Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay - Understanding the WGA Agreement, and Kaepernick’s Letter to the Jets

Episode Date: September 29, 2023

After reacting to the most recent GOP debate (21:28), Van and Rachel discuss the end of the writers strike (41:12) and Colin Kaepernick’s letter to the New York Jets (1:06:27), before digging into a very Black father–centric mailbag (1:38:08). Hosts: Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay Producer: Donnie Beacham Jr., Ashleigh Smith and Aleya Zenieris Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yo, yo, yo, yo, thought warriors. What is up? My learning is on, on. It is I, Van Lippin Jr. And it's me, Rachel and Lindsay. Good morning. So I have a dream. Good morning.

We're up. We're doing it a little early today, you guys. A little. Very early. It's 7 a.m. As we're recording this. So you might hear a little sleep in my voice. But I do have a first dream.

Great. Maybe we should start doing these first thing in the morning. So we, because you're a vivid. dreamer, but like regularly. I am probably weekly. So you'd say you have maybe like one once a week? Oh, I had one. I had a vivid dream not last night the night before.

Interesting. Was it about fatherlessness of how to come back? Close. What was it about? Zombies. I frequently dream about the end of the world. Like the end of days. God damn. Not like revelation. the days, like the plagues, but just like there's some outbreak and zombies are coming or

aliens are attacking us. And I'm always running. I'm always and I'm always in my neighborhood in O'Clith. It's very weird. And I constantly have these dreams. That in tornadoes, I would say I dream about the most. So maybe I'm just living this really chaotic life. Things are in a mess. Or a mess. Anyways, I was running, running, running. No, Rachel, you're looking for safety. Is that? Come on, Joseph. You better interpret my dream.

That's what it is. Like, all of this calamity, all of this stuff happening, you're looking for safety. Hmm. But I've been having these dreams since I was like a kid. That don't mean nothing.

You're still looking for safety. But I've always felt safe. Nah, man, not from the judge. Not from the judge. Not from the judge. You felt safe. The judge was protective. of you, but you were like, you, you know, the judge, I don't want to take away from the judge.

The judge is my God. But, you know, you were like, oh, I don't know. You're looking for safety. Okay. No, just, just to take a quick detour. Fun fact, topic that we were going to cover that we're not covering today on the podcast, Eric Johnson, mayor of Dallas, moving from the Democratic Party to going Republican, my dad swore him in.

You know, when he was a Democrat. And then for his second, I'm using air quotes. And then for his second term, he had John Cornyn, Senator John Cornyn. So people should have known what was happening. So there's a huge switch. But there's something that I said, oh, probably have a lot of opinions that you can't share with me. You're trying to say it's the judge's fault. Uh-uh.

Uh-uh. Uh-uh. Uh-uh. We're going to move back to the dream. Anyways, I was running through. I was running through and I was like, and there were, they weren't zombies. They were gargoyles perched on top of buildings.

And I think this is because this is a Paris thing, right? Like I think, I think, you know, we, you know, Notre Dame and all of that. There were gargoyles and they were stone. And you didn't know when, but they would come to life and they would come down and they would attack people. And so like, but they were on every building. And then some were like hidden in trees. And so we were running, running. I don't know what we were running to.

And it was Brian. He was taking his time. And I was like, come on, Brian, hurry up. Hurry up. And he was just taking his time. And then he, then I was like, well, I'm going to go ahead. No, we were going to a hotel. And I was like, I'm going to go ahead and get to this hotel because we have to get there first.

And I get into the hotel and I check in. And when I come out, Brian's gone. All right. You got balls of fucking steel telling this dream on this podcast right now. You want people to, I mean, you want people to, I mean, I don't know what to you I'm going to fucking just actually not even banter on that

I'm going to move past that okay because I don't know what the fuck's going on with you this morning like you guys I'm just going to move past that. I just ran ahead. Yeah. Wow.

Toled us safety. Shut up. Okay. Tell me yours. Right. Tell me your dream. Well, before I talk about my dream, I want to talk about something that everybody should watch

when it relates to gargoyles. Tells from the dark side of the movie. Have you ever seen it? Come on. Now, you know I haven't. Okay, so look, there's one of the best gargoy-related stories ever. Tales from the dark side, the movie, all right?

Gargoyles starring, what's the fucking guy that played? he was in the Warriors and he also was in sex in the city and Ray Don Chong is in this vignette as well. He was on the Warriors. He was in the, he was on this, the goddamn movie the Warriors.

Not the Bay Area of basketball player. Rachel. Rachel. Okay. James Remar. James Remar. They,

you're telling dreams that say way too much. And then at the same time, you're talking about, nah, this was in the 80s, okay? It's not step-carry. But it's about gargles. I would give you guys the whole plot, but this is more homework. You guys came through with drum.

Y'all don't want to see that. I'm fucking with everybody that was watching drum. I know some of you guys probably like drum a little too much because we got some white ladies that listen to this. You guys probably got into drum because you know what you want. but James Rimar,

Ray Don Chong tells from the dark side I'm pretty sure it's from the movie but find the sketch find the sketch he's an artist

he falls in love with her it has to do with gargoyles it is amazing I'm not even going to ruin that to give you the whole plot right now find it watch it report back to me that's your homework

this is my dream for some reason I'm back in Baton Rouge and a lot of my dreams. And my father is just in all. My father's in all of them. He's in every single day I have, okay? It is just the way that things are now. My dad's in everything.

So last night, I dreamed that me and dad were hunting. And I had a deer in my sights, but I didn't kill the deer. I did not shoot the deer. Why? And I just didn't want to. Okay. I'm looking at the deer.

I did not kill the deer. And I walk over to where the deer is. And my dad walks up to me. He goes, that's okay, son. And I go, really? And he goes, yeah. And then a dog runs up to us. And I'm like, whose dog is that?

And he goes, that's everybody's dog. And I start petting the dog. And then after I petted the dog, I do this thing where, which happens in my dog. my dreams where I'm transformed. And now, like, not transformed, like a transported chassis. And now I'm in

a quick trip. I'm walking inside of a quick trip in the dream. And I walk inside there, I don't have my gun. And I'm like, should I bring my gun in here? And I see that the guy behind the quick trip is

getting money out of, the cash register and there's a gun in the cash register. So I go back out to the truck and I get my gun and I put it in. I'm wearing overalls with cargo pockets and I put my gun in one of the cargo pockets because I don't know why I feel like I need my gun walking into this quick trip. So I walk into the quick trip. I got the gun and I go and I get some stuff. I'm looking for some food but they don't have any so I go get some water.

I come back to the, not water, I go get some vodka and I come back to the counter. and Natalie Nunn is behind the counter. I'm talking to Natalie. Why? You're watching Zeus last night? I don't know. I'm talking to Natalie. We're going back and forth.

And like, Natalie, she's, hey, how you doing? And she says, I remember when you were younger. And you, your hair and you gain some weight. And I'm like, yeah, man, you know, like, we're laughing about a lot. And then she sees a guy behind me and she takes him outside and talks to him about joining the cast of baddies, about joining Zeus. network. And while that's happening,

somebody comes in, looking like they're about to rob the quick trip. And I think about going for my gun, but I just leave the quick trip. I thought you said you didn't have your gun. I went back out and got it. Oh, okay, okay. Yeah, it was about my, yeah, that was the dream. I don't know how to

interpret that one. There was only one more thing that happened in the dream. for some reason I dreamed that I woke up a little quick snip in the dream. I dreamed that I woke up and wanted to drink some water but it was really vodka.

I don't even drink like that. Who knows? Whatever. Dreams. Dreams. Do you drink vodka? See, I feel like that should be the dream that I have because you know I haven't been drinking. Still going strong, guys.

Still going strong. Yeah. I need I don't believe you. On two weeks. Oh, please. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Tramphia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tramphia is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks,

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Trading derivatives involve significant risk and may not be suitable for all investors. manage your activity with our consumer protection tool. Restrictions apply. See terms at vandul.com slash predict slash bonus dash offer dash terms. I've seen some of the criticism you've been getting online. Which one? That I talk black and sleep white? Who said that?

I get that all the time. People call me a bed wench all the time. Oh, God. Yo, I love, that's my favorite insult. This is why I'll tell you about some of the insults that come online from some corners of Black America, they're really good. Butter biscuits is one of my favorite things.

The butter biscuits is one of my butter biscuits that went, these are such grade eight insults, but I saw actually a picture of you, and it was you on one side, and the other side it was a picture of the judge. And they had highlighted... What? Where are you? Yep.

You all got to leave my daddy out of this. They had highlighted the fact it was the judge's Wikipedia that the judge was appointed by Bill Clinton. And they said that's why you don't like Larry Elder. Because Bill Clinton appointed the judge. You're a shield for the Democrats. My poor... Y'all leave my dad out of this.

You're a shield for the Democrats. That's what you are. All you had to do is press play on our interview. No, I'm not. All you had to do is press play on our interview to see why I don't like Larry Elder. Stop. Stop. I mean... I haven't seen... Like, I mean,

I guess the typical criticism, like I said, about the bed-witch stuff. But not too much. Not too much. But you know me. I'll look at the Internet for five minutes and then get off. So I don't know. It could all be criticism out there.

Yeah. The interview caused fucking carnage in my friend circles. I was getting hit by many different people. Not even going to talk about it. Look, you know, Rach, as we look back on the Larry Elder interview, I think it's important for us to tell people something. It's important for me to say something. Go ahead.

Two things. Number one, in all future interviews, I'll do a better job and not filibustering in the interview because I do going back and listening to it. I do feel like there was balance needed between me and Larry, and Rachel provided that balance perfectly, but sometimes I get caught up. That's on me. Won't happen again. We're getting better every single day. Number two is, I want everybody to know something. We were determined not to fight with Larry Elder.

We really were. We talked about it weeks ago. Yeah, we were determined not to fight with Larry Elder. I don't know what Rachel's going to ask. Rachel doesn't know. And I'm going to ask, but one thing that we did agree on was like, let's not make this into a fight, into a contentious situation. Right. Let's see if there's some possible way to get to an intellectual understanding with Larry Elder, even if there are agreements.

even if we're interpreting infideration in a different way, even if we're coming at some of the problems that black people in America face from different sides. He wouldn't have it. Like, after he got to his back, it was obvious he wanted to fight. And so that's what it became. I don't know what else to say about it,

but that was kind of the whole deal. I don't want ever a replay. of Emmanuel Ocho or Michael Rappaport or any of those situations that wasn't what I was into. And I know that's not what Rachel was into. Like she said, we talked about it. But he just wouldn't happen any other way. I think he had the most fun of anyone.

I do. He didn't. He wouldn't have it any other way. But it's hard to have that type of interview or conversation or whatever you want to call it. Because it wasn't supposed to be a debate. It was supposed to be an interview, a conversation. when the other side won't concede to anything.

It's like, I mean, from the top of the interview, you know, you asking if he liked what he liked about black people. I don't think you said being black. You said black, what do you love about black people? That's what you said. There was never any opportunity to give credit to being black, to black people, to big up things that black people have done as a whole. There was none of that.

There was a constant blaming. of black people. And after an hour, that becomes a little bit too much. There wasn't even, not even that we were necessarily trying to agree on anything, but it was more of like, let's talk about some of these things. There just seems to be this disdain and this will to want to challenge and put down everything that black people do. And I think, I don't know if I was expecting that that wouldn't be the case the whole time, but I guess some of it caught me off guard. I felt like, when there were questions like, okay, so black people have done what, what, you know, white people or even you, Larry Elder, have asked them to do. And yet still, it's been taken away from them. What do you think about those things? It was hit with not even addressing that question. It was another statistic or another topic. That was frustrating. So it was like, he came in. I don't know if he watched interviews, you know, that we've done before. I don't know if he looked you up, looked me up. I don't know, but he came in. He came in. He came in. I don't know. He came in. He came. He came. He came. He came. He came. He came. He came ready, even certain things that he was saying, like, well, you guys think this.

And it's like, well, we never set that today. So where are you getting that? Oh, him and I have gotten into it before. Oh, you have? You interviewed him? He came on TMZ. Yeah, I don't know if he remembers. He probably does. He's been friends with Harvey for a long time. No shocker there. Now, look, I think it's important to say something. I personally believe that there's room in the black thought diaspora for all. different types of political talk, meaning I don't look at black conservatives as some sort of pariah to the progress of black people. I don't. I don't look at conservatives like that, period.

I think there are people that believe certain things about America, about capitalism, and those people have points of view. There might be some places where their points of view are informed by things other than maintaining the status quo. And I'd be interested to hear those things and hear those views and go back and forth in an intellectually honest way and, you know, have it out, do the whole thing. However, when it becomes obvious that you're not interested in the discussion of history or contemporary experiences and any real and new. meaningful way, you got to kind of get a little bit of the fuck out of my face. You know, if your approach is talking points that you can't be budged from in the face of not even overwhelming evidence, but in the face of even small nuggets of things maybe you didn't think

about or truths that you didn't know, then. you're not in any way trying to have a nourishing and productive conversation. Right. And so to that degree, you know, once it becomes unsurious, I just don't have the capacity to keep being serious. Once it becomes unsurious, once I see that you're a stuffed suit, it's kind of empty, then I can't pretend like I'm not laughing at you. It's just how I am.

How many minutes in the interview into the interview did it become unsurious to you? you know, after he got pretty much when we got to the cross talk I mean after he got through the canned the points that he was going to make the robotic part of it and it started to be honest

that it started to be obvious I said that he wanted to fight and that he really wasn't there to do anything other than just have it out between two more Upper D Negroes or maybe he's the Upper D Negroes. I'm not sure. Are we uppity?

Probably so. I am. And so, yeah, you definitely are. And so at that point, I'm like, well, let's just fucking have some fun. You know, like these, we're not dealing with, we're not dealing with anything that's like, we're not reinventing the will here. A lot of this stuff is just, it's very basic level. I would disagree with you.

I would disagree with you. I would say from his very first answer, it became unserior. from the very beginning. If you can't answer the question of what do you love about black people? And your response is, I love all people. When you can't refer to yourself as black or even African American,

you say, I'm an American who's black. That's set the tone for the whole thing. It really did. But you know, I don't really have a problem with that. That's fine. I did. I know. But what I'm saying is I don't have a problem with that. it's so far away from how I view things.

So I'm like the other side of my thought process. But, you know, if people decide that what they want to do is enter into some huge assimilation pie and they want to forego the specificity of the black experience, I can't make them be black. I don't care. You know, if you decide, I do think it's interesting. interesting to spend your entire life discussing a group that you don't love or have very much connection to.

That was more of my point to Larry Elder, whether or not these people out there want to be called black, you know, they want to be biracials or whatever. I think it's telling, but at the same time, I think it's kind of a business. but if you spend your entire life talking about what one community should do, how what one community should act and essentially evangelizing to and for that community all over the place, and you don't even much really give a fuck about them niggas in any type of specific way, that I find to be interesting.

And I'm not saying that you're one of them. Right, and you're one of them. That I find to be interesting. And I'm not saying that he necessarily said that. I'm saying that he was very careful not to say, you know what, I really, really love black people. I really, I see the smiles of little black children. Like when I walking down the street and I think, God, damn, look at them teeth.

Like, he didn't even have, he didn't even have, he didn't even be going to say, anecdote. It was like, I love people. That's what I'm more so pointing to is the avoiding of the exact question. That set the tone. for, and in particular, the subject matter as well about black people, that to me set the tone for the entire interview. And that's why it ended the way that it did.

Right, ended the way it did. Like, get the fuck out there. So that's in the past. Look, you guys, we're still trying to give Vivek Ramoswami. I think that we've maybe kicked the can on Orange, Jr. No, no, no, no, no. No, no. Why would you still want to talk to Vivek after, after, after, first off, he's falling in the polls.

There was a time where it could have been more interesting. After his performance of last night, why would you even want to talk to Vivek? What's the purpose? I understand, even though some people were critical of the fact, like, why would you give Larry Elder a platform? We explained that at the beginning of last podcast. To me, there's no point in talking to Vivek.

And I'm telling you, it will lead to a contentious. conversation. There's no way. I don't think it will. There's no way it'll just be a question and answer. I've no, I've no desire to talk to Vivek at this point. Okay, so let me tell you why I'm interested in this,

and I'll just tell everybody. I'm interested in having presidential candidates here on higher learning. I think it's good for the podcast. I think it's good for us. Agreed. And so these guys are running for president, really anybody from the GOP side that would like to come on Higher Learning and talk to us

and, you know, roll out what their specific vision for America is. I think it's important. I watched the debates last night. We're going to talk about it in a little bit. Maybe not robustly talk about them because it's kind of like. Yeah, that was nothing. Kind of like a bunch of people auditioning to be Jermaine Jackson, which is interesting. I'm talking about it.

It's only one. Okay. Don't get the rest of them like that. Janet? Okay. I'm talking about the fellas. You did say that. You didn't say that.

I said Jermaine Jackson, and of them niggas, love to all of them. Okay. Of them niggers, there's one. Okay. And then the rest of them are really dope. Everybody's talented. See, we have to not be afraid of the difference between good and great. Nobody's arguing.

You basically wrote all of them off. That's all I'm saying. I'm not saying there, Michael. I was talking about the guy. and they're all talented. But one of them was this amazing, shining, bright star supernova. And unfortunately,

on the Republican side, you have a lot of people who seem okay, I guess for that condition with seeing Bayes. They all looks kind of silly to me. But they also have a Michael Jackson. So the debates are essentially

germane auditions. That's what they are. Because the, the, the, Jermaine is cool. Go listen to Can You Feel it? All right.

And I've done this before. Listen to the beginning of Can You Feel it when Jermaine is singing and it's a cool uptempo funk song. And then when Mike comes and you get chills, that's how Republican voters feel about what they saw on the stage last night, right? But it's still important because these people are being taken seriously in the primary and to a degree.

all of them have made different type of reputations besides the vague Ramoswani in American political discourse. You have senators up there. You have governors up there. You have people in Congress up there. You have all different types of people that are representing different swaths of Americana. It's just important to talk to them. I think we have all of them. I have all of them at the same time.

We should do a debate, how I learned debate. We can. I'd be more interested in having somebody who had a little bit more, like, I just know what we're going to get from Vivek. And it won't be a meaningful conversation. I know what we're going to get. If we were going to really have a presidential candidate,

I would want, like, a Nikki Haley. I would love to have Tim Scott. No, I don't. But I would rather have one of, like, Tim Scott just because it's Tim Scott. How do you think about Tim Scott after last night? The same way I felt about him before. I think he went crazier last night.

I'm not going to lie. I think Tim Scott, before this, before this primary, I think we all had issues with Tim Scott. But the savage weakness, the ruthless fecklessness that Tim Scott exhibits, every single time he, gets an opportunity to speak. It's breathtaking.

He is aggressively pussy. It's like it's so, it's like as a black man, not for them. If he was white and saying that, it wouldn't come across that way. It comes across that way because those things are coming out of his mouth and he looks a certain way.

That's why it's not even that. It's not even that. It's not even that. It's not even that. It's not. I'm sure he's a nice guy. I know a lot of people who know Tim Scott and, you know, most of them are Democrats, all of them are Democrats, and they like Tim Scott, right?

I'm sure he is nice. I'm sure he's a nice guy. But he doesn't seem to have one shred of the makings of a leader. It's so interesting. that he's come this far. Not to me.

There are other people up there on the stage that I feel similarly about, but at least they're able to comport themselves in ways that don't make them look like they have absolutely zero backbone. It's really interesting to me. Am I just tripping because I don't like the fact that he, Kyle Tows for the right?

Am I over, I need a rule with Donnie? Am I overstating this? I don't think so. He, like, when you listen to the things that he says and you watch the way that he says the things he says. And Rachel has a point, seeing it come from a black man, it just hits different in a negative way. So, like, I, you kind of contextualize and describe a thing that I felt

but haven't been able to, like, put words to. And that's why it doesn't, when you say you're surprised that he's made it this far without a backbone, I am not surprised. He is a black Republican citizen. senator. He is the only black Republican senator. And he says everything. I mean, the way they were talking about Tim Scott's performance and what he said about fatherlessness and the black community and slavery and come to where we are now, that's exactly how they want black people to talk. That is what they want black people to believe in. So of course, Tim Scott has made it this far. He wouldn't make it

this far if he was on the other side saying these things. So, like, I'm not impressed by Tim Scott because he's saying what people in the GOP want to hear from black people. Nothing he says is shocking to me. And that's why I say I feel the same way I felt before coming in. He was just louder this time.

They're all Black Republicans. I don't feel like a week. I don't feel like Byron Donald was a weekly. I mean, he bows down to the majesty of Donald Trump like they all do, but I don't feel like he comes across as if there's no, there's nothing to him. I know Tim Scott's trying to be the nice guy of the race. And I think that makes his magical Negroness even more offensive, you know.

There's no depth to what Tim Scott has to say. I told you before his speeches literally sound like they're coming from the movie, the campaign. The way he talks to, every time he wraps up a spiel or one of his responses, it was, she's America, she's a great country and this is the greatest country in the world and it's like how did we get here from what the original thing

it was that you were supposed to address? It's like there's no depth, there's no substance to the things to his responses in the debate. If you had a vote, if you had to cast a vote for why the Republicans on stage. I am not doing this. Why?

Okay, fine. If you had to, come on. This is a thought. We podcast. Can you answer it first? Yeah, I would. If I had to vote for one of them. Who would have been?

It would easily be Nikki Haley. Oh. Doug. I'm going to say, Tom. Like, bro, Doug was pissed about last night, man. Doug was so pissed off. Doug was like they didn't ask me enough questions. I can't get it.

He was raising his hands. If I had to vote for one of them, it would be, it would be Nicky And I wouldn't, every candidate on the stage is intensely unelectable, right? Intensely, like, egregiously unelectable. But if I had to vote for one, it would be Nikki Haley. Nikki Haley seems like she is the least, she's the most serious candidate up there. She's, for all of her problems, and they are plentiful, and all of the run. wrong thing she has said, well, you guys, don't get me started.

Nikki Haley is bad on trans, right. She's bad on LGBTQ rights. She's bad on the economy, in my opinion. She's bad on the border. All of them are. Their policy sets are bad on all of these issues. However, if you're just talking about who's up there and seems to be the most mature, the most in the moment of all of them, it would be her.

She's the only one that I'm like, you know what, I don't, I disagree with almost everything, but at least she sings genuine. That's what I would say. Well, the narrative coming in about Nikki Haley was that she kept flip-flopping, right? When she announced that she was running for president, everyone was like, well, where does Nikki stand? She keeps flip-flopping. And I think in the last two debates, you have actually seen her agree or disagree,

take a stand in it and be able to defend it and even go back and forth and calling out the other candidates that are sharing the stage with her about how she believes that they're wrong. So she's very steadfast in her beliefs, which was not the narrative that was coming in to her announcing that she was running. Let me ask you this. I found the debate to be,

and this wasn't even supposed to be our big deal of the day, but here we are. I found the debate to be a waste of time to watch. I found that there to be the same talking points over and over again. again. I felt like that Trump is the leader. There were some jabs taken at Trump, specifically by DeSantis, which a lot of people wanted to see because they didn't see him go after Trump the last time. But no one, of course, talked about the indictments. Nobody talked about, you know,

what he said about General Millie. There weren't, to me, it was the same stuff over and over again. And it seemed like a waste of time. And it seemed like we weren't getting anywhere. And it made be wonder how necessary, especially when the frontrunner doesn't even have to show up to the debate, how necessary are these debates, especially a second one? That's how I felt after watching. A couple of things. One is I never, I never ever want you to stop pronouncing Ron DeSantis's name the way that you do. I don't know why you do it?

What did I say? How don't even know what I'm just, Descentes? How does Descentes is how you say? It's just hilarious. Just give him a little less. Give a little spice. Okay, well, so it's an interesting question and a very good one. And you can tell that the candidates on the stage feel the same way.

Because even though Donald Trump is not there, they obviously have to attack him and let the world know that he's not there. because it's a gaping hole in the discourse. I'm not sure that the debates would be much more substantive if Donald Trump was there. I mean, they wouldn't mean more, right? There's nothing that Donald Trump could say on that stage that would stop him for being the frontrunner.

They would just be more entertaining if he was there. It wouldn't be more important, you know. But I would say this. I think that they are, feel useful because you get a sense of the gumbo pot, the cauldron of, um, of Republican views all mashed into one. You get a, I think it's important to have an understanding, um, of policy issues that are really driving that party's constituency, right? What do they care about? What's getting applause. What are they at each other's throat about? Like, how does that side of the country really

see America? I feel like we feel like we know, but it's never too much information that you can have. There's never too much information you can have about it. So when you see about, when you see how they feel about, you know, the fentanyl crisis or the crisis at the border or inflation or how we should attack our relationship with China or the war in Ukraine, any of these things. When you see some of the solutions that they've cooked up to some of the problems that persist here in America, whether those problems be social, economic, or geopolitical, it's still interesting to know what they're talking about because they're battling

the finer points of those problems, because they probably all have similar views on them, and they're battling with each other's record. And those two things are important. It's important to know, okay, well, what's the sensible take on this and what's the absurd take on it? You might not get that on the debate stage,

but at least you know what the absurd take is. It's also important to kind of know, what in these various people's record reflects their ability to talk about what they are going to do or what they will do for any of these issues.

Like hearing Spence, Spence, Errol Spence, hearing Pence talk about you know, spending in government is just really fucking funny. When they spent their motherfuckers, they spent their fucking asses off, right? Which DeSanta has actually called out? Yeah, of course.

And, you know, to hear DeSantis talk about crime in various American states, it's hilarious. When Jacksonville and Miami and other places like that, it's going up. And when you look at Florida as a whole, you're looking at some of the same problems that exist all over America, you know, happening there. So I just think that's important. It's never, it's never, I know it's a long period that they debate for, but you can never have too much political information. And the debate shouldn't be the end of your political curiosity. If you have that about the right or even about the left,

it should be the beginning. Because every issue that they're talking about it there, what people should do if you want to be more politically literate is you should then, like y'all all did for the, the vaccine, do the same thing for politics, which is do your own research and find out as much about these various issues as you can and then where you stand on them. And then think of some things that maybe aren't being talked about on that stage. Think about some access points that questions that you might ask. And I think it's always important to do that. So that's why I

watch. And also watch because the shit is just funny. It wasn't fun. This was a little boring. But yes, I get you. I like to be entertained as well. You didn't think Nikki Haley versus Tim Scott was fucking great? They were talking about curtains. Yes, curtains. I know they were talking about curtains,

but I think I was just exhausted from watching it. I don't know. Maybe I was still exhausted from the interview earlier this week. Last random question. Do you think, you talk about the way I say DeSantis' name?

Do you think he says Kamala on purpose? He never says her name right. Yeah, they do their little disrespectful shit. You know? Like, they do their little disrespectful shit. Yeah, they're not trying to be respectful, man. You know, Tim Scott turned around. And he blamed Kamala, Kamala.

They said Kamala Harris for, they said there were similar education standards that she signed off on. Yeah, he said they both should have taken the line out. Well, there is, I looked at that. There is, they have, like, that's not as, actually, you know what Donnie? take that whole thing. She said

she's going to come on the podcast, so let's not get into all that. Yeah, so, you know, it was uninspired, but it was still, it was entertaining. I was listening to it at the gym. I was on the heavy bag and just listening to them go at it. It was giving me. I was like, ooh,

they fight and I'm fighting. Let's get it. You like that. That gets you all riled up. Oh, I went at I went to Rumble last night. You know, I've never done the punching bag. I've never jab.

None of that. And I felt like I was a little bit of a natural. You liked it. I loved it. Have you ever been to Rumble? It was a great workout. I was fake-ass boxing. But it's cool.

It's like a boxing search. It's cool. But are you now willing to fight Heather B? Who? Heather B. Hannah. Hannah B. Hannah B.

Are you willing to fight Hannah B? Somebody told me to her. No, are you willing to fight? Shout out of Heather B. Swet and more. Are you willing to fight Hannah B now? Because you've been running from that smoke

for a little while. Okay. Let's move on to the next topic. I haven't run away from anything. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. She'd be boxing. And I asked you if you were willing to fight her. I have no need to fight her.

There's no reason for me to fight her. There's no reason. Duck in the smoke. All right. That was pleasantries. We got into a lot. That was like a... Well, it was one of our topics.

It was our topics. On the other side is the writers have come to and agreement with the studios we're going to talk about. This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business. Fast, reliable internet

means everything for your business and even this podcast. That's why I trust Spectrum Business to keep companies of all sizes connected with internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, mobile services, plus 24-7 U.S.-based support, millions of business owners already trust Spectrum business. So visit Spectrum.com slash business to learn more. Restrictions apply. Service is not available in all areas. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters.

Tramphia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tremfaya is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self-inject trumphia, proper training is required. Tramphia is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis. Serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them, and liver problems may occur.

Before treatment, get checked for infection. and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Tramfaya today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit Trimfair Radio.com. Are Rachel, how excited you about the end partially of the worst stoppage in Hollywood? I'm very excited. I mean, we've talked about it a couple of times about how it's impacting just the city in general, but specifically you talked about your friends. I have friends that are really suffering by the fact that nothing is being shot,

produced, sets are shut down, studios are shut down. So the fact that it seemed that they were on complete opposite ends and they were able to come to this agreement and the writers who stuck together for five months, I don't have the exact days, five months stuck together in unity, fought through this and seemed to come out the winners on the other side of this.

I'm thrilled for them. I'm excited. I mean, I know it's not, I mean, they're talking about late night shows coming back and some of the other talk shows, but it'll take a while for everything else to be, to kind of roll out. But I'm excited that we're on the other side of this,

at least halfway. It's definitely a win for the writers. There's so much in this deal that directly addresses concerns that they had, you know, they have post-green light rooms, They have development rooms in here. They have staff writer script fees. Can you break some of that down?

Because even like for our listeners that aren't in the industry and even I consider myself adjacent, even reading the agreement, I was like, I have no idea what this means, what they're talking about. So if you can like break it down for us of what, not necessarily explaining what, what the rooms mean and everything, but just understanding how they were able to win and why it was, this agreement is so much better than any agreement they've ever had before.

Okay. I don't know that it's so much better than any agreement that they've ever had before. That's what I read. That's what I read. Okay. This was one of the best agreements that they've had. Well, you probably, you probably, it's a great agreement in my opinion, and I'm not in the WGA, guys,

and I'm not speaking for the writers guild. And if we want to dive a little bit deeper into it, we probably should and will. I know that we will have somebody on here to kind of parse it out for us. But from what I can see and from the people that I've talked to, like my entire friend group is in the guild, this addresses some of their concerns very head-on. Now, when we're thinking about why there was a strike, we've talked a little bit about it here. We're talking about changing landscape and how things work for writers. Let's say it's

1996. You're writing on the show Friends. All right. So you're writing on Friends. Friends is running 22 or 23 weeks. And you're making $15,000,

maybe a little bit less. Who knows how much you're making on Friends, right? You're making that weekly. So the show itself is running longer, right? And the scope of what you're doing on the show is different, right? Two things. So that show runs so long that that's a longer amount of pay for you. It's more stuff that you're doing. And then you're getting residuals

off that show every time that show is sold. Now, those residuals, they lessen over time, they reduce over time, but still, friends get sold to TBS. It's still running. You're getting residuals. Friends get sold to goddamn Nick at night. or whatever, like it's running residuals, although Turner and whatever, it might be saying, I'm not sure. Whenever that show gets sold, you get more money.

All right, so you're making more money for a longer time in the front of it, right, at the beginning, and then you're making money essentially in perpetuity to a degree as the show runs. All right. Those two things changed in the streaming area. Number one, the shows ran for less time,

meaning now if a show is only eight weeks long, then that's only eight weeks of pay for you. The pay is lower and it's shorter. So you have to go out and get another job that year to make the same amount of money that you might have been making before. And writing jobs in Hollywood, even though there are more shows now, and there are a lot more shows.

This is what the studios would say. The studios would say, hey, well, there used to be 60 or 80 scripted shows a year. And now, because of streaming in the various platforms out there, there are 500 shows a year. So being at their 500 shows a year, there's more opportunity for everyone. But still, for the individual writer that's out there,

you work on something for eight weeks, you have to go find another job. And there's a tremendous amount of insecurity financially that goes along with that. Something else happens. When you were working on those network shows, you were learning production from the ground up. And why you were learning it was because

you were working with the actors and everybody else on the show as you were writing. You know, you're in the room and your job in the room was before the show, during the production of the show, and then even after the show, you're still doing stuff as a writer. And so it was invaluable, not just for the amount of time that you worked and for the amount of money that you were making, but for how you were learning the industry. A writer is saying, hey, I don't want this line. I wouldn't say this. You're going, cool, do this, do that, blah, blah, blah, blah.

You're changing it up. You're running back and forth. You're learning how to run a show. And so then after a while, you have the skill set needed to become a show runner. Streaming changed all of that, right? Streaming changed that because now the writer's rooms are number one smaller. You're not doing hardly anything in post. And you're not really on set as much working with the writers while you're doing this.

stuff. You're not learning how to run the show as much. It's a different sort of deal that's going on. And the residuals are different because the streamers are essentially tech companies. They did not have to share any of their proprietary information with production companies or with the Writers Guild or with anyone else. And the show only sells once. If you write the show for Netflix, it's on Netflix. And the residuals that are being paid from Netflix come, like, in a completely different and way, way, way, way smaller amount when they're there. And so there were certain protections that the writers wanted, number one, in the structure and the culture of being a writer,

meaning that you could learn enough to eventually be a showrunner and have your old showrunner. Because if not, you're going to have the same five guys. You're going to have Kenya Bears, Taylor, Sheridan, Ryan Murphy, Sean the Rhymes, whoever, making all the shows forever. And you're never going to have the next group of people who are learning how to do that. That's not a shot to any of those guys. They're just big, super fucking important writers, you know. And at the same time, you're going to have less money,

which is going to be, it's going to affect black and brown and lady writers more because they're coming into this stuff sometimes with more. more debt, with less financial security from their families and situations like that. And places like New York and Los Angeles, where a lot of this stuff is happening, those are like expensive places to live. So it was just becoming a situation for them that was untenable unless the industry adapted to the changing landscape of the culture for writers. Not for themselves.

They've already adapted for themselves, but for the writers themselves. So in this deal, if you look at it, there are a couple of things that are, that seem to be at least directly addressed. So they increased the minimums, 5%. Some minimum was in rates increased less, most about 3% a year, while a few rates increase only once or do not increase over the contract. These assumptions are a result of patterns established in the industry. So they got a minimums increase. Of course, they got health and pension. Pension stuff, increase health and pension contributions for writing teams.

That stuff is going to be almost any deal that a union negotiates because the health plan for the WGA and for the and for SAG is one of the best of any industry out there. And some people say that. Other people don't say that. But the WGA health plan is really good. And that's a very specific thing that stops people. from going fucking bankrupt, which is health care and all of that. So anytime you have a deal, you're going to have something there. They specifically addressed artificial intelligence,

which was another concern that the writer's hat, right? Because what could the studios say? Studios can say, fuck you, a robot will write all of this stuff, and then we'll have all our money. Ha, ha, ha. But now there's been an agreement. AI can't write or rewrite literary material, and AI generated material will not be considered source material under the NBA,

meaning that AI generated material can't be used, to undermine a writer's credit from separated rights. A writer can choose to use AI when performing writing services. If the company consents and provided that the writer follow applicable company policies, but the company can't require the writer to use AI software when performing writing service.

So that seems like a huge one, right? Because it's one thing to say, hey, I'll use a little chat, GPT, to help me out. I don't know why you would do that. but the company can't say, hey, we want you to write this just you and chat GPT. We don't need you to hire Fop for other people.

You know, would you want ChatGBTGPT to do your job, Rachel? No, I would not. No, I would not. Yeah, whatever. You look like you kind of chat GPT type, type, nigga. I've never even used it. Really? Yeah.

I've never even, like, looked on. You look like a chat GPT type of me. Keep going. We're talking about the writer. Let's... Okay, let's come to seven. What about streaming? Okay.

That's where we are. Increased foreign streaming residuals. Foreign streaming residuals will now be based on the streaming services number of foreign subscribers for services available globally. Because a lot of stuff, when it was foreign, they didn't get anything. It was very, very small.

It amounted to a 76, percent increase. Wow. Including a 2.5 percent base increase to foreign residual for the services with the largest global subscribers over the city of three years. So they're basing this on subscriber data, but the residuals are higher for existence. For instance, Netflix three-year foreign residual will increase from the current 186th or one-hour episode to 32-8 for a one-hour episode.

that is a massive increase. There's a viewership-based streaming bonus. Huge. The Guild negotiated a new residual based on viewership. It's made for HBS, BOD series, and films that are viewed by 20% or more of the services, the message subscribers, in the first 90 days of release.

On the first 90 days of any subsequent exhibition year, you get a bonus equal to 50% of the domestic and foreign residual, with views calculated as hours streamed domestically of the season or film divided by runtime. Gigantic. So a huge bonus based upon how much people are watching the God damn show. For instance, projects written under the new MBA on the largest stream of services would receive a bonus of a $9,000 for a half hour episode, 164 for a one hour episode, and 45, 40,500 bucks for a $40,000 in budget.

This bonus structure will take effect for projects released on or after January 1st, 2024. So everything in the past, you guys are fucked, but moving forward, it's fine. Now, that makes a lot of sense, and that's cool, right? But then a lot of people out there listening might say, well, how does that make a difference if the streamers don't have to share their streaming data with the guild? Aha! The companies agreed to provide the guild subject to a confidentiality agreement. That means the guild can't share that information.

I don't know why I'm explaining the fucking confidentiality agreement to our brilliant listeners. subject to a confidentiality agreement, the total number of our streamed both domestically and internationally of self-produced high-budget streaming programs, basically a Netflix original. The Guild may share this information

with the membership in an aggregated form. That is fucking gigantic. Yeah, I didn't think they would bend on that. I didn't think they would either. Because that essentially makes the streamers into traditional studios in terms of the way they share their information. I'm sure it's not all the information,

but the information, we're not going to get it. We're not going to be able to know, which would be nice, but the companies, us in the media, but the companies are, excuse me,

the Guild is going to know how much this stuff is getting streamed, the data transparency, and what they are owed. How can you ask for money if you don't know how much money to ask for? All right. So it's cool.

And there's one other thing that I think is, it's cool. I mean, they got weekly pay increases for, for the staff. They got writer-producer,

weakly raised. All the weeklies went up. But then we talked about the culture of writers getting the experience that they need. And that's a dress here too. There's a lot of other great stuff in here, but that's a dress here too.

There's a showrunner training program. They reached an agreement to renew $250,000 in annual funding for the showrunner training program. Additional arbitrators are going to be involved hear NBA claims in Los Angeles. They have, they changed the structure of the writer's rooms.

They, we agreed to increase episodes on a new made for broadcast series that can get a single free promotional run from two to three, but with the number of episodes caps, they're no more than 25% of the season. I mean, look, here's a deal. This is a clear win for writers. They got development rooms. Once three writers are convened before a series order, at least three writer, producers are guaranteed 10 weeks of consecutive employment.

So the staffing and the duration provisions for episodic series, where we talked about, they kind of moved those up. You give 10 weeks of employment, 10 weeks. Development rooms where writers are guaranteed 20 weeks of work or more are treated as post-green light rooms for these rooms on the first season, and bottom line, whatever, whatever. So all of this stuff that we talked about in the little preamble here, they were able to get it done in the deal.

They really won big here. Well, we talk a lot about how, you know, what the writers did and coming together and the sacrifice that they made, obviously, you know, like you said, we have friends that were suffering by what was happening with the strike, but it was all for the bigger issue,

which was to get these things. And the reason that they were able to get these things, the other side of it, is that their pockets were the only ones that were hurting. The studios were losing money like crazy. And the way to get big business attention is to hurt them in their pockets. And that's exactly what was doing. I mean, the fact that when you're reading the background about how this all kind of came together, all these big heads at the big heads, all these people who were running these studios came together.

And for hours and hours and hours hash this out to the point. where they pretty much were bending the knee to the riders. I do want to say this. One, of course, everybody's asking, so what does this mean now with SAG? Because they're still on strike. A lot of the things that we thought that they wouldn't come to the table with, they did and agreed to.

They did with the riders. And I think that you could probably look at a lot of this as a template of what SAG will ask for. And then other things that obviously address their needs in regards to negotiating. with the studios. And they just sent out, so like since this came out,

one, they sent out an email a couple of days ago that was like, we have not started talks. And then I just saw they sent out another email that said they're supposed to go back to the table and have talks

October 2nd. So it seems like this is moving along. I did listen to something that said, you know, even though they did agree to all these terms, it doesn't necessarily mean, mean that the budgets that studios have will change. And if that's the case, if they say we're not

going to increase our budget, we're giving you all these things and we'll pay you more, but we keep our budget the same, that means that there will be less shows. Because if you're paying more, you can't have as many shows if your budget is staying the same. So it could be that, you know, you said, oh, there used to be 80 shows and now there's 500 shows. We might not have 500 shows anymore, because in order to compensate the writers and meet these demands that they've agreed to, they've got, the pie is the same. So that means that there are less shows.

And then also I read that it might mean that as viewers, we pay more for these streaming services. So I'm not saying that's a problem. I'm supporting the writers. I'm just saying that could be something that comes. We pay more, which is interesting because the whole thing with streaming when it first came out was that it's cheaper than cable, it's cheaper than cable and you're getting all of this.

And we're kind of working our way right back to paying as much as we were for cable with all these streaming services as the prices for them continue to go up. We're already there. You think so? Well, I don't know if everybody's like you and me where we have every single streaming service out there. What I'm saying is that is like I, you know, I come. I could compare this to one of my old habits, but I won't. Thank God.

And my God, how many services were you signed up for with that? A lot. More than five? Oh, my God. The fact that you didn't think, it's free. How are you saying, how are, like you can find it for free? How are you subscribing to a more than five wild? You don't even have to tell all yourself.

Keep going. But it's, but it's, but it's not free if you want it in the highest quality. Keep going. And if you don't want to be bothered, if you don't want to be bothered with ads and all of that stuff, if it's not free, if you want it in the highest quality, if you want it in the highest quality,

because they'll say, you know, you'll see, and you'll be like, oh, only 15 bucks a month. And you'll be like, I can spend that. $15 a month? Yeah.

You have to have been putting it hours on hours on hours to just buy that cost. What you, what you say is that's just not a lot of money. And then before you know it, we got six, seven of them mugs. Anyway, but and that's I'm so happy

you're on the other side of it. I'm so proud of you. I got out of it. I stopped. But like, but here's the thing. When you're looking at the streaming service, the interesting thing that they,

that they started to do was they started to IP Reel you, which is like, you know, obviously, you know, and for me, it's not really about the streaming service itself. It's about the specific show.

So the question is, if you don't fucking have Paramount Plus, and you just want to try to watch Halo, you maybe don't want to watch Halo, or other shows on Paramount Plus, like, for example, we started watching Special Ops Lioness, okay, which is a great show.

It was really good. We started watching Special Opsi Lioness. Now, people were telling me how good Special Ops Lioness was, right? It's a good show. And we didn't remember whether or not we had Paramount Plus. We had no clue whether or not we had it. We didn't know whether or not we had it. We actually were paying for the service, but it wasn't downloaded.

So we downloaded. And so we have this. And so we could watch it. But if you don't have it, you can't watch the show, right? If you don't have Disney Plus, no Marvel, no motherfucking Star Wars. If you don't have HBO, then no Sopranos, spinoffs, no, it's not actually the service that you're tied to. It's the IP that the service owns. So they're essentially getting you to buy all of these things, specifically by show, which is not too much different than the subscriber model that pay channels have.

Like you had HBO if you wanted to watch Sopranos, or maybe you got Showtime if you wanted to watch, I know, Brotherhood or Weeds or Californication. but it's different now because it's so specific. All of these things, Apple, the morning show, all of this stuff. So if you want to watch this stuff, you're not just flipping from channel to channel to see it. You're going from service to service to see it. And the more shows there are that you might be interested in, the more decisions you have to make about what it is you're buying

and what it is that you're not buying. Then on top of that, if you want to cut the cord, you need a service that you can watch TV on if you want to watch sports. And then that's YouTube TV. and then you pay for your internet, you're paying for YouTube TV, that's like 70 bucks. And so it's, when you look at it,

you're right back when you started. You were saving a little bit, but now you might be paying more, right? Now, you know, we're in the entertainment industry, we can write a lot of this stuff off, but most people can, so there's some decisions that have to be made. Right.

As far as there being less shows, it was always going to be that way. It was going to be that way no matter what, because in an imperiled economy, a lot of these streamers were just going to put out less stuff. They were going to put out less stuff. They were going to pull back a little bit. Some of these shows they spent unbelievable amounts of money on

and they fucking brick. And so when that starts happening a couple of times, people get a little bit more bashful about how they're putting their bread out there. So, you know, the most important thing is that these writers and these creators have security and I believe if they have security and they have investment, I think the amount of good shows that you'll get

will always outweigh the bad ones because these are very, very talented people that were dealing with. So kudos to them. Look, God damn it. Usher's doing the Super Bowl. Your thoughts? I don't really have a lot of thoughts on that.

That's, you know, when they were throwing around names of people doing the Super Bowl, I feel like Usher wasn't on the list. And then all of a sudden we get this commercial with Kim Kay, you know, reenacting the confessions video and announcing that Usher's doing the Super Bowl.

I'm excited for it. I think Usher's a great performer. And for all the people who haven't been able to make it out to his Vegas show, although it'll be less tamed on the Super Bowl stage, I think it'll be great. It'll be a fantastic performance. Your thoughts?

Let's not do that. There's not a lot to talk about with that. Let me see. Hold on. we got here. You have Kaepernet. Oh, yeah, yeah. Let's talk about Cap. All right. To the world of sports, someone I know you love,

you have a soft spot in your heart for it. Don't play into this narrative. I do have a soft spot in my heart for. That is true. Colin Kaepernick wrote a letter to the New York Jets. It's posted on Jay Cole's social. In case you guys aren't keeping up with the foosball this year, New York Jets.

Goddamn. In the offseason, they traded for Aaron Rogers. And they built what a lot of people thought was a Super Bowl quality roster around Air Rogers. And then five plays into the NFL season, Ann Rogers snapped his fucking Achilles. Popped it like some ass. And now the Jets are left with a roster that seemingly capable defense and different players on offense making a deep run into playoffs, but they don't have a trigger man in QB.

Zach Wilson, God bless him. God bless his family. God bless everyone who loves him. But then they can't play no football. And if he can in the future one day, that would be very great. But as of now, Zach is whack. Leaves him with a big hole, the quarterback, Colin Cap and makes he can fill it. Jay Cole posted a letter on Instagram.

That's what Cap said. I would be honored and extremely grateful for the opportunity to come in and leave the practice squad. I would do this with the sole mission of getting your defense ready each week. Cabernick wrote that he would approach the job with the dedication and passion as if it were the number one QB position. He also said during this that he would be willing to step in if Zach Wilson couldn't find it. but at the same time, his job is not to come in there and take anything away from the starting quarterback, but to provide the team with some depth,

some answers which they don't have, they just signed Trevor Simmons, 31-year-old Trevor Simian, and help them get ready. And he's willing to do this for the New York Jets who have a problem at quarterback. Rachel is shaking her head. Your thoughts.

I wish they wouldn't have shared the letter. I really do. I understand the answer. tension behind it and I understand what Jay Cole, you know, wanted everybody to see. And we see it. And I don't even think that I needed to see a letter to see that or understand that it's not fair that Colin Kaepernick is not in the league. I wholeheartedly believe that. I believed it for years since he was booted out for the wrong reasons. I read the letter. I read it multiple times. it's incredibly sad.

It made me so sad for him. And the saddest part was what you just said to me about I'll even do lead your practice squad. There was desperation in that paragraph. And that made me so sad for him. But, and I think he deserves to be in the league, and I'm saying all of this, right? but when I read the letter and I look at the number of years that he has been kept his body physically and mentally ready

for someone to pick up the phone, call him and say, hey, we want you to be a part of our team. I admire that. I can't even imagine what it is to do that year upon year upon year when all the odds are stacked against you. It says a lot about a person's character. But I'm also standby all the things that I've said before and I think that's what made it so sad to read.

this. They're not going to let him back in the league at this point, as even though he is so deserving of it. I have to keep saying that because I know you, you know, like to play that I don't think that. He's so deserving of it. They're not going to let him back in. If you do have such a love for football, which obviously he does, there are other, you should be in the NFL, but there are other ways that you can play football. And if the goal is to play the sport, that you love so much, and I know you want to play it on the highest level, if that door is closed and it is, then he should play, he should pursue another avenue.

And that's what I really believe. But this letter broke my heart. I thought it was so sad. So obviously people know that Carla Kaepernick and Nessa, Nesson, Kapp, Kapp, Kappenna, Kappa Nessa. are friends of mine. So obviously here, there is some bias and feelings that I deal with when it comes to this issue.

There's people who I know, people who I talk to, people who I see deal with this injustice and deal with really all the pressure that's happened that's been thrust upon them, should I say? since Cap decided to kneel. And I've been knowing them for years now. This is what I'll say. I've heard everybody talk about it,

and I've heard everyone give their various opinions about whether or not it's possible that Colin Kaepernick will ever play NFL football game. I've heard everyone talk about how the letter makes them feel. Everyone say, well, most people say sad. Most people say the letter is sad. I don't have as many feelings about the letter. itself, those are some sentiments that I already knew, as I do about the way we've reacted to it.

The way we're all, we're all, the way we've reacted to it. We're all, we're all familiar with black magic. It's the, the magic that's like, you know, evil and use it to fucking, put a hex on people, curse on people, black magic. But we don't ever talk about white magic, specifically as it's used in America, white magic. I'll tell you what white magic is. White magic is using press the digitation to make you look at everything other than the actual issue.

Right? So, give you an example of white magic. It's like, I'm going to show you this and then I'm going to do this. White magic is when a young black person is killed by the police. White magic is going to their social media showing them in a hoodie or with gold teeth

or talking about the time that they were 14 or 15 years old. They either got caught with a little bit of weed or they got kicked out of school if that even exists. That's white magic. White magic is saying, hey, this is the thing that you guys, should be talking about or want to talk about, but voila, we are going to give you something else

to talk about. We're going to give you something else. We're going to present you with something and now this is the thing, right? Flipping on you. Bernie Max, like John Wither's school, flipping on you. They're flipping on you, right? Misdirection. There is no situation where that's worked as much as it's worth with Colin Kaepard. No situation. The root of what we're talking about with Colin Kaeperny is a power base in the NFL that decided that one nigga was

making too many problems for them. And so they just took his livelihood away. That's what we're talking about. Now, we can discuss here anything else besides that. We can talk about anything else besides that. We can talk about the settlement, right? We can talk about what should have happened at a tryout. We can talk about all the mistakes that we feel like Colin Kaepernick is made. We can discuss those things. And some people can say, some of them are mistakes.

Some people can say some of them are things that he shouldn't have done. Like, would you participate in a workout where the waiver had legal language inside of it that exposed you or not exposed you or stopped you? precluded you from being able to do the NFL again. Would you like participate in a workout where the waiver was non-standard and protected the NFL more than it protected you? Would you do that?

Some people might say, hey, if you want to play the NFL, fucking go do the trial. Some people would say, well, I shouldn't have to do the thing that I want to do in the wrong way if I want to do the thing that I want to do, right? Okay. But all of the stuff that we're doing right now

is asking him to, pass a purity test to get over the injustice that was done to him. And I'm letting people know that they do that all the time. They do that in every single way. They always say that if you act better, if you do it this way, then we won't take your rights away. And they always make it your fault. They make it your fault. They say, this is what you should have done. in order for you to be treated equally or fairly. And every time they do it, there's a part of us that fall for it. Every single time.

Now, whether or not Colin Kaepernick plays in the NFL again, it's not a big issue to people. That's the deal. People don't care anymore. They don't give a shit whether or not he gets the opportunity to run back on the field. The reason why it matters to me is because talking about somebody that challenged the status quo and then had their ass kicked for to where everything was taken from them is supposed to be something that we left in the past. That's supposed to be the story

of Kurt Flood, who was the story of Kurt Flood, who was, you know, a guy who challenged free agency and then didn't really get a chance to play out his career in the way it was. It's supposed to be all these other people who were, you know, trailblazers back in the day that took all these things in there so that other people could come in there and do stuff in a more. more enlightened time where they can't just fucking do this two in front of everybody. But the same game always works. And now it's Colin Kaepernick who's sad.

Now it's the letter who is sad. It's not 32 NFL owners who are sad, who are still doing the same things that they're doing. Exactly. Who are being sued right now by Brian Flores, who just recently settled with a contingent of black players from the NFL who were being judged. for their cognitive abilities differently,

because they are black, entrenched racism in the league that we all watch, that everybody watches, and really wants to feel good about watching, which is why they don't in any way want to stand in the way of the league so that we feel better about watching football and watching all of this stuff.

That's really what this is about. And that we would say, hey, he didn't do this the right way. As if doing it the right way has ever worked for us, as if doing it the right way has ever made power in America to say, you know what, you're all right, that's cool.

And it's just, it's, it's, it blows my mind. I'm really not, it does, it blows my mind. It blows my mind that after every single example of the white magic that gets pulled on, us. After every single example, we still do the same thing. We still do...

It's not about to me about what he hasn't done. It's not about to me about what he has done. It's about what they've done. They did the wrong thing. So if they did the wrong thing, why are we bringing it back to Colin Kaepernet?

We're not. Like why? Nothing that I... But nothing I said to you brought it back... But even when you just said, that's why you took the settlement. It's like... No, that's not... I'm not... I'm not...

So, like, that... Me saying that's why he took the settlement was literally a response to you saying that they colluded. And I'm saying... I said, that's why he's why he took the settlement. That's why that there is a settlement because there was collusion. It proved it. I'm not... Nothing that I said when you asked me about the letter was blaming Colin Kaepernick.

I didn't blame him on anything. I said it was sad. And I said that there was a desperate, you can tell there's a desperation of how much he wants to be back in the league. The thing is, they colluded against him, which is why there was a settlement or it was going to go to arbitration or trial, because there is a fact that there was collusion.

What's happening now to keep him out of the league is collusion as well. They haven't stopped. There's a, clearly there's an agreement for no team to let him back into this league. Nobody wants to see him back in it. But I think this is where, as you say, the first thing you talked about is you're friends with them and there's a bias there. Everything that you said is absolutely true. And people like me who say the things that they do, it's not that we don't see this white magic. Obviously, there's collusion.

We talk about the issues in the NFL all the time. We talk about the systemic racism. We talk about the way that they treat black players and specifically the injustices that have been done to Colin Kaepernay. just because we say the letter's sad and we say they're clearly never going to let him back in and he clearly wants to play this game that he loves so much doesn't mean that we don't see how problematic the NFL is. So why would you say it?

So this is my point. I receive everything you're saying, right? But it's kind of like saying, okay, and I don't want to compare the issue of one man. to an issue of a whole group of people, but I am. It's kind of like saying, all right, he's never going to get to play in the NFL again. He should just go play in a different league, right?

Like, we should all do that thing. We should all stop trying. Like, whatever injustice is facing you, right, be it the pay gap, be it patriarchy, be it whatever, you're never going to change it. So you should all just settle for whatever is available to you. It just, in the ethos of it, in the spirit of it.

I don't think it's that black and white. Well, I mean, those are your thing. I just don't. Well, those are your way. Well, I do. I think that because I think what's good, once again,

the way I look at society, right, is I look at the justice for people, but I also look at the justice for person. You can't have justice for people if you're willing to forego justice for person, right? The reason why Mike Brown matters and the reason why all of these people, that all of this start over.

The reason why all of those people matter is because they are all of us and could be any of us. And if you are in a workplace and you are being treated unfairly by your bosses because you decide to exercise your First Amendment right, right?

In a sport or an industry that relies on the goodwill of people to function, remember, we're not making rubber here. We're not making cars. The NFL is a gigantic. gigantic popularity contest. The popularity is based on the competition of the people and the performance of the athletes, but it's a popularity contest. Nonetheless, if people don't like,

they don't watch. It's not keeping the water on. It's not keeping the lights on. It's not an industry that's based around it. It's an industry that's based around how much you like it. So in an industry that's based upon that, for them to be able to do this openly and brazenly, and for us to just be like, nah, he should accept that. It's completely giving them carte blanche to do this in perpetuity, which, to be honest with you,

they already have. But I don't understand why we're so okay with that, okay with it to the point that we would make it the problem of the person that has been... Nobody's making it the problem of Colin Kaepernick. They are.

I'm not making it the problem. I don't feel like anything that I've said has made at the problem with Colin Kaepernick. And it's not that people, And it's not that people are saying, don't keep fighting, right? Like fighting against what the bigger issue is. People might be saying, like me, they're not going to let you in the league. And I felt like when I see a letter like this, it almost feels like you're begging to be a part of it.

Nobody's saying that Colin Kaepernick or people who have faced injustices from the NFL should not call it out and not fight against it. that would be the bigger issue. I mean, that would be a bigger problem. People are calling out things that are done in the NFL. When Cabinet got the settlement, he didn't stop there. And people encouraged him. He did the special on Netflix. He did, you know, media.

He started an organization. He's done things to fight against the injustices that the NFL has placed on black people or to call them out. Nobody has asked him to stop. because you got a settlement. What they're saying is, or what I felt when I read a letter like this is it almost becomes like you're begging. You can still fight against the powers that be or the organization that colluded against you or continue to call it out, but it doesn't have to be in this way. You can use your First Amendment rights to do that without writing a letter, begging to still be a part of the league. That's just, like, nobody's asking him to stop the fight.

But to me, I personally think, I personally think that the real reason why he had to write that letter, the real reason why that is because he has absolutely zero solidarity from the people that should be supporting him. It's like the real reason why it's black people. The real reason why it's come to this, the real reason why, if anyone's wondering why, that there's a lot of people working behind the scenes to

to help and do this. The real reason why it's come to this is for the same reason that it comes to all of this, it's just like there's no solidarity with people that should be supporting him. What should we be doing? What should we be doing? He's got to go, well, number, the first thing we should be doing, in my opinion, and I'm not going to ask anybody to do anything specifically, people move on with their lives, it happens, it happens, whatever. But the first thing we should be doing is just not undermining it.

And I feel like that's the thing. I think, I think the thing is the easy thing, and this was shepherded by Jay-Z and by Rock Nation, is we gave our self-permission to move on because, and that's fine, we gave ourselves permission to move on, and we started making all of these excuses as to why that is. Oh, he didn't do this this way, he didn't do that this way, he didn't do this this way, he didn't do that this way. And we never, ever came back and said that what the NFL did wasn't wrong.

If what the NFL did is wrong. Like, just the way that I look at it is, if the center of this is rob, if what they did is wrong, then why are we bending over backwards to excuse them for their behavior? And I know that you say that you're not doing that. But that is what people do. I mean, that is what people do in this situation. What people do is they say, I'm not, and I misunderstood what you said earlier about the settlement, granted. But people say, oh, well, he took a settlement. Well, he didn't do this this way.

Will he do that? It may very well be the case that after that trial went bad, that it wasn't going to work out for Colin Caput. It may very well be the case. But talking about this issue, like it's this intractable fact of the world that he'll never play in the NFL again, and he should just pack it up and go do something else. I just want people to know that you get told that all the time,

and you get told that about so many different things. when we talked to Larry Elder, layer elder said straight up, like black people will never catch up to white people. They say, we'll never catch up. White people are not standing stills. Like, we'll never catch up. So why are we been concerned about that?

Well, the reason why we're concerned about it is because it's fucked up that we're so behind. And the reality that we might never catch up is less important, less important than the reality that, A, we shouldn't be this far behind, and it was intentionally done that we're this far behind.

and B, that we want to catch up. So why would we stop trying to catch up? Why would we ever, like, in any way, say, hey, we shouldn't have, white shouldn't have 10 times more wealth than us. Like, why would we ever be okay with that? Like, doesn't matter why it happened and what the realities are. Like, why would that? And so when I'm watching him, I'm like, okay, so he's like,

oh, so individuals can't help. But not, dog, if the reparations came through, we could fix the wealth gap. $14 trillion. Sandy Dairy has it there. If you ever change it, you can fix the wealth gap. That's not going to happen.

That's fine. We're not going to stop talking about it, though. Exactly. You're not going to stop talking about it. You're not going to stop exercising your First Amendment rights to call out the problem. Exactly. And to me,

your First Amendment right also means or your rights as a person that's had something taken from you, you know, writing the letter might seem sad to a lot of people. I personally think that it's somebody who's showing people

how much it means to him and his family, wife, a new baby, his family, to not lose this. We don't think about it in terms of winning. We think about it in terms of, oh, look how pathetic he wants.

Like, Colin Kaepernick is actually saying, I don't want to be a martyr. He said, I don't want to be a martyr for this. I want my life back. And we just, he's just not getting the support. But it'll happen again. It'll never stop happening. Because at the end of the day, it falls at our feet. It'll never stop happening. This, how about this? If we're all saying Colin Kaplanckleck will never be back in the NFL, cool. And you know what? We'll never stop getting fucked over. We'll never stop getting fucked over. And we'll always make it off. White match.

We'll always agree and disagree. We will. That's fair. By the way, it's not just you that I really disagree with. Nobody really agrees with this. Y'all niggins like football too much. You like Michael Parsons? You tweet.

Oh, you were tweeting all Sunday about the NFL. Michael Parsons. Michael Parsons wasn't on the Cowboys. You support Chap. Look, here's the deal. My thing is this. You watched the NFL. If Michael wasn't on the Cowboys,

according to your argument, You drop a big game to the Arizona Cardinals. I'm definitely, we're all part of the problem. But what I'm saying is I'm not going to be doubly part. I'm not going to, one, I'm willing to look at it and say, hey, we're all fucked up, but this is what should be happening. What I don't do is the cognitive dissonance and wanting to blame the victim in this situation. I never blamed him. I've never blamed him. But I know that's how you.

That's how you. probably see it, but I've never blamed him. Oh, they're not fucking with you. I'm good. But I'm good. See, I know. See, I know. See? There it is. Because if you're not fucking with me, you're obviously not listening to how I do talk about.

You didn't listen to my whole speech before. But it's okay. People are here with this. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Everyone knows Winter is the MVP and making a mess. You don't need Weather Tech floor liners in the summer unless you hit the beach or go camping. Then you're, you'd want a cargo liner or road trip goes sideways, ketchup goes rogue, ice cream drips.

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It's true. They will, uh, they're going to Photoshop some pictures with you next to the judge. Appointed by Bill Clinton. Donnie, real quick, before we get to Mailback, play that Tim Scott audio about slavery real quick, just so we get back to it. We are the greatest nation on earth because we faced our demons in the mirror and made a decision. So often we think that all the issues, you talk about crime and education and health care, we always think that those issues go back to slavery. Here's the challenge, though. Black family survived slavery. We survived poll taxes and literacy tests. We survived discrimination being woven into the laws of our country. What was hard to survive was Johnson's great society where they decided to put money where they decided to take the black father out of the household to get a check in the mail. And you can now measure that in unemployment, and crime and devastation. If you want to restore hope, you've got to restore the family, restore

capitalism, and put Americans back at work together as one American family. Our nation continues to go in the right direction. It's why I can say I have been discriminated against, but America is not a racist country. Never, ever doubt who we are. We are the greatest country on God's And frankly, the city on the hill needs a brand new leader. Oh, boy. He was feeling himself with the clubs. Tim thought he was spitting. Tim thought he was spitting.

I could feel it. Can't you feel? Can't you feel? Can't you feel it? Germain Jackson. Tim is Jermaine Jackson. Tim thought he was spitting. He was really spitting on the white man's dick.

to loom it up. We all been there that one spit. And you're like, oh, it's about to go down. That's what Tim was doing, spitting on a white man's dick. That's what he was spit. Tim, get the fuck out of here. Look, so you think slavery was worse than Johnson's Great Society?

What was worse, Rachel? Slavery or welfare? I think, Van, I'm going to go with slavery on this one. To use the words of old Timmy, there's no redeeming quality in slavery. Yeah. Once again, the analysis of the loss of wealth for black people and the systemic issues that black people face is woefully, woefully inadequate from a black Republican. It is quaint and just intellectually dishonest to be.

blame the situation of black Americans on Johnson's Great Society. I'll tell you a couple other things about Johnson's Great Society, which I'm not a gigantic fan of Linda B. Johnson, but, you know, a lot of shit got done if we're being honest. Voting Rights Act, you know, Civil Rights Act. There are a lot of things that happened spearheaded by some of the greatest minds in Black America during that time. Now, if we're looking at economic issues, that, you know, were huge in American cities that, you know, led to some urban decay.

There's such, such, such a complex pot to pull from it. There's so many things that went on, industry left, globalism, all of that stuff. We were talking to Larry Elder. Larry Elder didn't want to talk about mortgage-backed securities and all of the stuff that actually led up to the financial crisis and all of this stuff. It's just it's just the fact that, you know, Johnson gave us well. and the niggas decided they didn't want to be families anymore. It's just so convenient for the white power system.

I'm watching Tim Scott stand there and I'm thinking to myself, my God, my brother, how? How? What does that say about his mother? Are you saying, well, Tim Scott grew up. He always tells you. Well, no, Tim Scott always tells us how he grew up with a single black mother. So are you saying that your mother was accepting the checks and did not want a nuclear family unit? I know that's not true.

That doesn't make any sense to me. So are you saying that she would rather not have a man in the household that time? It's reported that I don't know the exact thing. His father left when he was still like seven years old. And his mom raised them as a single mother. Did she just want to accept the check and be married to the government and not have a man in the household. I'm sure that's not the case. That's not the case. I never do this. I never do this, but I actually think his father left because of Tim. I did not know that's what you were going to say.

Oh, because Tim was spitting like that back when he was seven. I think his father was in that chilling. I'm saying, trying to watch good times or something like that. And Tim came in and started talking about Richard Nixon and his dad was like, I can't fuck with his love. me, I'm out. His dad was like, his dad was like, his dad, Tim came in. It's like, dad, there, did you see Nixon opened up China? And he's like, I'm done. I don't know what's going on.

This pops somewhere right now with a whole family. They're probably looking for a side of secure. His dad's probably, you know, he got radicalized by Tim. So joke, guys, fathers leaving homes is not very funny. that I could just see Tim coming in there. Nah, I'm out. I'm gone. No, it's wrong. It's terrible.

Look, I happen to not believe that. I know there's some people out there, once again, that always want to believe the worst about black people and have not done the requisite work, and there's more work for me to be done. I'm not an academic by any sort. But if you do even a baseline analysis of this,

you'll find that that talking point is hollow and ridiculous. There bits and pieces of all kinds of things that lead to where we are right now, none of which can beat the legacy of slavery, white supremacy, and systemic racism. That dims the facts, people. I'm sorry, it's inconvenient. Dems the facts. Dems the facts. Melbeth.

All right. The first question comes from Corey Cobra. In the spirit of Larry running for president and trying to get on the debate stage, what's the most energy that you've wasted? Ooh, this is a good question. Most energy I've wasted. I wasted energy on a girl. We can all say that there's a relationship we wasted energy on.

I'm not saying time because I never got her, but energy. You know, back in my less confident days, you know, I would have to be around and I have to play the nice guy game for a little while to really show my charisma. And I played a game, but I have to show my personality. You know what I mean? Because you've got to have personality. at 375. So, like, you know,

I have to show my personality and stuff. You have to put in a lot of work that Brian took, that Bryson-Tillard song, I'd be working overtime. I would put in a lot of work, put in a lot of work, a lot of work, a lot of work. And one day, I'm sitting down talking to her, and she showed me a picture of this nigger who just came back from Iraq or something like that.

And she's like, he's home, he's home. And I was like, God damn, the IEDs missed. okay maybe that was Donnie take that out That was dark I didn't even Man you have to take

Donnie please take that out Yeah that's fine I'm like Did I hear what I thought I No He really didn't think that And he had come home And you know

You know And that was it and thank you for your service that's all I can say to him but yeah, that was a lot of wasted energy right there. I don't know. I mean, I'm sure there's a lot. Definitely relationships of the past

that I wasted energy on. Maybe there was a lot of energy wasted on Bachelor Nation. Maybe there was some of that, you know, trying to, you love, we should invite her on the podcast because you love and you'll see that there's,

there are no issues there. I mean, no, and truthfully, though, I did waste energy on her because when she did have that video that came out, I spent an entire day talking to her going back and forth, and I was very nice and lended a hand and said, you know, if you do want to apologize,

I'll come on a live with you and we can talk about it. And we, and I went, was like educating her on what she did and the word. It was a whole day full of thing only for her to, come back and say her PR didn't want her to go on with me. I guess they didn't trust

that I would be an ally in that situation. And so they should put out a statement. So yes, to your point, that that was a whole day of wasting energy. But no, I would say Bastor Nation General, there's some things that I waste the energy on because some things will just never change. All right. Truth Ally asks, what is a quality or characteristic that you love about your father? What is a favorite activity

you do or used to do with your father? Yeah, that's going to be a used to do with me. Come on. You can't laugh about it. Favorite activity that I used to do with my dad. It was, there were activities, of course.

Like, we fished and we hunted, but you had, those were things that, like, like, you had a lot of conversation. But me and him would just ride sometimes, man. he just be like, I'll be sitting down, he'd be like, go boy, let's go. And I'll be like, where we go? He'd be like, get in the car with your dad.

And, you know, he might go make a couple of pickups in terms of, you know, he'd have pickup money to make the money draw for the people that he was working, or he might be, I might go with him to look at a horse or I might go with him to, like, the feed store, to buy feed for the horses. I mean, all these little things

that he had to do, go to the gun store. I know that sounds a little weird to some people, but I would just be him and like with him for a while. He would talk to people. I would see the way he, and he'd always be like, when he was talking to somebody, he'd always like make a whole area for me.

They'd talk to him, shake his hand. They always had such respect for him. And they'll be like, this is my son, man. And then the man would shake my hand. and then my dad would make him talk to me so that I knew how to deal with, like, talking to a man. Like, they would be back and forth. Like, yeah, Van, tell him about this and do the whole deal.

Like, so he was like grooming me to be able to talk to somebody. It was just like all those little areas of life. And sometimes we would just ride and talk. We would get something to eat. Then, you know, we would go back home and you'd be like, all right, now, get there and get your lesson. So I go in there and I do my schoolwork. But I think those were kind of the things that I remember,

like the most that were awesome to me. Yeah. I, yeah, a characteristic I would say, my dad is an assiduous man. And I love his perseverance, his work ethic and the pride he takes in the work that he does. I've always loved that. As a little kid, I just remember admiring my dad for that. As far as favorite activities, it was simple things, very similar to you. I loved going to the rodeo with my dad. Mesquite rodeo. I used to love Saturday nights when we would go to the rodeo. I would love driving to my grandmother's farm to the country and doing work on the farm with my dad.

As a kid, I would take so much pride in that. And then even as an adult, my family has a trail ride in Louisiana every single year in August. And it got to the point where nobody would go except for me and my dad. And this is like in my 30s and late 20s and 30s. And so I would love just me and my dad getting in the car for hours driving to Louisiana.

Two of us, we hit up the trail ride and we would just drive back. And some of those conversations still stay with me where, you know, like I feel like I got to see my dad open up to me because he's a very private person and he doesn't say a lot, but he would ask me certain questions, personal questions. and I felt like we didn't necessarily have that relationship growing up, but as an adult, we do. So those moments. Yeah.

One more, Donnie. All right, this last one. Let's go with. Okay, we got two different ones. There's a longer one or a shorter one. What should I go with? As a longer one. Okay.

From Smooth. Van and Rachel, smooth with three youths. Van and Rachel, both of you were very blessed to have your fathers in your lives. And I'm sure their presence and guidance has contributed, at least in part, to your prosperity today. In all seriousness, what is your take on fatherlessness in the black community? Do you feel it's a legitimate issue or that its negative impact on the black community is largely overblown? I know for me personally, as a black man in his late 20s, I've started to come to terms with exactly how greatly my father's absence has impacted me and how difficult it can be to learn

to become a man on your own. I mean, I don't think that either one of us would deny, you know, the importance of having uninvolved father in your life. I think that the topic of fatherlessness and when they throw out statistics, I think that they conflate like marriage statistics with fatherlessness. And I think that they take away from the fact that there are fathers that maybe, you know, don't live in the home anymore, but are involved. Fathers that have gone on, there's divorce and have married someone else. So they might be a father in one household.

But, you know, the child splits. you know, where they live and, you know, like maybe the primary address is the mothers, but the father's still involved because he's, you know, like, lives somewhere else. I just think that there's a statistically, there are a lot of issues that contribute to maybe a high percentage of what people are calling fatherlessness, which actually isn't the case. So I think that there are a lot of involved black fathers. And so I think that that is something that is overblown sometimes and not taken into consideration with involved fathers.

Fatherlessness doesn't mean that the father isn't involved or sometimes says, I feel like I'm saying that wrong. Wait, take that part out, Donnie. I just think that when people say fatherlessness, they're looking at a statistic that doesn't include everything. And there are a lot of involved black fathers. Yeah.

So I think that we can both have a conversation about fatherlessness and have a conversation about the realities of it and have a conversation about narratives that are pushed on a particular community to affect somebody else or give them a talking point for their own personal political gain.

So we can talk about all that stuff, right, in a very holistic way. I look at the family differently. I'm not a huge believer of the nuclear family. I think it's really a Western inventive to prop up capitalism. So little kingdom that leads to a bigger kingdom that leads to a bigger kingdom, that leads to a bigger kingdom, that leads to a bigger kingdom. As a man, I think that I am

responsible, obviously, for my family, for the people around me, but I also think that we have a collective responsibility for the young men in our communities and for their well-being. It's one thing to raise your own family and raise your children in an incredibly responsible way. But if you do not care about the children next door, the children across the street, the children across town, then the realities of those children's lives will still affect your children's realities anyway. I think that when Black Lives Matter was talking about how they rejected the nuclear family, a lot of people misunderstood what they were saying and misunderstood and didn't read what came next.

What they talked about was something that's more traditional to the black. experience to the African experience, if you will, which is a bunch of people taking responsibility for the children in their community. They say very specifically in their mission statement, hey, we are all raising each other's kids together so that if you need to go protest or go to work or go do something, your kids have a place at my home and vice versa. What I believe is that now for this young man that rode in is that even though your dad wasn't around, There should have been someone. There should have been someone there to help you become a man.

If somebody saw that you needed something, someone should have cared enough about the collective strength and health of the community that you came from to give you something. And that's what I believe in more than anything. I believe in males, black men being there for black boys. And this is happening. But you have to do the work to know. next week, I will be in Detroit at the opening of the Union in Detroit.

The Union is the building that has been finally been procured by Jason Wilson from the cave of a dove. And what Jason does, Jason has his own family, right? It's a beautiful family. Actually, they're very beautiful family. It's weird how good looking these people are. And he has an institute, a place for boys to come where they can get the male role models and the male leadership that they need. Some men bring their sons there to get a different style of male leadership, male role models, safety, people to help you. in a place like Detroit where it's all hands on deck for our boys.

So for me, yeah, yeah, there's a need for us to have a conversation about how we're showing up for black boys and our black girls in these neighborhoods. It's definitely a need to have that conversation. But there's also a need to have a conversation of what our responsibilities are outside of the young men that we created through our bodies. And if we really, really, really are dedicated to that, then everybody will have a father. Everybody will have somebody that they can look up to. Everybody will have somebody that they can lean on because all of those young men in those communities

are your responsibility because their pain will be revisited on you anyway. So you might as well do what you can to make sure that they feel safe, seen, heard, and fed. Because it's coming back to you anyway. So building healthy communities, means building healthy people. And that's what I would say. And by the way,

what? Oh, no, go ahead. Sorry. No, that's it. By the way, my father believed in that too. What? What about young girls? I mean,

for me, it's, I mean, I don't know how to teach a girl how to be a woman. Right, but the importance of having, like, you know, like, there's,

there's, the daddy's girl thing is, is very real. And, you know, like, I'm very close to my dad. And I can't imagine having, not having that, a figure like that, right? Maybe the same way you're talking about this community that needs to be involved with, if you see a young boy, a young man who doesn't have that type of figure in his life

where the community comes together. I equally think that there is that importance, though. I know you say you don't believe in the nuclear family and I understand everything that you said makes sense. But when it comes to young women, you can't take away the fact that there is an importance about having a male figure, a positive male figure, in their life as well. So I'm just like wondering. Yeah, I mean, I don't have a problem with that at all.

What happens to the young girl and all of that? Yeah, I don't have a problem with that at all. I do, I mean, I don't think that I would see a young girl that needed me and not be there for her either. I do think there is a specific need and addressing this question. There's a specific need for, this is what I'll say. I'll just be honest. The amount of damage that an ill-raised man can do is just astronomical.

The amount of power that men wield in society, the amount of privilege that men have in society, it's significant. and ill-raised boys, ill-adjusted boys, unloved boys, can go out to the world and really fuck a lot of shit up. They have the propensity to do a lot of things, and it's not necessarily saying that they're more important, but I'm saying for me personally,

there is a specific need there. There's a specific need for them to understand what they're capable of, how they're capable of helping, and how they're also capable of hurting. Like, these will be the boys that will be in the situations and have six different women pregnant or being in a situation where they're abusive or being in a situation where all because they don't understand

how to love, how to be loved, how to be emotionally available, how to be emotionally strong by also being vulnerable to their family, all of those things that a man who really loves you and shows up for you, all those things that they teach, you. Those boys have to have that. And it's a crisis if they don't. So the only reason why I would be

specific is not because of I love little black girls. Or I don't think that they need me. Of course they do. But it's because the whole that is there, I see that showing up in society in a specific way. And, you know, that can't be denied. Like, I'm not going to be. I'm not going to to say when you talk about an epidemic, that's one thing. But when you talk about the fact that there are black men that are falling through the cracks that we need to address and be a part of their lives, I wasn't prepared to disagree with anyone about that, no matter who that was. I'm not going to let it be weaponized for politics.

It's got to be done through love. So if you don't love black people, you certainly can't love black boys. You know what I mean? But yeah, but I hear what you're saying, for sure. Just question. All right. Take deep capsule I'm not stop learning

I'm Van Lathen and I'm Rachel Lynn Lansing Bye guys