Speaker 1: Wake that ass up in the morning.
Speaker 2: The Breakfast Club.
Speaker 3: Morning, everybody in Steve j Envy, Jesse, Laris, Charlamage, the guy.
Speaker 3: We are the Breakfast Club. We got some special guests
Speaker 3: with us this morning. We got the brother Charles Coleman
Speaker 3: and try mainly welcome.
Speaker 2: Peace, peace, morning, Morning, morning.
Speaker 1: How's everything we.
Speaker 4: Blessed black and Holly, favor and everything good.
Speaker 1: How y'all feeling, man, I'm glad to be here, man,
Speaker 1: super glad to be here. Glad we can make this happen.
Speaker 2: In the world. But we were here. We're talking it
Speaker 2: out absolutely. I loved what y'all was doing.
Speaker 4: I love the black men in America the Road to
Speaker 4: two thousand and twenty four.
Speaker 5: Why was that important to do?
Speaker 6: You know, it's always important for us to in our positions,
Speaker 6: to center black men.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 6: We understand that we are absent in so many spaces, right,
Speaker 6: financial spaces, various.
Speaker 2: Institutions, in certain neighborhoods.
Speaker 6: But for us to be able to elevate our voices
Speaker 6: the center black men because sometimes we know brothers feel
Speaker 6: like they're not getting attention at home, they're not getting
Speaker 6: attention from candidates, they're not getting the attention that they deserve.
Speaker 6: So Charles and I came together and said, we have
Speaker 6: this platform, so why not elevate voices.
Speaker 1: And I also think that when you're just talking about
Speaker 1: our discourse now politically, we have a very lazy way
Speaker 1: of looking at it. And when I say we, I'm
Speaker 1: talking about our community. And one of the reasons why
Speaker 1: is because we like to say, go vote. But that's
Speaker 1: kind of sort of with the pretext that you're voting
Speaker 1: in the way that I feel aligned with my interest.
Speaker 1: If you're not, I'm not necessarily keen on that. And
Speaker 1: what we wanted to do was present a variety of
Speaker 1: perspectives in a way that was balanced, that was fair,
Speaker 1: that allow people to see, all right, I may not
Speaker 1: agree with that ideologically, but I understand this part of
Speaker 1: the conversation. And so that was like really really important
Speaker 1: to both of us.
Speaker 4: Why does it feel like, you know, they already setting
Speaker 4: it up to if Donald Trump gets back in the
Speaker 4: White House, it's going to be black men's fault.
Speaker 6: What they're always going to think about it is they
Speaker 6: don't send the message right. When the message isn't received properly,
Speaker 6: and you don't motivate folks, you don't explain why you're
Speaker 6: the better candidate.
Speaker 2: It's almost as.
Speaker 6: If they are requiring and demanding one hundred percent fealty
Speaker 6: that eighty seven percent of black men voting a certain
Speaker 6: way isn't enough, and they will most certainly blame us
Speaker 6: when we don't show up, when their messaging wasn't resonating properly.
Speaker 1: I'll give you an easy one, because you need a
Speaker 1: bad guy, right, like you need a bad guy, You
Speaker 1: need a villain in this political conversation. And unfortunately we
Speaker 1: are in America, and you know, it's easier to paint
Speaker 1: us as the bad guy rather than to look at data. Right, Like,
Speaker 1: if you look at the data, if Donald Trump were
Speaker 1: to win, there's no question that college educated white women
Speaker 1: and uneducated white women who are voting would have had
Speaker 1: a huge hand in that. Right, Instead of looking at
Speaker 1: the demographics that point to a particular area, it's easy
Speaker 1: to say, I like this narrative, We're gonna put it
Speaker 1: on black men, and so I think that that's really
Speaker 1: the answer, is like, you need a villain, and so
Speaker 1: to compensate for the fact that, to Tremaine's point, you
Speaker 1: did not do your job, Like it's amazing to me
Speaker 1: how in our conversation about the elected officials that want
Speaker 1: our votes, we will put more onus on the voter, yes,
Speaker 1: who's dissatisfied, rather than on the candidates who have failed
Speaker 1: to satisfy the.
Speaker 6: Voters and the refusal to actually engage. They're gonna spend
Speaker 6: the money to get out the vote at the last minute.
Speaker 2: Souls to the polls.
Speaker 6: You don't try to get people in church service and
Speaker 6: get them to the polls as opposed it, which I first,
Speaker 6: I hate that they put a little twang in their
Speaker 6: voice too, Souls to the polls, the little sauce on it.
Speaker 6: But they're gonna wait till the very last minute instead
Speaker 6: of actually engaging with the community daily, right being the
Speaker 6: community set roots up so people know you're there. Talking
Speaker 6: to brothers all around the country. What they say is
Speaker 6: they don't ever ever acknowledge us. I was talking to
Speaker 6: a brother the other day and he said, even with
Speaker 6: Donald Trumps fullishness, with the sneakers, the sneaker con and
Speaker 6: all that, at least the devil saying your name. You
Speaker 6: want somebody to say your name, at least he's saying it.
Speaker 6: And when he said that, at least the devil saying
Speaker 6: your name. It sounds like, you know, it sounds wild,
Speaker 6: but at least there are some overshures there.
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm being curious that, you know, where did
Speaker 1: you become this lightning ride of like controversy around black
Speaker 1: men in the vote. No. I was trying to have
Speaker 1: this conversation with somebody and I was trying to go back.
Speaker 1: I was like, you know, ABC News, that's new. You
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. We all know if you don't
Speaker 1: vote for me, if you ain't black, well you know
Speaker 1: all that. But I was just like, why is it.
Speaker 1: Where did this sort of honestly conversation come from.
Speaker 4: I think it's because left wing media does not do
Speaker 4: a good job of pushing the narratives they want, and
Speaker 4: they do a good job of pushing right wing media narratives.
Speaker 4: For example, if I'm on something like this Week ABC
Speaker 4: and I say Donald Trump is the threat a democracy,
Speaker 4: Donald Trump's a fascist, Donald Trump let an attempt to
Speaker 4: cool his country, And then I say, what, Joe Biden
Speaker 4: is an uninspiring candidate who.
Speaker 2: Don't have no main energy.
Speaker 4: Fox will take that part and highlight it, and instead
Speaker 4: of the left taking the first part of what I
Speaker 4: said in highlighting that they'll just respond to what Fox said,
Speaker 4: and then it becomes this easy villain.
Speaker 1: Though, easy villain, easy villain.
Speaker 3: I think, you know, sometimes I feel like it should
Speaker 3: go back to the days where you don't know who
Speaker 3: somebody's candidate is, right, You just talk about voting and
Speaker 3: getting people to get out there to vote, and you
Speaker 3: hear both sides or all three sides if you're talking independent,
Speaker 3: and nobody talks about who they voted for, because I
Speaker 3: think that creates a form of almost like I'm shaming
Speaker 3: you because you're voting independent, or I'm shaming you because
Speaker 3: you're voting Republic, or I'm shaming you because you're voting Democrat,
Speaker 3: right because you said, you know, we should vote for
Speaker 3: our interests, right, But if somebody's interest doesn't, you know,
Speaker 3: fall on Jess's interests, why should I have to go
Speaker 3: that way? And then if I say I'm voting independent,
Speaker 3: oh you vote independent, you ef it up to vote.
Speaker 5: You know, he can't win, And I think it really
Speaker 5: clouds things.
Speaker 3: My mom and my dad never talked, you know, to
Speaker 3: their friends about who they were voting for.
Speaker 5: They talked about everybody should go register and.
Speaker 3: Vote and what it meant to vote, but they never
Speaker 3: really talked about what candidate they were voting for.
Speaker 6: The choices have become so stark though, so it's not
Speaker 6: just a world where idea electrickle down economics or policing
Speaker 6: in this country, or even voter issues. It's become clearly
Speaker 6: there are these white supremacist impulses embedded in our politics now,
Speaker 6: and so it's unfair that now we have to expose ourselves.
Speaker 6: And sometimes you have the ideas of a democratic plantation
Speaker 6: and you got to stick to this side of that side.
Speaker 6: But the stakes are so high that I think it's
Speaker 6: a legitimate concern of how folks are arriving at their vote.
Speaker 6: They should have we should have full access of the
Speaker 6: franchise if you don't, but you should be able to
Speaker 6: have complete independence and be able to keep it to yourself.
Speaker 6: But I think in this environment it's become dangerous.
Speaker 1: I agree with MV in the sense that we know
Speaker 1: that shaming people does not result in folks going to vote.
Speaker 1: It does not. Shaming people is not a successful strategy,
Speaker 1: is not a productive strategy. I think this solution ultimately
Speaker 1: is to create a space that allows for informed perspectives
Speaker 1: to have a voice and for people to become educated.
Speaker 6: And it's called black men in America, wrote twenty Night four.
Speaker 2: That's the fact.
Speaker 1: It's on peacock right now, check us out, so we outside,
Speaker 1: So you know, that is definitely a thing. I think
Speaker 1: that the other side to it is it's incumbered upon
Speaker 1: us to stop going through this cycle where we either
Speaker 1: a don't where we stay uneducated about the entire process
Speaker 1: of specific engagement, or b choose not to share what
Speaker 1: we know with other people on the off years, right like,
Speaker 1: how many times are we gonna be like, well, you
Speaker 1: gotta do this because it's the less of two evils,
Speaker 1: or you're gonna go ho. The problem that that people
Speaker 1: on the left that are terrified about another reign of
Speaker 1: Donald Trump are having is that you had four years
Speaker 1: and you didn't do anything with it to get people
Speaker 1: to understand or to get people to feel like this
Speaker 1: is what's gonna be different. And now you want to
Speaker 1: sort of do a rush job and shame people to
Speaker 1: Envy's point or scare people to the.
Speaker 6: Other pointsuise again every cycles, and that.
Speaker 1: Is not an effective strategy. And so I think that
Speaker 1: if you're gonna get to a place where you're talking
Speaker 1: about people just sort of being able to, you know,
Speaker 1: discuss what their interests are and vote along those lines.
Speaker 1: They have to become educated where that's something that I don't.
Speaker 3: Think people like to have conversations, right Like, so you
Speaker 3: look at I'll just take Floyd Mayweather, right So, Floyd
Speaker 3: Mayweather a couple of years ago said he was voting
Speaker 3: for Donald Trump, and everybody the whole black community hated him,
Speaker 3: gave the middle finger, turned.
Speaker 5: Their back, whatever, whatever.
Speaker 3: But nobody ever asked them why why he felt that way,
Speaker 3: you know, or why are you not voting for Joe
Speaker 3: Biden during that time because he might have felt like, well,
Speaker 3: Joe Biden did this to me, or my father told
Speaker 3: me that when he passed this lord affected him. And
Speaker 3: we never asked why to have those conversations. We're so
Speaker 3: quick to turn our back on somebody that doesn't necessarily
Speaker 3: agree that what we have, and we just hate to
Speaker 3: have conversations.
Speaker 1: I'll give you an example and then sort of an anecdote.
Speaker 1: Number one, My biggest concern in this entire discussion is
Speaker 1: that as black people, we are negotiating our views around
Speaker 1: blackness based off of whether you agree with the candidate
Speaker 1: who I agree with. That is deeply problematic.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Imagine you have a disagreement with someone in your community
Speaker 1: who looks like you, about someone who's respectfully not in
Speaker 1: your community, and because they don't align with your choice
Speaker 1: of someone who's not in our community, you are now
Speaker 1: then trying to invalidate their blackness. I'm not about to
Speaker 1: be argued you over the white people.
Speaker 2: That is absurd, right, So I'll give I'll give you a.
Speaker 6: Great percent the whole conversation to the lands of the
Speaker 6: white caves.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll give you a great example real quick. I
Speaker 1: have a friend. He's a plumber in Chicago. He employs
Speaker 1: all black people because he believes in supporting black people
Speaker 1: and teaching black young men and women trades. He is
Speaker 1: having trouble bidding on contracts because of the influx of
Speaker 1: immigrant labor into the city of Chicago, and other contractors
Speaker 1: are underbidding him because they're paying their contractors, their their
Speaker 1: employees under the table a lot less. So he's like, look,
Speaker 1: on this immigration issue, I actually feel like I'm more
Speaker 1: aligned with what conservatives are saying than what Democrats are saying.
Speaker 1: And I want to support black I want to support
Speaker 1: black people. I want to employ black people, I want
Speaker 1: to put money into the black community. You can't tell
Speaker 1: me that this man is anti black because he has
Speaker 1: that position. So when you talk about priorities, it shapes
Speaker 1: out in very different ways for very different people.
Speaker 6: But you also can't ignore the fact that when you
Speaker 6: align yourself on a singular interest or a singular issue,
Speaker 6: that you're also in bid with a whole bunch of
Speaker 6: other people, namely white supremacists. If you're a Republican, it
Speaker 6: doesn't make your white supremacist, But if you're white supremacists blatantly,
Speaker 6: you're probably a Republican. Not to disavowed the idea that
Speaker 6: there are white supremacist, racising Democratic Party. You know, everyone
Speaker 6: who was in the fighting for the Union didn't necessarily
Speaker 6: think black people were equal. They just believed in this
Speaker 6: idea of the Union. And so they are white supremacists
Speaker 6: on both sides. But that side on the right now
Speaker 6: it's become part and parcel of the party now, and
Speaker 6: especially with Donald Trump's recent take over the RNC, expectancy
Speaker 6: more of that.
Speaker 2: So what do what do Democrats do?
Speaker 4: Because you know, the messaging of fear, I don't think
Speaker 4: it is going to work in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 5: But this is the year we should actually be afraid
Speaker 5: because you.
Speaker 4: Know, we've been hearing the same rhetoric, rhetoric every election cycle, right,
Speaker 4: every president's election cycle.
Speaker 2: It's attached to democracy.
Speaker 4: This candidate, specially Republicans, they always demonize them active democracy.
Speaker 2: This is the time it actually is. But you can't
Speaker 2: make people believe it because you've been saying it for years.
Speaker 6: No, I really don't understand that. So last night I
Speaker 6: was in an off the record conversation with some folks
Speaker 6: in the White House, and I had very same conversation
Speaker 6: about why aren't.
Speaker 2: You, you know, going to the community.
Speaker 6: People don't even even when you look at the charts
Speaker 6: and unemployment and wealth and everything is on the rise
Speaker 6: from Donald Trump, but the people don't feel it. And
Speaker 6: they're still trying to figure out the messaging. They say,
Speaker 6: you know, we know we're trying to figure out the messaging.
Speaker 6: You're supposed to be the big ten party filled with
Speaker 6: empowered black people all across this country, and you're still
Speaker 6: trying to figure out how to communicate with black men
Speaker 6: and the way we live so segregated in this country, right,
Speaker 6: you know, where the black people are. You know what
Speaker 6: institutions they're in, what neighborhoods they're in. You know, the
Speaker 6: power brokers, those in the working class, the middle you
Speaker 6: know who they are. Why aren't you still going to them?
Speaker 6: They're still trying to figure out how to message all
Speaker 6: this good news. But to your point earlier, but still
Speaker 6: responding in that white supremacist kind of echo chamber, it's
Speaker 6: not doing that, man, services.
Speaker 1: I think it's really a matter of an inability to
Speaker 1: acknowledge their failures.
Speaker 2: So part of what ail or refusal or refusal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, correct, a refusal that is couched as an inability.
Speaker 1: That's a that's a great point. I think that part
Speaker 1: of why the messaging is falling flat is you can't
Speaker 1: say to me, you can't talk to me about all
Speaker 1: of the things you're gonna do, all the great things
Speaker 1: you're gonna that you've done, as if this is is
Speaker 1: this rosy picture without acknowledging, Yo, we don't mess them
Speaker 1: up before. We got a lot of work that we
Speaker 1: need to do, and we acknowledge that. So for as
Speaker 1: long as that is treated as a cardinal sin, like yo,
Speaker 1: we can't really talk about that because we're going to
Speaker 1: alienate white voters. The messaging in terms of black people,
Speaker 1: and in large part black men, is going to fall flat.
Speaker 6: The political calculus that it takes to say, you know what,
Speaker 6: we know this is, this is right, but we speak
Speaker 6: about black men too loudly.
Speaker 2: We know what's gonna happen.
Speaker 6: It's gona be a backlash, a MEYDI, not just from
Speaker 6: from the right, but also in that center part of
Speaker 6: your own party.
Speaker 4: You ho tepl but you know, even with Dad, it's like, yo, man,
Speaker 4: when I hear that, it's like, yeah, I'm a vote,
Speaker 4: But how can I ever truly support you if you
Speaker 4: don't even want to say my name in public?
Speaker 2: I ain't no hope.
Speaker 1: You know why?
Speaker 4: Why is talking about black men? Talking about black people
Speaker 4: are bad electoral?
Speaker 6: But also we have to be honest and again this
Speaker 6: beyond party. They fear us, so they've marginalized us. And
Speaker 6: as long as we're pursuing ngraded in any of these
Speaker 6: spaces in this discourse, we could still again be the boogeyman,
Speaker 6: the villain, but they never have to actual appeal to
Speaker 6: it because there's a general consensus that black men are
Speaker 6: to be feared or not to be respected. Overincarcerated, we're
Speaker 6: not in college. Were all those things. We've been isolated
Speaker 6: to the point when it's a common knowledge that we
Speaker 6: are there.
Speaker 1: This is I get I get so much heat for this,
Speaker 1: but it's the truth. We've been as a community the
Speaker 1: side piece of the Democratic Party for so long that
Speaker 1: when we step out of that role and we start
Speaker 1: actually asking questions and pushing back, now it's a problem.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: And I mean that's really the dynamic that exists, unfortunately
Speaker 1: with the left. And so it highlights the very complex
Speaker 1: nature of what it is to be black in America
Speaker 1: and then engage political systems because you realize, like, Okay,
Speaker 1: these folks over here are not really for me. These
Speaker 1: folks over here they mess with me, but they mess
Speaker 1: with me in the dark when it's convenient, when they
Speaker 1: need me, when they want something right. And then when
Speaker 1: you can't have that honest dialogue, you know, to Mby's point,
Speaker 1: and you start thinking about a third party, you have
Speaker 1: folks turned on each other, and it's like, well, where
Speaker 1: do I go?
Speaker 6: What do I do?
Speaker 1: So it's a very very complex space, and it highlights
Speaker 1: the old quote in America, black people do not have
Speaker 1: permanent political friends. We only have permanent interests. Interest not
Speaker 1: something that we need to sort of understand before we
Speaker 1: sort of blindly align with any political party. We need
Speaker 1: to figure out what is our ideology first.
Speaker 2: I agree.
Speaker 4: I don't know why if you if you're black in America,
Speaker 4: you shouldn't be able to Republicans or Democrats. When I
Speaker 4: see these maga crazies that are black, i'man like, man,
Speaker 4: what is your issue? When I see these black liberals
Speaker 4: that are crazy over these I'm like.
Speaker 2: What is your issue?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 2: None of us should be beholden to these parties. It's
Speaker 2: gotten so rabid.
Speaker 6: I was down South Carolina at a barbershop and I
Speaker 6: was talking to brothers who are all Democratic voters, right,
Speaker 6: and you know, I said, are y'all planning to vote
Speaker 6: for Donald Trump? They said, oh nah, he's a real problem.
Speaker 6: I said, well, you have homeboys and people in your
Speaker 6: family who are considering.
Speaker 2: Said yeah.
Speaker 6: I said well why, and they explain why. It felt
Speaker 6: like more money, it felt like this, but they were
Speaker 6: not voters. They were not voting for Donald Trump. So
Speaker 6: I get the clip on on TV. It's running MSNBC
Speaker 6: all day. I'm down South Carolina doing my thing. And
Speaker 6: the rabid response from black liberals and some white folks
Speaker 6: in there. They're like, you and Charlotte Mane, y'all ain't
Speaker 6: pushing back. I'm like, first of all, what me and
Speaker 6: Charlotte got to do.
Speaker 2: With each other?
Speaker 6: You became the boogeyman. So all of a sudden, it's
Speaker 6: like Charlot. They was like you and y'all trying to
Speaker 6: get to Trump, and I'm like, yo, I'm just asking,
Speaker 6: brother one. If I come to you and invite you
Speaker 6: to give me your opinion, I'm not going to beat
Speaker 6: you up for how you feel. I'm not trying to convince. No,
Speaker 6: but I'm not don't work for the party, are for
Speaker 6: the people. I'm here as a messenger. I'm here for
Speaker 6: the people, not for any politician. But the response, for
Speaker 6: one second, again, I don't agree with anything cannoneones.
Speaker 2: Has to say, but when you're talking about a democratic plantation, like,
Speaker 2: is this the plantation they're on? This?
Speaker 6: Have me the brother you'aven known for decades doing this
Speaker 6: work and I'm a broker of the people, And then
Speaker 6: this is the response, And.
Speaker 4: All you're doing is amplifying what the people are saying.
Speaker 4: Guess what that's what they should be. They should have
Speaker 4: their strategist and their campaign teams down there listening to
Speaker 4: the police, and then they would understand why people feel
Speaker 4: the way that they do.
Speaker 2: I'm not making it up.
Speaker 1: It's a true story. And the wild thing about it
Speaker 1: was that happened literally the special premier on a Sundays
Speaker 1: for mid on Sunday, February fourth, Right, that happened like
Speaker 1: literally that Saturday, because that was the Democratic primary in
Speaker 1: South Carolina. That clip ran, a right wing outlet took it,
Speaker 1: chopped it up, ran when it made it seem worse
Speaker 1: than it was. Similar to your points, Charlamagne did exactly
Speaker 1: what you was talking about. And then all of a
Speaker 1: sudden we just got all lumped. It became like a
Speaker 1: whole tech hateration in this dancery, like it was just
Speaker 1: everybody was catching strays and was and I was with
Speaker 1: my man, so I'm like, yo, y'all haven't even and
Speaker 1: they thought it was part of the special, which even
Speaker 1: if it was. My point was, well, don't you understand
Speaker 1: that these are actual people who have these concerns and
Speaker 1: so trying your voters people from the conversation, is it
Speaker 1: going to make you go away?
Speaker 2: They started exposing it.
Speaker 6: A young brother I felt bad for his younger brother's
Speaker 6: like twentywo years old, was somewhat reluctant to do this,
Speaker 6: but I knew his cousin. So everybody came together and
Speaker 6: he was like, you know my age. I think he
Speaker 6: was like twenty two. He like, we only voted one time,
Speaker 6: so all we know is Trump and the pandemic and
Speaker 6: all this. They started releasing his public information. Oh, you
Speaker 6: ain't struggling that much. You just bought a house with
Speaker 6: a girlfriend. I was like, and a young brothers like.
Speaker 2: That's how you beat people out of the process.
Speaker 6: As long as you could create a chilling effect, you're
Speaker 6: having the opposite responses you want. You want and engage
Speaker 6: public and young brothers especially that will we proselytizing to
Speaker 6: their homeboys and be able to be able to articulate
Speaker 6: some of these ideas right and machinations of the of
Speaker 6: the machine.
Speaker 2: Instead you push them into a corner. It was terrible, man.
Speaker 2: These thing people need to change.
Speaker 4: Will Democrats need to change their perception of the hypothetical
Speaker 4: swing voter, like, you know, because they don't think about
Speaker 4: black men when they think about yeah, swing voter, like
Speaker 4: that probably voted for Obama, you know, might have voted
Speaker 4: for Hillary. But then they're like, you know what, I'm
Speaker 4: gonna get it just Trump thing to try, you know,
Speaker 4: then I'm gonna go back to Biden, like you know,
Speaker 4: I think.
Speaker 1: The only thing that I would say in response to
Speaker 1: that is Democrats don't have to change that. We have
Speaker 1: to change that for them. They're not going to make
Speaker 1: that decision on their own unless there's something that moves
Speaker 1: them to do so. So as long as I can
Speaker 1: count on you to show up when I asked you
Speaker 1: to show up, right, like as my side piece, right.
Speaker 2: The three times, that's the.
Speaker 1: Less I was saying. As long as I can count
Speaker 1: on you to show up on the show up, that's
Speaker 1: never gonna change. So that's on us as the elector
Speaker 1: to say, like I am not set in stone as
Speaker 1: a voting black, that you can necessarily count on you gotta.
Speaker 1: I'm available, right, but you gotta work for you, Gotta
Speaker 1: do something to get me out to vote for your candidate.
Speaker 5: That generational democrat.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 5: I look at my mother and my father when they
Speaker 5: started voting, and they would take me to the school
Speaker 5: to vote. What would they usually do back then?
Speaker 3: Right, Democrat, Democrat, Democrat, Democrat, Democrat, Democrat, Democrat, Democrat, Democrat, Democrat. Right,
Speaker 3: that's what That's what they did, right, because that's what
Speaker 3: their parents did.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: So when I first started voting, when I was eighteen,
Speaker 3: what did I do at first? Democrat, Democrat, Democrat, Democrat, Democrat.
Speaker 5: Democrat, Democrat because I was like that, So my parents
Speaker 5: didn't That's that's what it was. So a lot of
Speaker 5: people still do that.
Speaker 3: And I think a lot of times Democrats know that
Speaker 3: that when people go into that booth, they don't care
Speaker 3: who's on that board. They just gonna do Democrat, Democrat,
Speaker 3: and Democrat until you start understanding and learning.
Speaker 5: And then when you start understanding learn, you don't know
Speaker 5: who to learn from.
Speaker 3: You don't know who's right, You don't know what story
Speaker 3: is a fake. Some people say, well, you go to
Speaker 3: MSNBC or you go to and some of those stories
Speaker 3: don't be true. So it's like, who do I rely
Speaker 3: on to find out the facts when it comes.
Speaker 1: To these people, I think it's you know, I think
Speaker 1: that it's it's that is a very valid question, and
Speaker 1: I think in today's age, misinformation is a thing that
Speaker 1: people don't talk enough about and that actually saw I
Speaker 1: saw it when Tremaine was telling a story about what happened.
Speaker 1: How quickly things can get out of hand. I think
Speaker 1: part of it is you do have to get media
Speaker 1: from a variety of sources and a variety of perspectives,
Speaker 1: because that's the only way you can compare and start
Speaker 1: to see, like, all right, so this is saying something
Speaker 1: different than this, and this is saying something like what's
Speaker 1: starting to align, what's starting what actually makes sense? But
Speaker 1: if you lock yourself into one media source, if you're
Speaker 1: someone who's just starting out and you're saying, like, all right,
Speaker 1: I want to kind of figure this out, you need
Speaker 1: to be able to look at a variety of media
Speaker 1: sources on the same story. So if it's just like, uh,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump and marl Argo, what happened today? Read the
Speaker 1: Fox News article, Read the MSNBC article, read the scene
Speaker 1: An article, read the BBC article. There're gonna be certain
Speaker 1: things that are gonna be universe true that will be
Speaker 1: reported in all of them. You could probably take that
Speaker 1: as facts.
Speaker 6: But you know, the only way that actually works, though,
Speaker 6: is if you arrive with a base of information in facts,
Speaker 6: so you'll be able to arrive and be able to
Speaker 6: decipher and filter through. Our news filter is so off
Speaker 6: because people aren't arriving with the baseline information understanding how
Speaker 6: the system works, let alone the actual nuances of an
Speaker 6: actual issue. So when you go to Fox, you know
Speaker 6: that's nonsense because ABC or D or if you go
Speaker 6: to MSBC, you know that doesn't sound right because I
Speaker 6: know ABC or D. But to your earlier question, though,
Speaker 6: this idea of you know, this the mythology around the
Speaker 6: stories we tell ourselves as Americans, and the mythology around
Speaker 6: what a working class of voter is, what a middle
Speaker 6: of the road voter is. They don't take into account
Speaker 6: a Youngstown, Ohio, which is always the post a child
Speaker 6: for the working class white man. It's a majority black
Speaker 6: city who arrived there through the Great Migration, and we're
Speaker 6: blue collar workers. And so as long as they're trying
Speaker 6: to do this political you know, acrobatics around, we can't
Speaker 6: offend this group because we need that working class middle,
Speaker 6: that white working class. As long as you're that mythology
Speaker 6: that there's a certain kind of cloistered away black voter
Speaker 6: and that they're not also in the middle, that not
Speaker 6: also independent thinkers and they're not also working class or
Speaker 6: blue collar workers.
Speaker 2: Then you can continue to see the same paradigm.
Speaker 4: And I also think when it comes to MSNBC, CNN, Fox,
Speaker 4: you know, they're not really interested in reporting the news.
Speaker 4: They're interested in ratings and revenue. I think Trump brings ratings,
Speaker 4: and that's why they want to have as many Trump
Speaker 4: stories as possible. I think this new narrative of black
Speaker 4: men are black people being against the Democratic Party. I
Speaker 4: think that is another thing that's getting them a lot
Speaker 4: of engagement in a lot of ratings. So they're running
Speaker 4: with storylines as opposed to actually real news.
Speaker 2: I somewhat disagree.
Speaker 6: I mean, I think when we're understanding how the cable
Speaker 6: news space works, it's like a newspaper. I'm an old
Speaker 6: newspaper guy. It's like the front page to the metro
Speaker 6: section is actually news. Then you get to the opate
Speaker 6: the commentary section. So at MSNBC, you'll have news all
Speaker 6: day and then you get into a little commentary where
Speaker 6: it's more opinion. For a long time, you hadn't seen
Speaker 6: Donald Trump on our airwaves. But then this is the
Speaker 6: news again. As over we are leaving with the fire,
Speaker 6: there are more important things happening than death and destruction
Speaker 6: or the missing kid who got shot in the head
Speaker 6: or whatever it is. But that actually is the fire.
Speaker 6: And so I don't know if it's intentional, like we
Speaker 6: got to get the ratings, let's turn the trump. But
Speaker 6: also is such a break from our norms which we
Speaker 6: didn't handle well the first time. So I think we
Speaker 6: probably need more attention. But just interrogating what this man
Speaker 6: is doing and saying I think interrogating it more, not just.
Speaker 4: You know not yourn MSNBC run a headline that says
Speaker 4: Charlamagne is pushing MAGA messaging simply because they asked me.
Speaker 4: On January fifteenth, Fox News asked me, do I think
Speaker 4: the border is gonna be an issue in November?
Speaker 2: And I said yes. And the reason I.
Speaker 4: Said yes, it's because based off conversations I'm having with people,
Speaker 4: whether it's you know, here in New York City when
Speaker 4: Mayor Eric Adams, you know, they made all of the
Speaker 4: kids do remote learning so they could house the migrants.
Speaker 4: Whether it's you know, people I run into the street
Speaker 4: talking to me about their neighborhoods being overrun with gangs
Speaker 4: that are coming across the border. It's people in Chicago
Speaker 4: telling me about how they feel like the micros are
Speaker 4: getting more resources than they are conversations that regular, everyday
Speaker 4: black people are having with me. So I said that,
Speaker 4: how is that maga messaging?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 1: The number one issue I think, right, I think that
Speaker 1: we've entered into a space that has become increasingly not
Speaker 1: even politicized, just polarized. And the sensationalism around people's positions
Speaker 1: in a way that allows you to sort of just
Speaker 1: from a binary standpoint, be like you all the way
Speaker 1: over here, they all the way over here is something
Speaker 1: that has really hurt dialogue and made it difficult for
Speaker 1: people to have understanding. And I think, to Envy's earlier point,
Speaker 1: we don't have conversations anymore, and that's a big problem.
Speaker 1: And that's one of the reasons why Tremaine and I
Speaker 1: did the Special Black Men in America the World to
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four is we really wanted to highlight the
Speaker 1: fact that number one, these conversations are happening. Whether you
Speaker 1: try to shame brothers away from having these discussions or not,
Speaker 1: they are happening, to Charlemagne's point, And number two, they
Speaker 1: can happen in a space that allows for us to
Speaker 1: sort of have a die not always agree, but also
Speaker 1: not be disagreeable about it. And that was something that
Speaker 1: we really were intentional about when we talked to Jizi,
Speaker 1: when we talked to Hakim Jeffries to speak of the
Speaker 1: minority speaker in the House or minority leader in the House.
Speaker 1: We talked to, you know, people from all walks of
Speaker 1: life who had very different ideological and political perspectives and
Speaker 1: heard different things and it was okay, right, And I
Speaker 1: think that we need more of that. And let me
Speaker 1: be very honest, Yes, I'm an MSNBC guy. Jermaine is
Speaker 1: as well, but at the end of the day, we're
Speaker 1: here for community and I don't expect that any platform,
Speaker 1: respectfully right, and obviously I banged with MSNBC, but I
Speaker 1: don't expect that any platform is going to do that
Speaker 1: for us.
Speaker 2: It's not an institution in America. We got to do
Speaker 2: that far.
Speaker 1: We have to be the ones to be able to say, like,
Speaker 1: all right, we can have these conversations ourselves without turning
Speaker 1: around and being like, oh, well, you don't agree with
Speaker 1: me and I'm questioning your blackness.
Speaker 6: And we can't and we can't afford to be at
Speaker 6: eyes in this moment and every moment that preceded this,
Speaker 6: we cannot afford that. And I think that, you know,
Speaker 6: it ends up becoming entertainment for some folks when it's
Speaker 6: really life for death.
Speaker 4: You think we should have more mixed conversations, meaning that
Speaker 4: you know, I was saying that I feel like the
Speaker 4: vice president should go on Fox News, she should go
Speaker 4: on Handy.
Speaker 2: The same way President Obama used to go on O'Reilly fact.
Speaker 4: Though, like I feel like we can't keep talking about
Speaker 4: people are allowing people to talk about you without talking
Speaker 4: to them.
Speaker 2: That requires good faith, though.
Speaker 6: It requires that we're gonna arrive at this moment and
Speaker 6: have a dialogue and disagree and have this discourse and
Speaker 6: try to unpack a few things, not I gotcha moment
Speaker 6: that we can circulate on social media for that red meat.
Speaker 2: Let's get a win.
Speaker 6: The liptards that this one that when you can't you
Speaker 6: can't operate in that environment because it's just not a
Speaker 6: good faith environment.
Speaker 2: Operator.
Speaker 4: But you don't think it's hard to take you out
Speaker 4: of context if I'm sitting here talking to you, if
Speaker 4: the audience is actually watching it in real time. I
Speaker 4: think it's easier when you make a statement somewhere else,
Speaker 4: and then Fox can take it and remix it. It is,
Speaker 4: but I still think it's still gonna be chopped and
Speaker 4: screw But I still think that Tremaine is absolutely right.
Speaker 4: You have to come to the conversation with good intentions,
Speaker 4: right like, if you really do you want to have
Speaker 4: a conversation, or you're trying to have a gotcha moment,
Speaker 4: if you're really trying to have a conversation, ask the
Speaker 4: tough questions, right like, ask the difficult questions, have the
Speaker 4: difficult issues come up, and let's have a conversation.
Speaker 1: Just keep it balanced, just keeping balanced. If we're going
Speaker 1: to do it, let's do it. Just keep it balance.
Speaker 1: I think that's the only caveat. It has to be
Speaker 1: in a space that is truly about a balanced discussion
Speaker 1: before you can try to say, oh, well, you know,
Speaker 1: you shouldn't do that outlet or what have you, because unfortunately,
Speaker 1: there are too many outlets and platforms that really are
Speaker 1: just looking for a viral moment as opposed to trying
Speaker 1: to promote a conversation, because we know controversy gets clicked.
Speaker 4: It seems like it's working for Gavin Newsom though him
Speaker 4: going on Fox, you know, having conversations with Handity, debating
Speaker 4: with Ron DeSantis.
Speaker 6: Now all of a sudden, people got his name in
Speaker 6: the conversation to be president because this is the way.
Speaker 6: I think he's a singular kind of force. He looks presidential, right,
Speaker 6: So I think he just has a certain thing about
Speaker 6: him that I think he can he can move that
Speaker 6: way where any number of folks left couldn't.
Speaker 2: Move like that though.
Speaker 1: I think also he I think also Gavin Newsom presents
Speaker 1: a different alternative when you're talking about leftist politics that
Speaker 1: doesn't exist, and so people are kind of interested in that.
Speaker 1: You know, people you know and for whatever reasons, then
Speaker 1: I can name a lot of them. People may not
Speaker 1: necessarily be thrilled with Kamala as A as being representative
Speaker 1: or Vice President Harris as being representative of the future
Speaker 1: of the Democratic Party. So Gavin Newsom steps in and
Speaker 1: he's more or less unchallenged in terms of that space.
Speaker 1: He's an early adapter, if you will. So there has
Speaker 1: some interest there and I think that he's navigated it
Speaker 1: fairly well.
Speaker 4: Yeah, believing that's unfaired when they say things like you
Speaker 4: should be scared of a Kamala Harris privacy. Of course,
Speaker 4: why her policies wouldn't be that different than any other
Speaker 4: Democrats because he's Black's because.
Speaker 1: She's a woman should not asper No, no, no, these.
Speaker 3: Brothers gotta go. But I just gotta this is away
Speaker 3: from politics. I just got a question David Banner. It
Speaker 3: was recently recirculating in the last couple of days that
Speaker 3: David Banner was talking about HBCUs and he was saying.
Speaker 1: This is Howard University at all times.
Speaker 5: All right, well, thank you for joining us.
Speaker 2: Question what's the question now.
Speaker 1: I'm just kidding.
Speaker 3: You don't want to have to He said, HBCU shouldn't
Speaker 3: be a choice that all black students should go to HBCU.
Speaker 3: It shouldn't be an option. They should not go to
Speaker 3: these white universities. They should have to go to an HBCU.
Speaker 5: And that's what he felt.
Speaker 6: I want to ask, you know, then the problem is,
Speaker 6: I think I think in all these things, we are still,
Speaker 6: all these centuries after enslavement, fighting to be whole citizens
Speaker 6: that we haven't gotten there yet.
Speaker 2: So full access to the franchise, full access.
Speaker 6: To the full fruit of what it means to be
Speaker 6: an American, and I think that comes with the choices
Speaker 6: to do whatever we so please. And so certainly we
Speaker 6: understand these story institutions have been the bed rock and
Speaker 6: foundation of our communities for a very long time. But
Speaker 6: I think we do also need to allow black people
Speaker 6: to go where they want have bad ideas to a
Speaker 6: pin point about voting.
Speaker 2: Again, we don't require any of that big shot.
Speaker 6: Listen, my wife went to sell In University, so so
Speaker 6: I don't know we're gonna have to I don't have
Speaker 6: to fight with her, behalf here.
Speaker 1: For people listening and be put in Hampton helmet up.
Speaker 5: I wasn't. Yeah, but so good.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 5: The only thing with that is, you know, I went
Speaker 5: to Hampton University. My daughter didn't. I wanted her to go.
Speaker 5: But when we went, you know, we went through that
Speaker 5: whole thing.
Speaker 3: We went Morgan State, we went to Clark, we went
Speaker 3: to Spelman, we went to Hampton, we went to Howard.
Speaker 3: But it was the programs that she wanted to do,
Speaker 3: and the HBCUs didn't have the program which she wanted
Speaker 3: to major in.
Speaker 5: And that was the biggest problem.
Speaker 3: And you know, when I'm talking to some of the
Speaker 3: HBCU presidents, I tell them that we have to change
Speaker 3: a lot of the curriculum.
Speaker 5: Because the coriundlums are still old and they don't have
Speaker 5: some of the new curriculum.
Speaker 3: Like you know, we had Ryan and Ocho and they
Speaker 3: were talking about how, you know, brothers are making millions
Speaker 3: of dollars gaming and not coding, but playing games, and
Speaker 3: how it's a big business and these creators are making
Speaker 3: that and a lot of the times our HBCUs don't
Speaker 3: want that.
Speaker 2: It's if it's free.
Speaker 6: When you think about this idea of a reparation which
Speaker 6: is in the news now in California and my latest podcast,
Speaker 6: Undocumented unkind of millions of power reparations, it's like, how
Speaker 6: are we made whole in this country? We understand the
Speaker 6: horrors of slavery and then the hell that came after
Speaker 6: all the violent dispossession that we face of stripping of
Speaker 6: land and resources, and as part of that, the Freeman's view,
Speaker 6: establishing these hpcus, these landgrent colleges, I think that would
Speaker 6: make sense if as part of repair, as far as
Speaker 6: making us whole, that HBCUs are free, and I think
Speaker 6: that changes the conversation.
Speaker 1: You know, I am gonna look at this from the
Speaker 1: standpoint of also being an Hbculum and then when I
Speaker 1: was when I was at Howard was a Border Trustee
Speaker 1: member of the Border Trustees twice. So I'm looking at
Speaker 1: it from like very practical standpoint and being a lawyer.
Speaker 1: So a lot of people may not really on the
Speaker 1: top of that head be remembering the Supreme Court's recent
Speaker 1: decision that outlawed or declared unconstitutional race based admissions considerations,
Speaker 1: the case against Harford. The significance of that in this
Speaker 1: conversation is what it is going to do is you
Speaker 1: have a generation that demographically speaking, is the biggest and
Speaker 1: largest sense, the Baby Boomers that are now sort of
Speaker 1: like in college or entering college or in that space.
Speaker 1: So you have more people who are now going to
Speaker 1: have less access to more schools because affirmative action is
Speaker 1: essentially gutted at the collegiate level. Our HBCUs right now
Speaker 1: cannot they cannot handle the capacity of students that are
Speaker 1: already there from a housing place, you know this, from
Speaker 1: a facilities place. You know what I'm saying, Like, it's
Speaker 1: just a thing, right you go to James Hall, a
Speaker 1: Pierce Hall right now and it's pink peeling off the walls,
Speaker 1: and I'm not even being funny, I'm being very serious. Right.
Speaker 1: So the problem with what David Bannon is saying, and
Speaker 1: I respect David Banda, I really really do. The problem
Speaker 1: is it's simply not practical, and it's also not practical.
Speaker 1: It becomes further further impractical if we are not going
Speaker 1: to support our institutions with the type of money and
Speaker 1: funding that they need for it, not just maintenance but
Speaker 1: also expansion.
Speaker 6: They get you some of that good Ukraine money or right,
Speaker 6: and their moneyful.
Speaker 2: This money.
Speaker 6: But that's what it comes down to, is like in
Speaker 6: this whole reparational conversation when posters, you know, and social
Speaker 6: scientists ask white people, is the problem with the amount
Speaker 6: of money?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: Is it? Who should qualify? Know?
Speaker 6: Is that they don't believe black people are deserving, And
Speaker 6: so it all comes down to whether we are deserving
Speaker 6: despite that, not only did we where we drivers of
Speaker 6: the world, we actually were the wealth.
Speaker 2: He's about eighteen sixty.
Speaker 6: Black bodies were the most valuable commodity in this country,
Speaker 6: let alone the actual physical structures that we built and
Speaker 6: the whole entire economy, taking this colony, this small outlier colony,
Speaker 6: into the global power it is today, right, but it's
Speaker 6: a matter of what they want to do.
Speaker 2: It's still we're not deserving.
Speaker 1: To your earlier questions, Charlamagne, when you talk about democratic messaging,
Speaker 1: if foreign aid two words foreign aid right, regardless of
Speaker 1: where it's going, I don't want to get into that discussion,
Speaker 1: but that foreign aid are not bad words, then reparations
Speaker 1: should not be a bad Absolutely, that's really that's the
Speaker 1: core of what we're talking about. And I don't mean
Speaker 1: to make it as singularly an issue about reparations, but
Speaker 1: I'm just using that as an example for when I
Speaker 1: when I use the term, that term side piece or like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: you know you kind of we're gonna deprioritize your interests.
Speaker 1: If you can say foreign aid to whatever countries plural
Speaker 1: that you're going to say them, then why can't we
Speaker 1: have this conversation about something that's directly.
Speaker 2: Of those bombs millions?
Speaker 4: You know, you know Donald Trump is gonna say it
Speaker 4: at some point over the next few months. Donald Trump
Speaker 4: is going to say, we keep sending all of this money,
Speaker 4: you know, the Ukraine and all of these countries we're
Speaker 4: funding NATO that could be used for black people reparations.
Speaker 4: It's just gonna be a line and watch what it does.
Speaker 4: Remember Remember I said it. Remember remember what you said
Speaker 4: earlierbout people don't even want to say black people's name.
Speaker 2: Don't say black man name. He's going to see blacks.
Speaker 2: My blacks deserve reparations. My blacks. Yeah, my black watch.
Speaker 3: Well, we appreciate you brothers for joining us. Tell them
Speaker 3: they can catch you, cause I see when does the
Speaker 3: series come on?
Speaker 6: So it is ouration, the the old so uncounted millions
Speaker 6: of power of reparations. Where our episode five drops tomorrow.
Speaker 6: It's the most amazing reparations story you never heard. America
Speaker 6: actually paid reparations once before for enslavers, and a black
Speaker 6: man somehow finessed his way into the system and actually
Speaker 6: got reparation for slavery. Episode five drops tomorrow Thursday.
Speaker 1: All right, and you could also check out Black Men
Speaker 1: in America The Roads of twenty twenty four on Peacock
Speaker 1: and streaming live.
Speaker 5: All right, Well, thank you brothers for joining us. Charles Coleman,
Speaker 5: Jermaine Lee. It's the Breakfast Club. Good morning, wait till
Speaker 5: ass up in the morning.
Speaker 2: The Breakfast Club