The Breakfast Club - INTERVIEW: Tommy Davidson On Reducing Homicide Rate Of Black Boys, Discovering His Race, Comedic Ability + More

Episode Date: August 14, 2024

The Breakfast Club sit down with comedian and actor Tommy Davidson. He opens up about his efforts to reduce the homicide rate among Black boys. He also delves into his natural comedic abilities. Listen for more! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Wake that ass up in the morning. The Breakfast Club. Yep, it's the world's most dangerous morning show, The Breakfast Club. Charlemagne Tha God, Lauren LaRosa is guest hosting, because you know Jess Hilarious is on maternity leave. Envy is on his way back from 50 Cent's Humor and Harmony weekend. But we got somebody here who knows a thing or two about humor. Mr. Tommy Davidson, how are you, sir?

Thank you, how you doing? I'm blessed, my brother. Thanks for having me back, man. Absolutely, good to see you, man. Hey, man, haven't been here since the... I guess there was a writer's strike on your show. Yep. Yeah. I don't know.

Was that two, three years? When was the writer's strike? Damn. Two or three years. Two years ago, Lauren? The writer's strike? Just about. Just about, yeah.

Yeah, right after the pandemic. Yeah, I'm glad to be back, though. Two years. It felt like we just went through that. And you're doing a one-man comedy show at Sony Hall? Oh yeah. Tuesday, August 13th? Oh yeah.

Tomorrow? Back New York. Back, is this the camera? Yeah. Back New York. In New York they say Derrick and Eric. They say Derrick and Eric. In DC they say Derrick and Eric.

Tonight, oh, it's gonna air tomorrow. So tonight you'll be there? Yeah, tonight I'm gonna be there. New York you'll be there? Yeah, tonight I'm going to be there. New York, watch out, I'm back. I'm back. Do you still get nervous when you got to go on stage and tell jokes?

Nah. Okay. Nah, it's a mortgage attachment. Where, where, where? Yeah. So, yeah, and tuition. So does it feel more like a job or is it still something

that you love to do and it still feels fun? Ah, man, it's, I'm a stand up first. Okay. Official. It's, it's the love of my life. You know, during the pandemic, I worked, I worked in the clubs and I worked in the clubs that I worked at for like 35 years already.

And they were saying, hey, come out here and save our club. So I went to all these different clubs where everybody was hankered down and it looked like hockey games. They had the plexiglass up and mask. And even some of my friends were outside, like, you know, I would come in, they had their mask, I would come in, but I just wanted to come and say hi and run back the other way.

And it's always been there. You know, I'm doing a movie. And it's always been there. You know, if I'm doing a movie, if I'm in my movie phase, you know, I could do stand-up, get in my cartoon phase. Whatever I do in my career, stand-up's always there. You know, stand-up's always there. I saw something recently. They said they remaking Woo.

Not that I know of. Did you see that? Yeah. Yeah, I saw something like they said they remaking woo not that I know of did you see that no yeah they remaking woo okay yeah well maybe three people to see it buddy this is this is Donna North Cross a really good friend of mine. He has a program called the OK Program. Now, the way I got exposed to it was a friend of mine told me about the program. And years later, I was at a comedy club

and he walks into the green room and I go, you're the dude with the program. So he invites me to their yearly national convention. And I walk in, and there's like 30 grown black men and young black men hugging this man and crying. And I sit back, and they got degrees, and some of them are sheriffs, and all these people. And I said, I got to know more about this.

And I got involved because it's a very important thing happening here. You know? Talk to us more about the program, brother. Yeah. Thanks for having me on, man. He ain't never been to New York either. That's what they said. They said he'd never been to a big city.

Yeah. I'm from Arkansas. Okay. I live in Sacramento now, though. All right. I left Arkansas and went to California, became a sheriff's deputy, and retired as a sheriff's deputy. And it leads me to what I do today, to be honest with you.

As a sheriff's deputy, I got tired of seeing black men and boys killing each other and going to jail. I looked around for a solution to the problem, and I didn't see one, other than building more prisons and hiring more police officers. And so I used to come home after my shift every night, and I would lament to my wife about what I witnessed on my shift you know on my watch and then I'd always finish up by saying somebody got to do something about it and then one night in mid sentence it dawned on me

I was somebody I'm the one I've been waiting on I realized nobody else is going to stop black men and boys from killing each other but black men and boys and so I started this organization and that's our main goal to reduce homicide rate of black men and boys and so yeah we do it through what we call a life support system. We recruit, train, and organize black men to work with black police officers

that we interview and carefully select those officers because I realize that if you get the wrong black officer in the community, he can do more harm than good. So we go through a process of vetting these officers as we interview them, and then we select that officer to run the program full-time. We take him out of patrol or wherever he's working, and we dress him down in plain clothes. He has a plain vehicle, and he works specifically with the OK program.

That's his full-time job. And then, again, we go in the community, we recruit, and we train these black men. In Oakland, we've trained over 600. Actually, my last training took us over 700 black men in Oakland that we would train to work with these officers. And so we call it a life support system because it's a life support system. We don't hook them up to, you know, about the one that once they catch a bullet in the head,

we run and hook them up to a life support system to try to save their lives. I realize that we need a life support system that we hook them up with, you know, and that's what we do. We hook these boys up with the life support system, which is an interconnected network of black men that bring together our knowledge, our wisdom, our experiences, and our resources to provide support in the daily lives of black boys. That's why we call it a life support system. And so we do this, man, I tell you, we support them in the school. That officer is on campus every day giving these boys support, talking to their teachers about how they're doing. Their teachers fill out consent forms or the parents fill out consent forms for the school

to give the officer permission on the boys, how they're doing in school every day. And so we recruit these boys. We go by their houses. We recruit them in the schools. And so we don't just hang a sign on the door and say, hey, we open for business. We actually go get them. We let them know we love them. We believe in them.

We support them. And when we interview that officer, we make sure that he can say that he loves his people, he loves black boys, he understands the state that we're in, and he's willing to work with these boys and these men to help change the course of our boys. And so, like I said, we focus specifically on that. So we support them in the school. The teachers communicate with us how the boys are doing. If they're doing great, we like to acknowledge that and encourage that good behavior, but

we're also on there to correct the negative behavior. The officers support some after-school hours. We're in the neighborhood. We go to the ballgames with the men. We build that relationship with those boys. We support them on weekends. Every Saturday from 10 to 2, we have the boys and the men. That's when the mentors come together, and we're with those boys.

We have a curriculum about 35 different topics that deal with issues that are germane to the black community, particularly black men and black boys. We look at the problem, the contributing factors to the problem, and then what we have to do to change that situation, our own situation. And so we do that with the boys, and we get them in the sixth grade, and we follow the same boys all the way through 12th grade, so we can build that long-term relationship with those boys. So we put them like that on weekends. That's every weekend we have those boys and those men. And so the men don't have to come every Saturday. The same man doesn't. I'm a country boy, so I learned, you know, a lot of hands make quick work.

You know, I don't know if you guys have shelled peas before, but if you get a butcher. Oh, yeah, you're from South Carolina. You from Charleston, South Carolina. Yeah, you shelled peas. I've never shelled peas. Charlemagne Lottie. Shelled.

Shelled. Shelled peas. He don't know what I'm talking about. That's right. A lot of folks think peas. I've cleaned greens. We did clean that too, but I'm telling you why

I use shell and peas as an analogy. If you got a bushel basket of peas and you by yourself, you got a long day. That's right. That's right.

But if you get three or four people sitting around that bushel basket of peas and they all reaching there shelling peas and they laughing and talking, man, it's done before you know it.

I see these old women in my hometown, they be talking and then they reaching the bottom of that barrel for that bucket for some peas. And they say, oh, Lord have mercy. Where'd all those peas go? That's right.

You look at everybody's wash pan on their lap. They full of peas. That's right. A lot of hands make quick work. So I designed a program where you get a lot of men doing a little. You get a lot done. You can't get a few people doing a lot. You burn them out.

So you got to get a lot of people doing a little bit. That's why we say we got over 700 men now in Oakland. What we've actually done, we went in and we recruited those those men but we only asked them to come up for the show for three times every year but they can come as many times they want to a lot of men come every saturday but i know if i ask a brother to come five six seven eight times oh god damn i'm gonna lose him charlemagne no but if i say hey all we need you to do is show for three times and we train all the men yes so all the men have to be on the same page i don't need a hundred all the men. Yes, sir. All the men have to be on the same page. I don't need 100 brothers out there saying 100 different things.

I just need brothers out there on the same page. We have to know how we're going to present ourselves to our boys. We ain't talking about no sexual stuff. We're not using the N-word. We're not cursing. We have to show these boys a different kind of man that they used to admit in their community. Seventy-some percent of our household is headed by single mothers. So we make sure that we recruit these black men.

And I keep saying black men because we don't make no exceptions. All of our men are black. All of our men are black. All of our boys are black. We're not trying to solve all the problems in America right now. We're just trying to reduce homicide rate of black men and boys. And can't nobody stop black men and boys from killing each other but black men and boys. We have to be serious about this, man. How can we help this program?

What's the website that they can go to? OKProgram.org. Go to OKProgram.org and check us out. You know, we've been around a long time. Been fighting this battle a long time, man. And it's not hard to get men at grassroots level. Black men been around a long time, been fighting this battle a long time. It's not hard to get men at grassroots level. Black men look for a message like this, not only a message, but something that's attached to that message like a plan.

That's why we call it a life support system. It's actually a plan. We talk about we support these boys in terms of when they get in high school in our program. Remember, we get them in sixth grade. By turning it into high school now, we have pathway advisors now. We have other black men in Oakland. They're with the probation department. They're assigned to the program full-time.

So these men, and we select them too, but these men actually now, they work with our boards in ninth grade, start helping them get their driver's license before they get out of high school, their Social Security card, exposing them to different career paths when they get out of school. All of our boards when they get out of school, they know that they've experienced, they've experienced, uh, this, this, this career path thing now. So we want them to either go to college,

uh, trade school, uh, code in a military. So they, we focus on these different areas so that when they get out of high school, they just not going to stand on the corner. Now that's a life support system. And we get them in that, in that, in that system, we know that that's going to save their life because they're not going to be out in the streets hustling. They're less likely to go to jail. They're less likely to kill somebody else

because our curriculum is dealing with, for example, we talk about some of the things we talk about. Again, we've got 35 sessions, but one of the things we talk about, we're heavy on, is the homicide rate of black men and boys. You know we're only 6% of the nation's population and we account for 50% of the homicides each year. You mean black men?

Black men. We're 6% of the nation's population. Look at the Center? Black men. We're 6% of the nation's population. Look at the Center for Disease Control. We're 6% of the nation's population. But we account for about 50% of the homicides each year in Charlemagne. There's nowhere in the world 6% of our population should account for as many homicides as 94% of the population, and we're okay with that. Nobody's talking about let's reduce homicide rate of black men and boys.

Incarceration numbers. Well, incarceration is just as bad almost, you know. But nobody is talking about, in particular black men. I don't expect everybody to talk about it. But it hurt my heart. That's why I've been doing this for 30-some years now. It hurt my heart to see black men don't have a plan to reduce homicide rate of black men. We have a cause.

We jump on every cause out there. This should be our number one cause. Because if we can reduce homicide rate of black men and boys, it cause. We jump on every cause out there. This should be our number one cause. Because if we can reduce homicide rate of black men and boys, it's going to reduce violent crimes in our city. In order to reduce homicide rate of black men and boys, you got to love our boys. We got to love each other, man. It all starts with love. As you begin to love each other, you begin to

change the crime rate in our city. More jobs come in. More businesses come in. Everything changes. If we can reduce the homicide rate of black men and boys nobody can do it but us you know it's one of the biggest things you said uh you know while you was talking is that you were a police officer yeah but you felt like you couldn't change anything being a police officer wow i couldn't do it man no man i mean policing is not designed to do what i'm talking about doing i'm just being honest with policing is not designed to reduce the homicide rate or stop black men and boys from going to jail.

It's not. Police officers are there to respond to crime, basically. They forgot the label that we have as being community service or peace officers. Protect and serve. Protect and serve. Being a peace officer. We look at enforcement officer because enforcement is how you promote. or a peace officer. Protect and serve. Protect and serve. Being a peace officer. We look at an enforcement officer because enforcement is how you promote.

Enforcement is how you get a name in law enforcement. So we value enforcement over serving the community. And so we have to, you know, I didn't like the police at all when I was growing up because I grew up in a small southern town. You know, I'm up one'm about one in 50 so you can imagine i was part of the segregation in the south which is where a lot of my mentality comes from you know i lived in the colorful quarters i lived on the other side of town i just see my first black police officer my hometown tonight 1978 i believe it was wow yeah yeah and so do you i'm 65 years old look good brother i appreciate

that man i'm trying to keep up with Tommy Davidson. Go ahead, man. I got my question for y'all and the work that you're doing because you're working with the program too, Tommy. So in the state that we're in right now with the political climate, do you guys think that Kamala is best for the Democrats? And moving forward, the conversation, the mission that you guys are talking about with just black men and them fighting for causes that are going to make sense for them at the end of the day. Absolutely. I mean, for the other choice you're saying? Yes. Oh, man.

Hands down. No doubt. I mean, you know. You don't want police immunity? You don't want immunity for all your fellow officers? Oh, no, no, no. They don't need qualified immunity. I was going there next.

No, no. That's one of the worst things I think that you can do is get someone total immunity from their own responsibility. You can't do that. It creates a problem you know there's i was telling uh a danny a friend of uh i just met dami but he danny seemed like i've been doing a long time we've stand outside talking first time i ever met him we sent outside talking about the business of law enforcement you know and um i was telling him you know dan i said look if someone if if you're a police officer and I'm a police officer and we come up on the scene and we have to fight a guy, a legitimate fight, you know, and we fight him and then we get him under control and I get the cuffs on him. And there's other people standing all across the street watching, just citizens.

And once we get the cuffs on him, Danny, you stand up and you give him another kick. You kick him. And I don't say anything, Danny. I say, you know how many bad police officers on the scene for those people concerned? There's two bad police officers on the scene. But if you kick that guy and I push you back, say, Danny, I tell you, no, they don't have to hear my word, but they see my action. There's only one bad police officer on the scene. But that's what I'm saying.

The good officers stand by and allow the bad officers to get away with it over and over and over again. That's why we have so many bad officers, because we allow it to happen. The good officers allow it to happen, and it costs all of us in the long run. What do you think, Tommy, about the question Lauren asked, just about the political climate? You know, it's always been the same for us, African-American community.

I mean, we got a choice between the two, right? And, you know, personally you personally you know who's for community you know who's for us you know and i say who's for us who's for the people the working people you know what's going to be the outcome is it going to feed the billionaires is it going to is it going to take the money to them and take it away away from all the services that we need it's been it's been a battle the whole time. But we do the best we can with our political systems. But it's just like the Tilden-Hayes Compromise.

We got a choice between the two of them, but when we're gone, they conspire together. Tilden-Hayes Compromise, I think it was 1856, I think right after the Civil War. And they got together with the Tildes compromise same thing happened in miami yeah you know in in florida and they were going to have another civil war over that so they got in together and they made the children hayes compromise and they said um if you make our party the president you know we'll release the federal troops from the south and then jim crow

started we didn't get out of that until 1968 so they're political parties but you know we're we're the group we're the group of african we're we're the group that came here and built basically the imperial wealth of the country you know all that cotton and all that tobacco and all that rice and all that work, it was all for free and it was for 400 years. So the people that are sitting on top of that money right now are the same people, you know, and they're a small consortium.

My mother, who's a white woman out of Wyoming and Colorado, and we grew up in D.C., said, well, the people united will never be defeated. You know, so we do the best we can with the systems that we're in. But it does come down to us. It comes down to what we do. And, you know, my total look at it is that we're doing just fine. You know, we got to look at the linear comparison of where we are now.

You know, and they've gone after the head of our families with heroin and cocaine and all this other stuff. You know, but they went after the wrong head because the head is the female. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? Everybody's grandmother is the one. You know, so. I didn't know your mother was white. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. Biological mother? Yeah. Okay. No, not my biological mother. My mother. Oh, got you, oh got you got you got my mother that found me got you got you yeah um I think she's black now that I think about it you know but you know it's just one of those things where you know I go a day at a time and try the best I can you know and so you know I hear hip-hop you know they're not like us no we they are us when I talk about the okay program you know and so you know I hear hip-hop you know they're not like us no we they are us

when I talk about the okay program you know they're not like us and I got well they're us you know and when it comes down to it you know we've always been the best thing for us absolutely you know so that's where I'm coming from you know it's interesting you want to you you you you you want to have a conversation with Dr. Uma? No. That was supposed to be between me and you, man. Oh, my fault. I know. My bad.

My bad. No, no, no, no. He's not here. I was going to try to make it happen. No, no, no, no. No, no, no. Because he made a comment that he don't respect any black man that get married to a white woman. And, you know, I was just, you know, he's a doctor.

So I was like, hey, man. You know, watching that, watching that, it kind of just made me want to say something. Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. You know, want to say something because, you know, we do that. And then we're doing the same thing that got done to us. You know, isn't it them that said that? And then we're doing the same thing that got done to us. You know? Isn't it them that said that?

You know? You're not to marry a black person. As a matter of fact, they started out saying they can't get married at all. You know what I mean? And the way I see it, you know, with my mother and my family raising me and love me so much, they're not the only good, well-meaning white people in this country. You know, John Brown, and we can go on and on and on and on. You know, so we start that discussion with us.

You know, we need to do this and do that and do that. You know what I mean? And because we're Africans and we're this, we're that, we're that. First of all, Africans aren't outside of humanity. We're a part of humanity. You know, we're an essential part of it because everybody walked out of Africa and changed colors based on geography and where they were.

You know, so at the root of mankind is Africa. So, you know, if we trip on color, we're tripping on ourselves because it's just really a mirror of us anyway you know and i grew up in the 70s right so peace was in style in the 70s when i was a kid hippie era yeah oh yeah vietnam kids were coming back from vietnam and women's were getting their rights and there was busing and all that stuff we're years and years away from that and now we're we're on our march you know i i just really um i love my job because i dispense happy

and i go to every corner of the world military bases and all kind of stuff and dispense happy i got a great job you know it's not like i work at the like I work at the baggage claim in the airport. First thing they hear is, where are my damn bags? You know what I mean? When I show up, people go, man, would you take a picture with my grandmother? This woman's son just got killed. Would you talk to her? And those kind of things. And I'm just fortunate.

I'm on full scholarship right now of my great-great-great-great-grandmother and grandfather who took the lash. Yeah. They took the lash and then prayed us here. That's a good way to look at it. Full scholarship from my great-great-grandmother who took the lash.

I like that. You know, that's what I love about Tommy because Tommy understands that, how he just explained it about, you know, we have to be able to respect everybody and understand. But he also understands that as black people, in particular black men, we have a responsibility to our own community. And that's what fascinated me about him because I know about how he came up. And I know about being found by his white mother, you know, and taking him in and loving him and raising him with a white sister and a white brother. But at the same time, and even through that,

he never forgot that he still have a responsibility to his people. And there's some unique challenges that black men face in this country and black people in general. But we focus on solving black man problems because if we can solve this problem, then our whole community is going to benefit from that. And so Tommy, this is one of the three brothers I know that has a spotlight that totally embrace what we do because he understand that. He know that we're not, Tommy understands, I think that, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think he understands that just because you love yourself don't mean you got to not like nobody else.

That's right. And so we, and he never, he never shied away. I've been trying to get brothers a long time. I've been trying to contact athletes and entertainers, black men who have some influence and have some resources that we can expand this program across the country. There's this life support system around the country. It's hard to get to those brothers, you know, and it's hard for them to sit down and listen.

That's why I appreciate Charlamagne for giving me a chance to come on and talk about this because it's so important. And a brother like Tommy who have never backed away from it in spite of him. He said no. He said yes before I hardly finished. Yeah. I have a question for you, Tommy, just backing off of what you said.

So I know at one point you had said, like, at one point in time, you didn't even know that you were black. And that comes from, you know, having your adopted white mom. How do you, when going into the, even working with a program like OK or, like, just anything that you're doing, like like how do you go into rooms and have conversations about just being young and your upbringing and knowing that at one point you didn't know that you were black, but then you realize that like that upbringing is a lot different than like my brother who like has always been a black man. I mean, you've always been a black man, too, but you know what I mean? Like just it seems like you're a lot more optimistic from what I'm gathering from you. And I think a lot of people.

So, like, when we talk about Dr. Umar, I don't think that he's not optimistic, but I think his background is a lot different than yours. So how do you even engage in those conversations? Because it's different for somebody else who didn't have a white adopted mom. Yeah, well, you know, when it comes to when especially African-Americans, you know, our breadth is wide, you know. I, when I found out that I was black and my family was white, I started saying, well, what is black? And so to me in my neighborhood, I grew up in D.C. So what was black to me was, hey, man, you sell drugs, you go to jail, you come back, and you be like, this is how it was in there.

You know what I mean? You fight people, you take stuff. And I saw that in my neighborhood, and that was identified as like, hey, that's a positive thing. I need to be down. That was the only example of blackness you saw? You know what I mean?

No, it wasn't. But in that neighborhood we had to band together to protect ourselves from just what was happening in general. So that was around when I was about 10 because a lot of the inner city people moved to inner city blacks moved to my neighborhood so it changed you know i was just a little eight-year-old little eight-year-old boy that had friends of all colors you know but then when it came down to it there was a distinction you know and there was me and my boys you know and i and then through lessons that i that i learned just personally like my mother she wasn't having it you know i know, she looked under my bed and saw money and saw all this other stuff and said,

you got to get out. You were selling drugs. Yeah, you got to get out the house. Yeah. You know what I mean? Do you remember when you turned back? I was a very good drug dealer. Not turn back.

Do you remember when you turned back? Huh? Do you remember when you turned back? Yeah, I remember the day. What was the day? Well, you know, I had been called, you know, Nigga. Yeah.

Okay. And that was the first time, I mean, a grown white man chased me home. And teenagers, I'd be riding my bike, they'd jump out of the truck, kill the nigga, and all of this. So I went home to my mother. I was like, who are these niggas, right? Oh, to your white mom. You said that.

What did she say? Yeah. Well, she she said that's what people are color called people your color and that's when the color thing came up you know and i said well what about the people that are my color i mean she said you're you're black i said no we're brown so when i started investigating this that was one of the dimensions that i went into. Wow. Was that if I'm like this, that makes me legit. Mm-hmm. But it's a social stage. You know, if you take a woman, rape her, kick her in the face, throw her in the dirt, you know, stomp her,

and her family comes and gets her and washes her off and and gets her back to normal the first thing she's going to want to do is put on a dress get her hair done and get back get back her her her sanctity you know what i mean and and that's how societies are that's how our groups ethnic groups are in the country you know we come here, we've been kicked down. The Irish went through it. They were the dogs of the whole, the bottom of the line. You can see it through the movies. Once upon a time in America, right?

That was about when the Jews were out in the street as gangsters. The Godfather. You see them out in the street. They're doing their thing. In Pittsburgh, gangs, white gangs, the gangs of New York. I get what you're saying.

All these different minority groups trying to survive. It's a stage. Yeah. Coming out for us was not after World War II. It was in the 60s. So there we are now, and we're in the stage that we're in. But at that stage, the government created programs for the youth.

There was Roosevelt's program, the work program, it included taking all of the youth there was roosevelt's program the work program included taking all of the youth and put them in the camps there's the ymca right there's the boys clubs of america you know there's there's a 4-h club you know there's all these things that were created to keep them out of the streets you know and we had never benefited from those programs. That's one of the reasons why I gravitate towards this one because it's organized, it works. I see they're grown men. They're grown men now. You know what I mean? So, you know, if anybody in this country has just been kind of bombarded by problem after problem after problem after problem at the problem you know it's it's it's our community but the good the the the best thing about it is is that we're forgiving we're forgiving people we're loving people you know we're we're we're we're um and we got the tools to heal ourselves

we got the tools to help ourselves right so yeah so so it turns into, the conversation turns into something simple for me. You know, as long as this country is dealing with the human race, we're going to be racing. So it's going to be, you know, the whites racing for resources and the Mexicans racing, Puerto Ricans racing. But the second that this country becomes mankind, you know, man being kind, then we're going to get that change but until then it's going to be the human race that's right and it always it always has been but the wonderful thing i love about the human race is this early early in our in our in our in our in. Way back when a band of humans that was one color saw a band of humans that

was another color, the guys would say, the girls look good over there that color. And the girls would say, the guys look good over there that color. And that's how we got colored. Dress always look green on the other side

you know what I mean it look better because they're over here going those guys over there that are that color look good and they're going those girls over there that color look good thusly we are all the colors in the Bible

they call it begat they call it begat he begat this he begatting. They call it begatting. Yeah, you know, he begat this, he begat that, you know. Who's that on your shirt? Oh, this is Cat. That's Cat Williams. Oh, that is Cat.

Okay, okay, okay. Hey, hey, let me stand up because this is for the algorithm. Hey, hey, it's for Shannon and everybody. You know, I wanted to bring the numbers up. You know what I mean? But that's been a cool, cool. Speaking of comedy, let me talk about comedy. You didn't talk about comedy.

You got a show tonight at Sony Hall. Yeah, yeah. One night only. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. One night. And being in New York City, people are, are you coming back to New York? You coming back to New York?

Yeah, I'm back. I'm back. And I partly grew up here, you know, because my cousins lived here and grew up here. And so New York, I've been, you know, since 42nd Street, the movies, the whole nine yards. You know, but things have been going really well. And Cat, the Cat tour is like family. You know, we went around this country, did some big things.

He went on Shannon, blew up, you know, never changed the attitude. Oh, you was on Cat's tour? Yeah, I was on Cat's tour. Yeah, yeah. And it was a great tour. One of the best tours I've been on

because everybody's like family there. What's the biggest misconception about Cat Williams, you think? Um, hmm,

that he's not compassionate. You know, and that's the first thing I know about him. You know what I mean? He treats everybody the same. Me and him have a lot of similar qualities.

Treats everybody the same at face value. He loves when you call him directly. That's one of the problems I've had in Hollywood. Calling someone directly and really talking to them.

Or talking to them at a club or something, you know, Hey, how you doing? Oh, Hey, I'm fine. I'm over here. You know, and you're over there. He not like us. He not like us, you know? So yeah, you know, you know, but, but, you know, you know, I'm, we are where we are and, and, and, and we're in a really good place. I'm one of the people that looks at us at where we are you know hey the lowly slave spent two terms in the white house you know what i mean it wasn't good for nothing right okay and now we're now we're circling back and we have one of our sisters there too.

So black women around the world are going, little black girls are going, I can do this. And it's not as important here. It's important out there in the global perception of who we are. Because like I said, we're not outside of humanity. We're a part of it. And that influences people. When Obama won, I was in all these different countries.

They go to the cab driver, you're Obama. Are you Obama? I like that guy. You know what I mean? And it's just we're influencing this world in in a million different ways you watch the olympics you know you you you you see the surgeons and the doctors that are that are doing their thing here you know whatever we touch you know we can we can turn it into gold we can spin it into gold you So this is where we are.

The fifth dimension back in the early 70s saying, we're in the dawning of the age of Aquarius, the age where we're in it now, the age of enlightenment. That's right. You know what I mean? And we are part of that whole enlightenment. And that's the good thing about us is that we're kind of like a barometer for mankind. Because if anybody can go from where we are to where we are, then that means anybody who sees that can go from where they are to where they are.

I think we're in a place, too, of really getting to teach people how to treat us. And that's important as well too. For sure. They're saying we gotta rap. I do want to ask you one thing, Convy. What were your thoughts when Oprah talked about how she was weight shamed by a skin on in living color? If I were her, I would take it personal.

Really? I mean if you ain't trying to laugh. You know what I mean? I thought that was some inside information. They were in the writer's room and they put Oprah up on their head. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you ain't trying to laugh. You know, if somebody said, you know, if somebody did a skit about me, you know, and Tommy look like he's starving.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm in a little loincloth and somebody handed me a nail later, you know, and tommy look like he's starving yeah and i'm i'm in a little loincloth and somebody handed me a nail later you know and i'll be laughing i'll be laughing my ass off yeah you know like you laugh yeah because i love to laugh and and and that's the core of it you know what i mean and and and what we do in comedy is we take something and we blow it to its extreme and that's what makes it funny. Now we're in it. We're in a climate of a mob.

We're in a mob climate. You know, remind me of Frankenstein. You know, Frankenstein wasn't the monster. He was the doctor. The doctor dug the body up. He knew Igor cut the brain. You know? And so the

mob came to get the monster and the only reason why they hated the monster is because he looked different can I do one more question so speaking of that the Proud Family remake got a lot of

pushback for a couple different reasons one of the episodes there was a male influencer who was promoting makeup, and there was a gay couple on the show. People were upset about that. Mob culture. People don't like when things change in general, but especially not when you talk about sexuality and how people identify. What are your thoughts on that?

Judy! Sugar Mama! Sugar mama! Hey, listen. Who out here is perfect? Right? So if we go an eye for an eye, everybody blind.

You know? Had we not stood up for our rights, we lost lives over that. You know, had the Irish not stood up for our rights, we lost lives over that. You know, had the Irish not stood up for their cause, had the Chicanos not done that, the migrant workers that were picking and doing that kind of stuff. You know, I was raised in the kind of household where we had to look at everything equally. And if we, even if we said a slur, we get punished, you know um like i was saying you know the mob went after the monster right because the monster looked different it was different but actually actually that that monster was really kind was really compassionate was handing little girls flowers and he understood

what was happening i'm a part of this society in every way. My brother was a gay male. He was white. You know, the opposite of my neighborhood and what was black and masculine. But he was my best friend. He was my best, best friend. You know, and could you understand

how that could have alienated me? And it did when I was young because I didn't have a brother to help me out there in the streets fighting and stuff like that. But as I understood more and understood what love was, you know, that was one of my biggest advocates. And this is all about purpose, individual purpose. What are we going to do while we're here? Right? This is all about purpose, individual purpose. What are we going to do while we're here, right? He went down with his gay and lesbian friends in Capital City, Seattle, went to the government, made the government pass a law where AIDS was turned into a legal disease

so that people who had it could be insured. You see what I mean? So we are, you know, what is our purpose? You know, our purpose is like the pandemic, to survive. Right? It's only when we're at the precipice, you know, of survival that we pull together. But why wait till then?

Let me tell you something. I respect Tommy Davidson's ability to answer a question without answering the question because you still be dropping. I got, I got where you were going. Go back, go back. I like what you gave us.

Tell us the website again for the OK program. OKprogram.org. All right. Yep. OKprogram.org. And Tommy Davidson will be at Sony Hall tonight. Is it sold out already? It. All right. Yep, OKProgram.org. And Tommy Davidson will be at Sony Hall tonight. Is it sold out already?

It's sold out. No, no, no. There's still tickets. Okay, well, there's still some tickets available. It's New York. They're going to walk up. You can go check out

Tommy Davidson tonight at Sony Hall. What time does the show start, Tommy? Eight. Eight o'clock. Don't make yourself a stranger, man. It's been too long between conversations.

My guy. It's The Breakfast Club. Wake that ass up. In the morning. The Breakfast Club. stranger man it's been too long between conversations my guy it's the breakfast club wake that ass up in the morning the breakfast club