Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay - The Russian Invasion of Ukraine and DJ Akademiks on Misinformation

Episode Date: February 25, 2022

Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay react to the news of the Russian invasion of Ukraine (2:19), before welcoming Terrell Jermaine Starr, host of the ‘Black Diplomats’ podcast, to discuss what he’s seeing in Kyiv (19:50). Plus, the disparity between the WNBA and NBA is broken down (40:58), and DJ Akademiks joins to discuss his reporting of the Megan Thee Stallion/Tory Lanez case (52:12). Hosts: Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay Guest: Terrell Jermaine Starr and DJ Akademiks Producers: Trudy Joseph and Donnie Beacham Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yo, yo, yo, thought warriors. What is up? Higher learning is on. It is I, Van Lathan Jr. And it's me, Rachel and Lindsay. What's wrong? You're holding your chest for some reason. Burp, burp, and it didn't come out.

And it got stuck there. I hate that. Sometimes it gets stuck. Sometimes, like, when the burp gets stuck right there, and it, like, my mind always goes to a place anxiety. I'm like, what if it triggered something and it threw some wiring off or something like that? I get anxious. That's not what happens. It's happened several times. It happens all the time when you're a kid and stuff, but it just happened to you. What you've been eating? Like what? Flaming Hot Cheetos.

Okay. Oh, you scared it out of me. That was it. You scared it out of me because my mind doesn't even go there about things getting all messed up. And what am I eating? It's what I'm drinking. What is it? The Red Bull. The Red Bull. I don't know, Rachel. I can't. I just can't help it.

You need to stop with the Red Bull, I think. So look, is there a, here's the thing. Is there a healthy alternative to Red Bull? Or is it just like, what? So what does Red Bull do? It makes you feel, it gives you wings, right? Well, yes. But someone did, when we talked about this kind of before,

someone gave me a healthier option, please give it to me again. I missed it. But I don't drink Red Bull every day. It's when I'm desperate, desperate times. And it's been a long day yesterday. It's a long day today. I don't want to drink coffee. I want something cold, but that's going to give me that fire.

And that's Red Bull. Jesus Christ. You know, I want to bring the energy. I want to bring the energy to hire a living. I don't know of slack. That in and of itself right there, Rebel should hire you. Bring that fire. Think about that.

Like Red Bull, because they got Red Bull gives you wings, but Red Bull. And then all of a sudden, I can tell you how it can happen. You could crack open the Red Bull thing and then fire! Because you out of the top of the goddamn thing. And it could be like Red Bull would give you that fire. Okay. So obviously we know that there is war in Europe right now. We're going to have somebody to come on Terrell Jermaine Star,

host of the Black Diplomats podcast is going to come over. He's in Kiev right now. Can you imagine being in a war zone, Rachel? It's crazy. He's in Kiev right now. We're going to talk about this a little bit later, but just so you guys know, Russian forces invaded Ukraine on Thursday, huge, huge show of air superiority. They bombed. They started bombing.

There's going to be a land invasion as well. missiles raining down on people. You've seen it covered on multiple different news outlets. I've rumors that Fox had it. I'll never watch them. So I guess they had it. CNN has had it. MSNBC has had it.

Rach, before we jump into like what's happening there, what are your thoughts on all of this? I mean, my first thought is my heart is just going out to the people of Ukraine. I mean, we've been watching what's been happening. We've been hearing about that there was a possible threat of war, that there was a threat of invasion. And it's like, we woke up today and boom, it was here. And that's just us watching it from watching what's actually happening there as these people are going through it trying to escape.

You know, there's what, almost three million people in the capital there. And they're trying to figure out what's next. So, like, my initial thought is my heart is just going out to these people who are calling this place home, who this is all they know. And now they're being invaded by Russia. And they're also getting this misinformation when, you know, like Putin's saying one thing. I'm not sure if you saw or heard what the Ukrainian president said. He had a very impassioned speech about the misinformation that's being put out there pleading to the Russian people. to recognize what's going on and how Ukrainians are under attack and all they want is peace

and stop paying attention to what they're seeing on the media and to listen to what he was saying. It was so sad to hear him talk about that, pleading, pleading for the sake of his people and his country. So I just, I can't even imagine that that's my initial thought to answer your question. Right. So we're going to have Terrell on later. to fill it any gaps, but I'm going to give my, for anybody that's asking why this is happening, and I'm going to ask him that very, that question when he comes on so that he can actually give, like an actual academic answer to it. But to anybody that's asking why, I'm going to give you a dime store analysis of what's happening right now.

So Vladimir Putin, from what I can understand of this situation, having followed it for a little while, is invading the Ukraine for two reasons. One of them he purports to be cultural. The other one, he purports to be, we know it's political, right? It's geopolitical. So the cultural reason is Vladimir Putin has said that the Ukrainians and the Russians are one people, that they are essentially one people, right? Going back centuries and centuries, there was actually time where I guess Kiev was actually a more popping joint than Moscow was, right? It's Kiev and the Ukraine

has been a part of Russian imperialism And that's what it is, imperialism, for a very, very long time. Okay. I want everybody to picture it like this. So Rachel is from Texas. I am from Louisiana. All right.

So let's talk about cultural diffusion and kind of the way it might be working in Russia and Ukraine from Putin's perspective or for people that are hawkish to that region. So Baton Rouge, Lafayette, New Orleans. cut off new iberia all of those places they are steeped in louisiana culture right those are the places in louisiana that we eat in the gumbo and with my fee rachel some alligator and all of that stuff right the further west you go the more that culture sort of thins out a little bit it's still there but by the time you get to lake charles or you go a little north you get to those border

places, well, now they might as well be Texas. They're a little less Louisiana than what we are, right? It's true. They might be a fit. I'm just saying, you know, I got northern Louisiana family. There's a difference. I got to be honest with you. I don't eat they gumbo. There's a family. My family

doesn't even make gumbo from northern Louisiana. I don't eat their gumbo. So, that kind of is the dynamic that exists in Ukraine, not really, but kind of. When you get to eastern Ukraine, you're getting closer to Russia. And as you get closer to Russia, you have people that actually speak Russian and not Ukrainian. You have actually more support for Russia. You have more cultural

diffusion there with Russia, the closer you get there. Right. Now, as far as the other places that are central and western Ukraine, the places that largely elected Zelensky, because there was when Zelensky, President Zelensky was elected, there was a Russian propped up candidate as well. That got lost. Right. All right. The West was favorable to Zelensky.

He won big, by the way. He won like 70% of the vote, if I'm correct. He won big. But anyway, so there's, there are different cultures based upon where you are, right? Just like there would be in Texas and Louisiana. Because of that, Putin feels. emboldened to claim those lands that are held by rebel separatists for Russia. Right.

Right. And what he's now trying to do is from a cultural situation, penetrate deeper into Ukraine, to expand Russia's cultural influence on Ukraine. He will want the whole place to be aligned with Russia culturally. Politically, it's very interesting. politically, if the Ukraine as a country were to say join the European Union or join NATO, which has been out there in the ether, then what that essentially has is the influence of the West pushing further into Russia, which obviously he doesn't want. Because in the back of Vladimir Putin's mind, what he really wants is to reestablish the Soviet Union. Correct.

He wants to pick up Soviet states. But the history between Russia and Ukraine is even more interesting because of this. Let's just, let's not start from centuries and centuries ago. This is some stuff that I dug up. And, you know, everybody out there has access to this information. But the Ukraine was once a nuclear power when the Soviet Union fell. They had a bunch of nuclear weapons to lobby people. They gave their nuclear arsenal up to Russia in exchange for Russia recognizing their sovereignty.

And basically, ever since they made that deal with Russia, Russia's been fought. with them. Russia doesn't want another NATO company, another NATO country being involved. Russia wants to keep, like, NATO's influence away from the Ukraine. And as time goes on, it seems like naturally Ukraine is identifying more with the Western world. They're identifying more with Europe and with the United States and with other countries that are in NATO. So, you know, after what happened in Crimea in 2014, there were these things called the Minsk Accords that were supposed to lay out a way that Russia and the Ukraine could operate with one another and sort of not piss on each other's legs. But the Russians just never adhered to what was signed. And the United States, to be honest with you, was part of the countries that were involved in making that truce happen.

So Putin just is a bad actor in all ways when it comes to the Ukraine. When it comes to the Ukraine, it seems like his political aspirations and his cultural aspirations to culturally sort of subjugate the Ukrainians and then also to politically have them strategically where he needs to be override any kind of concern that he would have about starting a war. Yeah. Started a world war. Well, it almost feels like this has been a long time.

Because so it seems like he's been waiting for his moment to strike, to come in. And that's kind of what we're seeing happening now. And I think it's interesting because I more so I feel like have educated myself on this very recently. And I feel like a lot of us in the United States, you kind of hear things that are happening. You hear a name. You hear an issue. But you don't really know the history of it. And I'm still not even that well versed in the history of it.

but now it's all coming to a head. And I don't know if you saw the meme. There's a meme that the Ukrainian, I don't know if it was the government put up where you see a picture of Hitler stroking the face. It's a cartoon, stroking the face of Putin, almost like you're doing a good job. You know, like almost like, well done, my son.

Because the way that he is trying to invade Ukraine or is invading Ukraine, I think there was something like almost 200,000 Russian troops at the border ready to go into Ukraine. I mean, now they're already invading. And as I think I just saw a report that they took over the airport or one of the airports near the city. Well, anyways, I just the way that he's he's wanting to exert his power and to expand the Russian government and take back what he believes is Russia's. we've seen it before we've seen it before and that's

the scariest part and it's so it's not when you hear the World War III being thrown out there it's not being thrown out in a flippant way it was before our time but we've seen this happen before

yeah so I do want to talk so I want to talk about a couple of differences in terms of the World War III thing because I don't want people to get hysterical I'm not saying that it can't happen it definitely can't happen it definitely can't happen. But a lot of Vladimir Putin's, and this is another way that Vladimir Putin is very

similar to Donald Trump. I don't know what the Russians have on Donald Trump, but this is the way they're similar to Donald Trump. Vladimir Putin's very existence is, it relies on him being seen as this Russian strong man as this unflappable sort of patriotic Russian autocrat who squashes everything that is beneath or that stands in a way of Russia becoming the huge, huge global influence that it once was. And that's kind of the way that Donald Trump also viewed America, right? He viewed, hey, we are absolutely pro-America. Fuck everyone. We'll do whatever we have to do in order to make sure people know that we are the number one dick swingers in the entire world.

And for a lot of people who in Russia, and I'm not sure what the poll numbers over there would be for a lot of the people who love Vladimir Putin, this is the kind of thing they would expect him to do. As far as the World War III, here's the deal. There's a couple of things I want people to remember about World War III when you talk about World War III. Number one, the United States stayed out of World War III until they were directly attacked. All right.

So the Pearl Harbor attack got the United States into the world. Now, I would argue that if you've seen six million people, 12 million people being slaughtered in Europe, that you should probably get involved in the war. And they didn't. The Holocaust was allowed to happen and other atrocities were allowed to happen before the United States found its way into World War II.

I do not think that the United States, I'm not think. The United States will let this go on and do nothing but impose economic sanctions onto Russia if no NATO member country is directly attacked. If no NATO member country is directly attacked, directly attacked, I think the United States won't lift a finger.

And you don't have to conjecture about that. They've said they're staying out of it. They're staying out of it. Obviously, when the shells start flying, Terrell could talk a little bit more about this. You never know what's going to happen. But I would say that the concern about this being World War III

is that's the concern because we're human beings and we're afraid, right? There are other concerns that go first. We've imposed sanctions on Russia right now that are going to make life in the United States a little bit harder. You have to understand, Russia right now supplies Europe with a significant amount of their energy and their oil. Yeah. So when sanctions come to Russia and we have to sanction them, we're sanctioning Russian banks,

we are putting pipelines between Russia and Germany on hold. We're doing all, when we sanctioned Russia and isolate Russia, the effects of this war are going to be felt. by the people in the Ukraine in a very real way as we're going to see a tremendous loss of life and a potential refugee crisis as people from the Ukraine make their way into Poland, make their way into other places like that. And we have to make sure that we're like as NATO-aligned countries,

we have to make sure that we're prepared to accept those refugees. But more to the point, if you're wondering how it's going to affect you here in the United States, things are about to get even more expensive than they already are. And that is a trifle compared to what Terrell will be going through in the Ukraine and what other people will be going through the Ukraine. But I want people to understand, like, in order for us to act against Russia, and this is where sort of having really good political dialogue between the President of the United States

or an administration and a constituency is very important, for us to sanction Russia, it's going to hurt us. So if right now you are putting, I am with the people of the Ukraine up on your Instagram or on your social media or any place like that, you need to understand that there's a there's a cost. And we all should be with them. And the only weapon we have against Russia short of a full-scale nuclear war, which I can guarantee you unless he's fucking nuts, which he might be, not even Putin wants, because nobody can spend money if they're ash, right? But what I'm saying is, just know that part of your support for the Ukrainian people is going to have to be having the wherewithal to have your life a little bit tougher because of the sanctions that we implement on Russia. Those sanctions are going to come back and they're going to pop up at the gas pump. They're going to pop up at Walmart. They're going to pop up places like that.

And just remember that this is the only weapon we really have. not only to that point, this is the last thing I'll say before Terrell comes, but there's a situation with China and Taiwan where it's almost identical to the, to the situation going on between the Ukraine and Russia. If the Chinese attack Taiwan or try to annex Taiwan because their homeboys, the Russians, have done this in the Ukraine, if that influence, is them the thing that they can move and the world community won't move,

you have a real fucking problem then because that is a direct ally of the United States and it would look completely gutless if the United States did not have some sort of military response to a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. So this is like a weird time.

You said, stop saying it. I'm just saying it. Words of spirits, Rachel. I'm just, I'm just saying. You just described, you just added two more countries to the mix, one of them being an ally of ours where, you know what I mean? Like that brings in the West, the Western world.

I just, it's, listen, you cannot ignore what's happening. You need to be paying attention before you wake up one day and that's what's going on. Yeah. Stuff. Okay. That's enough on the mean. Now I will be completely proven wrong because we have a real expert that's coming on. Me and Rachel don't know shit.

Well, actually, she knows. No, you know. I don't know. I don't know a fucking thing. We got Terrell Germain Jermaine Starr who's coming on the show right now. Y'all from Kiev. Can you fucking believe it?

No. From Kiev on the other side of this break, do not miss it. We are going to be joined by a guest to help us make sense of the reason why things are tense in the world right now. This gentleman's name is Terrell Jermaine Starr. he is the host of the Black diplomats podcast. He also is someone who

is in Kiev right now. He's in Ukraine. He's a senior fellow, non-resident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center. He publishes weekly episodes on the Black diplomats about Ukraine, Russia, and Eastern Europe. And he is going to join us right now

to help us contextualize and help you contextualize what is going on in Ukraine right now. I know that you guys are aware that Russia has invaded Ukraine and there is war in Europe first time in a long time. But the questions are why? How is it affecting the people of Ukraine right now? And for you, listen to this podcast, what is going to be the effect on your life?

All right, guys, very tense times. We told you about it in the world right now. War has found itself in Europe. Putin's army there in Russia has invaded the Ukraine. Look, a lot of you guys have questions about what's going on, why this is happening, and what the situation in the ground in the Ukraine is right now. We are lucky enough to be joined by someone who is currently in Kiev, where it's in the middle of the night. This is his name is Terrell Jermaine Star.

He's a non-resident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center. He is the host of the Black diplomats' pot. He publishes weekly episodes about Ukraine, Russia, and Eastern Europe. There's no one better to talk to right now than this brother. We are happy that he is joining us today on Higher Learning. How you doing, man? Hey, listen, like I said, you know, a cruise missile hasn't shot me down yet. So, you know, it's cool.

I mean, dozens of people have been killed right now. This country has been undergoing massive air strikes. And my colleagues, Ukraine, I'm here with the Ukrainians, my colleagues. are bunkered down in metro stations. And so it's a very rough ride. But Black Jesus is taking care of me. You know what I'm saying? So I'm good.

I feel you. My first question is for a lot of people that are out here, they're scared. You saw it was trending on Twitter World War III. And people are obviously going to be frightened and concerned whenever lives are being lost and whenever there is a full-scale invasion like this. for people that are asking why this is happening, people are wondering what precipitated this, what's going on over there, what would you say to them?

Listen, I've been focusing on this country since 2009. I'm an expert in this region. I've been studying Russian. I'm taking Ukrainian this summer. I've been studying Russian imperialism. There is no concrete reason why any of this is happening. There is no military. reason Ukraine has never threatened Russia. Politically, Ukraine has never tried to prevent Russia from

advancing its economic interests. So that's the first thing. But what has precipitated this, again, in short is the fact that Ukraine wants to be an independent country. Going back to Catherine the Great, some people would say, you know, Peter the Great, this country has never been seen as an independent, right? These people have never been seen as independent. And Van, I think it's important for me. I'm happy. The reason I decided to stay up so late to talk to you is that I think that you would appreciate me speaking from this standpoint.

He treats these people like white trash. And, you know, a lot of people would think that, oh, these, you know, Ukrainians and Russians, they're just a bunch of quote-unquote white people. and you would think there are one, and that makes sense within the American context. But over here, it's very different. Ukrainians have never been a group of people that Russia, whether it be through the Russian Empire or through the Soviet Union or the current Russian Federation as one that has its own individual agency. And when Putin recognized the Dumbos and Lujansk regions, which are in the eastern Ukraine,

you know, the oblast, right, which essentially would be states in the U.S., right? He basically said that this is an illegitimate state. He said that Ukraine, it needs to be, quote, unquote, denazified. And so saying that this is a country that is full of Nazis. And so I don't know if you are, you know, we're used to these dog whistles that are applied to Chicago when a politician wants to run for office and say that we're going to be tough on crime and what do they do? They point to Chicago, right? Stereotype Chicago. That is essentially what Putin is doing. Ukraine is Putin's Chicago. That's what he does. And what's happening right now is

Putin's Ukraine theory. It's very much a version of Putin's racialized mythical threat in that he he sees a country, manufactures a problem that doesn't exist. And he declares it a problem that needs to be taken out very much out. People, you know, white southern legislators across America have identified, you know, critical race theory as a problem primarily because it dares to challenge,

you know, systems of oppression. And Putin's, and I'm sorry, and Ukraine's existence as an independent nation, in his mind, challenges the territorial integrity of Russia. But in fact, what it does is that it challenges his territorial integrity,

because what would happen is that if there is an independent Ukraine at his border, then his fear is that Russians themselves would understand what that independence is like and what accountability is like. And that would overthrow him. Can I ask you this because I definitely want, I know we've been getting a lot of questions from our listeners asking to seek understanding about what is going on. And so you mentioned something about Putin and the way and the threat he feels from the Ukrainians. Ukraine is such a small country compared to Russia.

Why is it that he feels so threatened specifically? It's not the only country that's bordering Russia. Why does he feel so threatened by this country specifically? If you can give the historical context maybe to that, because they have a deep rooted history. And what does it? And what does he want out of this invasion? You can answer that as well. Well, thank you, Rachel. You're asking the right questions that most people aren't asking and they should ask. That's a very key question.

And so, you know, when you look at Russia's border, because I've traveled across the so-called former Soviet Union states, so that means Central Asia, right, Tajik, you know, like to Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, right, Central Asia. I've been to the Caucasus. I've been to Baltic states, for example. What makes Ukraine so unique, right, is, you know, the way you have to, you have to look at this through colonialism, okay? And more specifically, through Slavism, right? Ukraine is a Slavic country, right?

Belarus is a Slavic country. And so the way, you know, he looks at Georgia, it's like, okay, in 2008 and I was also in Georgia. in 2008 when Putin invaded, then they're, you know, they're caucus people, right? But the thing about Ukraine is that it is, they're slams. And he has decided, okay, there's this thing called Kiev Rus, right? You know, the Kiev Rus, which is considered to be, you know, the mother of Slavic society, right?

And so what he does, it says that, you know, we have this united history, So Kiev-Rousse is the mother of not only Slavic society, but Russian civilization. But he's doing this, going back to your question, Rachel, because Ukraine means something very particular in his own reimagined sense of history that the caucuses don't, that the Central Asians, though, because the Central Asians, they're Asians, right? You know, they're not Slavs. And so they are supposed to be, you know, think about Putin. I'm sorry, Putin. Think about Hitler because Putin and Hitler are very similar. Hitler, he made the

pose as slaves, for example, and he killed Jews, right? Because Jews were not a part of his world order, right? But everyone else, like the Swedes, the Finns, for example, they could be a part of the Aryan race, right? And so even though he subjugated them and murdered them, that's how Putin thinks about Ukrainians. But the problem is that when you don't get in line, if you do not embrace my term or my definition of Slavism, Rachel, I'll kill you. And that's the reason what that Putin is doing is specifically to Ukrainians. He's supposed to be the Ukrainian is supposed to be a part of this Aryan, you know, this, this semi-Aryan framework of Hitler. They're not getting in line and because they're not doing that,

his only response is mass murder, which is irrational. It's maddening. But so was Hitler. Right. Last question for me. You're there right now in the Ukraine. What are things like?

Oh, brother, man, listen. You know, 5 a.m. in the morning, we, you know, that's when they, that's when the airstrikes hit. And we've been hit with airstrikes throughout the day. And no one knows where it's safe, to be quite frank with you. And people are asking, hey, can you leave? Can you go out?

It's like, listen, if we were to leave and try to head out the city for one, it's just bumper-to-bumper traffic. And you try to withdraw money. It's hard to do because everybody went to all the banks. I'll just try to them out to see if I can withdraw money, but good luck with that. Also, you hear sirens all day. And the airspace is closed off right now. So any type of noise that you hear in the air, those are military jets right now.

And the thing about it is that we don't know if that's a Ukrainian jet or a Russian jet that can hit us any moment. because civilian buildings have been hit here. It's very real that even as I'm talking to you right now, whether it be intentional or not, that a missile can hit this place and blow it up. I mean, that's just the reality that we all are facing here. It's very terrifying. I would not wish this on my worst enemy,

and I'll finally say that, you know, I would encourage your listeners to really reflect deeply about safety, and what that means and about militarism. Because the same fear that I, you know, I'm telling you when I'm a journalist and this is the first time I've had to deal with writing through war. And I was ashamed to say it, you know, early on, but I was scared, man. You know, I felt embarrassed to say that I was scared. But as throughout the day, I'm not ashamed to say it anymore.

I've learned to work through it. and I'm doing the work that needs to be done, but I was terrified because no human, this is not normal. No human beings should ever deal with this, and I can't help but wonder back in 2003 when America invaded Iraq. That's how Iraqis feel, you know?

And that's the thing. And so I just, I think it's important for us to reflect on this. The thing about Ukraine is that Ukraine is not America, you know, like we are, we're, we're, America is not the nemesis of Ukraine in this instance, but there are plenty of countries that have been in a situation where I am and people have been where these Ukrainians are where they feared an American invasion based on a lie because we all know what happened in the record is based on a lie. It's just, you know what I'm saying? And this is the same thing. And so as a black person, as much as I am here fighting for what's right here as a journalist and also just this is my livelihood. I can't help but to have us have a larger conversation about what role should our government play or our military play in world affairs because people here in Ukraine are asking Russians, are you okay with this? I'm pretty sure Iraqis or Iranians, right, because they've been mistreated by the United States.

You know, Iranians are saying, hey, Americans, are you okay with this? And it just shows you how global affairs impact us all. You know what I'm saying? Like, I'm a fellow American and, you know, flower back in the States, we would be talking about this from a, you know, from the U.S. perspective. But like, I just want us all to really think about the fact

that foreign affairs is impacting us all. And we can be in situations. We're comfortable in the United States. And I say we, and I say we because I'm not in America right now, But, you know, as an American citizen, truth be told, if I get across the border, my passport takes me anywhere, right? And so we can, it's important for us to challenge this imperial state that America is because America and Russia are both imperial countries and their peers. Let's just be clear about that. Okay, real talk.

And so I just want us to really think very carefully and think very critically about the fact that we should be against. against all imperialism. We should fight Putin because at the grand scheme of things, he's not going to stop with Ukraine. Here's my last question. You said, you talk about the United States getting involved. And I know a lot of people are wondering how this will not just affect the United States, but also whether or not we should get involved when it's clear that Putin has made threats for any country that helps out the Ukraine at the moment. Do you think this is the start since this is being thrown around, do you think this is the start of World War III?

Yes. And the thing about it is that, you know, we are used to America in many instances being the aggressor. In this case, you know, America isn't. And I know people don't want to hear World War III, but I think when people put their heads in the sand, that's when we get surprised. you know, and again, like I said, I've studied this region my whole life.

I feel like I understand this region. I feel like I understand Russian imperialism and this activity is better than most people. I'm not saying that just to be Eric. I'm just saying that as a fact. America did nothing to trigger this activity at all. If it did, I would be the first person to tell you. It's not America. Putin, you know, why this should, why have,

Americans should care about this, why black folks should care about this, is because anytime you're dealing with a dictator in Putin, this type of behavior that he has to, if Putin has no problem doing this to his own people, what do you think he will do to us? He has threatened the possibility of nuclear weapons. Like, he has said this. And so he has no limits. In Russia, if you protest, you can be thrown in jail for years just for holding up a protest sign. It is encoded in Russian law. So, you know, yes, this is a very,

and here's some specific examples why. And war mistakes happen. So any of these missiles that are hitting Ukraine that would land in Poland could automatically trigger a NATO response. Automatically, by a mistake, Okay, and here's the thing. How do we know that that missile that was intended to hit Leviv and Western Ukraine, but mistakenly entered Poland was a mistake? How do we know that?

Because the thing about it is, and that's the thing about war, why it's so ridiculous. You know, it's kind of like giving a mucky a gun almost. You know, it's kind of like, you know, we don't know what's going to happen. And so Putin has been so menacing that if I was, somebody in the state, you know, in the White House of our, the National Security Advisor and a missile would hit polling, I wouldn't consider it a mistake. I would consider that this mofo really wants to smoke and he's lost his mind and we got to give him lead, you know, and so that, that could easily trigger it. And, you know, in order, sometimes in order to pursue peace, you have to use force.

And that's not something that I want. That's not something that Biden has voiced. I've listened to every single thing that Biden has said about Ukraine. I've seen the actions. This is not Iraq, right? This is not some reckless move into that. I think that to a certain degree, the American has learned its lesson to a certain extent, right?

But, you know, Putin has never entered these negotiations with good faith. He had no intention of respecting Ukraine. sovereignty. You're dealing with a bad actor that wants to expand borders. And so, hypothetically, if Russia were to take over this country, which is not really possible because they don't have the, they don't have the troop size and the numbers. But if they were to do that, there is nothing to stop him from moving forward into Poland, nothing at all. And so if I were the average American citizen, I would be great. I would be very much concerned, Rachel. I'll be, I, you know, Van, I'll be very concerned because you're dealing with someone in Putin who is encouraging a war because what's, listen, I don't know if either of you have been in a country that has been under massive airstrikes.

It's terrifying, you know. It really is. I don't think you understand what it means to have a bomb to be falling, you know, a few cities away. I don't, I wouldn't wish this on anybody. and Ukraine did absolutely nothing to deserve this. And because they did absolutely anything to deserve this, then you have to ask yourself, how do you negotiate with somebody who chooses to do that?

And you can't, unfortunately. You just can't. Wow. Terrell Jermaine's star, we will be checking back in with you, brother. As this situation continues to develop and unfold, we want you to be covered and blessed. Yes.

We're praying for your safety. And also that you continue to do. do the work that you're doing. Thank you for joining us today on higher learning. Thank you so much. You want me on the show. Y'all got me. Appreciate you, bro. Appreciate you, man. Okay.

I actually prayed a little prayer for the brother to cover him to make sure he's okay. Oh my gosh. Absolutely. You can see it's weighing on him. I can't. This is a man who has dedicated his time, his life to what's going on over there. And now he's in the middle of a war. I can't even imagine trying to close my eyes. night not knowing, you know, what the, what the day is going to bring or what's going to happen

in the night. Oh, my heart is just, is with him and all the people over there right now. Okay, we're going to talk about some of the stuff that happened with the Megan and Tori situation, but we might be able to have, get DJ academics on the podcast to talk about this stuff. Rachel is shaking her head. Rachel, Rachel. Rachel. I think of the last time he was on, as I did the last time. Right, right. So we're if. Come on.

He can't stand there. He did a lot. 15 minutes. And he'll come on the show and then we can pepper him with the questions that we have because act was wild on yesterday. I'm not fucking bullshit. It was all fucked up. It was all fucked up.

But I want to talk to you about something because, you know, you're, you're, you care. You know what, Rachel? I'm going to be honest with you, Rachel. What? I feel like you care more about sports than you care about anything. Sports Corner. We talk about bouncing balls. Yeah.

Sports Corner. Let's get it on. I'm being honest with you. About sports more than anything? Where is this comfort pro? You, because you, because when we talk sports, that's really when like you light up and get,

I mean, you get passionate about a whole bunch of things. But you love talking sports. I like sports. I like sports. You like sports. And you were so upset that you didn't get a chance to hoop in a celebrity game.

I thought about that. Well, it just really was just insult to injury when they let Matt James. do it. You know what I mean? If it can't be one of us, don't let any of us. But they let that in. They let Matt in. And he titty tapped. It was very important. I saw something yesterday. I want to talk about something. I saw something yesterday that I was actually shocked because I don't really know. And look, guys, I'm ignorant. You guys know this all the time. The Reddit knows. I'm ignorant. So I saw something yesterday that really

got me Sue Byrd who is one of the greatest athletes of all time okay she plays for the Seattle Storm she's going to play for the league's veteran minimum

in the WNBA so she can play one last year she's taking a pay cut so it could be her possible last year to WNBA the league's veteran minimum in the WNBA is 72,

141. $1. Okay. This then inspired me to go to Twitter. I went to Twitter and I said I thought that that's bullshit that Sue Bird should have to play for that. Now don't get me wrong guys, Sue Bird has tons of endorsements.

She's played other leagues around the country. Sue Bird is rich. She's playing at the W&BA because players want to play in their home countries because it means a lot. Leads of prestigious. But when I see that number of $72,141, I start to think, is the WNBA in trouble? Like, is the WNBA, that's for a major American sports league to even have your vet minimum at that, that's, that was shockingly low to me. I wouldn't think that it would be 70 to her.

What did you think it was? Because I feel like we've talked before about the disparity in Pennsylvania. and how low it is, particularly in the WNBA. I mean, I wasn't shocked when I saw 72,000. I would have thought it would at least be six. Because the league minimum of the NBA is pretty low. I think it's like 300,000. I would expect it to at least have been six figures.

I would expect it to at least be 100 grand. So I tweeted something and got my ass kick for the tweet because you can't, It's just I got my ass whipped for this tweet. This is the tweet. And I want everyone to see, we can name to say. I didn't see you. I didn't see this tweet.

What did you say? I'm asking for this tweet. This is the tweet. The tweet is, what do you think is the one thing that is holding the WNBA back? Hold, no, this is why I said. What is the major thing that is holding the WNBA back?

That was the tweet. Now, asking for the tweet, people said the tweet was misogyny, which I don't understand how, but let's go with it. Once again, me, I've gone from up, I thought I was 5% misogynist. I think Reddy has let me know

that I'm 75%, so I'm going up to 75. First of all, is there anything wrong with that tweet? And do you have an answer to the question? What do you think? Is there anything holding the WNBA back? What's the major thing holding the WNBA back? That was

my question. And that's the question that I'm asking right now when like that I that I'm wondering when I see the superart story. I don't think that your tweet is misogynistic. I didn't gather that from the tweet. So let me just say that. You're asking me the question, what, what is the major thing holding back, holding it back? I mean, I guess you would have to say the viewers, right? It's not the players.

It's not the game itself. It's the fact that people don't support. the WNBA or watch it to where you can justify it with ticket sales, viewership, you know what I mean, and get the sponsorship up to, I would think that that's why they're saying that they're being paid at an extreme, extreme lower rate than the, I mean, then the NBA. So who's holding it back? It's us, right?

Right. So why, so, okay, that's actually the right answer. I mean, like, people, well, no, no, no. You can't blame it on anybody but us. No, I've never heard it put like that before. But I really haven't. I've heard people say a lot of things, but I've never really heard it. I've never heard of it.

I've never thought about it. Like, it's actually our fault that the WNBA is. Yeah. Okay. So I guess the next question is, why don't people watch it? That is a great question. I don't, to be honest, I don't really watch the NBA. I watch, I watch other than football. which we can talk about that later.

I watch football all season. NBA, I watch during the finals mostly. WNBA, I watch during the finals. Baseball, I watch during the World Series. That's kind of how I do things because I just don't have time to dedicate it. That's me personally. Everyone else, I don't know. What I have appreciated in more recent years is seeing NBA players go out and support WNBA games.

I've actually enjoyed seeing them on the sidelines of them tweeting about it, posting about it, showing their support, showing that they're there and they enjoy the games. And as NBA players, they're into what they're bringing to the game. It's basketball. And I went to the last game of the sparks for their last season. Had a fantastic time watching the game. I mean, it was an amazing game back and forth. It was against Seattle. Matter of fact.

It's good game. The basketball was great. The basketball is great. the basketball is legitimately great. They saucy. But I don't think that there's enough awareness about it. You know, when I worked, I was an intern for the NBA and our, we had, the interns had a project for the end of the internship. They made y'all live in the projects?

Nope. Damn. At the end of the end, they made us find our own living. That's crazy. They barely paid us. They put y'all's in the projects. But they, it was. The ESPN homes.

It was about, it was. It was not ESPN. It was marketing. Our project was creating a marketing campaign for the WNBA, which we then presented it to the president at the time of the WNBA. This was back in 2007 trying to bring awareness to the WNBA because they realized that there was such a need for it. And one of the things we knew about that we learned about the game is a lot of children

and families go to the game. It's like a lot of kids more that. Anyways, my point is that 15 years ago, there was still this issue about how do you bring awareness to the game? And I think 15 years later, we're still struggling with that. Like, our, I remember our campaign idea was to highlight the WNBA players that had ties to the NBA, had famous fathers that were in the NBA,

and like creating a campaign to show the two of them together to try to have that synergy between the two leagues. Yeah. Trudy Donnie Jump in. Trudy doesn't want to be on video. Donnie can do whatever. I want to know. Do you guys watch the WBA, Donnie, Trudy?

Be real. Keep it all the way gangster. We talked about this. I watch it like Rachel, similar in the finals, but I go to games. I go to more WNBA games than I go to NBA games. I'm similar.

I used to watch and I used to go, but once the Detroit shot moved to Oklahoma, my interests, like, deeply died down. So it's been it's been a minute. Damn, you felt, you felt, no, I saw a graphic yesterday that said it's actually more men that watch the WNBA than women. I believe that. Really? I had trouble believing it.

I had trouble believing it. But like, why do you think, I thought it was some, I literally thought somebody was cooking that up to, to divorce this issue away from any type of misogyny or sexism? Well, I do, I think that there is an audience that. carries over from the NBA to the WNBA. But then I also think I see kids and families going to the game. I see a lot of women at the game. But I think as far as watching on television, I think that it just carries over. So that actually doesn't shock me.

It's basketball. Let me throw back the question to you. Why don't you watch the WNBA? I do watch it in spots. the reason why I think I don't watch it, number one, is because I'll be honest with you, it was never a sport that I was taught to prioritize. So, like, they're not like a lot of sports. Like, I don't watch soccer.

And obviously soccer is being played at an extremely high level, right? It's beautiful to watch. But like growing up, when I was narrowing down the sports that I watch, like, I don't really watch tennis, right? Like, I watch tennis sometimes. Mm-hmm. I don't really watch tennis, right? So the reality is for me to get a new sport and to watch a new sport, that would have had to be, have taught to me that that sport was important probably a long time ago.

And I think that's the best way that the WNBA can make inroads is to make sure that people respect the game as it evolves from a young age. It's a good point. Also, tennis is an outlier in this situation because whereas the game is different, In the WNBA and the NBA, it's not different in men and women's tennis. It looks almost identical. And it's played almost identical. The rules are different slightly, but you can't really tell because of the way the tennis court is. It's sort of the game is not predicated on the same things.

So it looks almost the same. So women's tennis in places sometimes is maybe more popular than men's sense. But the sports are different. The games are different. Track same way. Because people are running People are running. Look at them run.

It's hard to tell the difference, right? You know they're learning faster than you. Okay. We got DJ academics coming up on the podcast. He's about to call in. Donnie, send me a link. Let me see all the stuff he was saying. Come on, bro.

Rachel got smoke for you. All right, you guys. Here we. You guys, here we go. Some stuff happened on Twitter yesterday. A couple of bloggers were in the cross- tears. Do you consider yourself to be a blogger, DJ academics? Do you can see yourself to be that, a blogger? Oh, you know what's so funny about that term now? Yeah, they got to come up with like a new term because like blogger, when I hear a blogger, I think somebody type in a word purse. Like that's right.

You know what I mean? But I guess like blogging is so like I like could this be considered a blog if we post it? I don't know what it. So, you know, blogger don't sound gangster enough. So we got to come come with something like your rapper still sounds cool no matter what. Blogger still sounds like. You know what I mean? Right. Okay, so two people went across hairs, two guys that I know, Jason Lee, we're going to talk about that situation a little bit later. And academics, DJ academics who joins us today on higher learning, thanks for joining for joining. You went to war with Meg the Stallion, Tasha K. It was just academics versus black women on Twitter yesterday on Wednesday.

On Wednesday. But seriously, a lot of people have a lot of questions. about some of the reporting that you did on the Meg and Tori situation. These are serious questions. Me and you have talked about them, but I'm going to turn it over to Rachel right now so we can get off into this. What? What's you going to say?

I didn't like how he set that up because I think he has a problem with the reporting. The majority of people just have problem with the information. You get me? That's what I'm going on. Hold on, hold on. Hold on. You don't think that there were people. And by the way, Act, it's not about me.

I looked at this. You don't think that there were people that had problems with the way you reported what happened with Tori and Meg. We've already discussed it. But I saw mad people on Twitter talking about this. The reporting that or the type of report or how I reported it, you're talking about a lot of technicality shit. The people online, they mad because they think that like I work for Tori.

Okay. They're not getting as nuanced as you might think they are. Now, honestly, your angle? Like you've worked at like, you know, a big news organization. So you're looking at certain things. You're looking at wording. You're looking at this. They're not mad at me.

You think I was trending for like three quarters of the day because of wording? No, they didn't like what I said. And to keep it real, they just hope I was lying. And at the end of the day, when someone else came around with the transcripts and kind of cleaned it up and, you know, may have not been in exact the same words I said, but it kind of summed it up. everyone was just kind of mad. It's like everybody's like this.

No, no. We'll get into that. What came out was not what you tweeted. Breaking. That's how you started it off. Breaking, okay? So here's the first question. Here's the first question.

Where did the tweet go? Why did you take it down? Why did you delete it? We should say what the tweet said. We should say what the tweet said. Say what the tweet said. I don't have the tweet in front of me. The first tweet at tweet.

was breaking. It was repealed in, it was revealed in court a few moments ago that Tori Lane's DNA was not found on the weapon in the Megh the Stallion case. You deleted that tweet. Why? Why?

And who was your source? Come on now. I'm gonna, I have to ask. I have to ask. That was good. That was good. No, come on now. Like, you know, you know, it's sworn to secrecy by all my sources.

However, I'll say this. I'll be honest. The, the, so the source in, in summarizing what that DNA result says is me. I've seen it with my own two eyes. Okay. Now, as far as the deleted tweet, number one, I was trying to put it in the layman's terms. I should have just really put the words inconclusive. I didn't even lie.

I thought niggies are stupid. So I didn't want to put the word there because I don't know if they would conclude. what that meant, you know what I mean, inconclusive. But anyway, so the first tweet, you know, I knew once I seen like the whole PR machine moving for everybody else, I knew they were going to nitpick that to death, I believe. Second of all, it was definitely mistyed. Okay. I don't know how I know, but I knew it was going to get brought up in court. Also, I knew it was a very new piece of information that was submitted in the recent weeks. Okay, I knew it was going to get brought up. I knew It wasn't a court hearing about DNA, but it was going to get brought up.

So because of timing of that was a little bit off, you know, took it down, remixed it, put it back up in a more Teflon way, and, you know, off to the races. Okay, so people know. The dispute here is obviously whether or not Torrey Lane's fired a gun that struck Magdalian. Okay. And a key piece of information in this case is going to be whether or not. not, the prosecution can prove that Torrey Lanes had a gun in his hand.

If Tori Lanes had a gun in his hand and they can find DNA evidence or gunshot residue or whatever, then he's cooked because Megan seems to believe that Tori Lanes shot her. So it would be very bad for him if the DNA from him was on the actual gun or the magazine of the gun or anything like that. Now, the results were inconclusive. The question that I asked you and the question that I think people are wondering is, How do you get from them being inconclusive to was not found? And I went up, before we answer that, Rachel, you, Rachel's a lawyer.

What does inconclusive mean in legal terms in a case like this? Wait, can I just ask you where you saw, is that out there that it's inconclusive or is that just you saying that? Because that's not what I, that's not what I recall in your tweets or even what the attorney said. Where did the word inconclusive come from? Oh yeah, the attorney didn't say that. I'm telling you it's on the document. You know, you know why? Okay.

Like, that's why I know. I've seen it. So, so again, it's one of those things that was like, hey, take his word for it or you'll see it later in court. I saw it. So there are no source for that. I'm telling you what I see on the paper. Now, even to that fact, like, for example, and again, we're still speaking kind of hyperbolicly

because, okay, the only thing mentioned is that the DNA results have been submitted to the defense and they're going to get someone to comb through it. It seems favorable, right, to the defense, right? That could mean to have different meanings, but if we just kind of think with our brain, probably means it's it kind of maybe exonerates him or doesn't help the case, right? Right? So we're summarizing what's all that said in court. anything else that people are getting at me about

is things they haven't seen. So Meg hasn't seen the DNA report. You can tell clearly because she, I think the time she stopped tweeting, she probably made a call. She's a victim in the case. You're a lawyer. She's a victim in the case.

They're not showing her everything that's discovery. They're not sending her test results before the defense. Come on. So why are they showing it to you? That's like, but this is, first of all, to answer your question on what is inconclusive means. it means that there's not a firm conclusion, right? It's like, it's just there's no, it's not gay or nay, right?

It's just there's, it's, it's inconclusive, not a firm conclusion. That's really what it means, what it comes down to. So it's not a yes and it's not a no. Can I ask a follow question to that? Yes. And again, I know, again, you may be an attorney, but listen, for the regular people who also consume this information, right? when if you hear DNA results are in how would you explain to the regular person if that information could be used to convict them if you know the tests are inconclusive would you say oh yeah they about to use the DNA to help send them to jail just layman's term because everybody was getting a real attorney on me yesterday no if the results are if the DNA if let's just say you're right and the the results say that they're inconclusive then what you do is you have an expert you bring your expert

to come in and look at that report to give a, to give a better, their expert opinion, right? Which is what the attorney said that they're going to do in that. They're going to look at the report and they're going to determine we're going to read it with their expertise and come to some sort of conclusion. And I believe the attorney said she hopes. The word is hope. And I think the problem that what people have with what you were saying is you were very definitive in your response.

You said it was not found. And that's not what the report says. I guess if you're saying that inconclusive that not found is layman for inconclusive. And that's not. I'm wondering in what world that that's the case and why you felt the need to say that. And again, I think y'all get real technical and real court like on in school. What are you talking about, man? Let me give a very regular example, right?

If I tell you, right, or I don't know, say a fucking boat like, you know what I mean sunk, right? They sent a team of scoobbers to like, look for this and third. And they scanned a certain part of the water. And basically they came up and they said, listen, we didn't find the boat, but we can't say it like, say, or maybe it's not a boat because you know that sunk. Say something that you might not know is there or it might be there. But all you could come back and say is just that, hey, we just didn't, do we technically find it? No.

Do we technically say it's definitely not there? No. Right? However, if that's what you did, though. Find it. You know what you're going to say? No. Yeah, but that's.

Granted, the context that I, the context of that is like, yes. All that fucking babble. You say shit. Like you, it doesn't mean it's not there. That's what I say.

So, yeah. Right. Because did they find Tori's possible? Did they find Tori's DNA? We, we don't know.

It's inconclusive. It's still possible. It doesn't mean a no. I'm telling you it doesn't mean no. Is that why you took the tweet down? No, no, no. Well, why do you, so if, if what you said was, if what you said, what was like, they didn't find it. And they couldn't find it to go either way.

Act, if what you said was legit, why did you delete the tweet? Because of the timing mostly. So if not for the timing, you felt like that tweet, that tweet was good to go. I'm leaving that shit up. You're leaving it up. I'm leaving that up. If it wasn't. So throughout the rest of the day,

you started going back and forth with Meg the Stallion. Yeah, she was incredibly disrespectful to me. Make the Saly. You feel like, you feel like, come on. Wait a second. Wait a second. Let me jump back. You feel like Meg the Stallion disrespected you. Incredibly. You know, like she, she, she, she besmirched my name. She really, she really tried to play with me. You know, like I was some liar. or to me the ultimate form of disrespect in what I do,

call it a blogger or media person or whatever. Wait, wait, wait, wait, hold on real quick. Are you, are you, are you, do you think that Meg the Stalian owes you an apology? I mean, yeah. I do. I know, I'm sorry. For what? Wow.

So this motherfucker is beautiful. You think she owes you an apology? That's, hold on. Hold on. All right. And this is a part of people also are jumping past, right? By the way, I granted, and I get it that she's the victim in the case, so she definitely has a very close personal tie to it.

She got shot. Hold on. Hold on. But yeah. The way she attacked me is like I said, she's a liar. You get what I mean? Now, granted, and by the way, in me explaining it, I said, if she corrected me on the wording, as you guys have a difference opinion about.

how I should have put it out or how it should be said, cool, I would have no problem with that. He jumped out and made a very serious accusation to me. And again, I know it's not violence, but just like how she was able to blame Tori with allegedly her back turn of shooting her, you're going to throw my brand in front of 22 million Instagram followers saying that I'm a pawn working for Tori to cook up stories against you. Listen, when someone's built their reputation solely off blood, sweat, and tears, you've never been given handouts, you've never been helped, throwing a sis. You've been just here working off straight integrity for someone who think they got a bigger platform to come out.

And again, it's not like, I understand where we're doing like ad hominem attacks. I'm going out of you. I'm saying stuff. You're saying stuff back in me. Cool. You know, it's fair game at that point. Because of my reporting on that, she felt so offended to basically. basically say I'm working for Tory and then slander my whole brand. I think that right there goes

over the line. You see, unfortunately, and I'm the only one, the rest of these people like in media, they're scared, they're pussy. I'm going to be honest with you. Everybody allows rappers and these people to just like slander like journalists. Like when you're right, you get no credit. If you make one little mistake, they act like you're the most terrible evil person in the world. You can't play with my brand like that. So really, I was so offended. I had to focus on her for the whole day. And today's day too. Like, you know, we're taking a in-depth look at her career. And we're going to dissect it with facts.

Can I just tell you can I just say something? You, when you said breaking news that Torrey Lane's DNA was not found, that is a conclusive statement. And when you say that it's not found, you're saying that he did not shoot her. And this is what you're implying. He did not shoot her in the foot. And then she's lying. about that. But what else? But what else does that imply?

So you're not saying that. So you're not saying that. Wait, wait, wait. I'm saying you're implying that I'm saying that. By the way, well, you're, you are so. Your tweet is implying that if there's not, his DNA

was not on the gun, then he didn't pull the trigger. And then what she's saying, her account, is false. Tell me, tell me how I'm getting that wrong. That's not what you were implying. By saying that? Let's just be, you know, hypothetical.

Let's say you did it. My fucker could just wipe the gun down. Probably wiped it down. Who knows? That's not implying she's lying. It's just saying this particular fact in the case does not help pretty much anybody. And it's not like a super an indictment on did, does he answer the question of did Tory do or not? There's a million other things.

First of all, there's a muzzle flash situation. One guy said he saw the muzzle flash closer to the girl. You get me? So that's one piece of evidence, right? Then you've got somebody else who said they heard Tori say dance, bitch, dance. You get what I mean? I feel people want Tori to be railroaded so bad that analyzing a independent piece of evidence. And that's what I was saying like, and you still going back to how it was reporting like this and third.

Okay, cool. You know what? I will even defer to you. I'll even defer to you, right? but even if that's the case, that's still not me saying Meg is line. You can't make a perfect loop of saying why Meg needs to be jumping on social media

basically accusing me of working with Tori. Okay, so here's a thing, a couple of things. Number one, just so our audience knows, you can't simply wipe your DNA off of a good. DNA is incredibly hard to get off. And if you're going to get DNA off, you probably need bleach or some sort of cleaner like that. Now, if Torrey Lane's had the chance to set the gun on fire and burn the DNA off

or to get some other kind of harsh cleaner and then wipe his DNA off the gun, I doubt that that happened. So the DNA thing is a huge, huge part of this. Secondly, and this is what, Tori now, come on. You sound like, I'm not defending Tori at all. What I'm telling you is that because we don't know whether or not his DNA was on the gun or not. We don't know that. It's inconclusive, which is as a.

journalist, nigger, what you have to say. As a journalist, what you have to say is not that his DNA wasn't on the gun. What you have to say is that the results were anchor closer. I remember in my lifetime, I remember in my lifetime sitting here and watching an organization that you were working for pretty hard, reported a little way was dead. I think I could call Wade right now. He's alive and breathing. Can I give you the exact?

Can I respond to that? Can I respond to that? Can I respond to that? I'm not going to explain what happened. It doesn't have anything. I'm not going to explain what happened. First of all, I don't give a fuck whether or not teams these stories are accurate. I don't give a fuck about anything.

But this is what I'll tell you. And I explained this to you. Let me explain that situation. Just give you out of a cliff notes on something. Rachel is married to Brian, right? Rachel is married to Brian. Rachel's sister was on here one day, Act, you should have seen it. She was on here one day talking about rim shots and all of that stuff,

REM jobs. And let's say that. Rachel, let's say that Rachel and Brian are about to get a divorce. If I get a story from Rachel's sister and the story says Rachel and Brian, God forbid, never going to happen. I love the couple, beautiful couple. He's got abs. That Rachel and Brian are going to get a divorce. I can go to my website and report and say, according to sources, Rachel and Brian appear headed for divorce.

if they get divorced or if they don't get divorced, that story is still valid. What TMZ posted was, sources say that Little Wayne is close to death, right? Now, the only way that that story is a lie is if the source is not close enough to Little Wayne or if they're making it up. So the reality is this. The fact that Wayne was in dire straits at that time, which I don't know, I wasn't even there, right? But the fact that Wayne was in that situation in dire straits at that time is either true or it wasn't. Now, he didn't die. They never said that he was dead.

They said that he was getting read his last rights. My thing is this, had I been Harvey, I'd never ran that story. I'm not going to run a story saying someone is getting ready to die. But if somebody is laying there and then somebody else calls and says, hey, y'all, don't look good, whatever, whatever. He decided he had it on the source to run it. So that story, even though it is the way it is, was still good. It's a fucked up story that they should have never run ever. But to be honest with you, it was, they had information on it.

Your thing is taking a word and making it mean something else. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on. Okay, okay, great. I'm so glad. You see, you're so I love you. I love you. Okay. So, hold on, hold on.

Hold on. Hold on. So initially, and again, don't ask me, Rachel, I'm not getting on my sources. Initially, what I tweeted is verbatim what a source told me. Yeah, but, okay, so you, so the reality is that. So now, so you were, so now I pretty much only should have just added sources that, right? No, sources said, you could, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, that changes the story. If you said a source says, say.

We're getting less Like, no, if you would have said a source says that Tories they was found, now you'd have been wrong because that source would have straight up been lying to you because that's not what it said, but that's not what you said. What you said was, and just like you said earlier, you said you saw the document. So if you say you saw the document,

if you say you have the document, then we're expecting you to report exactly what's on the document and not to remix it and make it. Let me ask your question, bro. Just be honest. A lot of people going to want to know this. Yeah, this guy. A lot of people

A lot of people go Want to know this Just be honest Be honest Be honest You're fucking with Tori In him Let's be honest

Be honest You're fucking you're fucking with Tori in him right You're fucking with Tori in him Oh Oh hold hold on Oh lo What does that mean What does that mean is that

It seems as if What a lot of people think Is that this reporting is coming From his side And that you are in with him For people that think that about DJ academics That's sweet Hold on

For people to think about DJ, I'm going at Meg. Maca Lee shit to me, too? Why doesn't she? Hey, I'm just here, man. I'm out here in the streets. I don't got no... Listen, I'm in the... I don't get no text from nobody.

I got to go out. I got to hustle. That's why I got to get it from the mud. I got to... I got to put the construction boots on the hard ad on. Like, listen, I got to go plant the field. I got to go pick the crops, fertilize the ground. I got to go there, build the house.

Come on. I do everything. Let me ask you. Here's a thing. Last question I asked you. By the way, there's nothing wrong with having privileged information. That's pretty much how old. No, of course not.

And by the way, I'll tell you this, surprise. The majority of both information that I know, and this is why I'm the best journalist, at least rap jokes in the world, the majority of the info that I break, which, by the way, like... You better than Elliot Wilson? I can name 10 to 15 things that I've broken that. Like, come on now. Like, you know what I mean? It's just, it's just true.

That's why I can't, I can't let somebody say I'm lying. It's usually because of either sources or relationships or me being privileged at certain things. Like, so, so again, that doesn't mean I'm right. I think, and this is the thing I don't want to discuss. Why? Because even if Act has a contact with Tori, why is Tori seen as such a bad guy that I can't put the info out that might make him look good? I don't care. But see, if I get it.

It's not that you can't put it out. It's that you put it out. You can't spin it. All right. Okay. So that's, it's not that you can't put it out. If by the way, you've had sources, I got a million sources. I've seen videos that the average person, I've seen things.

I've had all kinds of sources from the top to the bottom. When you put it out, you just got to put it out right. Let me ask you one last thing. Okay. Because you make part like she was out of pocket. This is what I'll say. she is in a situation where she was shot, abused. She don't want to see nobody playing with that

if the shit is not real. There's trauma there. And I'm going to tell you this right now. You talk about you about to go in on Meg. Check yourself. That's not right. Think about what we're talking about. But you're antagonizing her.

It's not right, bro. Think about it. You're talking about a black lady that's been shot at. Why would you add to what man's got going on? Why? What people do to? First of all, I just. this article today. We have Lizzo who over here

talking about, yo, she used to be crying while eating popcorn because Eddie Murphy used to be wearing fat suits and just how to make the character for all type of BS. You know what I mean? Sluo, though, no problem with her. Everybody's so like, you know, oh my God, like let us lift Lizzo or body positivity, blah, blah. You have Meg, she over here calling me fat, all type of shit,

say it all the time. It's wrong. It's wrong. It's wrong. It's wrong. No, no. I'm going to tell you it's wrong. Hey, guess what, Meg, that's wrong. Don't call act fat. I'm not trending for it. Let's uplift act. It's like, fuck that fat motherfucker. So because you're the bully. I'm in the ring.

But I'm in the ring when somebody low blows me like fucking pinches my ear when the referee don't see. I take it. So the point is this because y'all just try to make her, oh, she's a victim. She's so hurt. She can just say anything. You can't just, hold on. You can't just roll me out there like I'm some irreputable outlet that's working for somebody.

and I hate this. No, that's not the case. But you can't antagonize people and not expect for people to, and I'm not saying she shouldn't take personal attacks, but you can't antagonize somebody and not expect somebody to say something back, especially when you do it incorrectly. Wait, wait, wait, but here's the thing, Rachel, this is what I'm trying to answer Van.

Put it like this. She'd made ad hominem attacks on me. Nobody's coming to my aid. When I said I'm going to focus on her, not going to be focusing on trying to call a beautiful, black woman out of her name. Not trying to, you know what I mean? Play with the fact that you know what I mean she's a whole queen out here. I'm just going to talk about what I get paid for. Analyzing music, analyzing her body of work, analyzing art. And if the conclusion I come to

is that she is a overrated, okay, over-celebrated individual based on the music I have seen and the words you put down, I think that should be valid. Y'all don't think? I don't know why. It's time to go. We got to go. We got to let you go.

We appreciate you coming on. Bro, I'm telling you, man. I love me. Hey, you don't love Meg. And you're about to make a mistake, Act. This one, you're about, hey, act, you're about to make a mistake. You're about to make a mistake.

Why you want to use your platform for shit like this, bro? Yeah. When, when me and me and. Nikki were at odds and Nikki started mobilizing her fan base to leak my address, leak my phone number seven times. I had 100,000 calls, okay?

Literally hack my accounts. Okay, tried to set me up in L.A. with, you know, someone of the trans community, which I ducked and weave, you know, no disrespect. But, listen, I dealt with it with Nikki. You think I'm like, what the heck

you think I'm might be scared with? Like, and again, I'm not doing it. I'm not doing low blows. I'm going to keep it music. I can't wait for. The only thing I said, see nobody wants to talk about music. She was trying to belittle me because that's what these artists do

after they use the platforms of like a me and they finally think they're at People Magazine and E News. They try to shit on you. Oh yeah, you like a little dude like in a game. No, you can't talk to me like that. I know the game. Like you're rappers, you literally say

you haven't got paid for me music. You beg 1501 every month. All right, we're not doing this. We're not doing this. We appreciate you. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. We appreciate you joining us on higher learning day, bro. Keep your head out of the mud, bro.

Come on, man. Next time you come on, I wanted to not be hostile. Every single time, we got to go at it. I just want you to come on and we just have a nice conversation. Oh, wait, bro. Oh, what? By the way, like, you know, I definitely just want to, you know, there's only like four days left in, you know,

black history month. I've been, you know, you know, invest in time into, you know, learned about my fellow black brothers and black sisters, especially, you know, of this great country. Definitely want to salute to my sister queen. I don't even know how I'm saying her name. I've been watching her a lot recently. What's her name?

Shah Harrod. Bye. Bye. Hey, we ain't doing that. We ain't doing that. I can't up with the black queen. Nah, no, you're playing again. You're doing that same shit.

We ain't doing that. We ain't like, we, we, we, we, we ain't. We're doing that. Man, you're really going to stop me while I'm trying to uplift a black queen right now. Who are you talking about right now? I just mention her name. I don't know if I said her name right, but it's like, it's queen, I think it's Shara Zad Ali. Oh, Shaharazade Ali.

Oh, no, that's cool. I thought you was about to diss somebody else. No, no, Shahzah Ali. Charizal Ali is great. I used to read her back in the day. She's very controversial. But Shahazade Ali, nah, I get it. Beautiful.

She stands for a lot of values that, you know, I also. Yeah, Shahrazad Ali. you guys aren't up on her. She's been doing her thing for a while. There's a lot of stuff out there that's going to be controversial with Charles Audele, but it's a, it's a deal. My bad, I didn't know you're going to. All right.

DJ, DJ academics. Get the fuck out of here. DJ academics. Bye. Bye, bro. Bye. Peace, my man. All right, let's do it.

It's enough. Enough. We want to hear from the people. We want to hear from the thought words or whatever. Let's, let's go it. Donnie, cue the song, mailback time. Mailback time. Time to read your letters.

and we'll reply to them. Oh, it's mailback time. Write us with your queries and we'll chime in. All right. Oh. Is that loud? My bet.

From at all. No, I burnt again. Sorry. Oh, got you. At all love all day. She wants to know, or he wants to know, what is the scariest ride slash experience you had at an amusement park?

Oh. Well, there was this place in Baton Rouge. And now... Sounds janky already. It is very janky. They've combined it. They've combined it with another place called Blue Bayou, but it's called Funfair Park.

The name of the place in Baton Rouge, it was Funfair Park. It was our little amusement park. Funfair Park was fun to go to with your friends, but Funfair Park was not... I remember there was a little roller coaster at Funfair Park, and the guy had to grab the roller coaster and get a little running start with it to get it on the track to make it go.

And I had never. What? I swear. The dude, so there was a little roller coaster at Funfair Park, right? And the attendant or whatever that would do the roller coaster, he had to grab it. No. And like take a couple steps and run with it to get it on the track to make it go. And I remember getting on that roller coaster and just.

having intense fear, not thrill, but intense fear that that bitch was going to break. And it was making all kinds of weird sounds. And it was rickety. It was very rickety. But anything that you rode at Funfair Park, which is all we had, which now they have, it's a better Funfair Park that's connected to Blue Bayou down there. Shout out to Bat Rouge. But there was all we had.

But I was scared of shit riding the rides at Funfair Park. That sounds terrifying. And I would have been screaming to get off if I would have seen somebody give the roller coaster a running start. That doesn't make me feel good at all. I, you know, it's been a long time, except for, we were just at Dollywood. And I think this roller coaster was called the Wild Eagle. And what made it scary was we were riding it at night. So you can't see anything. So you went all, my sister and I went on it, we went all the way up to the top. And then you just drop down into complete darkness. I think it said like 210.10,000.

feet just as a drop. God damn! I couldn't be totally making that up. So I'm like, 210 feet, the wild eagle is a fucking beast. It's wild.

It's wild. It was, talking about giving you wings. The wild eagle. We went straight down. The wild eagle. I got to look this up. Just dropped.

I've never, and it was cold. It was dark. I mean, we were crying and laughing and screaming. It's also been a long time. It's been a roller coaster. It was terrifying.

Terrifying. Yeah, it's called, yeah, the wild. Eagle here at Dollywood. The Wild Eagle is a beast. 21 stories above Dollywood.

And takes the riders on a unique, y'all diggers is wilding. No fucking way. What? We didn't know. Like, it's an eagle. And it goes like a unique experience that feels as if they're soaring high above the smoky mountain. I'll tell you.

Wow. But we saw no mountains. It was just darkness. Because it was pitch black and you just drop. And you don't know what you're dropping into. It was one of the scariest things I've ever been. Other than that, what's the tower of terror where you like go up a couple of floors.

Never done it. Never done it. And then you drop and you go up and you don't know how far you're going to drop or how long. That's like a stomach jerker. That's a Calica. That's a Calica only ride. Hey, man.

I want to go on Tower of Terror. I want to go on. Watch this. Calica! Like, hey, Van, I want to go on Tower of Terror. I want to like drop down and do fucking the Twilight Zone. No, no. I want to see the whole part.

I want to see the whole part. What's the next question? It's very upsetting. Von Cannon underscore wants to know this one is a hard one. One hip-hop region has to go. East, West, Midwest, or South? Who you choose? Midwest.

Ooh, really? You choose the Midwest? Wow. Well, it's not going to be the South. Of course. And for Damson, right, the South. Name, if we give up the Midwest, which I have elect, you have not made a decision. So that means that we're losing.

We're losing. Chingi. We're losing. Nelly. You're losing common, Kanye West, Lupe Piasco. Oh, shoot. I wasn't including Chicago. I was in including Chicago.

Right. You got to pay. Can we move that east? A lot of people, you're losing chance. You're losing. You're losing. Oh, you're that's my favorite. Forget what?

Forget it. Honestly, I was thinking Chicago just doesn't, I just don't think Midwest. First person I said was Chingy. So it lets you know how my mind was thinking. Just fucked over Chingy. Oh my gosh. You know, chance is my favorite. That's not going to happen.

Right. Right stuff. It's tough. So. West. interesting west okay that's cool you feel the west hey the west people would say that so this is my ranking of hip hop okay all times and overall shit this is my rankings overall the south is number one in hip hop of course the south is now the south is now number one the south has had it for so long

the south is number one in hip hop the west coast is second to me. The East Coast is third. And here's the deal. That's a personal ranking. In terms of actual importance, the East Coast would have to be above the West Coast. All right.

But in terms of what I fuck with, I think the West Coast is really what blew hip hop up. And then the Midwest would be under that. Now, right now, I'm not saying for all times, but right now, right now, If you have to lose one region, it's obviously the East Coast. Obviously. Because think about it.

The West Coast, you're going to lose Kendrick. You're going to lose Vince Staples. You're going to lose a bunch of people, right? But you said right now. Kendra's never doing anything right now. He's got an album dropping this year. But it ain't dropped yet. You said right now.

But I mean, right now encompasses who is making music right now, right? Who is hot right now? And Kendrick hasn't dropped. He hasn't dropped in a couple of. years, but he's, you know, he's coming out. He's been around. So right now, I would say, and you know, you still got the West, what's got, what's got, what's got, what's got got, what's got got, what's got got, what's got a lot of people. But right now, the East Coast will have to go. And I'll be honest with you, as hip hop continues to move forward, the East Coast is the originator of hip hop and now never, they'll always have that. But in actual relevancy, the relevance of East Coast hip hop is shrinking. it is unless you want to say that Atlanta's the East Coast, unless you want to give North Carolina, those places are the South, right? But the relevance of East Coast hip hop is shrinking very quickly

in the grand scheme of things. But they're the originator, so you have to have a lot of respect for them. But I would say right now, the East would have to go. That's a good question. Whoever asked that. That's a fucking great question, Von Cannon. All right. Next one. All right.

K.K. Haley, 11 asks, if you could have only one. one drink for the rest of your life, besides water, what would it be in lie? What is it? Besides water. For the rest of my life? Did we answer this before it? Oh, no. Oh, it might have to be a tie between Red Bull sugar-free and Kool-Aid.

Wow. I wanted to be something flavorful for the rest of my life and it's not water, it better be good. The double niggily, not one vitamin to be found. Not one. Red flavor for the Kulei.

Which red though, cherry or strawberry? No, more like a, you know, like when you get the Koolet, the blue tropical punch, that's the one I want.

Let me tell you what Kool-A did to Niggers. So Kool-A realized that Kool-A one thing, I have a Kool-A theory. My theory, my theory,

that Kool-Aid wanted to get us out of the habit of identifying Kool-Aid flavor with color. Okay. The people at Kool-Aid were like, somehow this is shrinking our brand. Like, we know that niggas love Kool-Aid, but what are the flavors? Orange, blue, red. Purple. Purple. Those are the flavor.

That's what we say. That's what we're saying. That's, you know what we're going to do? So they say, hey, you know what we're going to do? We're going to flip it on these motherfuckers. We're going to fuck their heads up. We're going to give you a teal Kool-Aid. We're going to give you a Kulay of Berry Breast.

So fucking good. But it wasn't quite blue. You know what I mean? It was like, it was like, and you had to call it. If you wanted it, you have to say, yo, because I have some ocean berry breeze. Because it wasn't quite blue. It really really wasn't a blue Kool-lade. So they fucked our heads up.

And now I feel like it's a whole thing. generation of kids that know the flavors. But for us, it was just colors. For me, the answer is orange juice. I like a little orange juice. But now as I grow older, I like to put some ice in my orange juice. Ew. Yeah.

And water it down. A little bit because I used to be able to just drink orange juice and it would hit me. Hit me now a little hearty burn from the citrus can get to me. So I like to put a little ice in my orange juice. Sometimes it makes a little ginger ale with it. Hell, no. Pulp sucks. What's your brand?

What's your brand? simply orange simply but I'd be honest with you though hopefully I'll be honest with you though hopefully I'll be honest with you though I used to be more of a nigger with my orange juice just a Walmart brand new orange juice is what I would love

very sugar and I need citrus okay what's the next question all right Kerrberry asks we've heard Rachel mention her intention to have children is van is being a father in Vans plans I don't know. You know, I'd like to, but it used to be the kind of thing that I think I thought about all the time.

But I don't know now. Part of me is like, you know, certain milestones of life has happened and there have been no little kids there. I got Bozeman. Bozeman's great. So I don't know. I would hope for, hopefully, hopefully, hopefully it happens. But if it doesn't, we just ride the solo ladder, baby. You know what I'm saying?

All about me. deep question get off Carrie Barry we talk about you want to ask it's a great it's a great question

it's a great question Carrie Barry of the top rope Van why don't you reevaluate your life think about your life man I like you

Carrie Barry okay what's the last one from Christina Newquist what's your favorite book in the Bible and why oh

it's easy for me oh had Exodus. Old Testament, huh? Yeah, Exodus. Why Exodus? Because Exodus is just, you know, we put it on that ass. We told y'all stop fucking with us.

We warned you. Like, think about, think about the, another, there's another lesson in the Exodus, right? God is talking to you and you just won't listen. I mean, there are plenty of things that happen in the Exodus. It is a really gnarly shit that happens in Exodus too. But God is talking to you. God say let these people go. But you're so devoted to slavery and using people that you won't listen to God.

And guess what we got to do, baby? Bring out the fucking frogs. I love it. What about you? I'm definitely going New Testament. I'm going to say Matthew. You got the beatitudes. You got a lot of parables in there.

Tattoo on my wrist. It's from Matthew, 26. 41, watch and pray so you don't fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Matt James. Matt James. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's, yeah, that too.

He was named for that? Oh, was he? Okay. I didn't know that. Didn't know that. That was new to me. Yeah, it's a good question. I'd probably change it if you ask me later.

But right now, I'm going to go with Matthew. It's definitely exodus for me. Matthew's great. Matthew, if it was a New Testament, I would have chosen Matthew. You know, Matthew's got, it's got the most bars. Matthew got bars, you know? Psalms got bars too, though. Psalms got bars.

Songs is a good one. Psalms is a good one. Psalms got bars, but Matthew got bars. What about Revelations? I was always scared. Remember the left behind? I just, you know, it never read it. Never read it.

Can't do it. It scares me. There's something, there's something terrifying to me about Revelation. I would go more with one of the ones that like Paul wrote, maybe at Galatians, you know. The thing about Revelations is you like. First John is good too, though, actually. People would tell you, look, we got so many people. They spent too much time on the Bible.

Whatever from Louisiana we read the Bible. Stop. It's y'all's question. Y'all's, y'all asked us. Christina Newquist. Christina Newquist. Christ Newt. Jesus.

Christina Christ, she's the new Christ. Christina, where are you at? You have to deliver the people. There's a lot of shit going on. Christina Newquist, Christ new. All right. That's enough for Mailbag right here. Donnie was very, very poor in that segment.

Don't put this on Don't do anything. You're right. That's the problem. Donnie did do anything. That's the problem. Donnie takes a couple of days off. Doesn't know how to act, right? No, Donnie's fine.

Donnie comes back here. Donnie went to goddamn folly's in Atlanta. Rach, do you have an unexpected ally of the week? I did. Did you have one? Oh, where did it go? Where did it go? Where's my unexpected ally in the week?

Well, you know what? If I wrote it down somewhere, if I can't remember, it's, oh, wait, here it is. Warner Media is partnering with Black Beauty roster partners to train beauty professionals on how to style talent of color. I cannot tell you how beneficial that is, how necessary that is, for people of color to feel beautiful on television and feel like they are hiring people who actually get us, who know how to work with us, put us in the right colors, do our hair right, do our makeup right.

So that's the unexpected ally of the week. Amazing. That's actually amazing. That actually is very amazing. I haven't unexpected any of the week. Ack. No. Reddit.

No, no, no, we got to go. We gotta go. I'm not gonna, I'm not expected enemy of the week. Me versus Reddit. That's not unexpected. That's it. Enemies, enemies. Can't wait.

Keep talking about shit, Reddit. Peace. We go. Take the de caps off, but do not stop learning. I am valid. I'm Rachel and Lindsay. Bye, guys.