The Dr. Hyman Show - Hawk Newsome on Black Health Matters

Episode Date: May 30, 2018

My guest this week is Hawk Newsome, an extraordinary man and activist at the forefront of the new civil rights movement and president of Black Lives Matter, New York. Millions of African Americans are killed every year by an invisible form of racism, a silent and insidious injustice. This is an often-internalized force of racism and oppression that disproportionately affects the poor and African American communities. The culprit? Our food and food systems. It’s voices like Hawk's that are shining a light on these inequalities.   Don't forget to leave a review and subscribe so you never miss an episode. For more great content, find me everywhere: facebook.com/drmarkhyman youtube.com/drhyman instagram.com/markhymanmd

Welcome to the doctor's pharmacy. That's F-A-R-M-A-C-Y, a place for conversations that matter. And this is Dr. Mark Hyman. Today's guest is Hawk Newsome, an extraordinary man, an activist at the forefront of the new civil rights movement and president of Black Lives Matter New York. And he's dedicated his whole adult life to the betterment of his community and our nation. He dropped out of high school and really struggled when he was younger. And then he went on to get his GED, his Bachelor's of Science, and then a law degree. And then he went to work for the district attorney in the Bronx and has done extraordinary work in his community. He's worked with the New York City Tenants Associations and social service groups throughout the Bronx to help his community. And he also founded the Bronx Sharks, an athletic club that sent numerous risk use to college on scholarships. He then attended prestigious Howard University Law School in Washington, D.C., and he's worked tirelessly leading protests and seeking justice for the families of those

slain by overzealous police officers. In 2013, Hawk joined the Justice League in New York City and has engaged their national campaign to fix the broken criminal justice system. Extraordinary guy. We're going to learn a lot about where he came from, what he's doing, and why it's so important. So stay tuned. That conversation is coming up next on The Doctor's Pharmacy. So Hawk, you know, we had a chance to meet first when you came to a lecture I gave about food. And the first part of my talk was about food injustice and some of the things that I think you heard were kind of surprising to you. And as a result of that talk, you invited me to speak at the Riverside Church in Harlem, where Martin Luther King gave his famous Vietnam speech protesting the Vietnam War.

It was one of the most tumbling things I've ever done. And I was so honored to be asked to give a talk. And I talked about food injustice. And I talked about the ways in which our food system is driving obesity, economic strife, poverty, violence, social justice issues, educational challenges, so much more climate change. And it was kind of surprising for many people to hear the message that I had. There were a lot of gasps, for example, when I said the King Center wouldn't

let me show the movie Fed Up because they were funded by Coca-Cola. And this is Martin Luther King. And, and Martin Luther King said that, that our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. And, you know, you have a lot of courage because you, you're willing to say things that matter, even if they're not too popular. So, um, you have this sort of extraordinary kind of history of dropping out of high school and sort of getting in trouble and sort of finding yourself back to a path that has allowed you to really improve the lives of your community and, and the world in a large way by having a message that is pretty resonant now, which is how do we stand up for what's right in America? How do we stand up for what's right in the world? You really came to national attention when you got up on stage at

the Mother of All Rallies in Washington, D.C., which was basically an alt-right white supremacist rally masquerading as patriotism. And they asked you to come up on stage to share your thoughts, which I think you were surprised at. And I think your video had over 50 million views, which is pretty amazing. What was that like? And what went through your mind when you got up on stage? And how did you shift into a message instead of opposition and violence to love? Thanks for having me first. Yeah, welcome. You're my buddy.

It's good. It's like we're sitting here talking. The mother of all rallies was different. It was a different animal for me. Because usually when we go to protests we raise our voices we put our fists in the air we scream our points at people here we were at the mother of all rallies and we're doing this and they invite us to go up on stage usually it's you know it's like them screaming back at us charlottesville you got invited to a party you didn't want to go to yeah exactly

exactly the the the cost of admission was really high but the experience was well worth it uh between the time that they asked me to go up on stage and i arrived on stage it was really interesting because it's hard for me to explain this because if people aren't spiritual, if they don't believe in God, then they might not believe in these types of moments. But it was like the sky opened up and God spoke to me and said, make them understand who you are. So instead of going and screaming my point of view with them, I wanted to understand, I wanted them to understand who we were and why we felt like this. And the only way to do that was out of love but not a soft hug everybody sing kumbaya love yeah but a real tough love kind of like a motherly love the love that allows a mother of all love yes the mother of all love so you know you hear

those stories about a mother lifting up a car to save her baby that type of love a strong love so when i said i started out by saying i'm an american they went bananas like they couldn't believe it oh my god black lives matter they're happy to be american yeah i was born here you know my ancestors built it for free. You know what I mean? I'm vested. I'm vested. This is home. And I explained that as Americans, we have the built, we see problems, we mobilize and fix them. So when we see a man like Eric Garner, who screams for his, you know, for air, who says, I can't breathe 11 times and it's choked to death, then we have to do something about that, right? I said, I'm a Christian. And I don't know if your Bible is any different than mine,

but it says, love your neighbor. And that Bible doesn't say that your neighbor has to be from the constitutional United States of America. So here you have Black Lives Matter. You have immigrations issues. You have their core, which is the Constitution in America, their core, which is the Bible. And I'm telling you, like we follow the same God and principles and the way you're approaching life in politics isn't necessarily correct. It's actually borderline evil. Some people weren't ready to hear it. I had some hecklers, but others had like this light bulb moment, you know? And it went from these two groups that were fighting. A lot of those people, we were like throwing rocks at each other in Charlottesville. And what was really interesting

about Charlottesville was, there's a picture of me in the daily, and I have a sign and a bullhorn. There's a little bit of blood trickling down my face. Yeah. I was giving a speech and kind of ducking. The rocks. The rocks and water bottles filled with cement, and I got tired of it, right? And I said, that's it. That's it. It's on, right?

So I go to grab rocks to throw back, right? I devolved. Yeah. Yeah, so to speak. And I ran over to the side, and I was looking for something to grab, and a young woman from our group, Nepal, who's 17 years old, she's like, Hawk, you're going to get yourself killed. I'm like, whatever, just hold my bullhorn.

You stay over here with it. So safe. And this little white lady came out of nowhere. She had to be like 70 years old. Like a little Mother Teresa. So peaceful. Yeah, right? And she appeared. I'm serious. little white lady came out of nowhere she had to be like 70 years old like so peaceful yeah right and she yeah i'm serious and she appeared and she said son you could do so much more with your voice than anything you pick out pick up out of these streets to throw and she was in the back of my mind when I took that stage at the Mother of All Rallies. But since then, I've made friends across the, you know, I guess across the political gap,

and they're listening now. Some are mobilizing. I have a friend named Scott Adams. You ever heard of Dilbert, the comic? Yeah, sure. He writes Dilbert. Wow. And he's the coolest guy in the world. We've spoken on the phone a couple of times. He's good. So we're just trying to figure out how to unite people on common ground, how to put down their differences and unite for a cause. Yeah, we're all human first. Amen. Yeah, it reminds me, I heard this guy speak who was one of the leaders of the white supremacist movement.

He was mobilizing people. He was on the media all the time. And he told an extraordinary story where he really believed everything that he said, that he had sort of a factual basis for why whites were superior and blacks and other minorities were not. And he was sort of ostracized. He went to a normal college

and was a little bit ostracized. And he met this guy, it was this Jewish guy. And this Jewish guy invited him to a Shabbat dinner, like a Friday night celebration Jewish dinner. And he sort of befriended him. And they would meet on a regular basis. And so this white supremacist was trying to convince him of his point regularly. And yet the Jewish guy just patiently was presenting him with alternative view of reality, which was based on a different set of facts.

Absolutely. And over the course of a year, he completely transformed and almost like he was deprogrammed because he lived in this bubble of a world where he didn't know what the other was. And so the other was foreign and bad and dangerous. And, and yet somebody even like that was able to shift by just communication and by sharing and by human-to-human contact. Absolutely.

Yeah, I think that's beautiful. There are a lot of stories that are out there like this. I'm working with a group. I'm actually on the board of a group called One America. It's rabbis, imams, Christian preachers. There's heads of nonprofits. And we're all working together. And I get it.

And the reason why I get it is because I've developed this philosophy, like, meet people where they are. Okay? Don't expect them to be at your level, but go where they are, look at them in the eye, and really try and understand their viewpoint before you assert your views onto them. Now, question. Which person is more dangerous? The white supremacist who's spewing hate or the person who has love in their heart that are good people, either self-proclaimed or not,

that aren't doing anything to change the world. That they're silent, right? They're just silent. Yeah. So I always, I'm always trying to, you know, analyze which one is worse. Yeah. I mean, I, you know, I'm Jewish and I remember, you know, and heard stories of growing up in the Holocaust and, you know, there were people living all around there and they sort of ignored it. They smelled the burning bodies. They saw what was going on. They saw the Holocaust and you know, there were people living all around there and they sort of ignored it. They smelled the burning bodies, they saw what was going on. They saw the trains and they just remained silent.

So how complicit are they? Right? Exactly. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So you come by your activism, sort of honestly, your mom and dad met at a civil rights rally in the sixties. Right? Absolutely. Yeah.

Yes indeed. And that inspired you? Yes. I was born, right? You spent my birthday with me at Riverside Church. And I got to say, you gave the most powerful speech on that day. You know, here you are, tall, handsome Jewish man, standing up there talking about food injustice. And I'd liken your statements to those that Black Panthers made in the past. Yeah. Okay. Like the gas were honest.

I mean, I'll buy no Panther. Yeah. You see those, right? But no, it's true. And it was so righteous and it was so necessary. It was just needed. But my parents met in the Bronx. They had rallied for an African-American studies class.

And when they implemented the course, they gave the job to a white teacher. And they were like, no, we want someone who's familiar with our experience to come in. So my dad let her walk out. He was outside protesting. My mother looks out the window and he says, what are you doing in class, girl? Like, you know, come down here. My aunt introduced him. And a few years later, there I was. And amazing. So you grew up in the Bronx? Yes. Yes. South Bronx, about five blocks from Yankee Stadium. And how was it back then? It was...

In the 70s? No, in the 80s. 80s. Oh, all right i'm old yeah it was the height of the crack epidemic right so when you see you remember those commercials about drugs and kids are like running and their foot would splash in a puddle with like crack vials in it that was my existence right there was a man shot with a shotgun five times in front of my door, right? I remember I was in the room playing Barbie dolls with my cousin. I'm safe in my masculinity. I can say that.

I was playing. I had a kitten doll. She had a Barbie. We were like. Yeah, you had the kitten. It was fine. Yeah, I had the kitten with the Ferrari or the Corvette. All right. Well, that sounds so bad.

So we went to run to the door, and my aunt came swinging around the hallway out of the kitchen and kind of threw us down on the floor in the living room. So there was always violence. Like the first time I saw a pistol in school was the fifth grade. You know, my friends had and it was we were coming back from lunch and I'm like, what's going on? You know, look, you know, tense or tough or whatever you want to call it. And he showed me like a nickel plplated 25. wow so life was different and the problem for me was i was like a little black cosby kid right it was poor i had both of my parents they were both working at the time they used to dress me like a preppy yeah so penny

loafers oh my god i put all those shirts in. Khaki pants. With sweaters tied around. Ooh, the sweater thing. Yeah, totally, totally. And for those of you who can't see Hawk, he's 6'5", and about 200 and change. So he's a big dude. Yeah. And so it was different because I knew right from wrong. And I knew what it was. Because you had a Christian upbringing Christian strong Christian upbringing very pro-black and when you say pro-black people mean people say well are you

anti-white I always ask if you see a person with a kiss me I'm Irish shirt do you ask them if they hate Italians like right so you know every, you know, every time you assert your rights as a black person, you have to apologize in a way. And, you know, we're a long way past apologizing. Like, this is what it is. We're fighting for our rights. That doesn't mean we hate you, but this is 500 years of oppression we're dealing with. So high school, I wanted to be cool. I wanted to hang out. I wanted to be part of everything that was happening. So I veered away from my parents teachings and I dropped out of high school my saving grace God of course but I played basketball hmm so

instead of just hanging out all the time I would just find a gym that was open in the daytime you go there and play basketball I play with guys like Ron Artest, Metta World Peace, Elton Brand, I used to travel they would come those are those are top NBA players if for those you don't know about the NBA yeah like all-stars and um and they will come to games like Junior Olympic sweatsuits they were traveling the world I was there with like pants hanging off my behind Timberland smelling like all kinds of herbs And I just wouldn't get it right.

So eventually after I got into some trouble, I got back on track. So in the environment you lived in, it was violent, it was rough, it was poor. I wanna talk a little bit about the whole food injustice issue for a minute. And what it was like growing up in that community, what kind of food there was or wasn't, uh, you know, what your family ate, how, you know, your dad, you know,

you mentioned has diabetes and he died from that and had his legs amputated, which is. No, he actually, um, my dad had, he died on his seventh heart attack. Seventh heart attack. Okay. Yeah. He had quadruple bypass, diverticulitis, you name it. Yeah. He had it. Yeah. And he was a smoker.

He ate pretty much what he wanted to eat. But you have to look at it from the perspective of people who are living in these conditions. You have $20. It's one or two days before payday. It's a family of four. McDonald's has this dollar menu. That means you could get about eight burgers, four orders of fries for $12.

You know, it makes sense economically. We didn't know what clean eating was. After his first heart attack, then we made a shift. It was a lot of chicken, baked. It was, you know, vegetables. But after his second heart attack, we kind of gave up. He's like, oh, this doesn't work. I'm not going to eat this stuff.

Exactly, right? And there was, he gave up, but then he couldn't work anymore. So we were like super poor. And my parents would buy me whatever I wanted. I was kind of like spoiled because they didn't want me to feel like I had to sell drugs. So they would miss rent sometimes to pay for it. My mother carried the high school, carried the family. She was extraordinary in her strength.

But we always ate bad food it was to the point like before my dad died i would bring them healthy food and they would look at it like i'm not eating that why would i eat that so not only is healthy food not available but the majority of us look at it like it's disgusting right i work with young adults now who won't drink water yeah so you know soda it's just soda all the way and and and this one person she works with us she's actually a victim um she has a family of about six and she doesn't drink water so her kids aren't drinking water yeah but well you can get you know in food stamps you can can get two bottles of two liters of soda for $3, right? Yeah.

And it's good, right? It's sweet. Everybody's happy. It just is what it is. It's a different form of crack. It is. It's like a new crack epidemic, really. It is.

It is. And then Chinese food. That's health food to us. Yeah. We don't know any better. So, most of it like packaged or processed or starchy foods, soda, sugar. Yeah, all the time. Like you think about.

Vegetables not happening. Vegetables rarely, right? Rarely. But if they are cooked, there's a lot of butter. There's a lot of salt. You know, it might lose its value. The fish is usually fried. Most of our foods are fried.

Deep fried, yeah. Yeah, deep fried are fried. Deep fried. Yeah. Yeah. Deep fried. And we just don't know. Yeah. Like we just don't know how to eat healthy. And if we choose to, there aren't that many options. You struggle with this too. I mean, you recently dropped like 30, 40 pounds, right? With the help of your son, Misha. All right, Misha, the health warrior project. Yeah. He teaches people about food, how to cook. And what was that like switching over for you? Because this has been, you know, you've been fighting for justice and human rights and civil rights. And yet, you know, you were in some way, you know, I met with Bernice King years ago, and she said, you know, nonviolence also means nonviolence to yourself. And I think, you know,

a lot of people who are poor minorities, it's sort of like an internalized sense of sort of racism because they don't realize what's happening. They don't realize the way the food system is driving their behavior, is targeting them deliberately in ways that are getting them to try to use more of their products. And so how is that for you to switch over and change your diet? It's hard because everything that you grew up eating, even the things that you believe were good are now bad. So it's like, I don't know, fried fish.

It's fish. What are you talking about, right? And macaroni and cheese. Somehow I had it in my mind that that was actually healthy. It wasn't deep fried. Yeah, but it was just like all this cheese. Actually, I have cheat days. I had some yesterday.

But like oxtails, right? And like these meats and really salty meats like bacon. And just the way we consume and digest food, it's just wrong. So for me, at first I just stopped eating, okay, until I figured out what I could eat. I would just not really eat, and I'm so busy. So when I did eat, it would be later in the day. Luckily, I married a vegetarian, so my favorite meal now is like roast vegetables with seasoning. You know, they're kind of sweet when you roast them.

Oh, my God. Yeah. And it took a while for your taste buds to switch over, right? It did. It did. And it's coffee, you know, coffee, caramel lattes, caramel macchiatos. Yeah. Well, those have about five, 700 calories in them.

Yeah. And I was doing three a day. And there's sugar, basically. Yeah. Yeah. Those have about 500, 700 calories in them. Yeah, and I was doing three a day. And there's sugar, basically. Yeah, and I think coffee was the hardest thing, but just really realizing, okay, here's what I can eat, here's what I can't eat. That's something I still struggle with.

Look at me. My parents were very educated. Even though they just graduated from high school, they were self-educated for the most part. I went to law school. My sister went to the best universities in the country. And we are uneducated as to what we should eat. So what does that say for the people who really don't know? It's just why I'm happy that we're working together now to hopefully bring that message to the people.

Yeah, we're going to talk about that in a minute. This new project in the Bronx, rejuvenation to sort of transform the food system. It's so key, you know, but I think that people don't realize that there are massive health disparities. It's like the third world in America. I mean, infant mortality in African-American communities is twice that of white communities. If you look at, you know, diabetes, you know, we're, you know, 80% more likely to be diagnosed with diabetes if you're Africanrican-american you are four times likely to have kidney failure three and a half times more likely to get your legs amputated because of diabetes you had kidney failure he was on dialysis for like seven years

right and so this is massive and you know in some ways uh there's a sense in the general culture of sort of blaming the victim. But the whole system of food is set up in a way that actually is driving these behaviors. And what I've been sort of struck by is a lack of access to food and the way in which even food stamps you know are used primarily for junk food and soda so absolutely how does this black community think about this issue is there any awareness is there any consciousness that the man is really targeting you yeah like cigarettes like targeting kids like you know joe camel targeting kids for smoking it's the same thing that's happening.

And people think, oh, this is their personal choice. Yeah. It's unbelievable because I still live in the Bronx. And I'll go into the store and all you hear is chopped cheese, right? Chopped cheese is like all this fried greasy meat with a bunch of grease and cheese. It's like a Bronx version of a Philly cheesesteak. Yeah, exactly. You know these things.

And that's what people are spending money on, and it's soda. But I would call it a silent killer, right? This would be, in my opinion, this is more targeted than keeping people out of jobs keeping people out of schools uh because no one really knows about it yeah because we've been trained to believe that it is our choice so when you told me like these food companies are intentionally getting people addicted to these foods yeah it kind of changed my life's path yeah you know yeah i i never realized it i'm fighting against police brutality every day against racisms in different forms every day but that was a light bulb it was

it was like an invisible form of racism exactly yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And it's so easy because people, one, aren't talking about it. The institutions that we would expect to protect us from this injustice already bought and paid for. Yeah. So who do we turn to? It's true. Like I said, I was in Atlanta with Bernice King and we were going to show the movie Fed Up about sugar and the food industry at the King Center. And I got a call that we couldn't show the movie because Coca-Cola funds the King center. I met with the Dean of Spelman college,

which is an all women's African-American college in Atlanta. It's like one of the top colleges in the country. And she said, half, half of the 18 year old freshmen class women had a chronic disease, diabetes, obesity, hypertension. And yet all over campus was Coke machines. And I said, why is had a chronic disease, diabetes, obesity, hypertension, and yet all over campus was Coke machines. And I said, why is that? She says, well, because Coca-Cola is a big, huge sponsor and donor to Spelman college and all the other African American colleges, NAACP and the Hispanic Federation are donated

money by Coca-Cola. So they will oppose the soda tax. So it's, it's a very insidious process. In fact, I met with a guy who was a New York Times reporter who was an investigative journalist and got through FOIA, which is the Freedom of Information Act, emails that Coca-Cola executives were sending to professors at a university, because it was a public university, that's how they could get them, that they had a very targeted strategy that was very deliberate bullet points of how to target minorities and the poor and how to increase their utilization of their products and it's you know

it's it's we think it's oh it's an accident oh they made these things we really know they know and they're doing it on purpose and it's you know that kind of makes me mad i think how do we get people mad about it like black health matters you know yeah and you know what that kind of makes me mad. I think, how do we get people mad about it? Like black health matters, you know? Yeah. And you know, what's interesting, right? I gotta let you know, I am constantly walking around with a target on my back. Not one that would make, put me in fear of violence, even though there are threats, but you are walking into the pterodome. You are Mad Max right now. You have to understand, like when we embark on this journey, they are going to come at you with everything.

Because we're talking about hundreds of millions, maybe even billions of dollars. In America alone, the food industry is a trillion dollar industry. Jesus Christ. And we're going to disrupt this industry. I enjoy being a disruptor. That's my thing. But you know, it's fascinating. I think there's a consciousness that the gig is up and

they're trying to shift. I had dinner with the president of Nestle's this week and he was explaining to me the kinds of things they're trying to do to shift their products. And they are the biggest food company in the world. Now they have a bad reputation. They basically got babies hooked on formula. Formula's watered down. All these babies were malnourished and died they're selling all kinds of junk and crap but they divested of all their candy business so no more nestle's crunch and they basically are looking at buying up all these health food companies and they're working in congress and to change the the farm bill to create more regenerative agriculture it's fascinating what's happening behind the scenes. And so we're in an interesting moment

where everybody's sort of waking up to this idea. But to me, it seems like the Hispanic and African-American communities are the ones that are suffering most from diabetes and obesity and chronic disease. They have poor, I mean, if you're African-American, you have five years less life expectancy than somebody who's white in the same country.

And so people are starting to sort of think about this differently. And I wonder, how do we bring this to your communities in the Bronx and these poor communities around the country in a way to get them to be aware of what's happening and to be sort of rising up against the injustice of what's happening? How do we do that? I believe that the program we spoke about is the way to do it. It's the vehicle, right?

So you're talking about something called rejuvenation. Rejuvenation. So tell us about that. It's rejuve-nation. And the concept is we are breathing life back into a deflated people. You think about when they zap people and say clear, and then they try to pump life. This is what we're doing.

So we're actually giving life back to people. At the end result, at the outcome, we are looking at changing history. You and I. You and I. Down with that. Right? We are changing history. We're working with Health Warrior Project so they can understand how to prepare this food.

How to cook. How to to cook how to cook how to cook clean and also how to we're gonna give them food while they're there they'll cook their own food and then they'll leave with the bag of groceries so to bring you back to when I said there's $20 left in two days before the paycheck yeah they won't have any other choice but to eat that right right yeah and then hopefully it'll become part of their diet so along with rejuvenation we're teaching people personal organizational skills okay and meditation mindfulness practice it's all about wellness it's holistic and for me i don't have to tell you the message of black lives matter if i teach you how to love yourself yeah because if you love yourself you won't be a doormat for anyone and you'll stand up for yourself consistently so the bottom line is we're going to go in teach people how to eat we're starting out in the

bronx and hopefully it'll grow and change you know tupac tac, people undervalue Tupac, Tupac. He wrote about, he, he sung about this, about the food system and what it's doing to the communities. And yeah, he was ahead of his time. He was raised by Panthers. See, I'm telling you, it all comes full circle. And, uh, he, he, he talked about this and this is what we have to do. So yes, I'll be pushing for legislature, but food injustice, like you changed my life. You really changed my life. This is what we have to do. So yes, I'll be pushing for legislature, but food injustice, like you changed my life.

You really changed my life. This is the way to go. Even though you're leading the activist movement, even though you went to law school, you're educated, this was like a big realization for you. Yeah, it was a light bulb moment. It was the invisible bully, right? Silent killer.

Because I always- I say know, 1.3 deaths per percent are caused by gun violence, including suicide. But there's literally millions of people that are dying from bad food. That's it. Kills more people than anybody else, anything else. And this is the message that we have to get out, right? So we're talking about a social media campaign and just really educating people. There's going to be this shift, this heart-centered shift. I always talk about it. And people are just going to become really conscious.

And you think people will want to change their diet? People kind of attach to this. This is my food. This is my culture. I remember being on this rafting trip with this Hopi chief. And it was to sort of deal with some of the water issues and the tar sands mining was going to destroy the Green River. It goes into Colorado River.

And he was very overweight. He had diabetes. And I said, you know, Howard, you don't have to suffer like this. He said, you can fix it. He said, what do I have to do? I said, well, you have to give up starch and sugar and soda and he was like well wow i'm gonna not what are we gonna do because um we have our hopi ceremonies and we need to eat our ceremonial foods and i said well what is that he said well it's cookies and cakes

and pies i said your hopi ancestors are not having cookies and cakes this is not your traditional ceremonial foods right absolutely and yet And yet it's so internalized. He doesn't realize that it's not his culture. Absolutely. It's been imposed on them. And the same thing has happened in African-American communities. We hear about it. There are efforts out there to educate us.

But we don't really see it as a realistic part of our day. If you're worried about keeping your lights on, paying your rent, you don't have time to worry about injustice, which is something I have to overcome. And at that point, you're just trying to buy whatever you can buy to feed your family. We would also need to look at making good food available to people. I'm not sure.

I'm still learning how to shop yeah you know we have to it has to be an intensive campaign i love the thought of starting out in the bronx because the bronx is consistently the unhealthiest county in new york state yeah so that's like ground zero for this it's like the third world right here in manhattan absolutely right absolutely you can go to park avenue in the middle of the city and being you know one of the most affluent countries in the world and i'm in fluent district neighborhoods districts in the world and you could travel on that same street about three miles north and you will encounter a hell.

And, you know, it's still a community where people love each other, but there's garbage out front. Rats are playing in the garbage. There's kids walking in hallways. There's urination, defecation in the staircase. Kids are walking past. There's urination in the elevator. And people are saying, well, how can they live like that?

Because there's this prevailing culture where people just don't have time to care or give up. So part of rejuvenation is organizing tenants to clean up the buildings. We'll put on suits and go and clean up their cases. I have no problem doing that. If we could just help people to improve their lives, their neighborhoods, then we're doing God's work. The other thing that I think people don't understand is that how kids learn is dependent on how they eat.

If you're going to school in the morning with no breakfast or with Doritos and soda, how do you focus, pay attention? And we know there's something called an achievement gap, that kids who are sick or obese or eat that bad food don't learn well. And they don't go to school and graduate high school. They don't go to college. We also know that these foods tend to drive behavior problems, you know, ADD, violence. You know, there's a study that I think we mentioned

that in prisons, in violent prisoners, if they change their diet to a healthy diet compared to a control group, they reduced violent crime in prisons by 56%. And if they added a multivitamin, they reduced crime by 80%. And we know there's a huge amount of injustice in the criminal justice system.

And there's mass incarceration of Africanrican-americans and the majority of of inmates and and yet there's nobody connecting the dots saying that you know our kids are not succeeding in life and not having to be able to move out of poverty and get good jobs because they're not eating right or that the prisons are full maybe not only obviously but partly because of the ways in which our brains are controlled by the food we eat and how it affects our mood and behavior. Even violence, suicide, and homicide have been linked to the food. So how do you sort of bring that into the conversation and get people to understand what they're doing with their kids?

Nobody wants to harm their kids, right? Of course. Whether you're poor or rich or anything. So how do we get people to understand that and start to move in that direction? Well, first, you know, you're poor. This is any American household. You're rushing, so you're grabbing what's available to give to your kids. If you only have potato chips or the cheaper foods,

then that's what you're going to give your kid. I guess the question for us would be, what's the cheapest healthy breakfast that we could give our kids? Right. So it's like, OK, a little Bobby, a little Kenny here. Take this with you. Captain Crunch. Yeah, that's it. And so we really have to. And I love your input on like, what could we give kids in the morning? Like, OK, we are opening a Black Panther, Black Lives Matter, Greater New York office in the Bronx right next to a project, right?

If we wanted to start a breakfast program like the Panthers, what would be the easiest, most balanced breakfast that we could give to kids? You give kids eggs, great, even with some vegetables. There's also different kinds of cereals you could give to kids. You give kids eggs. Great. Even, you know, with some vegetables or, um, there's also different kinds of cereals you could give them that are healthier. There's, um, you know, you can make them smoothies. There's all kinds of stuff you can do that kids are going to like. Yeah. That'd be good. Yeah.

No, I think this is the way to go. Like even if we can't touch every household, we could touch those kids and, and. And those kids would go to school. People would see how they're performing. The thing with what the Panthers accomplished with their free breakfast program, because they said exactly what you said, right? These kids would be better able to learn if they had a balanced breakfast. The government adopted that program after they dismantled the black panthers so this there's definitely something there and we have to figure out how to bring this food to these kids right if

if there are people in organizations that say hey i think we could help out maybe the vision for rejuvenation right and we talk about common, is creating a blueprint that we can farm out across the country. We figure out how to do it right, and then it's just like here. You do it in Ohio. You do it in Cleveland. You do it in Miami, L.A. Take this. This is how we formulated it.

This is what works. This is what doesn't work. We'll train you. We'll virtually train you and tell you what you need to do and you can start it in your community. Yeah, it's powerful. I've seen this happen. I mean, I met a guy who started a bunch of charter schools in Washington DC in the poorest neighborhoods, minority communities. These kids were, you know,

not graduating high school. They were doing poorly in school. They were more likely to go to jail and go to college and they created these schools so they fed these kids whole foods three times a day basically breakfast lunch and like an after school thing and these kids started succeeding they started going to college top college around the country and then every everybody from surrounding neighborhoods that were better off just wanted to send their kids to school you know and and you know things like community gardens or school gardens things like teaching kids how to actually cook in school. There was a friend of mine who started a program in Boston, the inner city schools, where she

revamped the kitchen instead of deep fryers and microwaves, which is what they basically have in most schools. They actually, and processed food that just can be heated up. They basically, for the same price of school lunch that the government allows, they reinvented with chefs, these extraordinary meals, these kids love. They used to be 40% of the food wasted in the old food and now it's all eaten. And these kids are doing amazing in school and they're eating these foods and it's doable. I think people have to just want to do it. And they need some leaders in the communities to actually be able to sort of implement these things. But I think the future is, it depends on us figuring this out together.

So you know, you're also, we didn't talk about it much, but you're also the head of the New York chapter for Black Lives Matter. And, um, you know, a lot of people have issues with that movement, um, because they feel like it's, you know, all lives matter. And you know, you said something the other day that was really beautiful. You said, you know, all lives matter. Well, all lives will matter when black lives also matter. It's not that not everybody matters.

Yes, blue lives matter, white lives matter, black lives matter, yellow lives matter. But at the end of the day, there's real issues here and injustice, and we have to call them out. We have to address them. And so what's your thinking about where you're going with this and what you want to see happen? So what's your vision? The vision. I'm staying with Black Lives Matter, right? Because it's a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful cause. And it's this mobilization to end racism. But with rejuvenation and this project that I'm calling Common Ground, I think we'll be able to bring more people together because Black Lives Matter is very polarizing and some people won't get involved just because of the name. So you create this

program called Common Ground where we are just taking the high ground. And I always tell people. Like Michelle Obama says, when they go low, we go high. We go high. Yeah, right on. And he won the presidency with that, right? Like people were, that first election was tough. Obama.

Obama. Yeah, it was tough, but he just took the high ground. He wouldn't engage in politics, which was beautiful. So Common Ground is us staying out of the weeds. took the high ground. He wouldn't engage in the politics, which was beautiful. So common ground is us staying out of the weeds. It's us talking to Republicans, right? People who may not see things eye to eye and kind of saying, okay, we don't agree on everything. Here's what we agree on across the country. Let's fight for legislature to change this. Yeah. So, um, last question, if you were a king for a day, um, what would be the kind of policy or law or

thing that you would do to change what's happening in your communities? I would imagine that having all that power it's humbling it is it is humbling i would give people land land land the the homes that they live in okay if this is your neighborhood your people have ownership of where they have. Ownership of where you are. Right. And with that land, you control the business. So you decide who you want to rent to and things like that. I respect the Jewish community so much. And and people don't like Jewish folks. Right. And I think of that as not liking the Bulls when they had Michael Jordan.

Right. You know, because they're the winning team, right? Yeah. They figured out how to establish their own neighborhoods, right, where they school their children, police their communities. It's safe. They have their own businesses, and it's a thriving community. However, a perfect example of this is us.

They do business with everyone else. It's a self-sustaining community. So if I could do anything for black people, I would put them in a position where they could be self-sustaining. If you look back through history, even though it didn't do much, the Jewish folks received reparations, right? Hiroshima, Japanese received a lot of aid. The indigenous people, the Native Americans, they're given land, they have their casinos. So it wasn't much, but it was something that was helpful. They

provided a foundation. Black people never received their aid. There were no reparations after slavery reparations yeah so we were repeatedly victimized you know it was just economic oppression and now food oppression so what would i do i'd give folks land yeah because people having a sense of ownership over their life is really what allows them to stand up and to work and do the things that make their lives better and i think when you look at disease the the biggest cause of chronic disease and death is not smoking not even diet it's the social determinants of health and and particularly the sense of a loss of locus of control where you feel like you're out of control in your life whether it's your job or your community or whatever is going on the sense of a loss of locus of control, where you feel like you're out of control in your life, whether it's your job or your community or whatever is going on.

That sense of loss of control and empowerment is what actually makes people sick and die. And I think people don't realize that. And I think this is undoing centuries of beliefs, policies, behaviors. And there are people who break out like you but it's tough and when the whole system is sort of set up in a way that doesn't support you doesn't provide the ability to actually learn and to grow and to be empowered and to have access to the skills and tools and you know knowledge that allows them to lift themselves up it's powerful it's almost an impossibility yeah this is why i love hanging out with you you always give me these these jewels like oh man you're awesome thanks man well this has been an amazing conversation hawk and uh i can't wait to work in the bronx with you and

change the food system there and we have so many ways of actually using that to help illustrate how it can be done and then you you imagine tracking the levels of educational success or even the social issues around poverty and violence. What happens when you start to change the communities and build that? Because that's what you're talking about is communities start to break down and they don't have the fabric that pulls everything together. And by having ownership and even starting with your own body, having ownership of your health.

Because when you are sick, when you're eating badly, when you're, you know, have a chronic disease, you can't work as well. You are not as productive. You can't think straight. You can't lift yourself up if you're oppressed by the food system. So I think for me, it's important to call it out. And there's many, many issues, obviously, racial injustice, criminal justice system that's broken. I mean, there's all those issues that have to be dealt with. But in a way, I see this as one of those things that people can change and will change. So I'm excited to work on that with you.

Me too, brother. All right. I'm really thankful for you, Hawk. Well, thanks for being on The Doctor's Pharmacy. We'll stay tuned, maybe have you back another time when we can talk about the whole program. Right on. Right on.

We get some footage of us doing it in the streets. There you go. Right on. Thank you, Hawk. Thank you. So thank you for listening to this extraordinary conversation with Hawk Newsome, the head of Black Lives Matter New York, and an extraordinary man who's trying to make things right in our country. And if you like this podcast, please leave a review or comment. We'd love to hear from you and it matters. Also, if you like this podcast, share with your friends and family and

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