Speaker 1: The problem is that I think both hip hop fans
and journalists for the most part and most of the scholars,
that we're still acting as if we need to defend
hip hop from Cee de Laurus Tucker or like, you know,
you know who's the man of Calvin Butts, you who
rolled it over with a steamroller? You know, I'm like,
they've been beaten to a pulp. There's no respectability politician
from the black middle class involved anymore. It's corporate America
that we have not such a mumbling word about who
is determining the content at the level Cee Laurus Tucker
couldn't imagine ever controlling, and yet we're acting like they're
the one some sort of church lady is like breathing
down our neck.
Speaker 2: I'm like, you know, that's not what's happening.
Speaker 1: So I want us to, like, you know, wake it
up a minute and really ask ourselves we can we
push the field forward with a critical dialogue. So what
this is mean you will have to separate from people
who don't want to be in.
Speaker 2: A critical dialogue at that level.
Speaker 1: That is painful.
Speaker 2: Trust me, I've been in that situation.
Speaker 1: Andrew Ties, I'd be like, well, dang, I got to
go It's not gonna go well because I will eventually
lose all my patients because people just want you to
create a theory that allows their love to look analytical.
I'm like, no, it has to be that you're really
trying to ask yourself what are the moral and ethical
questions about culture that you have, no matter the genre,
and then say, well, how is this working out?
Speaker 2: And that doesn't mean you.
Speaker 3: Give it away?
Speaker 4: Andy? Who is that? Oh? My god, Trisha rose out
here cooking with the rarest grease. I had to do
this topic over the weekend, Clarissa Shields. People flew me
out to the fight in Atlanta and the stadium was
filled to the brim, and I I wondered. I pondered,
had they not flown me out, would I be in
this arena right now of my own accord? And I understood.
You know, the music industry is different than what it
was when I was younger. You know, we barely had internet,
so we didn't have social media popping the way it's
popping now. The music industry made a fatal flaw. They
went to war against the Internet, and as you can
see now, they've lost social media has changed everything, and
so I'm seeing negative narratives trickle downstream from the advent
of social media. And now I have to ask this question,
because what I saw in Atlanta was I was stupefied.
I didn't Does it seem to let me just let
me frame it up. Does it seem like narcissism is
more attractive now than ever? Does it seem like toxicity
and negativity, drama, trauma, all of it is at an
all time high premium, and it's attractive. People love it,
or maybe we're addicted to it. I brought in some
heavy hitters tonight, or at least one heavy hitter. He's
gonna join me in a second. It's about to get
about to get ugly up in here. We're about to
do it. Tonight's topic. Can black love compete with the
high of being seen? Oh? Gosh, the validation horse, is
that what we're dealing with? Oh goodness, the attention horse?
Is that what we're dealing with?
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 4: The deeper inquiry into whether attention, validation, money, status, desire,
and public recognition have become so psychologically rewarding that unconditional
love can no longer command the same emotional voltage. Gosh,
who I'm seeing it right now. I was in this
cigar lounge in Atlanta, very nice cigar lounge, chilling with
our brother Rob, very nice. A young girl in there
as a bartender. She was in her late twenties, early thirties,
and somebody asked her, you know, where's your guy? Like,
where's your man? She was like, if I had a man,
I would not be working here. I said, wait, what
that's the response? Yes, he I just listened. I just wow.
Ladies and gentlemen, it to your phone lines. Get ready,
get ready to get ready, to get ready. The voice
of reason is on complete fire already. My special guest
in the building. It's a good brother, Brett Riley L
C s W P I D candidate. Don't tell me
he's a he's a Atrosian? Where is he a trojan.
Speaker 5: Asy?
Speaker 4: And oh yeah talking to Mike Yeah.
Speaker 6: Also yeah, okay, there we got yeah. Also Acorn State University.
Speaker 4: University of Chicago too. Oh I read it. Oh you
didn't you anything?
Speaker 5: I read it.
Speaker 4: My brother Brett Riley is in the building and we're
about to do some work because I'm trying to understand
the state of our folk the state of our peace.
And I would say these gravity fields or these pressure
fields that are kind of molding us. And a lot
of people don't think they're being molded, but I'm saying,
when you live in a society that has social constructs,
social game rules, you're being molded. You're in an intellectual
psychological aquarium. And and as a clinician, you know a
lot of this stuff happens in childhood in terms of
the modeling, but I also believe it happens out in
the world. The modeling doesn't stop if you don't gain
control over yourself, this self awareness piece, right, you don't
pick up the pen of self authorship. And I'm looking
at social media, and I know social media is just
a microcosm. It's not all of us, but it is powerful.
Its influence is powerful. I saw eighteen thousand people in
the State Farm arena and they all were locked in
in a certain mentality. Talk to me, what's going on
with our folks?
Speaker 5: Well, a microcosm, for sure, but very powerful.
Speaker 4: Yes.
Speaker 6: And I think the modeling that you spoke of. You know,
when I'm usually starting off with a new client or whatever,
whether it's in private practice or in public work. I
like to start in the childhood. You know, usually we
take that journey back to childhood just to see how
that upbreaking was, and it usually gives you kind of
a window into what's going on today, at least you
help you figure.
Speaker 4: It out, kind of lay of the land exactly exactly.
Speaker 6: But you spoke on something that's actually even taking I mean,
the modeling of today. The device is right. Yeah, I
just disclaimer, this is not a show about the negatives
of social media. However, you know, it is very powerful
in the sense that it is modifying what maybe how
me and you grew up, and persons and the environment
kind of mold in us.
Speaker 4: Give me an example, we were talking about it earlier.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean I think you know, when
you are seeking, I mean, at one point in time,
I mean, it is still a thing. But love and
and that's consistent slow uh affirmations and and and being
able to be affirmed from persons in your life was
was enough, right, and you learned how to you know,
adjust to that.
Speaker 5: But now.
Speaker 6: That that culture of competing for attention and affirmation has
kind of changed the game, and it also changed the
psychology of how we think the process connective connectivity, right,
connectivity versus connectiveness, you know, human beings versus that artificial
bringing together. You know what I mean that? Yeah, yeah,
So I think it's it's it's complicated in some ways,
but actually it's it is very simple, and that we
have entered a culture of needing that consistent you know,
affirmation or or or yeah, yeah, yeah and so. And
the problem with that is that when it wears off,
now you're having to get the next hit or search
for it again. Right where you are able to talk
to someone someone you're in a relationship or friend whoever,
that's not enough anymore.
Speaker 4: Right, So, yeah, ladies and gentlemen, you're listening to the
voice of reason. Bret Riley is in the building, lcsw
in the house. You already know what it is when
everybody needs to be the one who still knows how
to love. A deeper investigation into whether black life can
sustain unconditional love inside and attention economy that monetizes visibility,
reward it rewards exceptionalism, converts pain into content, and teaches
human beings to experience recognition as worth. What if validation
has been misidentified as love?
Speaker 3: Ugh?
Speaker 4: Ah, what happens when Black people are already carrying the
historical complications of recognition, exclusion, representation, economic scarcity, racial projection,
and contested the worth enter technologies that monetize the human
hunger to be recognized. Black love now competes inside an
economy that can turn recognition into reward and public response
into psychological evidence. Yikes, this is getting ugly. Is this
the reason why Game is beefing with Kendrick? He wants
to be Oh gosh, I'm sorry for black people, but
I'm just saying, is this why Clarissa is beefing with
the other girl, bomb Gardener? Or maybe maybe ray J
told us the secret. He says, when my life is bad,
I make millions because he's filming it. That's the new hustle.
My life is a train wreck, I make bread. So
maybe Clarissa is very smart. Maybe she's like, let's make
these fights into a train wreck, into Housewives of Atlanta
or bad whatever, and that's the build up for the tickets.
I don't know what it is, but what I saw
was an entire arena with that particular mindset they had.
They had different boxing matches. Of course, ray J's boxing
match that was a boxing match with Orlando Brown, and
then they had the Bad Girls boxing match, you know
the television show to Bad Girls listen when we come
forward more from the Voice of.
Speaker 7: Reason, a little more work to do, and it's really
an It doesn't happens pretty often, so I love that,
Thank you very much. So it's great to be here.
It is very late where I live. It is after
ten o'clock, and so I will try to remain normal,
but I do. I think it's why I'm only really
on the earlier shows and not on ED very often,
because I get a little freer later in the evening.
So I'm really thrilled, particularly to have this opportunity to
at this point be walking around the country and talking
about my new book project, Sister Citizen. And it's exciting
for me because it is this opportunity that I just
I'm not sure I ever expected what happened. There's a
part of me that still feels like the graduate student
dying for anybody to read anything that I've written, and
so it is still always surprising to me when my
work goes before me and people have read things that
I've written. But then to have an opportunity and come
and be in conversation about something as precious to me
and as overidentified as I am with this particular book
is fantastic, and especially I think in this political moment.
Speaker 4: When we are.
Speaker 7: As we gear up, I think for the twenty twelve
election cycle, the difference at this moment than what we
felt four years ago, with all of the angst and
the war and the economic crisis that we were experiencing
in two thousand and eight, there was nonetheless a sense
of dare I say it, hopefulness in the American electorate,
a kind of willingness to imagine that we could still
find answers to our collective problems. And I sense in
so many ways that really disconnected from even who the
candidate are or the parties, there's a sense of angst
about whether or not we still believe that we have
the capacity to find answers together across our differences. And
so I'm also excited to be here because I'm hoping
that we can have a conversation not only about the
book project, but hopefully that will open up some discourse
about our current political moment. So Sister Citizen is a
book that took me way too long to write, it's
not my fault. It's my daughter's fault. She's nine and
a half. And that's about how long it took the
book to be written. The first two years of her life.
I don't even think I saw anything above like this height.
You know, you're just looking down all the time. But
part of the process of rearing a little black girl
child was to make Sister Citizen that much more important for.
Speaker 2: Me to write.
Speaker 7: I am interested in this book in trying to think
about black women's interior lives as a site of citizenship.
And so that makes it odd. You know, if you
ask people in Intro American government, as I often, do
you know what is politics or what is political science?
You know, they say things like voting elections, we have
three branches of government, you know, that sort of thing.
And this book is not about any of that. It's
really not about the way that black women behave when
they go to the voting booth. It's not really about
the choices that African American women make when they decide
to run for office or choose not to.
Speaker 6: It's not, for the.
Speaker 7: Most part, even about what our current office holders or
historical office holders have done in the realm of the
world that we think of and identify clearly as the
political world. Instead, it's a claim about what it feels
like to try to do the work of citizenship when
you are in a body that is racialized and gendered
in a way that produces shame, fear, and distress.
Speaker 8: I was pregnant at thirty, divorced at thirty one, lost
at thirty two. How else would I have ended up
in a place called Rudines. It really is no other explanation.
Rudine's was an institution. It sat in a strip mall
on a street, Batty's Ford Road, that had once been
the heart of the new black middle class in Charlotte,
North Carolina. That's where I'm from. As went the fortunes
of black home ownership, entrepreneurship, wealth creation, citizenship, and health,
so went Baty's Ford Road. You know every town has
that street, right, Rudines held on. So did Rudine. The
establishment was named for its owner, even though it perhaps
would have been would have sounded better were it not.
But I do not tell old black people nothing. It
is rude. What wasn't rude was Route's reputation. You grew
up on jokes in Charlotte, North Carolina, about the old
players and the aging flygirls living out their glory days
at Rudine's, that nightclub that also sold fried fish plates
and chicken wings. You had to get there early because
parking was slim pickings, and there were only maybe a
dozen or so tables pressed up against a long wall
on the empty side of the room. The other wall
had the bar, which was wrapped in that tufted pleather,
you know, papered with liquor ads featuring smiling, glorious black
people living the high life. You ordered your fish at
the bar. If you were early enough, you could eat
it at a table as bodies pressed by you, inching
and beat together. After you ate, if you were feeling
extra festive and didn't have the itis, you slid through
those bodies in an oddly narrow doorway into a second
room in the back, narrow like the front room, but
in a different direction, horizontal to the front room's vertical.
This was the makeshift dance floor. Going to Rudin's your
first time was a write of passage. In your teens,
you laughed at Rudine's. Right in your twenties, you joked
about the sugar daddies, you might one day meet at
Rudine's when you hit thirty. You busted your Rudine's cherry
on my first of only two visits to Rudines, and
I promised I only went twice. I sat alone at
the bar waiting for friends as a man sidled up
next to me. He talked as they do. I mostly
demurred as I do, and I waited on my croker
plate fried hard. Just before he asked me for my
phone number, he said, And I really can still see
him in my mind's eye.
Speaker 1: Mmmm.
Speaker 8: Yo hair, dick yo, nostick your lipstick.
Speaker 9: All of you just thick.
Speaker 8: It was true, if not artfully stated.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I love that Tressy mcma and Cottam presents thick boy.
Let me tell you something. Come on, man, let me
tell you now. Shout out to State Farm Marena in Atlanta,
cause it was thick up in there. I'm sorry, I'm sorry,
but I'm having this conversation because we're talking about the
condition of black love in general, and of course I
love using the term some but all, some but not all.
We're not speaking in absolutes here, but when we're looking
at the digital footprint that's being left on a younger generation. Right,
Like we were talking earlier about how when I was
coming up, the thing to look at that was the
most crazy was Faces of Death. And I never watched it.
I saw like a quick clip and that was enough.
I say, oh, I don't need to see I don't
need to see that. But that was like the danger
thing that is cold. That's a cold cup of tea
right now compared to what's you don't understand what compared
to what's happening now. And I'm saying now, it's being monetized,
right The toxicity of the culture is being monetized and
shot through the veins of social media, and the kids
are being addicted and becoming addicted to it. Validation comparison culture,
she ugly, she light skin, she dark skinned. All of
this is happening within our community. And we started this
conversation by talking about the modeling of early childhood, but
then we progress to the modeling of society and now
the modeling of social media. Talk to me, Brett, how
do we break the pattern and get the hell up
out of here.
Speaker 6: That's that's getting an answer in one session. That's definitely
not going to have it. But I do think that
we have entered a space where it has become difficult
to discern from healthy reality and dysfunctional reality. So we
talked about places of death, which is a great example, right,
and we're so past that. For those who are not
sure what we're referring to, just google faces of death, right.
And for this time, it was the most outrageous thing
you can put. Right, And like you mentioned, we're far
past that. So when we're talking about pushing the envelope
and what we are desensitized to, that carries into that,
goes against, goes along that line of where you're speaking
of modeling, right, And so what we've thought was the
right thing, the best thing in terms of relationships, it
is proven to be even more difficult or not the
case now, right, And it can be confusing. It can
be confusing for so many people, especially of a certain ay, right.
Speaker 4: But so let me ask you this, what's the difference?
Because typically we go back to what's familiar, and if
that early modeling was toxic or fractured or broken in
some way, that becomes like that's the home design or
the home pattern, and we tend to attract people that
resemble that, right, We go back to these re enactments,
so to speak. Yeah, right, we go back to that.
If we want healthy relationship, doesn't it stand to reason
that we would have to break that pattern, effectively breaking
up with the home kind of formula where the formula
we got from home? Do we have to break that?
And if we do, how do we attempt to break that? Bread?
Speaker 6: You hit on something that's actually very poignant because when
you're talking about breaking that pattern, especially of the earlier
time or find foundational time, often we stay in certain
behaviors or create adaptive behaviors, right, or that are often
seen as maladaptive, which is behaviors that are not usual
or helpful. And ultimately these are things that bring us comfort, right,
we get to a place where it's just comfortable to
be in that rather than invest in change, right, And
actually investing in change can be scary. Rather we're talking
about from trauma or from attachment, right, whatever the case, right, right, right, man, So.
Speaker 4: You're telling me, if the home is bereft of love,
then when love shows up in your life, it is
seen as a threat in some cases, stay right there,
don't go nowhere, Brett. Is only when we come forward
the voice of reason. We're going to come right back
to Brett. Brett Ridley is cooking right now. Elsie has
w He's in there on fire. I'm on fire. I
want to hear from you. The number to Dowe one
eight nine, twenty fifteen eighty.
Speaker 2: Let's get it.
Speaker 4: Hold on handy. You know, I get upset a little bit,
because why why the playlists gotta be better than our relationships?
The playlist sounds so lush and beautiful. Andy in here
acting a fool? He he done played the kindred soul?
Is that the name of the group come on and
the playlist be fire? The relationships be on fire. Go ahead, Andy,
play again.
Speaker 2: Poetic in its brevity and clarity, no other arrangement of
five common words could better reveal the contradictions confining enslaved
black women's options for sustained romantic love and marriage during
their years of bondage in this country. When twenty four
year old Margaret Peggy Garner uttered these words to her
husband Robert on her deathbed, she certainly was not the
first among black women in America to change her mind
about the benefits of marriage. While legally enslaved, the singular
message gleaned from the initial two hundred and fifty year
period of black and voluntary presence in this country. Is
that slavery constituted the first battlefield in America's war on
African American marriage, making marriage unstable and unworkable for millions
of African descendants. This fact must be tempered, however, by
testaments of bond person's inscrutable capacity to make a way
out of no way in the thick of their daily
battle for love. Not all vanquished by slavery, succumbed to
the forces bent on destroying their bonds of affection.
Speaker 4: That's forbidden black love? Am I right? And who is
the sister reading Diane Stewart? Forbidden black love? Now, no, no,
let me just stop. There was a time when black
love in America was forbidden, Black marriage, all of it.
And now if we throw in the intergenerational piece of
what we're already carrying internally, young might call that the
shadow the unintegrated self. Right, So we're carrying that, and
then we're gonna put that on full blast like faces
of death on social media. Now his his pants are sagging.
We see three pair underwear boxers that he doesn't showed
the streets she got turquoise hair, and we out here
in these streets and this toxicity is now proliferating. We
have to break a cycle. You were talking before we
came full circle about the difficulty in accessing love. Now
you gotta tell me if we're gonna access love, we
gotta go in before we can go out looking for it.
Am I right?
Speaker 6: Absolutely, absolutely talk to me about that process. Well, I
think again, and we're I'm going to always start from
here and talk about this is you know, our experiences
from childhood, what we have seen, learned, et cetera. But
often to arrive at a healthy place and a healthy relationship,
we do have to do some some inmitory. I mean
it's inevitable. I mean, what what can I say? It's
inevitable for us to be able to trial and error
because again, we don't always learn these tools that help
us arrive.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: But you also mentioned fear.
Speaker 6: Yeah, fear, so you know when when love does show up,
and the fear of looking, you know, that fear of
looking within that that can be overwhelming. The absolute someone
showing up who truly unconditionally cares for you, loves you,
that doesn't care about what you post et cetera. And
it's willing to be patient and invest in you for
for many of us, that can that can be alien,
that can be foreign.
Speaker 4: You're basically saying, if you weren't raised by unconditional love,
you're going to be skeptical of unconditional love.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you're gonna be skeptical, and you're going to be confused. Right, Wow,
you're gonna be confused. So, man, I feel like we've
all been there. Even in the best situations of upbringing
and positive environmental UH affirmations and and and modeling, we
have struggled in identifying what we believe is good for us,
you know.
Speaker 4: So wait, hold on, now you're telling me, because this
is what everybody is saying. Oh, my girl picker is
broken or my my man picker is broken. But is
it Maybe it's picking what it knows what.
Speaker 6: It knows, But that's not to say and let me
just say, it's not to say that there's the influences
of today. Isn't hindering how we're able to come together
and in a relationship so our communication matches or at
least is negotiable. It's you know, not to just use
general terms of when people say it's hard out here
to be in love, but it really is all the factors.
You can consider, the psychological parts, the absolute social parts, it's.
Speaker 10: A lot of different financial parts financially because you know,
I have you know, friends, bruhs, family members who talk
about how difficult it is to.
Speaker 6: Even go down the path of dating because you it's
such a long endeavor and you know, and some of
this is an expensive one.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 6: I'm trying to find ways of saying it without making
but it's it's it's one of those things where it
is it's daunting, and it's and it's you're you're competing
against profiles a lot of times, and when you.
Speaker 4: Don't say more, what do you mean competing?
Speaker 6: Well, I truly believe in that you if you don't
meet the mark right, that person can possibly you know.
It's it's it's who's up next, right, and what profiles
up next? And what catches my eye next?
Speaker 4: Sports? It is it a roster?
Speaker 5: I just think that, man up.
Speaker 6: I think I think we are in an age where
we are just using the tools available to us and
not really considering it's it's.
Speaker 5: How detrimental impact ramification? Yeah right, so.
Speaker 4: Yeah, man. Listen. I'm in here with Brett Riley Man
and he's on the quiet storm side of the game.
But he's dropping jewels and it's it's it's almost sounding ominous. Listen,
when we come forward, that was our number one, just
that quick. When we come forward, the voice of Reason
and Brett Riley We're gonna keep cooking. Tonight's topic is
on fire? Can black love compete with the high of
being seen? I want to talk to y'all one eight
hundred nine twenty fifteen eighty call me.
Speaker 5: Either commit to your breakthrough or submit to your breakdown.
Speaker 4: Ooh Jesus, Okay, I'm gonna commit to the breakthrough because
I'm not ready for a breakdown. Actually, I had a
breakdown so I could have my breakthrough.
Speaker 11: It's like, how do I view myself even while I'm struggling.
How do I get myself permission to not be okay?
How to get myself permission to go through moments struggling?
How do I give myself confidence when all the things
around me are telling me I may fail, right, and
I can still love myself and I can still show up.
Speaker 12: I like that.
Speaker 4: What in the broken fax machine? Where were listening to,
But he said, got to commit to your breakthrough or
commit to the breakdown. I think the breakthrough and the
breakdown are synonymous. Two sides, two opposite sides are the
same coin. Sometimes it's the coin, ladies and gentlemen. Zoe Williams.
The voice of Reason is in the building tonight. We're
having a serious discussion, really about the state of black love.
Is it possible to achieve with all of these seemingly
insurmountable obstacles, internal obstacles, external obstacles, and now we even
have digital obstacles. Digital platforms did not create the human
hunger for recognition. They gave that hunger a visible score
and a business model. Under those conditions, attention may deliver
more immediate emotional voltage than intimacy. I need to be seen.
Damn Love, Love ain't enough. No love is not gonna
pay the bills. Yikes. Love is intangible, Love is not real.
Love is for soakas desire can feel more convincing than devotion.
Status can quiet doubt for a moment. Public approval can
make private love feel strangely insufficient. The streets are calling
me fifteen eighty. Get to your phone lines, Get ready
to get ready to get Ready, to get ready. Tonight's governing
thesis asks whether unconditional love can retain psychological authority. When
a person learns to experience visibility as evidence of value,
once another person must continually confirm worth, relationship can shift
from encounter towards regulation. Wow, a partner can no longer
carry only a I'm gonna stop because this is too good.
Right now, we got callers on the line. I got
to introduce my guests. Let me stop, Brett Riley lcsw
it's in the building right now, and I'm telling you, man,
he's been giving us the Morpheus vibe all night.
Speaker 13: It's probably impossible to encounter true love if one does
not go inward neo.
Speaker 4: Listen, Brett tell me, man, like, I know it sounds doom.
Speaker 6: No, Bro, but I don't think it is. I don't
think I think it. There is light at the.
Speaker 4: End of this Wait you don't think there is light.
Speaker 5: No, I think there is light. There is okay at
the end of this digital tunnel. For sure.
Speaker 6: I think at a certain point there's no way we
can sustain uh finding gratification through through through our phones,
through platforms. Now, I say that, man, just just wanting to.
Speaker 5: Be positive.
Speaker 4: No, don't give us toxic positivity. We already don't do
it like that.
Speaker 6: But in all seriousness, and we do have a whole
generous in my private practice, you know, I see it
all the time where we get you know, teenagers, those
in Generation Z high schoolers who are seriously addicted to
social media, right, and their inability to not be able
to interact with persons outside of the models.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 6: So I think that's where it gets scary. And I
think that's where we are in some danger territory in
terms of our next generations and then being able to
uh foster relationships that are meaningful and that take us
forward to the next because.
Speaker 4: We're not going to be here forever. We need to
be able to pass.
Speaker 6: That part, right, So, man, I think that. But to
go back to relationships specifically, I don't know if so
much great research is going to come out about this
time in regards to social media, and I can't wait
to start reading it. A lot of it is starting
to trickle out now. But I truly believe that at
a certain point human beings cannot keep up the energy
for this. I believe that I believe that that dopamine
hit in terms of that instant gratification and affirmation kind
of wears you out. It's my belief. Again, I'm not
on social media, so I wouldn't, but I can just
from my experience in private practice. From my experience, I've
seeing persons who lives are absolutely in shambles for whatever
reasons based on social media, whether it's comparison issues, the
inability to stay away from it, feeling like their lives
is is, you know, not as comprehensive as the person
or the profile, the one dimensional, two dimensional, three dimensional profile. Yeah,
so that's that's but there are persons who are very
much in shambles and and who deteriorate and their daily
lives are are difficult because of trying to navigate everything
that we're talking about tonight. So yeah, man, I think
that relationships, I think there's so many different lanes that
we can address when it comes to relationships. But I
think it's very difficult when you are looking to find
someone that you can share time with, but you have
so many other things that you are trying to battle
as well.
Speaker 4: But listen, you just tapped on, so I don't even
think you know what you just did. Social media is
terriforming the person, and then the person tries to terrorform
the partner. I'm trying to change it. I'm not here
to spin presence with you, to exchange presence with you.
I'm here to extrapolate meaning from you. And if there's
no meaning in you to extrapolate, you're you're meaningless. This
is the discard. This is all of that, right, So
you're like tapping into this.
Speaker 6: Yeah, And that's a scary part of this. And that's
the maladaptive behavior part of this. And it makes a
man I can't imagine. It makes it scary to even
try to But again I don't. First of all, not
all of you know, there's a the world by large
isn't on social media. But interesting, I think it's something
like of black adults or on social media.
Speaker 5: That's what we're talking about the exactly. So it's.
Speaker 4: Ladies and gentlemen, you're listening to the voice of reason.
We're on complete fire. We got phone lines. People want
to talk to my brother Brett. Brett, are you ready
to talk to the folks tonight? Come on? They want
to talk to Brett. We got Michael from Los Angeles
on the line. La is the first up. Michael, what
are your thoughts on tonight's topic.
Speaker 14: My thoughts on tonight's topic is that there is no
hope whoa because people do not understand who they truly are.
They do not understand you know what or who God
truly is. Because what you two are just saying with
social media terrorforming people. You wouldn't allow that to happen.
If as many people claim they love God and they
know who God is, that wouldn't be allowed to happen
to you. You would know who you are, for example,
like I was a corporate employee, I was an accountant,
I was a CPA, and all of that was my ego.
But what I realized in my fifties, as corporate America
has done with me because of agism and of racism,
is that I have always been inside a creator, a rapper.
So if you look at my social media in my fifties,
that's what I am, and that's what I'm being on
social media. And I truly love when I create and
it makes me feel whole at the person. The problem
is with relationships. I don't feel that I can ever
find someone at my age who's going to buy into
that I mean, I work a part time job that
I just was able to get a month ago. And
I'm very happy with my part time job, with my
little bit of money, with my creating, and I'm living
my whole internal, purposeful self with God. I know what
that is. The spirituality. God is me and I am God,
and I am Love and I am my creativity, my
true self. I'm never probably going to be able to
find a woman in her fifties who I say to her,
I don't need you to take care of me. I
can't take care of you, but I can take care
of myself. And if you can take care of you
and understand and know who you are and love yourself,
and then I understand who I am and love myself,
then we can come together in communication and be in love.
But honestly, I don't think that is ever going to
be possible. What is going to be out here alone?
Speaker 5: What do you think?
Speaker 6: What do you think the barriers are? Brother, Michael, Michael correct, Yes, yeah,
what do you think the barriers are? What have you encounter?
What have you seen that makes you believe that and
feel that? Not to say that you're wrong, I'm saying
what have you in your experience.
Speaker 9: It's really.
Speaker 14: Just a conditioning within our culture, because our culture continuously,
you know, reaches for the top of everything. But there
are subsets in the cultures, like one of the things
I like to think about her talk about when I
talk about people getting married. You know, people like to,
you gotta have this job, or you gotta have this
going on before we get married, so we can put
this together. We can build, and we can buy this,
and we can do that. But people all they already
wanted to be together. And I like to think of
I read Ruth Vader Ginsburg book. She after she graduated
law school, her husband married her. He followed her across
the country, not knowing what he was going to do,
and they stayed together forever until he died and she died,
and she became a Supreme Court justice.
Speaker 4: Hold on, I hear you, Mike, No, I see what
Mike going. Mike saying for our people, you gotta have
your whole thing assembled. Your ish got to be together,
he said, he read the former Supreme Court judge. And
they got married and they built their lives together, not
really knowing where they're gonna end up up. And one
of them ended up as a Supreme Court justice. That's
what Mike and Mike. Don't go nowhere. I see what
Mike is on. He said, right now, we got instant
relationships and it ain't gonna be real un you got
everything together. Yes, he pointed, Is that what you said? Mike?
Speaker 14: Am I clear, that's exactly what.
Speaker 4: Okay, don't go nowhere, Mike. You sit right there. We
got phone lines cracking. I want to talk to everybody.
Brett Riley is in the building. It's going down. Let's
get it. Hey.
Speaker 15: I'm Shemaiah, a twenty four year old version who still
lives with her mom. And if life was a chick flick,
I'd be the girl that no one notices the before picture,
you know, the one who's one makeover away from being
yeah pretty. But in real life, there's no magic lipstick
or fear of Godmother. There's just me and this face.
Scrolling through perfection every day doesn't help either. I mean,
everyone has it. It just feels like everyone's got that
it factor, except of course me. Maybe if I had it,
i'd be good enough. Maybe then I'd be.
Speaker 3: Happy.
Speaker 15: I don't know, I mean I don't think it Yeah, no, yeah, no,
it definitely is that bad. I mean, look at my nose,
it's huge. I really wish I had higher cheek bones.
I mean, should I try botox? I don't really know.
It's just something about the girls that they just look
so nice, and me I look like like, oh, for
Pete's sake.
Speaker 4: I don't really know.
Speaker 15: I just know I don't look come.
Speaker 2: On, so I have to use the n athrom.
Speaker 15: Too, you know, yeah, just your average and visible girl.
Speaker 13: But what if?
Speaker 4: Come on? The Internet made us visible, but it also
made us compete and compare and colorism and my face
and it's not my My nose is an aquiline. My
lips are too. This is happening right, right, This is happening.
We're fracturing right And in my estimation, real love or
healthy love first is about being able to go inward
and embrace what is disjointed or broken. This is Carl
Jung's individuation or integration, right. This is that right. And
you can't give what you haven't cultivated within. So if
I am trying to give or presenting as if I'm giving,
it's really performative. If I haven't done this right, if
I haven't done this right, And to me relationship is
the vehicle for one to see themselves and say, oh,
this is what I need to work on, this is
what I need to deal with. But the way relationships
are set up now, it's what can Michael from Los
Angeles give me? Is your issue together? And it has
nothing to do with the interior, Michael? Is that true?
Speaker 5: Well?
Speaker 4: And also, Michael, yeah, is that true?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 5: I'm here.
Speaker 14: That is very true. That's really the core of it,
and especially at a certain age because I used to
be there. I moved to New York when I was
twenty six, and my requirement was a woman who had
one kid or less, who was making forty thousand dollars
and who looked good. But as I got to forty
three and older, now I understand, I'm starting to understand
what life is really all about. It's not about how
much money she makes. It's about is she happy with herself?
Is she taking care of herself? Is she healthy? You know,
physically and mentally and emotionally, to bring a calm and
serene and loving constitution to me that I can love
and hopefully she can love me and we can work
it out together.
Speaker 4: Brad, give Michael some insight, because I feel like.
Speaker 6: I was gonna ask, do you feel like based on
those criterions you had, do you feel like you set
yourself up because it sounds like today you know no
better that that's something that you shouldn't have based on
finding someone worthy? Do you feel like you set yourself
up by having those preconceptions?
Speaker 14: Yes, I pretty much set myself up for failure. If
we could just learn that earlier, if I could have
just learned, if our culture or whoever could just learn
that earlier then I learned at forty three, then maybe
we could all be a lot better, you know, in
love and life and our whole lives. But it's really
not about like I always because I'm not really religious,
but I point to religion like they say, every outside
purpose is destined to fail, that every outside purpose is
just your ego the money that you want to make.
Most people on their jobs don't even lie. I didn't like.
I mean, I sort of like being an accounting but
I really didn't. I was really a rapper trying to
say I'm too old to rap, I'm too old to
be trying to create because creating doesn't make me money.
Speaker 6: For my ego as a now.
Speaker 4: He's five times ten five times. That's how he is going.
Speaker 14: All of that is ego and outside purpose is destined
to fail. Like like Joe said, once you understand your
inner self, once you understand what God is, your spirituality,
everything will start to work out for you, regardless of
how much money you're making, once you're doing what you
what you love. Now about social media, I do think
that a lot of people on there it's coming out
that we all. A lot of people have creativity inside
of them and that's where their expression is at. But
a lot of them maybe don't understand also their inner self.
They're maybe doing it for outer purpose or ego purpose,
but it's really that's truly who they are. So they
have to find the balance between making money, if money
is that important to them, and the balance of their
creative or what it is in their true soul that
they really want to bring out into the world and
that makes them happy, which makes them able to be
themselves and able to find love and able to live
a great life going forward.
Speaker 4: So Mike, let me just ask you a quick question.
Guess what you just did.
Speaker 14: I'm in Los Angeles, but I brought Warren Ohio into
the building, and that's where I'm from.
Speaker 4: Yes, sir, he's in Los Angeles, but he brought Ohio
in the building with him. If you want to bring
your city in the building, all you got to do
is call me at one eight hundred nine twenty fifteen eighty.
When we come forward. We going to Inglewood and we're
going to Denver, Colorado. Who wants to talk to my homeboy,
Brett Riley. He in here cooking the night. Let's go.
Speaker 8: I say something.
Speaker 4: I think it's a bar.
Speaker 15: There's a fine line between preference and pathology. How are
we trained to value things?
Speaker 5: You're dropping?
Speaker 4: Boss?
Speaker 12: Welcome to pop syllabus. I'm your host, Christiana in Backway Medina. Sexism, agism, racism.
These are some of the isms most people agree exist,
but when it comes to colorism, especially in Hollywood, things
get a little bit touchy. To help us understand what
colorism is and how it impacts us all, I'm joined
by scholar, activists and author Dr Yaba Blaye. Dr Yarba Blay,
thank you for joining me, Thank you for having me.
I'm excited to speak to you. You know, I've been
a huge fan of you and your work for years.
I think It's deeply instrumental and important, especially today in
this moment that we're in. I don't know how much
you know about this show. It's very new, but we
attempt to deconstruct the zeitgeist and answer the big cultural questions.
And the reason I really wanted to speak to you
today is because colorism is a thing that is kind
of evergreen. Unfortunately, it just always exists, not just in
the wild, but in pop culture in general. And I
think it's prevalent in Hollywood and the music industry and
impacts like old women, whether you're black.
Speaker 4: So the reason why I played that clip is because
Charleston White came out and was talking about the reason
why people are hating on Clarissa Shields so much is
because of she's a dark girl, an Alisha Baumgardner. And
this is part of the toxic cycle that is social media.
These narratives keep getting pushed. You guys, don't go at
Alicia Baumgardner because she's light. They're pushing all these different
negative But that moves the needle, right, That moves the needle.
And let me tell you something, Black women are magical
by default, but if you drop a black woman in
a toxic social aquarium I E. America. She will become tragic,
and she will be devastatingly tragic. Do you understand, boy?
That magic turn to the dark side of the forest
is something real. And this is what I'm starting to
see being pushed as a narrative through the social media channels.
You'll go get help from a narcissist, right, a straight
up bona fide narcissist, because they're charismatic and in control
and look like they've got it together and the you know,
the square jawline and dressed nice and that you'll go
for all of that, right because that reminds you of
what birthed you. Oh, this is heavy stuff tonight. We
got topics, we got people on the line. Let's get
him in here. Tony from Inglewood, what are your thoughts
on tonight's topic, Sir.
Speaker 9: I was first feeling sorry for brother when he was
saying he didn't think he was gonna find a woman
till he talked about he read ruthe Grade.
Speaker 4: Of Bensburgh book.
Speaker 9: I don't know what. I don't know what that was all,
but he will never find nobody. You read the book
about an old white woman, ain't gonna try to try
to find out how he gonna get a relationship with
a black woman reading about old white woman didn't know
when to sit down. That was that was that was
just too much for me, you know what I mean.
The other thing, the other thing is, I don't know
why we tripping so much about social media. Y'all remember
them club they used to have when negro going, they
sit down and you dill the phone call woman at
the other.
Speaker 4: Table, listen to y'all had a phone.
Speaker 9: The phone in the club and at the different tables.
A Negro saw a woman he like, he dillar up.
Now she crossed the room, you know what I mean?
So all that, all that just that was the social
media of that time.
Speaker 4: You to.
Speaker 12: It.
Speaker 6: But you still have the ability to get up, walk
over and have a conversation. Though you still had to
do that though.
Speaker 9: Right, yeah, but your heart was pumping dirty water and
kool aidy because you should have even picked up the
phones and walk on over that. And I think that
I think, no, I'm serious, I think it's but I
mean people, people have been lost in the fake and
since the beginning of the time, that ain't new. You know,
you get you get all work, wash you wash your body,
put on the fake diamond ring, go out to the club,
pretend you bowled it out of control, I think. But well,
let me say this too. I think it's good. I'm
loving hearing brothers talk about this subject, you know, And
I think it's it's really it's really interesting too when
I hear brothers, you know, just almost for lack of
a better word, like wing and complaints. Find somebody like you?
And when did money become the measured meaning of all things?
When it comes top out of day women had more
money than me. Out of dated women, I got more
money than them, and out of.
Speaker 5: Day some women.
Speaker 9: That was both the key thing in relationship with that
did you like me? You know what I mean? And
and did you show me that you liked me? And
I and and then I could like you? And I
think sometimes we go into relationship bringing too much too fast.
Speaker 5: You know what I mean.
Speaker 9: You can't go out on the first date to tell
your Mama's them saying your brother's independitentiary, you know what
I mean? And you would and you were the twelve
step program that.
Speaker 5: Too much on.
Speaker 9: The sisters say, I want a date, not a conference session.
This is too much for me. So what you gotta do?
You gotta you gotta date people. They gotta earn and
know certain things about you, just like you gotta spend
time to find all things about them and all that
and and you know what, all due respect, my brother
was quoting, you know, God gonna get God. Ain't worried
about your social media account. He got too much on
his plate. Be worried about who who you instagram it?
Speaker 4: You know what I mean?
Speaker 9: You put a lot of pressure on God for no reasons.
But I think that I think that we just have
to like be but naked, honestly good relationship. Hey, right now,
I'm a little shot. Tell a woman I'm looking. I'm
a little shot right now. I would like to go out,
but I'm a little show. Maybe you can come over
this house. I can cook something and just be honest
in terms of who you are and what you are.
And once you do that, the process. Ain't that loan?
You know what I mean?
Speaker 6: I think you're honer something. I think it still exists, brother,
I think that that is still a thing. Like I said,
I don't think the majority of us are trying to
find love through social media, but I think it is
something that that still exists. Brothers, I think you're part
on it in regards to that.
Speaker 9: But you know what in our last thing, and I
think this too. You ain't no real big Bible thought
of but the But the Bible does say vy not
that I don't press and take on none of his ways.
You can't be run around here doing with all these
white folks doing the expect you're gonna get a black result.
Speaker 4: Hey, Tony, Oh, I love his call, brother, I love it, Tony.
Guess what you just did? My brother?
Speaker 9: What I do?
Speaker 4: You brought inglewood in the building.
Speaker 14: That's my man by where Detroit?
Speaker 4: Yes, sir Detroit, thank you for the call. Brother, We
appreciate it. And I dedicate this song to my brother Tony.
He said, you got to show me girl.
Speaker 16: Welcome to the season twelve premiere of Left of Black
and Befitting this occasion, we are honored to have Professor
Michael Eric Dyson join us.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 16: Now I know Michael Eric Dyson for the last twenty
five you know, and.
Speaker 4: I want to play this clip and I love Michael
Eric Dyson. But we have callers on the line, and well,
you know, we'll we'll play another clip of Michael later,
but we have to make space for our callers. We're
going to fly over to Denver, Colorado. Cali's soul is
in the building. Cali, what are your thoughts on tonight's.
Speaker 3: Topic though, Brother Riley topic, Thanks you for this topic.
I was just pondering some of these things earlier this week,
and what I have to contribute to this conversation is
back to the question, can black love compete with the
I guess addiction of needing to be seen or the
high of needing to be seen? My answer is no,
because love doesn't have to compete. Love is not a game.
But what we're doing as men and women is playing
a game. And we're worried about more about who will
look good to our friendship circles, what woman will make
my friends jaw drop, what man will make my girlfriend's
eyes bulge, you know, and we're not thinking about who
is gonna speak to our spirit it's gonna make my
eyes bulged, who's gonna do the dance with me? Because
when it's all said and done, I'm going home with
this other person. Not all the rest of the world
and homies and girlfriends and stuff, but it's so superficial
right now, and it always has been. But I believe
that social media has definitely played a big part of
feeding what is natural in humans, which is addiction. And
it's taken this these addictions that we have and really
blown them out of proportion where we're not even trying
to live in our real life, in our reality, we're
so busy trying to live this fantasy. And that fantasy
doesn't be your soul.
Speaker 4: Damn, who upset you today?
Speaker 3: I'm telling you I was. I was contemplating this topic
earlier this week because I was like, Wow, every a
lot of what we do and how we present is
for everyone else. What's everyone else gonna think.
Speaker 2: About?
Speaker 3: How I'm showing up, who I'm showing up with, How
what it looked like? It look like we're wealthy. Do
it look like we smell like money?
Speaker 4: Wow?
Speaker 3: But no, that's not the way.
Speaker 9: That's not love.
Speaker 3: That's the ego. You're trying to satiate stuff that is
a bottomles it's a bottomless pit. You never scratch that edge.
You gotta work with your spirit, who speaks to your spirits,
who speaks to your soul?
Speaker 6: So is that a journey and I appreciate your call, Sister.
Is that a journey? Is that something that we all
need to invest in and make sure that we cultivated
within ourselves?
Speaker 3: Sir, absolutely, absolutely, But you've got to be able to
shut off the mental chatter.
Speaker 4: And develop the courage. Courage is the peace. Many of
us lack the courage, you.
Speaker 6: Know, because if you're not even willing to face it,
if you're not even willing to go through it, what
are we talking about?
Speaker 4: Stay right here, Cali, don't go nowhere, Stay right here,
CALLI and brother Riley. We're in here right now. It's
a storm brewing right now. I got questions if being
deeply loved in private and being publicly desired produced opposite
emotional rewards. Which one would your behavior reveal you actually
value more? Being loved in private or being publicly desired?
Which one would your behavior reveal you actually value more?
Speaker 5: There?
Speaker 4: It is right, And I asked that question. That's a
societal question. And I believe if we were honest, what
do you think the answer would be? Brett, what do
you think the answer would be, Kelly? What do you
think that?
Speaker 5: I answer?
Speaker 6: But again, society, it just speaks to everything that we
have environment that contributes to what informs us, what we desire,
what we seek.
Speaker 4: But Brett, you're hitting it. Listen, do you know everybody
know the right answer, and most people will give the
right answer, but then when they get what the right
answer provides, they would have wish they chose public validation.
Am I, Cali, am I off here?
Speaker 3: Now you're on because if you choose what you really
ought to choose, and not just what everybody thinks you
ought to choose or what the answer should be, a
lot of times, that's going to lead to solitude and
you at peace, possibly by yourself.
Speaker 4: Okay, I got another question for both of you. This
is good, This is good. I want you both to answer, please, please, please,
What happens when being seen starts producing more emotional voltage
than being seen than seeing another human being? Clearly? Let
me read it again. What happens when being seen starts
producing more emotional voltage than seeing another human being? Clearly?
Speaker 6: For sure, we're having a different conversation. We're having a
different conversation at that point, right. I don't think viable, sustainable,
healthy relationships form out of the absolute joke of public validation.
I could be wrong, because that's not my experience. That's
not the experiences of persons who have come to me
for work therapy work. But I don't.
Speaker 5: That's a tough tough one.
Speaker 4: To intimacy survive. Once a tension becomes the more stimulating experience,
that's the question recontextualized.
Speaker 3: No, because you got to keep feeding it. That's narcissism.
What's the ego that's gotta be fed? So yeah, I'm
not gonna have peace with that. It's insatiable.
Speaker 5: So how are you navigating that? Kelly? So, if you
don't mind me asking, sister, how are you navigating this?
Speaker 3: I'm chilling living my life one day at a time,
enjoying it out of the way, joining the holy encounters materialized,
and I'm good. It's all good either way.
Speaker 4: I love it. I love it. I love it. I
love it. Kelly. Guess what you just did? Sweetheart?
Speaker 3: Denver into the house.
Speaker 4: Come on, Denver, Colorado. You already know what it is.
Speaker 13: Hey.
Speaker 4: The voice of reason starts the conversation, but it's up
to you to finish it. I brought my brother in here,
y'all know, get to know him. We're gonna bring him back.
Brother Brett Riley bright, Hey Brett, where can they find you? Brother?
Just give him an email address. He ain't even got no.
Speaker 6: So true, it wasn't hard to figure that one out.
No social media, but I am on LinkedIn. The simple
search B B R E T T R I L
E Y is where you'll find me on LinkedIn. But uh,
I am looking to have my private practice up and
run in and so that's something that I'm very very
very excited about. And uh yeah, soon I will be
having that information to be able to get out in public.
Speaker 4: That's all right, we'll bring you back Michael who just
called in. Sais though you're cook in private love or
public desire? Maybe both? Ask Aisha Curry.
Speaker 5: Damn, damn.
Speaker 4: Listen. When we come forward, it'll be tomorrow and I'll
have another slapper for you. Let's get it.