Life N Times Podcast #81

Life N Times Podcast #81 dives into power, propaganda, and the future being built around us. We examine federal enforcement and accountability, patterns in custody deaths and the lack of transparency, and how racist digital content becomes a political weapon. We also unpack the post pardon reality around Jan 6, the environmental footprint of AI growth, and how AI generated misinformation is polarizing communities by splitting people into separate realities. Then we connect the dots on tariffs and household costs, automation and the coming dark warehouse economy, and the geopolitical linkages reshaping alliances and borders. 

Transcript

Pivot From Jokes To Justice

SPEAKER_03 0:00

It's Latin LA Light in Times Podcast. Me and Dre gotta talk about it today. What's up with you, Dre? What's up with you, Doc?

SPEAKER_01 0:09

What's up? Live been going on since the last one. Happy Black History Month. We are about halfway through. You know, a day over halfway, actually. You know, they gave us the shortest one, but we hear.

Unseen ICE Killings And Keith Porter

SPEAKER_03 0:19

I get a power-up around this time. Yeah? Oh, yeah. Okay. My percentages are crazy at work right now. Child to share. Let that. Let's talk about something that's real. Let's talk about something that's beyond like the scope of things, beyond a podcast, beyond the little jokes, beyond entertainment. Because this podcast is usually for entertainment or mental health reasons or you know, sports content or anime content. We're going to talk about the life and times today. There has been ice killings. Most importantly, there's been civilians killed by ice without having a weapon, having a weapon and being at their own homes or in front of it. And we're going to talk about the one that's not getting all the news. We're going to talk about Keith Porter. He's at his house. Everybody's out and about for the fireworks. One of his nearby neighbors happens to be an ICE agent off duty, comes in, puts him down. He had no weaponry, had nothing going on. We're not talking about Keith Porter Jr. because Keith Porter Jr. is black.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:22

You know, we're going to get into the other deaths by ICE agents, but I wanted to make this the first one for a reason. Nobody cared when this type of tyranny was happening to black and brown bodies in this country since its inception. It only matters when people that look like you are being harmed. We've talked about this in the last thing when they were pushing that video of that girl getting killed by the black guy, right? Yeah. And we're not talking about how there was another black guy that literally tried to save that girl. Was one of the first people to try to save her. See, that would cause duality and to have more than one thought.

Rights Versus Survival For Black Americans

SPEAKER_01 2:03

Yeah, well, we're the only race where the actions of one reflect on the actions of all. As a black person, I just guys have to decide and I gotta laugh because it's like you guys are about to learn, people who are not black, and this goes for anyone else, whether you're Hispanic, you're Asian, or you're a white American, doesn't matter. What you're about to learn is when the system wants to oppress you, your rights do not matter, right? So these rules you're telling people, well, you have your second amendment, you have your first amendment, you have your you know, your 14th amendment, your birthright service, like all this stuff that hasn't mattered for black people up till today, right? It still doesn't. So the this comes into the difference of culture, the same way we have to teach our kids about what they can and can't do in stores, what they can and can't say to police officers, right? You have to worry about surviving, whether it's right or not, whether you have rights or not. And so, yeah, people are like, Yeah, you have a second amendment, right? The chances of you getting exercised, that doesn't matter. Black people have gotten killed for less, trying to exercise smaller rights in interactions with police officers and law enforcement. So we bring up the argument, right? People are saying, like this guy or other people who have been killed by ICE, well, they're allowed to be armed or they're allowed to do this, this, and that. What you're allowed to do doesn't mean you're going to survive, and that's what people are about to find out.

SPEAKER_03 3:26

What people didn't understand is they're being terrorized, they're being oppressed. This police, this person in power is not helping them. That is the position we grew up under. My mom was teaching me, it's like, no, you gotta make sure the officer is calm. Yeah, keep telling them that you're in school, let them know that you don't do anything.

SPEAKER_01 3:48

You have to minimize yourself as much as possible to make yourself as little as a threat as possible to appease them. Because, as trained law enforcement, if they feel any type of way about you as a non-threatening citizen, they have the right and they can exercise and they can take your life. And so it's kind of like the appease the master situation, but that's how we've survived. That's exactly it. And people aren't used to that, right? And it is your privilege as people who are not black to go and yell at officers and tell them your rights. And you should. You should go and utilize your privilege and you know, for for once put your bodies on the line in the fight. We might get into it later, but there's a big discourse about black people sitting out on protests and stuff like that. And and we can get into we can get into that one a little later, but it's like that's not privilege that we have to go yelling at people holding a gun at us. Hey, you can't do this to me, I'm a U.S. citizen. That's not news to anyone.

Media Control And Victim-Blaming

SPEAKER_03 4:48

Yeah, we crawled back from three-fifths. Now, we're talking about positioning in the country, but I want to go into how these other shootings exactly exemplify. See, people think it's a game. People think that these people are going to help them. No, Renee Good was in the right trying to de-escalate. It did not matter. Alex knew and was allowed to carry a gun, it did not matter. He was protecting people, even it did not matter. He helped people a lot of things, and you know, we talked about this in the last podcast when the Charlie Kirk situation happened, and this is the ramifications. We have dehumanized tragedy for anybody we don't agree with. Yeah, so we see we can see someone get murdered, and this is control, by the way. Like you're being controlled when you have this response. If you cannot see another human being murdered as wrong, they got you. And it's nothing for me to talk about with you about because if you think somebody's death is a political statement, you haven't had a lot of hardship. See, where we come from, niggas die every day, so it's a different perspective, and people are just like the the country is just rolling into what oppression is. They just seen it on a TV screen with Renee Good and Alex. I've seen cops abuse people on the block, I've seen cops take bread, I've seen cops cop. Like and it is happening there on my block, and it wasn't even that bad. Like, imagine worse areas in Philly's what they're doing, and this and that, and it and it just trickled down economically. You know, tricking down economics happens morality, it doesn't happen with capital, but it does happen with your morals.

SPEAKER_01 6:31

It's the chuckle out of like the the exhaustion of it. People are being are frustrated, right? Like the narrative that comes out, right? Because first of all, when you first see, and then you say we're being conditioned, when you first see a public servant murdering a citizen, if your first thought isn't was that their only solution, why did it get to that step? And your first thought is to blame the victim of the shooting, right? You're being controlled. But when the narrative gets spun, right? We all watch the same four or five videos. But when you see your politicians going on TV and telling you something else you've seen, they're upset. How could they say that? Why are they lying to us? You are now experiencing what it's like to be black for the past who knows how long since TV's been around, right? The narrative that you were being told that you believe black victims who are victims of crime against the system, against police, you just believed it because the news went lie. Your mayor wouldn't lie, your president wouldn't lie, your politicians wouldn't lie, but you just saw evidence of a man getting murdered while protecting a woman from getting pepper sprayed, and you're being lied to straight to your face, and you're like, How could that? Why are they saying this? There must be more to the story. No, you were having a first-time experience on what it's been like to be black in America for years, and honestly, some of you still are not making that connection. You're still not understanding that. Wait, possibly they could lie about this. What could they have lied about that we didn't have 15-camera viewpoints? What else could they have lied about about other people that I have judged? But y'all aren't making that collection. Some of y'all are still in disbelief.

SPEAKER_03 7:57

Yeah, you know, that's the biggest thing I didn't even think about. People have taken videos about us, you know, when a cop does something with us or another community, and it said, Well, he had to do something. Why was he running? Why did he pull? Why did he have a gun? Now people are saying the same shit about their victims, and they're like, No, wait, no way, he had a gun because he had a second amendment rights. We had people, black gun owners, be killed. The NRA didn't gun in the car. Bro, the NRA didn't say shit, they was cool with it, yeah, because it wasn't them. See, now this breaks through tribalists. This is what's happening to everybody, and you know, I don't it's the irony's not lost on me, but I think we gotta focus on, and this is my only pushback against that. Like far as far as the fatigue, I get it. But that shit don't do nothing. We gotta get to it collectively.

SPEAKER_01 8:47

Oh, are you talking about the the the black people sitting out?

SPEAKER_03 8:50

No, like I get that standpoint. If you're going to do so, do so. But like the narrative, oh, I'm tired. I I get it, but that's not gonna add anything to the conversation. That's not gonna do shit. So, like, all right, you tired, you tapped out, cool. You don't don't bring anything to the situation, but the situation is still gonna come to us anyway. Correct. So we we might as well use this time when we have like enemies and we can all see it visibly to get together. A rainbow coalition is what they fear. It can't handle a rainbow coalition if all the disenfranchised and oppressed groups, poor farmers, poor black people, poor, you know what I'm saying, poor groups, poor queer people, like all these different groups are in the same group and thinking the same, like, yo, wait, it's not us, it's somebody else. That's the same reason they killed Fred Hampton. He was starting a rainbow coalition, right? And I think because he had all those ideologies sitting in the same room sharing with each other. I just don't want us to stop at the the critique. Like, I get it, I get to critique. We got critique, but we still gotta get it together. That's all we do.

Fatigue, Protest, And Rainbow Coalition

SPEAKER_01 9:57

We still have to show up. And my counterpoint to people who are saying, you know, like I'm tired, we've been fighting, it's time for other people to fight the fight, all that. As you said, it's still gonna show up to our door, it's not gonna go away. Yes, our bodies, physically and mentally and spiritually, have been used at the forefront of most change in the US. And I'm not gonna, I don't agree with us standing at the forefront anymore, but we do need to participate. We can educate, we can help. Most protests, most change, most revolutions have come from us in the US, and we can show other people how to do it. But I do believe there does need to be a change in the order on who uh stands at the forefront. You know, once again, there are people with privilege who are less likely to be physically harmed first, right? Right. So I think if and I'm be honest, right? White people who are coming awake to what's going on in the US, it is actually now your turn to say at the front. Put your bodies in the harm's way, put your children not physically putting your children, but educating your children, making them be the ones to speak up, making them to be the ones in rooms talking about these things because you've ignored it or you've enabled it for so long. The knowledge you're aware of it, it you have to be in a position, right? And that even goes as far as to some of the other minority groups who have weaponized their closeness to whiteness against us, right? It's also your turn to put yourself up there and be like, oh my goodness, because they're coming at your door. If you're Asian, right, you're not safe. This is coming at you as much as this is coming at Mexicans, as much as this is coming at black people, right? So I think there does need to be a restructuring of people who do need to actually take their time and step up because throughout history in America, change that black people have brought has benefited everyone. And so if we're going to continue to make change, yes, it's not just about us as black people, but other people need to realize change for black people is change for everyone.

SPEAKER_03 12:02

Yeah, and that's what people have dissociated with, right? They they thought the protest was attacking their way of life. No, it was trying to improve it. Now you're dealing with the ramifications of ignoring issues that you thought you were never going to have to deal with. Now you have to deal with them, and now you have to grow. Or you can stagnate. There's people stagnating, there's people disregurgitating narratives and believing everything they hear and see, or going alongside narratives they know is completely wrong. We add any logic to it. So people make conscious choices. You know, willful ignorance is a thing as well. Like a lot of these people are getting paid for this shit. And you know, I want to talk about how people are getting paid for it. Trump has enriched himself since he's gotten into presidency from his position. This uh monkey post that he put out isn't by accident, it's too distract and it's too bad the flames of his lowest level of base followers. They think like that and they like shit like that, and they will keep him in power. So I'm gonna show them something they like, right?

SPEAKER_01 13:12

And and I it the the media, the narrative, it does a really good job at convincing people that times of past are so far in the past, right? People have to understand Trump is 82, correct? We are in at least 79, yeah. He I know he's 80, he's 80 at least. So we are in 2026. Trump was a teenager or an adult when we couldn't drink out of the same water fountain, right? Trump has parents, his dad has had racist remarks, Trump has had racist remarks. He comes from a legacy in a time where people in power did not see minorities as people. We did not have rights as equal people until 65. So when you go to think this person leading our country can't be racist, he can't think these things. Why would that why would this wasn't a hundred years ago? This was 60 years ago. Well, not that long ago.

Privilege Must Lead At The Front

SPEAKER_03 14:14

The biggest thing that disposes is that people in power just like power, they can see the progression and change throughout history, right? And just disagree with it. It's like, no, I like when we were in charge. I don't like all the shit that's happening, I don't like how they're positioning themselves and this and that. They got fucking, you know, they got it back to the pawn level where they literally got the pawns right up there. You see Nicki Minaj and shit like this. Here you go.

SPEAKER_01 14:46

You know what she did before now? Let's get that. The exoneration of her husband, probably, and to keep her citizenship.

SPEAKER_03 14:54

Yeah, I mean, listen, bro, the capitalism is gonna reveal everything, right? So I I I I I respect that. I I'm I'm glad we get to see it.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

You respect you understand it or you respect it?

SPEAKER_03 15:07

I I don't respect it, obviously, but like if you're gonna come a certain way, at least let me know.

SPEAKER_01 15:13

Oh, right. Reveal yourself, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:15

Reveal yourself. All right, cool. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 15:17

Yeah, like and you know what? I like I hate obviously dislike everything that's going on, but I said the same thing when Trump was elected the first time in 2016. I said this is going to cause turmoil, but you would have never known the things you know about people now if Trump never was president. And I would rather know these people have been fake smiling in my face than be in a position where they could do harm to me and me never being more aware of it.

SPEAKER_03 15:43

People, when they feel like they're in power or comfortable, that's when that's when you really see what's up. I remember when Trump got elected the first time. I was here, I was out with New Boys, and one of the dudes at my place is like, oh man, it's finally our country again. I was like, what? What do you mean by that? And he was drunk, he was drunk. We've never talked about it, and I never had like a real relationship with him, but like that's how some people feel, bro. I mean, because Trump was payback for Obama. People eight years of Obama, they can't handle it. Like, you gotta think about it, bro. We can get into it, you know, we can skip some shit and get into it because to start off as chattel slaves and then become the president, you gotta understand how infuriating that is. Yeah. Imagine putting someone in the worst possible position and they keep creating and competing with you. Mm-hmm. Excellent. And excelling. And you did all this, and it once they get there, they right there with you.

SPEAKER_01 16:46

You gave us education for uh by the time Obama became president, we had equal education opportunities for 50 years. That was less than fit less than 50 years after you made us equal citizens, we one of us became president. That's gotta piss y'all.

SPEAKER_00 17:02

Gotta piss them off, bro. People who are racist, that doesn't piss off everyone. But for people who are racist, that's gotta piss you off. That's tough. Tough pill to swallow. That's two, that's not even two full generations, for real.

SPEAKER_03 17:13

Because like, now imagine all the impediment put in our way, right? Yeah, all the impediment. Like, for me and you just to get out of our neighborhoods and be able to have a conversation like this, it it takes a lot. It takes it takes a lot, it takes a lot, like it it's so wild. Like, and I tell people, like, you know, the average inner city black person is dealing with and has experienced things on the same level as a third world country, you know why they send doctors into our neighborhoods to prep them before they go to third world countries, yeah.

Pardons, ICE Hiring, And Power Culture

SPEAKER_01 17:51

They send them to our emergency rooms, yeah. Yeah. The trauma, you gotta, hey, do you know it's like to have to deal with 50 gunshot wounds in a week? We're gonna go send you to Chicago. We're gonna send you to Philly. We're gonna like we're gonna go send you somewhere where the police aren't actually taking care of their citizens, and it's basically sometimes the police state, the neighborhoods are being overrun. It's not safe to go to certain places. You got kids that are in high school at the same PTSD levels as combat veterans who were in Iraq. Why? Because they don't know if they're gonna make it a home every day after school. You don't know if you're making it home every time you go out on a convoy. Like, but these are 12-year-olds and you were trained in the military for five years. Like, so how do you expect these people to grow up? And then when you see people come from those environments and they grow up and they succeed and they flourish and they get good jobs and they become millionaires, that pisses some people off. Because if they're like, if I'm not doing well, why are these people doing well? Which to some people's, you know, surprise, black people are doing a lot of black people are doing well. A lot of us are still in situations trying to overcome the system, but not all black people are poor. A lot of people don't understand that. Not all black people are poor. No, we are we are making it, we are going to school, we are creating businesses to the best of our ability, even when systems are put in place to disrupt those things. Once again, it's Black History Month, so we're gonna talk about some black successes. Like, we are making changes and advancing things and trying to help each other out, even when systems are in place to you know push us down. And so when the whole world and the whole country has been stopped for the past three months because they're feeling oppression for the first time. We wake up each day and we get at it because this isn't new.

SPEAKER_03 19:36

It is a part of the daily bread of being a black person to overcome whatever adversity, commodify and make everybody feel good because you're not the person that they are used to, adjust your level of self depending on who you're talking to and dealing with, and understand how you're viewed at all times. Because there is connotation, because race is a big part of everything in this country, like we said, it was back when Trump was a teenager or a young adult, we couldn't even have a same, we couldn't share the same order. So, like, how are we supposed to see it the same? But with this new with this new wave of things, there is a point where it cannot just be divergence, it must be unification of ideology. This is happening to everyone. I think that's what we need to come from with this uh situation. Look at all these dudes that Trump has pardoned that's been getting busy, bro. And not not in the not in a good way. What the fuck is going on, bro?

SPEAKER_01 20:37

Aw them, what I think nine, like it was something like 98% of the January Sixers got pardoned and then rehired by ICE. So your tax dollars was going to$60,000 starting jobs and 40k bonuses.

SPEAKER_03 20:48

Bro, I found out you get like a hundred K bonus if you sign up for ICE, bro.

SPEAKER_01 20:52

And you know what's crazy? These people signing up, some of them sit, they ain't even getting a bonus. They're doing it for the love of the game. So one, Trump lied to y'all. There's that, right? You wasn't gonna get all that money, right? But some of them doing it for the love of the game.

SPEAKER_03 21:04

Well, listen, people are always gonna reveal their character, right? Like, there's something that draws you to a position of power with a little oversight. You know what I'm saying? A position of power, a little oversight, and you could do a bunch of weird shit in between. You hear what's going on at these ice facilities, guards doing weird shit.

Data Centers, Bills, And Policy Vacuums

SPEAKER_01 21:25

Sometimes not even waiting until they get to the facilities. They're taking people to portal parties, they're doing a lot, and then when you go and you look, because I follow places where people are docs and ice agents, they're hiring some people who are felons. These background checks aren't background checks. ICE has no actual process for vetting people. They hired a publicly known liberal news reporter who hates Trump and applied to work for ICE. And she passed a background check also after smoking weed two days before taking our test. Right, so they're not actually, yeah, they're not doing real checks, and it hurt crazy. And I'm like, you can Google her name and see that she does not like Trump, she's against ice. All this they're not doing real checks, they just hire anybody.

SPEAKER_03 22:14

It's crazy. Yeah, do you see that we are going to probably run out of water because of these AI data centers?

SPEAKER_01 22:25

So let me tell you some some close personal anecdotes. So I'm in Ohio now. It's not just the water, but we are burning water. Anyone who's not tech savvy, data centers use, I would consider it an open loop water cooling. It's like the stuff you put in your car for your windows and stuff like that. But they're continuously drawing water. That runs up your water bill because your city is instead of charging the data centers in the companies, they're offloading the pay to other residents. The electricity, though, works in the water. Everyone in our area has gotten about a five or six hundred dollar electric bill. That's fucking crazy. And it's going up. I saw someone with an$800 electric bill. I'm not bro, I don't believe it's not paying it.

SPEAKER_02 23:14

Don't pay it. I'll tell you right now, our electric bill is$580 as much.$580. Electric, just electric. Just electric. Just electric.

SPEAKER_01 23:21

And the data centers, there's they're ramping them up. There's gonna be more and more and more because your city is giving tax credits to companies to build data centers there. Data centers do not bring in local jobs, and the jobs that data centers do bring in are short-term jobs, anywhere from six months to max five years, but none of those are permanent jobs, and most of them are out of state people that they bring in. So this shit's bad. Like this shit's bad, and are data centers necessary? Yes, should they be built places where there are not high impacts on living? Also, yes, but that's not what they're doing.

SPEAKER_03 24:04

And it's the same thing with uh oil, they don't care, they just want to get it as easily and as readily as possible, but you know what's crazy, right?

Community Breakdown And Diaspora Rifts

SPEAKER_01 24:12

And this then this is the issue because we refuse to regulate AI anything, right? There is regulations with oil, with manufacturing, right? That most of that stuff has to be built away, like they're zoned, right? We do not have zoning for data centers, and we treat them as regular IT companies, and so you can build directly next to people's housing, and that's wrong. We don't got policy for it. We need policy, we need AI policy, but you know why they're not gonna have policy, and this goes back into the play. We're distracted. These things are being rapidly built, the contracts are being rapidly purchased while we're being distracted, while we're being traumatized. So by the time we realize you overcame this trauma, right? You're watching your fellow citizens get murdered on TV, you're going out protesting. By the time this is done, it gets solved, maybe not. Your bill's gonna be a thousand dollars and it's gonna be untrainedable. The sinner's already there, they're not taking it away, right? So we can't sadly spread our attention everywhere, but they're purposely ramping up the buildings while we are dealing with the things we're dealing with now because we do not have the bandwidth to go and focus on those things.

SPEAKER_03 25:23

Yeah, we're not organized and we're not collective, and it's for a reason, you know, and I think this is one of the reasons I do this pod, is because people think that sitting in one corner is going to get it done, it's not. No matter what you want to do in your corner, you need to come out of there and talk to everybody else. Because if you just think you and your ideals are the grand poopah, they're not. It's crazy. And it's a lack of it's a lack of you, there's no sense of community in America anymore. Like, I don't see it. I think everybody's out for themselves to a large extent. I think people are more and more desensitized. Like, I lived in LA, bro. There's people with a a bag of money walking past a homeless dude, might drop some food on him, keep it moving. Yeah. Complete dissociation. Yeah. And we're doing it on a micro with the homeless person. We're doing it in the macro with everybody else, too. Like, uh, you know, a lot of these issues, and there's a big issue going on. It's not a topic, but it's a big issue going on. Um, I don't know if you know about Deontay Kow. He's talking about a call to arms amongst the diaspora, and people are saying, well, we're black, but we're not black. As far as like culturally, that like Nigerians, Jamaicans, African people from those regions are it is a big, big issue right now online. But the biggest guy? Beyond Kyle's like a podcaster.

SPEAKER_01 27:06

And he's calling for the diaspora of African countries, too.

SPEAKER_03 27:10

No, it's uh all black people. If you're black, you're black.

SPEAKER_01 27:14

Right. To like stand up against the government.

SPEAKER_03 27:18

No, not even saying that, you're just saying you're black. Oh, if you're black, you're black.

SPEAKER_01 27:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 27:23

Yeah. Okay, but the people from those regions are saying, well, we're not black American, black Americans are late, like that, there's some things that are. Oh, they're continuing that. They're continuing that.

History, FBA Contributions, And Immigrant Context

SPEAKER_01 27:32

Yeah. No, that as draining as that argument is, as draining as the argument is, I take it back to the same thing I said about people who are in the privilege to speak up on these things, right? I think that argument should be left up to the educated immigrants to image to educate their own people. I don't necessarily like the term FBA, but it's useful in certain ways. There is no mass immigration in the 20th century of any group of people without the work that was done in the civil rights by foundational foundational black Americans. There is none. So all of these people coming to America claiming black people are lazy, claiming all this stuff like that, you do not have rights as a people to come here, to immigrate here, to get businesses, to get asylum here, to get any of that without the dead bodies of foundational black Americans who made it possible for y'all to be seen as humans to even come here to get jobs, to get visas, to get houses. That's for the diaspora of black people, that's for Indians who come over here, that's for the Chinese who come over here, that's for the Hispanics who come over here, that for the Europeans who came over here, a lot of them who came after the Civil War was fought, after all these things like that. Like, you do not come here and get to be seen as human, right? Some of y'all came here and then y'all got kicked right back to your countries after y'all got done building helping some railroads and building some infrastructure, but to get to stay here, to live here, to get business loans. Most of y'all were brought here as a direct opposition to the black class that was becoming humanized to keep black people in their place in their neighborhoods. That's why they were giving H1B visas to a lot of people in Asia for cheaper labor. They were giving business loans to Asians and Nigerians and a bunch of people from Africa to come into black neighborhoods and get loans that black people themselves could not get, so that you can open up gas stations and you can open up laundry mats and all of that. Most of you were not brought here on the merit that you thought you were brought here on, or that you thought that you were the only way to bring an economic value to the country. Once we were no longer slaves, and once we could no longer be used as cheap labor, they stopped giving us the ability to get loans for houses, for businesses. They brought you over here in mass immigration, gave you citizenship, gave you businesses, and told you to look down on us, and that's exactly what you did. You did not face the oppression, you did not face the over policing, you did not face the police brutality. So the nerve to treat foundational black Americans the way people do, ignoring all context on how you got here and why black people have the trouble they do have and the perception they do have on the media, is disingenuous. But that's no longer a conversation I'm willing to have with immigrants. Educated immigrants and educated people who immigrated to America, first, second, or third generation, you have to have that conversation with your own people.

SPEAKER_03 30:37

Yeah, self-regulation. That's what I'm at with too. And that's what us as well. You know, as far as black Americans, the people who are skilled, the people who are business owners, the people who are in the middle class, we cannot look down. We need to ride, we need to raise up. Right. And we need to collectively, as a culture, disinherit criminality. It is not working for us. We were at our best in this country where we were craftsmen, we were tradesmen, we were businessmen, where we were inventors, where we were doctors, we were in the necessary fields where you can move without us. They've used a lot of people to circumvent us out of those spaces, but guess what? You can apply and be a job to wherever you want. You know, anybody with some time and some determination can be a nurse, a paramedic. You know, we started the paramedics. I just learned that about that. The Pittsburgh really and all that. I just learned that.

SPEAKER_01 31:38

So we started paramedics, we started free school lunching, we started like there's the amount of things that people take for granted in this country that were not a thing without the black Americans' hair who had to have things taken away from them after trying it, and then when it was given to everyone else for free over the dead bodies that we provided to get them, they're like, Well, why don't you guys have this? Why don't you have this or that? But yes, criminality, criminality was a tool that was given to us when they stripped everything else away, and that's why it was popularized, and that's why it's seen as cool, and right, like that's why you see so many black men in certain things, right? Because outside of the overarching relationship that black people have with the government, other people, interfamily, like interfamily, right, as a black person, as a black man, as a head of household, right? You had to still bring money in, you still have to provide. So they also broke the home down in certain ways, where okay, well, if you're gonna, you know, you still want a family. We took away your other ability to get other jobs, so you're going to do criminal work, right? Until we popularized that and we thought this is how it was to be a black man. Like that was made by design, right? And that was done to no other communities, but that's not where we came from, and that's not where we started. And I think, like I said, the job we need to have with other black Americans is education in its history. One did black people, black people didn't spawn on the earth as slaves, right? But if we look at black history in America, that is where it would have started, but that is not where we ended, and where we are right now, it was not even our peak, right? So we had a prosperous peak, and we need to go back to information, okay? We actually were prospering so much between the 1940s and up to like 1970, before they threw crack and before the CIA, the Wall Street, the businesses, the homes, as you said, we need to get back to that.

Rejecting Criminality And Reclaiming Craft

SPEAKER_03 33:33

Hey, before criminality, we had closed loop communities where we were self-sufficient, we didn't need anybody, and I'm not saying we have to directly get back to that, we don't have to get to that point, but we need to have our own infrastructure and rely on the world. We need to be working, we need to be working. See, if you're working, no one can use the law against us. They created laws to control us. That is like they literally as far as black people in their history with the America, they only created laws to control us in different ways.

SPEAKER_01 34:05

When everyone's like, why is it always about race? Buddy, your constitution was written up based off of race. The laws, the amendments, the policies on state levels, on city levels, on county levels, were based off of race, right? So housing is based off of race, banking, it was based off of race, right? Immigration, we were talking that was based off of race. So when we talk about the way things are and we have laws that were written 50, 60, 100 years ago, some of them need to change, some of them won't, but there are still things we can do, there's still ways we can take care of our people. There's a lot of ways we can improve, right? I look at stuff that we have now, and it's like, okay, yeah, we have HBCUs, yeah, we have other stuff like that. We need to restructure a lot of organizations, right? We have the NCAA, like we need to restructure a lot of things and change the focus back into the community and for long-term solutions.

SPEAKER_03 34:59

I feel like right now, the upper crust, like the highest level of white people in America, are overly reliant or overly disposed depositioned into a capitalistic mindset. So they're not really worried about community. Our leaders have to be worried about community. You are not a leader in the black community if you're not about community, and that's how we have to operate from now on. We have a lot of black capitalists, they're not for the community. Nelly. That was never came for us.

SPEAKER_01 35:32

It's not a culture that's really for most people, if we're going to be honest, but I don't care about most people. Capitalism is not a culture that worked for us, and actually, our right, not to lean too far into like the communist ideals, but when we were sharing, why once again, right? Everyone wants to talk about government handouts and this and this. Free lunches, you can say it's communist, but it's feeding your kids when they go to school. Why do you think black people came up with it? That benefited everyone. Everyone wants to be capitalist until they have needs, and then they're like, oh, wait, I need help. We were helping each other, libraries, free lunches, school like that, trades, taking people under, apprenticeshipping young black people, right? We need to get back to that. It's not how do I make as much money just for me? No, it's if I get a little bit less, but I can feed my friend, we can both eat, we can both have a house, right? We can both live in this neighborhood, we can build, we can grow food, we can farm. Like, we got to get back to that, not just I want to make sure I can buy my groceries.

Laws Built On Race And Structural Change

SPEAKER_03 36:29

It has to be community facing forward, and and that's what I'm talking to with black men, like, because we're leaders. So as you lead your household and as you interact with your friends, we all are gonna change the collective thought. And there's gonna be people that's against it, it's gonna be people that are for it. But I'm really just focusing on people who are just gonna hey, can we do community first, criminality last? Like, that shit is not working. We have to divorce it because, like, bro, it was pushed on us for a reason. It's the most destructive thing you can do to yourself and your environment. Like, that shit is an atom bomb. And I was really thinking about like just the ramifications of growing up. I used to grow up as a kid, just walking past drugged out people. That's just a regular part of that's a part of my geography. So, like the the end, that's not normal. And people are subjected to that in a in in America. Like, Americans had like, you know, we're gonna get to like global issues here and a global conflict that's going on in Ukraine, Israel, Palestine, these issues, and how horrible they are, and how these things are still happening over here, and we're still putting our money over there while these things are happening right here. Yes. And I and I think Americans have to, if we're gonna be critiquing, if we're gonna be changing things, we have to change ourselves first.

SPEAKER_01 38:14

Absolutely. Yeah, we can't we can't help people if we cannot help ourselves, and I do think with helping ourselves, we will create an ability where we actually and we can take lessons that we can learn from multiple other groups of people that are in America, right? Everyone does a little something different, but there's lots of positive things that you can gain from any group that's come to America uh and done something with their group that I think we can adopt because there was a lot of once again the community in the black community has been systematically deteriorated, but we've watched other people build community in different ways, and we can take some of those things, but like you said, we have to fix some of the things at home first.

SPEAKER_03 39:01

Yeah, it has to be at home, and though these are conversations we have to have amongst ourselves, like and that's what I've been talking to other people that are around my age, and now we're starting to touch on money, so it's more of a responsibility for this generation currently, like uh people our age, and getting people like my cousin, he's like 24. I'm like, all right, I know you're having fun right now, but like, you know what I'm saying? Like, we we gotta get here you gotta we gotta wait till 30.

SPEAKER_01 39:28

You are you honestly waiting till 30 is too late. You like it's not like it's never too late, but you've made so many mistakes that could be life destructive by that point. Your ability to help yourself and those around you is less. It's never zero, but it is less.

Capitalism, Community, And Shared Institutions

SPEAKER_03 39:47

Yeah, you gotta get after it at a young age, you gotta foster the belief so you can get into the conception of it while you're all halfway there. You know, you don't want to be 29 just making new efforts. It's hard to do. Like a lot of my growth and change started when I was 25. So it takes time, but I wish like as I'm going through things, I'm like, man, I wish I started at 20. Man, I wish I started at 19. I mean, I wish I started at 18. Like the upbringing has to change, and obviously, we're gonna have children down the line, and those things will be different.

SPEAKER_01 40:23

But like we're always a few years behind, because you gotta spend five years getting over your trauma. You can you like our you can't start at 18 assisting, like so. Also, once again, this is what differentiates for other people. Other communities have leaders, they have people 35 to 50 to 60 in their communities, showing them the path, helping them. We are one generation, like our parents were part of the crack generation, okay? So we are one generation removed from the worst systemic attack against our community after becoming citizens. So our generation has to be the ones to deal with a lot of our parents being in jail, a lot of our parents being criminals, a lot of not this is not all, but a lot, a lot of divorced and broken homes, a lot of domestic and other abuses, a lot of the public narrative of not being real people, right? Of not being good enough, having to go co-switch in school, having teachers that don't look at you as real students. Like we are we are the direct generation after that system being put in place. So we have to come out of a system through schooling, come to terms with that was our reality, come to terms with who we want to be as people in the system. And that makes it very hard to be like, How can I help other people? Because I'm having trouble deciding who I am outside of the normal societal hormonal issues you have. I was just attacked by a government-level system to tell me that my identity, because of my skin color, I'm less of a person. So after overcoming that, most of us don't break out of that until we're 25. And then we got to figure out well, how can I help our people because we still got issues as people, and I don't want other people like me to have to go through the same thing.

SPEAKER_03 42:09

So it is up to people our age to by the time we're 30, 40, to help the next group that it's like, you know, I just want to help you figure out when you're 18, where you want to go to college or if you want to study, not hey, like when you're 18, you don't gotta get a job, you don't gotta get an apartment, you don't gotta get you don't gotta go to college. You don't have to fend for yourself because when I turn 18, dog, I didn't have a bank account. I didn't have bro. Yeah, I never paid a bill by myself before.

SPEAKER_01 42:40

No structure, no education. It is the only thing you're taught is how to not go to jail when you're in high school sometimes. Like a lot of people, you're you're taught go to school and how to not go to jail. That's what you're taught.

SPEAKER_00 42:52

Oh, is don't get a girl pregnant, and don't get somebody pregnant, yeah. No, that's that's literally don't die. That's it.

Flourishing After Survival And Youth Guidance

SPEAKER_01 42:59

So it's there were some structural adulting that we weren't taught flourishing, we were taught surviving, and then you had to learn flourishing on your own. And so, yeah, I I don't want that for the next generation, I don't want that for you know, family members that I have right now that are like, you know, some of my friends have kids, and I'm like, all right, your kids, you know, they're like four or five by the time they're 14. Like, I want us to be in a position where that's not what they're worrying about. I want them to start realizing, okay, like you're about to be in a part, like because by the time you're 18, the government's like, hey, you can take out a hundred thousand dollar loan. Like, I want you to know what that decision actually means for your life, not I don't have a choice because I have to do this as a means of survival.

SPEAKER_03 43:43

And everything's not like a there's a position of security that we don't really operate from, right? Like there was no security, there was no backup, there was no plan after. Like when some people go to college, you gotta make it. Yeah, I go to the league, I gotta make it. If I'm Comedian, I gotta make it.

SPEAKER_01 44:01

I'm the only hope for my whole extended family. If I do not make it, my family could be in poverty for the rest of generations. Like that's a hard pill to swallow and take on.

SPEAKER_03 44:13

And oh try to overcome. Because even bro, even though I'm working a good job, I still got that a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 44:20

Like, I gotta make enough so I can to not be distracted. We are not saying bite people only people who have that. Because if you are coming as an immigrant, that is a similar tale, or your parents had to go and do that. What I want you to understand is you are coming with systems to help you a lot of the times because I have friends who are immigrants, so I get told some of the benefits that are provided. I also know people who came on asylum, right? So I know people who came here to asylum and they were offered an apartment and jobs for two years when they came here, right? To help them get set up. I know people who came as immigrants where they come and there are systems put in place where they're put in sub some form of subsidized housing, where they are put in certain job things where they like now. Once again, everyone has different struggles. But even if you didn't come with that help, coming with no help but no disparities against you is also a benefit. Having to fight with the same issues, but also having a system put in place against you, not getting jobs because your name sounds too black, right? Getting denial, like there's so many things that are against and other people also experience, but like all of that stacked together, it's it's very difficult coming from from that position. So yeah, it's just there's there's a lot of things that we can work on, and it's acknowledging, it's acknowledging what's against us, but it's acknowledging what we can do regardless, and working on that.

SPEAKER_03 45:48

This all reminds me of two movies. Two movies came out and they both are I respectively, they're both good, right? Okay, I'll say respectively, they're both great, but here's the issue: the connotation and the vision and the execution. So in Marty Supreme, it's singular, it is selfish, and he destroys everyone, right? In himself. It is a great look at capitalism and a dark look at uh dark ambition, right? But look at the times we're in. That's the fucking president, right? That's the guys running things. They even had some rich dude in it, so like that's the narrative they're trying to push to the public, regardless of what Timothy knows or not. That's why the project was greenlit. They want certain ideology out there, right? And that's why it was they put a lot of money behind that.

Movies, Messaging, And Who Gets Rewarded

SPEAKER_01 46:48

That is A24's biggest budgeted film, and its weakest messaging ever. Yes, I'm actually surprised that that came out of A-24 because the same people who did Civil War.

SPEAKER_03 47:03

That that Capitol, McDought, that big contract, McDonald. Yeah, and this ain't shit changed. You're like, yeah, man, I know I know we know for like stuff that matters, but what if he won that one game? You know, yeah, Tyler the Creed is in it. Yeah, yeah, he's one of the musical Negroes. I can dig into that too. I can dig into that, the proximity.

SPEAKER_01 47:34

Well, we already talked about Tyler before because uh he he he wanted what forgiveness for his antics previously. We see you up in Marty Supreme, man. That's what I'm talking about. Tyler, majority of your fans you know are white, so you thought it was okay for you to be making KKK proximity jokes and shit like that. Like you knew who you were marketing to, Tyler. You're not stupid.

SPEAKER_03 47:55

Yeah, not stupid. That's one thing about being weird in the hood. I was weird in the hood too, right?

SPEAKER_01 48:00

Not dumb.

SPEAKER_03 48:01

I was not dumb. I wasn't dumb.

SPEAKER_01 48:04

Everything was for intent, whether that was he was doing it to get back at black people who treated him a certain way, and so that could be for self-jab, but that was self-hate. That was that was self-hate, and I'd rather you own up to that and be like, you know, when I was coming up, I was weird, and I got treated away in the community through that, and we could acknowledge that that's a real thing that happened. That's a real thing, and you had some self-hate. Them hating on you is also a form of self-hate, though. Like, we're not gonna ignore it. Like, that tough drug dealer persona that hates on anyone who doesn't align with perceived social aspect of black, that's also a form of self-hate. But you in your position, you gotta acknowledge that.

SPEAKER_03 48:41

Like, bro, I had an uncle that thought I was gay because I read, bro. I was like, bro, like it's it's so hate. It's Harry Potter shit inspired, bro. I don't know, Doug. Maybe we should, you know, maybe we should do a book club around here, but um, so we get into the movie centers, right? And this is a multi-layered conversation, and it's not just a movie, and it's pulling from multiple cultures, and it's about community, and it is about despair as well, right? Yes, to get the blue honestly, it's kind of like the genesis of the blues. This whole movie to me. Um, trauma, and great music to get this is how we get the great music.

SPEAKER_01 49:24

There are vampires after us, and what we're gonna say, and the antagonists in that film saw the soul that was being created in the community through the hardship and the evolution of the culture, and that brought life to them because they were missing something on the inside, and that was life, and that's what they wanted.

SPEAKER_03 49:44

And you didn't want the blood, no, he wanted the song, wanted the soul, Sammy. It's it reminds me of Get Out when he was like, I want your eye, yeah, I want to see how you see it.

SPEAKER_01 49:55

Something's missing when you live a lifeless life like that.

SPEAKER_03 49:58

Well, you and that's a cultural jab at capitalism, but it made the most money, it's outsold Marty Supreme.

SPEAKER_01 50:07

Not only did it make the most money, it is the highest revenue, it's one of the highest revenue horror films, and it is the highest revenue new IP in like eight years.

SPEAKER_03 50:19

And the deal behind it is historic. Historic. We gotta talk about how people were talking about these movies. Yeah, people were telling me Marty Supreme was the next like Wolf of Wall Street, great movie, not the next Wolf of Wall Street.

SPEAKER_01 50:35

Oh, I'm sorry, before we even get into that, go ahead, we've got to say highest nominated film in history, but zero wins.

SPEAKER_03 50:46

Tell me why, tell me why, because Marty Supreme won. Tell me how Kendra get those rewards for not like us, but we're not getting any rewards for uh things that matter, bro.

Supporting Ryan Coogler And Ownership

SPEAKER_01 50:58

Yeah, so like you win an award for creating something that brings uh divicity in the community, but when a film that was, and this is what I'm talking about. Community, this film was pushed. We are talking about a time when theaters were struggling to bring butts to seats, and this film through word of mouth was bringing so many people directly into theaters and outselling everything else, and it wins nothing because it does not want to be re the system, does not want a reward for the community that it was publicizing.

SPEAKER_03 51:39

Yeah, they also discounted it every step of the way. They said it wasn't gonna make money before it started making money. They said it wasn't good before people said it was good. They said no, it's good. They say it's not that great of acting when we've seen actors do similar things. Tom Hardy did a double twin act, and it was great. Everybody loved that.

SPEAKER_01 51:56

Did an older version and younger version of himself, and I was praised for that film of double acting that.

SPEAKER_03 52:01

So we gotta cut the shit out. Michael B. Jordan did a great job, phenomenal job. There's some subtext within the stories and the dualities of the two brothers' relationships with each other and the people they're pursuing. Um, people don't know what privilege is until it happens. You know, the character Mary didn't know that she could die until she died. You feel me? Like, that's what it showed me because, like, in her mind, she was completely safe. I can go talk to these people.

SPEAKER_00 52:30

I can talk to these people.

SPEAKER_03 52:31

In in a lot of people's situations, this goes back to our initial conversation. You are dealing with an oppressor, you are dealing with a vampire. They're going to kill you and turn you. That's it.

Unification, Heritage, And Next Steps

SPEAKER_01 52:43

Yeah, there were there were a lot of things in the movie. Like, honestly, if anyone has not seen the movie, go watch it. If you don't understand the movie after you have watched it, that's a lot of people. There's a good 10-15 minute video on YouTube that'll break it down for you. Like, it's it's it's something that a lot of people should get, but the the context between these two films is Marty Supreme winning over Sinners was a punishment to Ryan Kugler because he refused to play the game of the system. I think multiple things. One, you talked about the deal. Ryan Kugler has a deal where he gets rights to his film after 25 years. Okay, Ryan Kugler refused, I believe, to be on the board. I don't think if it was for the award, but he refused to be on some committee. And so this is also punishment for that. Ryan Kugler also refuses to do a sequel. So after seeing the success after the movie, after they diminished it, they wanted another. You have directors publicly talking about, yeah, he said he didn't want to do it, but I wrote him six different scripts, and you know, we just really think it'd be really good, right? Publicly saying they want to make it to where it's about a white person next time because people are upset that a white person was the villain, right? And if that's what you got out of that, sure. But that Irish character also has a lot of other text in the fact, and the reason they chose that to be an Irish person instead of a different other white person. Like, y'all are really missing the subcontext into that film, the way they included the natives in there, the reason they chose the songs that that Irish person chose to sing to. Like a lot of people are gonna miss that, right? But it wasn't that wasn't just a white person, right? But there's a lot of context in that movie that a lot of people miss. There's a reason he's not going to do another, but the way they're trying to force him to, so that they can change it and change the narrative of the movie and the series, and you're gonna see people try to make copies of sinners now, right? And you're gonna try to see them try to flip it and do a bunch of stuff. But Ryan knows what he's doing, and this is why it's community is important. They can't punish him because as long as we continue to show up and support him, he's going to have a way, he's gonna be able to tell stories for us that are good for us. He's gonna keep those things, he's gonna keep hiring black actors, he's gonna keep doing the things he's doing, right? Like as long as we support, there's only so much the system can do, and this is literally the perfect example, right? If we can't go and we should stop asking these other people, why don't they make movies about us? That's fine. We can make movies about us that are good, and not in a talier prairie kind of way either, right? Like we can make these movies about us, we can't get bank loans, okay. We need to go back to having our own banks and credit unions, right? We need to go back to having our own housing construction company, like we need to our own grocery stores, right? Like, this is what it means. If they're going to refuse to support us in a way that we want to be seen, then we need to show up correctly for people who are trying to do the right thing.

SPEAKER_03 55:39

And the biggest thing is to send this, right? This should be community worldwide, this should be a rainbow coalition. People from similar backgrounds should agree to this, but we have to take care of our own first. Right. And just to wrap up the like the sentence thing, people are not gonna understand the movie or gonna skip over things in the movie because people coming from privilege, they can't, they they can't see it until it happens. But I think there's enough things happening that people are starting to see it, and I hope we can all get on the same page. That's that's what kind of like what's your last thoughts on everything?

SPEAKER_01 56:15

I would say, I mean, as far as that, you know, like it's Black History Month, I think Ending on Sinners is a really good point because if there's anything I could wrap up about the last year, it's the importance of what that movie was trying to portray community, our heritage, our culture. And that can go for the diaspora as a total, but for even if we want to talk about black Americans and our specific ethnic group and the things we've gone through and where we are today, there's still some work to be done, but we've come a long way, and there's a lot more going forward.

SPEAKER_03 56:52

Yeah, the responsibility is on us, right? As far as people our age, but the opportunity has changed. Things have changed, we have gotten further. We have to understand and believe so. You know, I don't want any young man that's under 17 thinking he gotta go put a ski on to be seen, you know. I think a lot of these kids, it's it's almost a cry for help, and the environments be so bad that like one of the things I want to do, like as I'm getting this bread, is set up boxing gyms, karate gyms, MMA gyms, all these types of gyms, and connect them to the school. Remember, like you get into a fight at school, that's your that's a lot of people's first case. Yeah, that's a lot of people's first case. So the school that you're in pipeline is insane. I I remember I was I was in ninth grade, this dude just came out of juvies, big as shit. He said he's in my class. He he got juvie tactics. I'm 14. What the fuck is going on? Yeah, you know what I'm saying? Why we got this amount of trauma and this is a very important thing. It prepares you for jail, it prepares you for jail.

SPEAKER_01 58:03

Yeah, it's not rehabilitation, it prepares you for jail.

SPEAKER_03 58:05

And we need to put something in place in the communities, and I think a physical sport, right, where you're forced to really show who you are. I know you've been on the mats, you know it forces you to see yourself and then improve yourself and get used to discipline from other men. A lot of dudes crash out because they can't even take, like somebody says something, they can't even take it.

SPEAKER_01 58:30

They can't, they cannot take a the the only this yo, and like it's not my favorite sport, but football has saved a lot of lives. I know black people are now like now basketball is like the big one, but traditionally, I want to say football has saved a lot of lives. It takes someone sitting in your face, yelling you, and telling you to be accountable for your mistakes, and then go back out there and try your best. And obviously, you still have bad actors and that people who don't learn, but for the majority, you are accountable because your actions affect the team, and that is some people's first, that's a lot of black men's first lessons on how they have to show up for other people.

Sports, Discipline, And Closing Thanks

SPEAKER_03 59:06

Yeah, yeah. Perfect way to close. This is Life of Times Podcasts. We're gonna be getting to more podcasts, doing this podcast more. There's a lot of things going on in the podcast network itself, it's growing, and we're doing a lot of things, but I've gotten into the rhythm with Dre, Carlos, and myself far as covering these topics. Thank everybody for tapping in. California Dre for pulling up. I'll see y'all next time.