Julian Dorey Podcast - #10 - Terence Jones

Episode Date: September 15, 2020

Terence Jones is an activist, law student, community organizer, and long-time advocate for Civil Rights/Social Justice organizations including the NAACP & Black Lives Matter (BLM).   Currently, he serves as a Program Facilitator with the Alternatives to Violence Project—where he works with prison inmates to foster anti-aggressive behaviors. ~ YouTube FULL EPISODES: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0A-v_DL-h76F75xik8h03Q  YouTube CLIPS: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChs-BsSX71a_leuqUk7vtDg  ~ Show Notes: https://www.trendifier.com/podcastnotes  TRENDIFIER Website: https://www.trendifier.com  Julian's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/julianddorey  ~ Beat provided by: https://freebeats.io  Music Produced by White Hot Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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spray painting a hammer and sickle, that is me just the ultimate proof right there in front of our fucking faces that the United States educational department and system has failed for years. Because just read a basic history book. That ain't it. So then when I see an organization who seems to support some of these tactics, I can't get behind the organization. And then you can't separate the hashtag from the organization. And that creates a stressful moral dilemma in my head and i think it's for anyone but especially like as a white dude you know you're like okay well is it a shit or a fart you know like i'm fucked either way right right with any organization

that you're going to be a part of unless you're running it unless it's your organization there are going to be things that you agree with and things that you don't. Sir, you have some great waves going on right now. I'm spinning right now. I respect that. I cut my hair off like two weeks ago. I haven't got – I didn't get a haircut all quarantine. I was like getting my sister to cut it and all that stuff and then uh right before i proposed i proposed on august 1st

congratulations by the way uh right before i proposed was the first time that i got a haircut so i think my last haircut was probably sometime in march and then all the way until august nothing yeah i've been getting haircuts the whole time actually you know no man i when corona hit obviously we thought it was gonna be like a month or something like that i was due for a haircut right and then i was like oh well i guess it's grown for like a month and then boom it just kept going and i'm like fuck it man like keep it going you're not going anywhere might as well just keep it long i had it going and i literally just kept growing kept growing kept growing and then came august i was like time for the chop that's it man yeah and now where'd you guys get engaged um so her grandmother lives uh near trenton uh so we were over i really

wanted to make sure she was a part of it because i know she's a large part of her life and she's become a large part of mine i've been dating sydney's for a little over five years now. So I've gotten to know her whole family. And so it was really important for me to, like family is everything, as you know. And so it was really important for me to have our families there. So luckily my family is super flexible. So we all went out to this park near Trenton, kind of did the social distancing thing, got a huge tent. So it was kind of cool. And yeah, it turned out to be great.

Yeah. got a huge tent so it was kind of cool um and yeah it turned out to be great yeah it's and you know what it's like so different obviously with like you said the social distancing and the masks and all that but it's still pretty special right yeah exactly i mean originally i was going to do it memorial day weekend so like i had everything all planned out all i was waiting for was the diamond and then like when the when it hit like the diamond stuff all that stuff had to be delayed we had an airbnb i had like 13 of my friends we were all gonna like go to the beach after i proposed it had this whole plan had to cancel that then corona hit yeah it was it was a mess and what was the i mean did she like the diamond oh that's the number one question yeah and i got lucky because the prices dipped a little bit. So I was able to get something a little bit bigger than what I was originally going to get. So I feel blessed in that

way. But I got mine custom. The lady who did my mom's ring that my stepdad worked with, I worked with her. So I was literally going to appointments out of her basement. And she's an older woman. And so like, once Corona hit, like we literally did everything outside. So she would like, you know, she would put the diamond on her car. I would go up to the car, look at it, put it back down. She'd come back and we just did everything through text messages. I showed her like an image of like what I was thinking about. She told me what she thought would be more comfortable and sustainable.

Her biggest thing is like, she's been doing this. She's like, I think her dad was a jeweler and then she became a jeweler she's doing this for like 50 years or something and she was like i've only ever had one person bring a ring back she was like i don't want people like i want people to have it comfortable and i want it to stay shined and like i want my you know customers to be like satisfied so she was incredible now is was there any part of you that was thinking like, oh, maybe I should wait on this because it's Corona and it's weird? Like, why now?

Yeah, I had that thought. And my friends were definitely like, dude, you're definitely forcing this. But I don't know. We've been dating five years now. And we're both in law school. So I'm at Temple. She's at Rutgers. She's in her last year.

I've got two more years. And I just wanted a surprise factor. That was my biggest thing. And I knew the longer I waited, the more she's going to be like looking at her watch. And I didn't want her to feel like she and she wouldn't have. I mean, I don't you've met her once. So like, you know, she's like the sweetest woman on earth. And so she would have never pressured me. But I just didn't want it to ever feel like we were getting to that point. I wanted her to know that this is something that I wanted. And if we could make it through a one bedroom apartment on Corona, like literally like in business meetings at the same time, if we could make it through that, we can make it through anything. And I wanted her to

know how special that moment was, you know? Yeah. Making it through during Corona is a great point. Yes. And one of my friends was saying like right at the beginning she made she made this declaration and she was like you know i don't know how long this is going to be but relationships are going to be fortified or die yep in this and it's so true it absolutely is i mean there there's no escape right like when we had our one bedroom it felt super spacious in the beginning, because we're both extremely busy people. Sydney, yeah, Sydney, she works full time during the day, and then she goes to school at night. So, she's almost never home. We have a

90-pound pit bull, and then me. And so, I was home all the time, and she was often out all the time. And so, we, you know, made it work. But now that we're both home all the time, she was often out all the time and so we you know made it work but now that we're both home all the time one bedroom no separation one tv one router like yeah we have to share everything all the time and so it's been a really interesting to get to know each other on that intimate level right yeah i mean you guys had lived together but yeah you know that's like you're marking your territory at some point totally different like i'm literally like, especially during the summer, my internship, my associateship got cut short. So I was only doing it for four weeks. So like, I had, I think, three weeks before I started working, where I was doing nothing, right. And so I dove into the Black Lives Matter stuff, which we'll talk about. But on the side of that, I'm like playing video games during the day. And she's like trying to get work done and having

work meetings. So like, I have to literally wake up in the morning. All right, what time are your meetings? 12 to Okay, I'll try to play around that. I will be over there. I will give you at least 13 feet, right? Right. Decibel level will be X. And I'd have to like play with like an earphone off so I can hear myself. Like because I didn't want to be screaming like, you know, when you're in it, you're like, yeah, yeah. She's like, oh, I'm sorry. You know, one bedroom apartment. What's your game of choice right now? I'm really big into Apex.

Yeah. Big into Apex. That's a popular one these days. Yeah. A lot of people are on that. I got a lot of friends that play that one. And then Marvel just came out with their Avengers game game uh this past friday so i've been like diving into that a little bit and that's like fully online multiplayer so i got a few

buddies and we'll get together and get that going dude the avengers franchise how much money is that thing the money is astronomical i was just doing an episode the other day where i had to do some background on some guys and i was looking at the top box office earners and avengers just puts people over the top man i mean you got like samuel up there that's robert downey jr you know r.i.p chadwick obviously but it's it is an amazing amazing franchise so i guess the games are pretty good too then the game the game is solid it has a lot of potential because it's constantly updating. So you pay your $60, but they'll keep rolling out new characters for it, and they have the whole Marvel history. So they can pick any character from any timeline at any point.

So I know they have Spider-Man coming out eventually. Hawkeye's going to be coming soon. So the good thing about it is that you're playing and then the game doesn't get boring because they're always going to be adding new storylines they're always going to be adding new characters so that's how they get you man exactly that's how they exactly so we'll be buying the next seven exactly since like since like aren't you too old to be playing like you're in school right like don't you have a lot of reading to do i'm like i'm gonna find time for this game yeah trust and believe but i want to go back to something you just said to turn it around a little bit here and you mentioned some of your work with black lives matter during all this so i think it is quite fair to say that these are some wild times we're

living in absolutely there's been a lot going on i would say that it are some wild times we're living in. Absolutely. There's been a lot going on. I would say that it's been pretty wild even like the last five or six years, but this is just a whole other ballgame. But the reason I invited you here today is for people who don't know, you and I have known each other for most of our lives. Yeah. My parents moved here 2005, 2006. Yeah. I don't want to say 2006. Yeah.

So it was like over 15 years. It's been a long time. And we've always been good friends and our lives have always kind of zigged and zagged. We've been in way different places, doing way different things. But one of the things about you and your dad's even like a whole nother story. We'll talk about him. But when moments like this happen in society where people don't know what to say or get pissed because they can't pick a side or there's a lot of yelling at each other, the whole political spectrum is insane but when moments like this happen where you have severe racial tension it is always the

nail on the chalkboard issue because people it is a very very uncomfortable topic yeah and there's no doubt about it that unfortunately it takes video to take things to a new level we are visual humans and that's kind of how we learn and it was unanimous in my view from everyone i ever spoke to that what we saw especially in may with the video video of george floyd and derek chauvin i mean we witnessed a murder on camera and obviously that sparked a whole lot of different things but the reason I wanted to speak with you more than anyone is because when things like this happen, like it or not, you do get a lot of sudden activists or sudden bandwagon jumpers

who then sometimes bring some negativity to the people who are really pushing the issue forward. And with you, you have been involved in this shit since the moment i met you you have always been the ultimate community guy you obviously had the family example and to live by with that which was pretty phenomenal but these are things that you've worked on for years and years and years and i remember i will never forget this but i remember back in 2015, 2016, maybe right after Trump got in. It was somewhere in that area. It was during Hillary Trumpville.

And obviously, everyone on Facebook, it was a fucking cesspool. People were doing whatever they wanted to do. But you obviously had your opinions out there. People saw you certainly weren't really a fan of Hillary, but you really weren't a fan of Trump, which was pretty normal for a lot of people. But you saw all kind of constant going back and forth and comments and trolling and things like that. And I remember a post you put up and it was at least like four or five paragraphs. I was known for it. Very well written. I was sitting there like oh wow this is great but you made a point of saying okay everyone knows where i stand you see my content you obviously know i'm not a

fan of trump but we're all yelling at each other people are going into my comments and trolling me i probably troll other people in some comments sometimes and don't realize it this doesn't get anything done so and i'll never forget this you were like anyone who wants to have a conversation especially people who are trump supporters i would love to do it i'll do it in public i'll do it in private doesn't matter i just want to know what your position is so that we can work towards a common goal and i like the fuck out of that thing if it had a love button at the time i don't know that it definitely did. Definitely didn't. But I was like, holy shit, that's the best. Because one of the things that drives me nuts is how there's no more conversation, there's no more nuance. The people with the biggest, baddest opinions always win as far as

getting attention. Sure. You have to be extreme in order to get the clicks, right? You have to be extreme in order to get the likes and the attention. And so that's what drives people right now. Yeah. So my question for you is, as someone who has for a long time had credibility and been involved, and you're also a black guy too, which just by standard makes this whole issue extremely, extremely personal. As someone who has been in the fight for that for a long time and as someone who is a demonstrated person of trying to open up the conversation for nuanced opinions to actually get things done what's your take on where the we stand right now yeah i mean i think for me i have to first lay down some kind of background on me right so like my family has been doing this for longer than i even realized, right? So, my great uncle, my grandfather's brother passed away this past week, and so I went to his funeral. Is that right?

It's sad, but you know, 2020, right? Like, honestly, it's like one hit after the next. But so, I went to the funeral on Tuesday, and I found some things out about my family that I didn't necessarily know that my great-grandmother and the pastor's grandmother actually helped to fight segregation in Chester County. Oh, shit. So, like, this goes back, right? Like, literally, they were signing parents up to make sure that they weren't sending their kids to these schools that weren't receiving the same benefits as the predominantly white schools.

And then, like you said, my father, he was an ex-police. He is a ex-police officer. He was a Philly cop and he was a cop for a long time. And now he does private investigation work to try to figure out how we can how we can better the system, How we can make this work. And so, you know, this fight has been in my family and I can tell you hundreds of stories of different family members who have been doing this kind of thing since well before I was born. And so, I don't know, for me, it was just, it was natural. And I've gone to predominantly white schools my entire life. I went to Chestnut Hill Academy, which is an all boys private school in Philadelphia. I went from third grade

to 12th grade. So literally navigating white society is something that I've had to do my entire life. And so it's something that I got extremely comfortable with. What do you, real quickly, just on that point, what do you, when you say white society, let's define that a little bit. Yeah. So I mean, obviously, so African Americans only make up 13% of our country, right? So, obviously, the vast majority of our country is made up by all white. And when you get to the top of the food chain, for lack of a better term, when you get to the top of what we consider to be the top of society, it's predominantly white. And when you get in those spaces, a lot of times they are also used to being in predominantly white spaces. So, it's weird to see, not weird,

it's different to see someone that looks like me in those spaces. And sometimes it can be kind of awkward, especially with issues like this. So, when I say white society, I just mean like, you know, spaces that aren't used to having black people in them. And so, I've had to navigate those spaces my entire life. I was, I think, when I got to CHA, you know, there was probably like in third grade, there's probably like 20 kids in my class. And like, I want to say probably like three of them were black, you know what I mean? And it grew. I think we graduated with 59 boys. If I had to guess, there was probably about 10, maybe less than that who were not white. Right. So predominantly white spaces. And so it's given me a unique perspective

on everything that's happening because I have a better understanding for what a lot of white people are thinking. And it makes it easier for me to have those conversations because I've been doing it my whole life. So, I don't know. The question was just like, where do I stand on the issue or – What's your – it was a very broad question. Sure. I wanted you to kind of open it up and that was a great way to give a little bit of your background in it. But it is so – like it feels like George Floyd died 10 years ago.

Yeah. You know? So much has happened since. So, you know what? Let's get a little more focused. Sure. Take me into before that happened. Because we saw a couple things that were getting attention.

And again, people are home during Corona. We all went home in mid-March. And that's key, right? What are people doing? Right. They're fucking online. They're looking at shit. They're constantly talking. corona right we all went home in mid-march and that's key right what are people doing right they're fucking online they're looking at shit they're constantly talking they're finding things also to complain about too in general in society because you you naturally have a lot of people who were losing jobs or were working remote and not having to do much and as humans that's just

kind of what we that's negativity is unfortunately something that is a standard for us we had to fill the void right and so one of the things i saw early and i think everyone saw it early is that you had a couple of these cases too that immediately got attention yeah and it wasn't you raising the point is not an example of negativity but it was another negative trend so you saw ahmaud arbery yeah you saw Breonna Taylor, which was, that one was pretty wild. But before George Floyd, what were your thoughts being locked up inside and seeing the same shit happen? It was frustrating for me. But again, because my dad works with police brutality cases, it wasn't something that was a surprise. Like, As you know, my dad's a talker, right?

That would be an understatement. I mean, it took me 15 minutes to even come here because he wanted to talk to me about all the things that he's doing and he's always doing something. He is always doing something. So, with that being said, cases of police brutality were not nuanced to me. And it was interesting for me to see America start to open their eyes to it and to see it get national attention because most of the cases that my dad do are very local. They're cases that you would have never heard of. Well, he did Freddie Gray.

He did. He was a private investigator with the Freddie Gray case, and he did consult a little bit on that case. And actually, that case is what jump-started my passion for advocacy, because I went to school in Baltimore, so I was there when it happened. I was there when the uprising started. In fact, that's how Sydney and I really came close. We were taking a class together, so we had kind of gotten to know each other. But when that happened, she was really big into advocacy. And we realized that, again, Loy loyola predominantly white space that kids were literally like complaining like oh man like they're just they want to burn their city we can't go out and party tonight yeah that was their that was that was there was their concern and that's what kind of started to eat me up inside was like dang like these people care more about partying than they do

about actual issues of people dying and And so, then I'm like, dang, I can't just sit by and do nothing. Like, that's where my advocacy and passion started to go. So, for me, these issues have always been prominent. And it was interesting for me to see, like you said, with corona hitting, people have to pay attention to it. And so, you know, whether they had a take that was similar to mine or whether they had something that was completely opposite, at least they're getting involved. They're seeing that these things are happening, right? And so, it was a silver lining for me that it's a wake-up call. I don't care if you agree with me or disagree with me, you're going to have an opinion on these

issues because they're literally everywhere. They're at the forefront. Yeah, they're literally everywhere. So, it was interesting. I tried to, because I've known about this stuff and have been doing this stuff, I tried to bring a little nuance to the conversation. So, like, something that I'm very big on is like, when the whole thing with Trayvon Martin happened, everyone called it the Trayvon Martin case or the Trayvon Martin trials. And it's like, what that does is dehumanizes the actual situation. And I saw the same sort of thing happening with George Floyd is that oftentimes the actual person who's on trial, the person who actually killed someone is not mentioned. And so like being cognizant of the actual person who's on trial is something that I think that we needed to focus on as a society. So that's what I focused on, just putting names out there. Hey,

this is what's happening. These are the people who are responsible for it. Whether you have an opinion like mine, like I said, or you don't, these are the people we should be focusing on, right? And so George Floyd was interesting because most people, regardless of where they fall on the political spectrum, could at least say that that officer was in the wrong because of how long he had his... I never talked to anyone who said he was even slightly in the right, to be honest. Even some of the most conservative people I've ever thought of in my life were like, nope, pretty clear. Yeah.

I mean, and so that was the most interesting thing to me was just how many people were actually like, yeah, no, this cop is terrible. But then it went very quickly. And Candace Owen is the perfect example of this. It went very quickly from what this cop did was terrible to yeah but that george floyd wasn't that great of a guy you know what and i want to get your thoughts on this on that point and then i want to ask you about what your reaction was right when it was raw and you saw the video and what you were thinking but on that point i love that you brought up candace because as a white guy first of all i don't like cancel culture at all i hate it sure and i'm not

canceling anyone i i'm with you on that point i think ideas we can talk about that too definitely but i think ideas should be put out to the forefront because the people who have the best evidence and the most logic should be confident that those arguments are going to win over time and it may take time you have a lot of fucking morons out there, you know? But with Candace Owens, my biggest problem with that argument she made, and for people who aren't familiar, Candace Owens put up a Facebook video about, what was it, a week after George Floyd or something? Yeah, something like that.

So she put up a Facebook video that got, I believe, now it's over 100 million views. It was massively viral. And it was a personal video. She just turned around an iPhone and started talking. And she's a black woman, which is very important for the sake of this conversation. Very important for context for people that don't know. She's a very interesting character.

I don't want to go too far down her whole background. But she's been a right-wing political commentator for the last three years. And she's had a lot of attention. And so some of the arguments that happen against her are people will say oh the conservatives use her as like a token black woman like they'll throw around that term and i don't think that's fair to her i don't think any of that kind of labeling of someone is fair but the point she made after this i'm not afraid to go back at it because she didn't accept any mutual exclusivity. And what I mean by that is, okay, did George Floyd have a criminal record?

Yes, he did. Was he a guy who maybe had some demons? And maybe for the sake of argument, maybe he wasn't a great guy. The fact that that is all true and the fact that he was then handcuffed and neutralized and for a ten dollar counterfeit bill by the way in a fucking u.s city you think we have time to arrest people like that come on man like just tell him to get lost but the fact that he was neutralized and handcuffed on a ground on the ground and sat on for eight minutes while he was crying out for his mom that and the fact that maybe he wasn't the model U.S. citizen

are two things that are not mutually exclusive. Exactly. And the thing about Candace is that I will never take away from her her intellect. She is very smart. She does her research. She knows what she's talking about. The issue that I had with her Facebook post was that, to me, and I try to see the best in people, but it was very hard for me when watching it. It felt like she just wanted to say something that would go viral.

It felt like, and this may not be her motive. I actually agree. This is what I'm taking away from it. It felt like she was just spewing true facts, but for the sake of extreme and for the sake of starting conversations. And for me, it was too soon. It was insensitive and it was unnecessary, right? Because a rhetoric that I hear constantly that I wish didn't exist in our country, but it's a lot of people think like this, is that if you do something bad, you deserve something bad. And to a degree, I get that. And to a degree, I even accept that. But to say, if you do something bad, you deserve to die, that is a whole different conversation.

And she didn't say that. She didn't say he deserved to die. She had said that the cop was in the wrong. There's no doubt about it. Her big point was he shouldn't be a martyr for the Black Lives Matter protests. It's not about, and that's what I felt like she missed on. This is a really important point. It's not about who he was it's about what he

stood for in a moment that was completely involuntary he stood for a problem where people in this case certain police officers feel like they can do these things right look i always said like i grew up in suburbia. The cops I grew up around, they were our baseball coaches. They're nice guys, right? It's not the same as a city where you got all these different people, all these different backgrounds. You got quotas. You got a political machine, all this stuff. And you have to accept the fact that, and your dad can speak to this big time there's a lot of bad cops

who are hired and all it takes if you have a hundred cops and you got five who are bad you got a fucking problem a bad problem right and and honestly i want to i want to actually take that a step further and say there are a lot of good cops who truthfully have implicit biases that are slightly out of their control because of the way they grew up in the environment they grew up in. Sure. That's an important point. And the implicit bias is a really important point. And I'll actually bring it back to suburbia. I've actually... So, I've blacked this out from my memory. My dad was telling me this story. One time I had two of my friends over from school who are also black black and um you know james and tyler came over and literally we were riding bikes in this neighborhood we literally drove or rode our bikes made that left out of the development

and we're heading out and we got stopped by cops and they were asking us what we were doing in this neighborhood right why why i mean the the only reason that someone could ask that is because we are the only family of color in this entire neighborhood. And so, you know, this was early on. Obviously, my dad knows plenty of the cops around here now, for better or for worse. And so, they just didn't know who we were. And my dad was livid. I mean, he dreamed that wasn't the only thing. Right. So, so, um, and so that guy probably will never make that mistake again, but that's just one example. Another example is, um, I don't know if you remember when my dad got pulled over. Yeah. Um, and this was after the super bowl, he made a, um, he was, he got lost because my mom

told him to take a different bridge than what he normally takes. He normally takes the Ben Franklin. I think she wanted him to take the Betsy Ross to bring me home. And so he had gotten lost. He was driving a Lincoln Navigator, which was and is a really nice car. And it was like brand new. My dad's really into cars, as you know. Your dad has had quite the car collection, man.

There's a new car in that driveway every week. My dad used to get a new car in that driveway every week i'm like my dad used to get a new car every two years on the dot like almost killed me in them a couple times too but you know that's right especially after tokyo drift i'll never forget that um but yeah no and so he was in a lincoln navigator and i guess he made a turn and then he came back and i guess the cop thought he was suspicious and it'd be one thing if the cop pulled him over, what are you doing? You know, oh, I'm lost, whatever. And that was that. But it became a whole thing, right? And the only reason it became a whole thing was because my dad doesn't settle for anything. He's a fighter. He's going to fight. And so he realized

that, you know, he was pulled over and they stopped him illegally and he knows his rights because he was a cop. And so him illegally and he knows his rights because he was a cop and so he wasn't going to take it. And so I say all of this to say that even the best of cops have implicit biases. Black cops, Asian cops, white cops, they all have biases and the danger comes about when you start to enter lethal force into those biases. And so, for me, that's the most dangerous part. And the fact that we don't have, there's not as much training in some cities on those biases is problematic at the very least. So, it goes unaddressed and when it goes unaddressed, it runs rampant is that something that

you've been hitting on like that point in particularly since even the days of freddie gray yeah absolutely i mean i think it's it's hard for it's hard for people of all sorts to try to wrap their head around that implicit bias because it's like a lot of things that intellectuals i'll say in air quotes a lot of things that intellectuals, I'll say in air quotes, a lot of intellectuals will say is that, well, of course, cops are going to be more suspicious around black people because statistically speaking, black people commit more crimes, right? And so, for me personally, and I don't know if this is a hot take or not, it's one thing to have that implicit bias and know that it's an implicit bias and act on that implicit bias. But it's another thing to violate someone's rights

because of that implicit bias. We're all going to have implicit bias. I have implicit bias. I know what it is. I've done trainings out the wazoo on implicit bias, right? And so, I am very aware of when I do something, I'm like, dang, that's messed up. Like, dang, I shouldn't think like that. It happens. We're human. But when you take it a step further and you start to violate someone's rights, right? This is America. This is supposed to be the land of the free.

You're violating someone's constitutional rights. And then you take it a step further and you kill them. How can we get behind that as a society? That's what baffles me. You can't. What about the people who come back and you hear this argument? And I think it's counterintuitive, but let me put it out there for you. Because you hear it.

People are like, well, no one gives it attention when a cop kills a white guy. Or no one gives... My favorite one. Apparently everyone in this country has been to Chicago. I don't know if you know they've all been there yeah yeah they've all been in the streets watching all the guns go across but they'll say look at chicago right black on black crime every day right so and there's a there's an aspect by the way in both of those things there can be a kernel of truth in those no doubt about

it i mean stats are stats on some things but what it does to me and this is what i want your opinion on is that it it moves the needle from what the issue is in an effort to shut down the issue at its heart so right there's two points there so i'll take them one by one with with black on black crime it's it's it's such a dumb argument and it really is like a dumb argument. Why do you call it dumb? And the reason why is because it's literally made up, right? All crime, and I hope your listeners will look this up if they don't believe me, all crime happens more within your own race. That is correct. That's statistically bad. So, white people, when they go to kill someone, statistically kill white people more often than they kill black people. Black people statistically will kill black people more than they kill white people. No one talks about white-on-white crime because it's asinine, right? It makes no sense. But somehow they want to talk about Black-on-Black crime. Yes, it is true that in a lot of areas where you have poverty, there's going to be high crime, right? And I think that's true for two reasons. One, when you have poverty, it's harder to get the things that you want

without resorting to crime. That's just true. It's harder to get... If you can barely pay for rent, you're going to be more likely to get involved into something that's illegal, to make ends meet. But also, when you think about those areas, those areas have more police in it because they have more crimes in it. So then it becomes the chicken or the egg. Crime statistics are going to be up where there's more cops looking at everything that you do. Who are also, by the way, forced to make sure they hit certain numbers. Exactly.

And that's a problem. Love your take on this too. but that's a problem that i think is also taken out of the control of cops it creates this must do this must do that okay need this number or i don't get paid it's this it's this cycle system sure sure and so when you have a whole bunch of cops and i think that's where defunding the police abolition of the police comes in because if you took the huge budget that police have, and you put a fraction of it into social workers, like teachers, and you actually give those areas the resources, statistics show that the communities with the most resources typically have the least officers and have the lowest crime rates. So it's the chicken or the egg.

Maybe you say, oh, you know, the rich people, they don't commit crimes. Maybe you believe that's because they're white. Maybe you believe it's because they're rich. But realistically, those areas have resources and those resources will help to lower the crime rates, right? Can you talk to me really quickly and expand upon defunding the police? Because this is another one, and we were talking before the podcast, I wanted to shut up so we could do it on the podcast too. But this is another one where you see a prime example of people just putting out information without even taking the time to Google. And I have Googled at

this point, and now there's so much clutter out there that it's like, all right, well, what's the truth? What's not? Whatever whatever so when you say defunding the police obviously you pointed on some of those funds would go towards building communities that part I think everyone understands but we saw for example I saw people who were very much advocating defunding the police even going out of their way to point out that there was some fake news on social media about, I think, the Camden, New Jersey police in like 2012, 2013. They were pointing out that there were people sharing that that was an example of defunding the police, and it wasn't entirely. So like even some shining example we had wasn't, and I don't know if you're familiar with that one, but- I know it, but I don't know it well enough to speak on it.

So you don't have to touch that one. I just want to know if you're familiar with that one, but I know it, but I don't know it well enough to speak on it. OK, so you don't have to touch that one. I just want to know if you can explain when you say defunding the police, besides the aspect of putting money into the communities, what exactly does that entail and how would it work? I mean, I think I think that that's kind of where I'm where I'm at. Right. And so I've done prison work, again, like way before, I think. I got involved with a program called the Alternatives to Violence Program, which allowed me to go into prisons, learn about alternative motives to violence. And then once I had done enough workshops, I was actually able to facilitate that, right? And so I was able to go into prisons and talk to people from petty crimes all the way up to murder, right? And talk to them about their experience in prison and how they can implement nonviolent scenarios. And it was really powerful.

And so, you know, when you're doing that work, you meet all kinds of people. And that's when I first heard about like abolition of the prison system, abolition of police departments and my understanding of it. And obviously, depending on who you talk to, they're going to tell you something different because there is no one answer. Everyone thinks that they have a solution and they work on that solution. So my understanding of even abolishing the police is that if you were to take like major crimes, that's such a small part of what police officers do,

right? A large part of what they do is adhering to domestic cases or things of that nature. And if you were to take cops out of it completely and had them just focus on major crimes, just focus on murder and things of that nature, solving actual crimes, and then you put that money into, let's say, a social worker or a team of people who are specifically trained at de-escalating high-intense situations, then that would be a better use of the taxpayer's dollars. That's my understanding of the argument of abolishing police is that there are people who are better equipped at easily handling high-intense solutions so that people aren't losing their lives over them. Okay. A point to go back on that because on this issue, to be fully transparent, one of the reasons I want you to go through everything this means is to

make sure I fully understand. But to me, when I hear words like abolish the police and I hear words like defund the police, I do think about some of those scenarios because one of the pushback arguments, I'm sure you've heard a million times, is, well, criminals don't really follow the law. They do what they want to do. Absolutely. So the idea of having someone, a social worker, going into a situation, like, let me just point a ridiculous example. Let's say, you know, we have a low-income community where there's a woman who's stuck in a really bad relationship where she gets beaten, whatever kind of community low income high income you send a social worker in there well you know what if the guy is totally unhinged what if they start beating on the social worker too like in that situation then you do need resources and police officers to come in and and fill the role and be able to restore order right

like i look at that gun as i hope to god they don't have to fucking take it out but there is a little aspect like hey you know don't get don't go crazy right now right which has been a problem obviously sure and and i think that even if you got rid of the police you could have a similar training but with non-lethal force right and so i always think of it as like, because I've actually lived this experience. Another thing that I did before coming to law school, I worked as a case manager for individuals who were struggling with opioid addiction. So, I, on a daily basis, work with people who were struggling with addiction. And a lot of times, you see people

in recovery who are striving to be the best versions of themselves. And then you see people who are heading towards what they would consider to be their rock bottom, right? You could see people at their most vulnerable, but also what you see a lot of is people with really bad mental health issues. And so the way that we handled that in a clinic, especially if you tell someone with mental health issues that, hey, we know that you're abusing the medications that we're giving you. And ethically, we can't give you any more of this medication. Like, you're going to, like, we will help you get what you need somewhere else, but it just can't be here anymore. That person is going to get upset. So, right. So, I've seen people, as you said, unhinged, right? I've seen

people get very violent. And the protocols that we have as social workers, excuse me, as social workers, case managers, you know, doctors, behavioral health, I think, okay, behavioral health specialists, you know, we take a totally different approach. Like, you can have a conversation and say, hey, you need to calm down without it getting physical. And you can leave that person to their devices and have everyone just, what our protocol was, was to just everyone clear the room. If they destroy the room, they destroy the property, insurance is going to come in and take care of that. But in the moment, our immediate concern is that individual. Now, I understand that not everyone's going to be able to get behind that, right? And I understand that people, that going against the status quo is something that's going to be very hard to do. Always is.

It's going to be very hard to do. And I'm not going to say that it's going to be easy, but what I'm saying is that we can train people to attack situations in a better way. My biggest thing is, my dad says this all the time, the best definition of insanity or the definition of insanity is someone who does something over and over again and expects a different result. Right now our criminal justice system is not working. Hasn't worked in a long time. I think that people have to come to terms with that, right?

Like recidivism rates are extremely high. That means that we're sending people to prison to serve these sentences, and then they're coming back to society and still committing crimes. That's not what we want. And we have to come to terms with it. So maybe you don't accept abolish the police. Maybe you don't accept defund the police. But you should also not accept the status quo because it's not working. Our communities are not safe. Like people want to talk about Chicago. Chicago's not getting better. No, it's not. And so what are we going to do about

it? Are we just going to complain and we're going to just sit here and say, oh, you have a solution? Oh, screw that solution. Or are we going to actually put our heads together, do some research, go in the streets, try to understand it and uplift the people who are trying to make it better? That's where I stand on the issue. I don't know everything that there is to know about defunding and abolishing the police. But what I know is that our current system doesn't work. And so we need to be a part of the solution rather than just talk about the problem. So you don't know for sure, but you look at it as, hey, if you put something out there that gets people's attention, you can at least get to the place of having the conversation. Exactly. I mean, realistically, I mean, when you look at the foundation of police departments, and I didn't know this until very recently, that, you know, the police were literally, they were started to catch slaves.

Like that was initially. Watch the 13th. Yeah. That was initially what they were started to catch slaves. Like that was initially- You watched the 13th? Yeah. That was initially what they were, that was their purpose. And so, they've evolved from slave catchers into what they are now. And so, fundamentally, I see something wrong with that, and it makes it too easy to act on those implicit biases. And so, I do want to recognize the fact that in an argument that's made often and is, I believe, very valid is that, you know, the cases where cops are killing people are small compared to all of the cases where they don't kill people. It's a very small percentage.

But for me, one life is too many. And it's not one life. You can trust me on that. There are at least, there are well over more than one life a day. You know what though? And here's the thing, because I think it's a really important point to make because one of the things that does anger me when I'm sitting here behind my keyboard looking at it and all these people commenting is when we overgeneralize and we call all cops bad. Sure. They're not. Absolutely. And I raised a point earlier about city cops,

but one thing that I will never forget ever, because it was hilarious and now it's not, but at the time I was like, wow, is I was living up in New York on the weekends in the summer, back like after my junior year of college, because I was dating a girl up there. And I had a job early on in the mornings up there. And so I'm in the car at like 5am on a Saturday morning. And I'm listening to WFAN, the big sports station up there. And suddenly this ad comes on a full blown like during commercials,

and it's got like the hokey music in the background. And some guy comes in and very quickly says work for the NYPDd and i'm like wait what like a cop i've never heard this in my life i listened to talk radio in philly growing up my entire life i never heard this and it's got all the music and dude it took maybe 15 seconds maybe even 10 before it had moved from work for the nypd to you get a 401k you get benefits healthcare yeah yeah i'm watching this and i'm like i'm looking at the clock and i'm like who the fuck is listening to this right now and who the fuck is going oh oh yeah yeah that sounds good fuck it i think i'll do that you know like that's and i don't mean to be stereotypical, but that's how you get bad eggs.

And you – it's the ultimate argument with this defunding thing because you still have to create an incentive for people to want to do the job. Because you've got to get good people. But at the same time, this is how it gets let in. So the argument is not all cops are bad. I mean your dad was a cop. He knew a lot of great cops. He knew some bad ones too. Absolutely. The point is eliminating those implicit We already talked about how police officers started from catching slaves, and we talked about the implicit biases. And so, the cops stand to benefit

from that and thus create a racist system. Even if you try to do good, inherently, you're going to have to do bad because the system is set up in that way. And so, I can understand the argument from that perspective that there are no good cops in a racist system. I would – I tend to diverge. I won't necessarily say that I disagree because I do see the truth in that statement. I tend to diverge in that if cops were better at shunning the bad eggs, at casting out the bad eggs, I think that we could make something work. The issue is this blue wall of silence,

where when someone does something bad, because they're your brother, you have to protect them. And you see it all the time. And it becomes really hard to get behind, because it's like... a lot of you officers joined this for the right reasons. A lot of you officers want to do the right thing. So just do the right thing. And I understand it's way more complex than that.

I understand that there's politics involved. I have a lot of family members who are state troopers, who are cops. And so I get it, but it's just, if you, you know, we're at this point in society where people are strong, like the idea of defunding and abolishing the police is really catching on right now. And with every new murder that comes out, right? Like, uh, uh, was James Blake is that the most recent guy that, you know, like, they put seven bullets in his back, and you still see the same thing. Oh, he wasn't that good of a guy. Like, you know, I saw this one video that I actually thought was compelling, I still

disagreed with, in that, you know, officers have split second decisions to make, right? They, like, literally, if he did have a gun because i think they were responding to something and and i think there was like they were talking about a gun if he did have a gun it only takes a half a second for him to turn around and shoot that cop right but my thing is that there you could have and there is training to not put yourself in situations where you could be harmed if you think that person has a gun and you think that they're dangerous and you are afraid for your life because that's what they have to say in order to get the qualified immunity, right? You have to say that you're afraid for your life. And if that's true, don't go in. I mean, they could literally just follow him. They could call for backup,

surround his car. Let me push back on that. Yeah, go for it. He had three kids in the backseat of his car. Right. And the issue I think people have there, because again, like it comes back to the mutual exclusivity point. I can't even say that word. But, okay, maybe you don't have a great guy. Maybe you did a lot of shit wrong. But yeah, like seven bullets seems awfully excessive. Mm-hmm. You know, so to put myself in the cop shoes there minus the seven bullets part

i mean i don't know why two wouldn't suffice but you know what is if you're gonna get to that point what's the question besides the split second point which is a great point you raise what's the question of okay do i do this or do i do i just follow him because you got to remember if he drives off with those kids he was obviously at the time upset and potentially an unhinged guy you don't know that in the time if he drives off with those kids and something happens the lawsuits against the cops and the city and that is in the back of their heads so on that one like you know you see ones that are very very clear that one i thought it was pretty clear seven

times was ridiculous but the rest of it i was like how much are they able to do before going to the gun forget what they do with it and how many they do how much were they able to do they try apparently they tried to taser the guy a couple times that didn't work he was going around to the car where he had a knife and he had three kids in the car right so i mean how and it's a complicated i don't mean to put you on the spot it's complicated i hear you but i think i think for me i don't i mean i don't know about the lawsuit piece and personally i'm always going to put people over money and you know that's just where i'm at but in my mind if you do follow this guy and you surround his car, which they are capable of doing, I don't understand why they couldn't just let him go where he's going and follow him there. I mean, realistically, we have to understand that there are time and time again where officers go after mass shooters, like people with guns who are actually killing people and apprehend them

perfectly fine, right? Dylan Roof is the prime example everyone always talks about. They took him to get like, what, fast food on his way to taking him in. That's the kind of respect that they can have. So we know as a society that it's possible to apprehend someone who is one, to use your word, unhinged, two, has a gun, and three, extremely violent. We know it's possible. But time and time again, it doesn't happen. And oftentimes, you know, it's people that look like me. And I think that that's where people have an issue.

And I also wanted to go back. I feel like this is a good segue to your point where you were talking about, you know, no one talks about when an officer kills a white person, or when an officer gets shot. And I think that for me, I learned very early that you have to find your passion and advocate for it. There are a lot of things that go wrong in this world. Like, I could be an advocate for hunger or homelessness. And those could be the things that I choose to get upset about. And those could not choose to get upset about those could be the things that I choose to find my passion in and find a career in and make sure that I do the most that I can to solve that

issue. And if that is your passion, if you're passionate about people like white people getting killed by cops, then go for it. But my issue is when you try to push your passion on another person. If you, Julian, came to me and was like, I'm really passionate about football players getting guaranteed money. That's something that I think that they should get. They work their behinds off to provide entertainment for us. They should get guaranteed paid for it. I'm not going to come to you and say, no, Julian, you should care about Black Lives Matter. This should be the thing that you're advocating for. This is the thing that you should be raising hell over.

This is the thing that you should be going out and protesting about. That is my truth, and I would like you to be passionate about it. But at the end of the day, everyone has to choose what they're passionate about. So if you're passionate about that, go for it. But don't try to make me take away from what I'm passionate about to go for your cause. It's a beautiful point. You raise a really big moral conundrum. I don't know if it's a moral conundrum, but a societal conundrum in there, though, too. Because like I said out front in this thing, I know you very well. I know where you stand. I know that what you just said is something that is true. You don't push things on people. But to take the side of people who, and I have conversations with people like this all the time. I have conversations with people who are adamant about it and you have to do something. I have conversations with people

like, oh, fuck this, man. And neither in that situation is comfortable for me and i don't think either is the answer but in trying to get a read on the people who are like fuck this and trying to deny a problem trying to empathize with where they're coming from to see why they could be thinking that i noticed there's a pattern of people saying why is everyone screaming in my face that i have to do something, all this? Why are they, like, people don't like being told what to do. Absolutely. You know?

Especially in this country. Especially in this country. And yeah, I mean, there's issues that have been around for generations and we have to live with some of the history. I think America's a shining light example of a great country. It doesn't mean that there's been some negative things along the way. And it doesn't mean you constantly shouldn't be striving to fix things. But you see these people come back and deny the issue. And I think that a lot of their response is to, especially on social and what we're seeing on the internet with everyone inside, you see these terms like silence is complicity. And then you even see the stretch of a term that on the surface is correctly where people say like, human rights are not political issues and stuff like that, which that statement is 100% correct. But they end up stretching it and applying it to things where it's like, well, maybe that's not it. So I see that pattern where then people shut down. So how do you see a situation where you can get people involved?

And I want to talk more about your involvement in these organizations, but involved in things like Black Lives Matter and involved in fighting as an activist for justice. How can you get people involved and follow that creed and be like, hey, if there's other people who have other passions, everyone's interested in what's most important to them in their life. Hey, we'll accept that. We just want to welcome the people who are interested and have questions and actually want to make the situation better. Right. I mean, I think if I'm understanding your question correctly, I think my biggest thing is that, yeah, I mean, I agree that complicit, like, what was it? Silence is complicity, right? Yeah, no, what was it? Silence is complicity, right? Yeah, no, that's right.

Silence is complicity. And I agree with that point. But I also, for me, hate performance advocacy. Yeah, virtue signaling. Yeah, right? And that's huge right now. So I don't want you to put a black square on your Instagram page if you really just don't care about this stuff. That was the next thing I was going to bring i don't like i personally and this is just me there are some maybe black

people or some people who like like that stuff or or commend that um but for me i'd rather i'd rather have you be silent than be fake that's just where i stand on this and for me i agree that because we're in a majoritarian country right and like the the majority rules like whatever the majority votes that's who we get as president that's how this this country is ran it would be nice to see people take take stake right in these issues but you have to do it on your own time. I can't force you to care about this. I think that everyone should care about this. I think that everyone should have an opinion on this, whether they agree with my opinion or not. But I can't force you to do it. Whether they agree with your opinion or not.

Because realistically, people come from all different backgrounds, right? And your background and your upbringing makes you who you are. I think that you should have stake and bring that opinion to the forefront because then someone like me can come and address it. It's easier for me to have an understanding of where you're coming from. So I could say, yeah, I understand where you're coming from, but you didn't think about this. And the reason why a lot of people don't think about this is because they have never experienced this. You know what I mean? Like, if you had spent your entire life in Mullica Hill

and never went to Philadelphia, can you, like, you would be a completely different human being. Big time white town, man. Like, you, like, the things that you would understand and the things that you would grow up with is totally different. And the reason why I understand that is because I know people

who when we went to college, they were like, wow, you're the first black person I've ever talked to. Ever talked to. At 18. Like that is a part of America that, especially when you come from a city, you can't even fathom. I can't even fathom not meeting someone. And like, I mean, I'm a perfect example.

I went to a predominantly white school and I lived in a predominantly white town. Because you, by the way, to be clear, your dad lived here, your mom lived in Philly. Right. But she lived in Roxborough, right? And so, Roxborough is a predominantly white part of Philadelphia. So, I mean, and so, when I got to college, I got Middle Eastern friends. Like, I didn't know anything about Hindu, about Buddhism. There was plenty of stuff that I didn't know. So, I'm not only putting it on white people, like, oh, white people, they don't know, like, anything about culture. I think that's what people hear a lot. They hear that and they're like, oh, here we go. Yelling up the intersectionality curve at white people again.

Right. But realistically, because we live in these silos, because we live in these silos, there are huge parts of the world that we can't possibly understand. And unless we talk about our understanding of the world as we see it, then we can't open our eyes to how other people understand the world and the ways that they see it. So, that's where I stand on it. I am not someone who gets upset and reacts off of emotion, and I think that it's valid if you are. I think that black people have been trying to fight this fight and have tried to open other people's eyes to these issues for so long that it becomes so triggering. Right. And you're constantly seeing murders on television.

You're constantly hearing about murders in your community and it gets repulsive. And so a lot of times that reaction is snap. And that's just the way that it is. And I'm privileged enough to come from a background where I don't have that immediate reaction. And so a lot of people find me palpable. And so I understand that I have that effect on people. And so I use that effect to try to stimulate their minds to see a reality that's different from theirs. And that's how I got to be the way that I am today. I get a lot of flack for it all the time, right? Like people say that if you're in the middle, then you're not with us, right? Like

either you're with us or against us. And I get it from both sides. But my dad raised me to be a leader. And so that means holding true to your reality. It doesn't necessarily mean be a stick in the mud, what you believe is what you believe and don't let anyone... I'm learning all the time. And that's why I like having these conversations so that I can learn and grow. But I'm the type of person where this is who I am, and I'm going to show that to you, and hopefully I can learn with you. And hopefully you'll listen to me and learn with me. That's just how I've always been. That's a good way of putting it, man. I think, what's your take on politically where we are? Because the politics above all this, the two-party system, and obviously it being an election year creates way more conversation around things

because now people are they got horses in the race and you just raised it a great point where you were saying that you know people are saying you're with us or against us i think i find reading between the lines and a lot of commentary that you see online and talking with people i find that there are a lot of people that do not feel a horse in this race at all in November. And I'm one of them. And, you know, I think we should talk about our politics later, just so it's all on the table and everyone can be clear. So, I will talk about that in some of the places I've been in my life and then get your perspective on your opinions there too. But when you're advocating for a lot of the issues you are, yes, they're considered

left-wing issues, right? And even some of the things that should be common sense are still at least grouped in that ideology. So, how do you try to move the process forward and actually make progress, to use the word there, how do you do that and also find a way to have people who aren't going to agree with your political ideology or maybe even people you vote for to come in and be a part of that solution rather than a continued speaking out against the problem and shutting it down? I don't know. I have no idea. I think for me, it hasn't been an issue because I make things what they are and I try not to bring politics into it. Very rarely do I say, oh, Republicans always do this. And I hear it all the time. Oh, Democrats always do that. That's just not the type of person. Generalizations or so. We do them. Yeah. Yeah. And that's just, I try to actively not do that because I know people who are Republican

and I don't like being in echo chambers. Like that's like the thing that kills me. And it's so easy, especially with these algorithms now, you know, with Facebook and, you know, TikTok, Instagram, whatever, you've got these algorithms and the opinions you see are oftentimes are just the opinions that reflect you. And so I try to actively seek out the other opinions because there's no point in me talking to people who already agree with what I'm talking about and we're never going to get anywhere. So I don't really know how to do that. All I know is that I try to see the best in people, and then I try to convey my values to them in the best way that I know how. And I would like to hope that individual conversations are the most important

thing. So you hear people talk about like, oh, when you go to Thanksgiving and you see that person that agrees with you or disagrees with you, like have that conversation. And I mean, I would be surprised if I would not be surprised if you couldn't hear our arguing on Thanksgiving from our house, because we get all different perspectives. You know, my dad is one of six boys and they don't agree on a whole lot. So, you know, we're always having constant debates and we're always having conversations about what matters and what doesn't matter. And I think that that is something that's so important. I wish we could get away from the politics of everything. I wish that not everything had to be political.

You could just have your view and that just be your view and not ascribe it to your politics. But unfortunately, that's just not the world we live in, you know, and I don't really have an answer for it. Yeah, people immediately associate things. Yeah. You know, and it's true. I do it too. We all do it. And so, you know, people see Black Lives Matter, and they associate it with that. And you also talked about a couple minutes ago, like the black square example, which I think is a great example with the entire idea of are you actually passionate about something or are you just putting something out to be able to say, check mark, I did it. You know, the night before that day, a buddy of mine, one of my very close friends from college who's a black kid from the Bronx, sent us like on our group text. It was a long text.

It was like a page long. And he had not said a word the entire time. And, you know, this is a guy I'm really, really tight with and love to death. And what was clear is that he was finally pissed that people just kind of ignore the issue. He was pissed that not even that people had to take it up as their own that's not what he wanted but he's like you know i go into work and people ask me how my weekend was yeah you know and it's all white guys working there right and and he's like you know just like a little whatever because we have something going on in society that

might help so he was in like a lot of pain over this and a lot of people feel that way right i want to um you know make that vow that point's 100 valid do you yeah you got plenty yeah for sure well the thing about that was to me validating like even your friends with something as simple as a black square on instagram should be a no-brainer i think what it turned into though, to your point after the fact is that a lot of people just jumped on the train. Right. I did it like first thing in the morning and I was like,

you know, cause I, I called him, I was talking with him and, and you know, it was nice to actually let him let it out and go through it. And that's my guy. Right.

And so when I did that, I wasn't thinking like, Oh, I'm sharing this on my Instagram. You know, I'm like, all right, this is some real shit and and people need to be heard right now we need to have these conversations so fuck it if that's the least i can do right now i'm gonna do it yeah it's not all bad i want to make that clear it's not all bad um i i want to let you finish and then i'll i'll say what i was gonna say no the the last thing

i was just gonna close with there was, I think even that, though, something so simple has turned into this debate like, ooh, did you black square or didn't you? And it's from both ends. It's from the end of people who are like, oh, did you fall for it? It's from the end of people like, oh, did you do it? Oh, you didn't do it?

You don't give a fuck. Right. No, yeah. And so as I heard you speak, I thought of an argument that Sydney and I used to have all the time. And so, she's from Minnesota. So, the culture there is very sweet. Everyone's super nice. She's very apologetic. And something that I talked to her about all the time was like, stop saying sorry. And she's like, what do you mean? Like, if I feel like I'm in the wrong, I feel like I should apologize. For me personally, Terrence, I hate hearing I'm sorry. Because if you're truly sorry, you're going to rectify the situation,

and then we won't have to have the conversation again. To qualification. Exactly. Exactly. I don't need to hear I'm sorry. That's just not, and some people do. So I don't want to take that away from some people. Me, I don't need to hear, I'm sorry. That's just not, and some people do. So I don't want to take that away from some people. Me, I don't need to hear, I'm sorry. I need to see the actions that show you're sorry. So if it's something as simple as, oh, you said you were going to wash the dishes last night and you don't, you know what I mean? Or if I say I'm going to wash the dishes and I don't, I'm not going to say, sorry, I'm just going to wash the dishes. You know what I mean? And so,

and I think that it applies here because it's like, okay, if this is an issue that you care about, I don't need to see the white square. Some people do. I need to see you show actions that you actually care. Share some statistics that you find interesting to yourself. Hey, I didn't know this about this issue. Did you guys know this? Share it. That shows me that you're engaged in the issue and that this is something that you care about. And to be clear, that's towards the people who actually you viewed as putting up a black square saying, all right, I'm going to be involved in this situation.

Right, right, right. Yeah, so the people who show the black square and like, this is like, I'm engaged. And I think it's great that people are starting to get engaged. I just would, if you just put up a black square and then went business as usual, as most of my friends on Instagram did, if you just put up a black square and then your very next picture is you at a beach and you never talked about the issue again, shame on you. And that's just where I stand because it's like, you don't actually care.

You care that people know that you care yeah and it's it's a it's a vanity thing too people want to you know we have so much access to information online that it creates automatic transparency on some things and people want to be able to point to evidence of who they are and what they're about it could be something as simple as i'm a member of that facebook group you know or something as simple as oh i posted the black square i care right and to me it's another example of something that then gets politicized as it moves on because i noticed that you know even two weeks out people were just they were all over the Black Square. And they're like, they're like, Oh, what did that do? And actually, it was a valid question. Yeah, what did it do? Right, right. You know, the other side of it, though, which was important is that when when people were posting the Black Square, one of the things that happened is the organization Black Lives Matter and anyone associated was pointing out that don't hashtag it BLM or Black Lives Matter because...

It takes away from the feed. They were trying to organize, right? All fair. But that's something I wanted to ask about because here is a common issue that I've run into long before George Floyd. And it's something that, frankly, I've run into since Ferguson George Floyd. And it's something that, frankly, I've run into since Ferguson when Black Lives Matter was created. Shortly after, I should say, when we actually knew some stuff. But to me, the phrase Black Lives Matter

means exactly what it's supposed to mean. And so when people, I was having this conversation with someone yesterday, when people come back and say all lives matter, you would never fucking be saying that if Black Lives Matter didn't exist. So on your point that people try to make their issue when people come back and say all lives matter you would never fucking be saying that if black lives matter didn't exist right so on your point that people try to make their issue or their feelings more important than yours that's where you have a problem right that's where black lives

matter as a problem and i agree with all that i think the phrase and the hashtag are great people don't separate the organization and the phrase though and i want to give you some of my opinion on the organization sure when it comes to racial rights and equality i don't see anything in their platform that you could disagree with when it comes to what they expand to beyond that it gets to a point where yeah i can't get behind that so to be very specific first of all anyone who wants to speak out on something i want them to speak out on something, I want them to speak out on it. Free speech is the most important thing ever written into a government document ever. So I fully invite, if people are protesting, if people are having conversations in the public square and I completely disagree with their ideology, I want them to do that because that's

the most important thing we have. So I don't ever like black lives matter should say exactly what they believe in my point is when you read that you know and they put this out there we are a pro-communist anti-american i'm roughly quoting here anti-american imperialism organization looking for blank blank blank blank blank, blank, blank, you know, I don't believe in communism. I don't believe in Marxism. I think that that, you know, when I see some of these kids, and by the way, they're always white guys too, I might add. But when I see some of these kids at these protests walking up to walls and, you know,

spray painting a hammer and sickle, that is me just the ultimate proof right there in front of our fucking faces that the united states educational department and system has failed for years you know because just read a basic history book that ain't it right you know so then when i see an organization who seems to support some of these tactics i can't get behind the organization. And then you can't separate the hashtag from the organization. And that creates a stressful moral dilemma in my head. And I think it's for anyone, but especially like as a white dude, you know, you're like, okay, well, is it a shit or a fart?

You know, like I'm fucked either way. Right, right. So what's your thoughts on that? It's interesting. I've never really thought about that per se, just like the idea. But I would say that with any organization that you're going to be a part of, unless you're running it, unless it's your organization, there are going to be things that you agree with and things that you don't. Absolutely. That's important.

So, I mean, to take it to the silliest extreme, you think of like if you're an Eagles fan, a diehard Eagles fan, there are going to be things that the Eagles do that you cannot get a part of. Like, you just can't stand behind. Like, I can't believe they hired this guy. I can't believe they picked up this guy. But that doesn't necessarily mean that you have to throw away the whole organization, right? If fundamentally there are things that they fundamentally stand with that you agree with,

then I think you run with it. You think, I mean, I think of the NAACP, right? Like I'm actually an active member of the NAACP. There are things that the NAACP does that I'm like, ah, why did they, why'd they do that? Or, ah, why'd they take that stance? And I may stand out and be like, Hey, I, I personally don't agree with this stance, you know, type that up, boom, send that out. Um, I'm a part of a fraternity, right? Alpha Phi Alpha. Like, there are things that the alphas do that I don't, I can't get behind. Like, I don't agree with this thing. But it doesn't mean that I necessarily shun the entire organization. I think the same is true

with Black Lives Matter and the people that support it. And I'll even take it a step further. You know, I went to a bunch of protests, you know, this summer. Like I said, my internship was only... It ended up being like five weeks. So, the rest I was just like super involved in. People were asking me, oh, what should we do with this? What should we do with that? And even in the protest that I went to, I would see debates spark, right? So, it's important to understand that you can separate people from organizations. And you're not going to agree with everything that people say. I had many debates with people who agree with a lot of my points, and we diverge on a certain issue, and people who disagree. And I think it's really important to just try to get to the fundamental idea that everyone should be able to get behind

the statement Black Lives Matter. Like, just that statement alone. That we agree with. Right. Even if you can't get behind protests and riots and looting and things of that nature. And I understand that it's hard to separate those

but you all it's just it's impossible to prove who's doing what and i think that's another thing that came up that during this right that's actually very important point here i think a lot of people are misunderstanding this but behind the scenes there is black lives matter the organization i'm talking about is very very frustrated with Antifa right now. Yeah. Because Black Lives Matter, and people don't understand this because they put them all in the same boat. First of all, Antifa is mostly white people, like pretty much all white people. And Antifa is, I mean, they're a bad organization. I think they're domestic terrorism at this point.

And so they're supposedly supporting the cause and all that. But really, they're just, they're the ones that were wreaking havoc and encouraging all the looting from the beginning there were a lot of peaceful protests that got crushed because you see fires burning from light and shit on fire and those are the ones doing that and you see black lives matter now and i'm not saying every single person in black lives matter you don't have a looter in there. Sure. Every barrel of apples has a bad apple. But I'm saying the primary driving force behind this stuff, what you're seeing in Portland, what you saw in Seattle, what you're seeing across all these cities, is Antifa. And Black Lives Matter, the organization behind the scenes, has been very angry with them

because it's taking away from the issue in the closet hands. Yeah. And I really hadn't thought too, too much about it until Sydney, you know, she was just like, like when protests were happening, she's like so involved, man. Like she's like, she's on, she's like next level when it comes to activism.

Like I admire her to the depths of my heart because I'm just like, I don't know how you have the bandwidth to do all the things that you're doing. But her biggest thing was like, she's like plugged into all of these activist groups on Facebook and stuff. And it's like, she won't go to a protest if she doesn't know the leaders. Like she will do her research and make sure she knows exactly what, who's leading it and what their purpose is in leading it. Because oftentimes

things will happen and then that'll spark and you'll see the leaders will happen, and then that'll spark, and you'll see the leaders go one way, and then you'll see other groups go another way, and the other way is causing chaos, and the leaders are like, this is no longer my vision for what I wanted, and so I'm out. Yeah. And unless you're in the streets, you're never going to know that. And the perfect example was Freddie Gray, and it was the first time that I saw it. We went out to the protest, started off super peaceful. I mean, literally, like they had gang, like, I don't know if you saw pictures, like gang members from opposite gangs holding up their like, yeah, like flags, like literally, like, super peaceful. They had, you know, his family up there, they were

talking. Then they started the march. March was cool. we went through inner city baltimore it was really interesting to see that dichotomy because baltimore is like very wealthy poor like the poorest poors will be literally two blocks from the riches of rich you walk and so literally a block it was interesting to go through and to really disrupt people's day like people were eating like lunch or whatever time it was they were like out at restaurants, sitting outside, enjoying themselves. And here we are protesting. That was so powerful to me because they had to pay attention. This is pre-corona, all of that stuff. So people weren't as engaged. And this was early on, very shortly after his death. So that was super powerful. And the togetherness was super powerful. And then we got to Camden Yards, and that's when we were met with Police and Riot Gear. And I will never forget this. And

a lot of your listeners probably don't even know this, but because unless you were there, there was literally one guy I remember who was super rowdy the whole time. He had his shirt off, he was screaming, cursing. And I later found out this guy was from New York. He wasn't even from Baltimore. He literally wasn't even from the city. And he started getting violent. And then he started a fight in the crowd. And literally, that one thing sparked everything. I don't even mean to be a cynic, but I'm going to be a cynic on this. He could have even been a paid actor. Very possibly. Stuff happens all the time. Very possibly. And I don't want to say that he started the riots, right?

So, like, obviously, other things happen in other areas. But what I witnessed was in my group where I was, it was completely peaceful until that one guy came in and started a fight. And then the family, I remember seeing the Freddie Gray's family be like, we want to keep this peaceful. Everybody calm down. We want to keep this peaceful. Then as down. We want to keep this peaceful. Then as soon as the fight started, the cops came in.

They had their riot gear. They're pushing. They're shoving. Boom. Just like that. That's a really important thing. You see this every single time we have one of these cases. The family goes out of their way to say, yo, big difference between what we're trying to move here and people coming in and causing fights and burning shit.

And it doesn't get recognized because chaos sells. That's what the media is about. Sure. And I also would even take that a step further. I don't necessarily, I don't condone violence. Like, that's not a part of who I am as a human existing on this earth. But I recognize the frustration that leads to violence. And I recognize the fact that after violence happens, change often happens. And it's super

unfortunate that we can't just have, everyone's like, well, why can't they just be peaceful? We've tried being peaceful. And oftentimes, very, very rarely do you see a peaceful protest and political parties are like, wow, look at those peaceful protesters. Let's do some legislative change. When you have the riots, when you have after Freddie Gray, when you had after George Floyd, people are like, dang, we need to have these conversations because stuff is on fire. It's affecting us politically. It's affecting our country politically. And it's unfortunate that it has to get that far, but you have to acknowledge that point.

What about, what about like, fuck man, Rodney King in 92. I mean, that was a long time ago and that was a lot of violence. That's true. So the people that come back and say, well, why are you burning it's not you right clear you're talking about other people you're not saying you're the one doing it but you're what you're saying is that some of the collateral damage that happens it's like well fuck someone's got to hear us at some point and we have examples of this in the past where neither worked you know so what what about the businesses that get burned down that you know and people play the card right away oh they're burning down black

businesses yes statistically 12 of the businesses are going to be black if there's 12 black americans i'm rounding sure sure you know what i mean like it's everyone's business right regardless of what color you are and that seems counterintuitive to what is trying to be accomplished, which is under the idea of human rights. Right. I'm not saying that you need to have violence in order to have change. There are plenty of times where there's violence and no change, but what I am saying is that oftentimes when there is violence, there's going to be national media attention no matter what.

Always. Like, if you want to get national media attention, burn some stuff down, and you'll get it. And what I'm saying is that that is unfortunate, but that is true, right? You're going to have people talk about violence because that's the society that we live in. Like, when you turn on the news, majority of it is violence. And it's really sad, but it's the sad truth. And I don't want to take away from the fact that a lot of this violence stems from frustration from not being heard. And if these communities as many cops in an area, there would not be as many criminals. Or if you, or as Trump says, if you weren't testing for coronavirus, then there wouldn't be as many cases. No cases. It's going to go away.

Like, you could make those arguments, but I bring that up to say that it's just, it's frustration, and it's a lack of understanding understanding and it's a lack of giving people an outlet and that bubbles over into something that we as a society think of as ugly. And hopefully, at the end of that ugliness, once the insurance pays for those stores and once those businesses start to run up again, if they can, if they're worth struggling. Yeah, that's important, if they can, if they, if, you know, if they're struggling, if they can, you know, and I don't want to take away from the devastation and I don't want to take away from the pain and the hurt that this causes, but hopefully at the end of that, something good could happen. And hopefully maybe in the future, we'll understand that this happens and we will just, we'll annihilate it before it starts. You know, oftentimes like when I go to protests and you see police officers who are cool, like I saw the video in Camden where the, the, the cops were literally marching with their protesters. There was no

rioting. There was no lootings in those cities. Um, I think Flint, Michigan, the captain did the same thing. You know, he was like, we're here for you there was no rioting there's no looting and like if we could come to an understanding i think oftentimes it breeds a better solution i don't know when you're talking about all these cops who are who have been recognizing the issue and being more a part of hearing what what people are saying and trying to be a part of that solution. And like you said, the example in Flint, Michigan of them literally marching with people. And it was a pretty beautiful thing. If people haven't seen that video, it went viral as it should have. But the head sheriff, I think, of Flint gave a speech and said, we're here because we're pissed off right along with you and we're gonna march with you and the people went nuts and it was it was in the midst of all this chaos at

the beginning of june that was a beautiful thing to see but i think you have a whole next level of perspective on that and i might add a whole another level of credibility on that because of your dad who we keep on talking about but like your dad was hot shit i mean he wasn't like just a beat cop or something like that he was an undercover cop in philly i mean talk a little bit about that he literally i think he's probably worked in every unit they had i mean high uh they had they had they like made up a team and like he was on that for a little while it was like for like high crime like i mean he he had been in i think four shootings he did you know highway patrol um you know he's done it all i think he he he always talks about this record it's like uh most amount of arrests in a on a one-man unit like for a month or something like that like i mean i

the point is he you know he he did his job to the best of his ability every day. And he has a work ethic today that he's always had, whether it be as a cop that he's instilled in me. And that's like, when you go to work, you show up and you do it to the best of your capability. He was like, I don't care what you do. My first job was working at Rita's. He's like, you better be the best Rita's scooper. Give me the best fucking work. I can see your dad sitting back like, I don't care what you do. My first job was working at Rita's. He's like, you better be the best Rita's scooper.

Give me the best fucking water. I can see your dad sitting back like, Terrence, you're going to pour me the best fucking Rita's water I've ever seen in my life. I'm going to fire your ass right there. That's right. Like literally anything. Like I remember one time I was like shoveling snow and you know, the houses out here are huge.

And like, I'm from Roxborough, we live in row homes. And like, literally, so like when we shovel snow, it's like a nice little path so we can get through, come out here. And he's like, all right, you're going to help me shovel. And so I'm like, all right, help him shovel. I think I did half of the driveway, like, like one path that was like enough for half of the driveway all the way through. He's like, what is this?

He's like, if, if you couldn't put your name on it to sell it to someone, like that you were doing this, like as a business, then it's not good enough. Like you need everything you do in life needs to be done to perfection, you know? And so that's just the type of guy he was. And he had that as a cop. And, you know, I mean, he still goes back today and there are people who have obviously climbed the ladder, lieutenants and stuff like that. And he'll go back and they're super excited when they see him. So like, it just goes to show the type of respect that he had that he hasn't been a cop for well over 20 years. And he retired because he got shot in the shoulder, right? Yeah. So I'm not sure exactly what that injury was. But yeah, I know he had a shoulder injury yeah so um i'm not sure exactly what that injury was but yeah i know he had a shoulder injury and so he had an early retirement and then he met my stepmom moved out to chicago

they lived out there for a while um and so you know he's he hasn't been a cop for a while but he's still his name still carries some weight with especially some of the older guys out there he did it for years and he worked on tough units i remember some of the stories he would tell like he's got stories for days. Oh, my God. His phrase was, though, I worked in the neighborhoods where they shoot at you in daylight. Yeah. And it's what makes all this all the more interesting to me, too,

because he has seen the worst of the worst. He has seen the most difficult situations, especially when it comes to discharging your weapon that a police officer can have. This is a guy who has walked the talk. Absolutely. And to your point, like, you know, he had some of the records arresting the most people and stuff. And then people say, well, how's that guy involved in civil rights now? That's not the point. He worked in crazy neighborhoods and saw the worst of what it was. And also, and I just remember him talking

to us when we were growing up about this, he saw the things that put people in those situations. And he saw how- And he came from that, right? Like, he grew up in West Philly, like on the streets. I mean, he grew up very poor. It was a cycle. Yeah, very poor. I mean, one of six boys, his father worked three jobs to try to give them the best opportunities that they could get. He used to tell me stories about how he and his brothers used to have to share bath water. Literally, poor. It wasn't like a lot... And one argument you'll hear is that a lot of these cops,

they come from the suburbs and come into the cities and wreak havoc and then go home. That's not what my dad did. Like he came from those neighborhoods. He lived in those neighborhoods and he, you know, did his police work in those neighborhoods, which is important because it's like, you're going to be held accountable. Like whatever you do as a cop, if you live in those, in the neighborhoods where you are a cop, like you're going to be held accountable. So it's important.

And when you say held accountable though, does that mean that there were like, are you insinuating also that there were situations where your dad was like, all right, well, I don't know if they're going to accept me in this place anymore if I do this or that. Yeah. I definitely mean it to the fullest extent of it from just community organizers being like, hey, we know this is not true. But for example, if he was a bad egg, we know Terrence Jones, we know where he lives. We don't want him as a cop because you're in that neighborhood. But I also know that there was a time when I was going to school back when I was living in Winfield.

Where's Winfield? It's almost West Philly, but not quite. It's basically where St. Joe's is. If you know where St. Joe's University is, that's basically Winfield. And so I remember going to school, like elementary school, and a guy came up and my dad recognized him. And he was a guy that my dad had locked up. And my mom was ready to pull me from that school because she was worried that there would be some kind of retaliation. So like, you get if you live in a neighborhood, there are a lot of repercussions as a police officer, because at any point in time, you could run into someone who you locked up and held a grudge against you and could take that out on your family. So I mean, there, I get why cops

don't, right? Yeah, like that is a like, it's one thing to wear a badge and to do your family. So, I mean, I get why cops don't, right? It's one thing to wear a badge and to do your job, and it's another thing to have that taken out on your family. You would never want your family to suffer any repercussions from actions that you did. So, I get it. And I think that's kind of why you brought it up. And I think that's an important part of my story because I'm not just someone who's coming at this from an outside. And I don't know anything. Like I've seen both the advocacy portion through my work and I've also heard the perspective my entire life of police officers. And like I said earlier, like my uncle is a state trooper. I've got other state troopers at Cousins who are cops in Baltimore and Philly.

So like I get both sides. I think that, by the way, I think that's a very important point that I don't want to get lost today. Like you are – I've always known you to be this way. You are someone that obviously recognizes some of the problems here, but you have a tremendous respect for police officers and the people who do their job correctly. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it is a difficult idea to wrap your head around because it's like fundamentally, like I said earlier, there's something wrong with our system. And pinpointing those wrongs,

like I like to think of myself as a problem solver. And so I'm constantly thinking about how we can deal with this. And it runs so deep, even beyond the officer's actions. Like, when you think about things like qualified immunity, like, that's so interesting. So qualified immunity is basically what allows a lot of officers to get off after they've committed these crimes because they're state actors. And it's hard to sue the state um and when you're acting as a state actor and i don't even know all of the nuances of qualified immunity it's actually kind of a hot hot button topic i would definitely tell people

to research it but it just goes to show that it's it's bigger than just one cop does one action to one civilian it just becomes so much more. And so I try to understand and get to the underneath to figure out how we could solve these issues. And I'm lucky to have both perspectives because it makes it a little bit easier to try to understand. It's not as simple as, oh, just take their guns away. Or it's not as simple as, oh, just don't shoot or just don't... I don't know. It's just, it's not, anyone who tries to say that this is a simple issue doesn't understand the issue. There are so many, and we've brought it up today.

There's been examples where we talk about it, where I say, what if this, or if that, you know what I mean? There's so many different potential hypothetical scenarios and there will always, unfortunately, like I say this line to people a lot. I'm like, if you line up a million people in a line in one line and say on and they're all able-bodied and say on the count of

three take three steps forward two people are taking three steps backward three people are gonna fall and split their head open it's the law of averages you know and so i like that you try to put a lot of context to this stuff too because you try to explain like, okay, well, even if we're just saying one person's name on something, it's a greater issue. It's not just like, oh, that's the only one. And you also don't want to overpick and say like we have a way bigger problem in this type of situation than we do in that one because this thing happened and how bad was that? People get lost in that empathy and it's good to have it, but you also have to look at the fact that we have 330 million people in this country. There's a lot of issues. But for your dad, you know, he made that shift and he didn't do it right away. Like he wasn't, he was, the guy was, let's be honest, he was always involved in the community.

Right. Never known that. Like the second he was, when he was still an officer he was involved in the community over there but as far as moving hard towards civil rights and taking that on as the core of his investigations and helping with these issues and being out there on the front lines as a former police officer doing that and understanding how it works and what other people might be thinking especially cops you know how did he make that shift and when did it happen? Like, what was, what were the things that led up to that? And the other thing is, do people give him shit for being a cop in some cases? I don't know. To the last question, I don't know. I don't know if people do give him

crap. I think he uses it for credibility, for sure, because, you know, like, I think, you know, he talks about it. It's not like he hides from it. He's not afraid of the truth of the reality. Like I said, he is who he is, and he never runs from that. And I don't know for a fact when that change happens. I can speculate on it. And so if my dad listens to this and I'm wrong, I apologize. But I think I do know is that – so like I said, when that happened, when he got pulled over in that Lincoln Navigator and they –

What year was that? That was – that had to be 2007. Was this the case, by the way? Yeah. Yeah. And so – You want to tell some people about that? It's pretty fucked up.

Yeah. So I don't even – it happened so long ago and i i remember writing it down because i i was telling someone in college i wanted my dad to tell me again um exactly what happened but i want to say he like made a u-turn and they pulled him over uh you know they were like searching him and stuff they tried to like arrest him even though he didn't do anything. And so I just remember that my dad filed an official complaint with the sheriff's office or whatever for the officer for pulling him over for no reason. He did. I don't believe that he got a ticket or anything like that. So it was technically an illegal stop um and so he filed the complaint and i think like within a week or or so um two officers showed up at to his door and like put handcuffs on him and

uh charged him with false reports and then after he gave his deposition or whatever they charged him false reports and false swearing so they literally tried to lock my dad up basically calling him a liar and then he he beat the case yeah i mean thank god um i remember that whole thing that was fucked up he had to go to trial all and and this is where i fit and and the reason why i think this is what led to his changes because obviously he knew about injustices because he was always in the system when you have a high arrest rate you're constantly in court i want to be clear by the way too he was always very open about that you just said this happened in 2007 you and i were like really tight especially in like 04 05 when we were really young and he talked about this shit so it wasn't like you know a lot of people and we're human like

we have things happen to us and then we become very passionate about it your dad always knew this was an issue and like i said he was always involved in his community and with the naacp and things so it wasn't like oh this happened and now oh i'm gonna take the wrath out on it wasn't like that at all no i i think that that moment for him became very real because I think before, like I said, he grew up poor. So he kind of understood the issue in that context, but then to see him get out of that community and have the same issues still occurring to him, I think affected him. Again, I don't, I'm pure speculation here. You know, he's going to correct the record. Pure speculation here. But I believe, and I know

that if it was me, it would be true, that once he realized, like he was about to face prison time because he did what was right in that he filed a complaint against an officer who violated his right with an illegal stop. And I remember watching the footage. I don't know how he got the footage. I don't know if everyone just gets the footage from the court. But I remember watching the footage of the judge literally crying because she couldn't believe how corrupt the system was that he would even have to waste all the time and money. You have to understand.

Taxpayer money, man. Literally, he's going to court like every day. Every day. Imagine if he was like, thank i don't know he wasn't working at the time he was a stay-at-home dad but imagine having to take off from work all these times to go into court over a complaint that's terrible and so and all he wanted to do was see cops do their job the right way yeah that's it and so's it. And so I, I, I know that that happened and I know that it wasn't immediately after, but shortly after he started doing like, uh, public safety

consulting, not exactly sure what that is, but I know he was doing public safety consulting. And then he was like going into different cases. I remember him going to like Rhode Island and stuff and like doing like advocacy. I remember something happened. He started working with a lawyer. I guess he started, as his name popped up more and more, a lawyer approached him by the name of, I want to say, William Buckman. And with Mr. Buckman, they started doing civil rights cases. There was a case, I don't remember his name James Black something like that and I remember he worked on this case

where these cops they had sick their German Shepherd dog on this man and I don't remember all the nuances of the case but it turned out to be the largest out of court settlement in the state of New Jersey and after that case my dad skyrocketed and just

full-fledged in this stuff. Now he works for a lawyer in Delaware and in Philadelphia, Emeka Igwe, and he's doing this full-time now. He started a nonprofit. What's the story with the nonprofit? So it's called Total Justice. I believe that it's going to be, it's in the early stages, but it is official. So I'm pretty sure I could talk about it. But it's called Total Justice. And I believe that they're focusing on wrongfully convicted individuals who are wrongfully convicted and police brutality.

So with those two things, like he's getting cases out the wazoo. I remember I actually helped him with the investigation of one case of a guy. And like I said, my dad gets so many cases, like, I lose the names. And he's going to be pissed. He's a busy dude. He's going to be pissed when he hears that I forget the names of these guys because, I mean, they're huge cases. There was this one guy in Delaware, and I can see his face because I met him and his whole family. And he was in prison for

I want to say 50 years for a crime he didn't commit like a rape crime where there was no evidence like literally there was nothing like this man I remember doing the interview lawyer found him I don't I don't know my dad finds he cases, man. Like these cases, I think his name rings bells now. And I think that when people have cases like these, they look for guys like him. And so he finds these cases and they're incredible. I remember talking to him and doing like they had an interview and he was just talking about how like when he first got out, his brother picked him up and he was like, hey, Siri, call such and such. And he's like bro who are you talking to that's sad yeah yeah i mean like he was in prison so long that he like

his concept no reality is like is is so warped and that's lost time and that was easily preventable if you read that case i might just text him right now and he'll text me back with the name of it if you read that case it would like it should break your heart we'll get the name out after this 100 but dude the ultimate phobia that i have and i i think a lot of people would share this phobia is the idea of being in like a three by six or eight by ten box for god knows how long for something you know you didn't do. And it's this ultimate conundrum because in a lot of ways, comparatively speaking, really highlight that when I say this, our justice system is a shining light in the world. It's got a lot of flaws though. And so one of the obvious flaws you see is, well, there are some people who are wrongfully convicted. And the other system that's wrong with it is that you have these quotas.

You have – prosecutors have a job. Their job is to win. Their job is not to be motherfucking Teresa. Right. And so they come out there and there is – it's like a zeitgeist or whatever the word you would use. They have an end result in mind and they will do anything they can do to get that end result. And what you often see- And the defenders have to do the same thing.

Defenders have to, yeah, in fairness. I don't know about the quota. Well, I mean, they have to have a certain amount of cases, but they have to defend who they get. It's a game. The two lawyers, they're going to go home at night. Yeah. But when you're working on a criminal case or even like a major civil case where someone's,

the future of their life is on the line, they're the ones that got to go home and sleep with it. Right. Yeah. more than anything and i remember your dad speaking to this recently when i was talking with him is that it puts people in a situation where you end up going after the same communities and creating these cycles taking the fathers out of homes for fucking nothing putting people in jail 20 years for a joint you know like these aren't things that happen in suburbia these aren't things that happen in other communities long. These aren't things that happen in other communities. Long-term effects. But you know what they get? They get a record on it. They get a – and to say nothing of the human who's in the crossfire who then continues the cycle.

But the prosecutors, they get to say, W, it's crazy. Yeah, yeah. And I think that that's a motivating factor for me going to law school, right? And so, like I'm at Temple Law now. I'm going into my second year. I'm taking a clinic called Systemic Justice where I'm getting to learn about, like, collateral consequences and just how much people are affected by these issues in that even if you do something – so, obviously, this is only my second week with this class and last week we talked about how like you could literally have uh uh your child taken from you let's say like oh you're suspected of doing drugs they take your kid you do the case the case gets dropped because there's no evidence

let's say just a hypothetical here there's no evidence they have nothing on you they're like oh our bad bad. We got the wrong person, whatever. You go home. Then you have to fight to get your kid back. That's our justice system, right? And so we talk about collateral consequences, and that's just one example of the many ways that innocent people are taken advantage of by our system, which is just like, it's so crazy. And so just trying to figure out where I belong in this whole thing has been a journey that's led me to law school. And I'm really glad that I did it because I mean, I almost wish that they taught the stuff that they

teach you in law school, like constitutional law, criminal law, that stuff I feel like should be taught in high school. Like there was stuff that i feel like are so fundamental to our society that i found out in law school and i was like dang this is how this works well what that's actually a really really important thing to talk about though what do you think you know when we go to school there's all the same topics at all these schools maybe some schools are better than others that's a fact but you know they teach math they teach social studies they teach history whatever what what are some of the things that you see besides what you just raised that you're like you know they should be teaching this in every eighth grade or they should be teaching this in every 10th grade yeah so i mean

so i'm a big proponent like i said earlier, about like picking your passion and going with that. And so with that, I would say that I definitely there's not much like I like education is not where it's something that I that I recognize is a problem, right? Like, our education system is not as great as it could be. It's a good education system, but there are plenty of flaws with it. And so many of my friends have become teachers going to a liberal arts school. I feel like that's kind of like bound to happen. And they can tell you all sorts of things. So I don't want to speculate on how to make our education systems better. But I will say that like the obvious things, like even like cooking. And I bring up cooking because as you know. You're a chef yourself. I love cooking. I love to cook. And I bring up cooking because as you know- You're a chef yourself. I love cooking. I love to cook. And I think it's so important. And I can't tell you how many people

who are in law school, people who went straight from college to law school, who see myself and like, how do you do that? How do you come up with a different meal every day to sustain yourself? And for me, I was about to go public health and I was actually going to go into nutrition because I think that that's also a very important thing that plagues our society. And so, like something as simple as an understanding that yes, food is good. And when you go to a steak place, you often order broccoli and potatoes. Like we know that as a concept, but like the idea of starches and proteins and enzymes and like the digestive system and understanding like too much red meat is not good for you. And like those things are so important and there's a good chance that some

people will never know it. Like never. Right? And that's part of the reason why I think we have like a weight issue in America, because it's, we don't talk about nutrition. We don't talk about where our food is coming from. We don't talk about what's in the things that are in it. And so that's just like one example of something that's so important as an adult that we just, there's a good chance you could never know it. It seems like no matter what you've brought up that you've taken a hand in in your life or that you've looked at potentially doing in your life or that you're doing right now, everything's driven from you legitimately wanting to help other people and help major league like big time communities. Yeah, yeah. That's always been my goal.

So I was blessed that my parents, you know, they divorced, but they both got remarried. And I have four families that are just so loving and caring. And all four of my families really have, like, in some way, instilled in me the importance of caring for other people, right? And so I, from a young age, understood that what I have is not necessarily what everyone has. And so I think it's very important for me to recognize the privilege of where I've come from and be like, okay, I got here and I didn't get here by myself. I mean, I work my behind off, I got good grades, I'm always doing extracurricular activities and all that stuff. But realistically, if it wasn't for my upbringing, there's no way I would be where I am today. And so it's really important for me to then take the knowledge and the passions that I have to figure out a way to make a community better, whatever community that is.

If I'm gonna go and do a street cleanup, whether I'm gonna go to older persons, or like I did AmeriCorps for a year. So like going in and working with adults with HIV and AIDS and, you know, it wasn't just a job for me to just go in and collect my paycheck. No, I'm trying to figure out ways to better nutrition. I'm trying to figure out ways how we can get them out the house more like, and like get them out of their daily routines.

Like for me, it's like innovation because if I don't have passion, it's for me, it's just not worth doing. And I genuinely just have a passion for like, making something better. That's awesome. This is not the first time, by the way, that you've said this today. And it's really cool, because it's in a different context than the way you hear it. But you make a point. You go out of your way to talk about your own privilege. And I think a lot of people hear the term white privilege all the time, and they immediately shut down.

And I do – personally, I do think it gets tossed around too much. And I think that there is too much of an impetus to throw it in people's faces and make them feel something, you know, go out of your way to do that. I recognize, though, that whether or not you agree with the term or how it's set up, there are systemic problems that have certainly favored certain environments over others. Yeah. And for you, you know, as a black guy going out of your way to point it out to yourself as well. And I wouldn't even, I wouldn't call you like an extremely privileged individual. I will call you privileged for some of the points you actually raised there, like your family and having such a big loving community around you all the time. But for you to do that and then pay it forward by

actually taking action in your life about it. I think it lends it to the credibility that anyone in this country could look at you and say, now that's fucking something I could get behind. Yeah. And I mean, I think that's my hope. I'm not intentionally talking about my privilege with the hope. Oh, I know that. I know that. Right? Yeah.

Like, I'm not bringing it up to say like, oh, if I could do it, you could do it too. But I think that it's genuinely important. And it took me a long time to get to that place like i i remember like there's a distinct story where i was at i was an ra in college and oh you you were a cop i was one of the good ones i was one of the good ones i think i know weed on your hall i i think i only wrote up loyola and like oh you wrote you wrote somebody i only wrote up one person in three years i hope they killed somebody it was it was a weed thing but and i had i had to do it i mean they it was so danky man it was literally the whole hallway smelled like i didn't want to lose shouldn't be illegal come on i i mean i agree all right, fair, fair. Neither here nor there. We'll move on.

I'll accept it. I was an RA in college, and I remember we had a meeting, and most of the RAs there – I mean, it was a predominantly female school, so most of the RAs were also female. Most of the leadership positions, I mean, girls just kind of run that school, and that's just how that goes. And so I remember going to a meeting. Obviously, I'm a very talkative guy, and whenever we would talk about whatever i talked a lot and um and i remember like my grc my like graduate resident coordinator like they were like grad students who kind of

oversaw us um like pulled me to the side and was like terence you know you're like really dominating this conversation in my back of my head i'm like oh well thank you and uh and she's like no like you know you have to realize like there are probably other people who may want to speak and may not feel comfortable doing so because you're dominating that conversation and i was like well i mean if people want to speak they should just speak like i don't understand why why it has to be mutually exclusive why can't And so I had to have multiple conversations with her to understand kind of the implicit biases and to understand how my forward and outgoing personality may make other people feel uncomfortable and feel as though they can't also have a light to shine. And so some people would hear that and just be like, well, screw that person. That's on them. That's their problem and not mine.

And that was my immediate reaction. My immediate reaction was like, well, I mean, I have something to say. I should be able to say it. And if you have something to say, you should just say it. But it took a lot of soul searching for me to kind of get to a place where I'm like, well, if I have the capability of helping someone else out by doing less myself, if I have that capability, then just why not? Like what I have to say is not so important

that I have to get it out. And if it is, then I will. But coming to that realization where it's like, it's really not that big of a deal to just be like, hey, do you have something to say? You want to get in on this? It starts conversation. And that's so small.

But my knee-jerk reaction was like, no, why are you telling me this is on me? This is on that person. And so, and I think that that knee-jerk reaction is our society. Our society is that person is experiencing that but that has nothing to do with me and i think if we just realize that it's just not that important and to like if this is something that someone tells you is affecting them to just be like okay this is affecting you i'm affecting you what can i do to try to ease that without compromising who i am as a person? If we can just do that on a very

simple level, I feel like it would have huge implications. I think a lot of people, to say nothing of corona, a lot of people are in a situation where they are doing that more than they have in the past. Kneeerk reaction my issues are my issues and A lot of it has to do with the fact that we have a lot of people getting left behind What we don't talk about people throw around the buzzword wealth gap, but they don't talk about Why it's actually happening how that it's not just like how much money do you have in your bank account? it's it creates all these cultural and social issues and ideas like it ties into every single one of them it puts people who are going to find their passions in this versus this versus that it puts them in and since the 1980s it's inarguable what's

happened where we see the entire middle class of this country in retrospect or not in retrospect but in comparison to the country and also in comparison to the world has seen their income gone go down and technologies come in over that time big time and now people can pick up their phone and see the power that has and we take it for granted, but I believe we implicitly understand just how deep that is and how insignificant it makes us feel. And so, then we look at our lives and especially people who are in their 20s and 30s who are young and kids and they're teens who have their whole life in front of them who are wondering what jobs are going to look like 10, 20 years from now, what purpose they can serve that a machine's not gonna, or why they should even go after stuff when they're just going to

have dead up to their fucking eyeballs with a college degree. And they're also going to live in a world where very few win. And I'm not saying that that's definitely how it's going to go, but it's a reality that people face and so when you see everyone coming and complaining online and and creating these echo chambers to your point where they just constantly raise an issue and beat at it again and again and again and again i look at it from okay where are these people coming from i don't have to agree with what they're doing and i may think it's fucking cringeworthy in some cases but why might they be doing that what what could be going on in their life what's their background like what what is their hope like and people gotta find a a reason to exist i i did an episode

a couple days ago that i'm gonna put out with all this and one of the things i figured out is i push back against this argument that there isn't a struggle. I've heard this a million times. People are like, you know, oh, Gen Z and millennials, they haven't seen a struggle in their generation. So, they're just going to pick up anything that's a battle for them. It's not true. I'm not going to rehash the whole history I went out in that episode, but I went from the Civil War on, and I was able to put it in pretty much all 20-year periods. Yeah, you see obvious ones. You see World War II, World War I, whatever, Vietnam.

Yeah, we didn't have that. The Iraq War was – it wasn't a draft war like the past ones, and stuff like that didn't happen. But we had the global financial crisis. We had technology uproot entire industries we had this wealth gap happen where people see no hope right people see a world that unfortunately you know and i give obama credit for this he came in in 2000 beginning in 2009 and he inherited a very bad deck with the economy. And so, in my opinion, he did exactly what he had to do with the bailout of the banks. There were other things that came of that that maybe people disagree with,

but it stopped the world from ending. It stopped the United States from ending. The one thing that was out of his control and out of any politician's control at that point is that the cycle of people now separating like this and if you're not listening to us right now and we're not watching us right now and you're only listening i'm separating my fingers big time going over and over like you saw that cycle already happening and it was like a spigot once it got running it was already there and so these kids who have grown up or come of age over this last decade especially the decade before had september 11th and you know the opinion around the iraq war and then the the great recession where many people

watch their families lose all their hard work and lose everything and then not gain it back that's what caused the anger and the struggle has been the anger it there's no hope right what i mean do you agree with that is there yeah am i on base i think so i mean it's it's it's really tough i mean personally i hate the comparisons i i'm i'm a big person on like who cares i mean like who cares if they've had something to struggle with like we as long as you understand the history and where we came from and where we are today and why we move the way that we move then great and like my thing is like if the gen z comes in and and they never have to struggle a day in their life awesome you know i mean that's that's well

the definition of struggle is is very very variable too right you know sure sure i see people struggle by their definition right and so i i i'm just not really big on the whole comparison thing i'm really focused on problem solution what's the issue what are we facing how do we solve it anything beyond that it's like it's too much you know i mean it's too much to tackle because that's when you get into the existential crisis where it's just like there's too much. You know what I mean? It's too much to tackle because that's when you get into the existential crisis where it's just like, well, there's all these problems, I can't solve them all. It's like, okay, well, here's a problem. Let's find a solution to that. And we'll just tackle it one by one. I don't know. That's just my personal philosophy. But I do think that you're on base. Yeah. I mean, comparison is a funny thing and it runs our culture and

everything. So, we naturally do it. And I tried, at least in that episode, I mean, comparison is a funny thing, and it runs our culture and everything, so we naturally do it. And I tried, at least in that episode, I tried to separate that out and focus on, okay, these 20 years right here and these generations that have come of age, it's a different world. It's an entirely different reality. You respond to what happens around you. Like, you look at World War II, in the scope of human history that was not long ago at all which is very scary to think about but in the scope of like reality and what things are it's a fucking yeah age and a half ago i mean it was so long like you know the phones back then i think we're still two pieces in many cases right you know? So these realities that we face, we have to always put it in context

of the time we're living in and what the people who are living in it, especially the younger people coming up who drive culture, what their reality is. Yeah, and the perfect example to make it even simpler is like sports. Like you get the whole like MJ versus LeBron and it's like, oh, if LeBron had to play in the 90s,

he would never survive. He got a body bag. Yeah, yeah. But it's like, LeBron's a pretty big guy. Yeah. I'll put that out there. LeBron's a pretty big guy. I've never bought that argument.

It's like, have you looked at him? Yeah, like, if he had to adapt to that reality, and I think adaptation is so big, then he would have done it, because he would have had to. And so, if Jordan played today, who's he would have had to. And so, and if Jordan played today, who's to say he wouldn't be flopping, right? Because like, that's how you get the fouls. That's how you get the calls. That's how you win. And at the end of the day, Michael Jordan was a competitor. He wanted to win. So if that was the culture he had to play in, I'm sure he would have adapted to that culture and he would have won. If people want an argument about how quickly we adapt as humans, look no farther

than the fact that if you and I had been having a conversation in January talking about things like spread and contagion and social distancing and six feet and insert buzzword here and then watched a video of ourselves doing it or if we had been having that conversation in april and watched a video of ourselves doing it back in time in january we would have looked at each other like we had 10 heads yeah yeah and yet human beings adapted to the idea that oh shit corona's real we got to go inside right and change their whole lives and industries went remote and shit changed immediately. Very fast. People picked up and moved and went places. So the idea that like, you know,

well, certain things are supposed to stay the same. I don't really buy that. There's values. There's high level things like that. Ethics, morals. Yes, absolutely. But when it comes to the day-to-day business of society and what's accepted, what's not, what's good and what's bad, it's constantly morphing, which makes it difficult too.

And especially for older people. And that's the thing that I run into all the time, even within my own family. It's like the values that my grandparents have are very difficult to deal with, right? And like, I'll give a very basic example is like, like grammar and spelling like my grandfather is like very big on like speaking proper and like this is the way that you string together sentences because every word you use has meaning and so you have to have to speak this way to convey your point and i think that that's why nowadays i get labeled as politically correct. I wouldn't necessarily call myself politically correct. I think I just have an intentionality on the words that I use.

And that's because it was like built into me. But now that I'm older and I'm an adult and I've experienced the real world, I push back on that a little bit because what that does is it says that if you don't have access to that grammar, if you don't live in a world where that is held as something that's highly important, then your point doesn't count. And we do that often as a society to say, well, that person can't even speak right. I'm not listening to them. But it's like, nah, they have a lived reality and that lived reality is likely very different than yours. And it's something that you should really hear to try to understand how the world works. And so that's something that I'm

often pushing back against where it's like, it's okay to make a mistake. Sure, you can correct them and understand that because, you know, that's, as a society, that's something that we've deemed to be important. But hopefully, you know, in the next few generations, we will take people as they are and like, be like, okay, this is the way that you speak, or this is the slang that you use. I accept that. And I hear what you have to say. Yeah. And it's amazing that so many of us can relate to that, not even just with grandparents, but, you know, literally with your parents too. And the difference of perspective, because we grew up with the phone in our hands you know we grew up with it totally the internet opened us to be able to see people of so many different

backgrounds and have access to just try to understand or realize like oh was like that over there it's not like that here. And when you look at it, I look at the political spectrum, you know, being in an election year, once again, a lot of that is on the ballot. And it's not on the ballot like Republican and Democrat. You have people on both sides where these issues remain the same between generations trying to understand what the priorities are. And it's what causes these two parties to cannibalize themselves in many ways. But leading into the election itself and a lot of things on the line, what are your thoughts on what direction this is heading, number one? And number two, what do both potential outcomes look

like to you? And what should the response be so that we continue to have that blurring of the lines across demographics and across generations to try to better understand each other yeah i mean i think that social media is starting to do that like you said i think you kind of touched on it in that you know when even if you a good example sydney and i watched that uh there's a netflix show about like uh indian matchmakers right and so like i heard about that one yeah it was it was good it was it was really interesting and it opened my eyes and her eyes to a world that we just don't exist in and like the they were they talked about like uh love marriages versus uh arranged marriages and like you know the thought process that goes into that, families meeting families.

And so, that is just a small example of how like technology these days can open your eyes to a culture without you ever having to meet anyone from that culture, right? And so, it's dangerous, right? Because then you're leaving it up to producers to portray something in a true light. And so maybe I could very well talk to someone who's from that community and be like, nah, that's not how that works at all. And I would have no clue. I would think that's the Bible, that's the truth. So it's dangerous, but on the flip side of it being dangerous is if it's done correctly and if it's done with intentionality, if it includes people from those communities to make sure that there's a truth value to it, then it allows you to see different perspectives that aren't your own. You watch things like 13th. If you watch 13th and you didn't have some opinion change or didn't have some epiphany, then I don't think that you are watching it with enough objectivity.

And that's really what you have to do is take it for face value and then do your research. And if you disagree with it, find out why you disagree with it and at what points you disagree with it. And if you agree with it, still do your research and see what parts of it you agree with and how far you can push those opinions. Because honestly, that's what it comes down to. We talked about this before we started the podcast, is that putting out information without doing any research has become real big these days. The term fake news is just flying rampantly because it's so easy to convey lies and people just take it as truth, right?

It's so easy for people to put out opinions and word it in such a way that you believe them to be facts, and then you run with it. Especially when we have this culture where we idolize people and it's like, oh, such and such said it, so it must be true. I don't take anything that anyone says to be true. Not Sydney. She's a lawyer, going to be a lawyer. I'm going to be a lawyer.

We're debating about everything all the time. I don't take anything to be true unless I either have seen it with my own eyes or done some reading on it. And so, I think it's really important to take in social media and then back it with facts. And to your first point, I think it's, I mean, I think both outcomes present things that are going to be scary to the opposite side, right? And so a lot of times people will vote based off of a few things that they agree with, and that's good enough for them. My biggest scare is that I feel like we're making somewhat of strides in this topic of racial justice. People are waking up in terms of racial injustices and social inequalities.

My fear is that, like, Sydney was telling me the other day that they're not giving federal funding for any, like, racial trainings right now. And, like, to me, like, that's my biggest fear. It's like, this is something that I think a lot of people find to be important. And so even if you don't find it to be important, I think you have to support the fact that someone finds it to be important. I don't know if everyone can get behind that. But I think that even if someone said that, like, this is something that's happening that affects me, that I have no idea about, I can't just say because I don't have any idea about it that

I'm going to shut it down. And that's the thing that scares me. On the other side, it's like, you know, there's no perfect candidate. No matter who runs for president, they're going to be human and there's going to be things that you don't agree with. I think the most important thing is to just get out and vote. Well, I want to go to what you just pointed out there about with the example of federal funding, going away from racial training. And you raised a good point that a lot of people will look at things and instantly be like, oh, God, I got to do this. And then, again, we've talked about it 20 million times today people inject their own opinions onto the situation and shut it down because they can't understand

there's also the aspect and this is something i struggle with all the time and it goes something like this like when i was growing up my mom taught me to see everyone as everyone, not see skin color, right? And I'll never forget when I was like four or five years old, there were like 30 kids in my preschool class. And I became best friends with this one kid, Zion, in the class. So my mom was asking me on the way home from school who my new best friend was and all that. And I was telling her all about him. And she was like, like you know she's trying to figure out who's who or whatever and she said well which one is zion and i said he's like really really tan like really tan and my mom immediately was like okay yeah you know what i think i know who zion is right and that's

that's how i was for a long time i didn't see it now a danger that people point out to that is that you then ignore reality situations and that's why you have to learn about that and i agree with that and so when you're a kid and you're innocent and you have that perspective and you're not seeing it for all the right reasons that's great but eventually yeah you you you need to see that to be able to understand better where i think it gets cloudy and where i think it gets some pushback where you get people being like oh more racial training shut this the fuck down is when people feel like they're being forced to see skin color or see identity whatever insert here on everything and then they immediately think

like well why can't we just be humans and so prime example i think a lot of people at this point who use like all lives matter or misusing it and being an asshole there are still a few people who like say that because they don't know any better and they're like i don't understand you know and i do explain to those people or try to explain it to them but they seem to have that attitude so how do you how do you find that balance that nuance where we see identity we see skin color we recognize some of the things that we need to be able to understand aren't right about it and and as far as like how certain people are treated versus others but we don't do it to where it's like you walk up and i

go black guy okay right, right, right. Adjust. You know what I mean? Right. Because I see a lot of people who do that. Sure, sure. It's scary. Yeah, when you go, you know, when I went to Minnesota, it's a very white place.

So I definitely hear what you're saying. I don't know, man. Like it is a tough thing to understand i think i'd like to think that the more the concept of race and the importance of understanding racial issues happens at younger ages that this new generation will kind of have this wherewithal. And I think that the more that white parts of our society get integrated with non-white parts of our society, the more that there's actual interaction that that will kind of come. So it kind of sucks because I've had this argument with people where it's like, well, the answer can't just be time. It can't just be, oh, we'll wait a few generations and it'll occur.

I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that my hope is that with time, it will naturally start to take over. The more that companies are doing this kind of stuff, the more normalized it'll be. My biggest thing is I understand the idea of not wanting it to be forced down your throat, but I think that in whatever job you do, there should be something that talks about how that job can be affected by race, if it is. No, it's relevant in a lot of places. And I think in most places it is, right? So, I don't know. I think I think that, you know, I'm looking like in law school, obviously in the law, like I think I want to say I've read something. It's like less than five percent of lawyers are black.

And it's like and so like in law school, a lot of things are not set up for a lot of things are set up in a way that's not necessarily conducive to everyone's learning. That's just the way it is. You know, you're seeing the argument with like, you're seeing the argument with like the SATs and stuff. And like, like, uh, if you're not a good test taker, it's not necessarily indicative of how you're going to do in, in that field. The perfect example, my mom's a lawyer or, uh, she, she, you know, she went to law school and, uh, you know, she did fine. She went in the evening. She had me her first year in law school. So she had a kid. She worked as a nurse during New Jersey, and she took the Pennsylvania bar two times, and she didn't get it. And now she's not able to practice the law in Pennsylvania. And so these tests are supposed to be indicative of the type of lawyer that you're going to be. If you can't pass this test, then obviously you can't be a good lawyer. But my mom's the

perfect example because she practices the law in New Jersey and she's, you know, does it well. And now we as Pennsylvania, she's a Pennsylvania native, you know, she's a resident of Pennsylvania. We as Pennsylvania have lost out on someone who is genuinely qualified to be a lawyer as seen in New Jersey because of this test, right? And so I don't know that these tests and the way, I don't, I mean, I don't have a solution and I hate like chiming in on an issue without having a solution. But I don't know that the way that some of these schools – and I'll speak on law school because I'm going through it – the way that we go about testing people with their knowledge is necessarily conducive to bringing about the best in our society. I don't know if that makes sense. Yeah, you want the people, especially when you know them too, and they're natural born leaders and they're in things for the right reasons,

you want them to have the platform to be able to do it and affect change. And you're right, and that's a personal scenario too, which makes it even harder, but it's a hard thing to answer because, well, what system do we get to replace like tests? You know, you can or you can't. And I agree with you, especially when it comes to things that are drawn across state lines these days. Some of that is fair. Some of it seems a little bit antiquated. I know like in law, maybe if it's like Delaware or Nevada, okay, a little bit of a different story because they got

really really weird right right right but you know for the most part it does seem like especially like i know a lot of people who practice in both new jersey and pennsylvania pretty common so that's always been weird to me and i feel like we we should be trying to have conversations to arrive at points where there's all like we're creative right like there's so many things that when these systems were set up we didn't have or couldn't do there's got to be ways to better understand this and accept the fact that hey whenever you change something or do something new yeah you're gonna have downsides to it right you're gonna have exceptions to the rule you're gonna have bad bad people get in and stuff like that

how that's already the case right we already have bad lawyers get in and stuff like that. How do you minimize? But that's already the case, right? Exactly. We already have bad lawyers who are practicing. That's why there's like a whole thing about malpractice and things like that. So, I mean, I think that it could be something, you know, thinking creatively is like if you had like an apprenticeship. So, like, all right, you go through law school, which is very hard, right? It's all the great – you get – most law schools happen where you get one grade, it's at the end of the year, that grade determines how you did in that class, and that grade is graded 100% on a curve. So you could do really

well on that test and show that you knew all of the material, but if everyone in your class knew the material better than you, then you get a failing grade. That's the way the law school works. And I'm not knocking it. I understand the value in it because realistically, the way that the tests are set up, it'd be impossible to get everything right because you'd have to know what the teacher was thinking when they set it up. And so it would be hard to do it without a curve, but that's just the way. So law school is very rigorous in and of itself. You have to learn these topics and it's very hard. And then after you finish law school, if you do it well enough that a job finds you appealing, that job should be able to pick you and then be like, all right, now we're going to train you how to do this subject right now. Because half the time,

if you don't know torts well, you don't know intellectual property well, and then you'd go out and you'd be, I don't know, a tax attorney, you't know intellectual property well, and then you go out and you be, I don't know, a tax attorney, you're never going to use that stuff anyway. Yeah. So, like I said, I don't like being a person who complains about issues and doesn't know solutions, but hopefully after I finish the law school process, I'll have some ideas on those. Yeah, something tells me you'll start coming up with something to be like, ah, the wheels are turning.

And those conversations are happening now with Corona, right? So like with coronavirus, like people, like the tests have been pushed back, the bar tests. So like everyone who graduated, I don't think many states have had tests yet. So like a lot of these past graduates haven't been able to get jobs because they can't take the bar. And so people are talking about getting rid of the bar exam and are coming up with those solutions. So I guess that's a silver lining to this whole excuse me this whole um epidemic yeah I mean that's just one of so many one of so many where life is just completely changed for people and things have been put off I mean you know obviously you just got engaged so you got some time but like even regular life like people trying to get married suddenly that's like an important day in your life.

And now hope pandemic hits. It's like, do I want to do like a small reception? And do I try to wait this out and see how long it lasts before I can do the dream wedding that I've always wanted my entire life, you know? And nobody knows. No one knows how this is going. You can talk about a vaccine all day. Talk about all the people who are already talking about not getting it because bill gates is injecting fucking whatever in it

you know it's like p and it just goes to show you people are going to believe what they're going to believe like i think they're crazy for thinking shit like that but whatever you know it's such an uncertain time and it feels like this perfect storm has happened. We've had basically the vein opened up with racial issues. We've had people losing their jobs left and right and other people winning massively in this. I mean, there is one of the greater wealth transfers ever happening right now. And that is a reality. And it's also not even the fault of a lot of the people who are on the receiving end of it. It's just like that's how they happen to be set up for this.

And so this uncertainty and this brewing social battle that's happening where people are trying to figure out their place and write injustices and have their purpose, it paints this nuclear bomb picture of what our political spectrum is. And I've always thought it's crazy that we live in a world where you can go as finite as you want in billions of permutations. And in English, what I mean by that is, if you want to join a Facebook group that is called My Favorite Movie from the week of 19 or november 19th 1987 you can right and that's how fixed that worldview might be right you can also join a group that says i'm from america you know so as broad or as finite as you can and so all these different little echo chambers or big echo chambers or places where people come around on the internet around common ideals and beliefs and find people who think those things it creates so many more permutations of thought processes

and opinions and i find it crazy that we live in the hallmark example of democracy in the world which comparatively speaking we do but in that democracy we still have two parties with two get with it or don't lines of thoughts that have more power and control by size scope money power whatever you want to say than ever before and so now i keep on hearing like yes there are people who have a strong opinion one way or the other and many of them aren't fans of one of the candidates of trump or biden they're just voting against the other candidate right and then the people who are in the middle either just come out and say those things online so they don't get you know the attention on them and act like they're part of the team which is a shame or they're just like

what the fuck man yeah you know and full disclosure like on me i've been all over the place politically in my life i am someone who i if we go issue by issue we won't right now but we should in other times so that the listeners can also understand that and know exactly where i stand but i'm really someone who's lost in the middle ground i was someone who supported obama and then fervently supported trump in the last election. And I look at this election, and I really started turning on Trump, ended 2017 a little bit. It was a Roy Moore thing for me. I saw that, and I was like, wait, hold up a minute.

Like, this doesn't make sense. And what I realized is that the reason I went so hard for him was that all the arguments you saw, anyone on the right wing in the media or whatever make i didn't realize it at the time but they spent probably 95 percent of their time making arguments against the far left who in reality has taken heavy control on the left side and even today most of their arguments i have a lot of agreement with or really agree and they made them very well what they didn't do as much of was advocate what their side believes and why they believe it so here i was suddenly figuring out that some issues i thought i was conservative on

right i was like oh wait a second you're just you know right leftist on yeah but i can't find the home on the other side because i see like here's how i look at it and this is an over generalization but just to give you the theme sure i look at if you're voting left regardless of who the fuck the candidate is and regardless of who the fuck the candidate is on the right even though it is trump if you're voting left you have a problem with freedom of thought if you're voting right you have a problem with the future because to me the right side represents, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

And they don't want to recognize anything that's not broken or they don't want to recognize that the world changes. That's a fucking problem, especially technologically. But then on the left, it feels like, hey, I ideologically check the boxes of a lot of things that lean that way. But how can i get behind things when it's like well they're not open to conversation and now you even it's affected the

right too you go on twitter the right is huge on twitter now too they don't want conversation either and so as someone who i you know and you can disclose what you want to as far as if you're going to vote and and i know you're voting sure who you want to vote for and all that but as someone who's also involved in all these social issues that are almost like a football in the middle of it how do you speak to people in a way that you both support that people have a decision to make and that they may decide not to vote or to vote and make decision that you agree with or don't disagree with and how do do you figure that out? And then also keep the ball moving forward. So no matter what happens here, the progress that you're working on and the message that you want to get out there and that a lot of people along with you want to get out there continues and is not hindered in any way. Yeah. I mean, I think,

I think the, the hardest part is that just like I was saying about organizations and like you're not going to agree with everything they say, it's the same with like political parties. And so I also have experience where it's like there's so much I don't agree with on either side and it's hard to understand. But I also think that what I said about finding your passion and running with that passion is also important and then it becomes even more complex when you add a layer that's like but at the same time i selfishly think that the thing that i find important is the most important and so then how

can i convey to a white person for example, this guy has terrible, terrible track record when it comes to racism, and has a terrible track record when it comes to anti-Black movements, and you should be more concerned about that than your finances. That, for me, has been the biggest struggle, because it's like, at the end of the day, I preach that you should find your passion and run with it, but at the same time, for me, has been the biggest struggle because it's like, at the end of the day, I preach that you should find your passion and run with it. But at the same time, selfishly, I would hope that you would find anti-racist policies to be the most important thing. And for a lot of people, it's just not. And so, do I understand the fact that it's not because of where they came from and what their lived

reality is and that they're not affected by it? Or do I condemn them and say that you should have a heart and understand that these issues are so badly negatively affecting people of color that it's like devastating families? You know what I mean? So it's an ethical thing that I think that I struggle with very often. And oftentimes, I just choose not to because of the fact that it's not like if Biden was like some hero and he's like, I'm going to revolutionize and I'm going to solve these issues. I think I would be a lot more passionate about being like, I don't care what you have to say. Don't you see how good this is?

But that's just not the case. Right. Like the Democratic Party has so far to go and i think that a lot of times they have gotten complacent and being like oh we're we'll get the black vote because like we're not we're not as bad yeah it's not and i'm tired of we're not as bad i want to hear here's the and and here's the other thing because i keep on seeing this argument get hijacked every single person on the right side will hijack the issue and say, these are all democratically controlled cities and whatever,

where all this shit's happening and it would never happen under, you know, a Republican running that. Here's my issue with that. And they're right on the fact there. And I agree that some of these mayors have been horrendous in handling these situations. But they say it with the implicit suggestion that oh well you've been voting democrat for 60 years just you should vote for us because because by default it must be better right here's the thing even if you dislike the democratic party and i'm

not the current democratic party the people and i'm not a huge fan of it sure but i'm not a fan of the republican party because what the fuck have you done right like and this sounds really bad but at least like if you're looking at it cynically at least the democrats take the time to go pander like they actually take time out of their day and go down there and talk to people and pretend to care many of them don't and that's sad and i'm not condoning any of that right but it's like the republicans look at their watch and be like pick yourself up by the bootstraps you'll figure it out right and to me it's like well that you know it's it's two arguments number one not everyone can just do that and number two you can't assume that no one can right you know each one is is almost like its own inherent of racial bias or bias against people who just in general of all races who exist in communities

that don't have opportunities that that others do right and it's just like i'm i feel yeah and i think a large majority of people our age are in that boat so it's going to be really interesting to see how this episode of the podcast holds up over the courses of you know the next 20 to 50 years where you know we take over you know, the next 20 to 50 years where, you know, we take over, you know what I mean? Like where our generation really is the main people who are out there voting and politicians are going to have to switch their strategies to appeal to people like us who are just like, you both suck. Well, you can look at it this way. Obama ran such a great campaign in 2008 because that was the dawn of social media and

he did a terrific job leading with hope and change you know and that that was a positive message that people could get behind and he got to young people with that and it was very smart yeah and then you look at trump who didn't lead with that but what did he do he went straight to people on social media particularly on twitter and said it like it. It was two different sides of very different coins, but they were accomplishing the same kind of idea to speak to people. And I think that in some ways, you got to morph the tactics that were used there within candidates to understand that, like, yes, there are tools and outlets you have to use to be able to reach these younger voters who, by the way, Gen Z millennials now take up the majority of the workforce. So it's real.

We run culture, like it or not. You have to morph some of these ways and then figure out a way to bring people together and understand not everyone's going to vote for you. But you're still the president of all of them. You saw the worst case of it in 2012 when you know mitt romney was caught on camera saying 47 percent's never gonna vote for me they're gonna want welfare their whole lives and so the implicit comment there was he was saying well you know i'm not really their president right and that that's why i think that's why he sealed his fate in that election right but that can't be the answer and the answer also can't be like,

hey, we won. So now we're putting our whole fucking foot down on this thing. Because all it does is, it's the old physics law. Every action gets an equal and opposite reaction. And the worse the action is, the worse vitriol you're gonna get on the other side. And we're seeing it play out right now. Right now. Yeah. Well, I appreciate you having me on the show, man. I feel like we hit on some pretty key things here. How long were we doing this? It's been a minute. Yeah, like two and a half hours, three hours. Something like that, yeah.

Dude, you're someone I have admired for a long time. I think you're like exactly a year younger than me, but I've always looked up to you. I appreciate that. And I think that you're the kind of leadership that regardless of whatever you think politically everyone needs to be able to get behind all the positive qualities you have and you're a guy that's open up conversations that's all i try to do and and you're the gold

standard of that and i want to say that you know ever since i've known you you've always been open to conversation which is so important because so many people especially at a young age just shut down it's just like i don't want to have to think about that right now. You know what I mean? And so, you know, whenever I would come up here and play football with you and what was his name? Kyle. Yeah, man. I talked about Kyle on an episode that's coming out too. I'm going to have to listen. Yeah. Me, you and Kyle, like we just out here playing basketball until it's dark, playing football until it's dark and just like being able to, you know, do that and have the fun stuff,, and just being able to do that

and have the fun stuff, but then also being able to have these conversations and your ability to be self-aware is exactly why I felt comfortable enough to even come on the show in the first place. So I'm excited to see how far this podcast goes, but I wish all the luck to you. Listen, man, I appreciate the compliment very much and right back at you. And yeah, man, thanks for coming on. Definitely want to do this again too. Something tells me Terrence Sr. is going to be coming over to correct some records. I hope so. I hope so.

He is entertainment at its finest. I'll let you go. Thanks again, man. See you later, everybody. Peace. you later everybody peace