Julian Dorey Podcast - #54 - Josh Ilutiza: THE TUSKEGEE SYPHILIS EXPERIMENT; FEMINISM & TRANSGENDER RIGHTS; TERM LIMITS & VOTER ID LAWS; CANCELLING COMEDIANS; NYC'S COMEBACK

Episode Date: June 30, 2021

Josh Ilutiza is a healthcare marketer and a native of Bronx, NY. In the past he has done work with Services For The Underserved––a New York City organization that seeks to transform the lives of people with disabilities, people in poverty and people facing homelessness. ***TIMESTAMPS*** 3:57 - Tuskegee Syphilis Study; Debate on acknowledging race; The Rooney Rule & Affirmative Action 31:43 - Equal but opposite responses are usually just as bad; Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard; Colleges as brand names?; Malcolm Gladwell’s explanation as to why many Asians excel in math 53:54 - Feminists & Transgender Collision; Cancel Culture Problems 1:01:07 - The Pronouns Debate; Rachel Dolezal and Jordan Peterson; The manipulation of racial issues for power 1:25:23 - Occupy Wall Street, The Tea Party, and having the same problems but different solutions; The importance of understanding the true intent in peoples’ actions 1:39:16 - The problem with Candace Owens 1:48:38 - Looking for other opinions; The problem with votes as endorsements; Accountability in politics; Julian recalls an idealistic scene in “The West Wing” 1:59:59 - Will we ever have a fully effective President? 2:07:17 - The need for term limits in Congress and Senate; “The Dissident” & US Saudi relations under Trump 2:15:50 - Follow The Money; People pretending to be busy and pretending in general 2:19:24 - Voter ID and Voter Turnout discussion 2:32:58 - The problem with Cancelling Comedians; Dave Chappelle; People are looking to be offended 2:43:05 - Clicking the profiles of  the cancel police; People don’t want to laugh anymore 2:52:43 - The Post Pandemic Reopening of New York City (NYC) ~ YouTube EPISODES & CLIPS: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0A-v_DL-h76F75xik8h03Q  ~ Get $100 Off The Eight Sleep Pod Pro Mattress / Mattress Cover: https://eight-sleep.ioym.net/trendifier  Julian's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/julianddorey  ~ Beat provided by: https://freebeats.io  Music Pro... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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people don't want to see comedy and stuff. They want to see things that they get offended by. That's where I draw the line. Yeah, exactly. I mean, to be honest, anybody, if you look to, if you go out into the world and you want to find ways to be offended, you will find it. Hands down, you will find it. What's cooking, everybody? I am joined in the bunker today by my longtime friend, Mr. Josh Ilitiza.

Back in college, Josh and I would have some of the wildest conversations about the hardest-hitting political and social issues out there. And in a lot of ways, those talks served as the genesis for what this show is today. So it's only natural that I brought Josh in in front of the cameras and mics to do it for real, and I hope you guys enjoy it. Now, if you haven't used the link in my description for my friends over at 8sleep to take a look at buying either the 8sleep Pod Pro mattress or the 8sleep Pod Pro cover, hear me out. It's very, very important. 8s Sleep is the first tech company to go to mattresses. And I say that because you have all these other companies,

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It's an amazing thing. That said, you know what it is. I'm Julian Dory, and this is... Dreadfire. Let's go. This is one of the great questions in our culture. Where is the nuance? You're giving opinions and calling them facts.

You feel me? Everyone understands this, but few seem to do it. If you don't like the status quo, start asking questions. I'm looking at that guy going, that guy thinks I'm a moron. I'm going to do the opposite of what that guy wants to do. And I think that's what we see with a lot of people. And that leads to then they get that cognitive bias of not trusting it.

And they're like, well, here's why. They have to back up why they're like, I will not do it. And I empathize with that. I do. Yeah. And this is going way back, but you go back to the 30s with the Tuskegee syphilis trial that the CDC was doing. That was like when the government was – they did a whole study on Africanrican americans and syphilis and they basically promised them free health care oh i don't know about this but this was like one of the biggest

like stories that really like gave pull that mic a little bit hit the ground running for african-american distrust within the health care industry um to the skis the Tuskegee syphilis trials they were told at the beginning was only supposed to last six months I believe ended up lasting 40 years not only that but to another extent this started in the 30s penicillin was available in the 40s they were not giving them penicillin at all christ and the african-american i believe there was about i want to say there was about 600 african-americans in this trial but when that story came out that and this was like a government-sponsored trial. CDC, you name it. Like they were backing this. So, yeah, from then on, you know, and then you go a little bit more today, the access to good health care.

There's a huge difference between Medicare and Medicaid. There's, you know, people who can afford health care. It's terrible. United States, just the cost of it is so high there's a lot of discrepancies within the health care industry and um you know and that's why a lot of people are now like they're pushing like you know when you're black in this country like you want a black doctor you want someone who is gonna who i mean you shouldn't go around assuming that someone's not going to give you the best health care because of the way you look you don't want to but you also never know

um and you know especially you know even i myself has you know been just been looking for other african-american doctors who just you know they'll have the best interest out for you and especially like with dermatology you know skin care yeah um there's just difference and i think the another side of that is like the number of black doctors that are out there and stuff like that and the point of this obviously is not to go to the color race of you know what you look like as for your health care but given the circumstances and given the history of this country we are we do have a lot of mistrust we are seeking people who look like us to take care of us and that's the the stage that we're at now i i want to read this real quick and then come right

to the point you made i just want to give the context what you brought up because i had never heard of this so it's it's behind us on the screen but it is the tuskegee study of untreated syphilis in the negro male i'm reading that people i'm not saying that um it's gonna gonna make sure out there you know you never know straight off of wikipedia so anyway it was ethically an ethically abusive study conducted between 1932 and 1972 by the united states public health service and the centers for oh CDC involved. There we go. The purpose of this study was to observe the natural history of untreated syphilis. Although the African-American men who participated in the study were told they were receiving free health care from the federal government of the United States, they were not. The service started the study in 1932 in collaboration with Tuskegee University, then the Tuskegee Institute, a historically black college in Alabama.

In the study, investigators enrolled a total of 600 impoverished African-American sharecroppers from Macon County, Alabama. Of these men, 399 had latent syphilis with a control group of 201 men who were not infected. As an incentive for participation in the study study the men were promised free medical care but were deceived by the phs who never informed subjects of their diagnosis and disguised placebos ineffective methods and diagnostic procedures as treatment i'm going to cut off reading there there is a to be clear there's a lot more below that but this is important because you and it's going to tie right into the point you were making that I want to come to. Let's do it. You're talking about, I think the way you said it was there's more of an emphasis on services or be it medical or whatever where you are with a person of your same color and stuff like that. And there's such a focus on it these days. Two things. Number one, in history, we have seen things that are so bad like this that are then stories and they get

passed down father tells his son about his son tells his son about it and so on and so on you will see things like even like recent history we've been talking about the Holocaust a little bit and some recent episodes here and there's a reason that the jewish people are so great at sticking together i actually think it's an awesome thing yes in this country where you know some people give them shit like oh why can't you be like the rest of us and assimilate on everything they stick together well because it's been passed down to them not just the holocaust by the way shit before that too this goes back thousands of years it's been passed down to them that there are certain things that if they don't do that they can get a deep you

know and it's not their fault obviously so you see these effects you see that from from the the genealogy of ancestors who understand what it's like to have nothing or understand what it's like to be in a situation and so for you to talk about the emphasis now on being treated by a person the same color it's almost like we've come full circle on that because there are still things that you know do we see people that we know of doing tuskegee-like tests today on behalf of the federal government we do not but does that mean that everything's fixed no it is not at all and so people look back on stuff like this and it it puts up that guard of like remember what they've done to us before it can happen again which that's a very important

point we don't pay attention to that shit stuff can happen again like the minute society starts saying oh that happened it'll never happen again it's gonna happen you know even this pandemic 100 years ago it happened it happened again yeah there's things that happen in history over time it's cycles forth turning type shit yes so the what i want to get your thoughts on though is that emphasis that's come back around full circle with being treated or not just in medical like with with anything, services, doing business, government. Politicians, you want them to look like you. You want them to make sure they're looking out for you. Correct. How much of that do you think is positive versus how much is negative? I'm going to leave it there for now because I have thoughts on both sides, but I want to see where

you stand on that. So sometimes stubbornness can put you in a good place. Sometimes stubbornness can leave you in the hole. And you really never know the answer to that until the end of it when you look back on whether or not you made the right decision to be stubborn or not. I'm hoping that the people who are deciding not to get vaccinated right now don't have to have that revelation like oh man like i should have like like i never want to like wish pain or you know on them at all um but when you pass it down to someone it it can be it can be hard because you're also changing because you kind of hit on this but general generational trauma is a big thing yes um and just speaking from personal experience

is something that i've dealt with you know um you know my parents have gone through a different time and when i when they were raising me there were just certain precautions that they instilled in me that i carried on and some of that put me in the right path but also some of that you know i internalized a little bit too much and affected the way i've had relationships you know in the future um so it's all about how you carry it, I would say that. Listen to it. Internalize it. There's, like, someone, like, your parent or grandparent telling you about something that happened in the past, don't shrug it off because it happened in the past. Listen to their story.

It's an important story, and it's their story. And it happened. But internalize it. Look at your resources now, and you choose how to But internalize it. Look at your resources now and you choose how to move forward with it. And don't let it degrade your mindset. This is not what happened. But if my parents said, hey, you know what? I had a tough time dealing with white people in my life.

Don't trust any of them that you meet. And I went along my day going to these boarding schools and private schools with that mindset. I don't think I would have had the best time. No, no. Nor the best learning experience at all. But there are people who receive that. Let me switch it up. If you're a white person and your dad says,

hey, I had a bad dealing with this black guy, when you see them, hold your bag, don't trust them. That obviously is negative. I mean, that's why we have racism to this day. It's passed down. It's not something that you're born with. It's something that's passed down. It's generational trauma that has just passed down from generation to generation. And we have to be the ones to choose what's right and what's wrong.

So yeah, I'll put it like that. There's a couple different things I would want to ask you about in there but i want to go right at the idea that then we it causes more of seeing color and this is where i struggle with some of this stuff because it stresses me out when i think about this stuff less when i'm talking about it's to me a great part about this platform is that it's been very easy to do that, even with other white people too. Like it's – I've had a lot of great conversations across the spectrum and you learn a lot about how people look at this and how they think. But it stresses me out to think about all the people who legitimately feel a certain way based on things in society that are more likely to go wrong for them i mean to use a very prime example like the black americans relationship with the police force very common

one right and also truth to it yep 100 truth to it it then leads to though sometimes the opposite effect, and what I mean by that is the way that as a black person, if I were dealing with that, I think I would want to have it fixed is to have a day where I knew in my head that if I were black, white, or whatever is in between, if I got pulled over by a cop, i had the same exact chance of something going wrong and preferably let's look at it positively and say the same exact percentage chance of everything going fine right that's that's a perfect utopia world agree yeah okay i think that the way that the solutions then get brought to the table in this case is more of we want you to see that we are whatever race we are rather than let's become all the same because we all we all are human fucking beings and so i remember growing up in a world where look i i think my mom taught me really really well on this at a very young age you talk about environment another point you made in there critical like she was always everyone's everyone everyone's a human being like there's no there's no difference

between you and anyone else and so when i went to school with people of all different types of races when i was young i didn't see them that way i tell a story that legitimately one time i had a new friend who had come to the school who was black. And my mom was asking me about my new friend I had been talking about. Which one is he? Because there were like 30 kids in my class. I remember the story. And I said, oh, he's the one that's like really tan. Like he's really, really tan.

And my mom's like holding her mouth up front like, okay, I got it. Right? But that's how I was taught. And it was such a beautiful thing. And as I got older, because because of society now i see race like and and i that's not a positive to me like i there is a thought that goes through me maybe not with you because we've been friends forever but there is a thought that goes through me when i see someone new like this internal thing i don't even realize it's happening where i'm like oh this is an asian guy oh this is a black guy oh this is a whatever guy and it's like to me i hate that because it's almost like

in a way i'm not but you are by definition defining someone before you meet them and you're defining them by a look that they have and last i checked the way it works for all of us is that yes even though we have problems in society where there are people who do that and use it for power and do it in wrong ways and we need to fix that. For sure. The way that society is supposed to be set up for the good people out there, and I'd like to think I'm one of the good ones, is that we all have the same abilities, right? We can all do the same things. For sure. You know?

Some people might be better at certain things than other people, but at the end of the day, we can pick out something we're good at and we can go after it. For sure. And I think there has to be a balance within that too because I think a colorblind approach isn't also the solution either. I feel like you shouldn't pass judgment on someone by the look of them, but when you see me, see me as a black like risk that's part of who i am and that's a part of my experience so it's like yes from a child's standpoint from a child's eye yes children even when you see children interact with each other like all those viral videos of a black kid hugging a white kid or vice versa is it's all it goes

viral because with everything going on right now it's just like what we need to see but also i feel like children as innocent as it gets and you know they don't see color from that standpoint yes it's important and i feel like as we get older and as we and this is why it's like you just have to acknowledge history you just have to acknowledge the state that we're in and you have to acknowledge the past it's important to see your your you know your fellow man's predicament and it's not to say like because he's black he has this monolithic black experience that all black people have not saying that at all that's important to know him yeah but also acknowledge hey like if you if you're at work and you have a black co-worker and George Floyd situation, like, just happened, you shouldn't have the mindset, like, oh, he's not black. He's just like every other guy.

There's no, I'm colorblind. To not be like, hey, man, I just wanted to check in to see, like, how you're feeling with everything that's going on right now. From a standpoint, I feel like you have to acknowledge who the person is and know that, hey, you know what? Because they are this race, they could be having a difficult time right now. That's a touchy one. It is. That's because I don't. It is.

And not to say that. I don't know where I stand on that. Yeah. I can see that both ways. I can see that as from the perspective you're seeing it as if you're just pretending it didn't happen. It's almost like you ignore the fact that someone else may be feeling a certain way about it. And regardless of whether it's that issue or something else, if you have a coworker or a friend who might be feeling a certain way as a human being, what do you want to do? You want to check in and see that they're doing okay.

That's one side of it the other side of it is do you then god damn i can't think of a word to say and i don't want to say that i'm not saying cuddle them and like hug them and like you're a complete stranger like oh are you your experience like i'm not saying that okay like there's there's ways to do it there's ways to go about it um like start the conversation is more what you're yeah start the conversation um and i feel like it's more talked about now especially within like the professional world because it can be an hr thing but how much of that is bullshit though i feel like most of it is i mean you have to you're a business and once you're a business you're also you're marketing yourself and you you can't look a certain way do you know who

brian moynihan is do not he's the ceo of bank america do you think brian moynihan is flying black lives matter flags on his lawn no no he's not no but you would think that listening to how bank of america puts out puts out statements after george floyd stuff. This is my whole thing, man. If you're going to be about it, be about it. And don't do it from this bullshit, like, to use your words, coddling, crappy, whatever. Do it from a, yo, let's talk about this. Do it like this. Yeah, exactly.

You don't have to put on headphones and have a goddamn podcast about it. But as a company, like, sit in the kitchen, talk with somebody about it, you know, and let it be natural. in corporate america they don't let anything be natural it all has to be like a system you know someone reports to somebody so they're going to report to them on this and that's what i mean it's another example of how ass backwards it gets it's like we create all these systems that end up being like racist in and of themselves because

they're set up to be anti-racist but in reality they start you talk about like someone recognizing you by the color of their skin like no you have a lived experience as a black man okay i can get with that i i understand what you're saying when people take that a step farther like no no i need to lead with that in fact the intonation can be i wouldn't belong interviewing for x job if i wasn't black that's bullshit to me like pick the best people and that can be an un that can be an uncharacteristic or not unpopular opinion to some people but it's like i i feel like we are at a point where even if there's progress that has to be made, if you're talking about like females or minorities in the workplace and stuff, we are much farther along now.

And there are a lot of phenomenal candidates who should not be defined as potential candidates because they're X race or X gender. I find that to be an effrontery to those people. And I'm not one in that case. I'm not a woman. I'm not a black guy. I'm not a Latino. I can't say like I understand that from my end but like when i'm looking at as a white dude i'm like wait that guy why why are they saying he he got the job because of that no no he got the job because he's fucking good at the job yeah you know

and then it works the other way sometimes too someone gets the job they're fucking terrible you know and it's like what happens people get pissed about that on the side i always stayed the fuck out of those things it made me uncomfortable, but like people be like a diversity higher Like they say that and they're not trying to be racist and yeah, but it you know, it's prejudice at best you know, and it's like that just causes more problems and I feel like maybe 30 30 40 years ago that was probably really really really important to be over the top on that now It's like alright We need to in my opinion we need to identify where we are and figure out how we're going to do that naturally and not think like, oh, I have a black guy coming in to interview.

Oh, he must be the one. You know, that's not that is taking away that person's abilities, in my opinion. For sure. in my opinion for sure and i think there's also a balance to that um because to your point you want to hire the best person for the job right if historically let's a subject that we've talked about before coaches if historically you have coaches of a minority group who don't get the job because of the past racial circumstances. And like the NFL, NBA. Let's talk about NFL, sure. Yeah. system that didn't have black coaches in the past and you want to hire the best guy for the job now

if you want to jump from zero to a hundred and you want to look at coaches experience you can't hire black coaches if they weren't allowed to have the job in the first place so i feel like there needs to be a balance of like yes choose, choose the right man for the job, but don't assume that the white person is always the best candidate because they were a coach for the 20 years when only 10 years the black coach was able to even get the gig. Yes. So I'm saying like there should be a, quota but i feel like there you also have to acknowledge just systematically certain people want to look better on paper because of the previous system that was in place sure sure so like i also like that so that was on the coaches we can go into coaches more too but like even you're talking about the Rooney Rule specifically there in the NFL. Yeah. I think we both agreed that now it needs to be.

Well, let's give the context there for people that don't know what we're talking about. So Rooney Rule invented by Art Rooney. I forget if it was the second or the first, whatever. It was the Steelers owner. I think it was in maybe the early 90s, something like that. Had phenomenal, phenomenal intentions behind it. And by the way, the Steelers have always backed that had phenomenal phenomenal intentions behind it and by the way the Steelers have always backed that up as an organization yep to say nothing of the fact and because he's great by the way but Mike Tomlin African-American head coach yes go down they've

had him for 14 15 years this is a franchise and they've done that with all their coaches they like they like finding a great coach and having stability and once they had a black guy in there they did not treat him any differently nor should they so they've backed that with all their coaches. They like finding a great coach and having stability. And once they had a black guy in there, they did not treat him any differently, nor should they. So they backed this up the whole way. When they started that rule, the rule was for every, I think it was every head coach opening, and eventually it was all coaches, maybe, I'm not sure, where you had to interview at least one minority hire and i talked about this with nick garol where it creates really fucking awkward situations where it actually has the opposite effect there was actually a news story like a month ago that came out about this that wasn't when it wasn't around when nick and i were talking but there was an asian offensive you saw this i saw this he wasn't the right type of minority yes for the job.

He was told that. I believe him too. I don't think he's lying about that. Yeah. He was interviewing for some offensive line coach job in the NFL and was literally told by a team president or something, you're not the right type of minority we're looking for. Which is bullshit. Which is bullshit.

And I'll tell you how I think that went. I think whoever that person is chances are they're just a moron and they weren't thinking at all and so in their head they're like you know they're interviewing this guy over the phone and they're writing all this shit down and they're like you know had a brain fart moment and they're like you know you're not we're trying to hire some minorities here you're not the one we're looking for and they're not realizing we're not thinking about how fucking patronizing that is and how that comes across. So he – I'm glad he brought that to the surface because it's an issue and it builds my case a little bit.

You have teams who are trying to check a box and they're feeling like they're forced to check a box. One of the prime examples you'll ever see but it happens with a lot of head coach openings was the Oakland Raiders with John Gruden. Oakland had wanted to rehire John Gruden for almost two decades. They had wanted to get John Gruden out of the booth or out of Tampa at first, and then he got fired from Tampa and went to the booth to come back and coach Oakland. That was a goal. John Gruden suddenly became an open possibility. They literally fired their current head coach, who they might have been firing anyway, Jack Del Rio, because he wasn't doing a great job, to go hire John Gruden.

John Gruden is white. So you know what they had to do? They had to call up everyone in their mother knew that Mark Davis had everyone in the NFL fans. Everyone knew that Mark Davis, the Raiders owner had been trying to get John Gruden back forever they knew that he was going to hire him because now Gruden was finally saying behind the scenes yeah yeah I'm ready to go coach again they knew that they were going to pay him a ridiculous contract and they knew he was going to be the head coach but because of the Rooney rule they had to call up I don't know who they did whether it was an outside candidate or more likely somebody in the building already and say hey so and so let's say john and john's a black

guy you know and i know we're going to be hiring gruden we need you to do us a favor though can you come in and interview for the job so we can satisfy the rooney rule do you know how what a horrible spot that is to be in for both parties? He's going in there for a fake interview. He knows it and they know it. For that circumstance, yes. Yeah. Because they kind of, because I mean, normally in an interview process, the hiring crew doesn't know who they want right now. You're looking,

you're an open, you're a blank slate. Yes, that's fair. So in that standpoint, I can see what you mean by they already knew who they wanted. This is now something that we have to do. But then let's take it to that example. Where it's a blank slate. It's a blank slate. And a lot of teams, they zone in on like five candidates.

Sure. They're not thinking about the color of their skin. They just zone in on these five guys. And then they realize as they get down to three, oh my God, we need a black guy. We don't have one. Do you hear how stupid that's it well sounds coming out of my mouth well the one thing i don't like the rooney rule is like i don't see anything wrong with saying that you should interview them i have i have a problem with

the saying like oh you have to hire a black guy because that's you throw everything out the window yeah but i think because sometimes you know there's subconscious prejudice too sure that not not every you know hiring manager has you know a subconscious bias like training and like hiring that's actually a big training thing now that you know companies do agreed sub like subconscious you know bias social bias and sometimes you don't even know what you're doing and that doesn't always just be race whether it's men women you know old age can be something that you discriminate someone against on disabilities like there's so many different things sexual orientation um it's it goes deeper than just race so it's like i feel like having something that kind of just

hey maybe you don't know you're doing this but a lot of the people that you're looking at to hire are only of this construct. And like, let's say, oh, this was a big thing I was talking about in like college applications. Let's say race wasn't on the application. Okay. Just years of experience and the teams that they worked with. If you just looked at that, at that that point what do you think a majority of the people that would be bringing in yes fair point from an organ from a system that was historically if you want to based off experience not there weren't a lot of black coaches so i'm just saying

if you want to go on i want coaches with the most top five coaches with the most experience on my table because i want someone who's experienced i feel like that kind of already neglects a lot of black coaches i i just by the sheer number i think i think you're getting me on on the island i want to be on for this one which is and this is a psychological thing you can look at this with forget race forget a political issue everything in humanity it's a part of like our flaw in groups when we go to correct a situation we don't correct it to where it needs to go we correct it past the point where it needs to go and we create a new wrong and then it resets the other way and it's a constant pendulum it's the

whole law i talk about it all the time for every action there is an equal but opposite reaction and so i think what happens is that i wouldn't even say right away the actions are always equal but opposite they're at least something that gets the ball rolling and then it doesn't stop and then it stops like they just people get so invested in wanting to keep that ball rolling that they don't look at the cars that they're rolling over and totaling along the road here. And it's like I try to point that stuff out, and what I don't do and I'm very careful not to do often, more often than not, far more often than not, were created because something was wrong. It couldn't stay the same. So I dream of a world where we could get it back to the middle ground, but I also live in a world where we have two parties that run things really across like most of the countries.

There's two core sets of beliefs, liberal, conservative. It just varies differently across a lot of the important ones and yet they maintain that they continue dividing us in two teams and then they do it on every issue that has nothing to do with politics it's like your team this or team that and that's we need to unroot that and scrap it and get rid of it we talked about this all the time but john adams back then said two-party system is the worst system you can have yeah said that back then and look what we're stuck with now um i know we're shifting a little bit into politics let's do it but just uh sorry let's from the ro rule, I kind of mentioned like college applications. I would love to get your input on this.

Okay. Because there's been a few stories. Pull that in a little bit. Sorry. There's been a few stories out. The Harvard lawsuit against Asian community, Asian applicants. I heard about that. Can you explain that more?

So basically, you know, a lot of people from the Asian, and sorry for the broad, I know Asian is a very broad statement, but for lack of more specifics, they did a lawsuit against schools like Harvard saying that they have a skewed application process because they were not getting accepted when they had technically the better numbers. And the connotation was that Harvard thought – I'm assuming here. Correct me if I'm wrong. It was that Harvard thought we have too many Asians, so we need to get rid of some. Is that what they're getting at? That's what they were getting at.

Okay. And I'll say this. If the college application was completely merit-based, completely SAT score, completely GPA, in your opinion, do you think there will be a very monolithic look and feel to that university yes and you were asking this in another way a few minutes ago i think but completely i i think that you know i joke about being a white kid from jersey trying to apply to whatever fucking school and it's like immediately if it's a good school on the east coast it's like you have points against you and it's like you like there's a level of, oh, that's just how it works, like a little complaint in it. But it's true in the sense that it's also set up that way because there is a higher supply of people like me, period. And so I'm okay with the fact that there needs to be a skew to the system.

I don't even like calling it a skew to the system in the, I don't even like calling it a skew, but there needs to be a focus in the system to be able to say, okay, if there are similar applications between this type of person and this type of person, some of these cases, we need to make sure we're taking the other type of person. I'm okay with that. It's another example though of, does it go way too far? Yeah, it probably does. It probably goes way over the top because what do schools compete on all these colleges and these these administrations they compete on their numbers yeah they go to these conferences they they get in these societies that judge and give awards based on blank blank blank it's all comes back to money right they want to make more money they want they want their employees to make more money that people want to rise up through the ranks and so

they say oh look at us look at us we have X percent of our classes of a blank background or whatever. Oh, they market that hard to this day. Yeah, they do. They market that hard. And what I'm getting at, I just want to just make it clear, is I think you need a holistic approach to an application. And I think that's what, if a school is doing it right, they're looking at the whole entire application and the whole entire spectrum of an application. And I think that's what, if a school's doing it right, they're looking at the whole entire application

and the whole entire spectrum of an applicant rather than just the merit, which is what they should do. Because, I mean, you did a great segment on colleges and universities, the price of them and how outrageous there are. Oh, at the beginning of the process. At the beginning of your journey. And it's schools and unfortunately i mean i don't want to say it like this but your yales

your harvard's your stanford's your all those high brand name what's there are they're like the nikes they're the jordans of schools yes Kids feel like they need to be there to be successful and to live a fulfilled life for the rest of their lives. They get, they're the top of the list for the number of applications they get every single year. Doesn't need to be that way. But we still have a culture where we push these brand name schools, which we shouldn't.

But where I'm getting at is – Why shouldn't we? Are they not – and I ask that because – and I want to agree with what you're saying. But there's a lot of devil's advocate in me in this, looking at it somewhat cynically. Which is great. Because I don't like how big those brands got, but I also can't deny the results in a numerical fashion of places like that. Like if you go to Stanford, you are far more likely to be high up in the tech world

doing very fucking well 20 years later, as opposed to college X. Now, do you think, I think it's going to be a percentage thing do you think that's mostly because of the education that they're receiving at that university or is it because their alumni network that they have access to when they graduate that's a great question and i feel like it's more of the alumni network that they have access to when they get yes it all started academically somewhere they had to you had to Whether you graduated or not from that university, you needed to do well at your job to go up to the ranks.

But I think after a while, especially now, even with a lot of entry-level jobs these days, you don't need a college education to be successful. You don't absolutely need it. Correct. But a lot of those big name brand schools, I feel like their alumni network is just fully loaded with top execs where like top execs as in they see your alma mater, hire them. Boom. And they can do that. has when it comes to their career services and how well paid they are when they graduate from those universities. There is definitely a huge tribal aspect to it. And I think there's even one at Stanford. I think Stanford is a little bit of a bad example if we were going to go there

because it's such an interesting place with where it's located and what it's birthed. And there's certainly an aspect of it that has to located and what it's birthed and there's certainly an aspect of it that has to do with oh he's a stanford man you know but i see a lot of that in ivy league yeah especially yeah that's where the example gets really interesting and there's a lot of amazing schools obviously in there and what it doesn't mean though is that the people coming from there are dumb though some of them are however most of them are not intellectually in my opinion they're all they're all pretty fucking smart as far as like iq goes across society so there's a level to which it would seem like that is still natural because

it's the best helping the best go be the best and build the next generations which is a level of competition that we want in society. Where you're going with it, though, is where it goes out of control and it becomes a total he said to her and she got me this thing type society where it's all about who you know. And I agree. That gets a little bit – that gets shady. Even at our school, I've kind of avoided that. I don't reach out to people I don't know that went there. And maybe that's dumb. And maybe I'll look to do it at some point if it can help me out. I don't want to shy away from that. The school offers that. I really appreciate it. I think that's a huge thing that you have to encourage in a way because how do you define success of a college?

The success of the people who leave there. So you've got to help that out the best you can. But I understand what you're saying in that it creates a system where is it really all on merit? I don't know. The beautiful part of that though in today's society is that there is such an opportunity for the upstart in a way that there never has been you know it used to be you still had to have this on your resume whatever i mean even fucking bill gates dropped out of harvard right like he was there and zuckerberg recently was there we're now in this internet interconnected generation where people can say fuck you

and go do stuff and i have friends who do that i mean you know of anthony and riley like they're college dropouts and they didn't go to like really fancy colleges yeah they're both smart as fuck and yet they're they're able to do what they do and trust me when when they're going to these vcs and stuff those people aren't saying where'd you go to college again what class did you take oh you dropped out no they're you know know, that's more of a reason for them to be like, oh, these guys get it. Yeah. They're fucking, they're rolling. You know what I mean?

Yeah. So, and some of those people who work in those places could be Penn people, could be Harvard people. Many of them are, right? And there's still somewhat of an appreciation for that in today's society. So, I feel like we're moving there. But your point of that tribal continuity that then leaves you know the insiders away from the outsiders it does still exist and it is something that has definitely

benefited some people to the point where you know there's like this expectation that people this entitlement that people have i mean do you see this like where people go to a college and they say that means that i am meant to do this for sure and and i also want to say like there's a reason why harvard was the one that was had the lawsuit like because it's harvard it has the name they're not attacking community college of new jersey or like you know they're not and you're talking about this asian the asian students i'm saying like the reason they're not suing colleges, it's like your average school colleges, they're suing like the elite ones because of the promise that they get when they graduate from those schools. That's like my point. But also too, I just feel like applications cannot just be full on merit based.

You need to look at a holistic approach of who someone is. Because even from that standpoint, in a utopian world, we all grew up in the same level playing field. And we all had the same chance of getting the same grades and all went to the same schools that received the same education. And we all had the same exact chance to get into a school like harvard that is not the that is not the case 100 that is just not hands down not the case the fact that i grew up in the south bronx and you grew up you know pacific town in new jersey west efford west efford mccullough hill by where we were born alone we were already going to receive different educations yes just based off that yes so if i if i wanted the same chance as you to get into the school i feel

like race shouldn't be a reason but it should be a factor yes i agree with you be a factor yes something to be considered because i also feel like you don't want to also mismatch the school with someone's actual ability like you don't want to set someone else so you don't want to set someone up for failure well that's even another point i wasn't even going to go there but yes like yes that's what i'm saying like yes just like my point of the rooney rule like i, like I have nothing wrong with you just simply interviewing them. Yes, get them in the door. That's something that you can't see on paper of the 20 years

that they had of coaching experience. Yes, get them in the door. But you need to acknowledge that, hey, this education that he received is different from this applicant. Maybe this person could afford more SAT prep than this kid. Like there's just systematic factors and it goes a lot. And I know there's a lot of heat right now about like, you know, you can't fix racism with racism.

And you can't, if you look at someone's race as a factor, then it's trying to fix racism with racism. And it's like, I see what what you mean but at the same time you have to acknowledge that it's not a level playing field and these are things that should be looked at and also too like one like i gave the scenario before like imagine a scenario where you didn't have race on and on the application at all you didn't have hometown or anything on the application at all it was just purely merit-based you you admitted you're going to have a skewed look to how that school looks let's take race out of it maybe you might have majority men than women maybe you might have majority just pure academics and you might have no football players it will be consider them being an

athlete like this you you want as a student body if I was ever leaving school, I would want a holistic Student body it would be survival of the fittest To an extent where it's a belly cannon ring Yeah So some people have some people have the weapons to put up the fight and some people don't when people think that they can Solve a problem in one generation or within a small window they are ignoring the fact that cycles exist and cycles that are started with generations above and below or continued below each other right I want to come back to this real fast I just want to give context to that Harvard case you and I were talking about which

is the students for fair admission versus president of fellows of Harvard College it's a lawsuit and this is on Wikipedia, people. It's a lawsuit concerning affirmative action in student admissions. The organization Students for Fair Admissions and other plaintiffs filed a lawsuit against Harvard in 2014 in the U.S. District Court of the District of Massachusetts claiming that the college discriminates against Asian American applicants in its undergraduate admissions process. So this later went to the Supreme Court, and I believe it's been tossed at this point. It was rejected by the Supreme Court and everything. But it's interesting how a quote-unquote minority has now gone all the way to the other side because they happen to be a minority that due to environment and statistics and whatever, they had a higher admission ratio and so there was too many of them in that quote which is like a crazy concept to me

i hate when you're like there's too many or two you know what i mean it's just it's like but it's something you pay attention to yeah so you don't create that monolith like you're talking about your point though on environment is the core of the issue because you can't – like if we went to a system where we said, okay, now we're going to computerize it. We don't know anyone's race, age, where they're from, whatever, and we're just going to go based on common statistics of grades, extracurricular activities, whatever. whatever that monolith you could create would be that social darwinism i was referring to on steroids because all the places and people of all different races and community communities and backgrounds who have been left behind because of their environment that they were born into would immediately be cast off the island and so their offspring would be born on the same island and it would be a bell that can't be unrung because every generation would continue to be up at the top.

It is a parallel example on a less extreme scenario to like the south post-world – or post-civil war where they set up all these systems where the newly freed slaves were basically fucked, right? Like if they didn't go to the north down south yeah they basically like almost legalized some forms of slavery and whatever and they set it up so their kids were fucked and their kids were fucked and their kids were fucked and it created a system no different here it just gets so interesting to me when you start to then have it swing the other way where in this case like asian americans who are a quote-unquote minority group are complaining about it and i even think about it though from that context of environment because i was reading a malcolm gladwell book i i want to say i don't think it

was talking to strangers i forget which one it is they all kind of blend together for me but great read by the way yeah he's phenomenal i love him but he talked about how the stereotype of asians being better at math is true but it's not true because asians are just great at math do you know why it's true it's true because their number system is much, much better than ours. Their number system simply adds – I think it's like – I'm going to explain this wrong. But it adds syllables as it goes up. Whereas in English, we go from 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 to like 11, 12 new words. And then 20 blank, 30 blank. And then it's like, okay, you got got that down but now you have to introduce an

entire new one hundred thousand million it's a lot to memorize so when you're a four-year-old learning to count there's much more there are far more hurdles to being able to count high that you have to go through whereas in like chinese for example the difference between saying the number one and saying like 10 million is not much so these kids can count a lot higher earlier so they are it's like it's like when you get ahead in a race yep you're drafting right it's harder for someone to catch up it's not like you have the same distance it's like you went up that hill they still got to go up and you're on the downhill yep right so the same thing applies here to me with that's in that case that has to do with environment and it's a positive environment it makes them

great at math or whatever and so then they get you know they're actually an advantage so much that they then have to sue because they feel like they're getting turned away when they shouldn't positives whereas you can look at other communities across all races who live in poor environments or whatever. And so they don't get access to the same schooling like you talked about. They don't get access to the same household like parents who know a certain amount. They don't know a lot of important people. They don't have people to know.

So they don't get in somewhere because of that. to have a system that at least levels the playing field a little bit to give those people the opportunity to start the race of life which starts once you are independent quote-unquote out of the house let's say at college yep which is what how we still define it there's a whole lot of issues there but you know getting out of the house like let's level the playing field there and let's give it so that johnny who's a trust fund baby has a similar opportunity based on a level of merits as Jim, who's not a trust fund baby and lives in project housing or something. Yeah, exactly. And I think we can both agree that the education that one is receiving in those younger years are way more important to how their life is going to be, the trajectory of life. Oh yeah. They're four years at college. Oh yeah.

Way more important, but there's such a discrepancy on what students, even just within this country alone are receiving based off of there's area code. Oh yeah, dude. It's such a problem. Exactly.

So yeah, that's, that was my point there. And from application wisewise, coaches-wise, I just feel like for right now, I think it's okay that race is a factor. Don't make it a selling point. Don't make it a hiring point. But it should be a factor. I've never heard someone put it that way and using that word.

And usually I don't like putting a one word on stuff, though I it myself we all do it i actually do like that yeah where because it gets it gets across exactly what it should be it's a factor it's not the definition exactly who the person is exactly that would be a better society for me because it doesn't you know it's almost like and sorry just to add no go ahead um like when i say race shouldn't be the only factor obviously economic background gender sexual orientation like all of those should also be factors you want a holistic applicant pool extracurricular activities all should be factors but i think when you want to make a full diverse truly diverse student body all should be considered yeah and like and it

shouldn't be i feel like it shouldn't be taken as racist when you're not when you're not what like when you're not necessarily the one that's selected because of the fact yes yes that's important if if they decide not to accept you based surely on just your race hopefully that's not the case but it's like and this this is another problem you're highlighting now people will use like i pay attention to that intersectionality curve a lot it's used to define our society and if people haven't checked that out it's basically where the top of the intersectionality curve like the top of the top is like a white cisgender male I think is how they define it I don't know why the computer is giving us backlash on that it's probably just

because I have it the thing in our earphones but ignore that no people can't hear that I don't think the listeners can hear that anyway back to what I was saying so you know they're they're at the top so like I'm at the top in that way the bottom would be yeah like i don't know a transgender black female from you know what i mean like i'm gonna paint every single possible like thing that could be discriminated against beyond it the lower we go on that curve with everything the more we seek as a society to have to protect and i you know this is getting into interesting territory, but you're a great person to talk about this with because we've had conversations similar to this.

I don't know if I've gone directly at it. But we start to treat people on their identity, kind of like I was talking about with you earlier today. I don't know if that was on the podcast or before. But we start to then define them that way such that if that was on the podcast or before but we start to then define them that way such that we ignore things on the way down a common example of where this will happen is you will see that women who are protected right on this curve because they're below men and they're trying to fight back and and we're you know what i mean when i say like trying to fight back yes but you know you have like the feminist movement which has been around

forever in the sense that had to secure them the right to vote had to secure basic things right and then some of them go too far in my opinion where they want like you know the women fucking whipping the men you know and that's like kind of weird to me but um when you look at some of even like the hardcore feminists who have been now put up for like cancellation it's because they start to see that the same curve that protects them suddenly then doesn't protect them as a woman on something yep so the most stereotypical example that every single person talks about now i talk about it like you look at any popular show they talk about it and i think really the first guy to bring it mainstream as far as like discussing all the time was was joe rogan the example is the transgender male to female competing in female sports yes we are still not at a point though i think we will be i really trust the continued

innovation of science we are still not at a point where when a male goes through a full transition to female through all surgical procedures everything we are still not at a point where completely chemically the male genes that can make males biologically stronger than women which we are is completely gone so they have an advantage and they have some like it goes down to bone density and everything that can't be changed right now by science yep one day it can be and it won't matter and we won't have to have this argument but right now this is the factor and these are the facts and you will see some of the same people who support women and are all about women's rights

which is great then be like if you dare question that be like you're a hater including when feminists women question it and say that's bullshit we don't want that we don't want like you know i think the thing that started the whole thing with rogan was there was a ufc fighter i fruit valent fox i think it was i might have that wrong but i believe that's who it was who was born a male Actually, I believe had a kid with a woman, you know lived as a male and like she was then became a she and she wasn't She was stronger than the other women like she wasn't that great of a fighter. She was just beating people with brute force She finally got stopped because she got i think she got beat by a woman

who was just a great fucking fighter but like joe rogan was watching this going what the fuck i'm watching maybe not a full man but a partial man fight another woman it's hard enough watching a man fight a man and a woman watching a woman this is a brutal sport but now that's a fucking crime you know and so we see then people say you can't say that and this is where it goes too far and it's like well now we want to pull back and if i say or if joe rogan says or if you say well let's pull back on that oh now we're we're a psycho conservative who who is hateful of other people who have a different lived experience yep it's ridiculous. I mean, we can all agree that cancel culture is... It's insane.

It's terrible, and that's what we have, especially... I mean, you talk about it well with a number of your guests, but echo chambers, especially on social media and how the wrong narrative can easily be passed by a single post. Yeah, that's a difficult subject. I think when I think about the transgender community, my number one thought is, I mean, how many of those scenarios are out there

that we are like debating their physical ability within another sport? I think when I think about the transgender community, I'm thinking about more so like getting them the right healthcare, like right now, acknowledging them for he, she, they, like pronouns. I think we should get a foundation on that within our everyday society. And then with these other issues, discuss it more. I don't have an answer for you when it comes to like the athletes

and, you know this where should they focus it also too it's like all right equal playing rub it's like you know whether if a man's in the military and a woman's in the military the you know standard for a number of push-ups they can do are different you know yeah from that biological standpoint but if their intent is to perform the same duty shouldn't it be the same and it's like that gets into like it's weedy territory and that's a good one by the way I hate what this does to all of us yeah like exactly to people like me too because you know what it turns into in your head like when I'm thinking of the athlete example you start thinking about

like body composition it's not it's such a stupid thing to have to think about because then you start defining people and it's like we're going to physically then define people because I'll even say if some guy who's like six four with a voice down here who wears a wig identifies as a woman and is therefore going to take a shit in women's restrooms i think that's crazy but then do i think it's crazy if someone who's had a full sex change and clearly identifies as a woman does the same thing no i don't i that's what they should do yeah you know and and that makes me unpopular with everyone because you have to be one side or the other where everyone it's a generalization everyone's the same but it makes it hard because it's like well where do you draw the line do you

draw the line if they just have a dick left but nothing else like i'm getting graphic but like this is the point you see how crazy this sounds to talk yeah it's it's a very difficult topic and this is just one of many but you know you're looking at it where you're saying you want to define other stuff and like let's talk about the pronoun thing yeah so first of all can you give your full opinion on that so i have context like what you think about and and how it works too like if can it be anyone who says like like if i walked up to you and said i want you to start calling me she is that do you think that that is acceptable? Or should it be someone who legitimately has a lived experience in that way?

And I'm still learning about the transgender community and how that works. And I think society as a whole is still learning about it. I mean, we're only talking about it as of late. And, you know, the human in me would, know say okay fine like be who you're comfortable like tell me who you are and go from there um i i can't uh who's what's the woman's name because i don't mean to always take us back to race but the woman who it was like a white woman who identified as a black woman r Rachel Dolezal. Yes. Her.

I think back to that. I was just on her Instagram yesterday. I swear to God. Took a trip down memory lane. Yeah, exactly. And it's just like, it gets, there's just certain things. And obviously that becomes a little bit more personal because I'm black. So it's like, who are you to say you have this black experience when clearly, but also it's like, who am I to speak to? It gets really touchy.

Cause then I'm, I shouldn't say like, let's say you came to me and said, Hey, like I'm going to identify as her, Hershey. Who am I to tell you? No, you're not? If that's how you – I don't know how you feel. I don't know your personal – it's hard. It's tough because I'm looking at you externally and saying no. Sure. Because you have that between your legs.

Sure. And you appear like this, and that cannot happen. And this is where – Yeah. This is where I get unpopular again. I'm probably unpopular. Because I look at this far too simply, I think. But I think it's also, I mean, of course, when you have an opinion, you think you're right. Who knows?

I don't know. I don't know. If someone wants to put pronouns in their bio, do it. If someone wants to say to me, if I call them a he or a she, and they want to be called something else, and they tell me that, I want them to tell me that. I may think it's fucking crazy and stupid. I might have that opinion. But you'll respect it. I will probably respect it. Yeah.

Unless they're a dick, right? Like, unless they're doing it for attention like to be a dick in which case i may be like fuck you yeah all other things being equal how many of those situations would then apply to the law and this is actually that guy jordan peterson when he blew up this is what he blew up about and i I'm 100% on his side for the actual stance he took. What happened was in Canada, and I'm going to get some of the details not completely correct, so I'll keep it broad. They were introducing legislation that was going to legally force you to say the words, to say pronouns

of other individuals when they tell you to. Meaning, it would be a crime to say otherwise. Jordan Peterson came out and said, this is it. This is where tyranny starts. When they start attacking words.

Because he, like me, like a lot of people, understands that things are a slippery slope. And we are forced every day sometimes to go down some. It is part of life. Like, you can't avoid it. But there are certain things when it comes to, like, words and government and action on it, you know where that one's going and you know not to go down this. So everyone painted him as an anti-trans activist and whatever and i won't sit here and say he was probably like a fan but like if you listen to him talk he even answered the questions himself like they asked him at the beginning on like a famous news like round table that he was invited to be on with some activists

against him where the newscaster said to him professor peterson if you were asked by so-and-so a trans individual to call her she what would you call her and he looked right back at him and said she and everyone they were all like wait really i thought you were saying no and he's like no you're not fucking listening to me i'm a i'm a i'm a human being yeah if another human being says i prefer to be called something after or they correct me on it all right i'll respect it yeah for sure don't have the government tell me to do it don't have the government tell me they can put me in jail if i do otherwise and it goes to every word it's the same reason why like i advocate for all speech i like i want the craziest organizations out there speaking because I think their ideas are terrible and I think society can shut them down.

I think at this point, if the majority of society can't shut – I use this extreme all the time – can't shut down the opinion of the KKK, we got a fucking problem. But there was a time in this country where we were not shutting it down. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. But we did. fucking problem. But there was a time in this country where we were not shutting it down. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. But we did. We did. Eventually.

And there was a lot of damage to go there as a horrible organization that still does exist. But like today, in our society, I want the KKK where I can fucking see them with their horrible ideas. I want them to put their cute little fucking outfits on and march so that we can laugh at them and

beat their arguments without even having to argue because they're stupid arguments, you know? Where people then say to me, reasonable people will say, well, no, I'd want to shut down their speech. The person inside me wants to do that too. I just know... It's because they, but when you go as specific as the kkk they also promote violence oh fuck there's a line oh oh let me be clear when i say speech the instant steve bannon's a great example the former trump advisor who's not in the kkk but he specifically i won't repeat what he said talked about murder of public officials and physically like what we should do to them he was banned off Twitter and YouTube.

He should have been. I fully support it. Yes. That's not free speech. That's violence. Exactly. So by the way, if you just did it that way, the KKK will probably ban themselves pretty quick, which is another benefit of that.

With the pronouns, which is a less, I want to be clear. That is, I just brought up the most extreme. I like to do that just to like paint the picture. With the pronouns, we're not talking about violence. We're not talking about that. And people will try to then to then say oh there's some trans hate and stuff there is and there are hate crimes that happen there i'm saying on a societal whole there is not violence promoted by an organization that's anti-pronounce that's not it it's like if you are just somebody that says hey i don't want the government to say that i have to do this i do as an example

i don't want people to mandate that i have to put he him in my social bios i identify as a male if someone called me a she and probably be a little taken aback maybe a little offended life would go on i tell him i'm a he right like i don't need to say i'm a he, him. If someone wants to do that, though, if you want to do that, free country, man, do it. No problem. Just because I wouldn't do it doesn't mean that it's the same effect. If I were then saying you're not allowed to do it, I'm doing the same thing from the opposite angle that I'm saying you shouldn't be allowed to do. And luckily in our country, we haven't introduced any legislation like that but that's why i bring up the pronouns because it's like people are making this like oh you have to do it and they're putting it in the fucking corporate workplaces which is hilarious because

they're run by brian moynihan's of the world who don't give one fuck about it exactly hypocritical and i feel like once you go there i feel like you would have to identify everything else about you. Joshua Yoltiza, black, male, like on everything. Like that's not even on my identification. I have eye color. I have height. I have weight. It doesn't say African-American on it. And when people, by the way, point to this and make – I think it was Marjorie Taylor Greene was making some the the crazy house lady you know i'm talking about yeah she was making some far examples to like the

holocaust with like covid and shit like that and i'm like listen lady i mean she's a kook bag so i already am not really paying attention but when she was getting all the shit for that i'm just like you got to be smarter than that i don't give a, I'm just like, you got to be smarter than that. I don't give a fuck like how stupid you are. You got to be smarter than that because that's what we do. We take things out of context. And like we could take something like pronouns and go Nazi Germany. What it doesn't mean is that there aren't a bunch of very small little things that can lead to something like that that you can point out and say, hey, this is the top of the dam of that slippery slope.

This is the top of the damn shit. I agree with that i do agree with that besides i'm off her example i'm on pronouns right now but like we take it too far and then we start to legislate from the other end and say no you're not even allowed to say them well if you tell people they're not allowed to do something they're probably gonna fucking do it yeah and there's also i'm gonna hit this point i think there's levels to advocacy i feel like for what transgender lgbtq community are fighting for i feel like there's a lot more things they deserve a right to than just he she him they like that on their profile will have very little effect like that's like very little effect but like i'm pretty sure getting access to health care is way more important than whether or not to get to put she him they on an application let's get them those basic rights let's learn

more about it that's why i went back to like my point before i was like i just feel like there's certain things we should agree on and get a level playing field on and learn more about it and then we can talk about those other things but even like the reason why i say that is because even as a black as a black man like there's been a lot of perform performative acts of ally shit so okay and this is okay let, let's knock down this racist statue that was there from 50 years ago because of what it represents. Sure, yes.

I would much rather you change the systematic race from redlining, from schools, financial situations, healthcare. I would love for you to fix those issues, prioritize those, than a statue that's standing up in the middle of a city square. I would rather you change the infrastructure of your school that's named Donald Trump or whatever.

I would rather... I'm just saying. I think it's whatever ridiculous name but I feel like I'm it's more important for me to fix the infrastructure school to not have racist infrastructure your application process and whatnot and giving access to a good education to all people then the name of it and as a whole sure, I feel like the change in name is the performance. Hey, we're changing because we are doing this. You're saying you're an actions guy. Do what's going to make the results.

If you care about black people, you care about the welfare and the well-being of black people. They should have the same health care. They should have access to the same schools. And then this is not just race, again, for all marginalized communities. Give them what they need to survive and make the lives that you all preach like, oh, we're all in this new world or in this better world, but they don't have the infrastructure to do so. And we keep preaching, pull yourself up by the boots and you don't want to fix the roots of the system.

But we perform. We're going to celebrate Juneteenth soon and we're going to make it a federal holiday. And it's like, great. I'm pretty sure there's going to be more people who are happy to have a day off now of work than actually try to seek helping black businesses or learning about what the holiday actually means and doing stuff to better the black community.

And I feel like there's, am i saying the whole celebrating as a federal holiday as not a good thing no it's not what i'm saying at all but i'm saying let's not celebrate if we're not going to do if we're not going to do the work well it's the black square issue yeah exactly yeah i got one on my profile yeah i know a lot of people have it on their profile i talk about it on this show i feel like i i kind of back that up and i also will fully admit i didn't even give it a thought you know which is like careless on my end i talked about that with terrence back in the day it was like all right just quick do it whatever what does that really

do was it really was it really what are the people that put that out myself included what did we really accomplish doing that? Fucking nothing. Yep. You know, we had a moment where we said, we see you. And we fucking watched the game that night. Yep. It's just, like, that's what it is. For sure.

Cynically, but it's true. It's what it is. So I agree with the actions format. Where it gets interesting from, like, a race level is where we also define that in society there's things that are very clearly like racist but in my opinion that's a word and there's plenty of examples of this but that's a word we've murdered we've killed it because people call everything that they use it they use it as a weapon and i think the two parties use it as a huge weapon i think it's like for sure i think it is the way they stay in power,

which is something we should definitely talk about later, but I just don't want to lose this vibe you got on right now. And when I hear people state that word to anything, it immediately shuts down the connotation because it's one of the lowest things you can call someone in today's society when you get called a Racist that's some heavy ass shit man or sexist. Oh, yeah Yeah, but I would say racist even more more than and that's no disrespect given but given the recent events I mean, it's not just recent of us, but the

How can I say the media push of the recent events over the past year? I guess yeah, maybe it's more paid past year. I guess, yeah. Maybe. Because it's more paid, I guess we all like, we had this conversation too. COVID and the pandemic gave people time to just take in all this media push that they've been getting. And a lot of it is skewed and it's been, it's just a lot, it's talked about a lot more now.

Racism is not a new issue. Black Lives Matter is not like a new statement. I mean, it's an organization, but the statement itself isn't something that's a new idea. It's always been there. It's just now we want to pay attention and now we want to fix it. And now it's the hot story. It's the hot take. Sure. now we want to pay attention and now we want to fix it and now it's the hot story it's the hot take sure um i think though that the where i want to tie it in beyond that though is the narratives

that those powerful structures create democrats republicans and the media behind them right so they use it to divide us and something i i mean this has come up on probably like seven podcasts at this point because it's just an unbelievable theme and i will continue to that is very important but i hotep jesus said it the best on twitter and i won't get it fully right but he's definitely not even the guy who came up with this like some very fucking smart people came up with this years ago and probably no one listened and now guys like him are righteously so giving it a platform and then guys like me see that and I agree with him I I think he makes a great point but he said the way he put it was the top one percent of society maintains their power by convincing the bottom 99 of society that they are different in ways that they actually are not to make them

hate each other and they do it in the most personal of things. They can't make it about like. You know. Whether you live here or live there. They have to make it about. What's the color of your fucking skin? What gender are you? And they make all the issues about this.

Look at all the politics we talk. It all comes back to those things. And we ignore. The fact that this huge fucking wealth gap. That all those people in both parties have been causing literally causing since the 1980s has continued to happen it affects all communities too you know and it just continues to affect the communities who were already fucked even more right so it really creates that horrible darwinism technique to

society and allows the people who are pulling the strings to just keep everyone down there on the strings when i look at this they now use the word racism as a weapon hands out right now a year ago i will never forget this when when when the brett weinstein narrative started coming out and then rogan had him on brett weinstein is a brilliant man i've been a fan of his for since like 2017. he is he's the guy who he is like an old school liberal college professor who was at evergreen state university you heard about this one yeah yes and he had him off campus yes he had the audacity to say hey when you start first of all he's not like a regular full white guy he's jewish right so that was one thing they were calling him white there was a day where the black student coalition was saying all white people including administration are not allowed on campus as like a day of

remembrance and he said okay i am all about all the movements for equality that i've supported my entire life and will continue to support i know exclusion though when i see it and this is the answer from the opposite side and this is a problem you are defining me by the color of my skin and not even recognizing that i am a minority myself and you're telling me i can't come to fucking campus based on my identity i know what this looks like this is my hill i will die on it yeah and then he was attacked off campus admittedly the craziest of the crazy that's an extreme example but it still happened yeah but brett weinstein is a brilliant brilliant brilliant like man of science and so when he went on rogan was something he had been saying on on his dark horse podcast i believe

last year like last june he came out and hedged it out front and said listen these are all theories based on evidence that i can ascertain and i want people to do the work for themselves because we don't know any of this but he's the one who really brought the lab leak hypothesis to the mainstream turns out now all the places that ripped him the new york times the washington post he's looking like he was right and now they're all on his side and they're not even acknowledging it and how did they rip him how did they get rid of that opinion how did they cancel that opinion that then other people parroted because they're like well brett said it and his evidence was phenomenal let's look into this they said oh that's racist that's racism lab leak lab leak in in wuhan china that's racist. That's racism. Lab leak? Lab leak in Wuhan, China?

That's racist against Asian people. And they put this tag on it. And so you don't want to be a fucking racist. You don't want to be, oh, I don't want to be associated with that. Yeah. And now it's true. But they were able to change that narrative and not allow us to focus on that last year. Because why?

Because that would have made Trump, who botched the response to this thing, it would have why because that would have made trump who botched the response to this thing it would have been something that would have been on his side because he would have been able to say righteously so look what china did but if trump says that that's not good so we'll call everyone a racist that's fucking crazy and to me i don't care if i'm a white guy i'm offended by that because i'm like you are now defining us you are trying to rip us all apart based on where we come from right the color of our skin or what we look like and you're you're dragging it into science which you claim to protect that's where i draw the line and go okay now we're ruining this word and we are totally antithetical to

what we're trying to do here which is actually let facts and arguments win and I feel like also too pointing the finger and calling someone racist isn't a solution to the issue at hand either you know I feel like it goes back to my point where it's like I'm gonna change the name of the school, but I'm not going to change what's actually happening in the infrastructure of the graduate rate, the education that these kids are getting. Like newspapers, times, whatever, left, right, stop going for the headline and go for how do we get a solution out of this

and how can we create more discussions? I feel like, like you said race the word race has been used as a weapon does not mean there aren't racist people out there yeah but it's definitely over overused um sexist any is or you know but that's why conversations like these are more important now than ever. Critical. Critical. Like, because if we went with the status quo

of social media, you're my enemy, and I'm yours. You're holding me back from getting what I want, and I'm holding you back from getting what you want. And not only that, because the color of your skin, I assume that you're a conservative, and you have this belief, and... Because I'm white.

You're a Karen. That's belief and because you're you're you're a karen yeah a word we're laughing but it's true no it is good and you look at me especially like let's say you didn't grow up in a scenario where you had access to you know grow up around people of color or any other minority group your intake of what other minorities are like is from the information that you get on social media. And my, let's say, I mean, I am from, you know, predominantly black and Hispanic community, but like I went away to, you know, schools for high school and stuff like that. But if all of my, you know, experience with people of, you know, white Americans were just based off of what I get off television and what I'm seeing on the news, let's say strictly left news, my opinion on you is just going to be different

just me by looking at you. And that's what they're creating. And our communities are already segregated as it is. So if we're pushing the same narrative to, you know, if they believe that you're a predominantly Republican household, they're going to keep pushing, you know, right views. And if you're predominantly democratic household,

they're going to keep putting left views and we're never going to see a common ground ever, unless we come into person, come meet face to face and we talk, find those commonalities. like i think i said this to you before i just feel like when it comes like left right you know liberal conservative i feel like given a soulful good-hearted person we all want the same thing our ideas on how to get there is where we separate.

And that's where we separate on taxes, more police, less police. I think that's where we get divided. And it's hard. It's a hard thing to tell. Like you said, it's not going to be a single generational change either. But, yeah, that's why I love that you're doing a podcast like this man it's really important well thank you brother that is exactly what we're trying to do here we're just starting the conversations we are trying to talk about things that you know i i want whoever's sitting across from me to bring up whatever it is you know it's if it's touchy we'll go at it and whether i have in someone who's black

or someone who's white even you know with white guys these race issues will come up because it is a social issue for everyone right and i like though i like though that when i have you in here and you have that lived experience we can talk about it because there is a i want to be careful how i say this to not discredit other conversations where it's not me and a black guy talking but there is a level of legitimacy and credibility to it that you can't get in in the other scenario there but in your explanation you just gave you talked about the solutions and that's that's what i want to go to now because i like that you recognize that you said something along the lines of and correct me if i'm wrong these people in society like all of us when we're talking and fighting we all think a

lot of the same things we just have different solutions to it exactly yeah that's what i thought this is so fucking true and gets such little attention and it blows my mind because it is plain for all of us to see in my opinion i think a lot of us just don't look but it came up heavily in my podcast with moose toby which you know we got into a whole lot of deep shit in that one great episode thank you thank you he's he's the man dude he's he's awesome but it came up how you know that 99 and one percent point i was making about what hotep jesus said i brought it back around that to the solutions where you know i look at these two movements and i don't want to go through the whole thing all over again like i did there that one was in detail but i look at these two movements and i don't want to go through the whole thing all over again like i did there that one was in detail but i look at these two movements that formed in 2010 2011 that we knew was occupy wall street and the tea party movements as precursors and people looked at this especially

in the media and then all of us and how we consumed it and we said oh they're total opposites and whatever and they have nothing fucking in common. Their solutions were kind of opposite. In some cases. Some things actually meant all the way. If you asked each of them, though, they would never admit that. But it's true. Their solutions had a lot of opposites in them, though.

But their complaints were the same. The difference was Occupy was composed of younger white urban liberals by and large and the tea party movement was composed of rural older white blue-collar workers so to speak but their complaints about a system that had left them behind and was giving them no opportunities leaving them you know whether it be college students who can't get a great job with all this fucking debt they were told to sign when they were 17 and they're screwed for the rest of their life and there's no job market because the economy had collapsed in the global recession or if you were the 45 year old factory worker whose jobs were sent abroad and you were ignored by all of washington dc and told to go fuck yourself these are the occupy and the tea party primes right there exactly and

so i saw the movement of that rise through two people bernie sanders and donald trump and bernie sanders and donald trump other than being from new york and having you know their respective new york accents there's not a lot that they would like to admit that they have in common they can't they they almost can't yeah they have in common they can't they they almost can't yeah they can't you're right but they do want a few things like in china you listen to bernie talk about china talks very similarly to how trump does and i like how they both talk about it i i agree with them but there's a lot of things where it's like you know bernie wants to tax people 70 75 donald's like that's socialism fuck that you know and i'll agree

more with trump in that scenario as an example and then there's other stuff where bernie's going to talk about social issues we have and trump's going to assume that they don't exist and i'm agree with bernie in that scenario but the way that they spoke to people was through messaging where they were speaking to the same people they were just using different examples of how to fix it Yeah, they were speaking to the same Disaffected angry person who felt that they've been left behind by society by the powers that be a wealth gap that was out of control education opportunities that were in name only and a

Country that was no longer about an American dream It was about an American dream being dead which I think is literally a line Donald Trump used on the campaign trail, which I don't agree with. But, you know, at least there are some people who feel like we're so far behind, we can't get there. Add into the fact that you've had a lot of people have been left behind forever, be it minority communities in urban areas, or, you know, people who have been in some of those same people within those parties who maybe didn't join those movements who existed we use this stereotype like out in west virginia the coal miner towns i'm not so sure a lot of those people were at tea party movements maybe they were but like they were

getting whisked away and not given an opportunity to do something new forever they were born into it you know exactly these people are all the same and so for you to say that and that we get so used to this discourse on social media that says we are each other's enemy and point to the fact that maybe we just have different solution ideas but at the end of the day we should want the same things we need more people like you talking like that because i i don't think there's a good argument against you yeah and to be honest with you i had to learn that over time you you you have to have those conversations and you need to meet people outside your background and which is why like you know they talk about now like diversity is such an important thing now but i feel like you need to get that early

to get that early on um and i feel like the social structure of this country just deteriorates that movement from happening you know you're not getting a lot of those diverse conversations happening at an early age as you said like the coal miners and the Midwest are not necessarily talking to the average black guy and growing up in the projects and those urban communities you know I think we need to start you know to be honest i would love to have like a facilitated you know version of a podcast where you have children talking to each other you know that would be really cool you know just you know just mindsets

that haven't been you know diluted by social media yet you know diluted by you know their surroundings quite yet, or just manipulated by their parents just yet, but just encouraging diverse conversations at a young age to encourage them to keep having those diverse conversations. Because like I said, I feel like you need to, we're taught to go our separate ways more so than us being born wanting to divide our own selves. But yeah, that came out of nowhere, but I just thought on the spot, I would love to see that. Kids talking to each other on a podcast from different backgrounds. I've said in the past, I don't know if I said it on this podcast, but I've said it to people maybe when we're done or whatever.

I think that a divorce lawyer's worst nightmare would be forcing people to come into a studio like this, an estranged couple, and lock the door and tell them to put headphones on their ears at full blast and talk to each other. I don't know that we'd have divorce lawyers anymore because there is a level to which this communication, and you're experiencing it now. You experienced it a bit last summer because you knew about this before it was all launching when you were here but there's a level to which this communication is the most personal thing somebody can do and you're not even you weren't even given that example you were just saying like straight up conversations and like maybe do it on a podcast or whatever so i guess a little bit but imagine now taking it to something this like with a studio like this the darkened outside like nothing exists and people are just having a conversation that's what you do yeah you know do i think it's realistic that we're going to make that happen no but do i think we can

encourage that and set examples that other people are going to follow absolutely man that would be awesome oh yeah and then it starts with like you know podcasts like these i actually it was funny you talked about the voice lawyers but your boy moose i was you know, podcasts like these. Actually, it was funny. You talked about the voice lawyers, but your boy Moose, I was, you know, watching that episode. And, you know, he talked about, you know, even the scruples that happen within marriages. You know, when one cheats, it's usually there's something that's already broken. And if they would have just communicated with each other, like there was something that was lost in the communication within that relationship that caused them to go their separate ways. Also, too, I just think it's a generational thing. I'm not going to lie.

I feel like now more than ever we're encouraged to talk. We're encouraged to express how we feel now so more than ever. I say that specifically because there's a generation, I think you can agree, our parents' generation, men didn't talk to each other about emotions really that wasn't really an encouraged conversation at least from let's say our dads to their grandfathers or stuff like that maybe hopefully they they were encouraged but i know for like my my dad and even like my mother like just you were taught to hold on to certain things you were taught to hold on to certain

emotions you were taught to just stay headstrong pull yourself up by the bootstraps and keep your head moving forward. And I think that caused a lot of obviously silence among men, but a lot of emotional distress, a lot of unneeded emotional distress in a sense of men not releasing. And I think that when we talk, we find more commonalities than we find differences and you know I think that now that we have podcasts we have you know YouTube we have social media yes we talked about the horrors of it and the echo chambers that happen out of it but I also find there's beauty in it as in there's more conversations happening I would say that is beautiful the downside is the instantaneous access and swipe by swipe five second attention span society that still does exist on like a regular throughout the

day right so things that you are not familiar with or don't consume yourself someone can selectively take that out of context it happens every single day and literally every single thing. And so with conversations like this, it's kind of weird. I'm numb to it, and maybe it's easier because I'm smaller and I have a smaller fan base right now. Maybe it'll be harder when I have a bigger one. But there's hundreds of hours of me talking with other people now on here. To say nothing of people come in here for a long time and talk so there's at least a couple hours of them talking you know i wonder

how they feel they don't do this every day but like for me it's like you know where i am you know who i am you can't hide when you're doing that much content talking like when it's natural like this that you can't put on i can't put on a face i tell you how i feel for better or worse you you certainly see my flaws. Hopefully you see the things that aren't flaws. And like we go from there. But in that, it's like how many people really understand that? How many people would be willing to do that themselves?

Not many. And like it's not tooting my own horn. I feel bad for those people because I was one of them for a long time. I was like, I'm going to stay above that shit, dude. I wasn't even actually like big on social media for a long time i was like you know hence i don't do that for sure right i had to come into this but if if more people could do it they wouldn't take things so out of control in my opinion and i think the thing that gets blurred the most is intent. So we like to call out one-liners or momentary lack of context situations and paint it as this is why we should cancel that person or say this is what it is. There is not an intent in what they're saying.

I've even seen people who are on tape saying you know racial terms in the past and you know in some cases like who was it the Seinfeld guy Kramer yeah that was years ago yeah I mean I was what it was you know that was not selectively edited you know what it was in other cases there were people who were literally just like in the context of an educated conversation repeating things to be able to set the table for what they were saying right there there was no intent there was the famous example a few years ago where the netflix executive got fired for saying the n-word in a meeting where they were talking specifically

about the n-word in the context of content content that they were going to be releasing do i think that guy meant to say the n-word to hurt black people no i do not i don't know him right but there was no intent on that in all likelihood it was probably careless to say it but it's also when you're in a two-hour meeting where you are discussing it i think i'm so trained in my head to not fucking go there at all i probably wouldn't but i could see someone who's a perfectly good individual who's like trying to discuss the nature of this going there i mean shit we have movies where actors we know have to say it because they're playing in the civil war south yeah do i think they feel comfortable saying that am i gonna judge paul giamatti because i heard him say that

word a million times in 12 years a slave no i No, I'm not. There's a context to stuff. So, in our society, even though we can have these conversations, I have no doubt that people can pick apart things I've said and things my guests have said, where if you take a 15-second highlight and you just play that for people who don't know who they are, oh, you're going to think we're monsters. You're going to think we're total monsters. So, I don't think that's the ultimate, like, it's a good thing some of it's happening and i'm glad that i can be a part of it here and add to it and i don't run away from it and i'm kind of fatalistic about that so we'll see how that works out but yeah you know i don't think it's solving problems yet because we still have a

majority of society who wants to say what's the five second bite oh that's what it is cancel exactly and exactly what you said we're not getting the solutions because we're cutting off the conversation completely um and also too in your this is just an attribute to yourself a reason why you're able to do is because you know yourself as you said you took time to know you but for the viewers who are just getting to know you, these types of conversations aren't all on videotape. Like we've been having conversations about this since 2011, fall 2011 when we first met. And this has always been you. So you're doing your thing.

And it's just you know yourself, which is why you're thriving at it now. And that's how you know how to have a foundation. You know how to have your foot in the ground and not hear certain punch lines and jump on a you know riffraff on thank you how wrong or bad someone is yes and you actually kind of taught me that i remember us having a conversation about the the infamous candace owens and you know the the cancel culture i mean not i think it's for the viewers that know the cancel culture when it comes to that, especially if you're someone who's leaning left or liberal. But, you know, after having a conversation with you, not that you're a believer and a follower of her, but you gave light as into you should listen to the full conversations instead of the TikTok or punchlines that, you know, people put out there, the taglines. I feel like because of the fact that she's a TV personality, she's not the best example

because there are purpose punchlines that she puts in her content. But I was also just taking in the content. I actually sat down and watched a few episodes just to hear what she had to say. So you went in her podcast? The Candace Owens show and literally sat down

And watched it. Can we talk about this? Sure. Okay. Are you cool talking about her? Yeah, okay Cuz I and I want to stay with your overall point But I don't want to get that lost in the shuffle because to be clear, I'm not a I'm not a fan of hers You know, I I don't like her but one of the things i've talked about with you off camera that fuck it let's do it on camera right now is that i have criticized her on this show maybe like two or three different times but i'm very light with it because and i think this is a good thing i do not i borrow my friend Terrence Jones line who said this perfectly on an early podcast we did

I do not want to attack her intellect she's a very smart woman and she happens to be a very smart black woman and some of the things she says are like yeah she's right about that my issue with her is that

she does exactly what forget black people for a second. She does exactly what people on the left want her to do. Yep, exactly. She goes far off the deep end with things and contradicts the fuck out of herself all the time just like people on the left do. This is my problem with the left and right. They contradict the fuck out of themselves because it's a constant circle. Political beliefs are constantly shifting from one side to the other and it happens in real time now because we get tweets that happen every day we get quick snippets from podcasts that happen and i think that she

crushes so many of the good things she says that aren't conservative or liberal like she says shit that lewis farrakhan says that i agree with yeah i'm not a fan of Louis Farrakhan either, right? But she kills some of those things that she could be doing to set an example for not just her community. Forget just the black community. Don't make it about that. Make it about like all people, right? But yes, absolutely within her own community as well. And she gives the fuel to the fire to the worst of the white leftists to be able to shut her down yes exactly do you do you agree somewhat with that not at all like oh yeah it's it's sitting there and watching her

episodes were not easy at all like and like i said because she is a personality i feel like there's an incentive for her to do those punchline buzz like triggering statements that she does say um but like you like something that you mentioned is that some of her ideas are legitimate and it's more so about the goal in mind that she has in mind and less so about how she thinks we should get there um but like you mentioned like her relationship with like killer mike they disagree on a lot of things but they have some common ground in some other areas I love Killer Mike by the way and I don't agree with him on everything but he's great

but he's someone that will always keep it real and says how he feels and I feel like I feel like people need to get comfortable with just feeling a little uncomfortable acknowledge that someone's going to disagree from what you believe, and that is okay. And sometimes, and you were talking about intent for a little bit, sometimes you want to believe everyone doesn't have the wrong intent.

Some people do have the wrong intent. Some people don't know. Some people have an outcome that comes completely opposite to what their intent was yes and they backtrack like oh okay that's where i see like that went wrong um but in the case with like candace i feel like because she's a personality her intent is sometimes to just aggravate and push the you know to get the viewers it's all about the views all about the clicks and all about the clickbait um but i actually learned a lot and i actually like you know learned and actually to get off her like i just looked more about i never really even i don't have a lot of

i don't i can't name one just this black conservative friend like you know i come from you know south bronx new york like most of my circle we come from the same i don't have the same ideas and viewpoints because we have the same upbringing sure but i do not have a lot of like black conservative friends at all and it's like maybe start having those conversations why not and it's not about oh let me see where we can i can dissect your argument and let me prove you wrong it's not about that at all it's like let me hear your side of the story let me hear your side of the story. Let me hear your side of the take.

What are the stats? And also too, like one thing that you will see too, I feel like when you watch CNN or when you watch Fox or when you watch left, right media feed, we have two completely different sets of data. Data? Data? You want to call it that? Yeah. Yeah, I don't think I sets of data. Data? Data? You want to call it that?

Yeah. I don't think I see much data. Someone's numbers are just completely different from someone else's numbers. And it's like, how can we even have a conversation if the story that we're getting is completely different? Yes. So it's like, one, what is the data we should be following?

Great question. And two, and that goes into like, how do we get to the solution but that's why i want to have solution-based questions because it's not about bashing it's not about proving you wrong it's about how do we get to where we want to go which like i said earlier like as a good human i feel like we are aligned on where we want to go you know what the problem is though you know what gets the clicks yeah exactly yes opposite or opposite. So like before I say this, because people, here's a prime example of someone that's going to take something out of context. You will see all the time, whenever someone doesn't like a black woman's opinion, the stereotype goes right to like angry black woman.

Candace Owens, not as a black woman, is very angry in how she speaks. So is Ben Shapiro. So are the Pod Save America guys. So is Steven Crowder. So is Ben Shapiro. So are the Pod Save America guys. So is Steven Crowder. So is all these other examples. My point is people who are very far on one side or the other, and Candace Owens is very far on the right side, right? Whether you have someone far on the left, far on the right, they speak in constant anger. Now, should you be angry sometimes? You're goddamn right you should. I get angry on this show. We have some episodes that are more angry

than anything about the state of society, very often at those two fucking sides but like there's flows to it we have fun here too we laugh we this is a very serious episode we're doing right now because we're having a serious conversation but like i'll have fucking mike speer in here yeah i'll have geo caridonis in here we'll have a great fucking time exactly you know and even like geo geo's mad at the world about some shit but it's like it's light it's not like exactly you know we're all we're all fucking dying out there that kind of thing these people in these politicized ends including her and i just include her in it like every other person they come at it from such a viscerally pissed off mood all the time that they they're constantly looking for a battle they're looking for something to destroy it's not

like what's all the videos you see like online but like ben shapiro it's like destroying libs it's literally what they're called you know like let me destroy a limb on a video like how many fucking times are you gonna watch that and then think that that's supposed to be the norm i'm not you know sometimes like i'm sure he makes great arguments and whatever, but it's just constant just being like pissed off. Yeah. You know? Exactly. I don't like that.

I don't care what color or gender you are. I don't like that. And so I'm going to, just like I call out other people who are not black women, I'm going to call out Candace on that because in my opinion, that's what she feeds off of. Yes. my opinion that's what she feeds off of yes and like i also want to acknowledge too because i feel like the your other examples were also male too i want to acknowledge that there's also the angry woman i feel like it's a statement and the angry black man is also a statement so i'm saying black women are the just the double negative she's black and she's a woman if you see a woman that's

coming out speaking up no but it's it is no no i know what you mean you have the you have the you're battling discrimination against women you're battling discrimination but it's being black so there is a double negative there so it's like even in general if you see an angry woman you know just yelling and stuff like that oh she's not ladylike well that's not how you know she carry herself and there's just that stigma and you know and if you're african-american you're black and you're just you know you're just mad at what's going on right now why is he so angry he's just upset he doesn't know how to control his emotions so if you're a black woman you're automatically given that double negative huge double standard yeah yeah exactly it's a huge double standard exactly

and i think we should scrap that. But it definitely feeds into the narrative of that angry black woman scenario. And that's because they do have the double negative. I like, though, how this came up, what you were saying, that you just were going to look for other opinions. That's fucking awesome. Yeah. I do that all the time, right? And I can pretty much find that anywhere you are finding it in new places because i guess like you were telling me

earlier today when we were driving over here that like you weren't a big podcast guy until a year or two ago yeah something like that for sure and like you know you're giving a lot more access to i mean just one the amount of podcasts that are out there now are just like they're exploding. And people are listening. And also, too, it's just for me, it's I like to learn. Like we've always had conversations about different, you know, beliefs, different backgrounds. And we've, you know, agreed on a lot of things and we disagreed on a lot of things. But I feel like having that, those types of conversations is just so important to someone's, you know, that's how to solutions you know we need to be able to have the conversations we need to be comfortable with disagreeing with each other we need to be comfortable with you know being wrong um yes the great the legendary nick girl said we it's okay to change your mind i believe he said in the

podcast it's okay to change your mind i mean it's okay to backtrack on what you said previously like we just need to learn you know um and i feel like you i feel like personally seeking other perspectives than your own is very important even me as a as a minority doesn't mean because i'm a black man i know all there is to be about being a minority and i know i have all the answers and i'm gonna stay in my little bubble and i'm right you're wrong you're racist and that's it like You're wrong. You're racist. And that's it. Like, that's just not,

that's not, that's, that's not going to be a solution to anything. So it takes those conversations and it takes conversations amongst black people because that's, it's not a monolithic experience either. Like I said, like a lot of conservative, there are a lot,

there are a good, a number of conservative black people out there. I don't have them personally as friends, but like I should seek their opinions on things. I want to look for it. I want to look for all of it just to see where they're coming from. I think that – and this is not the phrase I want to use because it has the wrong connotation. as someone who does not like that monolithic system of the two parties and the two schools of thought and therefore does not think just because one thing's not working the other thing

should be i do think though that the like having black conservatives including candace owens is a very necessary evil because to me you know an example that's come up in some of the conversations on this show is when you see the art the consistent argument from republicans they're like well you've been voting democrat for 70 years and it's not working you're still in a bad spot they're right but i hate the argument because the argument is so you might as well try something else just vote for us well they've never really given a fuck by and large maybe some of them have but like most of them haven't and i also hate saying this line it's an awful thing to say but it's true you have to say it at least the democrats take the time to go pander yeah to people in

urban communities the republicans just go out figure it could be lying straight to your face they could take the time but they take the time it's like an evil thing to say, but it's true. No, for sure. So I look at this and I go, well, prime example of not having a solution on either side. But if we're going to get a healthy discourse going, you need to at least inject – like if you have all one polarization within a given context or community or tribe, whatever it is, you need to inject the other side just to like get the opportunity for people in the middle of of the pile to come in and that's one thing i noticed in this last election i don't have numbers for you i don't even know if these numbers would be reliable if they even exist but there were a lot of black people who didn't go vote for trump because they're like, well, fuck this, right? Like they're not going to go there, but they didn't go vote for Biden. They said, fuck it.

No. And I respected the hell out of that. And I think a lot of that started from conversations from black conservatives who voted with both hands for Trump. You know, again, like they're, they're allowed to do that. Just like you're allowed to vote for Biden with both hands, but there, there seems to be in the black community as well some of the same things I'm seeing in other communities, like just larger communities where I don't define it by race or whatever. Just like in this country where there are people like me who maybe have even been on both sides. Like me. I think there are plenty of people like that. But people who maybe have never been on one or the other and are saying yo fuck this i'm done with these choices right now

because what i'm seeing is this world of all these complex issues and two parties who are just two ideologies who are going so farther and farther and farther apart on every single issue these are millions of issues you know when someone when someone votes on their one or two things that are actually important to them respect that yeah but like it's also think about all the other things you're technically voting for when you do that yeah and then it's viewed as an endorsement when you do do i think that everyone that voted for trump or everyone that voted for biden should their vote if they're honest about it and say like i voted for so-and-so should be considered an endorsement no i do not that's ridiculous but that's

what we do in society for sure that's what we do yeah and any like-minded person is not going to be a hundred percent one candidate or like on policy wise and a hundred percent on another can is this just no way if you're if you're actually paying attention there's just no way and you're actually like thinking about it on a deeper level like look at you know their ideas on taxes their ideas on labor their ideas on immigration like I feel like look at, you know, their ideas on taxes, their ideas on labor, their ideas on immigration. Like I feel like somewhere you're going to find, all right,

maybe I agree with this side more than this side. It's, I just feel like it's, it's, it's normal, but I feel like as a solution, one, we need to be after,

I feel like we elect our, you know, politicians we want to lead and then we don't hold them accountable. We don't hold them accountable. And I think we're just glad that we got the lesser of the two evils in the office, and we call it a day, and job well done, and I'll see you four years later from now. Couldn't agree more with that, man. And if you're paying attention, and I agree just as much with you, you just look at these two different sides, and it's just like, neither one are the solution. And like people things to be taken care of were they taken care of no why are you not holding them accountable in the next election or even in your local collection your local election reflect is

even the most important if you want a direct effect to your community too um but yeah we need to hold our politicians accountable completely and you can be able to say that there is significant negative even more positive exists yeah i mean i don't get a lot of heat for this one but fuck it we'll go there um when i look at the presidents since jimmy carter let's say and you asked me who i think the most effective president was from an overall society monolithically, right? Just every human being where things were going. The answer is Bill Clinton to me. And yet I will then say also as well that, A, Bill Clinton is not a good guy, number one.

Like appears to be a very very bad guy yeah number though i do laugh at some of the stuff i'll admit like he's fucking guys a goddamn hound anyway he's not a good guy and he also authored the 94 crime bill which was incredibly damaging that buck i think started long before he was there though doesn't excuse that he also by the way repealed glass steagle which was the precursor that set up what would be the housing crisis do i think he could have foreseen that possibly do i think that he did that knowing that that was going to happen absolutely not do i think that we can blame the whole thing on him because of that no i do not a lot of other things happen after that but you know these are

these are truths these are things that i'm not even talking about the fucking blow job i don't care about that you know like it's whatever you know but that's think about that bar that's a low bar because our bar is also our expectations of getting everything we want on an individual level from our politicians is also so high and yes i think there's all kinds of trades and evils that happen but i've been thinking recently about the show that the west wing did you ever watch that the west so throwback but that was back when aaron sorkin was still on blow and and a great writer sorry sorry yeah he's still a great writer but when he I shouldn't say that but he was fucking great when he's on blow but he created this idealistic White House yep cynically sadly

it can't exist like that but I remember a scene I think it was in the first season where the president played by Martin Sheen Jed Bartlett was at some little press conference in the white house and he was being asked by i think someone in the press corps or something who was not media or something like that somebody who he was friends with who had supported his election who he now fucked with a recent bill and it was on nbc so they couldn't say fucked but he answered the question he was being it was a gotcha question goes what do you have to say to the people who you told that you would never let blank and I read a quote from your campaign you would never let happen and now you just signed a bill that allows people to do and he looked down and he nodded his

head and he looked back up and he'd say I'd say I screwed you and I remember watching that I'm like oh wow this is a great scene and he goes I screwed you it's true i can't get around that yeah and if you're not going to vote for me because of that i fully support that and respect that because i screwed you yeah he said when you get into this job you made a lot of promises that maybe you didn't think of and i'm paraphrasing people these aren't the exact words but this was his message that maybe you didn't think of when you were on the campaign trail and saying you were going to do all these goddamn different things that maybe some of them are going to fly in the face of each other and you're going to have to make hard decisions but at the end of the day if you still promised it and you screwed

somebody on it you cannot ever say that they don't have a reason to not support you afterwards for sure and so i did screw you and here's why because i think that the things we gained from this bill are promises i made number one and things that actually on my list of importance are higher and that's why i made the decision for sure and it's like imagine a politician saying that in real life they never would and yet i think it could play well would they get taken out of context on social media like crazy fuck yes but do i think a lot of people who support them will put it into context yeah yeah respect the honesty and it's like where can we get that these days I I don't know that's how I live my life but I'm not a politician and I don't like saying never I never want to be one it is no interest oh it is the worst of the worst but like that's a that

is a utopian idea to me sadly but i wish we could have that type of bluntness in our discourse and i think the closest thing we come is to having content like this conversations from normal joes like this yeah and i have a question for you will we ever have do you one with the current system in, could we ever have a fully effective president? One, could they do it in four years? No. Two, because I feel like we've seen it between the recent Trump administration and Obama administration. A lot of the first things were just undoing yes the other person's past four years i think in

different ways they both walked into a bad situation obama worse to be honest so i just feel like even if let's say we had the ideal candidate right got voted in can they can they give us what we want could they do it in eight years everything no yeah a lot yes that it does make me think of obama a lot though because obama inherited the worst deck that any president had inherited since fdr he had a destroyed economy endless wars that were bullshit that we got into a totally fucked up just everything was fucked up and i have a lot of empathy for some of the campaign promises that he broke and empathy is a strong word i have an understanding of some of the ones that he broke and the most extreme one that causes a visceral reaction a lot of people is like the wars and the drone usage and stuff like that things he said he was going to stop i've talked about that at length in a couple podcasts i think that is a lot harder to understand

especially given what he walked into and everything that was going on and the fact that let's be honest he was a domestic guy he was very green foreign policy this was a junior senator from chicago you know he was not focused on middle east policy much before he got into office so to get off that i look at obama as an example of the context you were bringing up about effectiveness because you know i liked him i was a fan that was during my era when i was on the left and the era that came after fan that was during my era when i was on the left and the era that came after being on the left was one where i was on the right which coincided with when trump was coming up and i was like a big trumper yep i was very disappointed in obama's

second term i thought his first term when people were like oh he didn't have a good one and he may blow it and i don't know he's going to win reelection first of all he was running against mitt romney who was like a human stick yeah so i was pretty sure he was going to win and he did easily and then mitt romney did like the 47 of america thing and it was over but secondly i thought like there was a lot of kick in the can down the curb with some policies in the first administration but i also was like he did a lot of what he had to do you know like look at that financial crisis he walked into like he did a lot i forgave him for like hiring all the bankers to be on his goddamn cabinet which now i have a different feel about but at the time i was like yeah there's a huge i don't know there but also like who the hell is going to understand the system to be able to help out?

Like it's like deal with the devil kind of thing. For sure. The second term though is where your question about can they be effective in eight years makes me even hesitate there. Because you remember when he was caught on a hot mic, I think saying to Putin, or no, no, no. It was one of putin's key guys they were on a stage and he leaned over to him on a hot mic right before the 2012 election and he said you know tell putin if i win the election here i'm gonna get i'm gonna have a lot more leeway you know room to do things or whatever which cynically he's right unfortunately you're playing to win the

election it's sad but that's how our system works it's how every fucking politician is trump included and you know the idea is that then he's going to act on that and he didn't act on that and he apologized for america around the world which is something that that I can never fully get behind that. And he also, you know, one of the things that Trump did very well when he came into office is ISIS was no more. You know, Obama took a very backseat to that. And so there were certain things stuck out more for me. And then I use those visceral examples to now look at it from the context I have, which is probably wouldn't vote for him again wouldn't vote for trump again and so i'm kind of like cynical above all of them and i'll

say that he missed a lot of chances and he missed a lot of chances because there was too much cover your ass and too many trying to get a legacy through rather than the policy that's good for the whole there was too much of not willing to say i screwed you to people instead screwing people by passivity not doing anything and then saying like i didn't do anything to screw you i have an issue with that and you know it's not a personal attack it's an attack on the political system in my opinion there but i would like to be able to say as i did yes it's possible that you could affect some sort of change or get the gears going in eight years. I think you can. In the current system that we have, that we've had for a long time, I don't know that you can.

It will take the system you talked about changing, in my opinion, for that to become a reality. Yep. And then also, too, you have not only you know the on the presidential level but you also have like the house and the senate level where like even if the president wants to do something he needs to we have checks and balances for a reason but at the same time it's our system right now is very counterproductive yes and and people were yelling at pelosi and schumer for going at Trump at every end. I disagreed with it too.

I thought they were ridiculous. But you can't yell at that if you supported McConnell doing it for eight years to Obama. Yeah. Because it was the same thing. Exactly. Now, let me ask you this. Sure. What about if that system is not there though and any president obama trump

clinton bush bush could do whatever the they wanted to do this yeah how does that work exactly um you definitely need something i just that's where it gets messy because checks and balances were put in place for a reason. Maybe we need a third. I mean, I think political parties should just be over and done with, to be honest with you. House and Senate can be there. But to have a majority left House, majority right Senate, that's where it gets messy. It's because you're supporting the political side agenda rather than being the house and then being the senate i feel like we're like so i feel like the house is saying we're majority right

i want to do this this not right now but then you have the senate saying we're majority left i want to push this agenda and i just feel like the dual parties make it counterproductive but the house and the senate as an institution themselves aren't what's wrong. You need the checks and balances. I just feel like it's the left and the right that makes it counterproductive, if that makes sense. What do you think of terms and the fact that there's unlimited terms in Congress and Senate? I think that's BS. Yeah.

Completely. I mean, that's the reason why we look at pictures of our house and sit in and you see very no knock against old people, but you see very old people who've just been there all the time when new ideas aren't getting pushed into, which is what we need. New ideas, not the same old ideas. We need new ideas being pushed into the conversation and unlimited or 10-year or whatever you call it, it's BS. I think that's maybe the biggest problem we have because let's say we went extreme and I'd have to think this through. I don't know if this is the best way to do it, but let's just play with the hypothetical. Senate terms are six years. Let's make House terms six years too just in our hypothetical sure you're allowed to serve one term sure it's less than eight that the full president can get into elections but also more than four you said can i get it done in

four or eight let's split it halfway let's split the goalposts and say that every single person could serve one term six years and maybe you could serve in the house and then go to the senate if you win an election duly or the other way around but once you do one in each like once you do one in somewhere you can't be there again i think that would solve so many fucking problems because no one would be concerned about trying to win an election. You would still have the legacy concern. People are always concerned about what people think of them in the long term even if no one really gives a fuck. but you would lose that, oh, this donor needs this thing, and I'm going to need them in that next election. I need this group of people. It would take away so much of identity politics because once people are in there,

they'd be making calls based on what they see. More, trust me, there'd still be some shit. Yeah. You and I know that. Humans are fallible. For sure. But I think that's the word. But there would be so much more control

in my opinion and i'll accompany that idea with no private funding of campaigns what do you mean by that so like if you're a big oil industry or you're you know i'm not saying banish it, but there should be a cap on the amount that you can contribute. There technically is now. There technically is now. But they get around it. Yes. So I feel like there should just be more of a strict maybe regulation on how much money a particular industry or company can contribute to a campaign because obviously obviously as you said earlier follow the money that might have been the most disappointing thing about trump man yeah of

all the disappointing things because he did have regardless like people can argue about some of his policies when he was coming in that they hate and that's fine like he had plenty of things that were certainly polarizing immigration just being one example but one thing he did have going for him that as an american if you could and most people couldn't but if you could step back and be like okay well i got a route for him to do well right now one thing he had going for him was he was an outsider right and at the end in the back end the hillary portion of the campaign let's say like after june 2016 he was funding outside of his own self-funding right he was taking money but there was a cap on it because he hadn't been doing it all the way through and then when he did early on in his presidency he did say fuck you to a couple donors who then came in to cash in their shit right he

stopped doing that though then he took all money his entire second campaign was funded by other people yep you know I'm like he's this billionaire or whatever and like I understand it's you know you're fighting against a war chest so you can't totally sell fun but like that's the fallacy there because there were decisions in that administration that were made based on pre-existing beliefs that were going to lose him support one that went under the rug that was brilliantly exposed recently in a documentary was the saudi arabia policy did you see this documentary the dissident no it's fucking incredible the dissident yeah have you ever seen the documentary icarus on netflix about the russian doping no it's on netflix oh my god dude you gotta watch that yeah you will love that it was this guy brian fogel i think that's his name

wanted to do a documentary like four years ago five years ago about how easy it is to get around drug testing and cycling because he's a fan of cycling good amateur cyclist himself so he wanted to compete in a major amateur cycling race that has stringent drug testing like the pros and he wanted to document himself taking every drug imaginable for like six months competing and not getting caught to expose the whole thing genius right so he starts to work with a doctor who he gets hooked up with a russian doctor who runs the it's like called the i forget the term on it but it's it's basically like the anti-doping agency in russia yeah they're supposed to be

catching people right and you remember how russia was later banned from the Olympics? It was because of this documentary. He soon – the guy he got in touch with was a brilliant doctor, nicest guy ever. Almost – I don't want to say this the wrong way, but almost like a Borat stereotype though. Like, hello, Brian. How are you? Like literally like that, but brilliant guy. And so one day they would talk on Skype all the time and he would help him with the masking agents and how to take the drugs, whatever. So one day he goes, Brian, my life is in danger.

And Brian Fogle's like, what the fuck? And he goes, I can explain later. I must get out of country. Can you get me to America? And so like they get him to America and the documentary turns into something entirely new because he exposes the fact that not only is he not the anti-doping guy as he's listed he's the guy helping them all hide it they were doping everyone except the figure skaters which they thought wasn't beneficial they determined over time it didn't help them so they were doping everyone else and they exposed this whole thing but that guy his next documentary he did

brian fogel after doing that one which won the oscar and has been viewed i think like 800 million times or something on netflix it's like one of the most popular things ever done there he made a documentary called the dissident and it was about jamal khashoggi's killing he was the reporter who was killed in the turkish embassy who worked for the Washington Post, and it was shady, and it was determined the Saudi government ordered it. And so what he talked about was the fact that he – among the things he uncovered was that the Trump administration completely covered for Mohammed bin Salman, who's the crown prince who ordered this and they believe was on the video screen in the in the Saudi consulate in Turkey watching Jamal Khashoggi get murdered I don't think they have officially confirmed that that's one thing they but they've confirmed they have the transcripts recordings they killed him yeah it was on his orders Trump covered for him because a Trump is very strong on Israel, right? And Bin Salman has been very good for Israel. He leads Saudi Arabia, right? Country around there. Israel has a lot of nut friends in that, and I also kind of think that too. So this guy's a jerk off, but we're going to cover for the fact that he's murdering a media member in broad fucking daylight on another country's soil.

Yeah. And it's just going to be cool. And it just goes to show you that even a guy like Trump who was supposed to be an outsider became the same thing. Exactly. But yeah, I definitely think we need new blood in the in the political realm um we need new voices we need younger voices more diverse voices um no testing as the right type of minority for our conversation earlier but you just need it in there you need more conversations you need more disagreements and you need more debates but I mean do you believe

we want to get there in this lifetime remember I'm a cynic dude I have these not only should be non-believers but I have these conversations to help so many levels to it there's so many things as I get older I realize how uncomplicated we actually are yeah we're we're so weird as humans we are simultaneously the most complicated wild things ever and also the simplest beings of sticking to the same patterns over and over again of all time yeah and i i look at how people are you know like my friend john ron d has a great his dad has a great line where he says there's many people are just pretending to be busy something you learn as you get older so true i also have heard an old quote that i don't know if it was jim carrey i saw it attributed to him on social media years ago and

i think about it all the time he said the older i get the more and more i realize just how much people pretend how little they actually know other outside of the one thing that they happen to know if they're like good at something yeah and so when you have people who have the same only 24 hours in a day we haven't invented new hours yet you know maybe we'll get there and so we've still got to sleep six or seven of them still have to pay bills eight yeah whatever well you're healthy hey eight sleep you heard that one so anyway side note but which i gotta get you one of those you'll love that but shout out horo shout out horo baby great company anyway you know people

have lives they have priorities they have things to do There's only so much they can worry about they may be able to talk about something that's popular to complain about because they hear About it a little bit on social media But how much are they actually gonna spend the time to dedicate three hours a day to changing? Yeah, are you and I gonna do that actually, you know, this is the most I do with it Which is a lot better than 99.99% of society not to toot my own horn But like this is also the career I'm doing. Exactly.

This is how I'm going to pay the bills. Yeah. We're working on that still. But this is how I'm going to pay the bills. Yeah. Whereas other people, they have another thing that they're doing. I mean, you do too. Mm-hmm.

It's like – so I don't know, man, but I want to go to the follow the money thing because we haven't gone all the way there, but that's what it is. These people that have these multiple terms in Congress, they're owned by people. But who are those people owned by or who are they also owned by? Foreign interests? Yeah, I think so. For sure. And also, too, I feel like I think Terrence Jones, that is in his episode, it's like, I also can't tell you what to be passionate about either. That was a great line.

You know, so like, obviously race will be important to me because I can't run away from that. I'm dressed with it every day of my life when I wake up. So obviously that's going to be important to me. with the 2016 election the whole you know trump thing it was there were just certain things i just couldn't ignore when going out to the polls yes like there was just certain things about the candidates little distrust for both but one was a little bit lesser of the two evils as we put before but this i mean let's just say there was one that was just you know more i guess more out there about it than the other or more or the stories about him were more out there and more known but there's just certain things that you know when people go

to the booths it's that was another thing i was i've talked about as of late is how do we feel about people simply not voting? And do I think voting should be mandatory? Not necessarily. not necessarily one i think voter registration should be a lot better in terms of the way we get people registered to vote can be a lot smoother voter suppression is alive and well systems that we need to deteriorate do you care if we sidebar real quick i want to ask you about that sure if that's okay i'm sorry to get you off your point but i think that's a more important point for the moment that i want your opinion on i am not too educated i shouldn't say i can be more educated on it but i don't want to say not too educated i am far from an expert on how all this voter id stuff works however while i think

that some of the people who are fighting for like the id are definitely doing it for predatory reasons certainly an aspect of that it doesn't mean that the overall group that's fighting for them is wrong in my opinion i look at it for example and i say if someone doesn't have a fucking identification how the fuck do we know that they're a citizen i understand that that could affect more communities but i look at it as – it's another example of trying to paint a broad picture and say all black people and all Latino people are poor. And therefore, they can't go to the fucking – they can't get their own ID because they're not capable of it, so we need to make sure they can vote without an ID. That's the connotation I take from that. What's your thought there? Well, it's not saying that all black and all Latino people are poor and can't get to the booth.

It's one of those lower income communities. We're not giving them access to – let's talk about just transportation to get to the voting booths as one thing. Not everyone owns a car. And not every town has public transportation to get to the voting booths as one thing not allowed and everyone owns a car and you know not every town has public transportation to get to the booths so i feel like there should be more access in terms of transportation there should be more access in terms of i'm not saying you shouldn't have an id but i just feel like in order to get i feel like it's easier to pay your taxes nowadays than it is to register to be a voter that might be true yeah yeah i think i agree with that it's yeah and there's no reason why it should be you know if i'm going to pay this

country i feel like i should be easy for me to also say who should run where the money goes that i'm paying every year so and is your access to tech to taxes? Yes. I'm saying like it's more – it's easier for you to pay your taxes and find a way to just get your taxes done than it is to like go out and register to vote and get voting done, I feel like. And I just feel like – Slightly, yeah. No, I'm just processing it again because I agreed at first and I think I still agree, yeah. But I just feel like – so I don't want to sit here and say like, oh, I think voting should be mandatory because I feel like it's just not and it's going to hurt more people

than it does help people and help votes. I feel like if you're a taxpayer, there should be some obligation of you to make a choice and one of your choices can be neither but you casted a vote because i feel like we get a bigger we get more of a picture of do people are people not showing up or do people don't believe in the leaders that we're putting as candidates i I feel like that gives us a better picture. Because if you're showing up and you're saying, you know what, fuck both of these people, fine.

But you casted your vote and you're saying, fuck both of these people. Which can also cause a messy thing because then you get a lot of in-between people and then you can get a lot of, hey, let's just fuck up the vote and just all put fucking middle middle ground but then I think that should that can also push for reform within the system you would need that in mass movement yeah

like I knew going into this year that like one of those two was winning yeah exactly and you know I could be talking crazy right now but I just think that there's you need to there needs to be reform and I just feel like we need to do a little bit rethinking of how we're casting votes and one getting people registered to vote and just letting people every allowing us access for people for everyone to cast their opinion and i just feel like maybe an opinion is fucked up both of these people could be could be how do you get your voice heard

though if it's not a mass movement like the closest that ever happened was Ross Perot in 92 I guess where Clinton won the election probably because of Ross but Ross had I don't know what the percentage was but he got double digit percentage points in that election.

That was wild, right? That was where I think some people's voices were heard and then later they were drowned the fuck out. But you would need that sustained. And I knew going into this year that was not a possibility. This was a very, for a lot of people, even if they didn't like them, both of them, they felt a really strong way about one or the other as far as how much they hated them. So they were going to make it a binary choice. So like for me, going in and casting third party was a waste of somebody who was going to have to count my fucking ballot. And I want to get back to the overall point you were making because I took that sidebar.

So let's do that because I'll get lost on trying to explain another level to that with the voting thing I don't think it's important right now but we can come back to it if you want but the full point you were making about like the access to voting and then going on like did you end up landing that I'm not even sure I did and then also too I don't know if you remember I forgot where it was but um what was the last um city that was counting their votes for like the recount remember we did the full recount it was like georgia somewhere georgia atlanta maybe i don't know and then like there was like protests outside the voting booth to prevent and like scare people off oh stop stop stop the count yeah stop

the count like you had that movement. But there's people who are scared to come out. I mean, that type of voter and that fear of voter suppression, that's been around since KKK. We're like, you're not going to even cast a vote because we're going to burn your house down if you even try to. And I think, you know, trust me, like fear-based, you know, how do I say it? Terrorism is still alive and well in its own ways and i feel like people surrounding where you go vote to protest and threaten you is one of its

difference between protests and threatening that was critical because there was a lot of threatening exactly they were just standing there with signs nicely peacefully okay but that it went beyond that and even it was a few people same reason you know once that started with all the protests after george floyd i'm like yo fuck this because you had enough bad actors come in didn't matter if there were a lot of good people there and it was just bullshit after a while and you saw it in cities like portland and stuff like that the full circle of this is that it works both ways on things, though. So I think in context, I will say this confidently, Biden won that election, hands down. And he won it by a nice margin.

And I think he won it because people really fucking hate Trump, right? Enough people really fucking hate Trump. A lot of people love him, but enough people fucking hate him that they showed up and they voted they voted him out it does not change the fact though that there was some clear and fuckery going on there it was obvious and i think i will say very confidently that now it's very clear there was not nearly enough to change the result. Not even close. Yep. But the hiding of it that occurred was fucking calculated, man. The media suddenly coming out and saying, writing out editorials and adding on TV how voter fraud does not exist.

It exists in every election in both directions no matter what. Even if two people do it, it exists. And they're like, fraud does not exist. It exists in every election in both directions, no matter what, even if two people do it, it exists. And they're like, it doesn't exist. It doesn't happen. They were gaslighting the fuck out of people. And then, you know, they just kind of, they declared him president and made this whole thing and they knew what Trump was going to do. I mean, it was genius. Trump doesn't know how to fucking lose. And so he made a whole thing of it and he dug his own fucking grave. That's side issue i'm looking at it from the extent that they made it so weird that all they had to do was say oh we're just going to be transparent about it boom biden won but you had all these places that were fucking closing off the polling booths and maybe it was

because they were scared because people were outside fucking threatening them yeah i'll buy that i'll buy that yeah but there were enough fucking cops there protecting the issue going on that like and then it was being drawn attention to online that that was a problem and then the bigger problem came when the tech platforms were censoring it because that is a bridge we've crossed that is now beyond dangerous and has allowed for certain thought to be okay and other thought to not and while i agree with some of the thought that they're saying should not be okay i agree that it's like not they've already gone past the lines yeah it's a slippery slope man so like selfishly do i like not having q anon fucking be out there telling me there's blockchain ballots

with a watermark on them yes i do i think that's great that that's I can't believe that was a fucking thing but like yes I think that's great the problem is where does it end exactly and that's something we have to find I mean that's a tough one I feel like I dug myself into a hole with voting. No, no, no, no. But I think it's one of those things with how we reformed this whole entire system. Your point should not be lost. Yeah, for sure. That you don't want to see voter suppression. Yeah. And like some of the people, as I said, advocating for it definitely are trying to do it.

Yeah. But there's a lot of people advocating for it who are not, who are simply like show a fucking id yeah you know i mean it happens dude and it happens they proved it there were republicans who cheated in this last election they proved a few cases at least in pennsylvania yeah you know i i think it i think it's a very very fair point but i mean do you because you looked at it and you're like, after the election, okay, Biden won. You probably weren't like excited it was Biden, but you're like, okay, I voted for Biden, really didn't like Trump. This is a net gain for America, some relief here or whatever. And now, you know, we'll hold him accountable or whatever, which is great but did you look at that and then also look at what was going on online

and question that a little bit and be like this is a little concerning because one day it could be me one what what can be me censored yeah um i mean you were right like i voted for Biden, but obviously I wasn't gong ho. Unfortunately, I would love an election where I'm not choosing the lesser of the two evils. That whole Biden thing when he got on the morning show and he's like, you're not black if you don't vote for me. And it's like, all right, come on, man. You can't. If that's what your mindset is, you're not for us at all. that was with charlamagne the guy yes I believe it's the

morning show breakfast Club or whatever shout out to him for keeping a straight face after that um very bad but um I would love an election where we're not choosing the lesser of the two evils but also to and censorship is it's one of those things where it's like there's a line that needs to be drawn because it's like you don't want to promote we both agree that violence is nothing you should never promote but at the same time yeah censorship is very touchy it's very touchy um I mean, we touched it earlier. Yeah. A little bit, and then we got off it. But I'll repeat my overall, just like tagline there, like, I will fight for your right to say what I hate that you fucking say.

Yeah, yeah. You know? And there's also a clear line between people who are – like now we talk about – we label everything as hate speech and try to put it in that category of we, the internet. Certain people on the internet label everything that and try to put it in that category of dangerous, anti-safe talk. And it's causing harm. So they try to put it in the category of this isn't free speech. They're trying to murder me. And it's like, no, when someone tweets out that like, hey, I see some evidence that this thing happened right here,

and I'm not really sure why that is, but we need to look into it. They're not trying to murder you. They're trying to start a conversation, even if they're wrong. Yeah. Exactly. And that's what gets back to our point. It's just like we need to get comfortable with being uncomfortable, and that comes with the censorship. We need as, as i mean who's in charge of social media platforms the tech platforms like certain things should be able to be said i mean i think one of the biggest things

i think people are starting to talk more about it but the censorship of comedians. You know? Like who, I mean, you mentioned Kramer earlier, but Well, that was fair. But definitely when you talk about your Dave Chappelle's, your Louis CK's, your you know, Bill Burr, I think he does

it so well. I love Bill Burr. But there are a lot of people out there and they're just like whoa like shut that down and it's like i think comedians should be able to say what they feel obviously i would make the joke but obviously delivery is all you know one thing um and also what you're promoting like hopefully your joke isn't promoting violence or you know one thing um and also what you're promoting like hopefully like your joke isn't promoting violence or you know stereotypes and it gets yeah it gets messy but i do i do feel like comedians should say what they want yeah the the comedian thing is really interesting to me

because the whole point of a comedian is to draw complete, and it's beyond this, but like complete satire to society. They are supposed to attack and offend. It's what it is. I mean, you mentioned Dave Chappelle, but you remember his special? Yeah. Like in 2019, I think it was. Remember how much shit that thing got? Oh, yes.

It was incredible though. Yes. And it's like he was attacking every single thing exactly and did you ever see the story he told about the transgender person he had in his audience yes okay can you tell people that story real quick i have to remember really this was this was he was talking after the special giving him like an interview about the special and it was the one where he realized he couldn't tell a joke like if he couldn't tell a joke in front of her yeah he couldn't tell a joke at all exactly

yeah yeah so i think it was like in a san francisco club small club he noticed that in the front row there was a transgender woman yeah and he had this whole act on like the alphabet people as he called him and whatever and he was like ah shit man yeah i can't tell this damn joke but motherfucker and and then he's like you know what if i can't tell it in front of her i shouldn't be able to tell it in front of anyone yeah the whole point is to poke fun at everything including like you don't no one's above reproach including myself yep so he told the jokes yeah and she laughed yes she enjoyed it yep you know and like you said it has to be it's it's a satire on reality and i feel like at certain things you know it's forcing a conversation in a light-hearted way you know

and you know even with the show um i remember you and Moose was talking about, you guys mentioned the show Black-ish. And it talked about race, you know, all the time in that show. But they put it in a comedic way where, hey, this is stuff that's actually happening, but, like, we can laugh about it. Like, did you ever watch, like, Black-ish? Not really. I brought it up as an example of the name of the show. He gave me context. It is one of those shows that are, yes, it's aimed at more of an African-American,

but I feel like everyone watches it because it's just a lighthearted show. But one of the things, so he plays a black guy at a marketing agency. He's one of the top head guys at the marketing agency. He has a couple of black co-workersworkers but he has mostly all white co-workers and you know sometimes you will hear like he'll sit down and he'll be like i don't know why black people are just like you know why are you always late like you like say it at the table and it's just like yes do we want to promote the stereotype that black people are late to things no but like we should be able to like laugh at it

and be like all right here's the ignorant white guy bringing up racial stuff at the table at work and here's the black guy has like sit there and take it but also be like but also you will see him like oh man like why are you late like in like you know call each other out stuff like that and it's like yes like don't promote that it's a true thing, but, like, just sit back, laugh, and it's just a show. And don't take it as fact in the Bible. And, you know, it's okay to laugh. And that's where, you know, we get into, like, you know, it gets messy in terms of, like, where you draw the line. But I feel like, especially in the house of, you know, comedy, I feel like it should be a free-for-all.

Well, like we said, as long as we're not promoting violence no i understand i understand of course of course and like a good example of satire with like violence even like where it's clearly satire you have to be a moron to not see it as like tim dillon i don't know if you've seen his i didn't see he's hysterical yeah like when he does his ads on his podcast like he has one called sheath undies and so he knows the guy who owns the company and so i forget the guy's name let's just call him like joe and he's like and to be clear you are not just buying this underwear because it's great underwear jo Joe is a war criminal. And like his producer is fucking crying next to him.

It's true. It's true. He was in Iraq. In Operation Iraqi Freedom. And he was at a hospital where an Iraqi woman gave birth to an Iraqi child. And he shot it. In the face. She thundies. use code tim at checkout like you're an idiot if you think he's serious it's so black comedy like crazy dark comedy it's fucking

hysterical listen to this fat guy go off about this sponsor who's a war criminal who's clearly not yeah you know i think he was like he later ate it like you know he didn't do that yeah but like people don't want to see comedy and stuff they want to see things that they get offended by that's where i draw the line yeah exactly i mean to be honest anybody if you if you look to if you go out into the world and you want to find ways to be offended you will find it hands down you will find it yeah um and it goes about how you carry something how you want to live your life if you want to look for that fine you will find it yeah um and it goes about how you carry something how you want to live your life if you want to look for that fine you will find it but that's not the point and it's not

we can't tell people to like not laugh and you know not just enjoy um it's yeah i love he's he's a he's a genius he's He's a genius. He's a genius. Rest in peace to Paul Mooney. Paul Mooney. Paul Mooney. He was on a lot of Dave Chappelle skits back on the Dave Chappelle show days. Did he just die? Yeah, recently.

Probably like a month ago now. But he's also known for saying a lot of racial things. So one of my favorite bits that he did on the Dave Chappelle show was he did movie reviews. And then he was like, you know what's dumb? Having a movie called The Last Samurai featuring Tom Cruise. And then he was like, I'm going to start a movie called The Last Black Man on Earth featuring Tom Hanks. And it's just stupid. And it's just like, but this context is so true. But it's also too, it's just like, race can be funny sometimes.

All that stuff. It's all those things that we tiptoe around nowadays. You can find jokes out of it. And also you find like how it just reiterates how sometimes hatred can be stupid yes and how sometimes racism can be very stupid owning it gets rid of it yeah exactly exactly um and I think you know guys like Dave Chappelle and all them I think they just did it really really well um I feel like Bill Bird does a great job um of his delivery like when he i love it because i'm i live in harlem right now but when he was talking about he had when he had a black

girlfriend who lived in harlem and he was taking the sixth train up and he was like after 110 street there's no more white people every street i walk down is named after african-american leaders civil rights leader yeah but it's so true you go up there it's like monolith king boulevard you know you have adam playton powell you have it but he just does it so well um it's okay and i don't know i feel like even sometimes you probably approach this too sometimes and it's like even when you have conversations about like race or judges like people are afraid to say black. They are. Just say black. Some of the conversations you and I used to have publicly, like back in the day,

I think about now, and now, as you can tell, I bring it. I do it here. It's whatever. People are going to judge me. It's already on camera. But black is not a negative word. Could be that. And the fact that you think it's a negative word shows more. Crazy. Exactly. It could be that. It could be something else but like before i ever did this podcast

until maybe a little bit before you know there were things that i would subconsciously internalize and not realize that like yo 10 years ago we would have talked about this no problem and now i'm stopping myself from talking about it yeah and it's like there might be a few things in there that could be positive i could see that like most of it it's like wait why are we giving power to things that weren't meant to have power exactly you know and that's why dave chapelle is such a genius too because he has no holds barred with stuff not at all and i i think he might be the goat at this point i know it's like you know Pryor and even like Eddie Murphy and some other guys

but like Dave Chappelle is the funniest motherfucker I've ever seen hands down he's incredible he doesn't give a shit not at all and I feel like we need that that mindset not to like not give a shit but it goes into what we were talking about earlier is like how

you just want to call out the buzzwords say you're racist you're wrong you're sexist you said this is wrong and just listen to what they're saying listen to the joke or whatever in the comedian's standpoint and you you'll find that you will find the common ground if you just listen to what they're trying to say i i actually want to bring this comedian point though full circle on another thing you said and this can be a good way to wrap up our convo today but you were talking about how you recently were saying people are looking to be offended and all that you'll find but but there was another point i'm trying to think where it was i knew where it was in my head a few minutes ago.

But you were talking and I just went with it. But what I wanted to get at was when you look online at these people who are looking to be offended. And you see them putting out their virtue signal tweets and whatever. Do you ever click their profiles? Not really. I'm not really like a social media good for you like person i mean obviously you're forced to pay attention to it but obviously but like i'm a firm believer i'm a firm believer i'm not a believer believer i'm a firm believer that when you want to be offended you you can find it. And I know, obviously, that racism is alive and well. I do not go on social media to find the next worst thing that happened today.

Can I find it? Yes. Should I be knowledgeable about shit that's going down? I mean, yes. I mean, I'm in it. And even for issues that are not my own, I should be paying attention to all the other issues that are going on in this country right now, the world. But I do not spend my day looking for the worst headlines and go deep diving throughout my day. Yes.

No. Which is great. There's a difference between staying informed and taking yourself down a rabbit hole. Yes. And I feel like people take themselves down the rabbit hole to the point where they miss out on what's actually happening or they miss out on how can we find a solution to this issue. You just reminded me. You reminded me of the thing why I was bringing that up full circle.

It had to do with the problems in this country and how they're common to a lot of people. So when I was saying do you click their profiles, obviously you don't do that as much good for you i click them and when i see these people shutting down and canceling people online and i see how angry their tweets are or their instagram stories or whatever i click their profiles and i'll look through and i'll whether it's on twitter and i read their other stuff or see pictures of them as well click their profiles and I'll look through and I'll, whether it's on Twitter and I read their other stuff or see pictures of them as well, click their profile picture. They're miserable.

They look beat up usually. Maybe they're 25, but they look like they're 35. They got pink colored hair and I'm painting generalization stereotypes right now. This isn't everyone like that. But at the very least, if they don't have a different color hair they look fucking miserable they're not smiling at the goddamn camera they are upset and when you look at them i'll go dig deeper sometimes and i'll try to find them on linkedin or like see if they list what they do for a living they're in jobs if they are employed they pay fucking nothing or they're you know unemployed and maybe not even looking and they've been left behind

yeah they've been left behind by the system and then after initially going to their profile being a little pissed off that this person's another cancel culture scumbag who's just calling out people who aren't doing anything wrong in many cases I then start to feel bad for him yeah because I'm like oh man they don't have any hope they got no purpose they have nothing to live for and they feel like this american dream doesn't exist and it doesn't exist for them and they just happen to be looking at a set of solutions that in many cases i'll disagree with i don't think are right but they and you can say the same thing about a lot of the q anon people by the way that's a really good example and they're not the cancel culture types

but they're like extremists from the other side you know they just couldn't they couldn't find anything in life and so this is their battle now they go on here and they feel important by you know joining these tribes and feeling like they have a sense of self-worth and that dichotomy right there of the cancellers and the q and honors in that case those people go right back to that point where we were talking about solutions and i told you in my opinion the occupiers and the tea parties and what came of them are the same thing they just have different ideas of how to fix it and what they do is they've been they've been trained to say that they hate each other and realize that they hate each other but really they're pissed off at many of the same things yeah and so you

talk about like being offended in comedy and whatever they're offended also and they they are canceling comedy because they don't want to laugh they they they are so cynical like i always say i'm a cynic about the world i can separate that from then being able to have a good time and know that i'm breathing and like some things i can't fix but you know what life is life and i'm gonna make what i can make i'm going after my dream right here you know i have great friends whatever like i laugh yeah we laugh on here yes a lot of people can't laugh anymore yeah so it's not just comedians in the sense that people are canceling them it's that people don't want to laugh because they think there's nothing to laugh about they're not sad yeah and you also

mentioned in one of your other episodes that and i i agreed cold-heartedly you were talking about the people who cold-heartedly cold heart oh warm-heartedly i agree wholeheartedly wholeheartedly um that um what was it some of the people that are posting these you know aggressive posts about you know are canceling another culture and you know putting like all these things to be offended by. These are people who have a very loud voice on social media and are not saying anything in real life in their real voice. I think the words you said, they're all caps on social media, but their words aren't even lowercase. They speak in uppercase. They speak in uppercase.

They type in uppercase. The full line. I'll get it right. They type in uppercase when they can't even speak in lowercase. Exactly. Exactly. And also, too, I just think it takes the, I don't want to say the fight, but it takes the discussion to social media and it takes it off of the streets and when i say the streets i mean like where we can actually create a solution

to change this narrative and see what's actually wrong instead of like we're picking an argument online to look right and get the likes and get the retweets or whatever but we're not actually turning around walking outside your door and saying you know what i really care about this how can i fix can i can i and it's like not what? I really care about this. How can I fix it? And it's like not fix it by yourself, but like how can I make a difference, whether big, small, or anything? Hey, let me put the phone down and not post a black square. How am I going to like go out and just make a difference on my own?

And like go even beyond like even if you're not, if you're anti-protest or stuff like that, fine. There's different ways for you to fight the battle sure and at the end of the day like i said like it's a system that needs to change and there's ways for you there's grassroots ways for you to be a part of that change without putting up a post without marching down with everyone else down the street with a poster go out to a local school and tutor yes yeah social media was invented to connect us and all it seems to do is divide us exactly that's it hands down you know and i i don't want to even add anything else to that because that's that's such a fucking perfect point and

people are real tough online with ideas and then they don't do anything as you said to put it into action and it's it's hard to say yeah you know and like we're taking action here you came on here exactly you know everyone that's been through this studio takes action regardless of what they think yeah they're putting their thoughts out there and i like when someone agrees to come do this and does it dude i respect the fuck out of them because they they know what they're coming to they they can see the content now online. Like, if they aren't familiar with the show before they come in. They know they're walking into something where we're just going to talk.

And, like, ideas are going to be put out, and people are going to agree, and they're going to disagree. Yeah. You know? And that's what we need. Exactly. I mean, I say, if people are listening to this show, if you are listening to this show right now,

especially if you don't know me, right? And that's now most of the audience. If you are listening to this and you agree with every single thing that I say, please step back. I don't care. And this goes against paying my fucking bills here as I'm trying to make it. But seriously, like don't listen for a week and think about that because the number of ideas that I put out here and then even more importantly that get added to the table by the person across from me who comes from all different walks of life in here are so insane that the number of things where i'm like oh it seems like a good idea it's not even statistically possible to agree with everything that i think yeah and

this is something that people that have a platform don't say and as i build a platform here i'm going to say it because i look i disagree go run the tape there are things i say with a guest in one episode that three weeks later things change in society i'm like wait no nope that's off like that didn't age well exactly dude horo called me like i don't know two weeks after our episode yeah and by the way most of what he said in that episode was like nostradamus yeah like he nailed it but there were a couple segments that we went into where he called me like and he's like hey i'm okay he's like so uh that that part about cuomo guess guess that didn't age too well huh and i'm like listen dude like don't worry about it no one's gonna care i'll take the heat and he's like yeah yeah we'll we'll we'll correct the record when i come back

on i'm like you know that's what happens exactly you know it's okay it's okay to like we're all said like you said it's okay to change your mind it's okay to be wrong one last thing though before we get out of here i do want to get to just totally switch it up because we were talking i don't think the cameras were rolling yet so i don't know i don't think we got it on there because we were we just been fucking sitting here talking all day but new york i am knock on wood here pretty fucking pumped yeah because i was when i came up and visited you among many other people when we all hung out in i guess like the end of january i was really concerned it was my first time seeing a lot of people yeah it was bad i don't need to go back down that road we don't need to be negative but it was the people had me concerned because the fear was beyond anything i would imagine and

i was at least a little pumped up that the infrastructure looked okay the city wasn't in tatters like the buildings were there there wasn't boards everywhere it looked it looked all right and i'm like that can go south fast when the people are leaving and it doesn't look great and there's no funding but i was concerned and then in like mid-april i started to see some signs i liked and i talked about with taylor ringgold when he was down here and i was like oh it looks like i'm starting to get there but i didn't want to say anything yet and now end of june i'm feeling pretty good you should okay you've been there the whole time i've been there the whole time yeah completely and i feel like people also need to take into context that new york

is one of the biggest cities in the world like if you think about new york i want to break it down for you in terms of boroughs brooklyn outpopulates philadelphia by itself by a lot by a lot there's a lot of people here so like the whole mass exodus and people are leaving the city even if they did and they were they did we're plenty of people still here and also too like there's only so many people who have the option to leave one i don't have an option to leave i'm born and raised in new york um but the city was alive and well and like you know there there were people who i mean obviously hopefully people were when this thing first kicked off were staying safe about it not just fuck it nothing's happening let

me just go out anyway but at the same time we stood strong and we innovated ways to like you know keep businesses going some did lose their businesses and why a lot use their lose lots of businesses but there are others who thrived and others who not not like thrive thrive but they kept the float and they found new ways to serve you know New Yorkers you know I it's funny I feel like such an old man cuz like now because I'm still getting used to like technology and I remember when I got an iphone without the home button i was struggling i was like yeah this thing work what do you mean it looks at me um but menus now are now all like

you do the qr code like wherever you go they're all like qr code they don't really hand out menus anymore um but you know i mean i love that it's one of those things that are probably just going to continue from now on the outdoor outdoor seating is another big thing. Can we talk about how brain damaging some of it was though? Which, by the way, shout out to the restaurants. I want to be clear. They did what they were told to do. Exactly.

Huge shout out to all the restaurants in New York. I do not want to do that. But I'm talking about not some of the stuff that's going to stay. Like when people, based on the real estate that their location was on, they were able to make gardens and stuff. And now they're going to keep it that shit's fucking awesome yeah i'm talking about the really stereotypical ones where they were told oh you have to have outdoor seating and they built like a fucking log cabin on the street where everyone's crammed in like this with no masks on it's like it's not their fault but like what the fuck you know the leadership was just so bad during the pandemic exactly and i just I just – I mean it was – this was a hard pandemic to navigate.

It was a hard pandemic to navigate. And obviously we can look back and see where Cuomo, Blasey didn't make the right action and did the wrong thing. But I think it was also just a very hard – like if I was in in their seats i can sit here and tell you i would have made every right decision that could have been made sure um you definitely figured it out as you went um but be excited for new york everything's back open now um there's also just i feel like there's just so many new things to do in new york now i mean new york you can always have things to do every single day a week you. You'll always find something new to do, find a different neighborhood and everything. But there's definitely ever since,

you know, the pandemic, you know, there's like a lot more rooftop bars. I think governor's Island, they do glamping now. There's like tents that they put on governor's Island. You can go over there and just spend the night there glamping,

you know, glamping, glamorous camping hey man you don't you don't camp in the city come on say glamping with a straight face look me in the eyes glamping glamping if you're not watching he did say that with a straight face it's real i will never say that well dude i'm i'm pumped to hear that i love that place i can't wait to be back up there and you know i was comfortable the entire time and then when i visited i did get scared for a little bit there because it's the most

resilient city but i saw all these fucking companies going to miami and shit and well let's talk about that because you know that's i think that's to – there are going to be a few changes to New York. I feel like you're going to see a lot more companies move towards a lot more remote working opportunities. Sure. But real fast, I'm just cutting you off for one second because we're almost done here. People, what you're hearing right now is my good friends, the lawnmowers outside trying to tell me to shut the fuck up and end the podcast. I want Josh to go through these points though right now now so if you hear a little buzzing in the background i know that's going to be on there that's what it is it's the one thing that can actually get

through the soundproof here when they're like close and they're literally right outside so ignore that but josh continue no for sure um but remote working options are going to be you know pretty standard. Now, if you're a company and you're spending whatever $100 million a year on office space in a standard New York City building, and your productivity level was just the same through this pandemic with your workers working remotely, are you going to spend as much money on as much office space? Maybe you might downsize. I think you should have office space for when clients come back in. But do you need as much space?

Do you need as many floors? Now, I mean, you definitely can hire more people because now you know you can have productive workers remotely. The level of competition is going to increase. Sure. You can be on the other side of the world and be productive as an employee. That's definitely going know be a thing um also too with you know remote um working opportunities I feel like especially as people get older and start to you know start their own families hey maybe when people turn you know 30 35 and they want to you

know start a family maybe they're not staying in the city they are moving to the you know nearby suburban town already happened yeah it's already happened i feel like the storyline goes you graduate college you end up in stuy town or like lower east side um and then you know you find somebody when you're 24 25 maybe like 26 27 you move up to the upper east side upper west side get a dog so you can walk them to central park shout out to all my friends who are actually doing this and then i'm just gonna stare right at the camera while you do this because you are fucking nailing it. And then, you know, eventually, you know, you get a mortgage and you, you know, get a house in, you know, the tri-state area,

Connecticut, you know, New Jersey, and, you know, you call it a day. That's just the usual storyline, but maybe people are going to do it earlier in their lives. You know, I have friends now who are moving to the suburbs because they can and have, you know, an inner city, office and get their Peloton to keep on top of their work. Did you see last week though the Morgan Stanley CEO had a great quote.

He said – he sent a memo to his employees and he said, I don't want to hear any of this crap about – lit i work in the new york city office but i'm remote and and sit in colorado you're if you want to do that you're not going to get new york city rate pal and the reason i respect is because we do need like i understand with the tech industry they're all about productivity and this is like counterintuitive to say it like this but like they're they're going to go remote and they should because it would be like antithetical to what they believe to not do that but older school businesses like banks and stuff you know they're gonna come in clutch here because you need them to incentivize people coming to the office at least a little bit because you need to keep people in new york and you need to draw people to new york we need 20 and 30 year olds like that demographic going hard to the city to rebuild

what certainly does need to be rebuilt it's great that we're open and got a lot of shit going on you can't take away the fact that a lot of powerful people left a lot of companies left and like they're gone yeah you know they got to be replaced we need to incentivize that and new york's like the center of the world so obviously i want to see that happen yeah and i still have a whole heart and faith like young people are coming back these recent graduates who had like a weird you know senior year that was remote their city's back open and you know it's hard to get an apartment like in these like lower east side lower west side that's good it's applications are flowing people want to come back to new york i heard rent's back

like rent is back right is back yeah hopefully i mean if you stayed in the city hopefully you locked down one of those two-year leases where you can keep that lower rate for another year. But rent is back and competition is back. So especially during the summertime where college graduates

are coming to the city and now that they can, be patient because it's going to be a tough competition to get an apartment nowadays. Yeah. Well,

there's a lot I could say to that, but I am pumped to see it moving again. I'm excited to come up and visit you guys again. And that's one to get an apartment nowadays yeah yeah well there's a lot i could say to that but i'm pumped to see it moving again i'm excited to come up and visit you guys again and that's one that i was starting to feel the other way on out of nowhere like oh i don't know and i'm very happy that it looks like i'm going to be wrong about that that's that's a good one to be wrong about it's the best city in the world i don't care what people say it's the greatest so you're a lifelong new yorker as you said. As always. You've been there your entire life.

Exactly. So anyway, man, the lawnmowers are telling me to end it, as we can hear. But listen, brother, thank you for coming down and doing this. Thank you for having me, man. I am glad. I kind of planned it like some of my guys. Obviously, like Spear was chomping at the bit. He came on right away because he's Mike Spear.

Shout out, Spear. But, you know, I had on Ty early on who had helped me out with this whole thing, so he knew what was up. But it's kind of weird. Bringing on some of my oldest best friends is harder for me because I want it to be great when we're always talking, so I hope people get that. But I kind of had it plotted out.

I wanted to bring you and Nico in at a similar little era here, so we're moving along. He was number 51. I think you're going to be like number 54 or so but i'm glad we could finally do it see this come to fruition and you know thank you for helping me continue to build my dude yeah of course and hopefully this isn't the last time you see oh it will not be it will not be that's that's for sure you got you got some great hot takes and you have such a good balance and perspective all in one i've always said that and now people will hear it and i think that's we need people like you in the conversation i've had other people in my studio that i say similar things about for different reasons

you know we need those people in the conversations because they're fucking reasonable yep you know that's that's it that's that's all i want you know if if we had to have a two-party system where people were reasonable and again that can't happen But sorry, yeah, but if it could I'd live with that two-party system Yeah, you know, that's why I want to see not have a two-party system because it can't happen Yeah, you know, so if if we're gonna have that we're still gonna have a different spectrum of beliefs across there So I want the people across that spectrum whatever the fuck it is wherever they stand to say exactly where they stand Yeah, and then get conversations started.

And I think we can come to some sort of great consensus. So happy to bring you here to help me get that message out. Cheers, man. And I know like Spear said it great. You're doing what you are meant to do. You've always had these conversations off camera. And I'm glad you get to people get to see a lot of the great conversations that you had on your day-to-day throughout your life Thank you brother and and one last thing on that actually sure you and I and Dylan

We were fucked up, but we had when I knew like whoa This is something yes right when I was moving to the guest content Which is always what I wanted to do you know I'd done little bits of it with Sydney and Terrence but at the very beginning when we went to Dylan's birthday party in Brick, and we sat in his garage after everyone left until like 6 a.m. in the morning and had like a three-hour wild, the three of us conversation, which, by the way, would love to get Dylan in here. Yeah.

You got to convince him. Oh, yeah. He's been here. He's been in the studio, but he's like, you know. But Dylan's fucking great. that's our homie but we were having that convo and i remember saying at the very end when we were going to bed and the sun was coming up i was like i wish we had the fucking mics yeah and i was like this is powerful because there was a lot of disagreement exactly a lot of like common ground like it was awesome and like now you see it where we're doing it

yeah exactly it's a beautiful thing so and we'll we're gonna work towards that content where we have two guys across here by the way

I'm excited for that little something something coming up but anyway thank you my brother thank you for having me appreciate you love you

been real love you too man alright everybody else give it a thought get back to me peace Everybody else, give it a thought. Get back to me. Peace.