Speaker 1: Kay bla talk fifteen eighty trillion dollars, might do it
a couple trillion. We're talking reparations. We do that every
Friday at this time, second hour of the show. We
call it Friedman Friday because when we ended the Civil War.
When the Civil War ended, the enslaved formerly enslaved back
black persons of this country were called freedman designated such
by the government. I call it Freedman Friday because we
focus on reparations, all of the repair, everything that was
meant to happen back in eighteen sixty five that we
are still struggling to make happen today. And so we've
been doing this for a couple of years now. I'm
really happy to welcome in the chief Wellness Officer of
Blacksmith's Psychological Consultative Services. There's psychologic coal services provider for
the US Olympics and Paralympic Committee. The leader, doctor ram
Mel Kwaku Smith.
Speaker 2: Arifi A Moassee is.
Speaker 1: Is out of Milwaukee and he went to University of Milwaukee.
He's got his bachelor's in psychology, went on and got
a master's of Science and Educational psychology, a doctorate of
philosophy at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, and he's been
president of Blacksmith's Psychological Services since two thousand and seven.
Doctor Quaku, Welcome back.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me. It's always a pleasure to be
on what you dominate.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's always great to hear from you. And you're
you know, obviously you're in the field of psychology, but
you're also very much committed and interested in Black history
and Black liberation.
Speaker 3: Oh, no doubt about it. I mean everything that we
do is as an African centered liberation film, and what
we do is like, how do we as a descendant
of those who were enslaves still survive in this wilderness
of North America. So it's always I have an unapologetic
love for all people, but a special love for my people.
Speaker 1: And so, you know, when you center this idea, and
we were just talking about Btty Mason, right, an enslaved
woman who walked from Mississippi to California and ended up
owning a large part of downtown and helping to found
one of our most prominent churches, Bittty Mason.
Speaker 2: So when you go.
Speaker 1: From centering psychology to a conversation about reparations, does it
seem like a leap to you or does it seem
like a logic progression.
Speaker 3: No, I mean it's a perfect intersection because you know,
everything is interrelated in life. So when we started to
talk about that, and so how can you be a
person of African descent and not talk about reparations. I
know oftentimes when you talk about Freedman Frieda and you
ask people, well, how do you define reparations? And some
people won't answer the questions. Some people will give a
very clear definition. And I think one thing that all
people can agree on, it's about how do you repair
a harm? And if you are people who have been
harmed since the very very beginning, that means every intersection
of life needs to be repaired. Every area of human activity.
Nearie Fuller Junior used to talk about these nine areas
of human activity that we all deal with, and so
you talk about psychology and health, all of those things,
those are in those same areas that needs to be repaired.
So correlates.
Speaker 1: I know that there's a large group of folks, myself included,
you feel like, okay, reparations has to include the check,
it has to include land, it has to include economic
you know, make goods, economic healing. But when we talk
about psychological healing and the impact of not just enslavement,
but Jim Crow and the subsequent harms, many of which
continue to this day. Is that something that is on us?
Is that our own charge, or is that something that
we should somehow be in partnership with this country, these nations, institutions,
or it's corporate sort of class.
Speaker 3: Now, you couldn't have asked a better question, because when
we talk about reparations, I believe in everything what you
just said, pay us what you will, give us everything.
But at the beginning of reparations, the first thing that
has to be done is an acknowledgment of the wrong, like, hey,
we did you wrong. And not only is it an
acknowledgment of that wrong, but then there's an apology, a
sincere apology. And what I tell everybody that I work
with from a clinical setting, and it's outside of reparations,
but just in general, I said, an apology is just
to start. It's like a puppet. But when you start
to animate that puppet, those are the actions of that apology.
So the second part of the reparations goes from acknowledging
and apologizing to what then to repairing the harm. So
that means I'm going to replace what I took or
I'm going to get back in a different way what
was took. And before any land any other things can
be given, we need that true apology to say, hey,
you know what, you are truly welcome. When we look
at the Constitution, I think it's one of the most
beautifully written documents ever, it's just the same it was
written by hypocrites and it was not followed through for
all people. So when we started to look at that,
the first thing I think when you talk about a
psychological healing, because just for example, Dominique, if I harm
you and I say I'm sorry, but you know I
don't mean it, everything else don't really matter because you
said I'm still don't feel that warmth of inclusion. And
when we talk about America specific, what that apology starts
to stay is this, we are sorry, and we see
you as a true American, not a second class citizen,
not somebody who's our burden, but really a part of
this true fabric. And since we built it, we are
the fabric to say we not only recognize as part
of the fabric, but we recognize as being the pillar
and the foundation of helping to get this country to
where it's at. And until we get that level of apology,
all the other things we get, which would be good,
it still would be hollow and ringing true, specifically as
it relates to continual justice, because one of the other
icons of reparation is saying, not only are we sorry,
not only are we going to repair the harm, but
we're going to promise not to what to redo the harm.
And as we look at what America is doing now,
not only are they not going towards reparations, they're going
towards the backwards. They're going towards the thing to eliminate
and remove right. So any apology that might have been
given half heartedly in the past proves to be what
disrespectful and untrue.
Speaker 1: Well of just answered the question that I was going
to ask, but I'm gonna throw it out there anyway
because it's kind of it could be a follow up
to what you're talking about, which is that some people
do feel like we don't want any apologies, apologies or bs.
You know, the state of California one of the few
things that has passed and there have been a handful
since the task Force. The Reparations Task Force here in
California released their massive report was an apology, and there's
plenty of people that turn their nose up at that
and feel like, well, that's just a symbol. That doesn't
mean anything. I had always wondered like, doesn't I wouldn't
think it would help you in court. I would think
it would help you to build something. But it sounds
to me like there's a mental health aspect to an apology.
And also what there are elements that make a legit
apology as opposed to a phony one.
Speaker 3: And see that's it, right, there is the apology sincere
because I tell you this, and this is working with
people working with couples who's gone through abusive situations, going
with couples where people have taken money, are taken the
money that was allocated for certain things and mishandled it.
I'm talking about France siblings who were hurt and mad
at each other. The apology when done sincere, Oh, it
matters so much because what did we say? A true
part of the sincerity of the apology is it's the
following actions afterwards. So words mean nothing that the actions
don't follow. But could you imagine if America apologize, Let's say,
what if, hypothetically, but then they started to treat every
black American, every person of African descent, the same way
that all what they considered and that was really the
white Anglo Saxon Protestant land only man in the Constitution
treated us like that, then America truly would be the
great place. It would be that great experiment where everybody
could come in and be treated as one. What makes
that aology insincere is that what we know that it's
not true. So that's why we don't need an insincere apology.
But if we had a sincere apology that followed with
actions were giving us true justice, where we didn't see
our children being beaten and killed mercilessly in the streets
without any justice, if we saw correct schools, if we
didn't see the harm and harassment that's taking place within
the medical field, if we saw those things, oh, that
apology would be sweet and beautiful. We go back to
the civil rights, as you said in eighteen sixty five,
when this was supposedly the time for what the soul
of America told redeem herself. And that's what it looked
like when Abraham Lincoln, not giving him too much credit,
but just that whole scene in that time where you say, oh,
guess what we are freed men. My uncle name was
Charles Freeman, and I used to be so jealous of
his name because he said, I didn't know what we
didn't know what our name was, but we knew we
was a free man. They had that right to rename themselves.
And so when you look at those twelve years that
we had in freedom, you said, oh, what a time
it was. But when they saw how educated we got,
when they saw how much we took to politics, when
they saw we already had the skills from being in
the fields those years, they said, oh, we got to
step back. And that's when Jim Crow stepped in because
they had to find another way, even though we had
convict LEAs and so we don't want to act like
it was perfect during the time. But when they did,
Jim Crow, that was to double down and say, we
can't do slavery in the way it was, but we're
going to reinvent it. So that made all of those apologies.
Not only was it that, but the new leaders Andrew
Jackson came in, said we're going to take away filled
Operation fifteen. We're going to take away the land that
you got. And not only were we going to take
away the land, we're going to party those Confederate soldiers
who fought against the Union and give them and their
family's land back that was taken away from them for
being traders. So when you have apologies that go backwards,
those mean nothing because those actions didn't follow. But if
America would, and I said again in a hypothetical situation,
if those words could ring true, and sincere oh for
a mental health standpoint, it would be beauty because just
like our ancestors from eighteen sixty five to eighteen seventy
was living amongst those who had enslaved them, but was
turning it around. That's the beauty of our people. We
are magnanimous and forgiving and loving people. We were actually
going to live with those who are our captors once
they gave us, well, once we got our freedom back.
They didn't give us nothing back, but once they stopped
trying to hinder us from it and was giving us
a pathway to citizenship, to freedom, to have an equity
within the country, they were willing to do that, even
after all of that pain, and brutality. So nobody can
tell me that an apology doesn't mean anything. It just
has to be a sincere apology followed by actions.
Speaker 1: Doctor Quakeku is here and if you have something to say,
you can call in eight hundred and nine to fifteen eighty.
He's the president of Blacksmith Psychological Consultative Services. Else will
continue the conversation the mental health side of repair on
this Freedom and Friday only on KBLA Talk fifteen eighty
talking with doctor Kwaku talking mental health and reparations and
the question of an apology, the question of how we
are treated in the broader society. I mean, we can
go into that a little bit more in depth, but
I want to make sure that the hour doesn't pass
without looking at which part of the repair that we
have to do in terms of our spirits, our soul,
our psyche is our own charge. I think about you
know doctor Joy degru in post traumatic slaves syndrome. Yeah
or she she speaks on habits and reflexes that we
have that we've inherited from enslavement and Jim Crow, which
we may not even be conscious of.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, you and my notes because I love the
Queen Mother Joy. I might have had a chance to
speak with her and work with her on several occasions
when she's come to a walk, and I think her
book hits the point. But I think it's a term
that we all know. When we hear the term sankopha,
you know it's a return and go get it. You've
had the chance to, you know, put your feet on
the soil of the motherland, and when you go back,
what you recognize, especially being in those dungeons where they
held our ancestors. You see the pain, you see the frustration,
you see the herd. But you also wonder what type
of currency was in our DNA that allowed them to survive,
that to allow them not only to survive, but to
thrive in the land that we are. So what's inside
of us? There's a sporting brand called Actively Black and
they talk about one of their taglines is greatness is
in our DNA. And I think what the indoctrination of
America has done has made us forget who we were.
And it's just like a person who had some type
of traumatic brain injury and some form of MNS and
they didn't know how great they were. They have to relearn.
But the beautiful thing about when you go back to
the san Copha and you start to learn exactly who
you are, you start to recogniz that's who you are.
And then what you do is, I don't want to
get too technical, but now we go into quantum physics
with this healing, because when you start talking about quantum physics,
you understand the first law thermo dynamics, what the energy
is near the created or destroyed, it's just what it's transferred.
So what we got to understand is how do we
transfer back from that negativity to that positivity. And when
you get into that, you go into quantum entanglements. And
that's how do we reach back to our ancestors and
even reach to the future of our posterity and bring
all of those voices from time and space together and
to say, what, let me recognize who I was and
who I can be. I think one of the biggest
lines that kind of bring that together, even though it
was science fiction, was from the movie Centers when they
were singing that song and you could see blended voices
from the past and blended voices from the future. You
could see that energy and even though it wasn't there
physical was there in a spiritual space. And so you say,
how do we go back to that healing? We have
to go back and reawaken that cellular DNA from when
we were kings and queens, when we were architects, engineers,
to the highest level before than doctrination of the American
spirit and go back. But what is America has taught
us so many time is to be afraid of who
we are as Africans, not to want to be associated
with the continent, not to be associated with the land.
And that's the first part of what any type of
colonization is to make you forget who you are. So
when people ask me why do I change my name?
I said, it is mandatory when not just white people,
but even more people for them to have to say
Quai kuwam Oassi because it's saying the name what's wway
heally saying the name from that motherland, it reawakens something
in them that they don't know because it's going back
to go get who I was. And if we're going
to heal, and we were already healed from the beginning,
we just have to do something almost like with our
body when you scratch your body and it's a sowred.
What do people say, Hey, just get out the way,
let it heal itself. But the problem is we're busy
picking at the scalp, and from a metaphorical standpoint, picking
at the staff is what learning these American ways, trying
so hard to fit in to the colonization and the
things of America. And so as we continue to do that,
we're going to be further and further away from our spirit.
And that's what keeps us in a state of chaos.
And the opposite of chaos is what the cosmosis, or order.
So for us to be orderly, we have to go
back and be ordered to what the roots of our ancestors.
So until we're willing to do that, we're going to
stay spiraling in the land that wasn't really meant for us,
trying to fit into a place that doesn't want us.
When we start talking about this system, how do we
fix the system? Well, what's the saying that everybody says?
There's nothing wrong with the system. The system is doing
exactly what it's designed to do. So if we know
the system is built upon our destruction, we know the
system is built on oppressing those who are marginalized and ostracized,
and we keep trying to fit into that system. What
we're saying is we're welcoming the chaos into our life.
We're welcoming a mental dysfunction. So until we're willing to
go and find who we truly are tapping into that spirit,
we're going to remain in a state of really emotional psychosis.
Speaker 2: Okay, the lots of lots of unboxed there.
Speaker 1: I do think that you know, I've been to Africa
seven times, different countries, different places, very very much consider
myself a Pan Africanist. But there's something that the within
the reparation space that I think the lineage folks really
have made a strong, compelling and important point about, which
is that our ancestors, as Black Americans, as freedmen, as
whatever you know, negroes, whatever term works for you, also
are very specific, right, and they also deserve very specific light.
You know, my my great great grandma, you know, Delphia Archie,
who came off the plantation as a teenager, and you
know she was she was a teenager when the emancipation
was proclaimed, and so I do feel like I gained
strength and power and the long lineage and continuity of
our DNA by going to the motherland.
Speaker 2: But I also think.
Speaker 1: There's something really important for us, and I'm talking psychologically
right now, but also spiritually about recognizing the specific sacrifice
and the specific triumph of those Black American ancestors, those
black US American ancestors who built the White House, who
built this country. Whether they wanted us or not, they
would have no country. We would in this nation would
not be a superpower without the blood, sweat and actual
human sacrifice of our ancestors, specifically as Black Americans.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, yes, yes, those are all valid points. And
how can you argue with those things? If I could
be so humble and submit a copy at today Look
at Ghana with the Black Star when they gained their freedom,
Kwame Kermer said, we are not free until all Africa
is free. When I went to Ghana and where I
received my name in Cape Coles, I said, I don't
want to just get a name. Remember we talked about
symbolic apology. I said I don't want a name just
to get a name. And I remember the chief looking
at me and said, oh no, don't do that. He said,
we might not know where you're at but you're from here.
Now you are ours. He said, not only will I
give you a name, I will give you my name.
Quaker is my day name. Just he who was born
on Wednesday. Atrophy is a person from the village, an
elder from the village. In Amasi is the surname of
the chief. And what he said, I want to let
you know is this. Maybe this was not your people,
but it is now. So I say that to say this.
My people came on the boat too. So I know
that my lineage comes from West Africa. I know that
we are people who get the blood, sweat and toil,
the blood, sweat and tears and toiled this land. But
I say this, if I get something and the brother
who looks like me, and even though his ancestors didn
suffering the same way in the same land, I would
still be remiss for them not to share in the
coming up of what we did. Because he said, we
cannot be free to all our Africa's friend, I feel
like that as a person. He said, I'm not Africa
because I was born in Africa. I'm Africa because African
was born in me. So anybody who's affiliated with the
continent and you know we say, ooh, you know our people,
but our people were brought here. Let's just say we
go with the date sixteen nineteen were American wasn't evented
till seventeen seventy six. So that's the British. So that
means the British Olderness money. And I've heard you talk
about this, the do Us, the Portuguese, the French and
all of those people. And I've heard doctor Chael Grills
come on to talk about, Hey, you know what, I
had cousins in Jamaica. I had cousins in Turks and Cables.
I had cousins in Granada. I got cousins in Brazil.
When you look at how we were wiped and spread
apart in the Diaster, In fact, forty seven percent of
us will shipp to Brazil. So when you look at
all of those places from over, I say, we steal
our Wand if we are paying Africans, that means no
matter who did what or who suffered where, we all
suffered in some sense. And though we can't quantify exactly
who did everything, you your parents might have did ten percent,
of the lift of mind might have did eighty percent.
But guess what we're going to share in this pot altogether,
because at the end of the day, we're want so
to that argument. I don't discount that those with leneas
would have an argument to say we deserve more. But
if you get more and your brotherre and suffering, how
can you steal be free?
Speaker 1: How can you Okay, we're gonna we have to leave
it right there. We've got a hard stuff for news,
traffic and sports and we will continue. Okay, b LA
Talk fifteen eight. Welcome back to Friedman Friday. We are
talking reparations, the mental health aspect of it, something I
think we really could spend more time on where with
doctor QUAKEU a'massie and we we're digging into a whole
bunch of stuff before news, traffic and sports, including you
know what does what part of the repair is our responsibility?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: What part of the repair Obviously we're not when you
talk about cutting a check, changing policies and the national, international,
municipal aspects, uh politically of reparations. That's one thing. When
you talk about healing our spirit, our mind and subsequently
the body, since they're connected, how much of that is
our responsibility? How much of it is something that has
to be handled independent or maybe separate from from you know,
the public space.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I know I veered off from that. So
to answer that question of it is our responsibility. You
think about a person who's been abused. Sometimes you never
get closed or from the person who abuse you, But
that means, well, how do you still stay home? How
do you not let that abuse or inn take a
part of your life? So when we say what do
we do, it's one hundred percent of ours. And we
talked about kind of like the energy, how do we
transfer that energy within ourselves to be our very best selves?
So when we started talking about what is the work
that we have to do where we have to look
and say, well, where am I hurting? How am I
showing this hurt? How is it manifesting in my family?
How is it manifesting in my work? How's it manifesting
in my community? How's it manifesting in how even I
treat myself? And so this is where we have to
do a deep dive of self introspection and really look
and say, what are the ways in which I'm hurting
those areas in which I claim to love? And once
we find those areas now we have to dig in
deep and say how do I do better? The commercial
a little bit before I came on, the announcer said,
when you know better, you do better, and a chuckle,
because that's what my mother used to tell me all
the time.
Speaker 2: When I'm a child.
Speaker 3: So she said, my child is to teach you better.
Now you know better, do But so now we know
that we're not getting that apology from A because they
had time to so we're not getting it. So let's
not be naives. So now the question is how do
we heal? That's why when you look at people like
the Honorable Elijah Muhammad Message to the Black Man, when
we read the autobiography of Malcolm X, when we read
post Traumatic Slave Syndrome by Joy the Group, when we
read Cast by Isabelle Workers, and when we look at
all of these different things, we say, ooh, how do
I get better? When I look at the Wretched of
the Earth by Friends, and now what I started to
do is I started to look at those liberatory killers,
those people like the w'd be the Boys, those people
who seem to have an answer to those things, to say,
how can I tap into what they were doing? So
what I love to do is I love to stay
in the community with people who are like minded, because
when I'm around it like minded, guess what, that's the
energy and the spirit I get. We often talk about
how does a person like resonate on the frequencies their vibrations.
If you're around low vibrational people, that becomes your spirit.
It's a complaining spirit, it's a sagging spirit, it's a
whate was me spirit. But when I get around people say,
I'm in power to understand where I sit in this world.
But I also understand and they're not gonna let this happen.
I worked in corrections for a while, and what the
correction person will say, I say this and let you
ask the next question. He would tell. One of the
staff sergeant would tell the people say, you might have
been born in check, but that don't mean you got
to get check made it. And that's what I tell everybody. Listen,
we understand that everything was not set up for us.
But when we look at how resilient we are and
the beautiful things we've done, we just say, how can
we do that? But on the level, we're not just
material success, So we have to define what success is.
But to have that success that brings that internal happiness
and joy Bahemus.
Speaker 1: In the chat, she says restitution is the duty of
the offender, a debt that is owed, but personal and
collective healing is on the survivors of that community.
Speaker 2: Do you agree with that?
Speaker 3: I say that's what we just said. The America owes us,
So we're not stopping with restitution. And I tell people
either they give it to us or we take it.
It's got to be one of the two. But as
it relates to healing, we can't get that restitution. We
can't get even if we got reparations, but we're not
mentally and emotionally heal. It does nothing because we stay
mired in that low space. So when we start talking
about what do we have to do, what we have
to do is restrategize. Audrey Lord famously said the tools
of the master will never dismatch to the master's house. Well,
the biggest tool is the government. So as we try
to work within this government system, I think is as
a as a fool's journey. And not to say that
those elders and ancestors who work so hard from encobra
Hr forty, what they're doing in great work in California.
I think those things need to be laid. But just
to show us to the point that no matter how
hard we try to work, they're not listening, they don't care,
they're not going to help us. When we start talking
about the ancestors, Frederick Douglas famously said he said power
can seize nothing with the other man of demand, but
people usually kind of leave it there. But he said,
find out just what any people will quietly submit to,
and you will find the exact measure of injustice and
wrong which will be imposed upon them. I think we
are so nice, we are so magnanimous, we are so
beautiful over people that we continue to take this disrespect,
and that's why it keeps putting on to us. It
was also lengthy Hughes and said Negroes Meek mob Di
silent Ki beware the day they changed their mind. So
I think it's time we change our mind. But we
can only do that with getting that renewed mind that
we talked about initially.
Speaker 1: We're going to go to Dwight from Compton. Good morning, Dwight,
You're on with doctor Quaku.
Speaker 2: Welcome.
Speaker 4: Good morning, Good morning, Dominique, Good morning, doctor Quak Whu,
thank you so much for giving them on the nation
and inspiring us. I just had a curiosity. I know,
every time we hear about the forty acres given to
the slaves from Special Special Order fifteen at President Abraham
Lincoln signed yeah, and and I said, if they had
and then they did a census in eighteen sixty. I
didn't even know they were doing ciss back then. And
they had four million slaves back then, and they had
four million slaves got forty acres, it would have equaled
one hundred and sixty million acres, which equals the land
mask almost of California and Oregon.
Speaker 3: So that was just kind of an interesting thought that
I heard.
Speaker 2: Yeah, then a.
Speaker 1: Lot of it got taken back and seized and whatnot.
Not to be depressing, but yeah, I mean, and that's
part of the basis for this idea, that this the
knowledge that reparations is a debt. It's not charity, it's
not welfare. It is a debt that is owed to
us and was promised to us, and it's still that
debt still do did you want to speak on that,
doctor Quicku.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I just think it's to the point where
we can say that reparations as we are hoping to
get will show to be futile. Because once they started
to do it and they saw what we was doing,
what we could do, what we could potentially could become
in this country, they said, oh, we can't have that.
So you know, Juwanza can Jufu famous. They had the
books that kill him before they grow or one of
his things, he would say. And I think that was it.
When they saw us rising as a nation within this
nation where we were once enslaved to now to be rulers,
to have people who be sitting governors or excuse me,
lieutenant governors and senators and then the House and what
not like that, they were say, oh, we have to stop.
And that's when the plan came for the convict lease,
and that's when they're plan for Plessy versus Ferguson and
all of those things came to say, hey, we can't
allow this. So I'm saying to all of us is
we have to recognize they owe us, but they're not
giving it to us. They gave money to the Jews,
they gave money to the Japanese, so when they want
to give money, they know how to give money. They
did a Marshall Plan for people who we were at
war with to rebuild their nations. So if they wanted
to do it, they would have done this. They told
us over and over and over it again. I was
listening to I Love doctor Cheryl Grills and I was
listening to her on Freedman's and she was talking about
how Governor Newsom had did the committee had appointed her,
but she said, I'm less than encouraged to say. He
hasn't been really involved because he was running for president.
He didn't want that stigma attached. And you think about
any person who's run for president, maybe say for mary
Anne Williamson, who has really talked about reparations, and what
they're telling us is they're not going to give it
to us in the way we're asking. And if we
keep asking, it's the biggest gaslight. And I think that's
from a mental health standpoint, is the most frustrating. We
can't be Charlie Brown trying to kick this football knowing
they're going to pick it up.
Speaker 2: But we are. But we are making progress.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you look at it politically, yeah, I
don't think they'll ever be like here you go Cinderella,
here's your you know, here's your forty acres. But I mean,
you do have commissions, you do have you know, Evanston,
where actual checks are going out, you have people getting
land backs. So even though it's hard fought every step
of the way, it's I don't know if i'd put
it in the category of Charlie Brown, because we are
forcing progress.
Speaker 3: And I will never fight against progress. I'll never fight
against small victories because those small victories aren't small. But
this is what I'll say. See, this is the biggest
gas like, this is the biggest mental manipulation. Remember when
Barack Obama was elected and they said we're in a
post racial society.
Speaker 1: They I mean, but only idiots believe that.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm sorry, when you live in America, have
you met America?
Speaker 3: Okay? I want to make if I can make that
same thing to reparations, because I don't want part of
what you mean. Remember Malcolm X said, he said, if
the knife is in my back nine inches, don't pull
it out six or three inches and say we've made progress.
There's no progress till the knife is out, the wound
is healed, and there's no possibility for that knife to
inflict harm on me again.
Speaker 2: But you're not.
Speaker 1: But you're not suggesting we just threw up our hands
and give up.
Speaker 3: No, no, we owe Listen what I'm saying I'm trying
not to say on your radio and with the words
or I would put a disclaimer for KBLA, these other
words of doctor Quai cool with not KBLA radio face.
I think we are too nice with the reparations. I
think we need to do something more forceful. And it
doesn't always have to be violent to be forceful. There's
many ways you can be financially violent. You could be
violent in different types of ways. That's why Martin Luther
King boycotts were they were financially violent. But we have
to be violent to the way in which we let
them know we're not asking, we're taking. And until we
do that, they're going to continue to give us crams
to appease us, but never give us what they owe us.
And until you give me what you owe me and
whole if I loan you two million dollars Dominique, and
then you give me back thirty eight dollars that don't
really do nothing for me.
Speaker 1: And then I tell you, but we're making progress. I'll
give you another thirty eight too more Bora.
Speaker 3: Yeah. It's also how long do we wait? Because because
if we keep saying, give me the crimes, give me
the pieces, as hard as we working, you're showing me
the lack of sincerity. You're showing me the lack of
commitment to this. And so what I say is, if
we keep asking, they're going to keep saying no. But
if we take it, That's why I go back to Langston, Hughes, negroes, meek, mild, disile,
la Kai beware of the day they change their mind.
Speaker 1: Talking with doctor Quickuc will continue the conversation when we
come forward.
Speaker 2: You know, it's a.
Speaker 1: Freedman Friday, so that means you are on KBLA Talk
fifteen eighty. Molly Bell always says it, what is reparations?
Speaker 2: It is repair.
Speaker 1: When we talk about reparations, oftentimes we're talking about checks.
Today we are talking about the whole. Well, what does
Bob Marley say, emancipate yourself from mental slavery? None but
ourselves can free our minds. Doctor Quaku is with us,
how do we break?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 1: You know what, let me go in because these folks
are talking to you Okay, they're talking to you in
the chat on YouTube, Forensic account And says we need
to stop pretending there's a chance we'll get reparations via
the Republican Party or even close. Friday Jones says, remember
you take things in silence. Molly Bell says, I understand
what our guest is saying, but we're talking about reparations repair.
I guess I agree with President Obama. Speak it into existence.
We're making progress. Listening, and Forensic Accountant says, a party
within which your ascension requires loud anti blackness is never
going to be interested in supporting reparations. Friday Jones also
calls it spiritual warfare, thoughts, well.
Speaker 3: You know what, I'm a fan of Friday Jones. I
listened to her when she's on your show too. I
love how she's spits it and break down. This is
what I say as we talk about reparations and the
mental health and the healing, these are things that we
have to do for ourselves. We say, you know what,
we stand tall because we stand on the shoulders of
our ancestors. So the question is what will we do
for the next generation. For part of the mental healingness
is almost to Moses mentality. I might not see these reparations,
I might not get it, but you know what, I'm
going to dedicate my life to making sure that it's
better for those who come after us. When I look
at the people who we revere from the past, and
that's anybody who shed blood or anybody who sacrifice, from
the Fanny Lou Hammers to the Martin Luther King, to
the Fred Hampton to the Medgar Evers. When we started
to talk about the Liddes, when we started to talk
about all of the people who gave and gave so much,
the names that we don't even know when we respect them,
what we respect is what they did so that we
could have it better. And so if we want to
have a mental freedom and break it comes into breaking
this cycle. Because what it is is I'm free of
the I want me incarcerated. I told you I do
a lot of work in the corrections facilities, and what
we tell the man and say, even though you might
be literally in this cell, how do you free your mind?
And that's the thing for us. In the way you
free it is by making sure you rebel against the
system that you know is oppressive, and you say what
can I do to break it down? We can't all
do everything, but if we all do our part, oh,
that wall starts to come down. And then when you
leave this place, the legacy is that I did more.
Then this world was better for me than when I
came in. And if we can do that for our
people saying I made it better. But what my urge
and my action call for everybody else is to say,
did we lose doctor Wakekoop, be sure yourself as to
help others? And when she would tell me that, it
let me know the more I help others, the more
it helps to heal me. So as we go help
our people, that's where the healing begins.
Speaker 1: Yes, And that goes back to what Friday is also
saying in the Child, which is the mental becomes taxing
when advocates fight each other instead of the true enemy.
That's part of it. And that also reminds me of
one of the things I wanted to ask you we're
so close to the end of this hour, is that
how do we break those generational cycles? And those crabs
in a barrel is one example of the attitudes that
were bred into us, whipped into us, you know, intentionally
ingrained in us in order that we would undermine ourselves.
Speaker 3: Okay, so I love what you just said. Crabs in
a barrel, we use that, but crabs don't live in barrels.
That's the unnatural environment. If you put crabs in their
natural habitat, they help each other. So everybody homework is
google up crabs and how they really help each other.
But when you're in an unnatural environment, you're going to
fight against each other. But you put them in their
natural environment, that's when they become beneficial to one another.
So what you say is one nobody's ever going to
be on one accord. That's why when the emancipation in
Haiti happened, the first person is the first people that
killed was the collaborators, the people who look like them
that they knew what betrayed them, so they said, we
can't have this division. Now. The thing is, we're never
going to agree on everything, but we have to agree
upon a big picture. And when you get those people
to come together agree up on the big picture, now
we have to reduce the egos. And that's back to
the sankofa. How do we become a community again, How
do we become communal instead of this individualistic thing that
the indoctrination of this European society has taught us. It's
about me and mine and my family. It's about I
versus we. And once we go back to our natural environment,
our natural mind, that's where they're helping versus the fighting starts.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Reminds me of when we were in Costa Rica and
we saw these monkey this monkey who was raised in captivity,
who didn't know how to act like a monkey, and
then he fell in love with the monkey.
Speaker 2: This is a true story.
Speaker 1: He fell in love with the monkey that was raised
in the monkey habitat in the wild, and she taught
them the ways of monkeys. And for me, the metaphor
was Black Americans, you know, the descendants of enslaved persons,
teaching ourselves how to be ourselves.
Speaker 3: You know, whenever you look at any movie of some
white missionary and they go into the Asian community, the
Indian community. So this person turned Indian, this person turned
that know what it was, even that indoctrinated mind, once
it saw beauty, it recognized that what they was taught
was wrong and they what drift to what feels good.
And that's the same thing for our people. The more
we assimilated to the society, the more we want to
fight against ourselves. The more we move towards back to
Saint Copa, return and go get who we are, how
quicker we become mentally whole and we start to have
some progress as a whole, as a collective, not just
as a few.
Speaker 1: Okay, you know, I feel like I didn't get to
the long list of questions I had in my mind.
So maybe we'll do this again. But we just have
a minute here, doctor Quaku. I'm thinking about habits we
need to break or acquire for our own repair. Maybe
you could leave us with some thoughts on that.
Speaker 3: Well, you're the first thing. What I say is to
do is what we said before. Get yourself one acknowledged
to yourself that I need some help. And once you say, hey,
I've been indoctrinated, what do I do now? What you
do is you surround yourself, whether it's new books, whether
it's listening through dominique, whether it's listening to different books
written by the answers the people who've done this. Nobody
has all the answers. But as you start to read
those things, you see your own cellular DNA wakings up.
And what we've been taught is this Every answer that
you ever need to know lies within you. We just
have to get out the way.
Speaker 1: Remind us how to read what you write here, your podcasts,
et cetera.
Speaker 2: Doctor Quaiku.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I write an article every week on Civic
Media's entitled Quaku Cipher. See why I t a t
r quakeku k w e k u Ceipher. I'm no
longer in to radio on WNLB because I've moved jobs,
so I can't do that anymore. You know, you were.
You came on my show one time, which I absolutely love.
But I still have things on the past, me and
my sister Lisa Mootrie, doctor Lisha Mootrie, host of the show.
So they can go back and look at the check
in and now m Boulependo on w NLV radio and
see some of our radio shows from the past.
Speaker 1: All right, well, doctor Quakku, it's always a pleasure to
talk with you.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for joining us as Friedman Friday.
Speaker 3: Thank you for having me. Have a beautiful day.
Speaker 1: Indeed, we shall reparations. Now we're going to talk with
some I think these are Generation Alpha joining us in
the studio, see their worldview. Need some of that ballot
refresher Coming up next on KBLA Talk fifteen eighty