of course was the commissioner of public, what, Commissioner of Public Service in Birmingham? Safety. Oh, Bull Connor, who was the Commissioner of Public Safety in Birmingham, whose name is synonymous with good old boy white racism down there. By the way, if you don't want, your kids to be racist or infamous for something

maybe don't maybe bull is the wrong name right think about it like you know some like there's a the name bull and I'm sure that's a nickname but that's a fucking vicious racist motherfucker

you know you don't really get too many guys back in history like with that same thing who are named Jason theophilus is his first name Fuck, my bad. Bull is a fucking upgrade. Jesus Christ. Theophilus Connor. Yeah, yeah, that's probably why he turned to racism because he was so fucking mad about being named Theophilus.

Kind of a niggerish name, probably. By the way, because if you look at it, theophilish Connor, you think to yourself, hey, that's got probably a black guy, six foot nine, really good, go either hand, dunk the ball. Anyway, so these guys are the worst races in the history. He went on to say, do you want to be on the side of Abraham Lincoln or Jefferson Davis by NAS? This is a moment to decide to defend our elections, to defend our democracy. If you do that, you will not be alone. Now, of course, what he's doing is he's drawn a line in the sand. He's saying, hey, my side is the side of Dr. King, John Lewis, Abraham Lincoln. Maybe not the best guy to put in that situation.

but, you know, O'A was, I guess, he's better than he was bad, so whatever. And he's telling everyone involved in politics that, you know, this is the most important thing. He wants to get this done. And he's calling on people and asking him to put something on the line politically here. Senator Tim Scott took umbrage with this. Senator Tim Scott, of course, Republican from South Carolina came back and he said, the country has fought too hard, too long for the progress that he's denying. says that in making these statements that Joe Biden is denying the fact that we've made any progress

and saying that, you know, invoking the name of Bull Connor, or invoking the name of George Wallace says it's going too far. So I'm insulted that he refuses to recognize their tremendous progress made by Americans, not by Republicans, not by Democrats, not by black folks, not by white folks, by Americans coming together to fight for the rights of every single man and woman to vote. how he missed the opportunity to shine the bright light on progress and instead use something that has been proven to be untrue time and time again. So let's take a look.

Let's break down what Tim Scott is saying here. So let's look at it. So he says, okay, by Americans, Americans, all right, not Republicans, all right, not Republicans, all right, I'm writing this down, not Democrats, okay? Not black folks, not white folks. Americans. Okay. All right. So this has to all do with obviously the specific fight about voting rights here. Okay. So Biden wants the Senate to change filibuster rules so that we give voting rights a pass. So if we don't change rules, if we don't augment filibuster rules right now, then it's probably not going to pass. We've talked about the numbers on this podcast before. We know that the Republicans are largely being obstructionist right now. and standing in the way of the president's agenda. We know that that's what's happening here.

But let's get out of the politics for a second of it. And let's look at the meat of what President Biden is saying. And let's look at the rebuttal by Senator to Tim Scott. Let's look at it real quick. Ask thought warriors do. Let's check this out. Okay. So what essentially Joe Biden is saying here, he's saying that, you know, guys like John Lewis, guys like Dr.

King and gentlemen like Abraham Lincoln were spearheading American equality, right? Now, that is undeniable. Now, we can have a conversation about the complicated legacy of Abraham Lincoln. We could talk about that all day. We could talk about whether or not Abraham Lincoln wanted to preserve the union or whether or not Abraham Lincoln wanted to end slavery. Abraham Lincoln was no fan of slavery, but if it was between preserving the union and slavery, he would choose preserving the union. I am not conjecturing that. That is words out of Abraham Lincoln's mouth. So it's not like Abraham Lincoln's mouth. So it's not like Abraham Lincoln. was exactly John Brown, okay?

But he certainly was no fan of slavery, and it had been that way for a very, very long time. Obviously, when you're talking about guys like John Lewis or Dr. King, they're devoted their whole entire lives to making a more equal playing field in America and to getting civil rights and really human rights. When we say civil rights, we're talking about human rights for black people here in America.

You know, Dr. King, you know, had a lot of time to do other things. but his main goal in life was to make sure that black people in America were judged on the content of their character. Those words were true even today. Now, in his response to this, Tim Scott, a black man from South Carolina is very offended. He's upset. He's upset because he says that invoking those names to continue the fight, thumbs its nose at the progress we've already made. All three of those men are dead.

Lincoln, John Lewis, and Dr. King. All three dead. Dr. King's been dead for 50 years. John Lewis just recently passed, not too long ago. I think it's been a couple years

since he passed away. Of course, Abraham Lincoln was shot and killed, I believe, in 1865, so it's been a very, very long time since he's been around. The fight for voting rights for African Americans

has outlived all of them. So I guess my question is when is Tim Scott, talking about. We're still debating something. We're still talking about something that has the fight for, has lived longer, has outlived all of the gentlemen who have been fighting for it. So with as much progress as has been made, there is obviously progress that still needs to be forged for it and had, done. There are things that still need to happen. So I think that it's very interesting the way Tim Scott goes about this and looks at this. He also goes out of his way in his

little diatribe here to defragment this fight. Now, I'll tell you what I mean by that. Americans did this. Well, Americans have done everything. If Americans have done all of the good, then Americans have done all of the evil. So we understand it. It's Americans. We get that it's Americans. It's Americans together. But it's not Americans together now. I think that's the issue. See, if it was a Republican that freed the slaves, by the way, freed the slaves due to a lot of factors that were happening from a very, very on fire abolitionist movement that was going on in 1865, a lot of people, a lot of people that were getting to Lincoln. But, you know, if there was Republicans that freed the slaves then, if it was Democrats in LBJ who passed voting rights stuff during the 60s, if all these people are Americans, right? Everybody's Americans. We're all together. Well, that's not quite the way it stands now. The way it stands now is that there's a very clear divide. And that divide is that I'm no Democrat, but it seems that the Democrats have it on their agenda to pass voting rights. And Senator Scott, your party,

The Republicans don't want to let it happen. You guys are voting against measures to make sure that every American has an equal right to vote. You guys want to make it harder to vote. One of the tenets of American freedom, you guys want to make it harder to vote. You do. You want to make it harder to vote. Okay. So the person that's living in the past is not Joe Biden.

Joe Biden is talking about the now. I'm not here to carry Joe Biden's water. Joe Biden is talking about the now. He's talking about how things are right now. Republicans are always talking about. We're living in the past talking about slavery. We're living in the past talking about racism. We're living in the past talking about all of these things.

These are things that were going on back in the day. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You had a black president. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, whatever. You know, I look up on my television. I see black people on American Idol. That must mean that we're okay. And prime time,

singing their own songs. Okay? The fact of the matter is, the fight is in the now. We're fighting now. This is a now fight. This is a now thing. The lines that are being drawn

are now lines. This stuff that's going on now. So the Republicans way by their, I got to keep you real about Tim Scott right here. I don't fuck with him, man. Look, I've been trying to play nice for a very, very long time with Senator Tim Scott. I really have. You guys, I desperately want to be something, and Rachel does too.

Me and Rachel desperately, let me tell you what me and Rachel want to be. Thought worries, you're out here listening. I'm rambling. It's a podcast without Rachel. This is what's going to happen. This is what me and Rachel want to be. It's what a lot of people want to be. What we want to be is level-headed American political thinkers.

We want to hear ideas, and we want to be able to synthesize the information in those ideas, regardless of where they're coming from. Meaning, I want to hear things from all. different spectrums of political thought. And I want to believe in my mind that that makes me a better person. It makes me more well-rounded to understand all of these things. So what we don't want to do and what we've always kind of tried to not do here on higher learning is result to add hominem attacks and name calling and categorizing people because

of their political beliefs, right? It is getting increasingly more difficult to do that with Senator Tim Scott. It's impossible. Tim Scott is a Negro bulletproof vest for the Republicans. He is a black condom for the Republicans. He is a put on, try on piece of protection from anything that is progressive that benefits black people in America. He is an obstructionist in the worst way.

Tim Scott is one of the handful of people. probably more than a handful of people that look like us, that look like black people that are directly standing in the way of progress and equality in this country. And there's no other way to slice it up. We look at all the judges that President Trump appointed, right? He appointed a bunch of judges. He appointed a bunch of judges.

These judges had horrible, horrible records on civil rights. Horrible civil rights scores by all these different organizations that kind of scored this stuff like it's a fucking baseball game. And you know who voted for over 99% of those judges, Senator Tim Scott? At one point, he's talking about the fact he wants to get opportunity zones pass and he thinks that that's anti-racist, but it's not because all that does is lead to gentrification. He's talking about all of these different things as if he's a friend or a new school Republican, but he's really nothing than Donald Trump with a deep, deep tan.

That's all he is. Asking us right now to consider the progress that America is making, we need more progress. By the way, the progress that America has been making has been rolled back by some of your colleagues in the Republican Senate who don't believe that some of the protections from earlier voting rights laws need to exist now because Obama was elected. So we're talking about the progress that we've made. Let's talk about the progress that you guys have undid. Scott, you should be ashamed of yourself. You're no friend of the higher learning thought wars. You're no friend of Rachel Lindsay.

You're no friend of me. Donnie, do you like Tim Scott? I know. You're a liar. I know that you and Trudy both like him. Trudy, you know what? You know what I've noticed about him? I know, you know, I've noticed about Tim Scott.

He's bald. What, I tell you about them. It's true. I'm just kidding. I don't have anything against men that are bald. It's just the dejective hairlines. Well, I got to be honest with you. That ship has sailed.

like seriously if there's like a if there's like a bald man's fucking club somewhere like a club of just now you're out of here you're done like you're probably the number one fucking public enemy of the bald man right here I'm actually not the ball is like you are seems like you are you all

you talk about football uh so the Texans fired their coach David Cully he only got one season he's black um mike tomlin currently is the NFL's only black coach Brian Flores was was fired earlier this week he was the coach of the Miami Dolphins

the Miami Dolphins had what I thought was a pretty successful season where they were consistently getting better I think they went on like a seven or eight game winning street they played some terrible quarterbacks in that span but still I thought that they were doing pretty good they fired Brian Flores which was a shock to the entire league this is the reality of the situation. The NFL, I've said this already,

the NFL has won the race war. I gotta be honest with you guys. I'm looking at the black minority coach thing. It's a true issue. You have to remember that the league itself, I think, is around 70, 75% black, okay? Black guys are the main cash crop, if you will, of the NFL.

They are the import, export of the NFL. That's what black guys are. But they don't seem to be qualified enough to run these teams after they spent their entire lives and all of their health and their energy playing for these teams. That seems to be something that continuously is told to Black guys. Mike Tomlin now, who's the coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers, is the only black coach that's currently doing it of 32 NFL teams. That is remarkable. That's remarkable. Now, who knows if it stays that way, you know, there have been some firing, some certainly, they're certainly

going to be some hirings. But the NFL has won this race war battle. They won it a long time ago. And one reason why the NFL won this war was because black people helped them win it. And I'm not just talking about the players on the field. We're going to talk about a lot of things that go on in NFL circles and why minority candidates can't get the jobs that they want. The NFL has the Rooney Rule, which means you have to interview a certain amount of

black applicants for a job. All these things have been going on for years. There was a linchpin moment in the racial history, the racial reckoning of the National Football League. And that was Colin Kaepernick. Now, we can't continue to bring up Colin Kaepernick every time we look at the fact that they're not a lot of NFL head coaches who are black or every time the lead does something insensitive regarding race.

At a certain point, Colin Kaepernick has moved on and we have to move on to. But I want to talk about this really quickly as it relates to this entire thing. The NFL knows now that nobody fucking cares what they do. We don't mean business. They know it. They're aware of that. Like I box every single day. You're in the ring, right, with somebody.

And when you're in the ring, at first you're feeling them out. You're feeling them out. You're looking. You're trying to see what kind of angles you can make. Boom, boom, boom. And then at a certain point, you're in a fight, right? They're sweating a little bit. You're sweating a little bit.

You're noticing stuff. They're noticing stuff. But you're in a fight. You're actually in a fight now. You're in a fight now. And obviously what happens in a fight is somebody lands a punch. Eventually somebody lands a punch. Either you or them.

The most important thing about the fight is not whether or not you land a punch. It's not who lands the punch. That's not the most important thing. When you land a good shot, the most important thing is how the person that you're fighting actually reacts to that shot. Because you don't really think about this when you're in a fight for something. you don't really ever think about the punches that are landed on you. The only thing you think about are the punches that you land.

But see if I'm fighting somebody, right? And I'll load up for a nice big right hand out, boom, clip them, catch them good. And they walk right through that shot. That is more fucking frightening than anything that you can imagine. That is way more frightening than you getting hit. You getting hit. you shake your head, you shake it off. If you're still standing, you're still fighting.

But you walloping someone and them still coming forward is way more destructive to your confidence than anything that you could do to them. Because once somebody knows that they can't kill you, they now know that they're in a fight and it's about who wants to put the most on the line. When the NFL won the Colin Kaepernick situation, which they did, despite the settlement, Despite everything else, when the NFL won that situation, that was them essentially taking the culture's best shot and walking right through it. That is as clear cut an example of NFL racism exploitation that you can get. And as much as we, myself included, by the way, huge hypocrite here, huge hypocrite. As much as we went back and forth about that, as much as we tried. to boycott as much as we

try to put pressure on the league what happened Rock Nation did the deal with the NFL we turned our television back on and started watching NFL football again we hit the NFL with our best cultural shot and they walked right through it

they absolutely walked right through it now what we have two years ago three years ago it was taboo to play the Super Bowl I couldn't play the Super Bowl because you couldn't be seen in lockstep with the NFL. Now, this year's Super Bowl is Niggerama.

It's Nigger Paloza Fest 96. What is it? They got who's on the Super Bowl? They got Kendrick. They got fucking, they got Mary J. Blige. They got Dr. Dre. They got, I'm not dissing any of these artists.

I mean, they know the same thing that I know. is that the whole thing is over. Colin Kaepernick was, was for fighting for us, Colin Kaepernick was marginalized and ostracized and kicked out of the NFL. We had a little bit of gusto and a little bit of a movement

moving for a little while, but it didn't last. So now all of these things are harder. It's harder to push the NFL on stuff like this. Everything, every single thing, that that black people

try to get done in the NFL, that people try to get done in this league for a while is going to be a lot tougher. It's going to be way harder because we lost

that fight. They took our best shot. And I'm asked to blame as anyone. The pandemic came. I hadn't watched the NFL in a while. The pandemic came a long while.

The pandemic came. I just crave some normalcy. I craved the ability to get back to something that made me feel good. There was nothing new on television. I know part of the trauma of the pandemic was

watching a re-winter of a show that you know it should be in a new season. You know it should be in a new season. I watched it. The NFL came back. I watched it. I was like, there it is. I know those guys. Those are the New Orleans Saints. And now I want the situation where they beat us. It's tough. So if you

want me to opine or tell you what I think about black coaches not being in the NFL, I'll tell you what think. It's like how things fucking win. It's how things fucking go. And at a certain point, what they're doing is terrible and how they're treating players are terrible and the fact that they don't believe that black players have the

opportunity to run teams at the same capacity that white players do. And the fact that there's still that latent racism is a gigantic problem, but it's also a problem that it seems like we don't have the wherewithal to properly take on. But maybe

I'm wrong. Let's take a break. Did you know about one and three people with plaques psoriasis may also develop psoriotic arthritis, which causes joint pain, stiffness, and swelling? Does this sound like you? Listen to what it sounds like to be a million miles away. Trimfaya, guselcomab, taken by injection, is a prescription medicine for adults with moderate to severe plaques psoriasis, who may benefit from taking injections or pills or phototherapy, and for adults with active psoriotic arthritis.

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Services not available in all areas. All right, I want to get Trudy on this one. We have to talk about Drake and the hot sauce and the condom thing. This is the funniest fucking thing I've dealt with in a long time in terms of like trying to figure out something out. There's a story out there. Instagram model said that she had consensual sex with Drake. Drake, he's a rapper from Canada. He's a guy who puts owls on everything.

Girls like him a lot. Trudy, do you think Drake is hot? Are you a one of those Drake people? Yes, remember when we were at the little Oscars party? Oh, yeah, we saw. I damn near passed out. I held it together because I want to embarrass you, though. Yeah, me and Trudy and Rachel, shout out to Rachel.

Rachel, we love you. Can't wait until you come back to the podcast on Monday. We were at a party and Drake was there. Drake was there and Trudy saw him and then, you know. He was fine. I mean, he had good days and bad days. He's not always fine to me. But in that moment, that man was fine.

Like, I don't know. Some days of Drake be posting a picture on Instagram, I'm like, you twisted up your face and that just wasn't the one. But overall and personal, person, he's much cuter than he photographs. Nice guy. Nice guy as well. Some people say he had a BBL.

What? Some people say Drake got his body done. I'd be honest with you. Look, if Drake did get a BBL, if Drake did get his body done, I have no problem with that. I think that there's a stigma around like men getting that kind of stuff done. And I want to, I think this is the year that I'm going to get some of that shit. some of that shit done, you know?

I think this is the year. I think this is the year I fix my hairline because of what you've been going on. I think once I lose this weight, you know, I think that this is the year that I kind of get a little nip, nip, tip, tuck, well, why not? Why should I continue to look less than stellar just because of what people are going to think about me? Anyway. It's a fortunate man.

So Drake, whatever, Drake apparently had considual sex with his Instagram, model, whatever. They were at a hotel and they had sex. He reportedly, she reportedly went to the bathroom to dispose of the condom. She, reportedly,

went and removed the condom and inserted the opening end in her vagina in an attempt to impregnate herself. God damn. It's a dirty motherfucking game out here in these motherfucking streets, man. I'm not even going to lie.

Like, it's a dirty game. here in these streets. It really is a dirty game in these streets, only to discover that he had put hot sauce in the condom. She claims that she screamed, she screamed from the burning sensation before Drake ran into the bathroom. And he admitted that he had poured a packet of hot sauce in the condom to kill the sperm, is what he said. On Tuesday, Drake responded, you can have your 15 minutes of fame, I'll take the other 23 hours and 45 minutes. All right, Donnie, Trudy, and I need both of you guys on this. I had a conversation with a friend of mine who said that it was wrong of Drake to put

hot sauce in a condom. So let me let me understand. Let me plot out with what said. Say it was wrong for Drake to put hot sauce in the condom because if you put hot sauce in the condom, then you must know that women are going to try to do that. with the condom. If you know that women are going to try to do that with the condom, putting a hot sauce in the condom is wrong because that means that you are trying to hurt the women that are doing this because you know that she's going to put that condom in her and fuck up

her pH balance to be damned. You know what's going to happen. That girl's going to be drinking fucking cranberry juice for the next fucking three weeks. You know, it's like burning sensation. Number one, do you guys agree, both Trudy and Donnie, do you guys agree that putting hot sauce in a condom is wrong if you're drinking? I don't think that he was wrong at all, actually. Like, I can't see a world in which he was wrong. She super tried it. Like, the gall to go to the bathroom and spread your legs and try to, like, impregnant yourself, basically, for ultimately, what is the check? Like, children are beautiful.

And I feel like she, in that instance, was trying to get a come up. And that's what she got. I don't think that Drake was fully aware that that's what she would do. Like, honestly, I don't know that Drake put hot sauce in it to kill the sperm. He probably has been in situations where he's caught somebody trying to, like, impregnate themselves with his used condom. And so maybe that's just like the thing that he does. Like, girl, don't be a trash picker in the bathroom trying to.

Get a check. What if, but couldn't he just take the condom and fill it up with water or then like empty it out or couldn't he just empty the contents of the condom into the, I guess the hot sauce is the quickest way. But I'm wondering, okay, this is what I'm wondering. I have a lot of questions. Number one, they're in a hotel room. Since they're in a hotel room, is it possible that they had eaten before, before whatever had gone down, you know, you come over there, hey girl, you know,

order the room service, whatever you got. It's Jersey, Drake, OVO, whatever, whatever. OVO steaks. They got OVO Calamari. They got OVO salmon. Whatever you want, it's OVO. It's on us, whatever, whatever. Matt, C.J. Chubs, whatever.

Let me make sure she get whatever you want. Drake, drink, drink, drink, drink. Virginia Black, whatever. And she, they drink and they eat it and it was just hot sauce around. And he looks and he says, okay, I see some hot sauce. That'll probably kill sperm, and he puts it in there. Or does Drake fucking have hot sauce with him whenever he's going to have sex with a woman for the specific intent of using that hot sauce to burn up sperm cells? And if that's the case, the next question is what kind of hot sauce is Drake using to kill sperm?

because there are a lot of different hot sauces, right? Tabasco sauce is a little too hot for me. Even though I'm from Louisiana, I don't like it that much. I don't like that much heat. I like flavor. But if I'm thinking about hot sauce that can actually kill sperm, it would be Tabasco. Whitney Donnie, Donnie, what kind of hot sauce would you use to kill sperm? I would go with Frank's red hot.

That's what you would use? Yeah, that's a staple. That's the go-to-out sauce for sure. So do you think Drake was wrong in this situation, Donnie? No, not at all. He was genius. I feel like he met her shade with some brilliant on-the-fly, I think. I don't think he carries ice sauce with him. I think that they had room service, and the thought crossed his mind when he saw the hot sauce because he realized he was dealing with a shady person. But, yeah, like this is a lesson that she'll learn. She won't try this the next time or she'll think twice at least next time she tries to get somebody caught up unfairly like that. I seriously doubt that.

I seriously doubt No No I seriously doubt that Because the risk Think about it The risk reward is too high Okay so let's look at it

Let's be honest Let's be all the way honest The risk reward is way too high here For you to stop at that one Most of a lot of guys Aren't gonna have the wherewithal To put the hot sauce on the condo They're just not thinking that way

You know You think about this is not a dis And I don't mean to dis I don't mean to diss This is TMZ knowledge that I had when Drake was first, you know what, I'm not even going to say that. I'm not even going to tell that about Drake's baby's mom and all of that stuff. I'm not even going to go into that because that's like, there's no way.

They've gotten past a lot of things. All I can say is I'm not saying that she was attempting to do anything. Well, I'm saying there were some other suspects in that whole room. I'm not going to even do that whole thing. I'm not doing that. That's not what I mean to do. I don't have any problem with ladies out there that want to have sex with guys who are famous or to know. Digging through the trash is potentially.

disgusting, but the reality is that for that girl, the risk reward is too high not to try it again. The, on the downside, you get your tuti bone burnt up with some Franks Red Hot. That's the downside, right? On the upside, the upside, if that would have worked, Jesus Christ, we out of here, baby, and that's probably what she was going for. I just feel like we're not asking a really important question. in here. Which is? It is.

What did it not look red like in the condom? Like, yeah, that's good point. Like that's like that like it's probably dark. It's probably dark. Think about it.

He's still in the room. It's not like he's not in the room. She's not going to, she's like, she's going to, maybe it's dark. She doesn't want to turn a light on, you know. Also, she's super nasty. You digging in the trash in the dark now. Maybe, but it's a hotel trash bag.

So it was this hotel trash thing. So it's probably like not very much in there. She grabs it. That's funny though. That whole thing is very funny. I got roasted. I got roasted for asking whether or not that was wrong. I was having a conversation with someone who said it was wrong.

So I want to ask the question. All right, let's take a break. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Everyone knows winter is the MVP and make it a mess. You don't need WeatherTech floor liners in the summer unless you hit the beach or go camping. Then you'd want a cargo liner. Or a road trip goes sideways. Catchup goes rogue.

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health and safety of our transgender American brothers and sisters. Okay. The deadliness of being a trans American is actually rising. You would think that with a lot of the awareness, that things would be leveling out. But last year was one of the deadliest years for trans people. on record. We have somebody today who is going to help us make some sense of this and talk us through some of the particular remedies that we might be able to introduce into our everyday life to make it easier for some of the people we share our community with. So Kate Sosen is who we're

joined by today. They are an LGBTQ plus reporter for the 19th news focusing on transgender rights incarceration, politics, and public policy. Kate has conducted deep dive investigations into transgender prison abuse, wow, and homicides for NBC News. They previously worked at Logo TV, Into, and the Winnie City Times. Kate, thank you for joining us today on Higher Learning. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Yeah, so this issue is, I think it's probably one of the most underreported stories impacting LGBTQ plus folks, and particularly, early, LGBTQ plus folks of color, which is violence against the community. And, you know, in terms of what to do about it, it's a really complicated problem, which is probably why there hasn't been a lot of talk about policies to prevent violence against trans people. So in 2017, we saw what we said was the most deadly year against trans people ever reported. And that was we saw, 29 anti-trans homicides. Last year, in 2021, there were 52 murders of trans people.

Almost all of those were black trans women. So it's, they called that an epidemic in 2017. We've kind of run out of words to explain what's happening right now. And already this year, we've had two trans murders just in the first less than two weeks of the year. So it's a crisis that it's really hard for people to describe, explain. We used to count those numbers and report every single murder. And reporters can't even do that anymore because we can't keep up.

What do you attribute the uptick to? Because you would think with the growing visibility of the movement to end these types of murders and this type of violence over the last couple of years. that these numbers would have gone down, but they're going up? Is there any way we can make some sense of that? Yeah, that's a complicated. It's a really complicated question, right? And part of it is actually the visibility. So in some ways, the more that we know about trans people,

the more that we know how trans people live and how trans people die. So a lot of activists and advocates argue stories that about trans deaths didn't always get reported. We didn't always know what was happening. So, for example, if a newspaper reported that a man in a dress was murdered, that didn't always get reported as a trans homicide. Now, because of misgendering, we know typically to follow that up and to confirm if that is in fact a transgender homicide. So in one case, we're getting better at following trans homicide. So the reporting has gone up. So there's a little bit of that.

Another piece of this, and this is the really important thing, is last year had the highest number of anti-trans. bills ever introduced. And 10 anti-trans bills passed. We saw nine anti-trans sports measures targeting kids and one that was a health care bill. And so there's this really big conversation happening about are trans people legitimate, our transgender women in particular, actually men. There's a lot of anti-transanamus that's fueling this. And those bills are happening in states like Idaho, Montana, Texas, Alabama. But the murders that we're seeing are not happening in those states, right? The murders that we're seeing are happening in like New Orleans. They're happening in Louisiana. They're happening in Chicago. So these bills are targeting kids who are living in like the

mountain west and in the south. And then folks are being murdered in cities. And so that discrimination is just bleeding out into other parts of the country. So I think one of the most frustrating things about this for me is that human sexuality, gender, all of those things, it's a very complicated thing. It's a very complicated thing and it takes nuance to understand it. But it's also something that can be made almost viciously and dangerously simple by people who are seeking to vilify. I have homies

from back where I'm from, I'm from Louisiana. And they'll say, they'll send me things and they'll be like, you know, because I've moved out, Kate, I've moved out to L.A.

and gone liberal crazy. That's what they, I've moved out to L.A. I've gone liberal crazy is what they say. I'm nuts. But they'll send me things and they'll say, hey, here's a story about a

trans woman athlete who went through puberty as a male. and now they are dominating track or wrestling or something like that. Van, do you think this is fair? Van, do you think this is fair? Isn't this, isn't what we're leading to? Isn't this what's happening? And I feel like those types of things are like the fuses that the fires get lit to to make people believe that their kids are going to be in unfair sports, are going to be in unfair situations. And that is the genesis for a lot of people's, the hatred for this stuff. It's not necessarily because they're They can't even understand a lot of times what trans people are saying to them about their own lives and what they've gone through and who they are.

But they can understand what it's going to take from them to make room for someone else in society. So I guess my question is, when someone comes at me like that or comes from somebody else that's an ally, like what do we say? How do you beat back some of those sort of ideas? Yeah. I guess I kind of always wonder, why is it that? our first assumption is that in order for someone to have their basic humanity, their basic rights,

that we're going to lose ours. Like that, why do we always go to that point? Right? Yeah. And that seems to be like the lesson over time, right? Is like in order for any of us to have any sort of our dignity acknowledge that somehow there's going to be a cost, like there's only so much humanity that we can all hold. and so we're just going to have to take it from somebody else.

And it's like, no, you know, like the science actually, in terms of trans athletes, doesn't support that a transgender woman who has transitioned medically, you know, over a course of time, really has that much of an advantage or has any advantage, really. And so, and for transgender men, you know, they can compete with men like there's, the science doesn't really support any of that.

It's all fear. And all of that in order to drive a wedge between us who are marginalized, right? And so if we slowed down and we asked ourselves, like, well, why is it that we can't be on each other's side? Like, why is it that we can't just affirm each other and love each other and say, like, hey, like, let's all just sit down together. Maybe we come out this from the same space and say,

if we had just assumed the transgender women were women, and we just assumed the sister under women were women, and we started from that place and figured out what is a system that could honor everybody and felt fair and good instead of questioning whether you are who you say you are, like maybe that's a nicer way to do it, like, and just give each other the benefit of the doubt.

Right. So obviously, one particular individual that keeps these struggle for trans acceptance and trans rights in the headlines is Dave Chappelle. You know, we all have grown up watching Dave Chappelle and listening to his comedy and, you know, being enlightened by some of the observations being made to belly laugh. But it seems particularly now that Dave Chappelle is trying to make a point with some of the things that he's saying in the stand-ups and some of the places he's gone and some of the heads, you know, the fact that he's budding heads with a lot of trans people and allied

to trans people. Being that this year was the most, one of the most deadly years or the most deadly year ever. And you have this parallel sort of conversation around a comedian and what he should or should not be able to say whether or not he's endangering people by saying the things at these saying it's just a very interesting time. And so I would ask you in that long-winded way, do you think that the stand-up of Dave Chappelle is putting trans people's lives in danger? That's an interesting question.

I think, look, does Dave Chappelle have a right to make whatever jokes you want? Sure, right? Does anti-trans rhetoric from someone who's powerful fuel anti-transanimous? Sure, definitely.

And in particular, isn't really painful to see someone who drives a wedge between, you know, particularly who will make an argument that queer people cannot be black, right?

I think that was one of the most painful things because the violence that's impacting our community, right, it's black trans women. And so to say that there was a suggestion that queerness is whiteness, I think, within that. And that was a really difficult thing. I think for a lot of folks in our community to sit with to feel like you don't belong, right? Like you are not accepted. You are not part of this. And so I think part of that is there's a harm in terms of fueling animus outside of the LGBTQ community.

And then there's also like there's a rejection that comes from that, right, for folks on both sides of it. Like there's an anti-LGBQ sentiment within. And that's really hard and painful. And so I just wonder, like, is it funny? Is it new? To me, it wasn't new. It just wasn't that. Like, none of it felt particularly new.

I was like, these are the jokes we would have told 20 years ago. But that's what I mean. So, yeah. Yeah, no, I just, no, believe me. Believe me, like, that last moment that you just had, I could totally understand what's going to you. Ditchie sounds a funny person, right? Like, I want the best for him.

But I also just like I want, I feel like he is capable of, I feel like he is capable of more. Like I am doing for, we are rooting for something better. So. Right. How much more dangerous are things out there for trans, for trans black women, for black trans women? Then the rest of the population or then they were a year ago. Then the rest of just, just period. Then like what, give me, give us an idea.

of the specificity of the danger for black trans women like that segment of the population. You know, this isn't, it's such a complicated question because so, you know, a lot of people have been talking about crime, right? Like, that's like the new thing. We all want to talk about crime right now. But when we're talking about crime, right, like, I think we have to talk about like structural violence, right? And so when we talk about black trans people, let's talk about the fact that if you are a black trans woman, your employment options are going to be really limited because you're going to face discrimination on every front. Your housing options are going to be limited. You may lack familial support. You might have a limited network of friends, friends who have money. You probably have limited health care options. Do you? do you have insurance? And so a lot of black trans women are pushed into survival economies, so sex work, for example. And so I think there's this myth.

We think, like, oh, black trans women are being killed because they're being discriminated against. Someone sees them. They're like, oh, that's a trans woman. I'm going to murder that person. And like, certainly that happens. But there's also intimate partner violence or there's people being put in unsafe situations because they don't have other options or choices because they don't have other jobs.

They don't have other places to live. They don't have safe options because we have all of these structural barriers to safety facing trans people. Right. And so it's so complicated all of these barriers facing trans people, black trans people, black trans women in particular. And so especially in the pandemic, we've just. just seen this explosion of violence because we've seen an explosion of poverty. We've seen an explosion of lack of stable housing, right? And so in this particular moment, I think it's really hard for even, you know, I report in this all the time and I study it all the time and we've seen a rise

of discrimination. It's hard for someone like me to say how dangerous it is. All we can look at are these numbers and say, this is probably an undercount. The situation is really, I've never, I've been reporting on this for more than 10 years and I've never been able to, I've never been at a place where I was so out of words to describe what is happening. So last question, and I really appreciate you being here with us today. And this is the hardest question. People always ask me this and I never know what to say. They always ask me, I'll be talking about something as it has to do with race or racism. I'll say, Van, what can I do to help?

And I'll be like, I don't know. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know. Post some Black Square in your Instagram, but then I even get pissed off about that after a while. I don't know. So for people that, you know what I mean? So I have no clue.

So I'm going to sell you with that same burden, Kate. Like, what are some of the ways that awareness can be raised? What are some of the ways that people who consider themselves allies, if you want to be an ally, how do you ally? Yeah, that's a great question. I don't know that I'm the best person to answer this because, you know, I am a journalist and not an advocate. But, you know, I think just thinking about gender, talking about gender, reading about gender is a great start, right? Like, what are the ways and following thought leaders in this, like, you know, Raquel Willis is someone that I always look to.

And I'm like, what is she saying? like, you know, Travel Anderson is a brilliant journalist who I follow and I'm always like, you know, what is Travelle saying about this? And just following people who are talking about this and thinking about this and thinking about gender and talking about it. And then also just thinking about the fact that like cisgender, right, not trans, that's a gender, right? Male, female, that's a gender. And like we all have a gender and deciding to use she, her, he, him pronouns, that's a choice too. And can we start to unpack? Like, what are decisions that we have just taken for granted? Like, um, historically, you know, there was a time in history where

women couldn't wear our pants or vote. And then always had to be the ones to take out the garbage. Like, let's complicate that. Let's think through all the problems that gender had created for all of us and see how they might be a problem and what we share in common and the world that we actually want together. Like, that would... I'd never thought about that. Yeah.

Gender could actually have created some problems. By the way, there's a time in history right now where Kate, where I don't wear pants. I only wear sweatpants. Solidarity. That history is now. Like, the history is now. After the pandemic, Kate, it's all sweatpants for me.

Gender is sweatpants. genderless sweatpants that's the answer in the world yep thank you so much it is a difficult but worthwhile

conversation and it's one that we have to keep having and to be real with you I just hope that everybody takes the time out to think about their own humanity and think about the humanity of others

before you say what you say on social media Kate thank you so much for join us today on hire learning. Such a pleasure. Thank you. All right. So we were all wondering when Dylan Gonzalez, former UNLV basketball player, she had tweeted on her Twitter, which is where you tweet things, that Trace was a rapist and she could not take that into 2022. That was an allegation that she made. I think that was on December 30th. We had talked about this here on Higher Learning and we had talked

about the fact that it was difficult to actually have an opinion about that tweet in of itself because we didn't really realize or didn't really know what Dylan was actually saying. We didn't know whether or not she was saying that she had heard something that a friend had confided in her or whether or not she had actually been the victim of Tray Songs. She was alleging that. We do now know that. She says that she was raped by Tray Songs. Rape by Tray Song.

she says by his very hands. She says that the allegations against Trayzong's have forced her to constantly relive and suffer through the incident that she endured. The alleged incident that she endured. She says she is struggling with unbearable PTSD. She also says, I want to send my love, strength, and hope out to all who are victims of sexual assault and its fatal nature. you're not alone. Trey songs and his reps responded. They said,

Trey and his team are confident in the legal process and there will be an abundance of exonerating information to come over the next couple of weeks. Now, the reason why they are saying that is because in her statement, which Dylan posted to Instagram, she said that her lawyer, she has retained a lawyer,

and that she is actually working with authorities to try to prosecute Tray Sons for what she says was a rape, sexual assault at his hands in a Las Vegas hotel room sometime ago. So this is it. So this is all the information now. Now there is no longer the vagueness of who is she talking about. What is she talking about? Dilla Gonzalez, former basketball player, is saying,

excuse me, basketball player is saying she was raped by Tray Songs. and she is saying that she is taking that allegation to the police with the intent of having Trace Songs criminally prosecuted for rape. Okay. This is the way I look at this. And you know what? Before I get into this, I want to hear Trudy on this. I'm a man. Donnie's a man.

Trudy is a woman. Trudy And not that You being a woman Whatever I want to hear what you have to think was Trudy were you a Tray songs fan in the past Absolutely can't help but wait

I loved it I was straight back's Trey That was my guy Are you In light of some of the recent allegations Against him Are you now comfortable being a Trey songs fan Oh hell no I stopped playing Tray

Back when Kiki you said what she said about him. That was, that was it for me. I treat him with the same gloves that I treat R. Kelly. You treat Trace songs with the same gloves that you treat R. Kelly. Yes. And I think that it's interesting. Isn't R. Kelly like Trey's idol? Like, I just, the paths seem very similar to me. Okay. To people who aren't quite ready to treat Tray songs like R. Kelly, what would you say to them, Trudy? I think for me, I'm not who I say I am if I run around saying like believe women, in particular, black women, and then Kiki Palmer or the various other women that have came forward about him or just even with like sketch things about him and I just don't, you know,

and I don't take it into account. I think like when more than one person is saying very similar things, it's like for me, I feel like I almost don't necessarily need it to go through a whole legal system for me to find some truth in it. So if somebody isn't quite there yet to kind of cut off the anticipation album,

like I get it. But I would just encourage you to really be the person that you say you are. Like if you are in that threat of believe women, then believe them. Donnie? Yeah, I mean, I agree.

people, I think, are inherently selfish, and they are, like, looking at this from a distance, as opposed to as if somebody directly in their life were affected by this specific situation. And I think you've got to look at it from that perspective. And, like, letting go of, Trey, there's non-problematic music out there. There's, like, stuff to listen to that is... shit, we think. We don't know that. It seemed like it, it, it, bruh, like, if I woke up tomorrow and they were saying some ill shit about Chance and Rapper, I'd be like, well, Chance of Rapper is the last one I would think, by the way.

He's, he would be the one. He'd be the last one I would think, but I don't even want to put Chance's name in that. But yeah, I guess so. But you were saying, no, Donnie? No. Yeah. I do think that there is, there's other things to listen to out there, like, letting go of an artist of Trace's Excalibur.

it should be a no-brainer when it comes to the number of allegations that have come up. It's disgusting. Okay. So this is the way I look at it. I believe Dylan. Number one, I believe Dylan. I was having a conversation with somebody who's a friend of Tray Songs. And I know Tray Songs a little bit.

We've talked about that before. I mean, really, I met Tray Songs before being Tray Song. I know Tray Songs. Me and Trays'Os have exchanged DMs and stuff like that. I've had a friendly relationship with them in the past. I guess you could say. So no one met them, whatever, in that way that L.A. people know each other. Play basketball with them before, you know, you come to the gym and stuff.

I believe Dylan. And I'll tell you the way I believe what I look at this. This is the way I look at this in terms of the end of this stuff. And this goes with the same thing with me and the style. I think that the belief to me is faith. That's how I look at it. When they say believe black women, that means have faith in black women. have faith in accusers, have faith in them, have faith in them that they're telling the truth.

Okay. So I think that's something that was never, ever, ever a thing when I was growing up. I remember when Desiree Washington made her allegations against Mike Tyson back in the day, everyone, including women in my family, were mad at her. Not at Mike. They were mad at her. They were mad with her. They were mad that she was saying whatever she was.

was saying that she was just trying to get, they were mad at her. It was such a thing, right? Sexual assault is something that has been weaponized to take out very prominent black man for a very, very long time. So sometimes it gets difficult to weed through what we've heard about Emmett Till and what we've heard about other guys and, hey, you've whistled at a white woman and you've done these things. It gets difficult to parse through these things and get to the heart of the actual matter, which is always a victim. At the heart of these matters, it's always a victim. That's what really matters. What really matters is someone that had something taken from them that they can never get back. So this is what I mean. When I say I believe, doesn't mean I can't unbelieve. Like, for example,

I believe, Meg the Stallion says Tori Lane shot her. I believe that. The difference in the penuration that I were having was that there's definitely things that could happen at trial and through other ways to where I could not believe it. I mean, there are definitely things that could happened throughout the discovery of information to where I could be like, oh, well, it's not true. I just don't think those things are going to happen. I just don't. I just like, she's saying, she's saying this happened to her. I got faith in her.

I believe her. And I believe her until I proved otherwise, right? And that's not saying that, and by the way, that's my personal take on it, right? I get a lot of shit from the brothers on this. That's my personal take on it. I'm not on a jury. If I was on a jury, I wouldn't have that I would be looking at the, looking at the whole deal.

This is this, this is this. But when a woman comes forth and says something like that happened, I just, I believe her. Believing her, believing victims, believing victims in any case, when a kid comes to me, hey, this guy touched me, this dude did this, this person did this, this woman did this. I believe you. Let's go figure out what happened.

Let's go figure out what happened. If it turns out it didn't happen, it turns out it didn't happen. We've been there before. it happens a shockingly low percentage of the time, almost not even worth mentioning. But what I'm saying is you in no way are seeking to, I want everybody to be able to talk about this with your homies, right? Brothers, I know how you're feeling.

I know how you feel. I know how you feel. I get it. I understand how you feel. I know. I know how you feel. It starts to feel sometimes like every single movement is just, a new movement to cut black men off at the knees.

No matter what it is, we're always the worst. We're always the blame. We're always the ones that are responsible. That's what it seems like. It seems like the world wants to believe we're responsible for all the crime. We're responsible for all the sexual assault. We're responsible for all the gangbanging. We're responsible for all the drug dealing.

We're responsible for all of the hate crime. All you hear about it, it seems like it's us. what I'm asking you to do is do the same thing every R&B song has told you to do forever which is put your woman first

put the woman first put the victims and their stories and who they are before the feelings that you feel of insecurity because of our place

and society it's hard to do it's hard to forget some of the stuff that's happened it's hard to forget some of the lessons that you've been taught by the people above you.

Hey, watch out. There's going to be some nefarious lady out there. We're going to try to take all your money. This goes back to the Drake conversation we were having earlier. We're having a Drake conversation earlier because we get told that that woman right there, she gets made as sort of an avatar for the baseline thinking of all women. So if that woman would do that, would that woman then lie about being in the sexual assault situation with Drake?

if we're being real, that's the kind of thing that you're dealing with. Hey, these are the people that are preyed upon you as soon as you get money and as soon as you get wealth, as soon as you get any type of status. They're just going to come take it away from you. Either they're going to swindle you out of it like they swindled your ancestors out of all of their land, like they swindled your grandfather out of the farm that he had through contract buying schemes. You're always the victim. So if we're always the victim, then how could they ever be another victim?

Like how could there be a victim that's more victimized than us? So what we want to do is we'll take all the victimhood and put it together and not make it seem like there are specific things that sometimes we are involved in and we need to look at. Because that's the game that we've been told. They've been whooping and kicking our ass for so long that there's no way that we could possibly kick somebody else's ass. And that's kind of what gets in our head. And that's what gets people to say, hey, why didn't she go to police? hey, why didn't she do this? Hey, why did she do that?

The answer is, I don't know. But that's the answer. The answer is I don't know. I really don't know. She knows. So why don't you just listen to her? And she'll tell you. So why don't you just listen to her?

That doesn't mean I have stamped anything in the way that it can't come back. But I'm telling you right now, this shit with him is troubling. It's troubling and there seems to be a narrative. And it's not my job to correct that narrative. It's not my job to get people out of that narrative. It's his job. But as for me, I'll look at it and go, hey, you come to me and you make space for your saying, hey, this happened to me?

All right, I believe you. What are we going to do? It's a tough spot to be in fighting a gender war every time somebody makes an accusation against someone. But we've played this record before, man. We did this with R. Kelly. played it for a long time our killing situation is different

there was a tape we saw it we were pretty sure about went on we like we knew that but we still wasn't enough our need to have success still beat back some of our needs to be human beings so it's tough

it's tough but look if you're refusing to believe Dylan I guess the question I would ask you and there going to be people out there and go, hey, I want all of the information to come out. I want all of this stuff to come out. I want it.

It's fine. Just whatever. But if you refuse it to believe Dylan, if you write out of looking for reasons not to believe her, I would just ask you to ask yourself why. Now, the person I talked to, they say they know Trace on as they say he would never do that. So that's a reason why.

But if it's because she didn't go to the police or it's because they might have had a different type of a relationship or it's because of any of these things that you don't really know yet, I would say just take a beat. And when you're thinking about protecting black ladies, don't think about all black ladies. Think about the black lady.

Because see, that's the last thing I'll say about that. Protect black people is easy. Because people are faceless. It's a bunch of them motherfuckers. Hey, man, I'm down with black people. I'm dying with them. I'm down with them. I don't know about that, nigga, though.

What he did might have been too far. I don't really believe that. I've been to that place before. They're not racist. Now, I'm definitely down with whatever black people are talking about. But see, this place, I go here all the time. They wouldn't treat him like that. I brought my friend there.

They didn't treat him like that. So why would they treat him like that? That's the place I go to all the time. I go there all the time. They wouldn't do that. Because it's easy to say people, but what about the person? Goes back to the Colin Kaepernick thing. Yeah, yeah, we're down with all these people.

Before you, your corporation, whatever can be about protecting people, you have to be about protecting the person. So if it's about protect black women, if it's about believe black women, it's about value black women, value what Dylan is saying right now. Value it.

Just value it. And then when everything comes out, make a decision. They'll go through the whole thing, but for me right now, I believe her. All right, let's go to mailback. Mailback time.

Time to read your letters and then we'll reply to them. Oh, it's mailback time. Write us with your queries and we'll chime in. Okay, from Von Cannon. Does your dog know that they're black too? If so, how do you think they know? Bozeman knows that he's black because of the way he treats black people. He's much more

He's much more chill with black people Bozeman knows that like when a white person comes around And say do whatever you want I ask Steve from from the Midnight Boys PPU Ask Steve Steve Steve will come around Bozman try Steve Jump all on his lap

Jump in his face Whatever whatever If a black person comes Bozman walks up to him sits by their feet What's up? How you doing, fan? We're chilling What's on TV man? You pop and you heard that new gunna?

you know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's up? What's good with you? Yeah, it might need to go outside a little bit later. You know what I've been a while since I had my kibble, you feel me? But the white person, they jump all over you, take advantage. Bozeman is getting it back for all the years that we've been down.

Next question. Miss Dean Drav asks, we know two of Trudy's red flags. What were two of your shallow red flags when you were single? Zero. Zero red flags. Remember, I was out there with zero. confidence in myself. I had the only red flags I had wearing myself.

You know, I would look at, I would, I would, like, I had self red flags. You know what I mean? Oh, that girl's not going to fuck with you, man. Look at her. I would look at her and then I would take her. I remember one time I talked myself, like, I talked myself out of a girl, out of like, talking to a girl one time because her laugh was too cute. There's no way where the chick would have laughed that cute will fuck with you.

What's wrong with you? Look at you, nigga. she laughing all cute she was like we had the gym this was a while ago maybe like when i first got out to l.A i was just starting to try to get healthy i saw she laughed and then like i saw like a wisp of hair come off the back of her shit and i was like that she's not going to fuck what you don't even bother that so i had my own red flags i never really had that many red flags as a matter of fact my life was a fucking green flag if you down let's start the motherfucking race you feel me next question wait what did the cute laugh sound like

I can't remember. I just remember it was the laugh. It was more about not the laugh, but the smile. Sometimes, like, black lady smile. And it's like, oh, you see back. You see yourself and it's like fucking all lyrical and shit. You're like, oh, my God. I want to go to Africa with you.

And then, like, you talk yourself out of it because, like, they be too perfect. And you feel bad. And then you're like a big fucking nerd. But that's how it was. It was for a long time. Donnie, I know you've been there. Yeah. Donnie, you've never talked yourself out talking to a girl because.

you thought there's no way she's going to be down with it all the time but or i used to all the time all the time in my past but um yeah there were times i would fight through that and it would work out to my benefit like i i fought i fought i fought through it and it's worked out to my benefit i fought through fall through it and it's worked out wrong that's the risk you have to take as a man it's a risk you take a man and then after a while you just get to a point well after a while you just like fuck it we're doing numbers in this bitch don't even matter matter, man. You know what I'm saying? Like, we doing numbers in this bitch. We like, we're also Westbrook. We just playing the percentages. We're going to throw up a lot of

these whack-ass bank shots to see if one of them fall. Go ahead. Next question. All right. Jay Schluter-fit asks, what's the most awkward celebrity encounter you've ever had? James Remar. It's not the Kanye West thing. So James Remar is in the Warriors. he also was in Sex and the City he played he was dating Samantha

he was some kind of big fucking um I don't know some kind of fucking like business magnet and he was going back forward with Samantha and then she called him

with somebody else James Remar I was in Arawan underneath the Grove and I'm walking through the heroin and I'm picking up fucking groceries and shit you know trying to get my healthy on

he walks him to me, he goes, he puts his phone in my face. He starts taping me like he's, he works for TMZ. Hi, oh, how are you? I want you tell me everything about all your public and private affairs. Oh, why don't you tell me something provocative? I'm like, ah, ha, ha, okay, James Remar. Okay, cool, James Remar.

And I'll go to walk away. And when I look at the end of the, like the fucking aisle, like the fucking, where you got the chips and shit, James Remar is, he's poking his head out like he's taping me. It's like, hi, hi, blah, blah, blah. And then I'll walk to the other aisle They got like the toiletries or whatever And I look down by like

Where I guess like the register is And James Remmar is over there like Yeah I could use the long lens too And then he like laughs and goes I'm just messing with you And he walks out of the airwana I'm like yo Is James Remark going to attack me?

Is he is I'm safe Like that whole That whole encounter was in three different sections Of my shopping experience at heroin And so that was was definitely the most. I thought maybe he was a little off because I shot him before for TMZ. That's why he recognized me. And he seen me on the television show. So James Remar for sure. Last question. All right. Zee Johanna asked, if you could rob a store except a bank or jewelry

store, what store would you break into? What store would I break into? Except for a bank or jewelry store. What store would I bring into? Probably a comic shop. But I wouldn't steal because I would never steal from a comic shop, we'll just break in there and, like, read all they shit. Because let me tell you how comic shop owners are. If I broke into the comic shop, right? Let's say I break in after, it's like 10 o'clock. I read comics all night. You know, I go on there.

They probably have, like, a fake Thanos glove on there. I try it on. You know what I'm saying? I'm like, you know, I'm wearing the apparel from around a comic shop. I'm reading when they come in in the morning, when they come in the morning and see me in there reading, they're probably going to be cool. They're probably going to be like, did you take anything? I'm like, no.

All right, well, good, because you wouldn't even know what to take because you got brand new, new Avengers over here right here on the shelf. It's penciled by this guy. It's written by this guy over here. It's like, if you're going to read something and break into my store and read something, this is what you should be reading. This story is out of this fucking world. This guy had to run.

He worked with Brian Michael Bendis, had to run on Ultimate Spider-Man a couple of years ago. Now he's doing Avengers. He's blown my fucking socks off. I love it. After you've taken a look at that, I got some Japanese for you. This stuff is really fucking. We go on shrooms and go fucking crazy reading this shit, bro. So that's probably breaking into so I can bro down with them.

All right, that's it for, that's it for a fucking mailbag. Look, you guys, no more mailbag. This was a, this was not how higher learning goes. Okay. Higher learning is nothing without Rachel Lynn Lindsay. Higher learning is nothing without Rachel Lynn Lindsay. The unexpected ally of the week is Rachel. it's Rachel Lindsay.

That's the unexpected ally of the week. She'll be back. Rachel Lindsay is coming back. Okay? So it's a different podcast today. Donnie, Trudy, how do you think I did? Thumbs up, two thumbs up. Two of mine.

You're a liar. No, I'm pleasantly surprised. You really held it down. You put the team on your back. Yeah, put the team on your back. Whatever, Trudy. Like, I got my hat. on right now. Look, take thing caps off, but do not stop learning. I am Van Lathen Jr.

Rachel, can't wait till you come back. All right? Take as much time as you need. Hang out. Other stuff. She's got other stuff, too. Busy lady. Miss her with that. Miss her with that. Miss me. No, it's no, what is it called? It's miss me. Miss me with that. Miss me. It's like a Drake song. We talked about Drake several times today. On stores, in stores, on shelves, January 25th. uh rich will be back next week we out