Fighting a War on Both Sides: Inside the Mind of Principal Keith Saunders

What does it mean to lead when you’re being challenged from every direction?

In this powerful episode of Corey’s Corner, retired NYPD executive sits down with Keith Saunders, Principal of Roosevelt High School, founder of S.O.N.I.A.Y., and author of Roosevelt to the Hamptons: The War on Both Sides.

With over 30 years in education, Saunders opens up about the reality of navigating leadership as a Black man in divided spaces, facing internal struggles within the community while also confronting systemic racism and bias outside of it.

This conversation dives deep into:

• Growing up in segregated Long Island

• The truth behind the “war on both sides”

• Leadership under pressure and public perception

• The challenges of being a Black educator in America

• Building and empowering the next generation

This isn’t just a conversation, it’s the right, unfiltered look at identity, purpose, and what it takes to lead with conviction.

🎧 Tap in. Share. And join the conversation.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

What the let it died. I don't want to celebrate that it condemned it.

SPEAKER_06 0:11

Pull up a seat. You're now in Corey's Corner, where right conversations matter. I'm your host, Corey Pegis, and I always keep it right, not real. Today's guest isn't just an educator. He's a leader, a voice of truth, and someone who spent more than 30 years on the front lines making a real difference in people's lives. As the principal of Roosevelt High School in Long Island, New York, founder of Son Ye, and the author of Roosevelt to the Hamptons, The War on Both Sides, he brings a perspective that's honest, bold, and needed. In his book, he opens up about what he calls a war on both sides, the challenges within the black community and the realities of racism and systematic inequality outside of it, especially growing up and working on Long Island. This conversation goes beyond education. It's about identity, resilience, leadership, and having the courage to speak on things many people avoid. A man who's been doing the work with purpose and conviction. Mr. Keith Saunders, welcome to Corby's Corner. Thank you, family. I appreciate you. My brother, man. We're trying to get you on here.

SPEAKER_05 1:23

We're here, my brother. Thank you for the opportunity to be on your platform.

SPEAKER_06 1:27

We're busy over here with a little bit, just a little bit. I know you move. Yeah. This episode of Corby's Corner is sponsored by Vaikila. A premium blend of vodka and tequila. Infused in one smooth, unforgettable spirit. Whoever partying, whether hosting the event, choose Vaikila. You won't be disappointed. Go to Vaquila.net for more information. Shout out to Corrupt Mob MC, a brotherhood built on loyalty, respect, and the community. It's more than a motorcycle club. Respect them all. Let's get into it. For those who just are getting introduced to you, how do you describe Keith Saunders beyond the titles?

SPEAKER_05 2:09

I describe Keith Saunders as a father, a committed husband, an entrepreneur, someone who's passionate about the community, passionate about education, looking to really make a difference in society, determined and focused to deal with all the obstacles that come with the war on both sides.

SPEAKER_06 2:28

Were you not dealing with mentoring, building, education? What's your personal life look like?

SPEAKER_05 2:34

I love the exercise, work out, love chess, love love chess. It's a skill that we like to teach our children about the mind and the skills and the talents that you use to really develop strategy and structure for your life. And I alone incorporate that through the chess. Love spending time with the family, playing games, traveling. Traveling is something that my wife and I really love to do. Because when you when you commit to the community and you pour into the community that much, you got to pour into your family more. Right, right, right. So pouring into the family is really key for me.

SPEAKER_06 3:06

Take us back. What was your upbringing like and what earlier influences shaped you into the man you are today?

SPEAKER_05 3:13

Well, my upbringing was complicated. Um my mom and dad were never married. My mom was got pregnant on a pretty much one-night stand situation. So I grew up in a single-parent household, was raised by my grandmother and my grandfather. Um we experienced a lot of trauma growing up. My grandfather died when I was about five years old. He was an alcoholic hanging out with his friends, um, fell asleep in the car, freezing cold. They left him there, he froze to death. They brought his body back to my house. If you remember back in the day, we had the couches with the plastic on it. Right, right. They brought him back, put his dead body on the couch. That's the first dead body I ever saw, was my grandfather. So that trauma stays with you for the rest of your life. I still remember the sounds of the 21 Guns Ru, because he was a military person at Calverton Cemetery. So that ringing stays in your ear. 55 years, I'm 55 now. 50 years later, it still rings in your ear because you don't forget that. Right. So when you start from those kind of beginnings, and then you realize the trauma that the family has faced, because after my grandfather passed, then my uncle passed when I was in middle school. He was my only father figure that I ever had. Right. And he was another one who liked to indulge in alcohol. And at the early age of 55, he's gone. So now I have to be a man child and figure it out for myself without doing the legal things, but being strategic about how do I operate. But my mother really poured into me. My mom is also dealing with trauma. So she grew up without her mother. Her mother was from the south. We call her the first, like Harry Tubman, bringing the family from the north to the south. Yeah. And she had to sacrifice her own personal life to leave and go up north, as they call it to New York, to raise the city.

SPEAKER_06 4:48

Well, that lead that leads me to was there a specific moment or person that pushed you in your life toward education?

SPEAKER_05 4:55

My mom pushed me towards education because she never finished. She went to South Carolina State University and she was there when the troopers came and started shooting everything. And she remembers the lights, the bullets were scrolling over her head when she was running Jim Crow era. So she survived that massacre. But really motivated me at a professor in college who was just incredible in regards to motivating me, inspiring me to really see things differently. Kenneth Jenkins at Nassau Community College.

SPEAKER_06 5:22

Ken Jenkins.

SPEAKER_05 5:23

He changed my life.

SPEAKER_06 5:24

Wow. Ken Jenkins ended up being a legislator, right? Was he?

SPEAKER_05 5:28

No, he he was as he's never become a legislator. He was just a professor at Nassau Community College. Okay. A phenomenal human being who really opened my eyes to a knowledge of self. When you're in school from first grade to twelfth grade, know nothing about you. And then when you get to college and all of a sudden the world opens up about all the contributions of African Americans that contributed around the globe, it makes you angry at first because you were denied access to a knowledge of self. Right. And in the community, we dealt with the gods and Earths in the 5% nation. Right. But when you really start digging into the history, it really opened my eyes to an understanding to the point where I said, I want to be a teacher. Because throughout my career in in Roosevelt, I never had a male black educator until I got to college. Never.

SPEAKER_06 6:10

So I said I d I don't remember, you know, I grew up in Queens. I don't remember having one black teacher of mine.

SPEAKER_05 6:17

Nah, I had black females and white females and white men, but I never had a black administrator.

SPEAKER_06 6:24

You study Africana studies.

SPEAKER_05 6:26

Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_06 6:27

How did that shape your worldview and your commitment to the community?

SPEAKER_05 6:31

I was fortunate. I was the TA for uh Amiri Baraka, aka Leroy Jones. He was the one that organized the Black Power Conference back in the 70s. So having uh direct access to history, um, like a little kid sitting at the foot of greatness, it was a blessing for me to really study under him and being in the African department, learning from all the different professors, Florence Cash and all the others.

SPEAKER_06 6:56

What school you went to?

SPEAKER_05 6:58

Great Stony Brook University.

SPEAKER_06 6:59

Oh, you went to Stony Brook, okay. Nice.

SPEAKER_05 7:01

Well, I transferred from National Community College to Stony Brook University. And there on campus, I became an activist. I went from a quiet kid who plays sports to a loudmouth on campus as an activist, making things happen, shaking things up. I love it.

SPEAKER_06 7:15

I love it. You spent over 30 years in education. Just fall back. My first encounter with you was Union Dale High School. You was an administrator at Union Dale many years ago, maybe about 15 years ago. And you asked me to come and speak to the kids. And um I did uh I met you. I was impressed with your demeanor and how you carried yourself as a professional. And I'm super proud to see that now you're running a school out in Long Island, which is a big deal. And shout out to our brother Darren Green, little Darren Green, my guy who introduced us. Everything is each one, teach one connections and politics. What first drew you into this field and what kept you there?

SPEAKER_05 7:58

What kept me there was the need. When I first went into the field, I did my I grew up in the community of Roosevelt. I did my student teaching in Roosevelt High School. And during that era of time, I lived on the block of the high school, but I never went to the high school because of the negative reputation that it had. My mother sacrificed, worked multiple jobs for me to go to Kellenburg, which it turned out to be, so I didn't have to go to the high school. But I was committed because all my friends that I played football with, that I played basketball with, was in Roosevelt. So if you really want to be in Roosevelt with your people. So, make a long story short, when uh I got to the point where I wanted to do my student teaching, I was adamant about going home. Because when you develop a knowledge of yourself, you want to share that information with your people, not with others. You want to tell everybody about what you've been saying, and you want to share all that information that you were denied for 12 years. So I was adamant. My major was in African history, but there's no curriculum for African history. So I had to study, get my degree in social studies, so I can incorporate the history strategically into the curriculum without getting in trouble. Right. So that was my motivation. I did my student teaching at Roosevelt Junior Senior High School during the time when the state was taking over Roosevelt High School. Um, Roosevelt High School is the first um school that the state has ever taken over in the last school that they've taken over in New York State. So when I was there, I got a chance to see what my peers were going through that I played football with, that I played basketball with, and the need was a dire need. And being in that building, there was the same deficit, there was a lack of men. So I was adamant about being a male role model to share the information with the current population that looked like me. At that time period, Roosevelt was like 90-something percent black. So the goal was to make sure that we I pour into the community that poured into me as growing up in that community from a single-parent household, the men in the community, the fathers in the community, they raised me to be the man that I am today.

SPEAKER_06 9:49

That's so this is like a full circle moment for you growing up and now being the principal of Roosevelt High School. Yes, it is. What's your leadership philosophy when it comes to shaping young minds?

SPEAKER_05 9:59

My leadership philosophy is lead by example. We call it servant leadership, and I call it transformational leadership. I'm there to transform the district philosophy this year. The theme was together we will transform. I modify that together we will transform like Voltron. Because Voltron is five lines coming together to be form one. Transformers form singly. I'm there to transform the community, teachers, students, parents, clericals, secretaries, uh, custodials to come one. Because the only way we can move the district forward to the level I know it can be, we have to be unified as a body. And when you come from trauma, for years and years of trauma, it's difficult for them to accept a new voice of leadership. So my mission this year was to build community within the school and within the culture of the building. So I've been determined to unify the building because if you unify the building, you unify the community. Right.

SPEAKER_06 10:50

That's great. What are some of the biggest challenges you faced in education and how did you navigate?

SPEAKER_05 10:56

Biggest challenge I've faced on Long Island is racism and low expectations from black folk, to be honest with you. When you're in a finally in an environment where black folks are in charge, there's a lot of low expectations. Instead of being high, speak on it. Speak on it. So my mission is to push our students to greatness. Because good is the enemy of great.

SPEAKER_07 11:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 11:17

My mission every day is to tell the children that you could be great and to tell the teachers it's mandatory that you to for you to pursue greatness. And if you don't reach the greatness, you at least get the good. You eliminate poor and unsatisfactory. So the mission really is to really, really drill into their minds that this is not the old Roosevelt. This is a new beginning. We're the Phoenix rising from the ashes. We the tide that rises. When the tide rises, everything on the water rises. So we are that tide. Roosevelt's the center of the universe, the home of Eddie Murphy, the home of Charles Murphy's.

SPEAKER_06 11:51

Who's the most famous alumni?

SPEAKER_05 11:53

Eddie Murphy. Dr. J. Eddie J? Nr. J. Oh, Eddie Murphy's the most famous. Dr. J is Murphy. Even for the non-melanated people, Howard Stern is the most famous. He went to Roosevelt High School. Musically, Chuck D, Public Enemy, is the most famous. Yeah. RB Wise, Aaron Hall of Guy is the most famous. Yeah, yeah. So we can run down the list.

SPEAKER_06 12:13

Yeah, y'all got a lot of alumni there. So how long have you been a principal at Roosevelt? Eight months. Eight months. Okay. Because I was going to ask you about because the Litman's test in education is math and reading scores.

SPEAKER_05 12:27

Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_06 12:28

So when you come back next year, when I interview you next year, I would want to know the change. Or it's going to be a change. Just the Litman's test in education. Am I going to be able to do that? Without a shadow of a doubt. Because we had David Banks on here, Chancellor Banks. That's big. And he was talking about how test scores and math scores changed under his leadership.

SPEAKER_05 12:48

And that is my charge as a leader to improve the math and science scores. Our deficit in my current position is in math and science. And being in that deficit is my obligation to push teachers and push students and parents to go to the extra help, do the necessary work to improve those scores. And I'm adamant about making sure that this time, next year, that the scores on the research exams will be different.

SPEAKER_06 13:14

We are praying for that, bro.

SPEAKER_05 13:16

Take prayer out of it, my brother. We're going to make this happen.

SPEAKER_06 13:18

I love it. I love it. For someone watching right now that's an educator who wants to become a principal one day, what steps should they be taking? And what does that career path really look like from the classroom to leadership?

SPEAKER_05 13:33

As a classroom teacher, you need to be a sponge. Observe what the APs are doing, the dean is doing, what the principal is doing, the superintendent is doing. Be a sponge. And then when you decide to make that commitment, understand you don't have that autonomy that you would have in the classroom with your four walls. That classroom, that's your sanctuary. Whatever's going on in the hallway, whatever's going on in the building, it could be in chaos. But if you're a true leader and you have that's your kingdom in that classroom, when you transition to building leadership, there's a lot of red tape, there's a lot of rules and regulations that you gotta follow. There's a lot of crow you have to eat. But when you become that AP, make sure you volunteer. Don't wait for somebody to tell you to do something. You see a need, find a solution for that. Then bring it to the principal. Don't bring problems to the principal. Bring problems with solutions. Then the principal will see you as an asset, not as a liability. You want to be seen as a liability. You want to be seen as somebody of value that contributes to the leadership because uh a principal only can do but so much. But we delegate, but it's our also our job is to teach. You never stop learning. Some people think when they leave the classroom, that's enough. It's not enough. You have to continue to learn, continue to read educational journals, continue to listen to podcasts like Corey's Corner, continue to listen to different avenues where you acquire information. Get acclimated to the community. One deficit that I see that leaders have in education, they go from the expressway to the school and back to the expressway. They couldn't tell you where the eateries are in the community, they couldn't tell you where the kids hang out, they can't tell you where the parks are, they can't tell you anything. But they can tell you from exit 21 back to wherever they live. You have to be invested in the community to make a change. You have to be available to participate in community activities and events.

SPEAKER_07 15:23

Right.

SPEAKER_05 15:23

You have to be able to commit to say, okay, if a kid is playing AAU ball, show up to support that kid in that AAU environment, not in the school. So it's a sacrifice that you gotta make. Your time is not your time anymore. So when you make that commitment, it's a commitment. It's not just a check.

SPEAKER_06 15:40

It's sort of you're just bringing me back to, you know, my career in policing. Once you you're a cop and you have a care in the world.

SPEAKER_05 15:46

Right.

SPEAKER_06 15:47

And you start moving, you start being a commander executive. Once you go up that ladder and you have to be invested. Like I would go one sat one Sunday a month, I would go to four churches. Because you don't go to a lot of churches.

SPEAKER_05 16:01

That's right.

SPEAKER_06 16:01

You know, so I would pick one month and I'm off on Sundays, but I got up. You gotta get up. You gotta be invested in the community. Yeah, and I'm I'm pretty sure you're doing stuff like that too. This is like a real good conversation, man. You bringing the fire. I'm loving it. But now we're at this Bitfire Ramble. Remember, I asked you 10 rapid fire questions. You're gonna give me one-word answers. Try not to expand on them. It's like a fun game. You ready?

SPEAKER_05 16:35

I'm built for this, but I'm gonna go.

SPEAKER_06 16:37

Leadership or influence? Influence. Discipline or motivation?

SPEAKER_05 16:44

Discipline.

SPEAKER_06 16:45

A student taught you more than you taught them. Yes or no? Absolutely. Biggest issue facing our youth today.

SPEAKER_05 16:54

Confidence.

SPEAKER_06 16:55

One word to describe your leadership style.

SPEAKER_05 16:57

Authentic.

SPEAKER_06 16:58

Book that changed your life.

SPEAKER_05 17:00

Proposal vote to the Hamptons, the war on both sides.

SPEAKER_06 17:04

Yo, I can't wait to read that one. Faith or strategy? Which leads your decisions? Faith. Most important role. Principal, mentor, or father? Father. I was waiting for you to answer that one. I know your wife's gonna be watching that.

SPEAKER_05 17:22

You know that's right.

SPEAKER_06 17:23

Legacy or success?

SPEAKER_05 17:25

Legacy.

SPEAKER_06 17:26

If you could give every young person one thing, what would it be?

SPEAKER_05 17:30

A book. A book. They don't read anymore, brother.

SPEAKER_06 17:34

Thank you for participating in the final. That was good. Corey's corner is powered by Story to Tell Productions. If you're serious about starting a podcast or taking your production to the next level, this is the team you need. Reach out to Story to Tell Productions and get it done the right way. Before we go forward, let me take you somewhere. Everything we talk about on this show power, accountability, loyalty, respect, redemption, it's not just a conversation for me. I lived it, I've earned it, I've survived it. I've seen both sides of the system. I walked the street, I've worn the badge. I've carried the weight of decisions that changed people's lives. That's why I wrote Once a Cop, The Street the Law, Two Worlds, One Man. It's not just a book, it's the raw unfiltered truth about the journey from the corners of Queens, New York to the high glass ceilings of NYPD headquarters when police applies in Manhattan. The pressure, the politics, the purpose, the course. And the documentary, a cops and robbers story, pulls the curtain back even further. No headlines, no sound bites, just a human story behind a uniform. Because behind every badge is a man, behind every rank is a story, behind every story is a choice.

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SPEAKER_01 19:26

Hello, I'm Dr. Crystal Bonds. Check out Corey's Corner on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

SPEAKER_06 19:32

Your work goes far beyond the classroom. Why has community service always been such a central part of your mission?

SPEAKER_05 19:39

Growing up in the community without a father, as I stated previously, the men in the community really poured into me. Sometimes more than they poured into their own children. So watching my mom serve, watching some of my family members serve, it was like second nature for me to wanting to serve. Not just to serve in general, but to serve my community. So I was married before. My wife had passed away from breast cancer. So we started a nonprofit in her name called Saunders Omnipresent Network, Inspiring America's Youth Incorporated. And that's where you get the acronym Sonye from. And she was an educator as well. She was a teacher. And she's the one that got me involved in really civic duty with the Belmont Lake Civic Association in North Babylon. And that was just civic duty. And that was like having fun, like being back in college again, just going after these politicians and holding people accountable and just doing the revolutionary work, I like to call it. And that was my motivation. And it still is to this day to being really actively involved in community events. And then once I became my own leader through Sonier, we were hosting our own events. And that's how I had the pleasure of meeting you when you came out to North Babylon to present your book, and you came to Unidale to present your book and motivate and inspire and pour into our young people. I'm a firm believer in bringing in quality people like you to really mentor and pour into our children so they can see that they can do it too. That they they can go from the Supreme team to being a cop.

SPEAKER_06 21:06

Yes. That was my next question. I was going to talk about Songye. You kind of touched on it. What inspired you to create it? Your ex-wife. We have something in common. My ex-wife, she died from breast cancer also. My condolence. Breast cancer is as a mother in our community. What impact have you seen so far by starting Song Ye?

SPEAKER_05 21:27

The impact is amazing. The amount of young men who are college graduates now, the amount of young men who are quality fathers, who are married to the mothers of their children, the amount of the brothers who are become entrepreneurs and just give you the love on social media and give you the love and thank you for what you've done for them over the years. And it was so impactful that some of the older brothers would have their younger siblings come and join the program. The unfortunate thing, we left a real big hole in the North Babylon community after the Pandemic because the schools really didn't let us back in.

SPEAKER_06 22:02

You started KDS Enterprise.

SPEAKER_05 22:05

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_06 22:06

What inspired you to step into that role of entrepreneurship? And what gap were you looking to fit?

SPEAKER_05 22:12

I had drunk the Kool-Aid of what my mother told me when I was a kid to go to college to get a good job. That's a misnomer. I was working employed out east at a school, which I don't really give them any credit. I experienced a lot of racism, blatant racism, and and I was actually fired. Wife, two kids, new house, four bedrooms, acre of land, and now I'm unemployed. So I realized that what one of my mother's friends was trying to teach me when I was young, you have to have multiple streams of income people. You have to be in have investments, people. So luckily for us, we had an emergency fund. So during that cost of about five months of being unemployed, I never missed a mortgage payment, never missed any payments because we had an emergency fund. Make sure you have an emergency fund, people. But the reality is when you're unemployed, so okay, what do I do now? So I launched KDS Enterprise. You can find me at Keith Dsawners.com. Um you can book me for speaking engagements and book signings and anything topic that you can imagine. I'm very skilled in a lot of different areas. So that that's the inspiration, is just being able to utilize the skills I've had in the public school system that I don't get paid for. Right. Doing it for myself now. College tours and organizing basketball events and keynote speaking and things of that nature that we just naturally do in education.

SPEAKER_06 23:34

Yeah, you're doing that every day. Every day.

SPEAKER_05 23:37

But we will do it for ourselves.

SPEAKER_06 23:39

Right. I love it. Yeah, you know, I got Cody Piggy's Enterprise. That's right. You know, traveling the countries because Penn State all over the place. I keep telling people, especially people like been in our civil service professions that we have. You said 20, 30 years in these professions, you develop so many skill sets.

SPEAKER_05 23:58

That's right.

SPEAKER_06 23:58

When you leave, people want what you have.

SPEAKER_05 24:02

Marketable.

SPEAKER_06 24:03

They don't understand it. You know, for cops, you know, I see a lot of cops retire, and then I go to mall and I go to Macy's, and they be like, excuse me, can I check your bag? And I'm like, You did all of these years? You done shot at people, all kind of stuff. Right. Are you checking bags at Macy's? But it, you know, same for educators. I mean, it's just the wealth of knowledge that you astain from all of those decades of years. You're so marketable.

SPEAKER_05 24:28

33 years in the business. I'm ready to be a consultant for other educators coming up.

SPEAKER_06 24:33

Mm-hmm. That's it. How do you balance being an educator, entrepreneur, author, and community leader without burning out? Because you have a lot of energy.

SPEAKER_05 24:42

Yeah, um, necessity. I became a father at a late age. I was in 40, 42 years old coming to becoming a father for the first time. So that's a different hunger. Yeah. Now you gotta take care of uh twins in your later age. Yeah. And you gotta have a supporting spouse as well. Because without a supporting spouse, there's no way I could do all the different ventures. There's no way I could sit and talk to you right now after coming from work. No, I'm gonna get home after eight o'clock because I don't live close by here. So without that supporting spouse, man, it's a nightmare.

SPEAKER_06 25:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 25:14

So because I have a supporting spouse, I can have time. She'd take care of the kids while I write to get the book out. Or when I'm doing my lesson plans, or when I'm literally preparing to run the building on the weekends on Sunday after church, she gives me the space to do what's necessary. Because I'm on a mission. Right. And we're on a mission, you need somebody that's ride, ride or die with you. You have to. Or they become your your anchor. They become your they drown you if they don't.

SPEAKER_06 25:39

You always gotta have a bonnie if you climb. And there you go. Let's get into this. You talk about the war on both sides, the internal struggles within the black community and the external pressures of racism, right? What gave you the courage to speak on something so many people feel but are afraid to say it out loud?

SPEAKER_05 26:00

We are scared to tell the truth. We grow up in our communities that um don't don't don't mention anything outside of the house. That's the philosophy going up. Don't don't let nobody don't let the white man know what's going on in the house. So we keep so many secrets. And those secrets are dangerous because Uncle Johnny in that back room, he did molest you. Auntie Jane is a crackhead. So why is it taboo to seek professional support for counseling, but in our community it's taboo? And for me, it was a matter of, okay, it's time for somebody to open up and really speak to what's going on. So even though I sacrificed and did everything within my power to come back to the community to work, that's been my biggest obstacle. Right. Because I remember my first day of work, I'm dressed in a shirt, tie, briefcase. The students can't identify with that. They say, Why are you here in your church clothes?

SPEAKER_07 26:53

Exactly.

SPEAKER_05 26:54

They identify that as church clothes. Right. So all the knowledge the self I'm trying to pour into them is one kid told me when I was student teaching, don't call me your brother, call me nigga.

SPEAKER_07 27:03

Right.

SPEAKER_05 27:04

So you deal with the brainwashing of our young people.

SPEAKER_07 27:07

Right.

SPEAKER_05 27:07

And then also you looked at it as the enemy because you're working for a system that never treated us right.

SPEAKER_06 27:12

Right.

SPEAKER_05 27:12

A system that don't treat you right would never teach you right.

SPEAKER_06 27:14

Exactly.

SPEAKER_05 27:15

So when you're in that system, you perceived as just another Negro. I've been called Uncle Tom, I've been called Sambo because I hold people accountable.

SPEAKER_07 27:24

Right.

SPEAKER_05 27:24

You've been I've been called everything you can think of by my own people, but they don't realize that I'm the only one behind the scenes advocating and fighting for their children. Yes. Against my own people and against others.

SPEAKER_06 27:33

Trust me, I I get it. You looking in the mirror, speaking to me, and I get it.

SPEAKER_05 27:38

So when you deal with that war, brother, that war is real because now you're in an environment where your own people look at you as a sellout Uncle Tom, and white people look at you as a DEI hire.

SPEAKER_04 27:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 27:49

They look at you as incompetent, even though you got more degrees than they do.

SPEAKER_06 27:53

I was getting ready to say, even though you got all these degrees, they oh now they must have paid for them. But be you referenced Chris Rock and his controversial take on the forbidden truth. Do you think we've made progress in having those honest conversations, or are we still avoiding them?

SPEAKER_05 28:10

We are severely avoiding them to the point of nausea that we avoid them. We salute and we applaud people who've done a whole lot of devious and evil things because we like the music. We like their comedy, we like whatever they did previously. But the truth of the matter is they were demonic. They did more harm than good to our community, but because we like them, you are a sellout if you speak the truth to power against them. You can get canceled for talking about certain people, what they actually really did do, but they can cancel you for that. I don't believe in cancel culture. You stand on your square ten toes down and you say what you gotta say, do what you gotta do, and you take whatever comes with it.

SPEAKER_06 28:50

That's it. That's it. But you gotta make sure when you take that stance, you gotta make sure you got an emergency fund. Absolutely. Yeah, make sure you got emergency funds.

SPEAKER_05 29:00

When I took my stance in the in the community that fired me, my emergency fund was a tape recorder.

SPEAKER_06 29:05

Right.

SPEAKER_05 29:06

Because I knew it was coming. So when I record your races behind and my lawyer, Fred Bruinton, uh-huh, hit play and play it back for you. Okay, now what you gotta say? Uh-huh. Okay, let's settle. That's the insurance fund.

SPEAKER_06 29:20

Yes. Shout out to my man Fred Bruinton.

SPEAKER_05 29:23

Third eye, brother. You gotta have a third eye when you're dealing with the enemy, man.

SPEAKER_06 29:27

I feel like I'm interviewing myself as a police, as a police commander. I had this chief, this racist white chief I used to work with, and I used to have my record in my pocket. That's right. I would tee it up before he called me for a meeting, and I go, Today's today's date. Absolutely. The next voice you're gonna hear is Chief Such and Such. That's right. Put it right in my pocket and go in there and talk to them. Keep telling y'all, y'all better record. Y'all better record everything. If you feel like you're being slighted or being disrespected or some form of racism, nothing could beat the recorder. Because, like you said, when you press play, they can't run. They can't. You can't run from your words and your dealers. Now you break down how segregation on Long Island wasn't accidental.

SPEAKER_05 30:11

No.

SPEAKER_06 30:11

It was designed. How did growing up in that environment shape your mindset, especially around identity and opportunity and the perception of success?

SPEAKER_05 30:20

Growing up in a predominantly black neighborhood was awesome during the time I was growing up. We had the Black Falcons on Nassau Road, you had the roller skating ring with everybody came to, you had the movie theater, and as we got older in the community of Roosevelt, you could see the starting to decline. The businesses were black-owned. I can leave Washington Rose and go across the street to Mr. Curtis Deli, which was right there across the street. Candy stores, stationery store. Everything was black-owned. Carver Federal Savings Bank. And then as we got older, the businesses started to decline. Other people started moving in. And then with the biggest decline in the community was crack. When crack hit, the whole community went to sugar honey iced tea. It just went to the bottom.

SPEAKER_06 31:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 31:03

And that was an impact that we still suffering from to this day.

SPEAKER_06 31:07

Definitely we still have remnants.

SPEAKER_05 31:08

We still have remnants. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 31:10

You said as a black leader, you were getting beat up by both sides. We talk about, you know, the white people being you up, brothers and sisters, absolutely jealous and nervous. How did you navigate being misunderstood by your own community and scrutinized by others without losing your purpose?

SPEAKER_05 31:28

Scrutinizing my own community, our people respect consistency. When they see that you're consistent and that you're really not picking on their child, that you're actually trying to help their child, because Minister Farrakhan used to always say, you gotta love your people more than they hate you. Because as soon as something comes up, and they will say, That nigga couldn't handle it anyway. So when you understand that and you go into service and leadership, you go in with the mindset that everybody's not gonna like you. Everybody's not gonna understand you. But you're on a mission that you feel is God inspired, you'll never leave you nor forsake you. So when you're in that environment, you're in the lines then, like Daniel, you stand ten toes down and just know that your faith, you will get through it.

SPEAKER_06 32:08

I'm mad, Keith. I'm telling you, I'm talking to me. I would tell, I swear, I tell all leaders that work for me on supervisor, I will always tell them, as soon as you the boss, the first day you walk in, everybody hates your guts.

SPEAKER_05 32:21

Oh, without a doubt.

SPEAKER_06 32:22

I'm telling you, they hate you. You have to understand. But you know, most people want to go in and be loved and liked. No, that's what I'm saying. I wouldn't know it. Like I noticed people, especially the people like me, they all jealous and envious, saying, Yo, brother, sister, like yo, you could be where I'm at. You could do what I did.

SPEAKER_05 32:40

We could do it better together. That's right.

SPEAKER_06 32:42

Don't be mad at me. Oh man, it's so nice and refreshing to see. Like, it didn't just happen to me. It's happening all over.

SPEAKER_05 32:50

No, brother, that's where I wrote the book because there's a lot of us out there that are voiceless because they suffer silently because of the check.

SPEAKER_07 32:58

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_05 32:59

Yeah. Slave for the money.

SPEAKER_06 33:01

Let's get into this book. Your book, Roosevelt to the Hamptons.

SPEAKER_05 33:05

Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_06 33:06

The war on both sides. It's deeply personal and laid when you was writing it, right? What story of truth were you most determined to make sure came through? And you could tell us about the book. It was a quick synopsis of the book.

SPEAKER_05 33:18

Um, the story, uh, it's a cover-to-a- story for my generation. If you read the Malcolm, the autobiography autobiography of Malcolm X, you can really relate to my story of coming up from a single-parent household to experiencing trauma at an early age. Malcolm lost his father to the Klan of the Day on the train tracks. I lost my grandfather to alcoholism. Um, there's a lot of parallels of me growing up in a community and facing the adversities of the violence and just the peer pressure, and and coming from a family of people who didn't get married, and coming from a family of people who indulge in certain things that they shouldn't indulge in, and your mom being like you're more of your sister than your mother, because my grandmother really was the one raising me, because my mom had to work and be mother and father.

SPEAKER_07 34:04

Right.

SPEAKER_05 34:05

And so it details what faith can do and the obstacles that that that you encounter in life. I'm a widower. Um, so surviving that to be blessed with the opportunity to meet a phenomenal woman who is the mother of my two children now, uh, persevering within this profession of education, being denied because of my stature. I was a dean for entirely too long. I'm 6'5, bald-headed, African-American. Well, as my wife would say, I'm a resting bee face. I don't smile a lot. And people look at that as a negative till they get to know you. Right. And that blocks you so that they think that you're stupid and dumb and big, and then you can only be an athlete. And that perception pigeonholed me for a long time.

SPEAKER_07 34:44

Right.

SPEAKER_05 34:45

That not being able to showcase my academic prowess and the skills and talents that I have to motivate and inspire people. So now I'm in that position finally, after 32 years, to be principal in the community which I grew up in. It also details just my journey, my friends' journey, because it's not just about me, it's about the decision making that I made compared to decision makers that my friends made while we were growing up. So I'm in the position I am today, and that they're not because of decisions that they made.

SPEAKER_06 35:13

So, what are the three things you want people to get out of reading your book? Do you have a copy of the book with you?

SPEAKER_05 35:18

Oh, yes, sir. I do have a copy of the book with me. The three things I want people to get out of it is faith, persistence, determination.

SPEAKER_06 35:30

Faith, persistent, determination. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 35:33

You gotta have faith. Because when it looks really bad, if you don't believe in yourself, it's gonna stay bad. Mm-hmm. And if you're not determined to make it better, it's never gonna get better. Right. And you gotta be persistent no matter what the outcome is. You gotta believe and know within yourself that you can turn this around. You gotta have that faith and that higher power, whatever you believe in, Allah, Buddha, whatever you want to call it. You gotta have a faith in yourself more than anything else.

SPEAKER_06 36:00

How can they find the book?

SPEAKER_05 36:02

The book is available on Amazon. It's also available on Barnes and Nobles, but you can log on to Roosevelt,to Hamptons.com, or you can log on to Keithdsaunders.com.

SPEAKER_06 36:15

Principal Saunders, when it's all said and done, what legacy do you want Keith Saunders to leave behind in education, community, and in your family?

SPEAKER_05 36:26

Within education, being from Roosevelt, I want a building. I'm just gonna put it out there in the universe. That when I die, I want to leave an impact that is so powerful that it's oh, this Saunders guy, we want to name a building after him in the community. Family-wise, I just want to be a phenomenal father because I never had one. I make my mistakes because I'm kind of learning on the fly.

SPEAKER_07 36:46

Right.

SPEAKER_05 36:46

But my legacy, I want to be a phenomenal husband and a phenomenal father. My wife always says that when you die, you don't want all the school and community, all the work you did, everybody be at your funeral, talking about how great you were, and your wife and kids are sitting on the front row, like, who's that guy? We ain't see that side of him. We don't know that dude. Right. So I want to be be the one man to with my, I want my son to inspire to be better than me.

SPEAKER_07 37:13

Right.

SPEAKER_05 37:13

I want my daughter to really put herself in a situation to find a husband that has my integrity and character and qualities. Nice. And community. Community-wise, community's tough. Community's tough. I'm like, I'll throw that one up in the air. They're gonna love you and hate you all in the same breath.

SPEAKER_06 37:32

Before we wrap, is there anything you'd like to share we haven't covered?

SPEAKER_05 37:37

Um, just go out and buy the book. Amazon, Barnes and Nobles, Roosevelt to the Hamptons, the War on Both Sides. It's a it's a great read. It's a short read, but it's very impactful. It's a chronology of hip-hop culture intertwined throughout the book because hip-hop was the story of our lives at one point.

SPEAKER_06 37:56

Yes, it was. We same age, we we grew up on it. And you isn't it amazing how the pendulum swung from rappers wanting to be drug dealers to now every drug dealer wish they could be a rapper? We've seen that, we lived that. That's right. You know, I grew up with run DMC, L O Q J. Right and um I mean, they're not really good examples because they was the ones, they was really getting money. But other rappers wasn't getting money. And now every drug dealer wants to be a rapper. It's amazing. Because of clicks and likes. Mr. Saunders, Principal Saunders, Keith, my friend, I want to say thank you not only for sitting down with us today, but for the years you poured into our communities. Listening to you, it's clear this work goes way beyond education. You're actually changing lives. You're helping shape futures, families, and really the next generation. And that's something that deserves to be recognized. This is what Corby's Corner is all about. Lifting people who are out here doing the work for the right reasons, just not talking about it. And on a personal level, I want to tell you, I'm very impressed with you, brother. I'm gonna support you. I gotta come to that school. You gotta, you gotta fit me in. I gotta come. You're saying all of these great things going on there. I definitely want to come to the school and meet some of these phenomenal young scholars that's there. Because I know that you tend toes down and you got them back doing what they're supposed to do. I really appreciate it. Thank you again for pulling up to Corey's Corner. We got more powerful conversations on the way.

SPEAKER_05 39:31

Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_06 39:33

Thank you for that. For our listeners, if you found value in today's episode, please like, follow, subscribe, and support. This has been another episode of Corey's Corner. Until the next time, keep pushing, keep grinding, and always remember it's not about where you start, it's always about where you finish. I'm Corey Pegiz, and I always keep it right, not real. Peace.

SPEAKER_00 39:53

Special thanks to our executive producer, our engineers, and much respect to corrupt mob for making Corey's Corner possible. What's the gap? Let it happen.

SPEAKER_03 40:02

Yeah. I feel like that we're gonna celebrate the death instead of condemning it.