The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 12.19 The Wakanda Forever 21 Controversy & Backlash, Will Smith Genie, Kylie Jenner, & More

Episode Date: December 19, 2018

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Sup you beautiful bastards, hope you've been a fantastic Wednesday Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco show and let's just jump into it. The first thing we're gonna talk about today is an old-school Classic because it's some what company are people angry about today news and today that is forever 21 And it appears to stem all from them tweeting this Wakanda forever get the sweater here featuring this male model and following this some people Just thought it was kind of funny with tweets like forever 21 really got the palest person they could find to model a Wakanda Forever sweater. I'm crying. Although some seemed actually annoyed and angry. With responses like, in what universe did you think it was okay

to feature a white model in Wakanda gear? Granted, chances are you knew it wasn't okay, but still. As a former 21 Men brand specialist for the company, I'm highly offended. Others saying it's insulting, Forever 21 is canceled. But also on the other side of this, we saw people saying that there's nothing to be angry about here. With comments like, so does this mean black people

shouldn't be wearing almost any other superhero merchandise because the vast majority of them are white? Can no other race wear Black Panther merch? A main point, following all of this, Forever 21 deleted the post. They also removed photos of the model in the sweater on the site. But they also still left the sweater up,

and they issued an apology saying, Forever 21 takes feedback on our products and marketing extremely seriously. We celebrate all superheroes with many different models of various ethnicities and apologize if the photo in question was offensive in any way. And as far as my personal reaction to all of this, obviously I'm not personally offended by this.

I just personally think that it was an odd marketing choice. It's like if the marketing team for Worldstar Hip Hop decided that I should be the spokesperson for the site. People wouldn't find it unthinkable that I like the train wrecky side of World of world star hip-hop, but people would wonder why I was being used to promote it. But also on that note, there is this constant second question

in any situation that we deal with like this, where we should ask, is that part of the intent? Is it the intent of the company to be like, oh, people are gonna go crazy for a second, we'll apologize, but then it'll still be up for sale. I mean, just think about all the free promotion. How many people today know that this is a product that exists, is on sale, that didn't know about it before?

But ultimately, that's the story, my personal takeaway, and of course, I pass the question off to you. And in addition to your thoughts on the story as a whole, I'd love to know your thoughts regarding that counter argument, or the argument some people put forward that this would be like getting angry at black people for wearing other superhero gear,

like a Batman or a Superman. Because while I agree with the notion that, you know, in the space that we're talking about, anyone, regardless of race, should be able to wear anything. I do think it's personally important to point out that that's not exactly a one-to-one comparison. Right, I think that really ignores the significance of Black Panther and what an outlier it is

as far as superhero movies go. And I'm not saying that justifies being outraged by the model used, but it's, I just, but main point, I'd just love to know your thoughts here. Then in entertainment news, we should briefly talk about Will Smith. And over the past two weeks, you've probably seen Will Smith online

in the form of just meme after meme after meme because of his involvement with YouTube Rewind. And this morning we got even more Will Smith and a variety of reactions and a lot of concern because we got the cover from Entertainment Weekly of Will Smith in Aladdin. And this is it, we see Aladdin, Jasmine, and up top, the Genie. The general reaction online online was what? That's what the Genie looks like in the live-action version of Aladdin? Some of the reactions

included a lot of people saying he looked like Sinbad or Diet Sinbad. Reactions like Genie my first wish? I wish that I'd never seen this. And a plethora of just not too excited GIFs. People also having issue of him not being blue, people then putting up photoshops of him blue all that said it appears that this Big public reaction got us more news entertainment weekly posting rest assured Aladdin fans Will Smith's genie will be blue in the live-action film and adding director Guy Ritchie gives us a tease of what to expect we saw Another update saying Will Smith has said genie will be mostly CGI in Aladdin and the cover is just as human form And so I guess as far as Will Smith's look in this movie, you know what? I'm gonna wait and see of course

I'm gonna watch this movie. But I think the bigger thing, especially for Will Smith, is gonna be what this performance actually looks like because he, like, Robin Williams is leaving some pretty big empty shoes to fill. And I'm personally excited or at the very least interested to see what Will Smith's swing will be. Then, while we're on the note of entertainment news,

we had Forbes coming out with their America's Wealthiest Celebrities 2018 list. And as far as why they don't have the likes of people like Elon Musk on the list, they say, Eligibility was limited to American citizens who've gotten rich off of their fame rather than became famous for their wealth. And so with that said, their top ten list starting at the bottom, you had a tie between James Patterson and Tiger Woods, followed by Diddy, then we get David Copperfield, once again a tie between Jay-Z and Kylie Jenner, followed by Michael Jordan, and finally the top three taking the podium,

you have Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg, and George Lucas. And while this snapshot is somewhat interesting, what is really interesting to me, what is the big standout here is Kylie Jenner. And some people have pointed out, you know, out of 10 people, you have two women. No, the standout to me is that she is the youngest by 21 years.

She is half the age of the person that is closest in age to her, which is Tiger Woods, who she reportedly has a higher net worth than. And so what'll be interesting to me is over the next five years, do we see a new surge of younger people, or is she just kind of the outlier? This new generation has come up in a time

where it is a standard to leverage your fame into money-making opportunities. And I mean, even over the past 10 years, that has changed drastically. For example, I was reading through this article yesterday where it talked about how Instagram influencers out there actually fake brand sponsorships to make themselves seem more legit and established. Because it appears that in certain pockets of the internet it's seen that as if you're not getting those things then you really haven't arrived yet. Which I do want to point out that is a drastic change.

It used to be that eight years ago when I had a sponsorship that I lost subscribers. Like I can't believe you're doing this. Now, if I don't have a sponsor in a show, people shit talk me. I don't know, it's interesting time. And the last thing I wanna talk about today is something that I would have found unthinkable just a little while ago,

and that is the Senate has overwhelmingly agreed on something. On Tuesday, the Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill that will make the most substantial changes to the criminal justice system in decades. And in a rare display of bipartisanship, senators voted 87 to 12 to advance the bill, which is known as the First Step Act.

And as far as what this will have an impact on, it will only affect the federal prison system, which is around 10% of the total prison population or around 181,000 people. And overall, the bill makes sentencing changes, improves rehabilitation efforts, and increases credits for good behavior. And to get an understanding of it,

here are some of the provisions. The bill expands job training and other programming aimed at reducing recidivism rates, which is the rate of convicted criminals reoffending. Also allowing inmates to get earned time credits for participating in those programs. Right, so those credits would allow them to be released early into halfway houses

or home confinement. It also lowers the mandatory minimum sentences for prior drug felonies by making changes to the three strikes law, which of course was a law introduced during the Clinton years. And this new change caps the second strike sentence to 15 years of imprisonment down from 20 years

and the third strike to 25 years down from a life sentence. It also gives judges more discretion during sentencing and reduces the disparity in sentencing guidelines between powder and crack cocaine. And that's something that could reportedly affect up to 2,600 prisoners. And the bill increases early release credits for low risk inmates.

And a big thing of note here is that this change applies retroactively, which could allow as many as 4,000 prisoners to qualify for release the day that the bill goes into effect. But that said, not every inmate will benefit from these changes, with the bill excluding certain inmates from earning credits, such as undocumented immigrants and people who are convicted of high-level offenses.

But still, that said, it also makes other changes aimed at improving conditions in prisons, which would affect everyone. Like things like banning the shackling of women during childbirth, requiring sanitary napkins and tampons be available for female inmates, and requiring officials to place imprisoned offenders no more than 500 driving miles away from their home

or family, among other things. And supporters of the bill claim that the changes passed in the Senate would make America's criminal justice system fairer, reduce overcrowding, and save taxpayer dollars. Which is also why House leaders are expected to pass the measure this week. And on Twitter we saw President Trump write,

America is the greatest country in the world and my job is to fight for all citizens, even those who have made mistakes. Congratulations to the Senate on the bipartisan passing of a historic criminal justice reform bill. This will keep our communities safer and provide hope and a second chance to those who earn it. In addition to everything else, billions of dollars will be saved. I look forward to signing this into law. And of course when it comes to Trump, there was a time where it was believed that he would never sign something like this. He, as you might remember, ran on a tough-on-crime platform during his presidential campaign. But as far as his kind of softening on this topic, a lot of people have credited Jared Kushner. Kushner's father served 14 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to charges of tax evasion, witness tampering, and illegal campaign contributions. And so during his time as White House

adviser, he's focused a lot of his efforts on criminal justice reform. Which is also why in the past we saw him work with Kim Kardashian to get Trump to grant clemency to 63 year old Alice Marie Johnson. She, as you might remember, had been serving a life sentence on a nonviolent drug offense. And reportedly ahead of this vote, Kushner was working with advocates, legislators, and groups on both sides of the aisle to craft a fair deal. Right, he was working with groups like the ACLU and the conservative Koch Brothers Network. But of course, still with all of that said, I think it is important to note here that even when this bill is signed into law, it is believed that the effect on mass incarceration will be relatively small. And that's because, as I mentioned before,

it only deals with federal prisons, which is a fairly small part of the overall criminal justice system. And that's just the numbers of the situation. According to the US Bureau of Justice Statistics, 87% of US prison inmates are held in state facilities. But this is also something the bill supporters acknowledge, and they say that's the reason

that it's called the First Step Act. I personally think that it is a step in the right direction but of course, we need to see some follow through. I mean, it's just something that needs to be addressed. The United States has the highest rate of incarceration in the world and I feel like it's incredibly smart that we incentivize low risk inmates to be able to go

into these programs which will hopefully make their reentry into society easier because the recidivism rates that we've seen in this country over the past two decades are horrific. For example, the National Institute of Justice has this fascinating piece. They tracked over 400,000 prisoners from 30 states and they found within three years of release,

about two thirds of released prisoners were rearrested. Within five years, that expanded to three quarters. And of those who were rearrested, they found that more than half were arrested by the end of the first year. When you take into account that just the taxpayer money that goes into arresting those people, prosecuting those people, then holding them in a prison. Positives I feel are pretty apparent.

But with all that said that's the story, my personal takeaway, and I pass the question off to you What are your thoughts around this? Do you think it's a great move? That it's smart? Or no, you see this as a bad, that this is soft on crime? Why, why not? Any and all thoughts, I'd love to know in those comments down below. And that's actually where I'm going to end today's show. And remember, if you like this video, you like my daily dives into the news, hit that like button. If you're new here, you want more. In the future, be sure to hit subscribe, ring that bell to turn on notifications. Also, if you missed yesterday's Philip DeFranco show, also the Extra Morning News video, you can click or tap right there to watch those. But with that said, of course, as always, my name's Philip DeFranco. You've just been filled in. I love yo faces and I'll see you tomorrow morning

and afternoon. Okay, bye.