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