Paradigm Shift

Paradigm Shift: Racism in America

• Rob • Season 1 • Episode 10

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Rob & Jesse Discuss the Deep Issues Within The U.S & Canada. How Can We ALL Live Better lives & Treat Each Other Better, 


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SPEAKER_01

All right, guys, welcome back to another episode of the Paradigm Shift. I am Big Rob alongside my partner crime, Jesse. What's going on, buddy?

SPEAKER_03

Yep, DJ Jazzy Jesse back for another amazing episode of the Paradigm Shift. Let's get it going.

SPEAKER_01

Let's go. Brick him, brick em brickin', yeah. Oh boy. Uh okay, so today we're gonna talk about racism in America and in Canada, right? In the West. Let's just call it the West. The West. Okay. Even though we're only two countries of all the countries in the West. The West. Right.

SPEAKER_03

Hey, let's just not pretend that the Earth is a round ball and call it the West.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, exactly. Looking at it on a piece of paper, okay?

SPEAKER_03

Right. All depends on how you look at this thing. Don't don't follow the uh Artemis people, right?

SPEAKER_01

There's there's another episode right there. Is the earth flat or round? Oh, yeah. Um okay, so uh racism in the West in America and Canada. What a hot button issue. We're probably gonna offend some people. So hopefully you got a thick skin here, okay? Because we we we don't try to sugarcoat things, we don't pull punches, we just say it like it is, right? At the end of the day, we live in a world right now, in my opinion, where racism is being used as a crutch in almost every aspect of our society. Now, that's not to say that racism does not exist, it most certainly does. There are there are evil people out there, but there's always going to be evil people out there in every aspect of life, right? Uh, if there wasn't evil, you wouldn't be able to recognize the good. So let's let's be honest, right? Um, so up here in Canada, I mean, I don't know how bad it is down in the States. I mean, I watch some of the news and stuff like that from down there, but uh so obviously I have a bit of an idea. But here in Canada, my wife brought up an interesting an interesting point today when we were kind of having a little bit of a uh off the cuff discussion. She has a friend, one of her best friends, who's actually from Kentucky, right? Okay, and her friend now lives in Canada for the last like I don't know, 15 years or so, right? And she said that um Aboriginal people or native people in Canada are viewed and treated as black people are in the states. That was that was the point of view from a person who was raised in Kentucky, moved to Canada about 15 years ago, right? There's a lot to unpack there.

SPEAKER_03

I was gonna say that's a loaded statement.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, there's a lot in there, right? Because okay, um, because it's not the same, like black people go through a lot of struggles in the US, from what I see, but it's very different for them in Canada, right? But then you've got the Aboriginal people, and then not all of them are are the same, uh, so I don't want to broadly you know stroke every single person of any single race with the same, but but we're talking, you know, majorities here, and we're talking identifiable problems here that are facts. And if you don't like facts, then you know who cares about your feelings. So so anyway, um okay, where are we going with this one? Where we're going with this is that so people say there's a saying they say racism is taught. That's what they say, right? And the the target of that stereotype or that cliche is that your parents teach it to you. But I disagree with that, right? I do believe racism is taught, but I don't believe it's because of your parents largely, right? Or how you were raised. Now, you can have a black person who hates white people, right? And the odds are, the odds are most, for example, most most I'm using black people, hating white people as an example, but you could flip it any way that you want, right? For any race. Most of the interactions that that black person has had with white people throughout the course of their life has probably been negative. So naturally, they develop a dislike for white people, right? I believe that's how racism is taught. I believe it is largely based on the interactions people have with a certain race. Same thing with white people. If if every interaction you've ever had with a black person has been negative, well, of course you're gonna have a negative view of black people, right? That's where I believe the basis of that uh should be, right? You teach people how to treat you at the end of the day. I'm a firm believer in that, right? What are your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_03

Okay, so I agree there's a lot to unpack there. Um I I think I would I'm I'm in the camp of I believe no one is born racist.

SPEAKER_02

Okay.

SPEAKER_03

And I've seen that in my own life with um my own son, and I remember some of his early birthday parties, especially. I mean, we had all kinds of kids from all different races, whatever, and they're all just friends, it is what it is, right? So I don't think that most I don't think well, I don't I don't think anyone is born truly racist. Now, I would say that I think your environment uh in particular creates it, right? And I think it is something that is taught and it's promoted uh from every witch side, right? I mean, you know, like where I live in Florida, there's a lot of kind of that old, let's say, systemic type of racism that has been around since slavery, right? And even in the US in general, like kind of going back in time, you know, the US is a prosperous country because it always had cheap labor. That's really what it comes down to, is cheap labor, right? And so, you know, we there was a civil war that was fought here over cheap labor, essentially, and the right to own people, which is just kind of a crazy uh idea. But uh, you know, the interesting thing is post-Civil War, uh, yeah, there's no more slavery. However, again, the reason America has been so prosperous is because of immigrants and largely illegal immigrants, because you don't have to pay them shit. They show up, they work for significantly less, they pick all the damn vegetables, everybody else says the hell with that. You know, they they're kind of fill they're filling a need. There's definitely a need for them, but obviously, you know, in our last talk, we talked about the need to do this legally, and that's true. But regardless of all of that, you have this need for cheap labor, right? And I think that slavery was one of those things, especially in the US, that I don't know if this country's ever gotten over it, to be honest. And what's what what I find really kind of ironic in the in the whole civil war and slavery and the systemic racism is usually the people who are the most racist are from the north, which is kind of weird, right? Like, like in the in the Civil War, it was you know the North versus the South, and the South was the racist side because really it came down to they needed somebody on the plantations and they didn't want to pay for it, right? Or let's let's say they they would pay for it in the sense of we I bought the slaves, so they're just mine or whatever, right?

SPEAKER_01

One point of work.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, but but the weird thing is like usually it's it's more so from the north, where you hear like like all this kind of ingrained racism. Like in a personal story here, I remember being in high school, and my grandmother, who lived her entire life in North Dakota, like sent some sort of letter to my mom, and she was upset that um my mom's brother, so her son, right, was dating his former high school sweetheart and had left his wife and existing family to go back to her, right? And apparently this high school sweetheart had had dated and married a black guy, and they had been married for like 20 years. And so my grandmother now, who's mad about him breaking up his his long-term relationship and hers breaking up and them reconnecting, she it's like this racist filled worst letter you've ever read in your life, where you read it and you go, Jesus Christ, grandma, like what the fuck is this? You know, like God, you're racist. Like this is this is just like filthy, you know? And and in my own experience. Yeah, like like I I it seems to come from the north, more so than the south, at least on the white side of things. Now, on the black side of things, I have seen racism from the black community to the white community in the south for sure.

SPEAKER_01

I thought that was impossible.

SPEAKER_03

It's definitely possible. Okay. I've got multiple examples of that too, I can get into, but um, you know, it's uh it's a very complex topic, but you know, like the interesting thing with it is that I think if you can get beyond it, then you really can prosper, right? And what I'm getting at in that statement is that um one of my uh good friends, former coworkers, he's white and his wife's black. They've been married like 25 years, right? They have two kids. They're I would say that they're more ingrained in the black community than the white community. And the interesting dynamic about it is the black community is much more kind of open and accepting and not like stuffy and rigid as like the white community. And what's what's really interesting with that group is they all make a lot of money and they're all kind of like very connected in the sense that they all know each other. Like it's it's really weird. Like, like I don't even know my white neighbors in the neighborhood, but they know all their all like everybody who's black in the whole city of Jacksonville where I live, they all know each other.

SPEAKER_01

Well, uh let's let's dive into the slavery aspect of things. It's interesting because I find that a lot of people have selective memories when it comes to history, right? If we're gonna talk history, then we should talk all of all of history when it involves a certain subject, not just cherry pick things, right? Because there are so many Americans that believe that slavery was invented in the United States, right? It's just that they just a bunch of Europeans just sailed over to Africa and you know threw some ropes around some some chains on some on some uh black guys and sailed them over here, and that's where slavery begun began, right? No, and it's really just not at the end of the day. I mean, who do you think sold those slaves, first of all, to the Europeans coming coming over there, right? I mean, yeah, I mean we we see in Egypt we saw slavery. I mean, who built the pyramids? Slaves. Slaves.

SPEAKER_03

Even modern day, look at Dubai. All of the workers that have built all the skyscrapers in Dubai, they're all Pakistani, they're from Bangladesh. Uh, they're basically slave labor. They don't pay them jack shit. They have the worst working conditions on the planet, they could die left and right, no one gives a fuck, you know, and it kind of is what it is. So it still happens.

SPEAKER_01

The history of the United States and Canada has been it's I mean, they're they're bloody, let's be honest. They are what they are at the end of the day, and that's not a that's not a you know a scape, uh, a scapegoat or anything like that, like a glaze over. But what there's nothing we can do about stuff that happened, like things that were perpetrated by people who are not alive today against other people who are not alive today, right? We go back to movies, like even movies like The Gangs of New York, right? Shows you that I mean it's not a documentary or anything like that, but it is it is a historical accuracy that uh white Irish people were treated like scum when they came here as slaves and all that stuff as well. Asians were treated, Chinese were treated the same way when they came to this to the United States as well. So it's not unique to one race. You go back, you go to Scotland, right? Watch a movie like Braveheart, right? How were the how were the Scottish viewed in their own country, right? They were they were nothing, they were scum, they were, you know, by the English, right? And to this day, the Scottish still really don't run their own country, right? It's still kind of ruled by England when you when you when you look at it that way, right? So and the point is that I guess you know, every race, every there's there's no innocent people on this planet, no innocent races, no innocent countries, no innocent uh cultures, nowhere, none. They don't exist, right? Everyone has victimized someone else in the history of humanity, let's put it that way, right? So when we see this running around by people who were who've never been victimized themselves as an individual, you know, in terms of slavery and all this kind of stuff, running around using it as a crutch to to work their way through life, it's just I know plenty. I got I and I know black friends, right? I know that whole thing, but the fact is I do, and you know what? They're very successful in their lives because they work hard and they they're you know, they raise their families, and you know, they're productive members of society, they didn't go, well, someone I was related to, you know, uh generations ago suffered something, so I can't get a job, I can't raise my family properly because of that, right? Is there systemic racism in this country? Yeah, but I mean, I think it's across the board against a lot of races. And in fact, one might argue that we've we've come to a place in society now where it's become socially acceptable to be racist against white people. You think so? Well, I mean, you people can't even admit the fact that you can be racist against white people, even saying you can be racist against a white person is like an oxymoron to some people. Like that doesn't make any sense. Like, how how? I you know, I don't understand.

SPEAKER_03

Well, you know, uh the white uh Caucasian group is is the you know, the group that we talked about in one of our other episodes that you know that that's the group that gets no benefits anywhere, you know, and I I maybe that's what you're kind of touching on a little bit is no being being white and kind of like a middle-aged male, like you're used to sort of being shit on across the board and told that you did something you didn't do, right?

SPEAKER_01

No, well, I mean, there's that aspect of it, but it it's not so much that I mean if you were to go over to TikTok right now, the amount of uh just toxic stuff that's that's said about white people, uh, like on these platforms, and it's just it's just okay to say them, right? It's just absurd. Like I see them all the time. Um in my in my YouTube feeds, I see people breaking down these uh these woke TikToks and stuff like that. And it's just some of the stuff, and you're just like like, dude, like people saying, you know, if you're white, then you should give all your money to a black person, and could or if you're white, you have no right. I don't want to see you be happy, you have no right to be happy in your life. You need to sit down and shut up, and all this. And it's just like like like really like what if what if a white person said that about a black person or something? You it would be on CNN the next day, right? I mean, look at the guy that I can't remember his name who stabbed the the white Ukrainian girl on the bus. Yeah, and he even made a racist comment as he was leaving after he stabbed her, right? And I believe he said something like, I told you I was gonna get that white girl or something like that. He said to another black person on the bus, and then got off the bus and left. And now they're saying, I don't know if you've been following that story, but now they're saying that he's not he's not uh mentally capable of standing trial or something like that. He can't defend himself. There, that's what they're going with. This man has been in and out of prison his whole life for violent crimes, and they just keep saying, Well, we can't charge him, so let's put him back out on the street so he can stab someone else's daughter while she's sitting on a bus. Yeah, great. But if that's a white dude, imagine if that was a white dude stabbing a young black girl. Could you imagine? I mean, it would be trouble ball somehow, right?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, it would it would definitely be ugly, you know. I think um there's a lot of there's a lot of issues there. Um you know that's almost like uh like a the world owes me, you know, like the like you owe me, and you say, I don't know you, like what why why would I possibly owe you? Well, you're you're this race and I'm that race, so you owe me. I don't owe you shit. You're not entitled to shit, and you never were. And and you know, like that's that's kind of like at the root of I think some of that issue is you know, there's I think racism gets perpetuated because of this you owe me idea, you know.

SPEAKER_01

And I want to be clear about something for the listeners that's not unique to one race, even there are white people out there with that attitude. Absolutely, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_03

You know, entitlement, yeah, entitlement, right? But I mean, you know, you know, like this idea of like, you know, you're you're taking a white job, or what does that even mean, right? Like, I don't even know what that means. You know, like what the hell is a white job? I don't know what's a black job. I don't know, I couldn't tell you. I have no idea what the definition is of what you're getting at.

SPEAKER_01

How about the best person qualified for a job?

SPEAKER_03

You know, and now there you go. There's the real answer, right? And it you know, this is the thing I always think of when I think of racism is like, I don't I don't care about any of this stuff. Like, this is just like a it's like a bullshit context that you're trying to group put people in groups and divide them, right? But really, like it's it's it's just a construct that really doesn't serve any good uh purpose. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01

You ever see the interview with Morgan Freeman where he mentions that? No. Yeah, he so he there's an interview with him, and I'll see if I can find it and play it. But he says the person asks him about how uh to fight racism in America today. And I I absolutely love his answer. Hang on a sec, I'll see if I can find it.

SPEAKER_03

I mean, if there's anybody who's not racist, it's Morgan Freeman, right? I mean, he was best friends with Andy Dufresne at Shawshank.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, here it is, here it is. Listen to this. I'm gonna I'm gonna play this here. Hopefully the listeners can hear it. This is the best answer I have ever heard to fighting racism.

SPEAKER_00

Black History Month, you find ridiculous. Why? You're gonna relegate my history to our month? Oh, come on. What do you do with yours? What which month is White History Month? Well, well, come on, tell me. Well, the I'm Jewish. Okay. Which month is Jewish history month? Uh there isn't one. Oh, why not? Yeah. Do you want one? No, no, no, no, I don't either. I don't want a black history month. Black history is American history. How are we gonna get rid of racism and stop talking about it?

SPEAKER_02

There you go.

SPEAKER_00

Calling you a white man. Yeah. And gonna ask you to stop calling me a black man. I know you as Mike Wallace, you know me as Morgan Freeman.

SPEAKER_01

The best answer I have ever heard. That's awesome. Stop making it front page news on a daily basis. Stop making it the thing that matters, and it'll go away. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I mean, he's basically saying every time that you play the race card, you're perpetuating this construct of bullshit. You know, I agree with him a hundred percent.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, like absolute gold. And I I agree with him too. It's you know, it's if we stopped putting so much emphasis on it, it would start to fade away, right? I mean, there are people out there when you really think about it, people can be. Stubborn, they can be um resistant to things, defiant, I guess is the word that I'm using. I want to use people can be defiant when their egos are involved, right? So if someone, you know, if someone is perpetuating racism or they, you know, and they're being told uh on a daily basis that they're wrong or that they shouldn't feel that way, or whatever the case might be, they can be defiant just strictly out of pride and ego alone. People don't want to be wrong, people don't, you know what, yeah, I was, you know what, I was wrong, right? That is hard for people to say. So if we stop putting it out there in everybody's faces on a regular basis and making it the topic of every conversation, I do believe it would fade into nothingness, right? It's like it's like trolls on the internet, for example, right? People troll you, do you respond to them? No, because that just fuel fuels what they are what they're perpetuating, right? But if you ignore them, you suffocate them.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I think um I think if you get down to the base of it, the root of it, right? Like everybody should be given an equal uh chance to succeed, uh, period. Now I could see where you could say, well, uh it's not equal for everyone, or there's systemic issues preventing it from being equal, right? Like, for example, if you said, hey, you know, here's a kid that grows up in the hood, and the closest school in the district is rated a one out of 10. Uh so that's a shit school with shit odds of succeeding, right? I can kind of get that argument, right? Same same thing with like like, you know, you you brought up the the Native um people in Canada, right? Same thing here with the Native Americans that are in the US, right? Like we just sort of like in the past pushed them onto some reservation somewhere. Are they getting the same opportunity on that reservation? Because the their laws are completely different, the way it's run is completely different. Are they getting the same like educational chance to succeed?

SPEAKER_01

Well, yeah, let's dive into that a little bit because so here in Canada it's similar, they're on reservations for the most part, but they choose whether they want to live on a reservation or in the cities, right? No one makes them live on reservations, obviously, right? A lot of them prefer it, right? But so here's the thing, and this is part of the discussion that that I was having earlier today, is um there's so they have a police force for reserves that's called uh the the acronym is NAPS, right? So native police. So it's uh you know, police that obviously they have a police station, like a trailer on reserves where they enforce the laws and stuff like that, right? Um, however, I have a I had a friend who because I considered applying for naps when I was younger, right? Uh because it was a great way to get into uh the Ontario provincial police was to take your first step going into naps because you have to go out onto reserves. If you have a family, it's hard to be out in the middle of nowhere, kind of thing, right? And blah blah blah blah blah. So yet it's a shit position because it's so far remote remotely. And uh so anyway, he told me, he said, You don't want this job, man. He's like, Listen, people break the laws on reserves like on a daily basis, it's just it's it's wild. He said, like, if there's a house party and there's a fight, and two guys are in a fight, you you you come in there, you you take one of them away, you put them in a cell, you basically just release them the next day. You don't file paperwork, you don't file charges because if you file charges, they burn your police station down, right? And you are you are in some of those reserves, you are hours away on Skidoo from backup or anything like that, right? So you're basically there to make sure they don't kill each other. Take one, put them in a cell so the other guy can't get them, and then they so when they sober up, you'll let them out. If you do anything beyond that, they will murder you, they will burn down your your police shack and all that stuff, right? So, again, it's so how you behave. So the problem is that their leaders are not policing their themselves, their leaders take all the money from the government because so the government gives them money. Their leaders keep that money, they don't put it into their communities in the reserves, so the reserves go in the crapper, and then they blame white people for it when really their leaders are stealing all the money. Their leaders live in big mansions on the reserve while everyone else lives in squalor, right? There was I remember going to I used to deliver vehicles for a living, and I remember going to a reserve to deliver a vehicle, and there was a house with a giant, it looked like someone had fired no bullshit, a cannonball through the front living room. There was a big hole in the side of the fucking house into the living room the size of like a cannonball, right? And I was like, you know, and then I was watching and they're they're blaming white people for the housing conditions on reserves. I was like, who fucking told you to shoot a cannon through your living room? Like, like, why is that somebody else's fault? Like, so you have that's what I mean. So that kind of behavior, you know, and then a lack of accountability, a responsibility, community leadership, uh, lack of uh fathers. And it now, this is not unique to black people or native people, this is white people, this is everybody. A lack of a father in any household is a problem, and I think that's where a lot of that comes from. There's no leadership, there's no guidance, there's no there's nowhere that the buck stops, right? And I think that that is the key problem. Like you were talking about the schools, the bad schools. Well, why are the schools bad? Because of the people who go to those schools, right? The behavior of the people who go to those schools, and why is their behavior the way that it is? Probably because of lack of family structure and leadership. And again, it's not unique to black people. I I know that that's a big talking point, is that the U.S. government incentivizes uh you know black mothers to be single financially, it it benefits them more, right? Um, I see you know people like Charlie Kirk used to talk about that all the time, right? Um, but I do believe, and there's no denying it, it's not unique to race. There is a fundamental need for a father and a mother and a family structure in a household. You need to have somewhere that the buck stops. You need to have the father who is in for making these rules, enforcing these rules, and you have to have and and teaching their their children, like their sons, how to be proper men, right? Yeah. And when they don't have that, they turn to gangs, they turn to their peers, they turn to, you know, all of this stupidity, uh, assaulting each other, shooting each other, you know. Um and I I just I think that that is where the real problem lies for all races.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I think I think you're kind of tapping into this these like cultural culturally accepted bullshit is is what I would say that kind of falls into a bucket of, right? And it's like, you know, I I I've thought about that before in the past of like I mean, raising raising my own kid, you know, it's like, okay, if I wasn't here, he'd only get his mom's side. If she wasn't here, he'd only get my side. Like, like there are two equal sides to this that if one of those parents isn't there, like you know, your kid's really kind of like missing a lot. And then when you think about, you know, like culturally, it's like more of a systemic thing that it's like culturally cool to knock up this chick and knock up that chick and knock up another chick, and then it's culturally cool to you know, not to pay shit in terms of any kind of child support, and let's make a rap about it. And it's like, uh, that's that's that's bullshit, you know, like that's not the way to be. And I think you have seen, I mean, there are a lot of people, you know, in the different communities that do kind of try to step up in a way to to stop that, but it's so pervasive, you know. I can think of like like in the US, like Chicago is really bad for like gang violence, right? And there's there's like a culture of that shit that just kind of keeps on going and going and going, and it's like this cycle of crap, you know.

SPEAKER_01

Well, the rabbit hole goes so deep because I think an another aspect of that is how sex has become sexualizing everything has become so normal that we're numb to it. And I think that that plays another factor. It's cool to just go sleep around, it's cool to just break up with somebody the first time you have an argument, right? It's cool to do these things instead of uh sticking with your commitments and your obligations and stuff like that, because society has let you off the hook, right? Like you, like you said, culture, your culture has let you off the hook. No one is looking. I'll give you a perfect example, and this is not something that I'm proud of in any way, shape, or form. So my father left, right, when I was like two. I met him when I turned like 21, 22 years old. My brother, uh, my half-brother, um, his father did the exact same thing. He left when he was when he was born, right? So you would think that that would ingrain something in you that you would understand the importance, right? My brother broke up with his girlfriend that he was so he was with this girl, they have two girls. He broke up with her for like a week, he went and slept with this other girl, and then he got back together with his girlfriend and whatever, right? Well, it turns out the girl he slept with, she got pregnant with his with a son, with his son. Okay, I didn't know about any of this. One day I get a message on Facebook from this woman, and she introduced herself to me and she just said, Hey, um, you know, I'm not trying to cause problems. I just want my son to know his father's side of the family and stuff, right? I'm like, okay, yeah. So I go and I uh we met. I met well, what she wanted was she wanted me to bring her and her son over to our mother, my mother's house, so that he could meet my mother and uh and stepfather. So I messaged my brother ahead of time and I asked him if this was okay. And he his exact words were, I don't give shit, do whatever you want. Like, that's fine. I whatever, right? He's now he has completely abandoned this son at this point that I didn't even know existed. He's he's back with this as a girlfriend, blah blah blah blah. So he's abandoned his son. And when you see his son, uh when I as soon as I saw his son, there is no mistaking that this is his son, right? Some people just have characteristics, and you're like, Yep, you're identical to what your father looked like when he when we were growing up, right? So, anyway, so I take her to my mother's house, introduce them to my mother, and stuff like that. And I started to play an active role in uh my nephew's life, right? My brother had stepped away, chosen to step away. So Christmas time comes around, all this stuff, birthdays. My nephew loves me to pieces, right? And he doesn't even know who his father is.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

To this day, he doesn't know who he is, right? My brother just won't, he just won't. And so I financially stepped in. I bought a crib for for her, uh, you know, and all this stuff so that she would have stuff to raise him. He's my he's my blood. And my perspective was, well, if my brother's not gonna step in and raise, he should know better. And if he's not going to, I will do it for him, right? Not for him, my brother, but for my nephew.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

This kid's not growing up like we did. I'll be there, right? And that destroyed my relationship with my brother. Because you to you decided to take care of him and step up, yeah, because I was take because I took care of his son because he wouldn't. And then he started he started getting upset and using as a crutch that he thought I was sleeping with my nephew's mother. I was married, right? Yeah, and I'm like, so I'm thinking, like, but here's the thing: even if I was single, and even if I was sleeping with her, you're with your daughter's mother. Why do you care about this girl you slept with on a weekend, right? Regardless, but it wasn't true. Anyway, I wasn't we laughed at the thought. We had actually the two of us, me and her, had actually never been in the same room alone together, ever. Right? We've always only met in public, yeah, and with other people, so um, so it was laughable. That was laughable, but he used that as a crutch or as an excuse to not go raise his son, right? And so I had to step up and do it. And the people around him are not holding him accountable to it, and that's a problem, right? If my friend came to me, if I knew that one of my best friends had a son, like Jesse, if you were like, Yeah, man, I got this, you know, I got this son, but I'm I'm not gonna go see him, I'm not gonna raise, I'm not gonna take care of him and stuff like that. I mean, I'm the first one that's gonna call bullshit on that and say, get your shit together, yeah, go fucking raise your son.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01

That's what a friend would do. But when you're when you surround yourself with people, like you alluded to earlier, your culture, your cert, your social circle, they enable you and give you a free pass on that and don't hold you accountable to your responsibilities. What we get is what's happening in our society today.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I think you know, kids don't pick their parents, right? So when you say I I I'm trying to pretend that didn't happen, and I'm mad at you for making it for reminding me that it did, I I would just say your brother's a fucking piece of shit and fuck that guy. That that's what I think personally. Um because again, that that kid didn't pick this situation. You created it when you had one one one night of fucking around, and sure enough, you got her pregnant and whatever. But the reality is, is I mean, like you said, like that's your son. And you know, like one of the greatest, I I would say the one of the single greatest joys of life is is raising your kids and having fun with them because there's so many random, unique things that just kind of happen that it's a lot of fun. And I, you know, I would be the first to admit that a lot of times I kind of live vicariously through my own, you know, and kind of try and steer them in certain ways. I'm like, hey, you don't want to go down that path, it sucks. Go this way, and then he does, and I'm like, yes, you know, and I'm like, oh, this is sweet, you know, kind of like the the fan club over here on the side. And so, you know, I mean, on on the kid's side, how do you think that kid feels knowing that his dad doesn't want to be around him and it thinks you, you know, like that kid is gonna have that his whole life, feeling like he's not good enough and his his dad would rather be doing something else. So his dad needs to get his fucking head out of his ass and go raise his son and stop being a piece of shit.

SPEAKER_01

And the last thing he needs to do is get mad at you for actually being responsible, you know, for helping the woman raise his son financially, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I I I and you know, kind of going back to the whole like racism part of things is you know, you do see that in certain cultures, you know, where you see this like like, yeah, it's cooler to sleep around and have multiple kids and not pay for any of them. No, it's not. You're a piece of shit. That's what you are. You're a piece of shit. Society needs to label you a fucking piece of shit. You should be fucking castrated so you can stop perpetuating this, you know.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it's it's always it's funny how it seems like the the the losers in society are the ones who end up having 50 kids, and then you have like a really, really, you know, solid couple, like this man and this woman who are really good people, and they just they can't have a kid by biologically for whatever reason. And you're just like, you're like, really? That's the way that it works, right? You've got this guy running around sleeping with 20 women, knocking them all up, and just abandoning his kids. You got this this solid married couple, you know, strong foundation, strong beliefs, uh, and everything, and they just can't can't have a kid. It's a it's a shame.

SPEAKER_03

It is, it really is. You know, I I can remember years ago when um I think it was before my son was in elementary school, right? And the neighborhood we lived in was kind of like let's say like three, four miles from like the hood of like our particular area, right? And so our neighborhood was a nicer neighborhood, but right next door was kind of started to go downhill pretty quickly. And I can remember there was one day, like this stood out to me. There's one day I'm driving through there, and I always drove through there, and I and people were always like, Oh, you drive through there? And I'd go, ah, that ghetto is soft, I don't give a fuck. I just drive right through windows. And so anyway, so I remember driving through there, right? And it's it's like a Tuesday at, you know, like I don't know, 11 30 or something.

SPEAKER_01

AM or PM?

SPEAKER_03

AM. And there's there's like a like a young black kid that he looks like he's like three years old, wandering down a main road on the sidewalk by himself, like three to four years old. No parent anywhere. And and I remember thinking like, okay, that kid literally has no parents. There's nobody looking out for him. Maybe there's a grandparent somewhere, but but you know, the mom, the dad, they're they're both checked out. They're both space cadets, and and the kids just sort of having a free-for-all, right? And I remember like the the one of the closed schools that kind of had that district to us, it had a sign right out front that said, no guns or drugs. And and I it hit me because, you know, raising my own kid. Well, you know, like like raising my own kid. I mean, we're like reading to him every night, you know. I'm telling you, I love you, you know, we're we're we're setting him up for success every step of the way. And then here's a whole area of town that does the opposite. They're not setting anybody up for success in case in point. Here's this young child. I mean, that this is fucking child abuse that this kid's on the street and no one's there. I mean, anybody could have picked him up, took him to the woods, murdered him, and no one would have known any different. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01

It's funny you say that because uh, as you know, like I said before, I used to deliver vehicles nationwide for uh uh Dodge, right? And uh so I would go to different reserves. A lot of times it was reserves and stuff because they didn't come into the city, they would just get the vehicles delivered to the reserves, right? And there's one time that just kind of popped up in my memory. I was I was out east in uh the Nova Scotia area and in the middle of nowhere going to this reserve, like four or five hours from from town, right? I still had like another hour or two to go before I got to the reserve, and there was this vehicle pulled over on the side of the road. The hazards on the middle of nowhere, and it was summertime. So I pulled over to help him, right? Again, you're in the middle of nowhere, man. Like a lifeline's a lifeline, right? So I'm like, what's this? This native guy, and you know, he's like, Hey, he's with these two young kids, probably same age, three, four, maybe five, right? And uh he's like, Yeah, I got a flat, whatever, and he wants to go hunting or something like that. You know what? I don't know this guy, never met him before, has no idea who I am or anything. I'm just there to help him. You know what he says? Uh, where are you going? So I told him the reserve I was going to, that's where he's from, right? He asks me to take his two children back to the reserve and drop them off at the house while he stays up there. Yeah, some some just some white dude, I could be Norman Bates, right? Or whatever. Uh he's he just I said, Yeah, I took his kids and I drove them back to the reserve and I dropped them off at their house. But I was just in awe that this man was perfectly fine giving his three, four, five-year-old children to some man he's never met, doesn't know in the middle of the bush, and says, Here, just take them home for me. That'd be cool, bro. What there's no chance I would ever do that with my son.

SPEAKER_03

That's weird. Yeah, that's that must be a cultural thing or something. Maybe, maybe in that area they do that? I don't know. That that's bizarre to me.

SPEAKER_01

I could see if it was another another native guy from the reserve or something like that. But I'm just some white dude that I'm just I don't belong there to begin with. You know, I'm in the middle of nowhere. And he's here, take my kids, bro. Like what just happened? I've seen some shit, man. I've seen some shit, I'll tell you. And so I did. I did dropped these kids off at home, and you know, they were fine and happy to be home or whatever. I'm like, what are you even doing out here in the middle of nowhere with with these kids? Like, I don't know, but it's wild. It's wild. And for me, like you said, for me, that's child abuse. That person should not have children. Right, right. Like, in what way were you protecting them? You have no idea who I am. No idea. There's zero chance that I, in fact, I would be defensive if I was in the middle of nowhere with my with my two children that young, and some guy pulled up a like I would be defensive, not here. Take my responsibilities and go, you know.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, I I can think of it like where I live. I mean, there's there's like stories like that, where like, yeah, this guy befriended the mom at Walmart, and then they went and had burgers, and then the next thing she knew he was gone with her daughter, and then her daughter's dead and raped and murdered, and you're like, what the hell? You know, and that that happens like you know all the time, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it's you know, it's the world we live in, it's crazy, it's absolutely crazy, but uh, I don't know. I think that at the end of the day, I I agree with Morgan Freeman. If we if we stopped emphasizing race in everything, like I don't know, even even in positive ways, even in put not to I'm not talking just in negative ways, we emphasize race in everything, and that's a problem, right? For example, first uh first Chinese woman to swim this fast or run this this this quickly or whatever, whatever, right? What does her race matter? Like why can't we say first woman from Hong Kong to run this distance or something? Why do we have to emphasize her race even in a positive sense? It doesn't necessarily but we always underline race, positive or negative, it is a constant reminder of the things that are different between us instead of reminding ourselves of all of the things that are similar between us because we have far more in common than we have melatonin, that's the only difference at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_03

Did you ever watch um Anthony Bourdain when when he used to travel all over the world? Do you ever watch him?

SPEAKER_01

No, I don't think so.

SPEAKER_03

Do you know what I'm talking about? No, okay. So so Anthony Bourdain was a uh chef in New York, and he wrote a book called Kitchen Confidential. Excellent book, by the way. If you ever get the chance, highly recommend reading it. It's hilarious. Great book. And it basically talks all about working in the kitchen and sort of how it's this ragtag group of misfits and just the craziness and debauchery and and all the things that you know you're managing this shit show every day, and all these people and their personalities and the different races and all these things. And so he wrote this book, and uh I take that back. Prior to writing the book, he wrote like a manuscript, and he it turned into an article that I think went into the New Yorker, and from that he kind of got discovered. And then the book came out, and they really liked him. And so for a long time, he had a show on the Travel Channel where he would travel all around the world and um he would uh he would have uh meals and everywhere he went. And it was just like him walking around the city and kind of getting ingrained in the culture everywhere he went, right? And eventually he left the travel channel and then he went to, I think he was on CNN for a little while, and the show was called Parts Unknown, but it was basically the same show. Um, and so what was really neat about that was that wherever he went, like, like we're all just people. We're all just kind of like living, you know what I mean? And it it was interesting how when they would sit down and eat together, like all the all the shit, all the all the divisive stuff just sort of goes out the window. And you kind of realize that's like, yeah, we're all just people and we're all just here, and hey, let's have some food and holy shit, this thing's good. And everyone's like, yeah, you know. And so like he'd he'd just be participating everywhere. And you know, like some of the places he went were just like nuts. Like, I remember he did an episode where he went to Iran, and they loved him there, like he fit right in, you know, and like like he goes to just like crazy countries and like places like the middle of nowhere and like the Amazon and you know, and as well as all the regular big cities all across the world, and um, and it was just such such a good show. Um just kind of detailing the the fact that I would say overall that the the whole construct of racism is just garbage. And really, you know, we have so many similarities, and you realize that we have so many things in common, especially when we're just sitting down and talking about day-to-day things, you know, whether it's food or you know, the struggles they're going through or what's going well or what isn't, you know. I mean, um, yeah, it was it was awesome. I loved it.

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. We have so much in common. I remember going to uh I was I was in St. Martin uh a long time ago, probably 16 years ago now or something. Uh had a friend that went to his um med school on Saba Island, right? Which is about a two and a half hour boat ride from uh from uh St. Martin to the Dutch Islands. And I remember going to the island, small island, I think there was like a thousand people that lived there. That's it, right? And uh I was sitting outside this, we'll call it a bar, but it's kind of like a I don't know, it's a shack, right? It's like a trailer, and there was like a little umbrella, and you'd get your drink at the like an ice cream truck, and then you just like a great spot, yeah. So but it was like I'm we're sitting there, we're having fun, we're having drinks, like drinking Heineken's or whatever. And then I'll never forget this guy walks over, this black guy walks over, obviously living there, and he has like this Marge Simpson type hairdo, right? All the way up. Yeah, but if it gets closer, I see it's actually a bag of live crabs on his head, and he's not even holding it, he just walked around with it on his head, right? That's what he does. He catches crabs and then he sells them. So he's over there trying to sell some crabs, and I'm just like, wow, like that is amazing. I don't know why, but it's when you see it, you're just like, that's an awesome skill, man. You can just hold a bag of live crabs on your head, like Marge Simpson style, like four feet high, right? It's insane, just a sack of crabs, little pinchers coming out of the sides and stuff, and uh, but they treated me really, really good, like they were very, very hospitable, you know, as a culture and stuff like that. And I had the one of the best times of my life while I was out there for like 14 days. It was it was absolutely phenomenal.

SPEAKER_03

So that's cool. That's cool. Yeah, I I had a similar experience, kind of like that. I I took a trip. This is probably at least got 15-20 years ago. I took a trip with a couple friends to Costa Rica, and we were there for a week. And the same deal. I mean, the culture just kind of like welcomed us, and you know, it was like, yeah, have have have our good food, you know, and like we'd go on like an excursion somewhere to do something, and then afterwards they'd be like, All right, we're not done yet until we eat. And it's like, all right, let's eat, you know, and then we all kind of sit down, have some like amazing meal that you you could tell down there that um like in between from there and the US, like in the US, you can sort of tell that things have been frozen at some point in time or they're in a refrigerator. Down there, everything's fresh, like literally everything all the time. And so you you can like just taste the difference, you know. Like, like I told you in one of our other episodes, I can taste it when you don't give a fuck about what you're cooking for me. It tastes like shit, you know, like and and likewise the opposite is true, where you really care about what you're doing and like you're really invested here, um I can taste it, you know, like it it is it's really, really good. And so, you know, in terms of like culturally and and you know, back to the topic of racism, they really didn't have that, you know. And now, might there be some other marginalized group that that they view or look at or something? I'm sure there probably is. Usually in a lot of cultures, there that just kind of happens as crappy as it is, you know. But I didn't feel that way at all when I was there. I mean, they were very welcoming for the most part across the board.

SPEAKER_01

Well, yeah, yeah, that's one of the points that I was trying to get across was that like when I went there, and you know, it's the middle of the night, I'm sitting on this island, thousand people. I mean, they didn't treat me any different, they didn't see my race or my my mannerisms or my you know, like how I how I speak different or I talk, I I act different, uh, body language-wise, or anything like that. They didn't see any of that stuff, they just sat down with me, we had drinks, and we had an amazing time.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, you know, to them you were big Rob instead of white Rob.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, exactly. Uh and we need we could learn from from people like that. We could learn, right? To to just be able to sit down at a table, have some drinks, and and not emphasize what somebody's races.

SPEAKER_03

So, okay, so I got two things I want to cover um that I was thinking about while we were talking. So one of them, which we kind of uh got to a little bit, is the idea of opportunism with racism. And I think this is kind of what Morgan Freeman was getting at, right? Like he's tired of the opportunists that they always make it a racist issue when it's not, right? And you know, I I know we had talked about this um separately before, but I read a book from a black economist, and in particular, um his view was that your data, he was very empirical, right? Everything was was based on data cold. You know, what whether you like it or not, he doesn't care. Follow the data to wherever it goes, right? And his argument was simply that the empirical data does not support the ideas of um you know, like affirmative action, of of bussing, of all these sort of extra things that are being of quotas for like a university. The empirical data does not support that leading to positive outcomes, right? And he would say that, like on the university front, that you know, if if you get into a university you're not qualified for because of your race, well, that's bad when you graduate because basically you're you're kind of like in over your head, right? Or likewise, if you got in because of your skills, somebody could equally say, Well, you just got in because of your race and take away your accomplishments. And his whole argument was that all throughout history, there's basically been different marginalized groups. And the ones that you don't highlight eventually move past it as a culture and they sort of just move forward, right? And and they get past these things. But when you constantly bring it up, like you were saying earlier, over and over and over again, and make it about race, you're really undermining the entire culture. And in that book, he was saying how he felt like in America that the uh black America made more progress from the 20s to the 60s than they did from the 60s and beyond. You know, very kind of unique look at it. But the interesting thing is like in black America, you've also got this apparatus that feeds on the racism angle, you know, like the Jesse Jackson, obviously he just passed away, but when he was alive, he was kind of in that, you know, Al Sharpton, he's like another one that he was kind of in that. Um, even the NAACP, yeah, they have good parts about it, but they also perpetuate the the this the racist angle side of things, you know. I mean, like I can understand them for the systemic part, but there's another side of this that doesn't move it in a in the right direction, you know?

SPEAKER_01

There's a lot of divisiveness, and and a lot of it, you know what? Another aspect of it is a lot of it does come from our governments, they want us fighting amongst each other so that we don't pay attention to what they're doing at the end of the day, and people fall for it, right? Uh, but but with the whole um uh you know benefits for certain races when it comes to education and stuff like that, I don't understand how some people can't grasp, like you're starting to see a lot of celebrities and stuff, uh, comedians largely talk about this. If I if I'm getting on a plane and I see a black pilot, the last thing I want to be thinking is now did this guy get the job because he's the best pilot out of the, you know, out of the pool they were hiring from, or did he get the job because he's black and be but he's not actually, he's one of the worst pilots in the program, but they had to hire X amount of of every race or every gender or whatever the case might be? Same thing for surgery, and people people scoff at when you say that, but at the end of the day, those same people, let me ask you a question. Let's say you've got a five-year-old son that has to go in for heart transplant surgery, and the doctor's black. Do you want him to be there because they needed to hire a black guy? Or do you want him there because he's the best possible surgeon to operate on your son? You're not gonna give two shits about about that stuff, that argument that you're making, if it's your son who's getting that surgery, or it's you that's getting that surgery, right? You want the best possible person, it doesn't matter what the job is, if other people are relying on you, especially putting their lives or their loved ones' lives in your hands, you need to be the best qualified person for that job. Point blank. There is nothing beyond that. There is no uh, you know, ratio of white to black or man to woman or whatever the case might be. Give me the best fucking person qualified for the job.

unknown

Right.

SPEAKER_01

I don't understand what the argument on the other side of that is.

SPEAKER_03

I I I don't either, and I I think a fantastic example of this is the Artemis crew. So if you look at the Artemis crew, they're diverse, but they're also the best qualified crew for that mission. And yeah, there's a black guy in the crew, and he I want to say he's like a like a pilot for all kinds of crazy stuff. He's insanely qualified. Don't ever take anything away from him because he's black. You know what I mean? Just like with with the woman in the crew, uh, you know, ironically enough, she was like the uh the plumber, you know, of the of the the space shuttle, and you know, it's kind of a joke because she's with like three three dudes and her. You know, but if she's the best qualified, she's the best qualified. I don't give a shit if she's white, brown, purple, pink. Who cares?

SPEAKER_01

She's the best qualified person, you know. Exactly. And that's that we need to get back to that. I think that that's one of the they say that you know, America used to be great. And I think that that was part of it, is that people, you know, that people were were shooting from the hip. It was you're either the best or you're not. Fuck your feelings, you know, fuck where your your what your background is. If you if you want to get the job, be the best. There is no law, there is no law stopping any race in America from doing what a white person can do or what anyone else can do. There is nothing stopping you. Be the best. That's it. It's gonna take hard work to be the best. If you don't like hard work, sorry, but there's no crutches for you, right? Um another thing.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, sorry, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01

No, no, no. I was gonna switch subjects, so you got something else.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, okay. Now I I was gonna say on the the be the best, you know, that's also in a way the boy scope motto of do your best, right? And ironically, I think in the in the US, there's a lot of um a lot of things that have sort of been dominated by white people kind of moving up. But ironically, there'll be a black person that comes along that just crushes it way beyond a lot of the white people. And it's because, yeah, they they really are the best and they really did try the hardest, right? Like, you know, as is as many jokes are made about Tiger Woods and his god awful driving. He was one hell of a golfer, you know, kind of kind of went straight to the top, right? You know, like likewise, you could look at the NBA and you could say, well, Larry Bird was a hell of a player or Jerry West, true, but then Michael Jordan came along, you know, like like he had the drive, you know, it wasn't about white or black, he had the drive.

SPEAKER_01

It's funny you say that because if we were if we were doing that in the NBA, for example, how fast would the quality of skill across the board in the NBA go down if they said, okay, from now on, half the players in the NBA have to be white. We need to hit a ratio here, half have to be white. You cannot sit there with a straight face and tell me that the quality and skill level of the NBA would not deteriorate, right? Because, let's be honest, genetically, everyone has different gifts, right? And black guys are amazing, generally, basketball players. On average, more so, there's good white basketball players. I'm not saying white people can't be good at basketball. I'm good at basketball, I'm not NBA good at basketball. If you put me in the NBA, it's gonna look like the globetrotters are running around me. But it's but the point is the quality of play would go down, it just would, right?

SPEAKER_03

I don't know. I don't know if I agree with that. Now, let me hear me out, hear me out. So in the past, I I would have agreed with that, but today I feel like there's a lot of really, really good players that come out of Europe. Uh there's also some really good white players that come out of the USA, but but Europe in particular, I mean, like some of those guys out of like was it like Serbia? I mean, they're insanely good at basketball. I mean, there are some really, really good, good players. And so, you know, maybe it's like but who are the superstars?

SPEAKER_01

Who are the superstars in the NBA though? Can you name one white superstar in the NBA? Yeah, Luca. Okay, well, I can't. Well, yeah, not him. I can't, right? Like when you when you look at the legends in the game, your Dennis Rodman, Scottie Pippins, Michael Jordan's, uh, Shaquille O'Neals, right? Muggsy Bogues. Um, you go you go down the list. Uh, even to today, uh, you've got um LeBron, right? The the I mean, well, he's an actor, but an actor.

SPEAKER_03

He does have a production company.

SPEAKER_01

But you know what I'm saying? Like, you know, when you think of superstars, legends in the NBA, there's only one name on that list for white people. It's Larry Bird. Let's be real, right?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I mean, obviously Larry's at the top, but there's others. There are others along the way, too.

SPEAKER_01

Um like I said, I'm not saying white people can't be good at basketball. Yeah, I'm just saying on average, there is far better, far more black guys that are better at basketball, right? Because they're they're built athletically, genetically.

SPEAKER_03

A lot of them are, right? I don't know. I disagree, man. I disagree because I have known some freakishly strong white people throughout my life. I I mean, I can think of some of my friends that never worked out a day in their lives and could Easily outlift me, no question. You know, I th I think really it's like the talent pool of kind of like what you're propelled towards. You know what I mean? Like, like, for example, you know, if you looked at um uh football in Europe, aka soccer, right? Like there are some amazing athletes in that that they're white. You know, look, look at Messi. Uh, look at what's his name? Um Ronaldo or whatever. You know, like like there, there's some just like insanely talented Zidane. Zidane was insane. I don't know if you do you know Zidane. I don't. Let me talk about Zidane for a second. So Zidane was uh French. He is French. Not was, he is French, and Zidane was kind of like one of the greatest uh soccer players of all time. And I I only I only learned of him at the very end of his career. And he was in the World Cup, and his last game was against Italy, and it was like the championship game, right? And Zidane um was kind of like the whole French team centered around him. He was so good. Like you could just see it a mile away that he can just he can just do things that no one else can do. He's like a Jordan, right? And uh, and so his very last game of his whole career, one of the guys talks shit to him and he he turns around, fucking headbutts him straight in the chest, and levels him, and they eject him from the game, and his career's over. I was like, oh my god, that guy's my hero. Like, like it was it was insane. Uh, but again, you know, that was kind of what he was steered towards, right? And and now, like in in soccer, I mean, there's some other some black athletes are insanely good, like uh Mbappe, there's just there's a few of them that are out there that are really, really good. Um, even like the Brazilian team, you know, the Brazilian team was known throughout history as kind of being the World Cup team, right? And so, you know, I think with with basketball, it's it's kind of a similar thing, right? Like, like if you look at soccer and you say, why aren't there any good soccer players from the US? Does everybody in the US are they just genetically fucked when it comes to soccer? No, they're not. It's that there's there isn't that whole pipeline apparatus infrastructure built to create the world's greatest soccer players. Instead, it's it's built to create the world's greatest NBA players, the world's greatest NFL players, the world's greatest NHA. I say greatest, so let's say second greatest NHL players. Okay. Whatever. Ado patato.

SPEAKER_01

There was there was another thing that came up on the news in Canada here the other day that I kind of wanted to I wanted to mention before we wrap things up. And so there's this representative for the Aboriginal people, native people, however, you want to First Nations people, however, you want to word them. I don't know. I don't know what's offensive and what's not anymore, nor do I really care. Um so, but she was up there and they're talking about the budget, the annual budget. Um, and they added like a 13 letters to the LGBQ community, all representing native people here in Canada now, right? And when you broke it down, so they're they're trying to lump in with the LGBQT community now, whatever alphabet thing, they're trying to lump in with that now to get money from more money from the government, right? Okay, and which is I don't give a shit, do whatever you want to do, right? Problem is she's throwing around words like genocide against native people uh in Canada, and she was mentioning what she was talking about was uh there's there's a there's a a growing issue in Canada of Native women that go missing and are murdered, right? So and this is being perpetuated that it is white people's fault, right? Like what it's it's white people that are doing this. So they brought up the national statistics from the uh uh from the um RCMP, right? And as it turns out, 85% of the assaults, whether sexual or or lethal, on Aboriginal women in Canada is perpetuated by Native males, not by white people, right? Okay, so they dive deeper into her accusations of genocide against them by white people. Well, they uh so that was thrown at her. Okay, well, 85% statistically, 85% of assaults on on native women who go missing and and all this stuff, it's all perpetuated, 85% of it is perpetuated by native males. Oh, yeah, but that's white people's fault because of our because of how they live, I guess, on reserves and how they how their you know their culture, their their behavior as their own personal society conducts themselves. Well, it's white people's fault. So instead of holding native males accountable for the assaults and the aggressive attacks on their own women in their race and culture, they've decided to point the finger at somebody else and say, Well, it's your fault that I do this, right? And that's just what we have to get away from in this society is a complete and utter, as we spoke about earlier, lack of not only lack of uh taking responsibility, but of your your social network, your culture, your society, holding you accountable to take responsibility for what you do, what you choose to do is not someone else's fault, right? And that's what so many people have to start coming to that realization that it's not acceptable to make a choice. You that because that's what you're doing, you're making a choice to do something, and then when when it comes time to take accountability for that, pointing the figure at someone else and saying it's their fault that I did this because of no, right? That's like I mean, that's like my wife going out and cheating on me and then me punching her in the face for it, right? I still chose to punch her in the face for it. I can't say, well, I I assaulted her because she did this. Yeah, what she did was wrong, that doesn't excuse what I did, right? Right, right. I gotta take responsibility for what I did. That's just the long and short of it at the end of the day, right?

SPEAKER_03

I I think you're a hundred percent right. And I got kind of an example of this to share. So I have uh a neighbor on on the side of me that uh is just a deadbeat, right? Doesn't maintain shit, doesn't you know, over the course of I've lived in this house six, seven years, his house has fallen apart the whole time, right? And something breaks and then something else breaks. And does he ever fix any of it? No. And you know, this guy um racially is like of a mixed race, right? I don't I don't even know what race he is. It might be a Middle Eastern, don't even know. Don't care, frankly. But you know, I've had this conversation with my wife that when I look at his house, it represents like it, it's like the opposite of me. I take accountability for all of my actions. I can look in the mirror and say, I fucked up. You know, let's let's fix it, let's let's get this thing right. How do we how do we move forward? You know? And I look over there and it's like, you know, it just just the weirdest scenario ever. Like his wife, he's he he was married. I don't know if he still is or not. Wife and kids, they sort of like left in the middle of the night. Dude never moved out, he's just sort of thrown away their stuff, and now he he sort of doesn't live there, but the house isn't for sale. I don't know what's going on with it. It's like the weirdest scenario ever. And it's it just kind of stands out to me glaringly that it's like you're not taking accountability at all. And that is at the root of a lot of the the people that play the race card is they never take accountability. Take accountability, you fucked up, take accountability that you're the piece of shit. It's not me, it's you, you know, like like you gotta be able to look in the mirror and admit when you haven't done the right thing. And you know, I think going back to Morgan Freeman, I mean that's kind of what he's saying in a nutshell is just take accountability for yourself, and I don't care what color you are, you know?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, let's stop caring about what happened generations ago with people that we've never met or that we don't know. And you as an individual, you make choices in your life as an individual, just like other people who interact with you make decisions, and you shouldn't base your opinions on other people based on how someone else engages with you, right? Like if one if one white dude is an asshole, it doesn't mean all white dudes are assholes, right? Right. If one black dude's an asshole, it doesn't mean all black in fact, I mean I I could argue that most most of my black friends have treated me better throughout my life than my white friends have.

SPEAKER_04

I would agree with you, I would agree, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

You know what the hell is wrong with white people? Yeah, forget white people. But I could argue that, right? And so, but uh you know the point is that you know, as individuals, we make decisions, we make choices, and we have the power to we all have the same 24 hours in a day to make our lives better or make our lives worse. And the decisions and the priorities that you have are gonna dictate what you're doing today is gonna dictate where you're gonna be tomorrow. You can sit on your ass and watch Netflix and blame somebody else for the way that your life is, or you can get up and do something about it, work hard, and you'll succeed. There's nothing holding you back. It doesn't matter what race you are. If you're in a bad, if you listen, they say the five people you surround yourself, type of people you surround yourself with, you're the sixth. If you're gonna surround yourself with losers in life, people who have no ambition, no goals, no dreams, they don't work towards them, they don't have jobs, they don't take care of their children. If you surround yourself with those people, you're gonna be the sixth. If you so you know, and the latter is also true. You surround yourself with successful people, like-minded people, surround yourself with people who are where you want to be, you'll be the sixth, right? It's just how it works, man. So it's sometimes it's hard, sometimes it's hard to let go. I let go of a lot of childhood friends, people I grew up with, people that I spent most of my life around. Dropped them like bad habits throughout my life to achieve what I wanted to achieve in life. And guess what? I I see them today, they're still where they were 20 years ago when I kicked them to the curb. Right? And I'd be there too. I would be there too with them if I didn't kick them to the curb. It's hard, but you gotta do it.

SPEAKER_03

You know, when I was in uh when I was growing up, my so I went to a school, a couple different schools from elementary. I went to a main one for middle school, kind of sixth through eighth grade, and then you know, ninth through twelve high school. And I only ever really experienced racism when I was in high school. And what was the difference? The difference was the high school was like in the middle of the hood, and it was like a reverse racism. And you know, I'm hearing all these racist terms that I never heard, you know, like I didn't hear them at any of the other schools. My parents didn't talk that way, my family didn't talk that way, outside of, like I said, apparently my uber racist grandmother that I never knew that she was that racist, but it I guess it just is what it is. Um, you know, luckily sheltered from that, thank God. But uh, but again, you know, like I only experienced it from the reverse angle of it. And, you know, like I don't know about you, but um in terms of music, I like all different types of music. Uh doesn't matter what it is, I like all stuff, right? Sometimes I really like to listen to rap. But one of the things that drives me absolutely crazy is I feel like the rappers that use the N-word all throughout their songs, it's like the lowest hanging fruit of a sloppy rapper. Then you throw that shit out there. And again, talking about perpetuating it, like Morgan Freeman saying, right? Like you you just kind of keep this thing endlessly going with these terms that really aren't relevant, you know. Like, can we get past this? Can we talk about other things? I mean, like, I really like the raps that you know, they're like storytellers, and some of them are really, really fucking good. But when I hear a song that every other words end this and end that, I completely tune out. Like, you already lost me, you know.

SPEAKER_01

Well, I agree with you. I was actually thinking that when you brought up uh rap and hip-hop. I was like, you know, I miss the days of uh growing up, you know, in the 80s and 90s where rappers told stories in their songs, like Tupac, right? Um, you know, they they would tell uh DMX is another one. They would they would tell stories through their songs, it wasn't just like you said, low-hanging fruit, just get a song out there, say a bunch of stuff that doesn't make any sense, you know. But Tupac would actually take you through a journey on his, you know, in his song. Yeah, and they don't do that anymore.

SPEAKER_03

I think they do. I think it's just you you gotta find it, right? Again, I I know you and I have talked about music before. I think there's a hell of a lot of really good music that comes out every single day, but you just gotta be able to find it. And that's the hard part. You know, it's it's the stuff that gets gets more popular in the most plays, it's usually some of the worst shit out there, to be honest, you know.

SPEAKER_01

I think that's one of the reasons country music has stood the test of time, is because every song is a story.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

At the end of the day, right? So um, but anyway, yeah, we'll we'll kind of wrap it there. It seems like there's there's just like most things we talk about, there's so much to get into when it comes to uh these topics, and just I mean, we could ramble on for three, four, five hours and still only scratch the surface on all of the nuances that are uh that are involved in this. But I think for me, the thought I would like to leave everybody with is that um there's more there's more that we have in in common than that separates us, and um just a little bit more accountability, a little bit more family structure, going back to the family dynamic of the household, raise your kids no matter who you are, right? As a man, you gotta teach your son how to be a man, otherwise the cycle just continues. So uh just accept everybody, you know, like uh the rate stop emphasizing race and everything, stop underlining race in everything, whether it's good or bad, stop making it the headline, and we'll move away from racism. So, what I'm saying is suffocate the racists, don't address them, don't talk to them, don't talk about them, suffocate them. They want attention, don't give it to them.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I I think when you give them attention, that's the fuel to the fire, right? So if you don't give any attention, then there's no fuel, and that everybody sort of moves on.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and and I think also just real quickly, stop using racism in things that aren't racist because at the end of the day, there are real people dealing with real racism out there, and when you throw a racism tag on everything, you water down uh the actual racism that's out there and you you you make it less important. We should never become numb to these things uh by by just slapping a label on every single every single disagreement that you have in life, you know, shouldn't be labeled with racism because you're you're hurting people who are actually dealing with real racism.

SPEAKER_03

I agree with you. I guess with that, that's a wrap.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, paradigm shift out. We will see you on Wednesday, where we will be updating, I believe, uh the latest on the uh Iran situation and the Strait of Harmoose as that emotional and mental roller coaster continues to go up and down.

SPEAKER_03

Up and down. Boy, that is one choppy ride. Lots cover there.

SPEAKER_01

All right, guys. We'll see you in the next one. Thank you. Make sure you give us the five star review. Let us know how you feel, and uh yeah, definitely thank you for supporting the channel. Shift out.