Rooted Wonder & Duggan’s Dirt with Kamaria Gray

In this episode, Donna and Sam welcomed the latest member of the Authentically Detroit Podcast Network, Kamaria Gray, to discuss her newly released podcast “Roots & Wonder.” 

Roots & Wonder Podcast is a storytime space where little ones are invited to slow down, listen closely, and remember.Each episode retells beloved African folktales carried across generations through voice, rhythm, and imagination.

They also took some time to break down what’s happening with the contaminated demolition dirt in the city, which some believe led to the conclusion of Mike Duggan’s Gubenatorial campaign. 

To stay up to date on all things Authentically Detroit, click here. 

THIS WEEK IN THE MICHIGAN CHRONICLE:

MONEY OUT OF POLITICS BALLOT INITIATIVE TURNS IN 561K SIGNATURES 

Transcript

0:00

Up next, Authentically Detroit welcomes the host of Roots and Wonder Podcast, Kamaria Gray. Plus, we're diving into what's happening with contaminated dirt in the city of Detroit. And of course, what we're reading from the Michigan Chronicle. Keep it locked. Authentically Detroit starts after these messages. Applications have opened for the East Side Community Network Summer Discovery Program. Designed for students entering seventh, eighth, and ninth grade in the fall of 26th. This summer experience is a full-day in-person program that combines structured academic learning, hands-on enrichment experiences, and creativity to guide youth in developing life skills related to political and civic engagement, climate change, and environmental justice using art-based expression as a tool for learning and empowerment. The program runs from June 29th to July 31st from 8 30 AM to 5 o'clock PM. Applications close on April 30th. For more details on how to apply, visit ecn-detroit.org slash youth. Welcome to another episode of Authentically Detroit, broadcasting live from the Sodomire. We're here at ECN. I'm Sam Robinson. And I'm Donna Givens Davidson. Thank you all so much for listening in and supporting our efforts to build a platform of authentic voices for real people in the city of Detroit. We want you to like, rate, and subscribe to our podcast on all platforms. We're officially switching up the podcast. Today, we're going to start with an interview with the wonderful Kamaria Gray. She's the host and the creator of the Authentically Detroit Podcast Network's latest edition, Roots and Wonder Podcast, a storytime space where little ones are invited to slow down, listen closely, and remember. Each episode retells beloved African folk tales carried across generations through voice, rhythm, and imagination. With warm personality and heart, Roots and Wonder brings ancient stories into modern homes, offering family tales of wisdom, mischief, courage, and wonder to return again and again. Kamaria, welcome to Authentically Detroit. How are you? I'm good. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really happy to be here and to talk about the podcast. Yes, we are excited to uh bring you into the Authentically Detroit Podcast Network. We were talking before we started recording how exciting it is to have a show aimed at young parents and their children, a little different than a lot of what uh you may have heard in that space before. Talk to me about what your show uh is gonna sound and feel like. Um so I wanted Roots and Wonder to kind of sound like a coming home for for black children and children across the diaspora, really. Um I think, you know, there are a lot of, well, let me let me dial it. Let me let me let's let's go all the way to the beginning. Okay, let's go all the way back. Take us back. So I have a daughter. She is four years old. Um, I have taken great joy in reading her, her bedtime stories. Um, we are a black family, she is a black little girl. I think it is very important that the books and the literature that I read to her represent her. So I went and bought a lot of the books I remember we reading when I was a child. Um a lot of those books that are black depicting black life and black childhood are not written by black people. Um, and that while it isn't inherently bad, I don't think it's a realistic depiction of black life. Um, and I think that representation of black life should be written, illustrated, talked about by black people. Um, so I started the podcast to kind of introduce um the rest of the world and, you know, my my community to these books that were written about black life by black authors. But I hit a roadblock when um the publishing copyright company said I could not read those books um without paying them their money. So I had to do like a 360 and find stories that I could tell that still um that still hit the mark of being culturally affirming. Um so I looked to African folklore and things that were not copyrighted or things that were written um a little bit before the time frame so that I could read them with no legal issues. So one story that um my mother used to tell me when I was little was the story of epaminon epaminondas. I don't know what it is. Have you heard that one? No, I haven't. It's sort of this story of this little boy who does exactly what he's told. And every time he does exactly what he's told, he messes something up. And so the refrain is epaminandus. You ain't got the sense you was born with, right? And so it's it stayed with me, and it was really interesting because the person who actually documented this African folk tale was a white woman. And she sort of took it, and the way that she depicted this boy was sort of, you know, this Jim Crow kind of imagery, and she took a story that had been passed down that my grandmother told my mother, and her grandmother told her, and turned it into something that was really reprehensible, and but you can't find the story anywhere. And it's interesting that you talk about this African folklore because we all heard the story of Cinderella. Yes. And I there's another book, I'm trying to remember which one it was. I used to read my daughters when they were little or my children were little about this these girls in Louisiana, and they're they lived with their mother, and one of them was greedy and the other one wasn't, and you know, she was trying to steal something, and what there were snakes that started chasing her. Oh, okay. And it was this great story, but it was really it it was rooted in black Louisiana culture. Yes. Um, I got that book because a friend of mine at the time, we're talking about the 1990s, owned a children's store that was just for black children that had black toys and dolls and books for us. And I remember um I even had uh micros uh a cassette tape that had nursery rhymes sung by black people. Yeah. It was really, really beautiful, but I can't find those things right now as easily for my grandchildren. Where do you get the books that you get for your children? And what stories stand out for you? So I do a lot of online research. Um I had to look up some of the books that I found. Right now, I'm working from um Jamaican folklore. There's a book called Um, it's it it mostly focuses on Ananzi the spider and his folklore. Yes. So that's the current book that I'm working from. I was inspired by uh the title is escaping me, but The People Learn to Fly, um, which has a lot of kind of black folklore stir tour, black folklore stories, um, tales of enslaved people. But some of those are published in copyrighted, so I couldn't tell them. But I was really inspired by that book. Um, Tar Beach, um, Stephen uh Steptoe is one of my favorite black authors, and a lot of his books inspired me to want to share these tales because you're right, in looking for books written by black authors for my daughter, it was difficult. And I even found a list it escapes me what year it was it was released. I think it was 2023, but out of all of the black books that were written that year, which was some make some odd of like 150,000, only 3,000 were actually written by black authors. Um and I think that not only is representation important for us as black people, I think as like owning the money that comes with that. There is a lot of money in in storytelling, in publishing, in books. Um, and I think that oftentimes our stories are being sold for profit by people who are not us. And I find like a very large problem with that. And it it it was very difficult to share these stories with my child, having that in the back of my mind. So I was like, all right, well, we're gonna change this up. Um so So one of the challenges is too is that there's gatekeeping um with people deciding what stories get to be told. Um can you talk about that a little bit? Um I think that explain what you mean by gatekeeping, like our culture. Oh, I mean, somebody decides we're gonna publish this book, we're gonna sell this book, we're gonna stock this book, we're going to publicize this book. And so it's not that there are black people, there aren't black people writing books. It is that um I look at like music, right? Um, why why is gangster rap so popular? Is it because all rappers want to rap like this, or is this because the this is how you get signed, right? Because you have a whole industry of music that's being produced that never makes it to airtime. Not because people aren't talented, but because people get to decide this is the kind of story that black children should hear, or this is a kind of story that black uh audiences want to read, or the music. So um, are you finding independent authors? Because I've talked to several people who are at least interested in um becoming independent authors of children's books in Detroit, and that might be one way to get around copywriting. I have found one independent author who was allowed um to let me read her book. I did find another author who's from Detroit who I was very, you know, I really wanted to read her book, but publishing, her publisher would not let me. Um so I'm open to, you know, I'm open to expanding this podcast so that it includes more black authors with stories that I can legally read. What is the legal? I mean, they don't want their book promoted? I uh what is the reason? It's not the author, it's the publishing and the copyright. They want their coins. So they know if this becomes popular, which it, you know, but they act like the black dollar isn't doesn't amount to anything, but it does, especially if I'm targeting black people. This is a black dollar, they want their coin. They don't want it going to me. So but the other aspect of that is that children's books are just um are not just words, there's pictures. Yeah. And it would be impossible for you to replicate this book just by reading it. So it's silly. It is um, but I what about self-published authors? Um, there are several books that some of our community members published a few years ago um in partnership with adults working with teenage or children in our community to come up with children's books that dealt with safety. It would be interesting to do a call for black children's authors in Detroit who control publishing rights so that they could bring their books to you without the middleman. Yeah, I'm not against that. I'm definitely interested in expanding um the podcast and including black authors who, you know, would allow me to read their books. I, you know, I don't want this to stop where it is. Um, I think I'm I'm happy where we are right now, and I'm enjoying the time that it takes for me to rewrite and retell these stories in my own words. Oh wow. Yes. So while I'm not keen to jump on that right now, it is like another avenue that I think the podcast can take. And to circle back to your question about gatekeeping stories, I do feel that um I think more recently in 2020 and things like that, with the advocating and the coming together of the community, there were there was more of a push for black joy in stories. But I do feel that a lot of times, maybe not so in children's books, but in literature, um, the black struggle is the seller, you know, and that is not necessarily what I want to read um or what I want to read to to my child. I think it's the black struggle, and then I think there's a certain way that it's structured, right? Um, do you remember? Did you read Tony Morrison's Beloved? Yes. And you know, this story where there's this the ghost of the child that the mother killed comes back, and it seems like we um supernatural elements are expected in books written by black authors more than books written by predominantly white authors. And I think that's really interesting how superstition and supernatural elements are woven into the way that we get to talk about our ourselves. Yeah. It kind of I think that that is beautiful and we should, you know, carry our traditions. Like, you know, black black people in America and um the diaspora of Africa, we should carry those traditions. But I do feel like, you know, it's a lot like magical black Negro kind of thing. Like what we can exist outside of these, outside of the struggle and outside of the magic spiritual, you know, yeah um trope that has been so often placed upon us. Right. So you may I I I just wrote an apple, right? Oh, really? Congratulations. I do thank you. And it does incorporate struggle. Um, it's the history of Detroit, but it seeks to flesh out human beings beyond struggle. Who are these people who built institutions and also shows people having power, and um, but there's nothing supernatural because that just doesn't work for me. The magical stuff, it's it's fine for other people, it's not my preference. Right. And um, and yet I found that there was no appetite at all for what I had written by anybody who um gets the agents. There's very few agents who are going to sign a black author anyway. Yeah. And there's just no appetite for it. And so I decided to self-publish and to work through what we're calling authentically Detroit Press to create a pathway for people who have works that they want to sell or they want to bring before audiences so that we can tell our own stories in our own way. For me, the problem isn't even in struggle. A lot of good stories do have struggle. Yes, they do. But it is the way you flatten our experiences and our existence so that we're nothing more than very desolate places. I mean, I want to read a whole book where nobody ever has any joy, where nobody laughs, where nobody It's the expectation of struggle and the entertainment of our struggle, you know. That's not something, you know. So so yeah, a lot of a lot of thought and and kind of frustration went into uh the creation of Roots and Wonder. And I've also been an educator for for years. Um I most recently um was, you know what? Scratch that. I want to talk about my old job. I'm starting my own um play school for or like uh scratch that. Let me gather my thoughts real quick. Um, but I most recently got out of childcare work and I'm starting my own business. So I think it's that literature for black children is very important. Um, literacy for black children is very important. And the way to increase and promote that is to let them listen to, hear, retell stories that represent them that they can feel close to. There's a narrative that um young younger parents aren't reading to their children as as much as perhaps our parents read to us. Um I mean, there's just this this also sort of inaccurate racist narrative that Metro Detroiters, that um some conservative Republicans uh will echo about uh young people's ability to read. What what is it that they say? It's not true, but they're saying that 50% of they base it off of like these these illiteracy rumors and it's I mean the reality is people don't read as much, but if you don't think black people read, look at black Twitter. Okay. We not only read words, we create words. I don't anybody create more bla words than black folks come with something or just reuse a word and now it means something else in our language, but this idea that we're somehow linguistically underdeveloped is and we formed rap. It doesn't square with the the industry that is the children's book. I mean, every time I'm somewhere else in an airport or I was in Dallas, Texas, thinking at my friend's baby shower about children's books or what to get them. And yeah, there's there's a ton of new writing and clearly some some illustrators that are living off of these works. Yeah, I mean black literature exists, it is a thriving, even if the dollars, the the the big big bucks aren't being pushed behind it, it is a thriving uh community. I will say though, um, I do want to disagree a little bit because I have worked in DPS CD schools for a while, the kids are struggling with their literacy. You know, there were students, those black students, who did sue the state of Michigan or the city of Detroit because they were passed through school. Um, basically, you know, without the reading. Yeah, the the mythology that we I wanted to speak to is they'll say like half of Detroit's can't read at all. Yeah, that's it. Literacy is very different than having strong reading skills. Yeah. Okay. There's definitely propaganda propaganda. Exactly. And it's never been measured. It's never been measured. And also, the reading tests in schools don't necessarily measure the ability to read words, right? They measure interpretation of those words, and those reading tests have not been scientifically um validated. And so there's this question of what percentage of people cannot read street signs, what percentage of people cannot read job applications, cannot read Twitter. Because I'm telling you, we're on Twitter. Um, and that's different than so. So I think that there's degrees and there's ways that that things are framed. American people don't read. Let's start with that. Books aren't selling like they used to. People watch TV, kids have tablets, and so the way we consume even reading information is very different than it was when my kids were little. My kids did not have iPads. And my granddaughter, who is now seven, eight, asked my my one of my daughters, she says, Were you poor when you were little? How did you not have iPads? Were you poor? And it's like, you know what? They we didn't have computers either, right? And somehow we survived. And so I think we live in a world that is not as literate as it used to. We live in a nation that is not terribly literate when you look at the rest of the world because we don't read a lot. But the the suggestion that most or half of all black people can't read, period, is an exaggeration and something that is used to perpetuate stereotypes that are unfair. I I would like to hear what what you do experience in DPS C D as I would imagine your um statement isn't kind of a controversial one with with parents and teachers. Yeah, I do agree, you know, that there's a lot going on with the literacy levels of all adults around America, but um and I think that that's an inflated statement to say that 50% of black people, you know, cannot read. But in, you know, my experience in the Detroit public schools is the kids are struggling with reading. Like simple, um, simple words to read, write, and spell. Um, I was experiencing teenagers who like, you know, couldn't couldn't spell the word firefighter or read it, you know, and this was a daily occurrence. Like the schools need to do better. Um, there is not enough resources, there is not enough care. The schools need to do better, the education system in Detroit needs to do better. The the whole government of Michigan needs to do better in terms of education, but also adults need to care more. Um, it is easy to to put a screen on, um, put even put a story on. I would like for my podcast to kind of dive more into literacy and and comprehension. When you say adults, you mean parents. Yes. Parents, yes. You were coaching the language a little bit, but parents need to Yeah, parents, you know, yeah. Like it, I, you know, I think we have all been privy to the conversation right now happening in the city of Detroit about the teens taking over and what needs to be done. Yeah. And there have been many opinions, um, especially from like some of the more prominent Detroit influencers, um, talking about locking parents up and you know, the parents ain't SHIT. And like while I will never agree with incarceration, I do think that parents are not doing enough. Um, it is quite visible when I'm going to the park with my child. I'm stay-at-home mom right now. I've got all the time in the world. So when I'm at the park with my child, I'm the only adult on the park. Yeah. The other adults are in their cars. These children are small. You know, they shouldn't be unsupervised. So if this is happening in a public setting where it's just like, eh, you got it, what's going on at home? You know, what is what is home? We have a tremendous amount of homelessness. We have a tremendous number of people who are doubled up. We have um mass incarceration, we have so many things that are traumatic happening in our communities, and we don't have resources. Um, when back in the day, how many kids were going to the boys and girls club when they weren't at home? Yeah. This idea that the most resourced um deprived people should be able to provide everything for their kids. What if you're working during the day because you have very few people who are actually on welfare anymore because and working one job doesn't really help? I think we really have to think how are our communities structured? Um I do agree. There was a time when when a child didn't have a parent at home, there were Other people in the community who would watch that child. Right. Right now, we don't have that. And so I think you're looking, you're, we're looking at the sort of dismantling of social support systems inside of our communities, and we're mad at the children and we're mad at the parents, but we're not really dealing with the struggle that so many people are dealing with. And so I deal with parents and adults, and I can say that a lot of people are in absolute crisis. Right. The other thing I'll say, and I wanted to say this real quickly we have lived in families where you had seniors helping to take care of kids, you know, um, what do you call those multi-generational families? How many of those families lost elders to a um COVID? Right. And so there's all of these systems, and it feels to me as though the behavior is brokenness, and the solution has got to be healing and not punishment or condemnation of people who are really, really broken at this point, including the teenagers and the parents who were broken teenagers, now they have kids. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I have the I have opinions and thoughts that, you know, I don't usually share my opinions and thoughts on this, but I want to. I want to hear yours first on the teen takeovers, why they're happening, how you could prevent quote, air quote them. Yeah. What are they even? What is this teen takeovers? I think, you know, it's another inflated statement that's being made to, you know, I don't want to go all like be all anti-government or whatever, but I think it's another inflated statement that's being made. Um and, you know, I'm aware, I'm obviously aware of the systemic issues, the racism, and the lack of resources in the city of Detroit, working in the school system, volunteering, living in Detroit, growing up in Detroit. I understand that the system is broken and that people are in pain and they are not thriving right now. But I don't think that being poor is any reason not to read. My parents were. I'm not talking about poverty. Mm-hmm. So I just want to be clear. Okay. Okay. Right. Lack of resources or struggling is any reason not to read. Um, my parents, you know, we didn't grow up, I didn't grow up with everything, but my dad was a really good storyteller. And I very vividly remember his voices, his characters, and him telling me and my sisters a story, regardless of what was going on. And my dad took us to the library every single day. So you grew up with a father. So let's start there. Okay. I'm I don't want to argue about, you know, how people are growing up. I but but I I think that I want to avoid saying that poverty is the issue. Right. Okay. I want to avoid saying that. People grew up poor. My mother was poor, my grandmother was poor. They read I I just think accountability is a is an important statement. I'm not I'm not ignoring what's going on. Accountable for what, right? I I think we can say hold people accountable, but I think a lot of times people themselves are broken. If you are a 14-year-old mother who was raised by a 14-year-old and raised by a 14-year-old and raised by a 14-year-old, accountability sounds good, but it doesn't really fix things because we already have mass incarceration. Will we lock them all up? We already have more children in foster care than any other people in the United States. We have so many children placed out of home and taken from their parents' homes, and none of these punishments work. And so when we say accountability, that means somehow to me punishment. But that's not what I meant. Okay, so what how do you hold people accountable if you don't punish them? I think regardless of what's going on in your life, you can read. Okay, but I think that you can tell a story and you can find joy. I understand that there are struggles, but I think going through something and going through something and going through something, you still have choices. So what does accountability look like then? How do we hold parents accountable for failing to raise children the right way? If we don't take them out of the home or imprison them or find them or do something else that punishes them, how do you hold them accountable? You incentivize? I just want people to read. I I we all want people to read. I think that's not ever going to be the issue. What I found and working over the years is that love goes a long way to helping people who are hurting. Resources and support goes a long way to helping people. And that's different than I agree, and that's why I lovingly created this podcast to support people reading. I can't fix all of the problems in the world or the black community, but I can retell our stories so that they are close to home, so that anyone can listen to them regardless of where they are. And I think that's the only thing I'm saying is the village has to come together. We are the descendants of people who were enslaved, people who have been harmed in many, many ways. And some of our parents and some of our grandparents found a way out of no way. But that does not exist, that does not sit the norm. You have so many issues around broken homes and so many reasons for broken homes. If we're going to fix them, then we've got to be in the place of healing because we have been punished for centuries. When we see a kid out of control, we say, Oh, that kid needs some home training. Black kids get beat. That's not the issue. My kids that I've worked with over the years, and I'm a I'm a child advocate because we work with teens right now, and I've seen them change. I've seen I worked with a young man who graduated from high school who could not read, who now has his master's degree. One of my young people who came to my program was on a tether, and he now, his daughter just graduated from high school, and he works for a youth program. And it was the love that was invested in him that changed their situations. Because the parents, I talked to the mom, and everything that happened to this son had happened to her. And she didn't know how to break that cycle. So I think if we come together as a community and you tell your stories and you read, you're going to give hope and help pave the way for somebody to say, hey, wait a minute, I like those stories. Let me try the same thing. And some child to become interested in the stories and be more interested in reading. There was a headline that I saw, youth in crisis. It made me think, you know, has the youth ever not been in crisis? Has there ever been like these this conversation is one that has played out over the last 60, 80, 120 years? Have Detroit youth ever been better than they are right now? I mean, listen, when my kids were at in high school, what, gotta eat, gotta live? You had people killed for Cardi glasses, killed for the gym shoes they were gonna wear, killed because they were at a party and people were shooting it up. When I first moved to Drexel Avenue, around the block at Remus Robinson Middle School, there were more school shootings in Remus Robinson than any school in the city of Detroit, and I'm talking about 1991. So this is 2026, and we say, How did things get so bad? When has Detroit not been the murder capital or had high rates of murder and and children behaving? What you uh maybe there was this other time when when the kids are well behaved, the crises have been there, and so have the consequences, but I think these are symptoms as opposed to the problems. And again, some parents, like your father, like my grandmother, do a great job of people out of really broken places. But let's love, let's let's find ways to move forward where we're part of the solution. And right now, in this room over here, when you leave, you see those teens over there, those teens over there. Some of them who are in college right now have come from all kinds of situations where their parents couldn't be there for them. And so we are. And sometimes that means you also have to help the parent too. And you are, because you're also going to start this this child, children's day is a daycare. It's like a forest school. Um, I'm doing it in home. And yeah, I um recognize that being outdoors is something that's often afforded to groups that don't look like me. Um, I just had an experience with an outdoor play school that I thought was wonderful. Um so I wanted to replicate that, but kind of center black children and black people. Um, so it's like a Regio-inspired kind of pre-K. Um, it is in the works. We live on the east side of Detroit where I grew up. Um, so very, very close to here. Um, and we have about two acres. Um, we've got ducks and a big old farm dog and garden beds and fruit trees. Um, so I'm going to be turning uh a portion of the yard into like a forest play school for um Detroit youth. That's on something that uh our own Ian Solomon would be interested in learning more about. Yeah, outside. That is really cool. It's great. Being outside yesterday at Bell Isle, I'm just like, oh my gosh. Yeah, and and and that's a big part of it is exposure. A big part of it is you've been exposed, you can expose other people, we can each each pass it on because so many people haven't been exposed. We used to take young people to a camp and they'd never been outside before. Yeah, they'd never really enjoyed that before. And again, many of their parents hadn't either. And so what I see is I'm now I've been doing this work working with teenagers since directly more since about the year 2000. And so many of the people I was working with are now in their 40s. It's embarrassing, but they're now in their 40s, and I can see over time how they've been able to change that trajectory for their family because somebody reached out to them. When you work with those families, some of them you're gonna change the way they work with their kids because they now know something different. Yeah. I can play outside, I can read to my kids, even educating parents about the importance of reading to their kids and in and making it fun. Yeah. And there's I think there's a lot of stigma still in the black community. Um, I did a garden program at Denby, and a lot of the kind of comments were like, I don't want to be out in the sun. A, it was a lot of I don't want to do the slave work, and a lot of I don't want to get blacker. Um, and I think that it's kind of sad that we still have so much internalized racism in our community, um, and so much like we we should be connected to the land more than anyone else. Um, so I think it's really important to kind of like get the children when they're little and like enforce that. Like, this is not scary, this is not slavery, this is a part of who you are. But a lot of people came here escaping slavery or escaping Jim Crow, right? In fact, I write that about in my book. You're escaping what you consider to be oppression. And I'm never gonna be outside again because I've escaped that. And you don't tell your children anything about that, and we do have to heal from those historical things. And a lot of parents don't pass that on. When I was working in Brightmore, there were some organizations working with kids, and um, and the a lot of the black parents said, No, that's this looks like modern-day slavery. You have my kids outside. We have to workshop what that means, yes, right. And workshop that there's really trauma attached to what that means. Yeah, and we if we work it through and we talk about it and we heal from that, then we can release it and then we can go on to then reclaim the earth because the earth is ours. Yes, and this is how you get justice. You can't have justice without the earth. Food justice is not going to a food bank, it's growing your own food. Yeah, right. And so I'm agree in agreement, but I just I always want to change it from everything to really looking at this the system or the the the major insult is the brokenness that comes from the trauma, and the major solution is the healing from that brokenness from people who can see the light. Yeah, we're gonna take a break, but before we do, I want to do something that I rarely do, which is often my uh unfiltered opinion. Uh the the teen takeovers, I don't think there is a stop or a solution or anything. The stop is to stop giving attention. Kids want attention, and that's like at the heart of this. What is it? Is it's individual young kids wanting to be like the 25, 26, 27 year old in their community that is a cool party promoter or whatever, or what have you. Like the kids just want to be out, they want to be outside like they see their bigger, older should be outside. And that's what they should. But there are no there needs to be spaces for them and like they want attention. We should give them attention. Like I think my original point was when I said adults aren't caring enough and doing enough. And you know, I did mean parents, but I also meant adults. Uh we have to, as adults, even if I'm even though I'm a mom, I will inconvenience myself for another child. I think we all need to get better at inconveniencing ourselves for children. They do want to be outside, they do want attention. Yeah, let's give it to them, but not with handcuffs, you know, like exactly these kids need mentors, they need somebody there. We want to be, just like how all of us do, they want to be famous on the internet. And that's a part of it too. I want to be outside when I was a kid. So let's make them famous. But like for, I don't know, cleaning up a park or something. But when I was a kid, I could go to somebody's backyard and party. And or go in somebody's basement and party. We had places to go. We had venues to go to party. When I was a kid, I belonged to the Plymouth Church Youth Group. And the man who is now the pastor of Plymouth Church Youth um church, Plymouth Church, was our youth group leader. His wife, who is now the former chief judge for the federal courts in Detroit, was our youth group leader. And they let us have parties in the church basin. We had the best parties in the city of Detroit. Hands down, people would line up to come to our parties inside of a church. We let people, they gave us a space and they gave us love and they listened to us. They took us on black. I'm talking about 1979. I'm not talking about any time recent. Where do kids go to safely hang out today? Yeah. If we can't come up with spaces for kids to safely hang out, there's nothing wrong with wanting to party. There are a whole lot of 40-year-olds who want to party too, but there are spaces for them. They're going to go to the Cosm right there in the Monroe Bay. But we have we've gotten Cosm Detroit. They're going to go there. Well, I mean, are they? That was my sarcastic joke. But I mean they had a space right there and they got taken away. It got taken away and it got commodified. We used to hang out at Belle Isle, right? And then in the strip, you can't even be out in a Bell Isle past 10 p.m. right now. You can't be on the river walk past 10 p.m. Outdoors has been made illegal. And then when they push back, we call it a teen takeover. Now, do some of them like the attention? Yeah, but all kids want attention. That's part of being a child. And let's find ways, and I agree with you about the mentors, about finding ways to give them attention. And I also agree that it's collective accountability, not family accountability, but that collective accountability of our community to show love to kids because if the parent can't or won't do it, we can. And let's just do it. Let's just give them love. And and but but not pathologize our teenagers. Not talk about them as though somehow there's there's something horribly wrong with them. Yeah. Uh we're gonna take a break. When we come back, we're gonna talk about some headlines, money out of politics, some important legislative races happening locally. We'll be right back. Interested in renting space for corporate events, meetings, conferences, social events, or resource fairs? The Sodomar Wellness Hub and MASH Detroit Small Business Hub are available for rental by members, residents, businesses, and organizations. We offer rentals for activities such as corporate events, social events, meetings, conferences, art classes, fitness classes, and more. To learn more about our rentals and reserve space, visit ecn-detroit.org slash space rental. Welcome back, everyone. We're gonna run down some of this week's top headlines in the city of Detroit here on Authentically Detroit. We're gonna talk about money out of politics, Donna. I know you're excited because Money Out of Politics turned in their uh petition signatures. They got, I think, over a hundred thousand over the required threshold. Um I talked to Sean McBreatree, uh, one of the executive uh directors, or excuse me, I believe he's one of the co-chairs of the um committee, of the ballot committee. Money out of politics, what would it do? It would ban DTE consumers, Blue Cross, Blue Shield, uh General Motors Ford from giving, spending dollars on political committees, candidates, causes. Um it does have some bipartisan support, though mostly the coalition is made up of of progressive groups. Um the the corporate uh donors are a little worried about this. They're gonna be spending a lot of money, I'm told, to oppose this. Um Sean told me that he believes that this will end up on the ballot in in November. It's gonna be on a on a ballot with some ballot proposals like uh do you wanna r require that all voters show their their ID? Um I think there there's gonna be another one. But this one's gonna be that's not actually the the yeah. Well, yeah, but yeah, that's that that is one of the proposals that will likely be on the ballot. Uh Donna, talk about why you're excited that Money Out of Politics turned their signatures in. Let me let me clarify the ID thing first. Yeah, go ahead. Because it's not just enough to show your driver's license. You have to show your driver's license and an original copy of your birth certificate. And if you're married Under this proposal. Under this proposal. And if you're married and your name changed, you have to bring your marriage certificate and or bring a passport. So this is going to disproportionately disadvantage women who are married. Um, it will also disadvantage people who don't have passports, because if you have a passport, that's an easy solution, and that ends up being class-based. And so what will happen is it's another attack on voting rights. And most people who've observed observed and looked at it are very concerned, and it was being billed by those people collecting signatures as something that makes it easier to vote or improves the franchise as opposed to something that restricts it. This again is the same kind of legislation that is the holding up the um federal budget at the federal level because it's the the SAVES Act that the um that Donald Trump wants to pass and our Congress doesn't want to pass. Yeah, it's a local version of the same act. It's a local version of the same act. And so it's bad at the federal level and it's bad at the state level. Um, and I bring that up because um, you know, I'm on the board of Voters Not Politicians, which is one of the organizations which sponsored this uh money out of politics. Um was actually, I believe, the fiduciary for this effort. Initially, it was all volunteers trying to get the the signatures, and we were up against paid people who were collecting signatures for the um the voting reforms or voting changes to voting rights. Um Americans for citizens only. Okay, Americans for citizens only. Um so we were up against that, and we had to withdraw and start again because you're given a time limit by which you can collect enough signatures. And it's over um we collected over 500,000 signatures. I think we needed something like 360,000. I'm not sure the exact numbers. I was trying to look them up quickly, but we are over, you guys point pointing out, over a hundred thousand. Um, what this will do is it restricts people in regulated monopolies like DTE, Consumers Energy, from being able to spend money to pay legislators who then are fund campaigns because I what is the percentage of um legislators who are actually receiving money from either DTE or Consumers Energy is really high. It's like over 70% of those legislators, and then every year they vote to increase the energy bills and they are not regulating them in the same way that um other states are, and so this will change that. Um and I know that what's going to happen is corporations are going to file a lawsuit and say this is a free speech issue. I want to point out that as somebody who has run nonprofit organizations for about 30 years, we can't give money as a nonprofit to a campaign. So why is corporate speech more protected than nonprofit speech? Well, the corporations would say, Yeah, you can through a pack, and that's the same way that they are doing it. No, you can you cannot, as a nonprofit, you cannot give money to a PAC, and you cannot give money to a thro through a PAC, through a separate entity. But the nonprofit itself cannot control. And that's one of the uh that's one of what they push back on. They say, Well, how should the labor be able to do it through A separate entity pack, and we're not able to do it through a separate entity pack. But the issue is that the issue the conversation is that labor is not regulated by the state. Labor does not have to go to the state to approve wage increases and things like that. DTE has to go to the state Michigan Public Service Commission to ask for a rate increase. They have to present their energy plan to the Michigan Public Service Commission. The Michigan Public Service Commission is appointed by legislators. The state of Michigan legislators have the ability to pass laws for things like community solar, and they don't. Community solar being solar that is established in communities and shared among people so that people who are low income can all benefit from a shared solar system. That's not legal in Michigan. What is legal is an individual can put solar on their house. And so once again, those are usually wealthier individuals who can afford to put solar on their house. Those of us who are pushing for that find that we can't move forward because legislators have been bought and paid for. Another example of the concern people have is we have a very outdated grid in places like Detroit. Our grid is so outdated that if everybody in our community decided they wanted solar, our grid grid would be overwhelmed. We can't even sustain it. The reason we have power outages so often is because, first of all, we have power lines going over our community. Now, when you build a new community and there's new development, that's when they reinvest in the grid. And so you're seeing that kind of disproportionality on what some people call energy apartheid is taking place. And the other issue is that Michigan burns more coal than most power systems, even Indiana and Ohio. We're still burning coal. We are not moving to renewable energies. And that coal burning, um those coal burning plants are producing pollution that impacts the health of people in fence line communities. And so there are some very real and specific ways that people in places like money or to support money out of politics are saying, let's look at the rate increases. We have less reliable energy in Michigan than most people in the nation. And it also costs more than most people in the nation. And the reason that you have those two things together, less reliability and higher cost, is because of a lack of effective regulation. And so, yes, what they're saying is we don't want either you can be a monopoly and we can stop allowing you to be a corporate monopoly because monopolies in US government are not really allowed except in the instances of public utilities. There used to be a time when phones were a monopoly and now they've been, you know, broken up. But now you have the public utilities being a monopoly, and it's got to change if you're going to see anything close to energy fairness and voters and politicians being able to influence what happens with the people who are supposed to be supplying our heat and electricity. The Money Out of Politics Initiative would also expand campaign finance laws to disclose donors on advertisements for candidates and ballot questions, even if they do not expressly advocate voting for or against them. In Detroit and in Michigan, you have a lot of those type of in-kind advertisements or political messages from candidates that like don't have enough money to say, vote for me for mayor. An example of, or for any office. For an example of this was last year, you guys remember the 13th Congressional District paid for Solomon Kinlock's mayoral ad that appeared on television. Unlike Mary Sheffield's ads that said like, vote for me for mayor, Kinlock's TV ad was just like a I'm Solomon Kinlock. This is what these are my values and what I stand for. Um it's a little bit more expensive to pay for the actual ad that tells people to and so this uh also the attack ads get paid for. Yes, but that is a huge Elon Musk. They are not who say they are not attacking the campaigns, and these are federal issues. So I think it goes a long way towards ensuring that corporations cannot buy politicians, and politicians are actually accountable to the people who elect them. One of the best questions uh that I posed that sort of revealed the values and the political identities and ideologies of local candidates. The cycle has really been did you sign the Money Out of Politics initiative? If they did, I know what type of democratic politician they are. If they didn't, I know what type of democratic politician they are. Um, some of those candidates uh I recently highlighted in a story that was published today on Michigan Chronicle. Uh the headline is these Detroit area primary races will test Democratic voters. I want you guys who are all in on the idea that the U.S. Senate primary is a proxy for the 2028 Democratic uh presidential primary to know that there are also local legislative races that are also sort of proxies. Um, you have Senate District 1, 2, 3, 10, you have House District 8 and 11. Let's go backward eight House District 11, Kimberly Fisher. Uh she's backed by Donovan McKinney in the Michigan Working Families Party, faces McComb County Commissioner Michael Howard. In House District 8, uh incumbent State Democrat Helena Scott, she uh is more moderate, is being challenged by Democratic Socialist of America backed Chris Gilmer Hill. Deanna Austin is also running in that race. Amanda Trepa is running against State Representative Natalie Price. Trepa is the newcomer. She's backed by the Working Families Party, and uh Horace Sheffield, who is her pastor, has also endorsed her campaign. Uh, that is one that's more interesting. It's not as like moderate, progressive as some of the other races. Price is endorsed by many of her legislative colleagues, the League of Conservation voters. Uh, and then you got Senate District 3. Oh my gosh, we've been seeing some of Adam Ollier's billboards up um on Harper Avenue, actually. Uh he faces Ebony Taylor, Corey Hall, John Conyers III, Latanya Garrett, Toy New Reeves, Kimberly Knott, and there's a few other candidates. That is probably one of the best um to watch if you're a progressive or a moderate ideologue, uh sort of rooting for candidates locally. Definitely watch out. I think Corey Hall has a lot of Adam Ollier's former endorsers. Olier is gonna have all the money. He's putting his name and face on on billboards already. Ebony Taylor, who is endorsed by Stephanie Chang, who currently holds that seat last week, was endorsed by Senator Bernie Sanders. Um, in State Senate District 2, Abbas Oliway. He is the leader of the February 2024 uncommitted movement. He faces state rep Aaron Burns. She represents Dearborn currently. That seat is uh currently represented by Sylvia Santana. Detroit is losing some longtime state senators. Well, you know, that's the term limits. That's the the issue around term limits, is that we lose expertise. Yes. And then perhaps the most um um the funniest race of them all, Abe Ayosh and Justin Unwenu. This has become a personality test among Detroit Democratic voters. Uh Unwenyu is an appointee of former mayor Mike Duggan and current mayor Mary Sheffield. Uh Ayosh is backed by the Detroit Progressive Establishment uh Working Families Party. Unwenyu is a a uh labor organizer and he comes from environmental justice background. He is endorsed by the League of Conservation Voters, he's backed by Wayne County Executive Warren Evans, he's backed by uh Detroit Councilmember Scott Benson, but he's also backed by uh U.S. rep Andy Levin. Um, he is sort of saying that he's gonna unite the progressive and moderate wings of the party while A Bayash is, you know, if he were to be elected, he would continue his fire brand that kind of ticked off Joe Tate and other um, you know, more moderate Detroit Democrats. But definitely take a look at that story. Um this sort of proxy test of progressive versus moderate is is what we're watching heading into this primary. And sometimes the the words progressive and moderate um, you know, either water because they don't really explain what people are actually standing for. And I think it's important that we look at some of those issues, issues around water, um, what what is what is water cost? And do we have water affordability in our community? Issues around things like environmental justice and are we regulating the environment? Are we regulating DTE? I just wanted to point out something I forgot to mention before. In 2023, November or October of 2023, DTE paid out $750 million to its shareholders. That's in 2023. That March following in 2024, DTE said it needed about $432 million worth of rate increases to update its grid. Now, simple math would say if you paid out $750 in 2023, why would you then need $430 in 2024? Do the math. And they said, well, our shareholders really make these demands on us, and we've got to make our shareholds holders happy, or they can you know change things around. And so when you have shareholders, not even the executives who work for DTE, but shareholders who don't have any skin in the game other than making money, being able to determine they want our gas prices, they want our electrical fees to go up so they can make more money off of us, then we have a problem. And that is the basis for the regulation. It is not to be mean, it is not to restrict voices, it is really to say shareholders should not be able to determine price. Shareholders should not be able to cheapen the product. Shareholders should not have that product, especially when they are given a monopoly because there's no competition, there's no way to opt out of DTE. Every year, DTE sends this survey saying, How do you feel about our services? Would you recommend it to somebody else? And I usually laugh because the only option is to leave. Um Well, you can move to Wyandotte, I guess. Uh there what in Wyandotte who they have they have their own public uh utility. There is an environmental justice issue locally that I have not heard any candidates talk about. I you know, I wonder if that could be because they are all scared of uh of the former candidate, the guy that was just running for for governor as an independent, Mike Duggan. Um, Donna, we're gonna be spending some more time talking about Detroit's toxic dirt scandal issue, whatever you want to call it. Um, it's funny. Charlie Leduff, um, who was irrelevant, you know, maybe three years ago after he got fired from the Detroit News, and then you know, he guess has to go on Michigan Enjoyer uh to to you know continue his journalism career. Um, you know, he he did a hell of a scoop here um um discovering that Brian McKinney's Gyanga construction, which is you know no longer in existence, um, stole dirt from the Northland Mall and was infilling it in uh demo sites across the city of Detroit. Where is this toxic dirt? You know, does the city have a map where residents can see where the toxic dirt is if it's near their house? It's so toxic, people say, that you could touch it and get poisoned. Let's talk about it, Doug. I mean, Charlie the Duff is a sensationalist. And so what he does is he harps on the black man, Brian McKinney, who poisoned about 50 lots, but that they've been able to track. But he mentions, doesn't even mention anything about David Holman, who actually in 2024 was required to pay out $4.7 million for poisoning about 200 lots. The reality is we have about 600 polluted toxic lots in the city of Detroit, and Brian McKinney is not responsible for all of them. What is responsible is a failure to regulate landfill that is used to fill in those lots. If you don't regulate, it's actually cheaper to use contaminated dirt than it is to find enough uncontaminated soil that's tested and then used to fill in those lots. But that's one of the consequences of mass demolition. How about this? You have demolition contractors who are now required to remove the fill or remove the demolition, you know, the what gets left, the rubble from demolition. They're required by law to remove it. These contractors take these piles of rubble, they move them into some place away from the city, they crush that rubble down to you know become soil, and then they sell it and get paid for bringing that landfill back to the city and filling in holes. You have a whole landfill economy, you have a whole demolition economy many of us don't learn, don't, don't know about. Now, I would be um, you will never hear me defending Brian McKinney on purpose because what he did was wrong. But what he did was done in the context of a system that allowed it, and he became the poster child for the city of Detroit. He did. Mike Duggan said we need more black contracting, we need more black uh demolition companies, and what did Brian McKinney do? He he decided to take Mike up on it and created one. He created certainly the face he was uh on social media. He didn't put himself in the state of the city, the mayor did. And he didn't give himself all those contracts, the city did. And I think if you actually followed the money, and I have no way of doing that, what you will find is he was the face of many contractors who had had been operating all along, but he became the friendly face because that's how you sell things in Detroit. You put a black face on destructive processes and people back down. Because I don't know if you recall, there was so much resistance to the demolition to proposal in, and then you got this black man to become the face of it. Um, but I think it's important to look through the systems and institutions that cause the problems that we have right now. If landfill had been required to be tested all along, we wouldn't have this. There were other contractors who were taking soil from cemeteries when they dug up graves and they found arsenic in some of those landfills. But at no point, despite finding, after finding, after finding that some of this landfill was toxic, the city stop and say, okay, from now on, we're going to require testing. Instead, they relied on the contractor's word, and a lot of them are falsifying the source of landfill. About 40% of the landfill, they don't even describe where they got it. And that is an institutional failure on part of the person who set up mass demolitions in the city of Detroit. And his name is Mike Duggan. And so the thing about toxic dirt is it's not just touching the dirt, because touching it is a problem. If you have certain contaminants and dirt and you touch it, that's a problem. So you've got children and you say, kids, don't play on this toxic dirt, because if you touch it, you might get sick. The challenge with a lot of this soil is that it can enter your home because it becomes vaporized. And when it becomes vaporized and enters your home as a vapor intrusion, you can't tell your children, don't breathe the air because it's toxic. As kids are outside, what we don't know is a lot of times lead becomes aerosolized. So even if you don't touch it, you breathe it. And so if you have aerosolized lead and volatile organic compounds vaporizing inside the home, you have impacts on health that go far beyond mere touching it. And those impacts sometimes don't show up for 10 or 15 or 20 years. What we do know is based on the census tracks people live in, you see dramatic differences in life expectancy. The old way of looking at it was those people are probably just drinking too much and smoking too much and blah, blah, blah. And some of that is true, although they smoke and drink in other places too. And a big part of it though is that housing, the safety of indoor air, the indoor air quality pollutants can be so bad that they shorten people's lifespans. And when do they shorten them? When it gets really hot outside and you know the toxins become more concentrated in the air, um, that's when it becomes problematic. So I think the the issue of poisoning the dirt in some percentage of 27,000 demolitions in the city of Detroit, if one fourth of those was contaminated, that's an issue. So when you talk about Snyder and Flintwater, you gotta talk about Duggan and Detroit dirt. The number of suspected sites uh at 1.400 is now at 650, Lewis Aguilar uh reported a couple weeks ago. Uh the city is But how how does a site become suspected? That's a good question. The city is about to spend three and a half million dollars, if approved, to test those sites. You need to test those sites to learn uh whether or not they're toxic and how toxic they are. Um we're gonna learn more about this. Obviously, the FBI has gotten involved in an investigation. Um I was gonna say I was gonna mention that Violet Iconomova was one of the only reporters that sort of questioned whether or not the headlines over this toxic dirt scandal played into um Duggan's independent campaign for governor falling flat. You know, that I'm not sure, but um it is it it is interesting as we go forward in terms of what Duggan is going to do after his 12 years as the mayor of Detroit. Sometimes Titans fall. There was a time when Snyder was the most popular person in Michigan. There was a time when Crammy Kilpatrick seemed infallible, but sometimes Titans fall. Sometimes hubris allows people to believe they can get away with something over and over again. And because this the the demolitions in Detroit have been investigated by SigTarp, by the inspector general, by the state of Michigan repeatedly. And there have been multiple findings of people going to prison because of violations in what was happening there. This is not something where we thought it was going really, really, really well, and then it fell apart. In 2019, 2020, it was 2020, I think, when um proposal D, proposal M was adopted. There was so much resistance by city council members because of all of these flaws, and by the community because of all of these flaws in the demolition process, that the city said, you know, we're going to create a demolition department, and the demolition department is going to control this. What we do know is that the person he appointed head of that demolition department has stepped down when all of these things came to light. Nobody wants to be left standing to capture this. But, you know, I don't think we even understand the full scope of it. What I will also say, though, is that people, I mean, Kat Stafford, her last article before she left to go to um AP, before she went to Reuters, her last article in Detroit, she talked about the fact that the city had agreed to not demolish homes in areas that were impacted by um high levels of lead poisoning in children, and they violated their own agreement. We know that there have been those frequent violations. We know also that the cost of demolitions went from about $12,000 per demolition to about $20,000 plus under Mike Duggan. That's a tremendous increase. And people asked initially why the increase. And do you know what he said? You can look this up. He said it's because we are remediating environmental problems. So we paid all this money. To do the opposite of the city. And now, guess what's on the taxpayers? What's on Mary Sheffield? And she will be blamed for this. She's certainly the news, the news media loves to blame the black woman. But what's going to happen now is the city is going to spend, after spending about $900 million on a demolition program that poisoned people's homes in the name of progress. We're going to spend, if you're spending $3.5 million to test, guess how much it's going to cost to remediate. And they're finding 600 homes, suspected homes, you're not even testing homes. So this is suspected. How do they get suspicious? That's the crazy thing about it, is we don't even understand the formula for getting suspicious. We're going to try to learn more as our episodes continue. Um follow the story. Yeah. I've been I honestly have been surprised that no local candidates are talking about this. Um, we're gonna take a break though, and when we come back, we're gonna close out uh with our weekly shout outs. Stay tuned. Calling our residents and lovers of the East Side at the Spring Stademeyer Showcase on April 16th is your invitation to come in, get connected, and discover all that the Stademeyer Wellness Hub offers for Eastsiders. Experience the space, meet staff and instructors, and learn more about programs designed to support everyday life. Whether you're looking for health and wellness resources, opportunities for your children and family, or ways to stay connected and engage in the community, join us on April 16th and see why the Stademeier is a place to be.com. Kamaria, you have been waiting very patiently to uh give us your weekly shout outs. Let's start with you. Who are you thankful for this week? Um, I have many, if that's okay. Yeah. Um, I feel like I'm giving my Oscar speech right now. Um I just want to thank I just want to thank Authentically Detroit, first and foremost, for um believing in my podcast. Huge shout out to to Griffin because I have no idea how to do any of like the tech work. So being allowed to be creative is is really a good thing. Um yeah, so shout out, shout out to you. And then shout out to my black mama and my black dada um who were really um advocates for for me reading and loving to read um all my life. Shout out to all the people who have listened to Roots and Wonders so far, all the parents who have supported me that I know um from far and wide and the parents that I don't. And shout out to the people who have left a review. Um so I think those are my my shout outs. Oh, and my daughter, who has obviously inspired this entire journey. Shout out to my grandchildren. I had so much fun hanging out with um my eight-year-old granddaughter Luna this past weekend. She is so funny and so um, she was just cracking us up and so sweet. And you know, um, I've been dealing with some problems with my knees, and she I was carrying something. She's no, let me carry that Gigi because your body hurts. And she's like, You old woman, your body hurts. But it was so sweet and thoughtful. She won't let me do anything around her because she's worried about me hurting. Um, and it's just amazing to have a little person be such a kind and loving person. And she was on the honor roll and this got in the citizenship award last week. Um, I love my little maverick, and um still, and when I have my children together, they bring me so much joy and hope, even in the worst of times. Um, they are the light that shines my world. Well, I want to give a shout out to uh someone who has just been absolutely uh he's been a force of nature. Um you know, unlikely. Uh what did Rihanna say? We found love in a in a hopeless place. You know, I I was in I was in Orlando, Florida when I was like, I don't even know, a young child. And there was a family, and they were walking through with their uh I was in my I think Ben Wallace Pistons jersey, and there was a family in Spurs jerseys, and that was the summer that uh the in the in June and to I think 2005 the Pistons actually were defeated by the San Antonio Spurs in the finals. And from that day forward, I've seen that full family of Spurs, and they even had the finals patches on their jerseys, so you knew they were wealthy, and you know, they had all just bought new Spurs jerseys after they just won the championship over my Pistons. And so I vowed for the rest of my life to hate the San Antonio Spurs until you know there was Michael Jordan, there was LeBron James, and now, ladies and gentlemen, there is Victor Wembenyama. And Victor Wembenyama may be the greatest basketball player we come to know. Uh, he certainly socially seems to have a brain uh perhaps above the level of Kareem Abdul Jabbar, even. Um it has been really exciting to watch this young player really more so off the court. I mean, the guy on the court is literally seven six seven foot six inches tall. He looks unreal. Like he literally looks unreal. But off the court, he has a brain, he's French, and so you know, he he doesn't come with American media consumption brain. He comes with his own sort of uh, you know, perspective. And it's it's quite fascinating. He defeated uh this past weekend. Uh the worst team in the in the NBA really foul baiting. I just hate, you know, we in in Detroit we watch what they call an ethical style of basketball where the players are not trying to bait the referees into calling fouls. And so this long-winded shout out to Victor Wembanyama. I I just need I needed to get it off somewhere. Thank you, Victor, for you know, if not for the pistons, he should have been a piston, by the way. He doesn't flop, right? No, he doesn't well be angrier than floppers. Yeah, so the thunder were chanting flopper, flopper at him, actually. So some people would say he does, but I think you know, he has to sell the clock. He has said sometimes he has to fall to the ground because his body is so big that if he were to not fall in a specific way, that you know, but no, he defeated the flop team. The OKC Thunder are literally like Are they worse than Cleveland? Oh my god, it's worse than anything. Cleveland's not even that's just James Harden. The whole team on the Thunder are trained to flop. I felt like everybody on the Cleveland flop. But I hear you. They were bad. It was just bad to watch. I'm sorry I didn't watch that. You gotta watch this is gonna be the best NBA finals ever. I think all basketball fans, the New York Knicks and the San Antonio Spurs, is a rematch of the 1999 finals. Pretty soon we're gonna have a rematch of the 2005 finals. Uh, should have happened uh perhaps last year on the 20th anniversary. But nevertheless, we want to thank you guys so much for listening to Authentically Detroit. Uh, next week we will be back, probably with less basketball. Thank you so much, guys.