Rev Left Radio - Hip Hop, Race, and Intersectionality (Pt. 1)

Episode Date: May 6, 2017

What a great episode! This may be our best one yet!    Brett sits down with three hip hop artists, Alex (aka Black Jonny Quest), Nick (aka Articulate), and Ria (aka Ria Gold) to discuss hip hop, racism, cultural appropriation, capitalism, liberal idpol vs. intersectional solidarity, Trump, white allies, and much more. This is part one of a two part release; part two will be published later this week!   Enjoy!!!  **Songs featured in this weeks episode in order of appearance Exodus by Black Jonny Quest of the album 'Smells Like Good News' Ancient Mariner by Articulate from the album 'Unreleased' Get Away RiaMix (feat. Kehlani) By Ria Gold from 'Get Away' Single   To hear more music by our talented friends from this episode check out: Ria Gold https://soundcloud.com/1goldieworld/ria-gold-sex-u-riamix Alex / Black Jonny Quest https://soundcloud.com/blackjonnyquest Nick / Articulate https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/unreleased/id555205489   Follow Revolutionary Left Radio on: https://www.facebook.com/RevLeftRadio/ Twitter @RevLeftRadio or contact the dudes at Revolutionary Left Radio via email [e-mail]   Please take the time to rate and leave a review on iTunes! This will help expand our overall reach.   Thank You for your support and feedback!      

I don't like them putting chemicals in the water that turn the friggin' frogs gay, gay, gay, gay. Hello, everybody. This is Revolutionary Left Radio. Now, we don't usually start our shows this way, but today is a very special episode. I'm extremely excited to share this episode with you. We worked really hard on it. It took four, four and a half hours to record, and it took even longer to edit it. So we're going to have two parts. This is going to be part one, and then within the week we're going to release part two. It's a wonderful discussion. It touches on so many topics connected to race and racism and intersectional solidarity and hip-hop.

We cover a whole host of issues that are extremely important. But we're going to do a little thing different with the formats today. We're going to have music from the guests. So we had three hip-hop artists on, and we're going to use their music as transitions between segments of our conversation. Since it was such a long conversation, we've chopped it up and edited it. such that we cover one issue in one chunk and then another issue and another chunk and so to bridge those gaps

we're going to use their music. So the first song is going to be by our guest Black Johnny Quest with his song Exodus. The second song is going to be from our guest Articulate and his song is called Ancient Mariner. And then the outro for the first part of this episode is going to be by our third guest, Ria Gold, and her song is Get Away.

So I really hope you enjoy this episode. I couldn't be happier with it So please, please enjoy And stay tuned for part two Coming within the week So why don't you guys go ahead and introduce yourselves And let's get this started Okay, so I'm Rio Gold, I sing and I rap

And I have a four-year-old daughter She's like everything She's like a little version of me Hello I am Black Johnny Quest I go by A-W-E Alexander Wayne E

I'm from Omaha I'm adopted I grew up on Ames Avenue and in Raven Oaks in Omaha, Nebraska I'm married to immigrant and she's awesome and amazing I make rap music

and do a lot of hip-hop art and I like to read and be in a fake I want to be intellectual My name is pain Wait what? I go by Articulate, that's my MC name, and we'll leave it at that.

I got introduced to hip hop at a young age, and I happened to be born in the right time period so that the 90s was kind of where I really converged with hip hop, and I continued to do it, even as I am a family man and whatnot. and I enjoy politics. That's right. All right. Well, today's episode we're going to talk about hip hop and we're going to talk about race

and we're going to connect the two and hopefully we have some good discussions. So maybe to start out, we can explore hip hop. All of you are hip hop artists in your own right. Does anybody want to talk about maybe the roots of hip hop where it began and maybe what cultural conditions it arose out of? Let's talk about it.

It's a cold and stormy night on the island of Jamaica. And, no, so if you know about hip hop, hip hop was invented by Cool Herk in his mother's kitchen in South Bronx, in New York. If you know the history of the Bronx, the Bronx were going, New York was on fire. Heavily, a lot of areas, Queens, the Bronx, I mean, there's, you know, it was literally like the third world. It was going wild. The kids, you know, drugs, fires, gangs, I mean, New York gangs. of children because they didn't have their parents

and their parents went home, the mom was working or something or the father was at work where the parents were out of the home and all these kids were running around with gangs doing crazy stuff drugs, killing, murder and shooting

and there's a little 13-year-old shooting, you know, grown businessman and taking their wallets, you know what I mean? This is late 70s? This is late 70s. Okay, late 70s, early 80s. Then so, man,

cool hercules, you throw these parties, these dance hall parties and it's all about you know he would be he's the DJ the and then there's an emcee which we'll get into later but the DJ was the one who controlled the crowd by catching the break on the record where hip hop starts to come in and starts to take kind of shape form is also with some help from somebody named africa Bambata who formed the mighty Zulu nation big ups to all those dudes and they have their own everybody has room problems but what we're talking about hip hop and how it started so um

So what happened was Africa Bambato. United wanted to unite all these different gangs, and instead of going out there, busting and killing each other, and, you know, taken and still. They got together, and they would have danceoffs. They got graffiti writing, you know. And then, you know, comes in the five elements of hip-hop, knowledge and understanding, B-boy or B-girl,

graffiti, DJ, and rapping, you know what I mean? So then the DJ's catching the break. all right he's controlling the party so if you got for example queen another one bites the dust do do do do do do do so a DJ would take that and get a copy of that on another record when then didn't mind you they didn't have things like they did they were doing all this stuff like straight the most analog way they had to go out and get you know they had to work to get all this stuff so they have two copies of queen and on one the left side they had to go do to do do do another one bites the dust he catch that break

scratch it to the right record goes do do do another one bites the dust and he keep going and keep fucking going until everybody in that whole fucking building that was probably not even a legal place to have a show fire code violations hooked up by generator smelled like gasoline people were smoking cigarettes by the

fucking gasoline cans people were drinking smoking smoking dancing sweating probably in the dead of winter sweating inside there because of hip hop and that's kind of like the start of it then the mc came in the DJ you gave power to the MC which people don't realize that now they think the MC has the power and the DJ I still don't do that I'll follow the old doctrine I respect the DJ he tells me I'm gonna give he gives me permission and I'm gonna go so but then the MC comes up and says hey yo I like to run over the do do do another one bites it does and then And that's hip-hop.

That's awesome. And now we're at Little Yotties. Ah. I like the movie on. It's still hip-hop. It's still hip-hop, right? It's my favorite. I'm into that new age shit.

Like, I'm like new age. I'm like 90s, new age. I don't really know about the history of hip-hop, which I should, and I want to. But right now I'm just kind of stuck on what's going on now and like what I think the future should be. Would you say that you listen to a lot of other genres and then you incorporate all those influences into your style? Yeah. As opposed to living concretely in that tradition of hip-hop necessarily. Hip-hop is the bastard son of all these different genres of music.

So for someone to tell somebody else what hip-hop is, that's not correct. That's just your opinion, whatever. But, I mean, like I said, Little Yachty, people call mumble rappers, whatever. I like all of it because it's self-expression. They're weird black kids on TV, self-expression, and people love it. And, you know, people buying it, you know, obviously you're probably not. 90% like white kids in the suburb, but still, that's somebody's relating to it. Somebody's relating to a young black kid with red hair.

That's a huge thing. Real shit, that's how I look at him. I look at him like this big ass outcast. I just like, he hood and he's like emo. It's like, what is this? This is life for me. This is me. I mean, what Cameron just did, making my way downtown?

He just, he just did a be able. Yeah, inspired. Really? Yeah. I got to hear it. It's pretty wild. It's hilarious. Nick, did you want to say anything about the history of hip hop or the conditions

out of which it arose? Yeah, so I'm going to go all ideological style now in its 1970s, and we're looking at inequality that arises necessarily out of a capitalist nation that is a capitalist juggernaut and also built on the back of white supremacy. And in a place like New York, you have the conditions not only for someone like Cool Herk

to bring something from Jamaica, like it was I think originally called toasting yeah and that was you could tie that back to Africa where you'd have storytellers who would kind of you know oral traditions story storytelling and you put it over a rhythm and you make that storytelling rhythmic then in Jamaica these people started they would be called selectors right and they were the DJs and they would black rhythms over the sound systems and people would party over that and you would have people you know who were DJs it originally it was the DJ and the MC were the same person they didn't have a special person who was just an MC the DJs would

be the rhythm selectors who would they would be the ones who would start they play that rhythm and then they'd start going over it you know with their own kind of some people would be humorous, some people would be more serious, and the whole goal was really to move the crowd. And so that spread via Kua Herc, in particular, to New York City. The New York City kind of did their own thing with it, which spread back, and you got cross-pollination going back to Jamaica, back to New York, back and forth, and then it spread, and there's a whole thing with London. But in any case, the economic situation like Alex correctly pointed out is you know New York is literally in

flames and you've got the war on drugs which started under Nixon yep expanded under Reagan which it all it's all connected regardless the monster that is and and you have people so look at like graph writing and people write that on trains. That's part of hip-hop. That is giving a voice literally to the voiceless. And that's the theme that I would, if there's one theme that I would touch on, it's a voice for the voiceless. People who are not listened to, who are not respected, who are oppressed, who are dehumanized. I'm going to say, here's this grimy city that's literally in flames, and it's a bunch of, it's the concrete jungle, so to speak. And it's not aesthetically pleasing

to the eye it's not pretty it's grinding i've been in big cities i've lived i lived in soul south korea it did not feel aesthetically pleasing necessarily it was menacing and so uh look at the bright coloring of the graph riding and they would put it on trains you know to put and they would literally put their own names on the trains and then watch the trains go off and they travel and they're like that is my name my art and it's

they're what yep and it goes all over the city it goes all over the city and the country and the country yeah and the country and it's so important I mean it's identical

to rap music to rapping to taking a microphone and it's the same thing except it's just a different way of exposure and it's like dude I feel like

when I'm rapping when I write when I'm writing a rap I want to be like a graffiti writer hitting a fucking wall fastest shit before the fucking before like the moo-moos figure out what i'm even fucking doing and i'm out of here you know what i mean so it's like

and that's i think um what you touched on to say when you say to give a voice to the voiceless to be a guy who's 23 who gets up every day to clean up after some dude who's making you know six figures only to ride the train back to Brooklyn or Bronx or Brownsville wherever you're going and to see something on the wall maybe that's his friend maybe somebody that says keep going or just like you know it's like how you feeling do they fuck all the pigs man that's how I'm feeling oh I just all that shit go by oh you see the train today that uh was that like a meme back then were those like memes yeah yeah perfect oh that's like a meme it's knowledge it's so awesome it is you know it's like viral it like

goes around the world and you don't know where the fuck it started or came from but you figured out you find who you know created that exactly that's a wonderful way to look it's a beautiful our crimes are like what makes the world go around except And they had a coat, everybody has a coat. You don't worry out on places to worship. You don't, well, fuck, I think that was it. But there was like boundaries there at least. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, but I mean, there's been a couple homes. We did some shit. There's some people before. They got kind of pissed. I'll be cracking up. Yeah, but I think it's really interesting to see this, you know, this art form blossom out of struggle. You know, something like hip-hop is inherently subversive

because it's in the epicenter of a white supremacist nation and the people that have been historically oppressed in that white supremacist nation say, you know, all of our culture, all of our experiences can come together and we can channel them through this new art form. And then over a period of two decades, three decades, that art form blows up and it's a global phenomenon, you know. And it's really, it's a subversive act that hip hop, you know, it's centered in oppressed black people in the belly of the beast, and then it exploded beautifully into this global phenomenon. And people in France, like you said, are people in Korea, people all over the planet. Well, now, I think the biggest thing is in Syria, and a lot of places, rap is so, so important to their movements over there, especially even it, down when Tripoli was going off, it was going crazy, and they're trying to get MoMA out and everything like that. Hit rap was so important. Like, they were in the streets, and, like, what we might think, I mean, is a basic rhyme, but people, over there's the first time people really even doing anything with it.

I think that's what's phenomenal to see is, like, the power that now people are, you turn on NPR and there's two white people saying, well, now there's this rapper, and he's, and they're interviewing him, and now people are being able to experience what's going on there from somebody who lives it every day and is speaking on something. Like, I think that's what makes hip hop beautiful to me. I feel like if I have any problem, I can write a song about it. and also just real quick I just want to say sitting here with Nick and then and Ria it's so cool to see how

you can say the same thing and be from a completely different generation and that's why it kind of makes me want to say like to some people who like talk about you know the generational gap and everything may have been lacking it's like nothing's lacking it's just shifting

and changing. I was going to say though you're talking about Syria and Libya and I think it's super interesting on two points one is that hip hop when it puts into a different language you have different rhyme schemes you have different cadences different words can rhyme now so you know taking out of English putting it into different dialects you get this whole new expression of the art

and then on a second point it's it's almost as if it because this happens in Gaza with Palestinians under you know the Israeli apartheid state they use hip hop it's a tool of oppressed people everywhere exactly the bourgeoisie the ruling class they don't make any hip hop but all over the planet in every ghetto and every country on every continent oppressed people pick up that tool as a form of self-expression

it is man that is powerful isn't that crazy a fucking all you need is a rolled-up piece of paper and and and something to hit you need those two things and then someone who can fucking catch a beat that's all you need can i be the cynic in the room for just the second i was i think i know what you're about to say because those those bourgeois sure to fuck dance to it yeah yeah uh so like there's kind of just various ways of kind of appropriating what white supremacy has as into his I'm sorry yeah yeah no no white supremacy has sunk its way and steeped his way into hip-hop so it's like you know how they used to say like the devil has snuck its way into the Catholic into the Vatican you

know what I used to say the devil's in the back well it's the same thing with hip-hop man like and I think that's what you're gonna get I'm gonna let you elaborate on it capitalism so all right first of all for anyone that doesn't know this whiteness as a social construct cannot really be separated from white supremacy and capitalism in the modern world it was we know race and economics capitalism and white supremacy go hand in hand they were it was created for a certain group of people we could go back to voting rights the first people that the only people had the rights to vote in the United States were basically rich white men you know you had to only

land had to be a man had to be white what was that movie we were watching with the remember i thought the constitution i was known chomsky in the oh yeah the documentary yeah i don't know passed down i was we just started you got mad at i thought i called you old like yeah i'm fucking with the bed but nomchowski touched on it in the documentary yeah he did yeah even he said the reason why the constitution was written was because it was to keep the farmers on the peasants and everybody who couldn't reform from coming after the bourgeois state, man. You know what I mean? The rich the rich fucks.

And here's the thing is, what happened is, okay, they were going to make it so if you amount a massive wealth, you know, you have the power in the area. But then they're like, well, shit, if all those workers and all these people come together, they're going to have more wealth than all of us combined. Let's create a constitution. Right. To kind of replicate the hierarchy of feudalism that it protects the elite from the rabble. Because still the Constitution still protects rich white men. Yep. So if you see a bunch of oppressed or working class people or whatever word we want to use,

creating an art form that's sort of fighting back, then what better way to undermine that effort than to absorb it and kind of make it your own and then spit it back out? And you have from fairly early on, and a lot of people would point actually to the Sugar Hill gang. that was the first kind of rap hit you know the hip hop the hibidda hip hopin you know the ragging to the bang bang big it a bang bang bang jing the bug it to the river the bug it to be and a lot of the street guys were like you know what fuck is that like get that the fuck off the radio pretty much and yet the capitalists knew what they were doing and it was a product that was packaged and sold and a

capitalist society. Vicki bought it. And there you go. So capitalism and, but this, but there's so much nuance because then you can't say all capitalist rap music is bad rap music because you've got like Jay-Z, you know, who takes capitalism as an ideology, as a set of values, and he kind of does it from the underworld up because reasonable doubt he's talking about, you know, he's, he actually did that stuff. Beautiful.

And he does not glory. he really talks about how fucked up it is and dark shady underworld but those are hustling and all that stuff and and the bling and like all that that's all capitalism and so the same people that sit there and shit on that it's they're they're the ones that simultaneously will look at a millennia Trump you know and they'll look at her pearls or whatever and they'll be like oh my god like she's so Glannery. Classy. Classy.

Can I say, speaking of that, because I want to know really real, because you're coming from a total different perspective, you're a mother, you're a woman of color, and you're a woman. And you, I mean, and it seems like, I mean, the history of oppression against women is just as long, if not longer, you know, as other oppressed cultures and other oppressed people. You know what I mean? It's been there since beginning time.

So it's like, what, in my opinion, I don't mean to take your. I was just saying, because I think this is where you're at with it being a millennial, being a woman, but at the same time, being a woman that is, I feel like you're so powerful in all your moves that you make. So I kind of want to get your perspective on it. I appreciate that. What's that like? Okay, sexism in hip hop for me, I don't know, it just feels weird because it's always like people think I'm talented, but people always tell me, well, you should sing more.

should sing more like you don't want me to rap because I'm a woman and you see a woman doing it right now so you feel like just let her do that right now like no like I can do this too and other women should be able to do this and you shouldn't tell women that they can't and like rap or rhyme or whatever like because they're they should be feminine you know right with their music like a majority of the friends that I've had that would have to be women that would work in music a lot of people say oh we should work together you know what I mean mean we should work together we should work together but it's as if they don't pay they don't put enough effort they're only doing it they have they have ulterior motives they're not

you know what I mean like even in their music yeah the quality that you get or not even get at you or just maybe use you right by telling you you need to sing more you need to sing more like that's that's wild to me like because no one has ever said that to me right like they don't take advantage of men that way have you encountered have you encountered men that when you go into the studio that you feel like they're viewing you more as an object than an artist? People always, like, they say they want to work with me

and they actually do want to work with me, but then they do sometimes try to, like, you know, do some more than just the music, but I feel like that's in entertainment period, you know? So that's kind of how I look at that, too, to try to, like, lessen that blow. Sometimes I'm, like, no pun intended. but to like lessen it

but to lessen it I just like okay well I'm this he held his head hot and a well kept casing yeah the money well he kept chasing right on park dad and farm him was a cross street

and it's wine it mixed up in some cross town hot beef yo whatever let the fair weather's handle him and God forbid they go and get his killers brothers and his sons Omaha Cooney's no joke you better check yourself the next time you feel like a saucy bloke

or one might see your poke Even a bullet scar They were on Sorensen watching them Dump at each other's side by side And two moving cars Kind of like the movies Sounds pretty wild But that shit ain't groovy

What happened to our people Even brother tried to do me Grew up too fast There's not enough childhood By taking a hoopie out Before checking under the hood Get it understood Mike can see so sweet

But it ain't all good Like you think you're both buoyant But it ain't boss or wood You're living in a state of all Indora falsehood Now what shall come of us Do we really have a choice When we lookin up to other

men on how to use our voice and speak for us. Is it the weakness and what do you trust? Pressure getting to beat too much. He might bust. Watch nickers with guns on dust. They might bust. Addicts with no fix and trust, they will bust. It's strange from the proper like how so many black babies

estranged from their fathers. Oh well, same here. Would you look at that? Y'all be sipping on the same beer. Yo, they told him not to mess with us. We said fuck it. Go prepare yourselves for exodus. Yeah.

Is it just too much? Say fuck it. Go prepare yourself for exit. Y'all, yo, you think you might bust, uh-huh. Say fucking and prepare yourself for Exodus, y'all, is enough just enough. Say fucking and prepare yourself for Exodus. Yeah, if you think you might bust in this fucking crazy world. People might think this over-exaggerative or something, but I don't.

But it's like literally the only reason we even exist is because of slavery. It's because of North, because of the slave trade. I would not exist in this. I don't know what. I don't even know what I would be. Maybe I'd be like mong or something. I don't even know. Well, I mean, if your parents never met, then you wouldn't even meet at all.

Exactly. Yeah. Your parents wouldn't be here, if not for this long history that you stand in the way. Right. And it's like the thing is I can trace my biological family back five generations. Right. Which is pretty cool. So that's, and I can trace it back to slavery.

It's just like, you know, it's wild, you know. Well, it's an interesting contradiction that being black in America proposes to you is that on one hand, you're right. You only exist and you only live and you can only do your art. Because it's weird and it's ironic and it's sad, but because of this history of slavery, yeah. That's why you're here at all. Exactly. So you're literally a product of that oppression.

Right. Your existence. And you're letting off those shots, man. You're letting off the anger of your past. Every single thing is in your genes. We were just talking about that earlier. Your DNA, your DNA carries fear. It carries what made people run, your instinct and things like that.

You know what I mean? Generations of trauma. It is. It's ingrained. I'm with my dad. When I'm with my dad and we grow by a cop and my, I don't know my biological father, my dad is white. But when you're not with him?

Scare shitless. Fuck. If I'm with Nick, scare shitless. Okay? I am, man. You wear crazy hats. He's done. You got it right now.

I chose to do that. I know you chose to do that. I know you chose to. Okay. But I'm just saying, I get scared though, man. Listen, we don't look like, we look like people who shouldn't have a fucking house in Keystone Raven Oaks and be parents or be a parent and and have our shit together we look we like to be relaxed and look relaxed but I'm scared of the way I look or the way my friend looks

will lead us into some even you man when I see you walking with your baby downtown yeah dude what happened you just got locked you just got hemmed up man yep yeah or you know I'm gonna say you know I have long hair I have tattoos me and you driving in a car is different than you and your your dad driving it's extremely powerful and I want to get into that now. So I want to talk about, I want to talk about race. I want to talk about racism. So let's start off with each of you giving an example from your personal life of racism that you've experienced. I mean, we've dealt with every aspect of it. And my mom, you know, she's a, she's such a G dude because she puts up with so much crazy shit. People trying to

yell at her, fight her at Youngbloods Barbershop. Because she, you know, what I was commender for this, she gave up, you know, 75% of her. her white privilege because of because well really she had to because you don't first off she knew not to raise her children in a white neighborhood she's like no we're going to live in a lot where there's a more diverse area

secondly the only two white faces I saw growing up where even my mother my father everything else around me was black the angels in my room the Jesus on my cross and did they do that consciously because they didn't want to disconnect you from your

culture right yeah I think it was very important and like I think that was very important to them because it you know they could have in I we see this every day they could have gotten um a house on 145th in fucking maple or if I can I could have gone to Miller schools I don't this no they took me I did everything everything that all the other little kids did in the neighborhood can you guys each tell me one story that sticks out in your head of a concrete situation of racism that you've been faced with the first time I was called a nigg by Ria Gold. No, I'm kidding. The first time that I was called a nigger, I was in the sixth

grade, and it was shocking to me because it was my neighbor's son, and we had been friends, not me and my neighbor, but the son. We had been friends for a long time, like obviously since I had been on that street, which was forever. So he was younger than me, and he called me a nigger because I threw a snowball at him after school one day. It just hurt because I had never experienced that before and when he said it it was like automatically like all this trauma just came back from like I don't even nowhere

you don't know when you're a kid the first time you hear it you don't know what it is right because you don't know what it is and like um but you feel it this feeling comes up to you like you said something to me you said something to me that resonated with something inside of my inside of me and like I'm like I say

I was in first grade I was in lunch line and this girl called me stupid fucking nigger it's something can see a word that can sear you now you know obviously it doesn't do that to you but as a child and it's a first time well do you have to harden yourself to that always will but i mean that's what being black is is to be and what's the sad to say is like you do because not to mention at the same time you're getting you're getting it from the white kids you're still going to get shit from your own people too you know what i mean and even more so being either a woman of color or being adopted And having Caucasian parents and talking like I talk right now, you know what I mean? That why do you talk like? Earl Sweeter said it. Earl Sweeter said two black for the white kids, too white for the black. So I have a diff, I have a, you know, but at the same time I still, I understood why my black friends were saying those things to me.

I understood why. And it was a symptom of the same thing that made that girl call me a stupid fucking nigger. what they're doing is they're both reflecting white supremacy from different angles from different angles and the thing is the the black kids are suffering from white supremacy um because of of the the inability to to gain and grasp of things that we should be able to from the jump off because we're not given that we're not given that um i guess that step ahead that other kids children are given and then on from the white on the white side they're perpetuating an already already fucking vicious monster You know what I mean? And so I think when I, when my friends just called me, I'll say something funny to me like that. Like, why do you talk white or something like that? I'm like, now I look at it and I'm like, well, I understand why you would say that.

Yeah. I understand. But a part of you, does a party you feel like or has it felt like that you didn't, you didn't fully fit in on either side, at least at certain points in your development? Yeah, I used to be trying to act like I was a gangster, try to act hard or try to fucking, oh my God, this is embarrassing. I fucking try to like join clicks and shit and, and be like, like, like, you know, extra hard.

Trying to prove something to yourself and others, maybe? Not to my, that, well, I just wanted people to, I just wanted to be accepted, man. I didn't. And like the only thing, like I said, here we go is right back to hip-pop. The only thing that accepted me was rapping, skateboarding, and graffiti. And like, in Nick, and Ria. And my, and my, and my, and my, well, all my weird, and all my weird friends that felt the same way, you know, and, and me and Nick

deal with racism on a daily basis. Like, he's actually really commend him as more than a friend, too, as well as a friend, but as an ally, too. Because, like, I feel like, and I put a lot, I give him a strong workbook because on top of already what he's doing in the community, I already am like, yo, pain, fucking set this dude straight really quick. And he's like, we'll get into a car. It's like, you know what happened at the end of World War I? I'm like, that's, I've seen, I've seen Nick make so many, you know, ignorant. white people uncomfortable. He will take them to fucking task.

But it ain't need that. And you know what, though? It needs to be on the white people. It's the white people's job to do it. That's true. To white people. It's not our job. That's true.

It's not. And you know what? And Nick understands that. My mom and dad understand that. And you understand that. It means uphill fight. It's uphill battle. And it's going to be, we're beating a dead.

We're going to be beating a dead horse until it comes back to life. We've got to beat it again. It's like, even just this concept we're talking about is literally a foreign language to most to 65% of the country. Absolutely. You know, it's a small, small percentage of people we want to even grasp that. But then, yeah, but then people, you know, like Nick will go on and raise children. And then he'll pass on that sort of consciousness to them.

And I try to do that with my children. We talk about racism. We talk about MLK. We talk about the history, you know. And if my daughter's eight, she is, you know, you have to kind of orient the conversation for an eight-year-old mind. but you still start talking about these ideas and I think you have a very huge effect

of being a parent wherever you are yeah you probably have to have those conversations or if you haven't yet you will inevitably they'll pop up yeah you'll come home one day and they're like Billy called me a nigger money what do I say it's also depressing

that white kids a little first grader doesn't they don't know what the hell is going on they don't know shit but they're parenting the conditions that they're around something where they can hear that and they're like can I ask Nick a question yeah yeah Nick you have a black son you are a Caucasian man where where where is your what are you what are your concerns going forward

and what's your main goal now as far as breaking like you know kind of doing what you can as far as to make sure that your son is aware of who he is and and is aware of the difference maybe in you know or the originality in people first of all well like my son is he's autistic and I don't say he has autism I say he's autistic because I took a cue from the neurodiverse community of high functioning autistic adults who say there's nothing wrong with me you don't have maleness or femalness or you know whatever like I'm autistic if you have a more severe case, you know, where like you're nonverbal, then maybe you want to look for a cure or whatever. But there have been studies that show that, you know, high functioning, Asperger's,

autistic people are actually people we depend on in society to like make leaps and bounds in innovations. That's true. And stuff like that. Of course. Because they're thinking outside of the box in ways we could never come magic. So my son at age seven, you know, I can't talk to him about these things because he's just not there yet.

In another 10 or 15 years, he might be Isaac fucking Newton. But as far as, you know, so let's say like kids in general, what I would like to teach them about this is that, you know, race is not something you can escape. It's also not your fault that it is something you can't escape, that none of us can escape. we didn't make it this way yet it is this way therefore it is our responsibility to address this problem no therapist would tell you

oh there's a problem we'll just be blind to it be colorblind right that's the bullshit that's the big bullshit just as offensive as saying is literally being racist this is like look at my blackness

just respect my blackness or just pretend it's not there which is kind of like that's kind of like a white power move in my opinion and so first of all I would make that point also that to speak about things that are racial in nature does not make that racist correct there's racial and there's racist um there's you know gender you know gender based studies and there's you know genderism or sexism like to talk about these things uh and to try to understand them

is not only not racism or sexism, it's the opposite of it. It's to try to, in order to counteract, you first must understand what you're learning. You're talking about. So with Brett and me, right, we're white guys. We like nihilism

and existentialism and whatnot, right? And we were asking Ria, you know, a woman of color about her experience, like some negative experience this world, it might be way easier for us to delve into kind of the dark side of human experience, the sadness, or, you know, the not so easy parts of it. But I think we touched earlier, like, you're like, I don't have time for that because

your whole experience. So it's like a privilege that you and I have to kind of explore. Some of my friends who happen, who are white, who are atheists. or don't believe in, in higher power or anything like that. And they don't understand why some people might, we might look to a higher power or have a higher spiritual connection with certain things. You know what I mean?

And one of the things is, it's like, no one has fucking time for that. Let me be, before I can even touch on existentialism or fucking talk to somebody about, like, Descartes or something like that, let me first get, so I, let me get my fucking acre. Let me get my 40 acres. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? Let me get situated so I can build up my family. So we have a privilege.

Thank you so much for saying. Give me a hug, man. I love you so much. It's a beautiful point, and I never, ever hear it. But it's so, and it might make white people that are into existentialism and their atheists uncomfortable, but be uncomfortable. It is. Think about it. Sit with it and question that. And don't, don't get defensive automatically, but really sit with that feeling and explore it. I had somebody on Doug Patterson, 71 years old, white guy, lifelong hours. activist, all that stuff. He said that in one of our interviews. He said, you know, he used theater as a way to connect with poor and oppressed people and, you know, rural towns and everything. But he said, you know, the sort of European naval gazing of existentialism and pessimism and being like, you know, life sucks and let's make, you know, let's share nihilist

memes and everything like that. Yeah. Yeah. It only can come from somebody who has their material well-being already grabbed onto, right? So you're not worrying about feeding your family. you're not worried about being shot by the cops. You're not worried about not getting that job because you're a big black scary guy and they don't want you to be behind the counter. Exactly. So it does come with privilege.

And that's the same thing is and now here's where I'm able to understand as being adopted by white people, I have a little bit more privilege than black kids that have black parents. Some of my friends, I get it. Like I'm right. Like I have this little line that I talk about,

talking about like Malcolm X in the middle because that's how I feel sometimes. I'm sorry. I'm not not. Malcolm X, obviously, motherfuckers. But, like, it's like, I, I'm, I want to, my goal, he's my hero. Malcolm in the window with the weapon. And then I used to watch Malcolm in the middle, dude.

Yeah, man, 36th Street, man. He's right over there. And, but it's still, like, I am, and I love Malcolm in the middle. That TV show is hilarious. And so, but that's how I felt is like, okay, so I see my friends understand, like, if I, if I go to one of my homie spots or a barbershop, if I go to any bar, even on the north of the south side, and I fucking start talking about René Descartes

in fucking existentialism, artesian coordinates, and fucking all this other fuck shit, and fucking being a nihilist, and Nietzsche and all that. Someone's going to type, like, what fuck did you say to me, dog,

they're going to swing on me. It's probably going to be more of my friends. It would beat me up for fucking, like, next time you don't get smart. I'm like, I'm sorry, dude. I just said, I think they're 4.m. You're like, I think that the four. I have it literally called Jito Ergo Soon

written on my arm. So it's like, It's my doom. Hey, man. They cross the truth, man. I love it. And it's like, but at the same time, it's like, I have the privilege to be able to do that. Because I know that when my mom and dad have always, they've always had my back.

And they've always, if, like, if anything fucking happens to me, if something fucking fucked up happens to me, I'm going to be all right. And I know that I have, um, property and a lineage in a connection to things and land. I have that. I don't. I have it. Me, my brother and my sister, all three of us are black. I have that. You know what I mean? I cannot say the same. So if you got, so if you get like a white, like a white socialist or communist telling you stop focusing on, you know, your hustle or your, you know, being an entrepreneur because you're just buying into capitalism or stop focusing on identity politics and like racism and blackness because that's just dividing, you know, classes. What would you say? to people who critique you in that way. Shut the fuck up. Don't tell.

It's like, live Ria's life for one day. Then I'll tell you. Live what she has to do to make sure that her daughter lives another day. That's all I would say. Then do that, no question of that. And don't say shit about it. Don't complain once and still be able to look cute on social media and still take a picture. And still look fresh and have Shaka Khan hair.

Then I will, then I might. what that person is saying until then shut up focus on not to focus on no matter what we're focus on what you can do for us to get to that we can still break bread together and we're still on a better we're still on a better foot the socialist that says your identity just focus on class issues all that well we have a pejorative word for the people that are like that we call them class reductionists they reduce all identity down to just class and stuff and like it doesn't matter if you're black or if you're gay or if you're trans,

let's just focus on being working class people and rally around that. Now, that's not cool because you're making a reactionary error. You're taking away people's identities and the obstacles they face because of those identities and just saying focus on class. That's reactionary.

On the other end, you have people that we would criticize rightly as liberal identity politics people who focus just on identity, but don't ever weave in class. Yeah. Because, you know, we're all different. You know, you're a woman of color. You're a black man.

You know, me and you are white dudes. but what we do have in common is none of us are rich. None of us own a bunch of property. None of us have any sway in our government. So our class identities can serve as a linkage between us. Whereas liberal identity politics who refuse to address class and just focus on identities, there's no way forward because all you do is just clash.

Well, you're black, okay, well, I'm black and I'm trans, so therefore shut up and listen to me, check your privilege. Now, we all should check our privilege and we should have those conversations. but we also have to we have to show solidarity with one another I'll show up yeah I'll show at intersectional solidarity is what is what connect that guy yeah I'll show up at a black lives matter protest and stand next to you you know I'll stand up at a feminist protest stand next to you and do all the things I can as an

intersectional socialist you know but then the end of the day I want everybody also to realize that we have economic interests that are similar that we can unite us if we can just get the intersectional part right as far as no matter if it's an LGBTQ rally a black Lives Matter rally, a workers rally, we're all there. Yes. And if we're all there,

and instead of saying, instead of reducing our identities and saying it doesn't matter, elevate our identity, saying that's what matters the most is your identities. We need you, we need you trans person. Yep. We need you,

black person. We need you black woman. We need you, Latina, X. Like, we need you. you. We need you white man. We definitely need the white man here because they're the ones is going to fucking rectify a lot of the shit that their forefathers fucked up. And we're in the epicenter of our white families and our white friends that we can exert influence there. Make that shit awkward. And you know what? It's going to be going to go

one of two ways. Either they're going to fucking disown you and they're going to go their own ways. If they do that, fuck them. You didn't need them anyways. They're not your real family. And it's not the other way. They're going to recognize error in their ways for all these so-called Christians out here, you know, and then they're going to be like, oh, let's go. I find most people will do the latter. Most people aren't going to end friendships and family over that. If you sit down and they know you and they love you and you have these discussions, they're open to it because, you know, a lot of people are decent. They just haven't been exposed these ideas. They haven't had somebody talk to them about them. I've had the opposite experience.

Have you? I believe it. I'm married. I like your view too, because I'm very optimistic, but I'm black. I'm married to it. I'm married to. I'm married to a black woman We could get into that Let's do a break now You know, it's the way Catch my open soul Magnum Obisrope

So that when it's done it over My own cast it won't get closed I'm a Alexander super trap it on this lonely road Capitalism overload Count but there's no control The digital age war where you downloadable Known for provoking

With focus dancing ghost stories The clodable Obey 1 I'm your only hope To boldly go where no cornucopia could be grown My chromosomes are embedded with ancient lettering. Scandinavian that's been traced to Eric the reddit them. The Crem de la Crem. Grasping infinite, finipa could forget finesse from pure bread and Benjamin.

This is my chance to defend my ancestors ascend to the Grand Temple, then render the land. But then, I dreamt of a grand awakening, but now I just have to settle for that coupetathe based on Jacobins. Trade your dreams in kids. Pray for gifts even if you're not convinced to give the crisis given. up indifferent. I crashed the Vatican with sacred age and etiquette. Give a maids infected infants and vacate the premises. Bread, bread, craving, craping, present, anti-drank and trade confessions with a great one who

who trade Busephalus. Place your bets in cash. I break symphony beats and the Big Bang was a bitch in bed with the kids of death. So, yeah, no, I've had the opposite experience. In terms of family and generally like obviously my my family's white I'm a white person I have an uncle who married a woman from Mexico City so a couple cousins who are Mexican other than that it's a white family I grew up with an array of friends but generally you know through life you mostly you know You can't pick, you can't tell kids to pick who they sit next to at the, you know, at the lunch table. And so most of my white friends who I, you know, came up with, they ended up, even the ones who are love rap. They all loved rap.

We all loved rap music. And we were all influenced by blackness through that, through menace to society. I was the one who kind of was always a little bit taking it a step further. Like, so my friend Alex, different Alex, who lived down the street, different way down the street. When we were in sixth grade, he exposed me to bone thugs in harmony, and it was creeping on a come-up. And it changed my life, and I said, this is the most beautiful thing I've ever heard in my life. shortly after that we watched Menace to Society he gave me the autobiography of Malcolm X his older brother was a blood and I was so I'm I was a I am a white kid from North Omaha from

a relatively wealthy area of North Omaha and yet if you go north of that area you're in the country and if you go south of that area you're in fucking North Omaha so I had a kind of unique experience and through that friend i started kind of that those kind of like those things i just mentioned is kind of planted seeds where i was like you know there's something here that i want to understand too rare man you're a rare there's probably i don't think there's anybody like him in this i just want to say there's you do not want to be you don't want to have his mentality and be white in north omaha because that's literally like you're sealing your warrant it there i was like you're so on point yeah it's like you cannot be that

you have to have if you're white in north omaha you have to be a little racist because that's the only way you'll get like most white people i know more racist white people in north omaha than west omaha yeah and i'm sure that classism why is that hit it up well i'm saying like okay there's rich white people and then there's poor white people well the poor white people there's more white people who are probably on um welfare than black people in this city and i think that's a that's a fact in the country but um but they're but they're because they're they're looked at as maybe that you don't you can't tell you know what I mean um but like you like you do not want to be you do not want to have a mentality of a pro-black

mentality and be white person in North Omaha because then you will be you will be labeled as a race traitor and that's the concept really that's kind of like where I would like to hit on is you know you have a concept of working class white neighborhood like Florence and I can show you North Omaha history blog spot which a guy I know actually makes that blog and he's documented the history of redlining in Omaha which for those who are unfamiliar it's basically like you draw a red line literally on a map and say this is where black people are allowed to live and not allowed to live. And banks do this.

Yeah. For loaning purposes. And housing. Housing, housing, too. Housing. Yeah. It's still done to this day. Now it's just in a different way.

Yeah. You can see it. So, yeah. Loan, yeah, no. Correct. So you can get into the very blatant history of racism in a place like Florence. And he put up on his website, there's like, you know, we only rent to whites. you know no negroes allowed that kind of thing that was going on in florence for a while

and that so then you get uh kind of i mean you could look into all kinds of factors but florence is a working class white neighborhood and then you get the kind of millard park there's literally a point yep where you here's the point it's right at i think it's right after the mexican restaurant right there and then and then like it's but it's like it's like it's like it's like like this it's kind of like racial divine like that and so you can go you can drive right down the street where marlin brando was born and then two blocks and a left down another block someone was going to get their brains blown up is that like strictly segregated it's very and competing for jobs so then you get into the kind of the intersection of class and race

race and class and which i think we both agreed earlier like we all agreed earlier that should be kind of combined and you get the opportunity for you know working class white folks who don't know that their labor values being sucked up by a ruling class which you know say what you want about marks that's one thing he was correct on that's kind of like irrefutable in my opinion so their labor values being sucked up at an unreasonable rate and they're feeling like they're not getting a fair shot at life so they're told to blame taxes and they're told to blame people of color who are taking their jobs and or sucking up their taxes putting it right on the head man hitting the nail right on the head there it is so when I

grew up and I like I said and I admit this I grew up in a wealthy part of north Omaha however everywhere around me unless I go up north which is country which you're not going to go hang out in the country I'm hanging out in north Omaha now so I'm these are the people I grew up around these are the things I saw these are the things I'm influenced by and yet I was always kind of a fly on the wall and that could be part of my privilege it's absolutely it's part of my privilege um but I wasn't hanging out with the preppy guys who hang out at the golf clubs in north Omaha because that exists too. I was always drawn to something more authentic.

I was drawn to friends who were of all races and so necessarily drew me in skateboarding, hip-hop, all that. So I'm seeing this and I become friends with a lot of people of a lot of different races. As I get older and I become more aware and I become more pro-black and I become more aware of how

my whiteness is my own. I can't separate that from white supremacy. I can't separate all the benefits that I've had from the history of white supremacy. Well, then that becomes, well, then there's a moment of truth. Am I going to be a big person, a mature person, and am I going to own this and admit it about myself yet say, I don't, this is the big thing. It's not my fault. It's not your fault or your fault, but it is our responsibility to acknowledge it and to try to do whatever we can, to try. change it exactly like the people of

Germany how that's how they view every day ever since the Holocaust they're reminded of it and it's their duty to make sure it doesn't happen again why because that's the responsible adult thing to do you don't fucking sweep it under the rug like everybody else does

and what he did was he stopped sweeping it under the rug and he and dude like you have no more friends you have no friends except like five people i had a hate group um basically like the mostly like the northeast omaha cats like it was kind of born it was that was kind of the nucleus of it but it spread across the city and i used to have a giant uh array of friends i was a very social person i was a popular

artist around town different people you would have racist you would have hillbilly hiccass racist ass people at his show that you know it's like that I knew they're from North Omaha like because like you could tell because they wear fucking like all camouflage and drive trucks but they'll say they all they bump is like hip hop but they're quick to be

like fucking nager like that but but they loved his music and like like right this doesn't I'm not I'm not you know and then there's no by any means representing who he represented of him but your friends were a reflection of you you know at one point but he as soon as he

I was slowly getting past that and then slowly slowly slowly there's less and less people out of shoulder well Nick's no or well take sure I like this he's a traitor he likes that I'm racist against white people

an end bomb lover no doubt and then I married a black woman and there it is dumb that sealed the deal and not only did they stop being friends with me but they literally formed a hate group against me I can't remember

what the fuck it was called I remember that though I remember too this white this white dude like he's known around North Omaha too because he used to know

he knows because he knows some crazy black people that I know through like just parties and like moves and stuff

and that guy he used to hang out at the one lounge a lot too some cats and um they had this dude went up

and did that fucking sidewinder shit man I remember he shared it and I was like Get the fuck. They threaten me with physical violence. All these people comment and all this shit, dude. You changed.

You changed. I fucking saw it with my own eyes. That's when I knew. I was like, man, that's my homie, man. I'm a ride or die for that dude for whatever. That's it. I love y'all. They are so cute, y'all.

That's my very. They are like my. I don't trust too many people at all. I don't trust the soul. Like, I have, I'm married to the woman I love, I have a hard time trusting her at the start. But, you know, that's my, that's my heart. Yeah, it's like your best friend.

I trust maybe like, like, there's five people in my family I trust and like five good friends outside of that I trust. And they happens to be one of them. Like, that dude's a lot, no. Yeah, for real. Like, I don't, like, I don't know, man. Just because I got you, I want to get his back, like, the way he has my back. And, like, the way he appreciates my skin and its contribution to my life,

the way he appreciates my life and he appreciates all people's life. I want to be able to give that to somebody else, too. So it's like, but it's cool because, like, you think, like, man, I don't have, like, no one under fucking stands me at all, you know, when you got this fucking, this white kid from North Omaha who's fucking, who's down, you know, and it's just really important to me. Like, it's like, I don't know, like, I mean, like, when I'm in the wrong, well, if something's wrong with me, that's the guy, like, I'll fucking, actually, like, I'll talk to him about something, like, hey, what should I do about this?

Because for some reason, he just knows how to fucking... Yeah. And not only did he, you know, sacrifice so much for taking a stand. I met him through organizing, so he puts that shit into practice. Yeah, he does. Well, he puts his money where his mouth is. Yeah. We organize them.

We're activists together, man. Exactly. And the thing is... And the thing is, like... I mean, you know, so when it all started when you're... When the construct was kind of just, like, falling and crumbling apart, and you were kind of just punching holes out, right? After you married your wife and you finally have the family,

where, what was after that? Like, what was it like, I guess, in your inner circle as far as... So then it goes to my family, and that would take a long time to explain. But let me just put it into, like, very basic terms because I want to let Rhea have a chance to talk and I want to let you have a chance to talk. Basically, what happened with my family was the same kind of thing except it hurt probably, you know, a thousand times worse.

And if you've ever seen the movie Mean Girls, Imagine Mean Girls with, you know, white women versus a black woman in another state, you know, we were actually in California when this all went down and just kind of imagine. like a bunch of women going mean girl style on a black woman who was pregnant who was just removed from everything she knew from the Midwest and you know and moved to another state and taking advantage of any kind of situation they could so again it's going to sound like conspiratorial but we can look at I've studied the sociology I've studied psychology.

It all plays into it. The sociology of racism is that when you flash pictures of people up, you know, and ask people questions about those people. And it applies to all races, but, I mean, when you're in a situation with white people, the dynamics kind of changed, the power. A black woman who is strong. strong, beautiful, confident, you know, all these things that women aspire to be in the face of white women who are maybe intimidated by her, who are maybe insecure.

For real, though, that's why I'm like, the bitch is just being hating on Ricky. Don't do that. Do not. Do not. Don't be, don't, do not show your power in front of these white women because they'll try to break you in any way they can't. Because listen, I'm sorry for your objection, but. No, it's fun.

I watched it play out. I've seen it like a 20-inch zenith. Believe it. God's Ray the chef, man. Right? Yeah, it's a chef, right? But, but a powerful woman,

a woman who gives off power is every woman, is every woman, you know, every black woman that I've ever met. Just simple because they have to. They can, there's there's no other way to get what they need to get other than to be powerful and I think

it's um I'm not I'm not trying to sound like a fucking hotel please like I'm not trying to do that shit I'm just saying to to be like I said the cards are already stacked against them and then I mean to marry to marry you a white man and then to you know it's like that's like well but here's the thing like you know you know if she's trying to if she's trying to get a job And if she's trying to play into the kind of white supremacist capitalist structure, then all of a sudden, and we go back to the political nature of hair, black hair, if she grows the hair out of her head, the way that it grows out of her head. Naturally. Naturally. That could and, well, I'm not going to say could.

That will cause problems necessarily. It will. that's a fact and there were a couple of moments in Chris Rock's documentary where I think one or two women touched on that fact

and one of them even said those exact words I'm kind of paraphrasing that in itself is an indictment on whiteness and the current state of American white supremacist culture if a black person

wearing their hair the way it comes out of their head is seen as being subversive. Where are we at? Yeah. Is this a colorblind society? Well, we all know it's not now because we've seen Trump. Everyone, when Obama won and all the white liberals wanted to say, it's all better now. That's exactly when I started going south because I was watching this shit.

I was watching it and like on a radar blip and I was watching as white supremacist groups were expanding. And I was telling all the people in my family who were all happy and all complacent, I was telling them, don't be complacent. Look at this. There's a backlash against a black president. And we could talk about Obama and critiques of him or whatever, but that's for another time period. We could do that on another podcast.

And Trump was the culmination of that back there. Yes. Yes. Definitely. And then on top of it, I mean, to add more to the hair thing, it is it is. It's another way to attack black people. We're trying to, now we're nitpicking now.

Right. We're going to still keep beating the fuck out of white supremacy and, and racism and just a culture of oppression that is upon us in the culture of fear. But still now we're going to start picking stuff. How are we, if everything's better, why are we in court for hair? This is literally the way my hair would grow. If I never brushed it, if I never, it's just a more uniform version of a big map that would grow out like that. We have a policy against that at our workplace, and it's all right as employers who employ you,

and you should be happy to have a job, right? Yep. That's crazy. Jimmy Johns is a perfect example of that. Like, I don't think you can even have, I don't know, maybe that's not true. But I think, like, they, the way, like, well, you can't, like, you can't have a sleeve like, I have tattoos everywhere. I can't work there.

I could never get a job. What I want to do is a racist prick, but, and he kills animals. But, uh, so fuck him. Fuck Jimmy Johns. If you be Jimmy Johns, fuck off. Go against yourself some little kings, okay? And when you're there, tell him Johnny sent you. But, Ria, like, you know, Ria, you're, look at your beautiful hair.

Like, all I can see, I feel like I'm looking at, I'm looking at, like, Jesus is crowned the thorns when I see your hair. Because it's like a badge of just a perfection, in my opinion. But I love what it is. You know, even if some of it's real, some of it's not whatever. Right. It does not matter. It's you.

It's you. It's you. It's you. Exactly, and you're unapologetically black, you know? Thank you. I want you to, like, whip when I have someone, if I ask you a question, I want you to turn on, just whip me in your hair. Have you, what did you say?

Have you had a situation where your hair was touched or that racism was, was, it actually just happened the other day. Okay, so I kicked this dude out because we were cool in high school or whatever, and he was going through some shit. He moved to Alabama, like, a couple years ago, and he just moved back here, like, a month ago and I guess like three days after he got here his roommates kicked him out red flag right I should have been like no but I was like yeah so he came over and he like you know we tried the roommate thing for like five days whatever then he fell off the face of the earth because he

could tell he was getting on my fucking nerves um and apparently he ended up in the hospital because I have like black mold poisoning in my basement or some shit I don't know struggle life right and I saw him at a McDonald's or whatever I guess he works there now I'm getting to the story y'all like I promise and he asked me if he can come pick up his stuff whatever yeah so I let him come pick up his stuff and we were just sitting in the car like talking about all the good things that's going on in his life now and he just like touched my hair like out of nowhere he just yeah and then just like ran his fucking hands through my hair and I was like

what the fuck like and he's he says nigger all the time he's not a fucking black person like so i don't understand like i don't know he's just off to fucking charts but people are like that in general like people will come up to me and just try to touch my hair or even ask like don't even ask to touch my hair like touch your fucking hair i wonder if that's reflective of an entitlement to black bodies yes it is exactly and that's why it's like why are you why do you mean like the same thing that when I would stand on a, when somebody in my family stood on a fucking wooden stage and a man walked around with a pointer pointing at, look at his pectorals. Look at his hair. It's very curly. It's not, it's not going to grow that much. This one, like, with, with me, I mean, the same thing

just happened. A man, an Irish man, I was at a bar, and an Irish man came up to me, took my hair like this, put his head under it. And he was like, let's go get some girls. And I was like, dude, I'll break your fucking job, bitch. Well, I told him I was going to break his job. And then I stared off like this, just like with a fucking dead stare out. You're looking at tequila. And so I look weird. And then he was just like, what's your problem?

It's like, why are you touching? What makes you think you can touch my hair? It's like you would never do that to another. Why would you, why don't you ever touch your girl's hair or your best friend's hair? Or something like, did you ever do that? What if? some strange man and let's make him black for the hell of it comes up and touches your mom's hair or your sister's hair or your wife or girlfriend's hair or your daughter's hair or let's say he

asks politely ahead of time oh i see what you're saying okay you're not going to like that because that's happened to me where this is exactly like uh my my wife is out at uh a local club i won't say the name because i like i like yeah no no no i respect the club Well, it's not even a club It's a music venue I respect them I respect the owners Some white guys

Come up and start Touching my wife's hair She's wearing it naturally This is part of why she Rarely wears it this way anymore And the guys both Like they're putting their hands In her hair

And they're touching it In front of her Yes just like Well they're behind her But they're just kind of like She could notice Oh yeah Yeah so she turns around

I would have punched And so she's That's salt basically You're on my You're assaulting me I don't know you We've never met If I do know you

You know that you don't need to touch my hair So here's the gaslighting process From the white guys She turns around And she's none too happy And she's actually a little angry So there's tone policing So already she's the angry black woman

Right Like even before they do anything As soon as we open our mouth We're the angry Oh yeah that's how they That's the only way they That's the only way But you throw it fucking right back in their face.

Do not police my tone. I'm upset with how you're treating me. Yeah, then you're even angrier, right? It's gaslighting. Turn your phone on. All I tell you that is, for any advice to that, turn, we'll talk about what white people can do as allies. Here's what these assholes say. They say, come on, touch my hair.

I don't care. Ooh. I don't want to touch your fucking greasy hair, bitch. Right. And even if I did, which I don't, if I asked, you wouldn't that sound a little weird can i touch your hair well and so let's say that they are comfortable with it the power dynamics and the history of white men and black women i'm sorry no it's not equal it's not the same thing and then they'll say they'll quote martin luther king and they'll

gaslight fucking even more and they'll say judge the content of the character not the color of the skin you're talking about gender and race you're sexist and racist and they will flip it all back on you this is what they do and this is the mind fuck that happens all the time in all kinds of subtle and not so subtle ways right yeah go uh-huh how could you be so down for a nigger who won't go up for you i wish i would address the truth and chuck the deuce instead i said fuck the truth i was fucked up dumbed-up stuff my shoes trying to run to you even though you to live you to last when I hurt me, Pisces, but you left a bitch thirsty, pause. Got me checking on your Instagram lurking, folk 30 in a martin.

Had a bitch hot, like scorching, I let you go because I don't ever like to force things. Anyway, didn't want it to get messy, but when did you have mercy for Goldie? You left me, you hurt me, and I don't want to cry. I thought it a shot Rea go don't let no nigger get over on you Used to love fucking and calling me Who says you love me I said I love you too

Not even mad I'm just telling the truth Could have been everything you wanted And more But you just close the door Ain't even stay for us in store That I'm sure it wasn't I'll just want to giggles When they play like a fiddle

Reciplicating like ditto Did all Fuck you too I always wonder about Why you let me go Why you let me walk Up on out that door We just went out for drinks

And you took me home Walk me to my porch Where you turn me on All night you told me that you heard it in the background background, not just any music, talking Mr. So-child. Several scared to come fuck with me, because you see I'm chasing dreams, but that don't mean that I don't need no love. So tonight you should go and take the chase with us.

Maybe everything you wanted, everything you wanted, boy. Don't let that way Don't let that step away Don't let that escape Oh no No no Don't let that Don't let it

So now I will love No No No Don't let it know No No no No

No I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.