14: Victimization Mentailty

00:04 Mo Facts with Adam Curry for November 12th, 2019. This is episode number 14. And it's been too long, Mo! 14 days, 14th show. I'm ready. Yeah, I gotta apologize. I had to rush off to Europe, had an opportunity to see my daughter who lives in Rotterdam. And Mo and I have kind of one agreement amongst the two of us is family first. So, family first. Family first, yeah. And then what happened? Then I had family first yesterday because my father was in town celebrating Veterans Day. Yes, indeed. And he's a vet, right? Yes, served in the Navy.

00:54 And so family first again, so, but we're here. We're back. Yes, let me ask you a question before we get into the episode and I'm very excited of course because I know you've had two weeks to get something ready and I see we have a number of cliplets ready in the waiting. I want to remind everybody that the work that you hear here is done on the value for value system which means after you listen to a Mo Fax, was it Worth your time. What is your time worth? All you have to do is let us know what you think by sending a donation to Mo facts with Adam curry, you can do that at mo facts comm or a direct link mo fund me comm mo e fund me comm and that would be highly appreciated especially Because there's a lot of work that goes into this mo and I'm gonna lay that down at your feet You've got another

01:49 I presume fantastic topic and episode lined up. I mean, I see clips from CBS to Fox to God knows where from this has got to be a doozy. What are we doing? All right. So as as we talked about, sometimes you know what the top is going to be, and sometimes it is a surprise. So I would like to unwrap this show topic with the ISO victimization mentality. Top of the list. Victimization mentality. Nice. So this is a bleed over from the last episode we had talking about Mr. Kanye West and that was one of the sound bites we got from him. And I have to be honest with you, after the last show, a lot of things stuck with me.

02:37 Brought up some great topics of one being the term black and we may we coined a term called black guilt Yes, first time you've ever heard it said in public between a mixed company You heard it here first that did you get any feedback on that specifically actually I did not ah I did not interesting so I think it is a real phenomenon and And it was something else you brought up too that stuck with me. The apologetic

03:15 subconscious apologetic thing that I did. Right, which led into you saying that this was a version of black guilt. Yes, exactly. Yes. And by the way, the responses I got from people was, oh my god, that's so interesting that both as kids, although it wasn't that we weren't in the same situation, but as kids we both kind of were conditioned by our our own families and culture and background to be very uncomfortable with each other which wasn't really necessary when you think about it. It wasn't but it's the unknown of course of course when you live when you live with expectations And I think that's what the I don't think that's what this show is gonna really go into is understanding how that victim into victimization mentality is formed and How it's received across you know across the spectrum of both groups of people so

04:15 We got like you said we have a bunch of clips here. So from the last show I had a clip slip and I want to show an example of how victimization mentality manifests itself. Jack Dorsey, Steve Jobs, Adidas, don't forget about us. So that is big boy talking to Kanye. Right. And Kanye was riling off the people that he's come in contact with. And big boy says, don't forget about us. That was kind of interesting. Yes. If it's such a short clip, let's just I didn't set that up. Well, can we run that back one more time so we can just hear the pain and anguish in his voice when he said that? Jack Dorsey, Steve Jobs, Adidas, don't forget about us.

05:05 Yeah, you know, wow, in context it's kind of like saying, you know, all the big boys, they're not part of your family or something like that, I guess. Yeah, it's like, don't, you're moving on. By the way, major shareholder of Apple, of course, is Dre with his Beats acquisition. So, you know, it's not like it's just some old white gay dude at the top. It's the thought process that they're worried about. And that's why I want to talk about where the apology comes from. That apology comes from not out of, I feel sorry that I'm offending you. It's I feel sorry that I'm free and you're not.

06:00 That's really that thought about this for 14 days and Rick cuz when you say and that's why I love this show I love doing it because we get into places where No man has gone before Especially in my mind I was like I do do that. I do apologize, but like I said, it's not out of all I'm sorry. It's not out of a sense of pilot up. It's empathy and sympathy because it's like, wow, you can't mentally get free right off of the quote unquote. And I'm not going to make it political but thought plantation. I refuse to be a victim anymore. But I can't bring you with me.

06:49 So this is what Kanye means when he's talking about free man talking? Yes. Gotcha. So let's get into the show topic explained. What a great drug dealer does is they make the people who buy the paraphernalia from them feel like they're friends or they're buddies. It's not just a business transaction. I also care about you. And we see that same dynamic between the so-called black man and woman and the super liberal Caucasian here in Western society, especially here in America. Well, what the super liberal Caucasian will tend to do is to try to make the so-called black male and female, but especially the so-called black male, believe that he should always resort to his emotions when it comes to evaluating what is going on in society around him.

07:36 Because what the super liberal Caucasian knows is that by doing that, he will always ensure that the so-called black man remains a vassal to him and a servant of his. And that is what the quote-unquote drug dealer does with those who buy the product from him or her. They always want to make you feel like you need what they have to offer you. You cannot replace that sensation or that high anywhere else, especially in some way, shape or form that's actually going to be lifting you up and constructing you and building you up rather than tearing you down incrementally. Wow, that's a great analogy. Who said this? Who was that speaking? This is Chronicles of Julia. He's a popular YouTuber, and I think he had some very great takes. And I think he explained it with this analogy between the

08:25 Unfree black and I don't want to say slave because I mean it's completely different. It's unfree you untethered No, it's actually still away. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's actually they're still tethered you're tethered. Yes So yeah, they can't pull themselves away from The dynamic that's been created for them and that's like you're a victim. You're a victim. You're a victim and And the only way you'll be heard is to be a victim. I just wanted to, my own reflection on the Kanye show was it's kind of sad that the way things are going today, neither of us are really allowed to have our own culture and to have our own background and to have our own things.

09:17 You know, that it's like, yeah, everybody's equal, but no, we're different. We're distinctly different in a whole bunch of things, but it doesn't mean that we're not equal, but somehow that's gotten convoluted. And it's like, well, you have to all think the same and be the same. And one of the most, as I'm older now, one of the most enjoyable things is the differences and the oddities. That's what I love about this show. It's like I'm learning all kinds of stuff about my friend Mo, who is an American, has a different background. Hey, Lottie O, you could be from the Midwest and you'd have a different, regardless of skin color. So that was kind of my reflection on all of this, is it seems like society is not willing to just say, hey, you know what? Black people, white people, red people, yellow people, brown people, they're all different, but we have some common things that makes us Americans.

10:08 Where your culture is replaced, it's not like you're not, it's void. We do have a culture here in America and it's not the American culture, but it's a culture of consumerism. Yes. Wow. That we replace. Yes, you're right. That we replace, because the reason why I noticed this is where I work is a high tech company and we bring a lot of people in from outside of America. Yeah, India probably. India, China, Pakistan, other parts of Asia. So when they first get there, they bring their culture. And now we're starting to hire more second gen

10:49 American slash wherever they're from. Yeah, so they were born Indian American. Mm-hmm. And there's a total dis there's this distinction there between the new hires that come straight from Whatever country and the ones that are second gen from here in America. Sure the the second gen hold no like okay, we had a cultural festival and And the ones that came here directly from their home country dressed up in their traditional attire. Second gens, no, no, not at all. So I don't think it's distinct. It's not distinct just to black or white Americans. I think you have to give up whatever culture you had to take part in the corporate culture that we have here in America. So,

11:44 With that said, there were some going on while we were away. Some things happened. Some shit went down, yo. Barack Obama. He was at his ObamaCon or Obama whatever foundation summit. Yeah, I just call it ObamaCon. I like ObamaCon, it has a nice connotation, very good. Right, so and he had a clip where he called out the woke culture.

12:22 You know this this idea of purity and you're never compromised and you're always politically woke and all that stuff You should get over that quickly the world the world is messy There are ambiguities People who do really good stuff have flaws People who you are fighting may love their kids me and You know share certain things with you and I think that one danger I see among young people, particularly on college campuses, Malia and I talk about this, Yara goes to school with my daughter. But I do get a sense sometimes now among certain young people, and this is accelerated by social media, there is this sense sometimes of the way of me making change is to be as judgmental as possible about other people.

13:25 And that's enough. Like if I tweet or hashtag about how you didn't do something right or use the word wrong verb or then I can sit back and feel pretty good about myself because man you see how woke I was I called you out. You know I had an initial response to this which you probably heard on no agenda but The more I hear it the more questions I have about it, but for me initially it was like oh alright good on you Barack. I mean there's some weird stuff in there like using a verb or I was pretty sure he meant pronoun, but maybe I was wrong. But in general to say hey man you coming out of college, you in college, this calling people out and then you know thinking that you've done your job. I kind of like that.

14:18 I call bullshit. Yeah. All right. The reason why I say that is one, he wanted to say pronoun, but he know he would have got canceled by certain demographics. So his brain did a quick and used another word. Right. And you know what? The people that will be that would possibly cancel him I did a quick search on the social media, you know across social media platforms and they picked up on it. They're like we know what you wanted to say. Okay. All right good. Oh wrong wrong verb. I mean what I mean, what is that? I mean who calls out the but I Won't go there. But okay. Well, yeah, that's what I thought too is that he was like, uh, whatever. Yeah, I

15:11 But the reason why the main reason I call bullshit is they created the woke monster Yeah him yes, and he in this whole the whole council culture was bred out of this self-righteousness That we've talked about on previous shows They're very idealistic And now what happens is these little monsters that you created, that you raised, just think the kids that were 10 years old when Barack Obama took office, well, what that's 10 plus 8 plus 3 or 11. So you got kids what, just ready to vote that were maybe 6, 7, 8 years old. I mean if my math's correct, I'm just doing it off the top of my head, but

15:56 You created these little monsters and now you're trying to corral them back in to vote. That's what this is all about. I know Biden might not be, you know, the hippest guy and all the terminology, but we... look past that. We need you to go vote. That's what this is all about. Well, yes, and I agree. I think it was... In retrospect, it does sound like he was talking more about Joe Biden than anything. Mm-hmm. And that's why I totally picked up on and like I said, my BS meter is is But that wasn't the biggest takeaway from Obamacare

16:44 For people that's not familiar, we have to remind them who the new Holy Trinity is in black America. I want to start by just talking, giving you a little perspective of my household in the 70s. If you were like me growing up in the 70s, the portraits of MLK, JFK, and Jesus hung on a lot of folks' walls. That was the Trinity. Today, the Trinity of Oprah, Beyonce, and Michelle Obama could almost replace them. You know, I could have done that from memory, but I'm glad you did it on a clip. It's more powerful. But I've been trained now. I know the old and the new Holy Trinity. I know them now. I know. I'm in. So one of the new Holy Trinity spoke, Miss Michelle Obama. And let's just hear what she had to say at Obamacon.

17:39 Our family wasn't unique. And that's, as we talk about Chicago and the South Side, You know, mom always said, she's the one that'll keep our little heads down, will keep us humble. She's like, there are a million Craig and Michelle and Brock's out there. It's just that our stories don't get told. We get caricatured because of the color of our skin, because of fear, because of a whole lot of stuff, because we don't know each other. We think that this family, this beautiful portrait was the portrait of everybody in our neighborhood and of all of our family members. This was not unique. Everyone we knew got up every day and did what they were supposed to.

18:26 They held down jobs, they kept their lawns mowed, they strived to give their kids good values and access to better things, which is one of the reasons we moved from Martin Luther King Drive to 74th and Euclid because my mom wanted us to have access to then what were better schools. But unbeknownst to us, we grew up in the period as I write called white flight. Okay, white flight white flight. Yes. Are you familiar with that term? You know, I have heard this I could not define it for you Okay, white flight just in very simple terms That's when black families start to move into a white community and then the white people start moving out. Oh, okay Or as we say in Archie Bunker land there goes the neighborhood So yeah, so

19:27 When I heard this, I'm like, white? You're talking about white flight. White flight hasn't happened in God 30, 40 years? I mean, we're talking about the 60s here when white flight really happened. Yeah, just before Archie Bunker came on TV, exactly that period. Right. So what we have to do is unpack what she really said. One, She said she left MLK Boulevard, I guess, and moved into another neighborhood to access better schools. Who were you leaving? Wasn't she doing Black Flight?

20:09 Yes, of course that's black flight. That's moving on up. Right. So I'm just saying, I mean, when we hear these terms, and then also on the clip, she says, well, all the families were like, without lived around were all, we're the same, we're the same. But then as they always do, the more you let them talk, she's going to talk about the picture that they took and who took the picture. And you see if you can catch the discrepancy in this next clip then previous what she said in the previous clip Where was that? What was going on? How did that picture come to be? What do you remember about it? Well, it was um, that's in our backyard, um on 74th and euclid and these are some of my favorite pictures because this is the first time I remember us having what was a formal photography session

21:02 But it was really the daughter of our Uncle Terry. Robbie and Terry didn't have children. He had a previous marriage. He had a daughter that was in school. And I think she had a photography project where she had to photograph a family. And I think she picked us because we were the only sort of full family she knew with mom, dad, two kids. Oh, so much for every family being like us. She was the only family with a full family and two kids and the yard was nice. It's really very different from what she said. Absolutely. And this is in the same... In the same talk, yeah, sure. In the same flow of the same interview or sit down, whatever you want to call it, with her. Who was there was her, her brother, and the interviewer. Well, I will say just referring briefly back to the previous clip, she says, we get caricatured

21:56 Yep, because people don't know basically through ignorance and I would say there's some I would I think that's fair to say I Wasn't against what she was saying there, but then this whole rap is bullcrap. She's just contradicting herself And that's what they do the more you listen to them the more they go back and forth and I want you to bookmark that caricature thing because that's gonna be a common theme and as we go on for two of How is that caricature? Created who shapes that? Because if you don't like you said you didn't know I mean before you Talk began to talk to me every day. You didn't know the inner workings of of The black no quote-unquote black community. No, so aren't that you had was what the mainstream media presented to you? Well, I've a little bit from college, you know Totally totally so

22:51 From the Jeffersons, the Cosbys. Oh yeah, I admit that freely, absolutely. Right. And that's how we learn because if you don't have the personal associations. But she goes on to talk more about white flight. That is families like ours, upstanding families like ours, you know, who were doing everything we were supposed to do and better. As we moved in, white folks moved out because they were afraid of what our families represented. And I always stop there when I talk about this out in the world because I want to remind white folks that y'all were running from us.

23:36 You know, because... This family. This family. This family, with all the values that you read about, you were running from us. And you're still running. Because we're no different than the immigrant families that are moving in, the families in Pilsen, the families that are coming from other places to try to do better. But because we can so easily wash over who we really were because of the color of our skin, because of the texture of our hair, that's what divides countries. Artificially as well. Artificial things that don't even touch on the values that people bring to life. And so yeah, I feel a sense of injustice

24:23 And you know this when you're young, you know people are running from you. You know? And you can see it. You can see it all of a sudden. Because we grew up with friends of all races. When we first moved in, Rachel Dempsey and Susan Yacker and I, you know, you had friends of all races. We played together. There were no gang fights. There were no territorial battles. But yet, one by one, they packed their bags and they ran from us. And they left communities in shambles. Wow, that's quite the accusation there. What happened if everyone was hanging out and having a good time, then all of a sudden they started moving out? That's confusing to me. We're gonna get there. We're gonna get there. But let's just unpack

25:11 The logic of what she's saying so she lived in one community. It had to be all black. I mean, we had to make that up before she moved into the white community. So it was okay for her and her parents to leave one community behind because of that element that was in that community to move to another community, right? And then you say, well, we moved here as good upstanding black folks, you know, salt of the earth black folks, which they are. I'm not saying poo poo and that, but then the white people just suddenly move because they saw you coming. Okay, so if they left, who replaced them?

25:57 Well, had to be black people. Logically, yeah, logically would have to be black people. Yes. So now you're uncomfortable with being around your own kind again that you tried to run away from. Who really has, I mean, when you, like I said, we need to do some logic here. You ran from your own people, which I mean, like I said, if you live in a poor neighborhood, I understand. Stop, stop, stop. Because you just said the key word. Because the Obamas now live in a predominantly white neighborhood in Washington DC and no one's running away from them. This is the difference between poor and rich. It's a class, it's an income, it's a wealth issue. I don't think it's much of a race issue. It certainly doesn't seem that way when people are all fat and happy.

26:44 Well, what she's saying is about in the 1960s and 70s when she was a child. Yes. This is this era. That's why I said she's going back with I don't understand why she's going back that far. But we do because exactly what her husband was talking about. this, you know, this call out, virtue signaling and all, you know, she goes and feeds the animals. She feeds it red meat. Yeah. Like, oh, I remember white flight and when they ran from us, no, but okay, well, if you want to hold people by the same standard, you did the same thing. Yeah. Because the minute it filled up with black people, apparently it was time to leave.

27:23 Right, and then soon as the vacant spots that white people left behind filled over black people, the neighborhood became bad again. By her definition. Yeah. I mean, you just gotta listen to her. So, as I always do, you gotta go back. Here we go. We have to get context to white flight in Chicago in 1969. The Cabrini-Green Project is what public housing has come to symbolize in Chicago for more than a quarter of a century. But in an effort to disperse the city's poor, who are mostly black, the new public housing proposals call for construction of duplexes, two-story townhouses, three-story apartment buildings, all to be scattered in the predominantly white areas of Chicago.

28:04 This lot on Comiskey Avenue is one of 275 sites identified under federal court order by the Chicago Housing Authority for low-income families. It would have a duplex on a street of single-family homes, and the homeowners are obviously upset. All I got to say is all the do-gooders All the people are always telling us what to do. They don't practice what they preach. Why don't they go over there and put them by their neighborhoods? They won't do it. They're always telling us what to do. After all, we have a few rights of our own too. Well, it's going to bring down the value of everybody's property. Why do you think that? Because, well...

28:43 I don't know why. I just, um, you see those other projects they have that don't take care of them. Where we're gonna go, tell me. You have to stay. If you're gonna go there, you're gonna go there too. The nice ones get used to them and live with them. What else can you say? Wow, I'm having like a time warp. I'm hearing this same report today. This exact same report could be played today if you didn't, if you left that guy out of it, but it's this same report. And this is the problem I have with forced integration. If you want to fix a problem, let me

29:21 I know that triggered a lot of people when I said that, but instead of the fits in the communities that the black people were in, they're like, oh, this is spread out, spread them out amongst into white communities. How does that work? I don't understand how that solves the problem. If the schools are bad in the black, quote unquote, black communities, why did you put the resources there to fix the schools? Why would you want to, this is the whole thing with busing, and the reason why I say that is I have a personal perspective of this because my father, he went to all black schools up until his senior year, and then they forced him and his classmates to integrate. He hated it. Yeah, that's kind of universally accepted that there was not a great idea what was going on.

30:16 But that's not the Vision that when we always talk about what fact is and what they what they paint as the story The story is all black kids are dying to go to white schools, you know And that just wasn't the case. Let's be like why would you say? We want to have people resources now schools my like my dad would say we just want better textbooks and yeah, no I'm shipped off into some other hood. Absolutely. It makes no sense. I that's what they did with this case in Chicago. But let me just say, this is early white guilt, and I recognize this, not that I have it, but I recognize this. This I recognize is, well, we should be sharing our wealth with the poor black people. We should bring them here, give them equal opportunity. It's completely, I mean, it's

31:11 We say crooked thinking in the Netherlands, it's a bad translation, but it's dumb. Go ahead. Well, here's the logic I think, and like I said, I'm not a white person, so I think the white people that have that thought of, if we, they're too concentrated, if we can dilute them out, you know, then they'll assimilate better. I think that's the real, that's a very unpopular thought. No, no, no. I'm with you there. If we can spread them out, you know, put one here, stack one there. We'll be a good influence on them. You watch, they can change, it can get better. We can civilize them. Yes, they're just feral over there. Let's bring them, oh my God, Mo, that's horrible now that you've exposed me to this fallacy.

32:10 That's nasty and that's the real racism. Yes. Yes. Yes victimization mentality totally It's not that if we give them chalk and blackboards and take the lead paint out of their schools and you know... Hey, I ate some lead paint too as a kid. Yeah, but give them proper resources then they can't thrive. No, no, no, no. No, no, no. We'll have none of that. No. Oh wow, yeah. This is very racist. It's very, when you- Systemic. And that's what- That's systemic racism. And it's to this day, they're still doing this shit. In Austin! And it's, yeah, sometimes it's black people, sometimes it's homeless people. It's still the same. It's the same thinking. Yes. All I can say is yes. Yes, exactly. And we can, like I said, civilize them. We got, you know, we got, you know, they're too concentrated. But when you have people run away,

33:09 That's the part I don't understand. And we'll get there, but let's just get to what the tenements were like at the time in Chicago. Most of the adults who live in the tenement on South Ellis Avenue were born in rural areas of the South. They came to Chicago looking for a better way of life. They came to the South side of the city because they found that this was a place where Negroes were permitted to live. They came here without much education or sophistication in the ways of the city. They came here poor.

33:45 About all that they brought with them were their hopes and their dreams. Bill Staples and his wife Gloria came from Alabama. Well, I mean, every man got a dream, you know. Everybody have a dream and you dream of going any place to make good, you know. To make it better for my family, better education for my kids. These are the prime reasons that I came up, huh? Now is this is this true? This is the tenements were all the work quote-unquote poor black people from the south Yes, so what you had was you had three? um Three mass movements of black people over maybe a 40 year period From the south to the north I think beginning in 1914 I want to I want to say because I did a video on this a long time ago So I'm going off memory here, but it was called the great migration. So what happened was

34:42 The change in agriculture in the South and then also the rise in racial tensions that were inflamed drove a lot of people, black people, out of the South and into the North. Cities like Detroit, Chicago, New York. I mean, after all, wasn't it the North that really freed everybody and we have compassion for you slaves? Yes, that's that was that's the myth and I like I said, I did a video on this and the north and just just a sidebar Everybody knows the story about Emmett Till right? I mean he was um killed and the cotton fan was put around his neck He was thrown into the river for whistling at a white woman, right? Yeah

35:27 Everybody knows that narrative. That's because she was in the South. But in the North, nobody talks about the black kid that was stoned to death on a segregated beach in Chicago. He actually floated on his raft from the colored section to the white section and white people threw stones at him in the water and he drowned. But that's just going to show you that's not, let's keep that under a nice little box. We're not going to talk about that anymore. We're better than that. We're better than that. Yeah. Right. So I'm just going to show you that. But yes, we had a lot of people moving for the South and they didn't find the opportunities that they were looking for because what happened

36:09 is that they were moved to these slums, you were separated from your family with a total different change in culture because you have people from the South, they have a background and strong family structure and units, and you're segregated and you're isolated in these tenements. So just to give you a perspective of what was going on at the Chicago at the time. Yeah, and add a little no man in the house to it and you've got a beautiful situation. Well, that was the thing about Aiden in this story of the tenements. This is a CBS News special from 1967. It was on like two black fathers out of seven families in that. And it was really like a rundown multiplex is what you want to call it. But yeah, it was like only two of the families and this was one of the fathers. And these guys they work hard. I mean, they didn't have a lot of education, but they work hard and they move their families up. I wish I'm not saying that, but

37:06 We always, the people that should be fighting for us run and they try to force their way into white society or the liberal mindset tries to force them into white society. So at the Obama Foundation, ObamaCon, they also had another guest, Miss Ava DuVernay. And she had a very interesting take on media. Film lover and for me it really goes beyond the idea of cinema. It goes into the idea of the image. There's a reason why we use the term your mind's eye. We think and remember in images, in pictures, right?

37:57 film is just an artificial rendering of what's actually inside here. You know what I mean? It's a little different than music. It's a little different than, you know, than even sculpture. We're recreating life in cinema. We're recreating stories that you remember, things that you're tapping into, things that really seep into your DNA and become a part of you. And so You know the power of images. It's been used to distort and malnourish, but it also can be used to To nourish and to grow us and so that's what I'm looking for whenever I start a project Hmm. Well, okay hard to argue that that takes place But I would add some propaganda and other things into it when it comes to well Yeah, that's what is used for propaganda and like she said is used to

38:46 I don't think she did the work of... Recreate life. No, but she said corrupt. She said it could be used to nourish. Yes, she did. But you know, and this is the caricature that was spoke of. A lot of the images that we see of quote-unquote black people are negative. But who signs up to play those roles? Us I mean if we would just stop saying no, I'm not gonna play a robber and law and order or a murderer or you know, um those kind of roles. Stereotypical roles. Yeah, the stereotypical roles, but we it's people that's always willing to take that so the reason why I brought this clip up is this white flight

39:36 black people moving into white spaces was a popular theme of a very popular play turned movie called A Raisin in the Sun. In Lorraine Hansberry's Raisin in the Sun, the younger family of five lives in a tiny, dark, infested apartment on Chicago's South Side sometime between 1945 and the present of 1959. The whole family eagerly awaits a $10,000 life insurance check for the work-related death of Big Walter, Mama's husband and the family's patriarch. Walter Lee Younger, a dissatisfied chauffeur in his mid-30s, wants to invest in a liquor store. In the introduction, he mentions news of another bombing, and he talks finances with his wife, Ruth. Ruth and Benita, Walter's younger sister, both recognize Mama as the one in charge of the insurance money.

40:30 As the rising action begins, Walter tries to convince her to finance his investment, but Mama's against selling liquor. She wants to support Benita's plan to attend medical school. She's also thinking about buying a house. The family encourages Benita to pursue her wealthy suitor, George Murchison, but Benita finds him shallow. Another suitor, Nigerian classmate Joseph Asagai, helps Benita explore her African heritage. The check arrives and Ruth reveals she's pregnant with an unplanned child. To Mama's dismay, Ruth has scheduled an abortion. In the climax, Mama uses part of the settlement money to make a down payment on a house. Ruth is at first overjoyed, but then shocked to learn the house is in Clybourne Park, a white neighborhood. Is this a play that you're exposed to growing up?

41:27 Yes, so so much so that my father actually played in a Community at the Community Arts Center. Mm-hmm. He played Walter in this play. Okay, so I'm They've redone it they are they redone it I think three times the latest being with pup daddy playing Walter Oh, man, this is on Netflix. I can just watch this after the show. Oh It should be on Netflix. I know it's on YouTube. It's on one of the platforms. I'll find it. Yeah, but the original one has Sidney Poitier in it. So it was a very big deal. It won, let's see. A Choney. It won awards. A Choney, a Choney award. It won a, actually, let's see, I have my notes. Yeah, it was award-winning play.

42:24 It was based off Langston Hughes's famous poem, I Dream Deferred. From the line, what happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? So it came from that era. And Miss Lorraine Hansberry, the one that wrote this play, she has a history with actually dealing with integrate into white communities. She was actually part of the Supreme Court case Hansberry versus Lee. And this is where the Hansberry family, they were struggling to move into the Washington Park subdivision in Chicago. So all of this is connected in a way. This is really like the one of the driving forces and say, yeah, we can move into these communities. And in the case of

43:26 Let's just go to Clipton. Mrs. Johnson, the neighbor, stops by excited for the Younger's move, but also scared of the violence they'll likely face from Chicago's white folks. Walter stops going to work and he drinks. When Mama sees his deterioration, she gives him control over the remainder of the money. She tells him to put some aside for beneath his education and to decide himself what to do with the rest. We see an immediate change in Walter and Ruth decides to keep her baby. While the Youngers excitedly pack, Carl Lindner visits, a white representative of the Clybourne Park Welcoming Committee. In the falling action, an uncomfortable but polite Lindner says he wants to start a dialogue. But it's soon clear the neighbourhood residents want to buy back the house to prevent integration.

44:16 Walter, Ruth and Benita angrily reject the offer and ask Lindner to leave. Soon after, Walter's fellow investor Bobo reports that Willie Harris has skipped town with their investment money, Walter's as well as Benita's share. Enraged, Mama begins to beat Walter. The family, now in need of cash, consider staying in the apartment. An upbeat, hopeful Asagai debates the possibility of progress with Benita. Asagai asks her to move with him to Africa, to work with him to help improve the lives of his people. At his lowest, Walter calls Carl Lindner to accept the buyout. Benita's ready to disown her brother. But Mama insists Walter needs their love now more than ever. In the resolution, Walter instead tells Lindner they plan to move into the house after all.

45:08 As movers load the truck, Benita says she's thinking about going to Africa. Mama tells Ruth that Walter's finally come into his manhood. With hope, as well as dark uncertainty about integration, the play closes with the youngers vacating their apartment and going to their new house. So this is a comedy? No. Man, depressing. It's a mellow drama. Yeah, you have these pieces of quote-unquote art. Every generation, I spoke of, I call it purple, that was in the 80s, that shapes and molds black culture

46:08 a certain way this came out this play was in 19 or late 1950s this movie was in 1961 and like I said, this was a play that was done. I would had to be six seven years old. And in 1986 my dad played the role of Walter in in the community center and play. So it had real sticking power and it had real cultural impact. of black people not wanting to build up their own communities. No, the talented 10th, the top achievers move out and that's how you get the ghetto.

46:54 as people say it, I said it that way, but I like how you said that. Yeah, the ghetto. That's how you get it because it's like, okay, no child left, what was it? No child left behind? If you're a top performer, we move you to a good school. Affirmative action. Affirmative action. Yeah. So it's like, and then you self-segregate or I mean you self Yes, I guess segregate it from your own kind based off of... So the point you make here is how influential media, and a play is media, a book is media, how influential artistic culture is. And of course it's the same for white people. There's a lot of influence from artistic culture.

47:39 But it sounds like, and I can't wait to see it raising in the sun, it sounds like there's a lot of similarities with the modern-day version, which I mentioned it before, would be the Jeffersons. I mean, this was the, what I grew up watching. Yeah, that's exactly, I mean, the Jeffersons would be- It's not exactly the same, but it's similar. Similar as in we're moving on up to the East Side, you know, George Jefferson's got a big, big ass chip on his shoulder. You know, it's kind of, it's a version of that. I think the time is the only thing that would be different because these people will force themselves into environments where they were not wanted. And that's what I can't say I fully understand it because I didn't live it. But why would you want to force yourself to somewhere where you know you're not wanted, you're going to be faced with violence and hate?

48:30 From a white perspective, I'm gonna give you this because this is how I was taught from a white perspective I was taught to view someone who did that as heroic and brave and righteous that makes sense I can understand how people can look at that, but I'm just telling you that's that's my my Background in this particular story not how I feel today, but how I was brought up. I The part I can't understand I want to stand Stick on this point too long. But and this is what perplexed a lot of us Do you hate being around your own that much that you would go? Into harm's way Just for a better schools. I mean, it's just like when you see the line and it's like this is common scene in civil rights videos

49:28 Of a little girl walking and it's white people yelling on both sides, you know what I'm saying? And it's like a bloodlust. Would you subject your children to that over instead of improving your own community? That's the part I can't understand. But like I said, I don't want to belabor that point too much but Even on the set of Raising a Son, there was trouble. In the play, the story was told from the mother's perspective, which Poitier disagreed with from the start. His character makes a few decisions which he felt could show a black man in a negative light if the audience couldn't understand where he was coming from. Poitier voiced his opinion and this led to a clash between him and Claudia McNeil.

50:14 We argued constantly, he later said, claiming that McNeil hated him. Yeah, well, Sidney Poitier was a smart man. He had a lot to say. And they understand, only a black man can understand how things are going to be viewed. But as I've said on previous shows, we're the sacrificial lamb. It's like yeah, they get shot dead in the street, but then when people make protests they talk about intersexuality and all these other topics. It's like no or they'll like I said go back to color purple. They'll paint the black male as the oppressor or the

51:01 Problem and I think Sidney Poirier picked up on this that they actually treated Walter as a child really I mean, I mean because if you listen to the previous clip they say oh, yeah, he finally came into his man Yeah, he was a 30 year old man, right? Right, right So so so your question is and of course, you know, I was alive back then but you know in 67 not not much before that is What was going on? Why was it I mean get I guess you're saying is it must have been really bad in the product in the in the ghetto Well, I would say this and I have to disclose this one piece of information Miss Hansberry was close with Paul Robeson and W. E. B. Du Bois of the NAACP that was ran by the FBI Agent Spingard. Mm-hmm

52:00 This is propaganda. It's totally propaganda. Yes. When you start tracing these threads back and as more people listen to this show, sometimes go back and listen to old shows because then you'll get context of what we're saying now. These things don't happen in a vacuum. No, and I just got this It's as if, and maybe I'm jumping ahead so stop me before I kill again, but you and I have both been propagandized by a big media machine that in all likelihood was in collusion and had this grand idea and I got propagandized, you got propagandized, and it really created a bunch of shit out of everything.

52:47 And then the was that the last show where we talked about how the civil rights movement or two shows ago I'll lose track, but how the civil rights movement was televised in a way. Oh Yeah, they didn't even even Claudette, you know didn't even show the real first person who sat in the front of the bus I mean all of this stuff is completely manipulated or selectively presented and Yes. So these memes and thought patterns are shaped through media and fed to people that are looking for themselves

53:26 on the screen, whether it be the small screen or the big screen. We all do that. That's why we have different genres of music. That's why we have different television shows, because we want to see somebody that we can identify with. One of those shows being Good Times, and we'll see one meme that was pushed in this next clip on Good Times. Honey, you never walked away from a test before. Tell us what's really bothering you. Mama, they don't know it, but that IQ exam was nothing but a white racist test. Oh, Michael, how could it be a white racist test? All school children take it of all colors. Yeah, but this one was given by the white people, made up by white people, and even graded by white people. It don't tell you how smart you are, just how white you are. That's why they ask questions on a test like this. Complete the following phrase.

54:16 And you have to choose from four words. Wall, saucer, table, or window. You know what my friend Eddie put down? Cup and table. Because in this house, they don't have no saucers to put under the cups. You know something, when I was a kid, we didn't have no saucers to put on the table either. And get this question. A mother and father and two children live in a five bedroom residence. The mother and father sleep in one bedroom, and each of the two children has a room to himself. How many guest bedrooms are there left? Now how many kids in the ghetto even know what a guest bedroom is? Yeah. I had just moved to the Netherlands, so I never really saw good times. Of course, I've seen some. This is very, very telling, especially knowing who produced all this. Well, we're going to get there. For the people that this is your first time listening, but John Amos, this is a throwback clip

55:14 And similar to Sidney Poitier, when he brought up negative images of how black people were being shown on these TV shows or as Sidney Poitier said on the set of Raising the Sun, they were met with a pushback. The differences we had on that show, and we had a number of differences as evidenced by my early departure from the show. was I felt that with two other younger children, one of whom who aspired to become a Supreme Court justice, that would be Ralph Carter or Michael, and the other, Bernadette Stannis, I think, she aspired to become a surgeon. And the differences I had with the producers of the show was that I felt too much emphasis was being put on J.J. and his chicken hat and saying dynamite every third page.

56:08 when just as much emphasis and mileage could have been gotten out of my other two children and the concomitant jokes and, you know, humor that could have come out of that. But I wasn't the most diplomatic guy, like I said, in those days. And they got tired of having their lives threatened over jokes. So they said, I'll tell you what, why don't we kill him off and we'll get on with our, we'll all get on with our lives. Life's too short. So that taught me a lesson. That I wasn't as important as I thought I was to the show or to Norman Lear's plans. And he was not about to have a disruptive factor. That was me, a disruptive factor. Yeah, and I do want to mention this is a throwback clip. This is one of the few podcasts that I would say it's worth going back and listening to every single one we've done.

56:54 Because they do kind of build on each other and it's just everyone is worth it by itself that aside Thank you, Norman Lear still active today and the and the Meme that they pushed and the previous clip of the good times is standardized test. Yep are partially biased. Yeah, I And that thing has legs. We've heard it even up until when I got ready to take the SAT that the SAT was culturally biased. And before we play the next clip, I heard you chuckle at Chicken Hat. Yeah. And before we did, when we did that show,

57:35 You didn't chuckle. So that goes to show you people when you listen to the older shows, then you understand why that was a problem to James Amos. I mean, excuse me, John Amos. But as I said before, even me growing up, when I was growing up, the SAT was seen as a racist or biased test. And now the SAT has done things to overcome that. And the College Board will start assigning an adversity score to all students taking the SAT to capture their social and economic background. It's meant to help admissions officers account for any disadvantage stemming from those factors. The score is calculated using 15 factors including the crime rate and poverty levels from the student's neighborhood. The formula does not consider race.

58:25 Colleges will see the scores when reviewing applications. 150 institutions are expected to use this test this fall. David Coleman is the CEO of the College Board. He is here to discuss the organization's new approach and its response to the massive college admissions scandal. Good morning. Good morning. Good to see you. So you've probably seen this. One critic in The New York Times said if the SAT needed a sophisticated conventional or contextual framework to make it valid, then that's a sign that it's not a good test. So why did the College Board decide to create the adversity test? What the SAT is, is a valid measure of your achievement. What have you learned in reading and math? How ready are you for college?

59:04 But what it doesn't measure alone is it doesn't measure what you've overcome, the situation that you achieved that in. What we can do with this context data is see how resourceful you are. Have you done more with less? So to be clear, it's not really a personalized adversity score. It's the general context of your school and neighborhood. And what it's really aiming to do is highlight those resourceful students. Let me give you an example. A college that we partnered with just let in a young woman from Mississippi. She happens to be a rural white young woman in a very small school. And her SAT score was pretty much average with the other applicants, but what they found when they looked at it in context is it was 400 points higher than any other kid scored at her school. The neighborhood, the world she lived in was rife with poverty. It's a small school without a lot of advanced opportunities, but she made the most of it. So we're saying the SAT shows you achievement, but what it can't show alone

59:56 Is your resourcefulness doing more with less, you know, whenever I hear someone talking like this It sounds to me like they're just an incredible douchebag Man, oh man Jeez, so that guy could run for any political office as a Democrat right there So the adversity score so if you get a just say a 1200 and you come from a Decent background and another person comes from a poor neighborhood with high crime and they get a 1200 They're graded on a curve right how does that help? I don't understand how that helps what that does is be into the victimization mentality exactly Yes, I'm so sorry you will give you a chance

1:00:49 And yeah, the thought process is, I'm sure, lying and good intentions. But when you get to that school, they'll be like, oh, what you make on the SATs? Oh yeah, I got a 1200. And the average score there is like a 15, I don't know what the scores are now, but just say the average score is 15, 1600. What are you doing here? You don't belong. So you're creating an environment for that person to be ostracized. Instead of taking the data and saying, okay, these communities are the poor communities with high crime, let's fix the source of the problem. Oh no, no, no. We'll just take the cream of the crop. We'll just skim that off. Here we go. Come here. Yep. So that means the only people that are allowed

1:01:41 to make it out of those poor crime-ridden communities are the academic elite. Yes. Now, who's the real elitist? Who's the real, I mean, that's a bigoted mind state to say, oh, well, you couldn't make the threshold, so you're doomed to poor schools. This is the flip side of that coin of victimization mentality, the people that support this thought process. And that, oh, you said something important. Important. Is, I think that, you know, the people who are speaking about this and, you know, who put these programs in place,

1:02:26 Sadly, I think a lot of them were of good heart. They meant well, but you know what bugs me and you know I'm not I'm not gonna say it anymore is that I see this same thing happening and we have the results historical data to show that this is just not the way to do it So that's really weird. It's like you know that it's the definition of insanity Okay, let me all right, so I'm gonna give you my perspective on why I think this is deadly combination of good intentions from the good-hearted liberal people and then you have the elite of the said group. It works for them because it's like, oh yeah, help us and then we'll, you know, we'll help the people down there. Oh definitely. We just want the best. It's trickle down. Yeah, no, I totally, yeah, no, yes, I completely understand what you're saying.

1:03:29 So it's trickle down and it's like the good and that's why I was saying before if you get the middleman out of the way That's why I like people wonder why oh why he's focused so much energy on The the boulay quote-unquote boulay or the the black elite because they are on the jar Yeah, they're running the show They are the lid on the jar and they function, they're the gatekeeper or whatever you want to call it. It's like the only way you make it out is if you have it. Through us. And you have to be exceptional.

1:04:06 That's the only way if you're exceptional at putting a ball through the hole or running a ball or dancing or singing or intelligence or whatever, you can get into the club. If not, screw you, stay down there. You'll be the victim that we'll lobby off of. It's the same thing with homeless. We don't want to fix the homeless problem. We got a million dollar, billion dollar scheme going here. We don't want to fix global warming. We got a billion dollar scheme going here. It's like we need the problem. Yeah. As we say, problem, reaction, solution. Yes.

1:04:48 Gayle from the show, she chimes in about the SAT. Yeah, so and that's the point you're trying to make, I hear, is that it's really about putting it all in context. That's it. Calling it the adversity score. Some people say it should be called the privilege score. Yeah, I think cognitive score is kind of a mistake if you don't mind. It's really a general background. So every kid in the same school or same neighborhood gets the same background information. We use no personal data. Don't colleges have access to that information already? They have some data and you're right. This is really making what colleges already do a lot better. We've long agreed in American education that we should recognize students who have

1:05:28 the odds to accomplish enormous things. And so they try to use school profiles, they try to use a jumble of evidence, and all we're doing is providing it in a more fair way, so schools that might not have as much resources to make their profile, and might not be as well known to admissions officers, can be seen in the same light. So that they can witness the neighborhood in which students grow up. And really, all this is about is there is so much more talent than we can see than by using scores alone. David, you say it's a valid measure of achievement. A lot of people would think, and these are people who would probably not have adversity that could count against them, they think it's a valid measure of your ability to cram for an idiosyncratic test. And so they get their kids into the various study programs, people are thumbing through books going crazy. What about that criticism of the SAT? It's a pretty old-fashioned picture of the old SAT. In 2014, we revised the test.

1:06:20 and partnered with Khan Academy to make the best of test preparation free for the world. Now, 30 seconds after taking an exam like the PSAT, you get a personalized study plan for free, and you practice just what you need to get better at in reading and math. This is not a mysterious test. It tests a few core math skills you use over and over again, and your ability to read with confidence. Ooh, man. What a program. So how is the test racist When the man just said it takes a test core math, right? And your confidence in reading core math and your confidence in reading. But when you have things like what we saw with the IQ test, it needs to standardize tests are culturally biased. They grow legs, they evolve over time, then it becomes SAT is racist. Now,

1:07:21 Adam, I want to ask you something. Axe away my friend. You axe all the hell you want my brother. What would be the one subject of education that you would think is universal? Well, there can only be one truth and the only truth I've been taught is in numbers. Mathematics is truth. One is one, zero is zero, and that's it. It's just truth in mathematics. No, math is racist. The opposite of Donald Trump is an Asian man who likes math.

1:08:04 Andrew Yang may want to rethink that catchphrase because apparently math is racist. Seattle's public schools are considering a proposal that would mix social justice in with math, including studying how math has been appropriated by Western culture and that math itself is racist. and Alessio Parson, who is a sociologist and educator who agrees with the premise of the proposal and joins me now alright, so, and let me just see where I'm confused so you understand what's going on I am bad at math and if math is racist and I'm also white does that make me too dumb to be racist? or not

1:08:56 racist enough to be good at math. Not racist enough. Jesse, that's such a long conversation. First of all, remember Dr. D'Alessio-Parson? Yes, Dr. Parson. So please don't refer to me by Ann, but I appreciate it. Okay, I apologize, doctor. Whoa, whoa, back off. Okay, so is she black, this doctor? No. Okay, even better. What's wrong with her? Okay, so math is racist. Yeah, I still don't know why I mean, hopefully I'll learn I'd love to understand and before we get into clip two just another personal My father he would not tolerate a bad grade in math

1:09:49 Because he would say the one thing you can say language or you know, you can make these cases or you know Context language and it could be subjective. But um math is Pure you said it yourself. Mm-hmm. One plus is plus one plus one is two whether in China India Wherever you have one egg you give a person another egg. They have two eggs seems like but Math is racist too. Tell me why math is racist, doctor. Yes. So you, it's funny on November 6th, 2016, I was at a conference on statistics and I raised my hand and I was like, are you telling me statistics are racist? And that was what, almost three years ago. And I was really confused when I asked the question and spent years reading about many different things.

1:10:48 Have you, Jesse, read Native Son, which I gave you last time we met? I read it in high school, but I have not re-read it since the last time you gave it to me. But what does that have to do with, is math racist? So, the critical race theory is a framework for understanding the world that helps us understand that this entire country is racist, right? We have a white supremacist caste, racial caste system in the United States. That's what our country was founded on. Wait, wait, wait, can you just stop for one second? Are you saying that all white people in America are racist?

1:11:26 Yeah, I am too. Sometimes it happens. We were socialized, right? The process of socialization and learning about social norms. So you're racist. You're a racist. Occasionally it happens. I usually apologize it when I realize it. How are you a racist? What do you think makes you superior? Jesse, that question doesn't make sense. Well isn't racism the belief that one race is inherently superior than another race and then you discriminate against other races? That is a piece of racism, but you gave a definition that's really old Language evolves over time race and white supremacy What are race and white supremacy today? Yeah, okay? They are structures that affect us all so people do things that are racist all the time myself included Because we don't realize that's happening like my progression, okay?

1:12:25 Oh, okay. Well that makes sense. I'm sorry, I didn't get the memo. I still go by the Merriam-Webster definition of racism which I will quote, prejudice, discrimination or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior. Well now I understand why everyone's being called a racist. It's different now. I just can't find the actual definition but all right, what is it? And did you catch the irony here? Because this is very, very rich. If you didn't, I'll tell you what it is. There was a lot going on there. Go ahead. The irony of what she's saying validates why the SAT language portion of it will be racist and biased. By definition. New definition. Because when you change the definition of words at a whim, and people don't get the memo,

1:13:24 I go into thinking you mean one thing that I've studied on and you change it to mean something else. I'm out of the loop of what is in vogue. Oh my God. She just ditched. I mean, this is so current for me. I mean, I just got called out for being a misogynist and a racist for making fun of the way some, in particular, the way some people talk. Important I made a joke about I'll still make a joke about it because apparently old white man must shut the F up because language change and you're in the way

1:14:04 I'm like, okay, well, let's if that's settled science like, you know, there's words that change gay used to mean something else, you know, eventually we all accept it, but it has to go through a little process and then we have these crazy things called dictionaries which then define it and say, okay, here's the new meaning of the word and I'm okay with that, but you can't just do that and say you're just you're just old-fashioned. That's an old definition. You don't know what you're talking about. This is an outrage. And you know what? She coined a new term. The occasional racist. I'm occasionally racist. Occasionally? I try to only be racist on Saturdays, but I'm working on Sundays as well.

1:14:50 Well, it explains well, I hopefully that she can give us a little better explanation of what racist is because I know what it's not now So it's not it doesn't occur when you just think that you are superior to a different race. It happens apparently in other cases How is 2 plus 2 equals 4 how does that discriminate against black people or brown people one stick plus two stick a Humans were like, hey, here's a stick, here's another. I just did some math. That was not racist. We're on the same page with that. One plus one equals two? Yes. Okay.

1:15:31 Humans have then used math and numbers and statistics in all sorts of ways from counting black and brown bodies as they made them property and brought them over to these lands. To more recently, scholars who said that white people were more intelligent than people of color. That's called scientific racism, the use of statistics and tools to construct the idea It's like something deep in our brains, it's hard to recognize. And that's why it requires time, Jesse. I asked your question and it took me more than three years to get here. Just because people counted with slavery doesn't make counting racist. You understand? Something could be related to each other, but not a causation. You understand what I mean? Do you understand what statistics is? I think I do. I'm not understanding though

1:16:22 If you understand. That's the point. Doctor, I have to run. I have to run. Doctor, maybe we could do this again sometime and you could explain it to me. I would love to come to the Democratic debate in Milwaukee next year. Thank you. Oh, OK. She's just the oh, F her. Hold on a second. Stop this show. Now you've got me. I got me all riled up now. And thank God. Water said, wait a minute is counting races. Thank you. I was going to ask about that. So but here's what she did. She brought in, and it's the second clip she did it, she brought in statistics. And what I've learned about statistics is there's lies, damn lies, and statistics. And statistics is not just math, it's math based on variables known as the, well, the N factor is what I'd call it. Interesting in this context.

1:17:16 where you have an N which is a number that will offset your margin of error, which is how polling is done. And we know how polling works. It sometimes doesn't work very well at all, ergo the 2016 election. And then it turns out that all she's here is to do like Epstein didn't kill himself and yell out at the end, put me on the debate, I want to be there. Alright, I'll shut up for a second. That got me riled up, Moe. Damn. Hey, black man. One stick plus two sticks equals three sticks. It's like what? Now let me count the black man. Now we're getting racist. I know that's hard for you to understand with your three fifths of a brain. Oh, man, man, man, man, man. So, okay. So this is what I hear when I hear crap like this. It's like,

1:18:09 Why are you talking to me like I'm an idiot who can't learn math? Especially we talk about basic arithmetic. We're not talking about when you get into calculus and those things, cause you know, there's something totally different, but basic math, but no math is racist. And you can see the decline in, we went from the IQ score, the IQ test to the SAT. Now all the math is racist. I mean, because the poor brown and black man, he can't get his head around one stick plus one stick equals two sticks. I mean, I'm laughing, but I'm laughing kind of out of severe sadness that this is going on. This is new. This is now. This is what? Maybe two months ago. I don't know when this... Yeah, this is two months ago. This is crazy. So we're in the present right now. So we went to the past, just so everybody knows, along the timeline.

1:19:06 We're out of the 60s, we're out of the 70s, now we're in real time. But this is what happens when you get a bunch of intellectuals sitting around, you know, just throwing smoke. For whom, by the way, white guilt has been jammed up their butthole all their life, apparently. I mean, and this happens in colleges, universities, everywhere. That's the breeding ground. Yes, the breeding ground of the I got well, I wonder what it could be. I wonder why the color. Can't learn. It has to, you know, must be my fault. Right? But

1:19:52 I would say this is not a white phenomenon because we have Miss Imani Perry. She's a famed author. She wrote a song, Breathe, a letter to my sons. So I'm just going to read really briefly and then we'll jump into conversation. And this is in the midst of writing to my sons. There are fingers itching to have a reason to cage or even slaughter you. My God, what hate for beauty this world breeds. They say they are afraid. I do not believe it is fear. It is bloodlust.

1:20:32 People will say I'm being melodramatic. They have. But police kill middle-class black children and adults too. Not with the same frequency, but class is no prevention. It is a reduction of the odds at best. As a black mother, when I read about one of those children whose lives have been snatched, at first blush I think, that could have been my child. Poof. Did you take all that in? Yeah, you might. You know, I'm already kind of full. I don't know if I can fit anything else in here. Okay. So, Miss Imani Perry is a black woman. She works at Princeton and like I said, she's a famed author. And she writes this, I guess, a letter to her sons about how there's a bloodlust

1:21:29 that wants to kill them around every corner. That's setting your kids up. That's really, that's a good way to get them going. Get them on, good push in life. Alright, so what they do is, yeah, so what they do is they see these stories on the news and what she said was, that could have been one of my children. We've heard somebody say this before. Can I just say something? All my life, And I would say that the best period to compare this to was when I was in New Jersey and we were in Montclair, very elite neighborhood, right next to East Orange. But whenever, and my kid was born in 1990, whenever I saw shit on the news,

1:22:14 Black, white, yellow, gray, I don't care. I always thought that could be my kid. But not just if it was a white or a black kid, it was every kid. Every kid! Holy shit, how can this happen to our kids? Right, so we've heard this before. With Mr. President Obama speaking on Trayvon Martin. I'm the head of the executive branch, and the Attorney General reports to me, so I've got to be careful about my statements to make sure that we're not impairing any investigation that's taking place right now. But obviously, this is a tragedy. I can only imagine what these parents are going through. And when I think about this boy, I think about my own kids.

1:23:10 And I think every parent in America should be able to understand why it is absolutely imperative that we investigate every aspect of this, and that everybody pulls together, federal, state, and local, to figure out exactly how this tragedy happened. So I'm glad that Not only is the Justice Department looking into it, I understand now that the governor of the state of Florida has formed a task force to investigate what's taking place. I think all of us have to do some soul-searching to figure out how does something like this happen. And that means that we examine the laws and the context for what happened, as well as the specifics of the incident.

1:24:03 But my main message is to the parents of Trayvon Martin. You know, if I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon. Yeah, he was really good up until that last bit. You know, every parent in America, all that. Yeah, totally. Mm-hmm. Yeah, but if I had a son he would look like Trayvon and we're still waiting on an investigation I was gonna say do we have any any outcome of that finally? I mean, do we know? So we see how these mean even in literature

1:24:41 Oh, it could be my son, Obama. It could be my son. These things, they travel. And this is the talk gone wrong. We've talked about this before of one. Yeah, it's some things out there that we need to be worried about and how you interact with certain people. But when you friggin traumatize your children, there's a bloodlust out there that wants to take your life every second. That's very harmful. No kidding. Very harmful. No kidding. So, Miss Imani Perry, she continues on with her book, Breathe.

1:25:17 There's this particular sort of motif of black mothers as long-suffering, right, and everything is sacrifice, which in some ways is true, but then it's also, but how do you educate your children or the young people in your life to have the kind of care for you fully as a person that you have for them? Because you want them to be that way with the people in their lives, right? It's interesting because when you think about the disciplines that we love and we live in and we've studied our way through and even the sense, the means toward a kind of stability and authority like STEM as we see it. All of those things are buying into a particular kind of order and

1:26:15 Belief that that this will pay off. This is this is going to convince the world of what is right. This is going to make a Stable life for you and keep you safe. Yes The world we live in shows us that is not true not true And what's so beautiful about this book is that you call on so much that is outside of that that to me feels like undeniably rooted in blackness the belief in the spirit and the sense of you know yes, there is a way that suffering and love are inextricable yes So it's it's exciting to me that in addition to being a book. That's really practical and loving it's also kind of this

1:26:54 this archival celebration of the things that come from blackness that we haven't yet fully categorized. Does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely. So, is there a milieu there? I don't know. But yeah, like she brought up one point of there's this suffering of a black mother. Yes, suffering and love go hand in hand. Oh, man. Right. It's this continuation of you have to be a victim. You have to suffer. You know, you have, you know, this is what we do. So much so,

1:27:44 Even when Michelle Obama was in office, she slipped up and said she's, but wait, I'm going to let you, you want to Karen guess what she said she was because I didn't finish the clip. I said dot, dot, dot. Well, or you just want to go to, I mean, the first thing that comes to my mind is that she would say she was a victim of something. That's the only thing that came to mind. I don't know if I'm right. All right, let's see what she says. We've been looking at new models of getting farmers markets to create buses and drive into communities that are underserved. So we have to deal with the question of access. And believe me, as a busy single mother, or I should say single as a busy mother, sometimes when you've got the husband who's president, it can feel a little single.

1:28:32 But he's there, but as a busy working mom and before coming to the White House, I was in that position, you know, as well. Working, driving kids to practice, you know, not having enough time to shop or cook, not having the energy. You know that resources weren't the issue but time and energy is is key Of course, I remember this and I should have remembered that she had said that because we played this clip a lot Yeah, and of course, I didn't look at that in any of this context. Oh, I looked at it in the context was you're a dude We had no other way to look at what she was saying then you're not married. You know, what is going on? but actually

1:29:13 And I think I understand what she was trying to say. You know, when you have a politician husband... I do too, but... Yeah, I hear you. When you want to play the victim card... Yep. ...it slips out. That's right. That's right. Mentally, you may, oh, you want to identify as a single mother, you know. Oh, man. Barack's there. He's running the country. I mean, what do you mean he's there? I mean, he's around. Seriously. Yeah, he's there. He's somewhere in the White House. He's smoking cigarettes in the back. Yeah. Wow. When you want to get in on the pity party, you have to identify when you want to, like I said, play your victim card. Sometimes it slips out. And she played her victim card. But of these two, of Imani Perry and Michelle Obama,

1:30:04 We're going to go back into a throwback clip from Madame Noir. This was the panel, black women, talking about the struggles of raising black boys. What do you think the hardest thing is to do as a mom in 2017 parenting? What are the things you worried about the most raising black children? Did I have boys? Yes. I have two boys. I have two boys. I have two boys. And how do I prepare them for their life and for the stress? And it's a lot of stress that I don't know as a woman. Because we have stress, but we also can navigate circles a little bit better because we're women. Because we're women. And how do I prepare for those moments when he comes home and something has gone awry in the street and he doesn't know how to deal with it, right? Or... Yeah.

1:30:53 So now you see that mindset is being set in elite circles, and it filters down. But Mo, I can't believe that you're even doing a podcast with me. How come you're not dead in the street? I mean, it's obvious your future. Just how did this change? This is not possible. Hey man, I was lucky. It's math, bro. And the bloodlust, I mean, and it's still out there. What are you talking about? The bloodlust, the bloodlust. The bloodlust is gonna hunt me down. I mean, so I mean. It's a great title for a movie, Bloodlust. So you see the mindset and the second part is the two part of that from the Madame Noir. They speak on fear.

1:31:37 It's hard to let them be free when we're fearful. Yeah, cuz you know cuz my best friend all the time She said let that boy be free. Yeah, he won't take off his shoes. Let him take off his It's hard like for them to be free like when we're a little fearful and I think that's that that's the tension of like I want him to grow I want him to explore and try stuff out but like I'm I'm a little scared. We're Hmm. Well that kind of says it hard for them to be free. Yep. That says it all right there What it what did Kanye say? Freeman's a free man talking. Yep. Yep. Once you break out of that victim mentality and say, you know what I'm gonna do what I'm gonna do wherever it lands it lands and you know, um, I said something all I think the very first podcast we did when I said Trump one he let a black man nuts dropped and

1:32:32 Yeah, you laugh. Yeah. Well, I laughed out of understanding I think I know I know I'm I know but what I'm saying is that was that freedom is like, huh? I mean, here's a dude who's just going up there and saying whatever comes to his mind Whatever. I made it all a little freer. Yeah because you know it And even Kanye said that himself, I don't keep harping about Kanye, but he's a very interesting subject to it. It was so disappointing. I mean, I left after, I was in Europe, but I saw a few news shows in

1:33:09 You know, and they all just look at, no one's really listening. They just look at Kanye and go, he's nuts. I mean, exactly what he said would happen. You know, he's nuts. He's got mental issues. He's, you know, he clearly is, oh my God, now he's into Jesus. Oh no, no, this guy's off the rails. Instead of just listening to what the guy's been saying, you know, the propaganda from all sides, Fox the worst, I might add, I'm looking at you five, They're just sitting there like laughing like he's a nut job where the man I mean free man talking is a very powerful statement you know it was powerful okay I digress and I got time in my hands maybe that's it I'm old I got time to listen to people but

1:33:52 You wear skinny jeans, I mean you eat fish sticks because you wear skinny jeans. Yeah, so I mean it's like that's what they took away from him. So we understand the fear. By the way, no one understood that either. Very few people. You gotta know the South Park thing. You gotta have a little bit of cultural background. But okay, yeah, exactly. So now we're seeing the loop. It starts in wherever the media, whether it's a book, it's a movie, it feeds down into the pop culture, and then it becomes part of the mindset. So I just had this little clip, final clip from the Imani Perry interview, and it's just hilarious. I want to hear some of your beautiful language. Okay. Is that okay? Yes.

1:34:42 I want to hear it in your voice. Okay, okay. I Want you to go to the bottom of 66 yes, I am asking you to do something difficult. Oh, yes. Hold on the bottom of 66 Yeah, you were waiting for me to not know what the hell that was all about The bottom of hold on a second Tricking me mo the but hold on let's do it again. I'm not googling anything. I'm just listening I want to hear some of your beautiful language. Okay, is that okay? I want to hear it in your voice. Okay, I Want you to go to the bottom of 66 yes, I am asking you to do something difficult Oh, yes, okay, the only here's the only sixes I know root 66 that's one You got three sixes as BLs above the devil, but she said the bottom is 66. I have no clue what that's about It's nothing. It's the page number

1:35:45 I'm like coded messages. What's going on? How come I don't know this reference? No, I'm racist. There you go. I'm racist. Did you hear did you hear how they were talking to each other? Yes, I want you to do something your voice. Yes These are probably too Ah, career, oh man. So I couldn't let that one go past, because he's like, what are y'all talking about? In your voice, you know, yours, that unique voice that is yours. Tell me where to go. Can I get that woman to talk? But from now on, this is our code, Moe. Whenever you and I say to each other, bottom of 66, man, all right, gotcha. Bottom of 66. Gotcha. We know what's going on.

1:36:34 All right, so... Sorry, I'm such a dweeb. I'm like conspiracy theories connecting dots, like, where am I? All right. I wanted to stop you, but I was like, I'm just gonna... Did you even know I was gonna do that? Were you waiting for me? No, I didn't. I thought you was gonna comment on the way they were talking to each other. Well, I was, but then I heard the bottom is 66, and I'm like, shit, that's some black shit I don't know, man. What's going on here? Okay. All right, good. So with this all being about the Obamas, I've never really discussed who he was or what he was.

1:37:12 So we have Mr. Judge Joe Brown. Are you familiar with Mr. Judge Joe Brown? No, I know a lot of Joe Browns in history, but not Mr. Judge Joe Brown. Judge Joe Brown was the black judge from Texas that was on like the Judge Judy type show. Okay, that's what I figured. You know, he talked like this. He was like, yeah, you know what I'm saying? Like, oh, and- Judge Joe Brown! Okay, got it. Yeah. Right, right. So he, once you get to a certain age, The truth you just don't care about it. You're just gonna say what you're gonna say. Hell yeah, so he breaks down who Barry really is Has anybody black on and checked out who it is in the white house? Who went through school is Barry Sotoro His stepfather and adoptive father

1:37:58 Lolo LOLO Sotoro died as one of the 20 richest men on the planet Earth. Obama is beneficiary of a trust fund along with his two half-siblings. He is probably the richest man to ever occupy the White House. Lolo Sotoro was a major in the Indonesian Army and a contractor with the CIA. What daddy did was run death squads for the Indonesian government. He was an executive vice president for Standard Oil and when he decided to set up his own company in Indonesia, where possibly the world's largest oil company is,

1:38:43 And now, interestingly enough, There are documented moments between George Herbert Walker Bush, who was head of the CIA at the time, and Lolo Sotoro have certain arrangements and they were frequent golf partners. And Lolo Sotoro used Goldman Sachs as his American financier or financial banking institution.

1:39:26 Okay, so this is new. So the Sotero name and Indonesian, all of that is very familiar to me. What I never have heard, and while that was running I was consulting the book of knowledge, there's no mention of this great wealth. Of course that's been scrubbed. The CIA connection we had a long time ago, we've always known that Obama was tied at the hip to Brennan, the director of CIA. But this, that he's actually probably one, that he's a trust fund baby. Yes. That is insane. But he's this poor black kid from the South Side of Chicago. Well, no, we know he's not, but that's just been scrubbed from history. I mean, we, and by the way, bringing that up, most racist thing you can do. Of course it is. Yeah. That was a protective thing. No, no, no. Don't look into his background.

1:40:27 So nobody ever looked at it. And like I said, he, and the reason why I bring this up is he used the victimization cloak. Totally, totally. To blend in. So what we're going to do is, I mean, from that clip, we're going to go down and get into the American story, Obama on Netflix. You guys could do whatever you want. Why did you decide to do what you're doing? One way of looking at what we've both been doing for the last 20 years, maybe most of our careers once we left law, you know, was to tell stories. Oh, you're good, Mo. We tell stories and we turn to tell fables. We can on the mic and on the turntables. So?

1:41:22 That's what they do. They tell stories. They get up there, she told her story about white guilt. Now we have to ask, what was the reason? Because she even said herself, why would you bring up white guilt? Jackson Park One. was for us that we lived maybe a mile from it. And I tell you, they have a golf course there. Which means you have to golf. You have to golf. I mean, you couldn't just walk around on the golf course. But this is one of the parks, like the parks we talked about that we lived near, that people just didn't congregate at. There wasn't like an outdoor

1:42:31 access where you did stuff in this park. On a regular basis. On a regular basis. It wasn't that close. It was not a place that was the closest to you. It was the closest big park. You know like Washington Park and Douglas Park and Grant Park. Those are big parks where people come and they congregate and they have Resources thrown in to do stuff. This was one of those parks that had a lot of real estate But there wasn't a whole lot going on unless you golfed Okay, and the context of Jackson Park Jackson Bar to

1:43:11 Well, there's power in the selection of Jackson Park. It's just like Barack and I don't do things incidentally. I mean, there's a strategy. Barack's presidential library could have been anywhere in the world because there's so many people who feel like he is their president. All over the world. New York wanted it, Hawaii wants it, because it's also an economic engine. Because it will be a visited presidential library, because it's going to be alive. It's a first. So we had to think where do we put this resource because it will be a resource. Well what better place to put it than in our backyard you know. Jackson Park is like that juxtaposition of everything in our lives. Except we never went to visit it? Now do you get it? Yeah, no I got it. I got it. It's kind of disheartening when you when you rip it open like that Mo.

1:44:16 White folks is saved to come on back. Yeah to Jackson Park. We're gonna build a library. It's gonna be a nice community Yeah, gentrification. Yep. That's exactly what it is the whole set like I said that we tell stories She set this whole thing up about white guilt. I mean white flight and the payoffs There it is. And there is your payoff? It's sick man now

1:44:54 Do you have other people in your life who you can talk to about this stuff? Or am I it? No, actually, we cling together. It's like a... Unknown, it's like a sixth sense. Uh-huh. Oh, hey, hey, hey, um, once you drop that, it's that dance, it's that dance. You gotta feel it out. You gotta feel it out, right? And then once you drop the old, hey, bottom of 66, then you're all, uh-huh, I gotcha, I gotcha. Oh, yes, yes. Well, that's kind of fucked. Well, I mean, that's no different, I guess, than a lot of people who, um,

1:45:37 support or have voted for Trump. I think there's a lot of the same thing goes on a dance and sussing around you know it's like with my neighbor you know it's because you know agenda looks at all kinds of stuff we say many things that are unpopular for different groups and the first thing I'm trying to suss out is hey man are you cool? Are you like gonna be rabid if I even say anything positive about Trump? It's a dance so it's kind of like that I guess. That's exactly why the knowledge in the meetups are so important are so important. Yeah, because you don't have to do that dance. Yeah Yeah, but that's exactly what it is like is he cool? No, um, and you've told little fillers out there. It's like so I

1:46:22 What about this? And you see people's reactions like, oh yeah. It's a sigh of relief when you're like, woo, you're traveling brother, huh? I got that one. I'm happy we can laugh about it, but it's really quite sad that you know you have now laid out expertly once again you have laid out you know that everything is the same. It's just it's just now we have more algorithms to amplify all the bullcrap and and of course people I always

1:47:05 I look for the good in everything and I think that deep down inside people know things are wrong and I think this is where this social media illness comes from, of people yelling at each other and just going nuts and just completely off the rails. And really at the core of all of it is this unpublished memo about the redefinition of racism. If only I had known, if only I could find the approved version, it would be so much better for us. Now I know why everyone's called a racist, because it means something else. This whole thing is... And then yeah, it totally feeds into the victimization, which you my friend, you show zero, zero victimization. You've never shown any of that to me.

1:47:52 I refuse to be not free. Of course, of course. You are free man podcasting what's going on here. Free man podcasting. And hopefully our podcast Freeze to a handful of people each episode. That's that's the that's the goal here and let us know Yeah, we'd love to hear from you want to know I mean people email this tweets and stuff and and I see I see the responses I enjoy all of it and remember what I said at the beginning is there's there's look there's value in this for me I sit here and I enjoy every single show and from beginning to end. It's just, it's fantastic to do this. I'm pretty sure Mo enjoys it too. And you know, we'd love to see your appreciation for that. Whatever value this had to you, either go out and be a free man talking or support us or both even better at moefundme.com. M-O-E-FUND-ME.COM

1:48:50 Mm-hmm Mo. Thank you so much once again a fabulous fabulous piece of art We have put here this should be in the Smithsonian this particular episode is Smithsonian worthy I tell you as I always say pay attention to everything and the truth will reveal itself And we'll be back next week with another edition of Mo facts with Adam Curry. Thank you so much for listening Thank you for your time and your attention. We enjoy it. Hope you did too until next time. Bye. Bye I'm a victim of loving you. I'm a victim of wanting you. I woke up this morning. I felt your love laying beside me.

1:50:02 You told me that you love me, baby. I love you, baby. I love you so doggone much. I'm a big fan.

1:50:44 I was walking on the street. You pass by. Hello. Oh, My heart skips a beat Loving you Wanting you Every time I see your face Baby Come on Come on home Where you belong

1:51:35 You know, when I tell you I love you, there's nowhere for me to hide no more baby. You got deep down in my soul. You touched my heart. He's a victim. He's a victim. I'm a victim of loving you. I need you, baby.