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. Arifi A Moassee is. 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. Thanks for having me. It's always a pleasure to be on what you dominate. 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. 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. 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. So when you go. From centering psychology to a conversation about reparations, does it seem like a leap to you or does it seem like a logic progression. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. Okay, the lots of lots of unboxed there. 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. But I also think. 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. 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? 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? Right? 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. 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. When I'm a child. 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. 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. Do you agree with that? 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. We're going to go to Dwight from Compton. Good morning, Dwight, You're on with doctor Quaku. Welcome. 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. So that was just kind of an interesting thought that I heard. Yeah, then a. 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. 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. But we are. But we are making progress. 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. 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. They I mean, but only idiots believe that. I mean, I'm sorry, when you live in America, have you met America? 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. But you're not. But you're not suggesting we just threw up our hands and give up. 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. And then I tell you, but we're making progress. I'll give you another thirty eight too more Bora. 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. Talking with doctor Quickuc will continue the conversation when we come forward. You know, it's a. Freedman Friday, so that means you are on KBLA Talk fifteen eighty. Molly Bell always says it, what is reparations? It is repair. 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? Well? 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. 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. 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. 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. Yeah. 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. This is a true story. 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. 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. 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. 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. Remind us how to read what you write here, your podcasts, et cetera. Doctor Quaiku. 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. All right, well, doctor Quakku, it's always a pleasure to talk with you. Thank you so much for joining us as Friedman Friday. Thank you for having me. Have a beautiful day. 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