The Viall Files - E138 Tyler Merritt - Loved, Seen, & Cared For

Episode Date: June 10, 2020

Tyler Merritt of The Tyler Merritt Project joins us today as we continue the conversation around Black Lives Matter. In 2018 Tyler released a video called “Before You Call The Cops.” This video came about when he was walking across the street one day and realized that a white woman in her car was rolling up the windows and locking her doors because she saw him in the crosswalk. He shares with us every part of that memory from where he was going to what he was listening to on his headphones and it is eye opening. Two years since the birth of this video, it has become more viral and more relevant than ever. Join us for this conversation that will not only educate you but have you walk away with maybe some tears and a whole lotta love.  “I did everything I could to make myself smaller...” Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode.  THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS: EMBARK: embarkvet.com CODE: VIALL HAWTHORNE: hawthorne.co  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

you're crazy what's going on everybody welcome to another episode of the vile files i am your host nick happy wednesday to you all i'm joined by my producer chrissy chr, how are you doing? I'm good, Nick. How are you? I'm doing really good. I'm really looking forward to this episode. I had an incredible time recording it with my new friend, Tyler Merritt. I came across Tyler's video last week and I thought it was new. It turns out it's a couple of years old and I was really moved by it. I think Jimmy Kimmel shared it and it got more attention. Yeah. And just kind of talking about, this is who I am. And he talked about who he is as a person. And then I saw him, he's apparently friends with Wells. and he posted a picture of Wells and

tagged him and it showed up in my explorer feed I was like oh this is the guy who made this video and I immediately dm'd him and asked if he'd come on and um and and share his story I I thought um we just have a great conversation you know obviously we talk about some of the stuff going on in our world right now and just try to have a um a friendly conversation uh that uh about some of the stuff going on in our world right now and just try to have a friendly conversation about some of the topics in a way that I think is just relatable for everyone and good to hear. Tyler is a beautiful man.

He's just nice to listen to. So certainly these are serious topics we're talking about, but I hope that you find it to be light and enjoyable um he makes you feel better yeah and in a heavy moment he really really does i really enjoyed listening to you guys talk it was really i cried a couple times uh i i got a little uh when he was talking about um the girl across the street just yeah same it was like him same. It was moving. So I really hope you guys enjoy it as well. Even in these kind of heavy times,

we can keep it as light as possible and just be open to continue to learn. So I really, again, hope you guys enjoy it. Tune in next week. I think we're going to do this. I did reach out to Garrett after his post that I commented on and was critical of him and invited him to come on the podcast and have a conversation. And I think Becca is going to join as well. I know Becca and Rachel did a podcast on the happy hour and obviously I'm recording this before it's out. So I don't know what they said, but I'm sure that'll be interesting and check that out. So we're scheduled to record that this week and it'll be out the following week. Uh,

hopefully that still happens, but, um, uh, I appreciate Garrett responding and, and we'll see how that goes. I don't really know, but hopefully it's an opportunity for us to continue to have conversations to keep progress growing. So let's just get to Tyler. How about it, huh? Tyler, thank you so much for joining us. I really appreciate it. Man, I'm happy to be here, Nick.

Nice to see you. I just want to start off by saying i too also find bananas disgusting because you are human man because the world is split you're you're a human being i yeah i uh i try to eat bananas i i ran track all throughout high school and college and they kept telling me potassium is needed and essential. And I would gag down bananas like with Gatorade. And it was not pretty. I still can't stand them. But it's nice to know that I'm not alone when it comes to- Yeah. Even when I was a baby, I rejected bananas, man. That's how deep my disgust for bananas go. And I realize now that I will never have an endorsement by Chiquita. Yeah. That's okay. For those of you who don't know what we're talking about uh tyler if you

may or may not have seen his his videos go viral um uh and uh in in those videos he gives you an opportunity to know who he is a little bit better. And he has two viral videos going right now. And so I asked Tyler to come on this podcast to share a little bit more about his story, his initiative, his project in these times. And I just want to say how appreciative I am that you've taken the time because I know you are being pulled in a lot of different directions right now. And again, just wanted to thank you for taking the time. Of course, man. I'm so happy to be here. So yeah, I guess, you know, for those of you who haven't seen the video, Tyler, I'd love for you to kind of just share a little history behind it. As I mentioned to you before we started

recording, I didn't even realize that you did it two years ago. And it's kind of fascinating and great to see it get kind of reinvigorated and get new steam given what's going on and it kind of shows the the the uniqueness of putting out a powerful message and how it has the ability to stand the test of time so yeah if you could just kind of you know the floor is yours to kind of talk about um uh that project and just how you know what what's going on in your mind right now and how can, you know, myself and the people listening continue to be better allies? Specifically, man, before you call the cops, it's tricky because with Tyler Merritt Project,

I don't make funny cat videos, right? And if I did, life would be a whole lot easier. If I just made like killer TikTok videos, like life would be dope for me, right? But about two years ago, when I originally started Tyler Merritt Project, I had this goal. At the time on Facebook and on social media, I was finding that everybody was breaking off into the, they were, everybody was segregated, right? So you had your right wing friends that were all in one spot and every once in a while, your white wing friend might come over and like make a comment in your world

and everyone would attack them or vice versa. You had black people talking about black things. You had Hispanic people. It was just, there was a ton of segregation specifically on social media. And it was also playing out a lot in real life. People were being able to break off in such a way that you can live and exist without knowing what was going on in someone else's world, because you had decided that it wasn't how you felt, it wasn't what you believed. So I'm just going to break it off. And as I was watching this, because of my significant history and how I grew up, I happened to have a swath of different people all across the world that I know that are so different. And when I decided to come up with a Tyler Merritt project, I knew that there was a baseline, right? Of simple things that everybody wants. It doesn't matter your color. It doesn't matter your age. It doesn't matter anything. We all want to be loved. We all want to be seen.

We want to laugh and we want to be cared for. These are all just simple bottom line things that nobody's going to really argue with. And I figured that if I can begin to create some content that started just on that, like, look, I want you to watch my stuff and I want you to know this, above all else, you are loved. No matter what you've done, no matter what your mistakes are, no matter what color you are, what orientation, you are loved. And if we started there, then maybe I can start to get people to listen. So I was doing standup, trying to figure out how certain jokes were working amongst people. And I was writing material for about two years. I launched Tyler Merritt Project in April, 2018, with the hopes that, hey, maybe by the end of 2018, I can have,

if I had a video that I put out that had 6,000 views, right, that people wanted to watch, that would be great. I put out a few videos and people started watching them. And then somewhere around, I think it was April, May, I came out with Before You Call the Cops. And I already started to get some vibe going to people watching. And put out Before You Call the Cops on a Friday. And then I was reached out to by the Huffington Post on Monday. So it pretty much jumped really, really quick. Before You Call the Cop specifically is a message of myself talking about me, hoping that if you were to get to know me better, perhaps you might not only like me, but you just might love me. And that came from me walking. I walked five miles a day. And I talk a little bit about this in a video called the playlist, but I walked

five miles a day and I was out on one of my walks. I was about to cross the road and there was a white lady in a truck and she was right in front of me. And I knew I had to cross by her to get to the other side of the street. So I had my hoodie on. I had my bandana on, some sunglasses, my Beats headphones, because that's what I walk when I, you know. But I knew I had to cross her in front of her. So I wouldn't startle her. I pulled out my hoodie, took off my bandana, brought down my glasses. I did everything I could, Nick, to make myself smaller. Everything I could. I started walking across the street and I'm about three feet away from her. She turns and

looks and she freaks out. And I'm talking rolls up the window, starts slamming on the lock, grabs a hold of the steering wheel, looking at the green light, like, please change, just change, change. And I looked, I stopped and I typically wouldn't, but in this case I stopped. I looked at her and I laughed and I didn't laugh at her, but I laughed in a way of, if you knew how small I had to make myself so that you would feel safe. If you knew that what I was listening to in my headphones was bring it on the musical, a musical about cheerleaders. If you knew that I was just trying to get through this walk so I could get, get to this bench that I sit at and call my mother. If you knew me,

I don't think you would be scared. You just might like me. In fact, you might love me. Came home, did the Before You Call The Cops video. And initially, I wasn't going to release it because I thought nobody wants to spend three minutes listening to me talk about myself. And I sent it to a friend of mine. And her response simply was, yo, this feels holy. Yeah, it was. And I went, well, all right, I need to put it out. It was really powerful. It was touching. I mean, you certainly have, when you listen to it, I had no idea who you were when I first came across it. And,

you know, listen, there's something about you that is able to deliver a message that's so beautiful. And just to hear that story, it's when I first watched that video and in that video, you talk about, I would walk around the earth and back again, just so you didn't feel scared. I mean, I think of all the people listening to this right now. I'm a white male. I'm 6'2", right? I'm a pretty big guy. I don't think anyone's afraid of me. And I've never thought of what that might be like when i heard you here tell that story of just knowing that i i guess what i'm saying it's just never crossed my mind i've never had to try to make sure i'm not making someone afraid of me i mean sure people have told me i could be

intimidating in a room or whatever or what but like actual fear, the way you're describing, it's, it's heartbreaking. And, um, I don't have the privilege to assume that people are not afraid of me. And that's the sad truth. I just can't assume that I'm going to walk across the street and respectful, sweet old white lady is going to be okay with my presence. And that is a difference. And I think sometimes when we talk about privilege, people take it in a negative content. But like, I'm single with no kids, right? I have a certain privilege in my life that my married friends don't. I want to go stay up until midnight and order a pizza and come home and watch Almost Famous. That's my prerogative. I have the privilege to do that because I don't have kids. And I don't take offense to that's the privilege that I have. I just recognize it as a thing. So there's a privilege that comes along

with not being a person of color, but it's not offensive. It's just the world that we live in, in the United States. And I think that's important to know. So I oftentimes think that when people hear people of color talk about privilege, there's something attached to it that almost feels negative. And that's just not the case. Hey, Father's Day is right around the corner, people. And we need to get our men and fathers in our lives the best gift possible. And I'll tell you what, Hawthorne is making that possible.

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summer Embark has a limited time offer just for our listeners. Go to EmbarkVet.com now and use promo code V-I-A-L-L to get $50 off your dog breed and health kit. So visit EmbarkVet.com and use promo code V-I-A-L-L to get $50 off today. EmbarkVet.com and use promo code V-I-A-L-L to get $50 off today. EmbarkVet.com and use promo code V-I-A-L-L. Yeah, I'm really glad you said that because it is true. And it's interesting, you know, so much is going on in our world right now. And I'm an optimist, so I like to think big picture-wise, there's a lot of positive change going on.

Certainly, there's some scary things that are happening as a result, and no one likes to see that. But I like that you said that because, you know, the word privilege, again, white people immediately will get defensive. Even Black Lives Matter. I mean, you've seen a lot of progress, but like in the past three weeks, you've gone from the average person, people even in my circle who would never put on their post Black Lives Matter. They might have said, that's kind of a radical train of thought. And now it's become more mainstream. And I think it's just good that we're having these conversations because, like you said, privilege isn't a bad word. Even the word ignorant, to say, you know what? I can be ignorant. I say ignorant things. We need to be able to address that, put it out there

without feeling attacked or canceled and say, all right, how do I stop being ignorant going forward? Yeah, 100%. I think it's also important to understand that we're all growing, right? Like we're all changing. Here's an interesting story that I think if anybody who listens to you as a part of bachelor nation, they'll appreciate. So my boy Wells Adams, him and I, two years ago, we were working on a thing. So in the video, when I say, I say in the video, I've done goat yoga. When I did goat yoga, it was with Wells.

The only time I've done goat yoga, I will most likely never do it again. It was with Wells. But we took a picture and yesterday I decided to post it on Instagram. And I've been off of social media for two years, which is a different story we can talk about later. So I just come back to Instagram just two days ago to launch this initiative that I'm doing called the This Is Who I Am Challenge. So I posted this picture of Wells and I. And immediately people brought attention to it because the picture is hysterical, bro. The picture is just funny. My face, Wells' face, and the goat's face, it's a mess. And one of the people that helped me out on the Instagram, she hit me up. She was like, yo, you need to go on here right now.

Someone is talking about the t-shirt that Wells is wearing. So Wells in the, in the picture is wearing a t-shirt from a company called project 615 here in Nashville. And in the, in the, in, Oh, I guess over the past week, two weeks, And I guess over the past week, two weeks, the creator of this has come out to have serious race issues and serious sexism issues. Like now he ends up being a pretty bad dude. Okay.

So they go on and they say, hey, Wells is wearing this shirt. And what are you going to say about it? What's your statement? I can't believe you post this picture right so i go on and i'm like first of all and and yo i hope i don't offend anybody when i'm saying this this is what i said to the girls on my insta i was like i bet you five thousand dollars the two girls that went on here are white like i guarantee the two girls that are on here they're trying to like light up wells about this racial thing that he's doing or white.

So I go on and I basically say this, yo, first of all, black people are not monolithic. We are all trying to do everything we can to save lives right now, to bring joy to people in a time of hurt, just to try to keep people from color from being killed. With that being said,

we don't all have ears to the street to know every single stupid thing a white person does every day. We just don't know. So then I said to her, I said, Wells put this, we took this picture, I took this picture of Wells two years ago. Here's a newsflash. I did an interview three days ago, Nick. Three days ago. It's worldwide. It's going to go out in 42 different languages all across the world. I was wearing a Project 615 t-shirt. I didn't know it went down. And I said this to her on Insta.

I was like, yo, Wells was wearing that two years ago. I was wearing this two days ago. Then somebody tells me about Project 615. And I thought to myself, do I call and cancel the interview and delete all the brilliant stuff I said? I said, no, now I know better. I myself, I've learned this thing. I'm moving on. Let's go forward. I don't have the time or energy while people are of my, that look like me are dying in the streets to be concerned about what my boy Wells, who's an advocate of color, what t-shirt he was wearing two years ago that's that's not a

privilege i have right now to be pissed about a two-year-old t-shirt show me that's where i'm living my brother totally i appreciate yeah i i that's i appreciate you saying that and it kind of brings me i think to a question i had and i'm just kind of bouncing around here you know i'm getting a lot of you know i'm i'm doing my best to be an ally right now. That combination of the balance between being a white person and taking the time to listen right now, but at the same time, using my platform to show my advocacy for people of color to be an ally. And listen, I have a big platform and every day I'm getting responses. Last night I had someone DM me just kind of going off on me saying I wasn't doing enough, sent me a video telling me to fuck off. It was like, I

assumed she had since deleted it. And you're right, it's all white people telling me either I'm not doing enough or I'm doing too much. And so how can white people, again, continue to try? I think there is a lot of confusion too. I got another DM from a young woman who's like, Nick, thank you for using your platform. I'm trying to learn. I'm educating. But right now, every time I reach out and talk to someone, within five minutes, it becomes a political argument. And it's one thing I wanted to kind of talk about. It's just like, listen, like, what we're talking about right now, like Black Lives Matter, this isn't a political discussion. This is a humanitarian discussion.

This is a... Preach, Nick. Preach. At the end of the day, we're gonna like this, yes, everything reverts back to politics. But I really encourage people right now is the time to just have these discussions. And on both sides, like I don't care what your political affiliation is. Like you're not doing it any good if your conservative friend comes to you and immediately you're like, well, you voted for so-and-so, right? Yes. And eventually we're going to have to vote. And I encourage people to go out there and vote. And there's a lot of elections, not just presidential.

vote and I encourage people to go out there and vote. And there's a lot of elections, not just presidential. But right now it's just like, and if you take the time, like whatever issue we have, I think we all need to sit back and look at the topic, assess it, take our political beliefs out of it, and then understand it. Because right now you get people on both sides. People love the radical things, right? And they do that because they like to insert a political argument so that if you are open to learning about it, people will then kind of get discouraged, right? Oh, what does my political party think of this, right? And that's how I'm supposed to believe. So, I mean, do you have anything to add to that in terms of like, especially for the

people who want to continue to be allies, you know, what can we do to just learn and identify these topics in these situations to make sure regardless of our political beliefs, how can we better help? Well, let me say this first. Right now in America, on some levels, especially for people of color, it feels like our house is on fire, right? And when your house is on fire, everybody's trying to do everything they can to like put this fire out. And because we're, like I said, we're not monolithic individuals, everybody's going about it differently. And some people are all in the same lane. But if you're trying to put out a fire and one person has got a fire extinguisher, the other person's grabbing a bucket of water, the person with the fire extinguisher is going, I need you to grab another extinguisher. And this person's going, but here's some water. And then there's other person's grabbing a bucket of water person with a fire extinguisher is going i need you to grab another extinguisher and this person's going but here's some water

and then there's other person's going we just need to run right but the reality is is that the house is on fire and we're all trying to do different things to figure it out yeah and so that raises some tensions up and yo real talk bro even within the black community, trust me, I have a ton of black people who hate the Before You Call The Cops video. Hate it. They hate it because they think I'm trying to humanize myself and will straight up tell me in many different words, yo, F you and the people you're related with because you do not have to apologize to white people and that's amongst people of color when you say humanize yourself i apologize for my ignorance

what do you mean by that and like why is that well i'll keep it simple in the video before you call the cops the reason one of the reasons why i think that it resonates so highly is because people look at it and go, huh, he's a person too. He's just like me. Black people are human too. And even though that may not be the actual narrative that is playing out of their mouth, there's something psychological that's going, okay, wait, that big black guy over there, he doesn't like bananas either. And he's afraid of spiders. And he just like me feels like he needs to get home to his mother. So in that video, there is a piece of me simply making myself a little bit more human. But how I see it is this. I don't have the privilege to assume that you know me. And so if my

three-minute video is going to help keep from another George Floyd happening, another Philando Castile happening, you can call me Uncle Tom until the cows come home if that means that people that look like me continue to live now getting back to how everybody's coming at each other I think there's kind of different levels right of this right now and I do think that we all are trying to fight to save lives I think there's a part where some people feel like white people can't even smile right now. White people should be obsessed with their white guilt. And I have a lot of people that really feel that way. Like, go for a minute, understand who you are, understand your privilege, and sit in your white guilt. I feel very, very different.

I do not, listen, I do not have time for your white guilt right now. I don't got time for it. I need you to be brave. I need you to take that white guilt and turn it into bravery, which is something that I think people need to understand. And bro, this is really important, Nick. I understand. Believe me, I understand what it is going to cost you to be an ally of people of color. what it is going to cost you to be an ally of people of color. I understand that my going home for Thanksgiving is very different than your going home for Thanksgiving.

My going home for Thanksgiving sounds like this. A joke that we still have right now, Nick, at my house goes like this. I went home for Thanksgiving one time to my grandma's house, and this was a joke I said at the table that my grandma to this day still talks. I said, Hey grandma, mom voted for Trump and everybody started cracking up. They were like, Tyler said you voted for Trump. Okay. Like that's a joke happening at the black people's family table. Okay. I understand that that might not be your experience. I understand you might go home and y'all aren't talking about politics. Y'all aren't trying to bring up who feels this about this because uncle over here may feel very different. I also understand that you may go to a church or you may go to a workplace that if you

decide to stand up for people of color, you will have the people who you worship with come at you. I'm aware of that fact. We are not ignorant to that. So when you see Black people going, we want you to be allies with us, we understand what it's going to cost you. difference though here is it cost us our lives. So if you have to get the bravery to go, I am going to stand with my people of color because I understand who I am, where I've been, I understand how systematic racism works, and I want to get the bravery to do the next thing. Not only do we welcome you and you're going to get, listen, you're going to get haters because the internet sucks. The internet's a horrible place to be. Yeah. For every 60 million views I get, I get a million people that are just are horrible,

right? But that happens to be a place that we live, a place where people live and breathe and learn. And Nick, when you, bro, listen to me, man, when you decide to amplify the voices of people of color, not only you're doing the right thing, but you have no idea what that means to me. I'm busy right now, man. But when you hit me up, bro, and we're like, yo, we need to talk to my people about this. I was like, yo, if we need to talk to our my people about this i was like yo if you if you want to amplify the voices of people of color let me help you do that and the next time someone jumps in your dms trying to give you crap send them over to me i'll handle it but if i'm being really honest with you it sounds like most of the people that jump into your dms

are just women trying to get at you so let's deal deal. Yeah. And that's the thing. Listen, I mean, it's, and listen, the truth is I'm also, I'm getting more people saying thank you. And I don't think, and listen, I appreciate you saying that, that you empathize and you recognize, but at the same time, I do want to say to my audience, I don't think myself or anyone should be praised for doing the right thing for showing like, yeah, is it brave? I don't think myself or anyone should be praised for doing the right thing for showing like, yeah, is it brave? I don't know. But like, it is the right thing. And we got to stop asking for pats on our back just because we decided to start amplifying people's color voices. I don't disagree with you on that, man. But what I'm trying to say is, is

you need to understand that it means the world to people of color you know you don't need an award you don't need to no one needs to come along and buy you some starbucks right but you do need to know that we see you you do need to know because i will tell you right now bro let, let me tell you what is the worst. The worst is silence. If you want to talk about actual things that people can do right now and privileges that we don't have, listen, we've had advocates of people of color for years and years and years, for years, we've had white people that have marched with Martin Luther King, who have vowed to do things that Malcolm X talked about. We have had advocates of people of color for decades.

But the people that we need now, the advocates that we need now are not necessarily the people that are protesting. Yes, we need them. But bro, I need the soccer mom who is sitting at home or the suburban mom who's waiting for Bachelor to come on. I'm part of Bachelor Nation too, so I ain't hating. I was watching Bachelor listen to your heart like a champ. I just probably lost my black people

cards admitting that, but that's the truth. But I need somebody who's sitting at home, a white suburban mom sitting at home who has the privilege to look down at her phone, scroll through Facebook or Instagram, see something that she knows in her gut is wrong. She sees something that she knows speaks to her that she wouldn't teach her kids. She wouldn't teach at her Sunday school. She's looking in front of her something that goes, this is wrong. And in her mind, she can do one of two things. She can scroll past it because she has the ability to do so, or she can go, oh, maybe I'll get to that later. I'm saying go to option three. Where I need you to be an

ally now is take on what you consider a little battle in a way that I can't do it. I need you to say, I need you to not defriend your friend. I need you to not bring separation between you and them because now you're an advocate for me, but now you have lost the voice with this person. Change is only going to come if we communicate. So like I say with the Tyler Mayer Project, you need to figure out the right way to communicate your story. You need to figure out the right way, hopefully with love, acceptance, understanding, to talk to somebody about what's really going on so that we can constitute real change. Those are the advocates we need. And if you're doing something even simple like that, you're right. You don't need a pat on your back. But that, my friend, those are the little things that are part of everyday racism that are making a difference. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I'm glad you said that.

It was, I was thinking last night, I saw something on the internet, but apparently the movie, The Help is the number one streaming movie on Netflix since they released it, you know, given what's going on. And I'm seeing a lot of, you know, we're in this called out culture and even people in the bachelor nation have been called out for various things. And it's become almost not necessarily a running joke, but when someone says, I'm not racist, you know, they want to point out they're not racist. And I don't think these people are. And at the same time, I think especially as white people, we watch movies like The Help

or A Time to Kill or Selma or these movies that really focus on racism, especially historical, like back in the 1950s. And we watch these movies like The Help. And we see this movie and we see a black person not be able to use the same bathroom or being treated like literally is less than human. And we watch that and go, be able to use the same bathroom or being treated like literally is less than human. And we watch that and go, of course, that's terrible. I would never do that.

I think that's racist. And we look at this and we go, not only do I think it's wrong, it disgusts me. And then we just kind of go about our lives and think, well, as long as I think that's racist and as long as I would never do that, I'm not a racist. But I like that what you just said in terms of the little battles of like these little things about, it doesn't, again, it's more about ignorance of understanding why what you said or what you see might be offensive to someone because some other maybe person of color educated you on that to like take the time to again encourage your friend or being willing to admit that you were ignorant not because you you know like yeah of course you think it's racist to

not let a person of color not use your bathroom but like it's not just watching these movies and going i would never do that therefore i'm not a racist you know what i'm saying like and i think a lot of white people watch this content and just oversimplify what it means to, it's like the black and black and white of, uh, like egregious racism. You know what I'm saying? Like, does that make sense? And I, and I feel like it makes sense. Let me say this, Nick, and you can take this to the bank, bro. Not being racist is not enough anymore.

Just not being a racist is not enough anymore. Just not being a racist is not enough anymore. Now, if you're not a racist, that's expected. Like, that's good. I don't expect you to be a racist. What I do expect you to do is recognize that we still, to this day, live in a country that racism exists and is moving at a fever pitch right now. And we all have a responsibility. And the reason why we all have a responsibility, and I think this is important to understand, is that Black people do not have the privilege to ignore it. If you have the privilege, if you have the ability to ignore racism,

then you're living in a privilege that Black people will never understand. And so with that, it is the little battles, man. And I will say this too, and this part's hard to hear, but most of the time, man, Black people don't have the... We live in a mostly white world, meaning I can tell you a ton of really popular white musicians and artists, but a lot of white people don't necessarily listen. I'm not stereotyping. I'm just using this as an example, right?

Like you're not forced to live in an R and B world necessarily. You're not forced to live in a rap world. Same way that you can go and live in the suburbs in a mostly all white community and you don't have to go into a place where there are people of color. You can live in your place and be perfectly fine and go into your grocery store

and you might see three or four black people working behind the counter, but that's because they commuted from another part of town that is not where you stay. So you have the ability to separate yourself from people of color, and some people have the ability to ignore that. The challenge is to raise our kids to talk with our families about how do we bring people of color into our lives when we could live in a world where we do not have to. And it can't just be because of the movie that you watched. Can't just be because of the, you can name the top five R&B records

or because you really love Drake. You know what I'm saying? Like it has to be something a little bit more beyond. If you've ever said the sentence, I have a black friend, you don't have enough black friends. You know what I'm saying? If you've ever said, I have a black friend, or if you've ever said, let me count the black people that go to my church, okay? If you can count the black people that go to your church you need you need to expand so i say that in a laughing you know kind of joking way but there is this element here of if you're not looking

around you don't see it and i just want to say this man i think what's different now than two years ago when i released before you call the cops it went viral in 2018. Thanks for noticing. When it did, the temperature was a little bit different. We had a lot of people who the argument that I was having, then I was spending a ton of energy just trying to convince people that what they were seeing on tape was what they were seeing. I spent most of my energy just going, this video where you just watch this person kill this person on tape in front of your eyes in cold blood actually is happening. And then fighting with,

well, I don't know. I mean, maybe he was sick already or I don't know. He had a gun or the copper. And I'm going, I don't have the energy for all the stuff that's going on. I don't have the energy to argue with you, to convince you you of something you're looking at in front of your face or similar two years ago and this isn't too different even being able to have an argument about the president and i don't mean this is an insult because whatever political party is that's fine but i was arguing with going what the president said is what he actually said like i don't have energy to argue with you over this thing that you can read was actually what happened. But now here we are two years later,

and the conversations change a little bit. There is a shift. You have people even in white churches that are going, okay, I think one of the reasons why that is, is because watching George Floyd's death, I don't care who you are. You see the knee to a man's neck in about like 10 seconds, you're into it watching a helpless individual. And about 10 seconds in, you're like, okay, this is all right. You can probably move your knee now. About 20 seconds in, man, you're like, is this necessary? About 30 seconds in, any human with a decent sense of mind is going, you may kill this individual. So we got to watch that on tape. That spoke volumes because it said, this is something that's happening. And the other thing that we got to see, though I thought it was ridiculous, was Amy Cooper. We got to watch Amy Cooper call the cops on a black man. And we got to watch the process that she went through, where she went, hey, black man, I'm going to call the cops if you don't get away from me and stop cops the black man's here like it was like watching a really bad

sitcom bro but what i loved about it sadly was that we it was we were able to go all this stuff you think we just make up this it's right here and because those two things happened like almost simultaneously it took a lot of people who were just right on the other side of the fence and allowed them to start to cross over and go, okay, maybe when Black people say Black Lives Matter, they aren't attempting to make a political statement, but they are actually trying to scream for their life. And that's where we are. And that's also why I feel like it sits a little bit different right now. Yeah, no, totally. And for those of you who I'm sure most people have, but the Amy Cooper, a woman was walking in Central Park

and came across a bird. Is it a birder? He was a birdwatcher. She did not like weed. He had to say about putting her dog on a leash, which in that part of the park she had to, and she kind of pre not a kind of premeditated threatened to call the cops and insist that she was being attacked by a black man.

And it was, yeah, it was. And it's, yeah, it was. And it's interesting you said that. And I've kind of mentioned this the past few weeks on my show. It's, I grew up in a white world. You know, we had, to your point, I could less than five black people at our high school.

My parents always opened the door for diversity when it happened, especially through our church, but it was never enough. You know, I don't necessarily blame my parents for it. It's just the world we lived in. And I'll even admit, even me, who really constantly tries to see the other side of things, you want to believe things aren't happening. The human nature in us of believing the good in people. You want to think, no, this doesn't happen. No, yeah, sure, the bad apple argument. And it's just kind of, it's more convenient. And sometimes when we even admit to ourselves about our shortcomings or our neighbor, so to speak, it's a scary thing to realize. But now, again, these things are being filmed and there is this awakening.

And the encouraging part is, again, I'm seeing even with my friends, friends who, it's not that they weren't resistant to being allies. It just never felt it being necessary. They didn't have an opinion on Black Lives Matter, but they certainly didn't take any time to understand what it meant to say it. And so now you're seeing this, and I do think that is encouraging. And now the next step is to, how do we keep this momentum going? And how can we make it more than just posting, say, a black box on your Instagram and feeling like, I've done my part. I won't get called out for not speaking up. And how do we do that day in and day out? And not just on social media. How do we have these conversations with our friends and our coworkers and our spouses,

you know, and these people who, and there's going to be tough conversations of, and with ourselves, you know, because that's sometimes the hardest part of, and, and, and with ourselves, you know, cause that's sometimes the hardest part of being like, I said this shit before, like, wow, thank God I didn't tweet this. Thank God I was by myself. And I had a friend who said, dude, you, do you, did you hear what you said? Um, I've done it. I've been there, you know, I've, and, um, I think we need to continue to have these conversations and be able to say, I am ignorant. I've been ignorant. I want to do my best to not be ignorant going forward. Well, let me just say this, and I think this is important, especially for your listeners

to understand and to know. We want to believe your heart is good. I know that there's stuff that's happened in bachelor nation where, where people have said some things that are crazy. I want to believe that what you said isn't what's in your heart. I want to, I want to believe that what you said is maybe a part of something else. Cause I want to believe that you're good. I want to believe that you're an ally.

And we get caught up in a lot of things wrapped around that. But if you make a mistake, Nick, I want to believe that you'll learn from it and you'll move forward. Because, and believe me when I say this, I mean this from the bottom of my heart. If you calculated every single mistake that I made, I would stay inside my house, never go outside and never do anything. There is no chance that I'm ever going to try to change the world if I stay lost in the mistakes that I've made. So look at your mistakes, say I did some stupid shit, then get up, get out and go change the world. That's how I feel about that. Now, how do we continue with the fight all around? There's a couple of ways. And this is a, I'm going to take this moment to kind of talk about the, this is who I am challenge that I

put together just recently. And then I'll come back to a couple tangible things. Okay. So I kind of on a whim and because the internet sucks, when I came because the internet sucks, when I came back on the internet to release the playlist a week and a half ago, after a two year hiatus, I still kept my Twitter locked down to where I had to everybody. I had to look at and decide if I was going to let you follow me. It was locked down. It wasn't open.

You couldn't share my tweets. You couldn't do anything. I wasn't even on Instagram anymore. I was like, skip Insta. People get on there and say anything at any moment. I ain't trying to mess with y'all. And I opened up my Facebook to release this thing and my YouTube. And even then, I still kept everything locked down. But about a week and

a half in after, before you call the cops are going viral again, and after playlists are going viral, I kind of got struck with this idea, man, that if I can put this thing together, because everybody wants to see the scene, everybody wants to be heard. If I can put a thing together during these protests where you have cops that are standing face to face with somebody else that they don't know, if that cop maybe looked across the line and saw this other person and said, wait a minute, I know who you are, or that protester looked across and went, wait, wait, wait, I know who you are, or whatever, we might be able to get somewhere. So I created the This Is Who I Am Challenge, which it was really simple.

Just put a video online where you start off by saying, this is who I am, name five things about you that are significant about you, and then close it off by saying, this is who I am. Post it up and hashtag it, this is who I am, hashtag it, the Tyler Merritt Project. And then we would be able to go through and see who you are and why. Also, it was helping to serve because I really truly felt that, God forbid, if you were a person of color and anything ever happened to you, I would love to be able to have the opportunity to go back and go, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, George Floyd, wait a minute. I went to a social media and I know who he is because he told me who he was. Maybe it was only in five things, but he told me who he was.

What I underestimated, man, and this is the part that I completely was not expecting, is that we began to get pretty overwhelmed with allies of people of color who just wanted to get on and tell people that they were allies of people of color. just wanted to get on and tell people that they were allies of people of color. We got people who would come on and be like, look, I'm a sister. I have three kids. I love to make spaghetti and I drive a blue car. And by the way, I'm an ally. Y'all need to know. And this is who I am. And so I start to see all these things and I, me as a black person, I'm going, yo, I know this wasn't like the bravest thing in the world,

but I do know this costs you something. And even though this was a little thing, I'm about to retweet this out to a bunch of people, which I ended up opening my social media because Jimmy Kimmel's wife, Molly, told me to, by the way, it's a whole nother conversation. I woke up one day and Jimmy was like, my wife said, you need to open your stuff up. And I was like, so I opened it up and I started putting this out and we started to have stuff roll in of all these allies. And then next, the people of color that were just simply going, Hey, here I am. Now we got people all over

the world, bro, that are coming in going hey i'm from canada hey i'm from switzerland i'm from these places and this is who i am and though it's not a huge movement it's starting to change the world they're getting on and doing the stupid stuff where they're like i'm challenging my three friends suzy you better do it next you know and all that but and so it's beautiful so even though it's, and so it's beautiful. So even though it's a small thing, it's adding up, but some really quick, tangible things. I would say in your workplace, if you have right now, it's very in vogue for your workplace to go, Hey, we here at blah, blah, blah, blah company. We stand for people of color. But if you go into your

workplace and you look around and there are no people of color, also in the higher up parts of your workplace, there may be a systematic issue here that is bigger than just words. Now, how do you go about that? I would say simple things like communicating with your human resources and bringing that up as a concern. And like we, how I very much feel in Tyler Merritt Project, it has to do with communication. Like how do you communicate with people? You can't just go and write a note and say, hi, I'm Karen and you suck. We need more black people. That's not going to help. You know what I mean?

I also think that on your everyday level, you can talk to your church. If you go into your church and your pastor is saying, we at this church want more people of color, but there ain't no black people on the worship team. There's not a black person on your staff. There's not a black person on your staff. There's not a black elder at your church. You need to know that if I, as a person of color, walk into your church and I don't see anybody that looks like me, I do not believe you when you say we are a community attempting to reach out to people of color. a black person. You didn't try to find at least one black person in a 10 mile radius that could sing a really simple worship song. Lord knows they're out there. Like that's a simple thing. And if you want to communicate, communicate that with your pastor. It's a simple thing. And lastly, and I'm just trying to give you some tangible things for your people to take.

I really appreciate it. Writing it down. Lastly, in your family. when I did that interview where I was wearing a Project 615 shirt, it was from a beautiful Russian lady who lived in Brooklyn. And we were talking about some of the things we were talking about. She started to get tears in her eyes as I was telling her stories about walking down the street. And I was so moved by her emotion as she was looking at me, kind of understanding what my world was. And she simply said to me, Tyler, where do you find hope? And I asked her, I said, hey, do you have any kids? She said, yes, I have a four-year-old. And I said, okay, it has to be difficult to look at your kid and not see hope.

That almost has to be impossible to look at your four-year-old child and not feel hopeful or to look at your 10-year-old. And when they started becoming teenagers, you started to be like, skip them. But there's a period of time there where you can't help but to feel hopeful because you're looking at somebody you created or that is a part of who you are. A simple way that you can fight racism in a way that is significant is begin to have real life conversations with your kids. Sit down with your kids and do not assume that your kids are not influenced by outside sources. A friend of mine just called me yesterday and said, Tyler, a white friend of mine called me

and said, the most disciplinary time I have had with my six-year-old son is when he came to me at the dinner table and he said, all of this black stuff is cool, but I think it's important everybody remembers that all lives matter. This dad said, boy, come here. Took him to the living room and had to talk. Was like, listen to me right now. You're not about to walk out of this house using that language. And he was acting like he said the N word. You know what I mean? But the dad to him, it was significant because he didn't even realize in this moment what his son had been told or affected by. So how you can help on a tangible level is to not assume that your family is safe. Not assume that the same person that you sleep in the bed with, your husband or your wife,

that they may not have some rooted history inside of them that is keeping them from being the ally that you need, that I need. And although Nick, those may not seem like really, really big things, those my friend, I really truly believe are the things that constitute the small ripples of change. No, I mean, you're so good at obviously explaining this and sharing a message, and I appreciate it. But you're right, it's those little battles. And kind of going back to what we were talking about, it does feel good to have people do reach out, even though I did say we shouldn't get pats on the back.

But I posted an analogy the other day. And it wasn't too many, but there were maybe 10 people reached out and said, this analogy finally worked. This analogy, now I get it, right? There's a million other analogies out there of why saying all lives matter at this time just is tone deaf and it just stopped, you know?

But it's beautiful to see that we're getting to the point when saying black lives matter is like saying fuck cancer. You know, people don't say fuck cancer and all of a sudden people are just like, well, what about HIV? Or what about Crohn's disease? Everyone's just like, yeah, fuck cancer, man. a sudden people are just like well what about hiv or what about crohn's disease everyone's just like yeah fuck cancer man like totally you know and we're getting

to that place that's what i'm talking about bro i hope you use that example because right on but it's it's nice to see but we you know like it's if if we're doing it if i have you know you have a million followers and if only 10 people changed their mind, to me, it was worth, it was worthwhile, because those 10 people might change one person's mind. And for those other people, and again, I'm not trying to like, you know, pat myself on the back, but just to say, like, don't get discouraged, right? For example, when I was making this video, right, this analogy, you know, you want to make sure I, I don't want to be a distraction, right? This analogy. You know, you want to make sure, I don't want to be a distraction, right? And quite honestly, the first attempt I made this video, I came up with a different

analogy. And I sent it to three people to make sure, hey, am I, how, and two of those people were persons of color, one of them being black, the other person white. Now, the two people of color were like, great, right on, put it out there. And then my one white friend was like, if I'm being hypercritical, I just want to point out that some people might think you're playing into a stereotype that is prominent in the black community. And I said, oh shit, I have heard that before. And then I pointed out to my friends, and then I said, well, what about this? They're like, you know what? You are right. Don't.

So I changed the analogy. Now, I think a lot of people out there, when they're trying to help, are like, oh, fuck, man, I can't do anything right. Like, I'm just, how would anyone interpret that? And it was just like, listen, don't get discouraged, right? And that's the thing, too, I just want to say to my audience is like, listen, is it hard sometimes? Do we feel like we can't get anything right is there are

like you said the internet sucks are there going to pb are there going to be people on both sides of the argument criticizing your attempt at doing the right thing sure but that is not an excuse to quit right like an excuse to be silent correct yeah and it's that's the thing it's just like you know we got to keep moving forward don't you don't quit you know when you know, when you're, listen, people want to get in shape, right? And the first time they work out, they get in shape. They're always sore the next day. Like you're going to have to, like the first time you try to start getting in shape, it's not easy.

Like you're going to get sore. You're going to not be able to move the next day if you haven't worked out in a while, but you got to keep going. And that's the same way of trying to be an advocate and an ally. And so like, it is hard sometimes. We are going to make mistakes along the way. And I saw something today that I thought was really nice. Not only do we have to be willing to learn, but unlearn things.

We have to unlearn what we've been taught so that we can let new things in. And I think that was a really important thing that I didn't think about. And it was nice to hear. I'll tell you this too, man. This is not the time, and trust me, I have so many varying friends, and I have lots of them. This is not the time. This happened to me last night, bro, and I hope she's not listening to this because she's going to feel a certain way. This girl DMed me, man, and she was like, Hey Tyler, I know there's a lot of

racial things that are going on, but I want you to watch this video of this one black guy that a lot of white people really appreciate the things that he say that's on a certain side. And tell me if you agree with him. And I started watching this video, man. And I was about to throw up. I'm like, video, man, and I was about to throw up. I'm like, just because you have a Black, you have, you found the Black person that agrees with what your grandpa agrees with, this is not the chance for you to go and send that out to all your Black people and go, but what about this, man? Listen to each individual as they come to you and their concerns, because Black people are not monolithic. You're going to have people all over the spectrum that feel certain things about certain things.

What you put on social media, especially what you put in the internet because the internet sucks. I think I'm going to make a t-shirt that simply says the internet sucks, the Tyler Merritt project. Like because the internet sucks, you're going to put stuff out there. That stuff is not, you're not Nutella. You know what I mean? You are not going to make everybody happy. And there's people that hate Nutella. Not everybody likes everything, but just to go, I'm not going to take this step forward. I'm not going to take this risk because I'm afraid people are going to hate on what you say, but check your heart. I think it's great to verify with black people. And I'll tell you what happened, Nick, with you sending out to your black, your black people and

being like, yo, this, how is this? And then being like, it's cool. The reason why most of the time is we don't got the time or energy to be worried about little shit. You know what I'm saying? We ain't trying to nitpick at anything, but then if maybe your white friend says, oh, I don't know. And you send it back to us. We're like, oh yeah, cool. Yeah. Sure, maybe we're going to have some black person who's going to say this. But if we just think you're trying to show yourself as an ally, we are like, yo, you're on the team. You are on the team. Because nowadays, man, we're walking out here like landmines. We don't know who is and who isn't.

And we don't have the privilege just to assume that you are. Like, for real, when you reached out to me nick listen this is real dude when you reached out to me because you are friends with wells and wells is my boy i was like okay i can trust this dude but my inbox gets filled up with tons of people that are like hey will you can we talk can we this this, that, and the other? And I'm like, I don't know you. And I currently right now in this atmosphere do not have the energy to try to convince you of some stuff that's on.

Like, don't bring me on your show. I did this interview, a radio interview in Canada. And the guy, at the last minute, because it's a pretty big Canadianadian radio station i have a lot of people that support time eric project in canada it's really weird i don't know how that happened so i went on this radio station and towards the end the the radio guy says the dj says so let's talk for a minute um about black on black crime because i'm going to have a lot of my viewers are going to email me and say, why are black people so upset

about cops killing other black people or cops killing black people when so many black people kill each other? Someone DM me about that today. Right. Well, play them this section of your podcast. Because coming from a black person, this is what you need to hear.

We value all life. All life across the board. I don't want to see another one of my black brothers or sisters die. And say in a lower income environment where black people are killing black people or in a affluent environment where black people are killing black people or in a affluent environment where black people are killing black people most black people do not want to see that there's definitely some systematic things that are

attached to that but that's for another time and another conversation but don't get it twisted every individual when they walk out of their house, Nick, there is some psychological thing that is unspoken that we are assuming that we have one responsibility, and that's to make it home, and that we're going to make it home, right? So let's keep it clear. Black people are not supporting Black people killing each other. But this is why it matters and it's different. Although this sounds a little harsh, when a Black person kills another Black person, you're out of rage, you're out of economics, you're out of gangs, whatever kind of violence that takes place, that is sad and that sucks. or whatever kind of violence that takes place, that is sad and that sucks. But when a police officer, somebody who made a decision to go to a police academy, to take training, to learn how to use a gun, and then make a vow to protect and serve. What that police officer did,

this black person who killed another black person, I don't expect this black person who did not do all those other things, including take a vow to protect and to serve, to kill, I expect them, whatever they do is what they do. And I pray to God they do the right thing. But this guy over here, the guy who made the vow, whether it's a black cop, white cop, whoever it is,

I do not expect him to break his vow and do the shit that he shouldn't be doing. So when it does, when he goes against all of those things that he swore he wasn't going to do, that echoes. That is different than this. So we can point at this all day long and say, don't you see what this is happening? And I go, yeah, let's push this aside because not that I expect that to happen, but just like you're saying, that's happening. What I don't expect to happen is this guy who vowed not to do this, to do the shit. And that's the difference. Yeah. It makes perfect sense. And yeah, thanks for explaining it. I mean, not that it shouldn't need to be explained, but these are tough conversations. And there's a lot of people even now might hear that and

feel defensive. My brother's a police of people even now might hear that and feel defensive. My brother's a police officer, right? Have to have, you know. Yo, another thing that people, black people, we need police. Yeah. Like we, we need police more than y'all white folks do. We need cops. And another thing about this, this is who I am challenge.

I talk about it in the challenge like i want you i invited for for police officers to be a part of that challenge so that not if there's anybody we need right now to be humanizing themselves are people in blue not that they should have to but trust me if i see you on video a cop say to me yo even you know this is gonna sound real bad if a cop says to me a white cop says my wife's black i'm like all right bro okay come on over my hood you know although that's ridiculous there's something to be said of just going hey you're speaking my language or to say like i see you see you as a person. So I, first, I just want to say, if your brother, I don't know if you listen to your podcast or not, thank you for his service,

man. We need cops to continue to be brave. And again, because black people are not monolithic, you're going to have your Martin Luther Kings. You're going to have your Malcolm X's, right? You're going to have certain people that feel a certain way about police officers, right you're gonna have certain people that feel a certain way about police officers certain people that don't but i would think it's fair to say that most black people are rooting for cops we're just rooting for you to to follow the vows you took and man i pray i pray for the safety of your brother, man, because it's rough out there. Yeah, it is. It is, and everyone's feeling a lot of things right now. But you said it better than I could, and I appreciate you saying that. I guess one last thing before I let you go, too, is one thing,

and I think it's been kind of a an awakening for me this this year even since i started the podcast uh this argument and this understanding this privilege that you talked about i've as a straight white male i've had the privilege of not being offended by anything um and you said i'm not being offended by any anything anything yeah like i'm good um and i've always wanted to be an ally whether it was to uh black people um gay people uh any any minority and there's always this like idea oh great like help me teach me great you know and and i had a friend point out that's like listen it's a we're exhausted you know we're tired and then my first thought again was to get defensive and discouraged be like well if i want help why can't you help me

and i kind of i thought of this analogy recently to try to like even better understand it for myself and the people who when i was like kind of sharing that message was resistant to me saying well what if i'm asking for help i'm like well fuck man i can't do anything right and i thought well imagine you're at a job and every time a problem came up it was pretty evident to your boss that you never took a moment to try to troubleshoot that problem on your own. That you just immediately stopped and went to someone else and said, can you help me figure out this problem out? Every single time. You didn't look it up. You didn't research. You made no attempt to try to figure it out. You weren't a problem solver.

You wouldn't be considered a good employee. Your boss would be like, dude, come on, man, I'm here to help. But like, can you try to do the work, you know? Right. And at the same time, every boss I've ever had, if I've done the work and try to say like, man, I've done X, Y, and Z, I've done this, this is where I have progress, but this one part I'm struggling with,

can you help me out? I'll tell you what, they're far more willing to be like, you know what, you're right. Let me show you how to do that. But if you are making no attempt whatsoever to troubleshoot the problems in front of you, and there's a lot of information access out there, then yeah, of course people are going to be discouraged. Your boss would be discouraged. I mean, shit, put it in context of a relationship. We talk about relationships on this show a lot. Imagine if your spouse, every time they pissed you off,

made no attempt to try to figure it out on their own. They're just like, no, no, no, just tell me what to do. Just tell me what to do. Just tell me what to do. You would be, you'd get discouraged. So, and that's something again, when I had a friend tell me that my first, I had a feeling of resistance towards that and defensiveness, but it's just kind of that process of trying to understand that like,

fuck, that would be exhausting to kind of you know constantly try to explain to someone who's just like yeah i mean yeah sure i don't want to offend you so like tell me but i really don't have the time to figure out on my own well yeah there is this element man uh if you work a day job right and you work at a place where you're you, you're constantly busy and you get a new hire and you're not necessarily their trainee. You're like, you're not, they're not your trainee, but they're constantly coming to you going, I need some help on you. Can you help me with this? Can you help me with this? And you're like, I'm trying to take, I'm trying to handle my own stuff, but yeah, yeah, cool. Or you're, you're calling across from go, Hey, can you guys come and help this guy with this? Cause I have stuff to do. There is a kind of element of that that kind of comes with this, but I do think

there's also an element of finding the right people that do, I don't want to say have the time, but that's their deal, right? Their deal is to kind of walk through and help and teach. There are a lot of resources. Listen, there are a lot of white people who are advocates and speak. And listen, there are a lot of white people who are advocates and speak. If your viewers don't know, Google a guy named Tim Wise. Tim Wise is a white male who is such a huge advocate of color, but has written books, has had speeches on how to serve people of color in a certain way. There's a ton of Black authors who have written things on this subject. There are podcasts that are taking place. And listen, some things you might listen to and agree with and go, okay, cool. Some things you might be like, that's a little bit out of the box. But you need to open up yourself to at least listen to Black voices or at least advocates who are having success in that place. But I couldn't

agree with you more, man. It takes some initiative. If you're a new mom and your kid just keeps acting up, you go and do whatever you have to do to fulfill the role of being a mother, which speaks to the level of if something is important to you, you will seek it out. And there are just some things that aren't as important to everybody else. But as a Black person, I don't have the privilege for this not to be important to me. I just don't. So if I know that you have, your listeners are listening to this right now and they've listened to this whole hour long podcast and they've gotten to the end

and something inside of them has shifted or at least been questioned or at least has been challenged or changed or motivated or they found themselves going, okay, maybe I'm building up the bravery now where I feel like I can speak. And this is what it's about. That's what I attempt to, with all of my energy to attempt to do with the Tyler Merritt Project is just try to ignite some bravery in you to love a little more, to see people a little bit more, and to find ways to communicate that are going to build bridges. And as generic as building

bridges sounds, right now, we need bridges more than ever. Yep. Really well put. I want to just, again, thank you for taking the time. I know you're being pulled in a lot of directions right now. Before I do let you go, though, we're going to keep it light, and I'd be remiss if we didn't play this game that we play with all our guests. It's a game called Do You Know Me? It's certainly in line with what your project is all about.

Real simple. I'm going to ask you some real basic questions. Chrissy and I are going to guess who knows Tyler Merritt better. Don't answer right away. We're going to, you know, figure it out. If there's an anecdotal story you want to share, great. Don't feel like you need to.

And it'll be real quick. And then we will send you on your way. You ready? Okay. Yeah. All right. Do you know me?. You ready? Okay, yeah. All right. Do you know me? With our friend Tyler Merritt. Question number one, does Tyler like banana bread?

Now, just because we know he finds bananas disgusting, some people hate bananas, like the bread. For example, I'm not a big zucchini fan. I like zucchini bread. I'm going to say no. As someone who disdains bananas, that myself, that banana taste is still in banana bread, and I'm going to say that he doesn't,

even though I know there are people who do like banana bread, but not like bananas. I'm going to go the opposite and say that he does like banana bread just for fun okay um the caveat of banana bread is the word bread oh bread's delicious so um if it's not super duper banana, the real big piece of banana bread is really butter and sugar and bread. Okay. And then like a little banana in it. So unless you got like big old chunks of banana in your banana bread, I'm probably not messing with it. But if it just sort of slightly smells of something banana-y, but when I bite into it, it's just

buttery and soft and delicious. I'm cool. Okay. Well, Chrissy, one, zero. Question number two, Tyler being the actor that himself, he performs in both comedies and drama, but as a fan, as a viewer, doesler prefer comedies over dramas i'm gonna say comedy i think you seem like you uh you can be very dramatic you're a great actor but it sounds like getting to know you just a little bit you appreciate the good laugh and and the beauty and and good humor so i'm gonna say comedy i'm gonna agree i think the same thing you would both be incorrect oh god i'm over two you want to know my favorite movie for for a really long time and this is again i've had my black card pulled multiple times i feel feel like, in this interview.

One of my favorite movies for forever was Titanic. Bro, I saw Titanic in the movie theater like 12 times, man. I was so in love with Kate Winslet. Listen, I was so in love with Kate Winslet that when she got married the first time, I was genuinely pissed about it.

Like, genuinely pissed. I also, when I found out she smoked, was angry. Like, I was like, oh, God, Kate smokes. Like, I'm not going to be able to deal with this. Because I fell in love with her in Titanic. Some of my favorite movies. Titanic, Almost Famous, which I think I mentioned before. The best.

That movie is so good so good top five um also that thing you do people don't talk about that oh that thing you do is a good that's a good movie so good don't talk about that thing you do enough as if it's not one of the top five movies okay okay okay soundtrack is so good too. The soundtrack. Oh my gosh. Are you kidding me? I'm like, I can't. I mean, it's good, but top five.

I don't know. It's not top five. It is a good movie. Maybe not top five. Maybe I was wrong. I got you. It's a really good movie. All right.

Question number three. Does Tyler prefer to listen to music or watch TV or movies? I'm going to say music. I'm going to say music. I'm going to say music too. Because I played in a band for like 20 years, but I've gotten back into acting. It's like down the middle, but if I had to choose one, I would go with, Oh,

that's hard. Music, music. Okay. Thanks. I feel like you did this for me. So I wouldn't go over. Yeah. Circle got the square on that one.

I actually had forgotten what you had said at that point. Like at that point, I was so perplexed by it all. I, I, I would side from if I never saw a movie point, I was so perplexed by it all. I would sigh. If I never saw a movie again, I could maybe

survive, but I couldn't. I would take the soundtrack off of that movie. Like, for instance, Near, Far, Wherever You Are. Come on. Come on. I'm dropping Celine. I'm dropping Celine like a champ right now. I can't. I can can't i'm not hating i love it

all right final question final question does tyler prefer flip-flops or sneakers honestly i'm torn on this uh i've never met tyler in person so i haven't seen his footwear. I can't stand flip-flops. So I'm just from a, I'm just going to go with my gut on, on sneakers just because I find flip-flops to be super uncomfortable, especially for long periods of time and, and, and not cleanliness.

So I'm going to say sneakers. Oh my God. I love flip-flops. I love them. I love flip-flops, but he walks a lot. He walks every day. So I'm going to say sneakers too.

Yeah. Cool. Let me ask you, question for you. Who is that black friend of yours that you saw on sneakers recently? What's his name? No, you don't have one. Okay? You don't.

All right? So, I mean, you've seen him flip-flop. So we're sneakers people the last black person you saw on flip-flops if you can remember that person let me know when that comes up all right we're sneakers people i guess i guess i never thought of that but yeah good point let me tell you remember i was saying i think i said sneakers but think about your black tell me your black friend who you saw wearing flip flops recently. Well, girls wear them. None of my friends wear flip flops, but.

Girls and flip flops are a different thing, man. Because y'all be getting your toes done. Y'all be, man, when I see a black dude in flip flops, I'm like, bro. Bro, how'd you end up here? When I see anyone in flip flops,ops i mean i just don't get it bro you went and bought those like where'd you even find them where'd you buy them flip-flops at bro and sandals are a little different but flip-flops like the the ones that make the sound man come on man you tripping so true that i i i i love them i'm wearing them right now all right

i know you are i no doubt my My best friend, Shannon, too. She swears by a flip-flop. Well, that is Do You Know Me with Tyler Merritt. Tyler, again, I want to really sincerely thank you for taking the time. Can you let people once again know where they can find you, where they can, again, post their videos if they want to be a part of your initiative, so on and so forth. The mistake I probably made, because it keeps me busy with, but this is who I am challenge,

post it to wherever it is you live in your social media world. So we have tons of people on Twitter, tons of people on YouTube. Now people on LinkedIn are posting. Someone texted me last night. They were like, LinkedIn is, I'm like, what? Isn't that for business? But Google it. It's weird. So LinkedIn, Facebook, of course, just make sure you put the hashtag, the Tyler Merritt Project along with the hashtag, this is who I am. Because it's getting more difficult to find now as it's getting bigger and bigger. And this is really just the beginning of this as it just started a couple of days ago. And it's something that's going to run for quite a while. And I'm trying to see as many of them as I can. So you can go to my Twitter at TTM project and follow me there. You'll see I've, I've retweeted a handful of

videos there that are pretty, pretty dynamic. Um, I was non-existent on Insta for quite some time and kind of really was like not trying to be a part, fighting the funk. So I jumped into Instagram late, but our followers have become like increased quite a bit over the past few days. So you can follow me there, just at the Tyler Merritt Project. And then on Facebook, just search the Tyler Merritt Project and you'll see most of our videos online there. Just search the Tyler Merritt Project And you'll see most of our videos Online there You can see all of my videos on YouTube

Except for the playlist But the playlist you can see on Facebook This side or the other But we're continuing to try to get the word out Of this is why I'm challenged So I'm looking for some of my folks That are friends and advocates To send out that information

To their people so that we can continue to get the word out. Because it's a weird movement, man. It's hard not to get emotional when you're watching people all across the world just simply talk about who they are. Absolutely. Hey, thanks for having me, man. No, thank you. Just do me a favor, do it one more time for our listeners so they make sure they get the hashtag right. Yeah, sure. It's hashtag the Tyler Merritt Project and hashtag this is who I am specifically for

that challenge. Awesome. Thanks again, my friend. You are a beautiful man. And again, I want to thank you for taking the time to help educate anyone who's listening for being patient and helping make the world a better place. I really appreciate it. Thank you. I want to thank you guys for listening, as always.

Thanks for taking the time and listening and learning. It's been fun, again, doing this podcast and learning on myself. I hope you guys are enjoying this as well. Make sure to check us out, obviously, next week for our Ask Nick episodes. And hopefully we will have Garrett and Becca on our Wednesday episode. We'll see how that goes. And don't forget to send your questions at asknickatcastme.com, cast with a K.

And if there's nothing else else we will see you on Monday