Host Erik Fleming welcomes guests Leatrice De Bruhl and W. Ralph Eubanks to discuss grief, healing, and the Mississippi Delta's history and literature. Leatrice shares her personal journey of loss and her Grace to Grieve movement, while Eubanks unpacks his new book exploring the Delta's social and cultural legacy.
The episode blends personal testimony with historical insight, offering listeners inspiration, advocacy for mental health, and a deeper understanding of the Delta's role in America's story.
00:00:00 --> 00:00:06 Welcome. I'm Erik Fleming, host of A Moment with Erik Fleming, the podcast of our time.
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00:01:15 --> 00:01:20 The following program is hosted by the NBG Podcast Network.
00:02:00 --> 00:02:05 Hello and welcome to Another Moment with Erik Fleming. I am your host, Erik Fleming.
00:02:05 --> 00:02:08 So today I have two guests.
00:02:09 --> 00:02:18 One is going to talk about her personal journey and it's fitting that her story
00:02:18 --> 00:02:25 is dropping in this episode because the day that this episode drops will be her birthday.
00:02:25 --> 00:02:28 So happy birthday to my guest.
00:02:29 --> 00:02:38 And then my other guest is one of the more renowned writers from Mississippi.
00:02:39 --> 00:02:46 And we're going to talk about his latest book, which really touches on a part
00:02:46 --> 00:02:53 of the state that a lot of people know the truth, but there's still some mythology behind it.
00:02:54 --> 00:03:01 And he breaks it down pretty good and I think you'll enjoy our discussion.
00:03:01 --> 00:03:06 I think you'll enjoy the book better, but you'll definitely enjoy the discussion.
00:03:07 --> 00:03:14 Anyway, I'm just really glad to have y'all listen and hope you enjoy those interviews.
00:03:15 --> 00:03:22 And if you do, show your support, not just by listening, but go to www.momenterik.com.
00:03:23 --> 00:03:25 That's www.momenterik.com.
00:03:27 --> 00:03:31 And show your support either by subscriptions, writing a review,
00:03:32 --> 00:03:35 giving a five-star rating, all that good stuff, right?
00:03:35 --> 00:03:40 If you want to catch up on some stuff, you can basically catch up to every episode
00:03:40 --> 00:03:44 that I've put out there through the website.
00:03:44 --> 00:03:47 So I'd appreciate if y'all do that.
00:03:47 --> 00:03:50 All right, let's go ahead and kick this program off. As always,
00:03:50 --> 00:03:53 we kick it off with a moment of news with Grace G.
00:04:01 --> 00:04:06 Thanks, Erik. The House rejected a Senate funding agreement for most Department
00:04:06 --> 00:04:10 of Homeland Security components, including the TSA and Coast Guard,
00:04:10 --> 00:04:14 while leaving ICE and Border Patrol out of the deal for future negotiation.
00:04:15 --> 00:04:20 The Senate confirmed Republican Senator Markwayne Mullen as the new head of
00:04:20 --> 00:04:22 the Department of Homeland Security.
00:04:22 --> 00:04:27 President Trump signed an executive order requiring federal contractors to eliminate
00:04:27 --> 00:04:32 diversity, equity, and inclusion practices. The U.S.
00:04:32 --> 00:04:36 Department of Justice is moving to drop criminal charges against two former
00:04:36 --> 00:04:41 Louisville officers accused of falsifying the search warrant in the Breonna Taylor case.
00:04:41 --> 00:04:46 The state of Minnesota filed a lawsuit against the Department of Justice and
00:04:46 --> 00:04:50 Department of Homeland Security to gain access to evidence regarding the fatal
00:04:50 --> 00:04:52 shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
00:04:53 --> 00:04:58 An Air Canada Express jet collision with a fire truck at LaGuardia Airport resulted
00:04:58 --> 00:05:01 in the deaths of both pilots and numerous injuries.
00:05:02 --> 00:05:07 A federal judge has halted a restrictive Pentagon policy that would have allowed
00:05:07 --> 00:05:10 the government to label journalists as security risks.
00:05:11 --> 00:05:16 Alexia Moore, a 31-year-old Georgia woman, has been charged with murder after
00:05:16 --> 00:05:20 taking abortion medication that led to the death of a premature infant.
00:05:21 --> 00:05:26 A California jury ordered Bill Cosby to pay nearly $20 million in damages to
00:05:26 --> 00:05:32 Donna Motsinger after finding him liable for a sexual assault that occurred in 1972.
00:05:33 --> 00:05:37 A Florida Democrat, Emily Gregory, successfully flipped a Republican state house
00:05:37 --> 00:05:40 seat near President Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort.
00:05:41 --> 00:05:46 A Los Angeles jury found Google and Meta liable for social media addiction.
00:05:46 --> 00:05:53 A New Mexico jury ordered Meta to pay $375 million in penalties after finding
00:05:53 --> 00:05:56 the company violated state consumer protection laws.
00:05:57 --> 00:06:02 And former FBI Director Robert Mueller died at the age of 81.
00:06:03 --> 00:06:07 I am Grace Gee, and this has been a Moment of News.
00:06:15 --> 00:06:19 All right. Thank you, Grace, for that moment of news. And now it's time for
00:06:19 --> 00:06:27 my next guest, Leatrice De Bruhl, speaker, life and grief coach, storyteller, expert,
00:06:27 --> 00:06:32 mental health professional, CEO, and founder of Phenomenal Black Women, LLC.
00:06:33 --> 00:06:39 From trauma to testimony, Leatrice De Bruhl turned pain into purpose after surviving
00:06:39 --> 00:06:45 abuse, injustice, mental health battles, and the heartbreaking loss of her only child to suicide.
00:06:46 --> 00:06:49 Now she speaks to heal, uplift, and help others rise.
00:06:50 --> 00:06:54 She walks alongside other women who feel alone and suffer in silence.
00:06:55 --> 00:06:59 Leatrice has experienced the fires, yet her flame is still lit.
00:07:00 --> 00:07:05 Life has been both her experience and years of expertise, although on paper
00:07:05 --> 00:07:09 she possesses two degrees, one being a master's degree in psychology.
00:07:10 --> 00:07:14 Leatrice has over 20 years of law enforcement experience and years working as
00:07:14 --> 00:07:15 a mental health professional.
00:07:16 --> 00:07:20 Her greatest accomplishment was being a single mother who raised her son alone.
00:07:21 --> 00:07:27 Grace to grieve, keeping faith, is her focus to conquer any adversity,
00:07:27 --> 00:07:32 turning pain into purpose to motivate women to continue their journey,
00:07:32 --> 00:07:35 live, and love to lead their legacy.
00:07:36 --> 00:07:40 Leatrice offers hope in the hearts of women, tools in their hands,
00:07:40 --> 00:07:44 and the courage to move from brokenness to breakthrough.
00:07:44 --> 00:07:49 She empowers them to face adversity with courage, embrace grace in their grief,
00:07:49 --> 00:07:53 and take actionable steps toward emotional and spiritual healing.
00:07:54 --> 00:07:58 Through her story of loss, trauma, and redemption, the audience will learn that
00:07:58 --> 00:08:05 pain doesn't have a final word, and they can find grace and strength to rise again.
00:08:05 --> 00:08:09 Ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct honor and privilege to have as a guest
00:08:09 --> 00:08:12 on this podcast, Leatrice De Bruhl.
00:08:23 --> 00:08:27 All right, Leatrice De Bruhl. How are you doing, sister? You doing good?
00:08:28 --> 00:08:30 I'm doing fantastic now.
00:08:30 --> 00:08:33 Well, so am I. Thank you so much for doing this.
00:08:34 --> 00:08:39 All right, so when I do these interviews, I start off with a couple of icebreakers.
00:08:39 --> 00:08:43 So the first icebreaker is a quote I want you to respond to.
00:08:43 --> 00:08:47 And the quote is, I will walk by faith even when I cannot see.
00:08:49 --> 00:08:54 Absolutely. I will walk by faith even when I cannot see. And that's exactly what my life is about.
00:08:55 --> 00:09:00 Okay. All right. All right. So now the next one is what I call 20 questions.
00:09:01 --> 00:09:05 So I need you to give me a number between 1 and 20.
00:09:06 --> 00:09:12 12. All right. What advice do you have for recognizing fake news?
00:09:13 --> 00:09:19 For me, it's like when people critique a movie that just came out and they want
00:09:19 --> 00:09:24 to give their own input before you see it for yourself,
00:09:25 --> 00:09:31 I always see it for myself if it's something of interest to me instead of listening to the hype.
00:09:31 --> 00:09:36 So I treat fake news the same way. If I don't find the truth on my own,
00:09:36 --> 00:09:38 I don't focus on it. Okay.
00:09:38 --> 00:09:45 All right. Your friend, Dr. Marianne Rivera Dannert, said, Every woman has a
00:09:45 --> 00:09:51 story, one shaped by pain, transformed by courage, and reborn through wisdom.
00:09:51 --> 00:09:56 So let's talk about your story. What was your life like before 2015?
00:09:57 --> 00:09:59 It was...
00:10:00 --> 00:10:07 Really awesome. I felt like I was living the dream of being a U.S.
00:10:07 --> 00:10:10 Federal agent and black female came up the ranks.
00:10:10 --> 00:10:14 Well, not really came up the ranks, but I was in law enforcement prior to that
00:10:14 --> 00:10:16 locally before I became a federal agent.
00:10:17 --> 00:10:25 And my son was here. Now, I will say I was married, but that really wasn't the
00:10:25 --> 00:10:31 highlight. But I was traveling around, seeing the world, just like I always dreamed of doing.
00:10:32 --> 00:10:37 I just felt like things were great. So are you from the DMV originally?
00:10:37 --> 00:10:42 I sure am. So you were born and raised in Washington, D.C., Northeast proper.
00:10:43 --> 00:10:50 Okay. All right. So from 2015 to 2025, your life dramatically changed.
00:10:51 --> 00:10:55 You lost your career, your freedom, and your beloved son, Malik.
00:10:55 --> 00:11:01 How did you find the strength to reimage that shattered period in your life
00:11:01 --> 00:11:03 into what we call a beautiful present?
00:11:05 --> 00:11:10 I am living by the scripture, walking by faith.
00:11:11 --> 00:11:17 And when I walk by faith, I have to see things for what they are right now because
00:11:17 --> 00:11:19 of so much that has gone on in my life.
00:11:20 --> 00:11:26 So that living by faith in the present day is all I can do for now.
00:11:26 --> 00:11:35 But in a sense, I have a line of sight, as I like to say, for the heavenly kingdom to see my son again.
00:11:35 --> 00:11:41 And that's what I work towards with my keeping his legacy going,
00:11:41 --> 00:11:43 taking care of his daughters, my granddaughters,
00:11:44 --> 00:11:50 anything that I can do within my business of phenomenal Black women to help
00:11:50 --> 00:11:55 other women as they grieve, giving back to the community however I can.
00:11:55 --> 00:12:01 And all that encompasses my present day of just still serving as I should,
00:12:01 --> 00:12:07 living by faith, and praying for good things to come before I meet my maker.
00:12:08 --> 00:12:12 All right. So tell the listeners a little bit about Malik.
00:12:14 --> 00:12:20 He is considered my second heartbeat. I've always said that.
00:12:20 --> 00:12:22 I was not supposed to have kids.
00:12:23 --> 00:12:27 Malik came around after something traumatic had happened to me at a young age
00:12:27 --> 00:12:31 and Malik came around out of nowhere and I felt like it was God sent.
00:12:31 --> 00:12:38 So I treated him like God sent ever since he was born and he became a second
00:12:38 --> 00:12:41 heartbeat to me because he made me live again.
00:12:41 --> 00:12:43 He gave me a reason to live again.
00:12:45 --> 00:12:50 And I raised him by myself. Through everything that I've gone through,
00:12:50 --> 00:12:51 Malik was my focal point.
00:12:53 --> 00:12:57 You know, if I had a bad day at work, I knew I can come home and my son would make me laugh.
00:12:57 --> 00:13:01 If my son had a bad day at school, he'd come home, talk about it with me,
00:13:01 --> 00:13:03 and we both make each other laugh.
00:13:04 --> 00:13:11 And that was the highlight of my life because he knew what I went through to raise him.
00:13:11 --> 00:13:14 He knew what I went through just to be a black woman.
00:13:16 --> 00:13:21 And he just knew so much of what I struggled with without having his father around.
00:13:21 --> 00:13:25 He knew and even as my child
00:13:25 --> 00:13:28 he was just always my supporter my
00:13:28 --> 00:13:33 biggest fan my second heartbeat my reason for when I was down I looked at my
00:13:33 --> 00:13:39 son and I wanted and and I wanted the best of the situation but I looked at
00:13:39 --> 00:13:45 my son and like it doesn't matter because I got my son he was full the laughter.
00:13:46 --> 00:13:49 Like I said, he knew when to make light of a situation.
00:13:49 --> 00:13:52 And even at his funeral.
00:13:53 --> 00:13:56 So many people showed up saying the exact same thing about my son.
00:13:56 --> 00:14:03 He was fun-loving, high-spirited, and just always willing to support and give
00:14:03 --> 00:14:05 help to somebody in need.
00:14:05 --> 00:14:09 And that's the way I raised him. And to hear that from other people,
00:14:09 --> 00:14:12 it really put a smile on my heart.
00:14:12 --> 00:14:16 So by him not being physically here anymore,
00:14:17 --> 00:14:20 that continues to be my way of saying, but
00:14:20 --> 00:14:23 I remember who he is and that stays in me
00:14:23 --> 00:14:27 and I think that's even better than him being for me
00:14:27 --> 00:14:30 to move forward physically here like he stays with
00:14:30 --> 00:14:34 me all the time his spirit his it's
00:14:34 --> 00:14:37 like a second breath as well as a second heartbeat it
00:14:37 --> 00:14:40 stays with me so he's still here but he
00:14:40 --> 00:14:43 literally is the light of my life but now I
00:14:43 --> 00:14:46 have a double dose of him with his two daughters
00:14:46 --> 00:14:49 and they are my light right now and
00:14:49 --> 00:14:55 they do definitely have every aspect of my son and it that keeps me going as
00:14:55 --> 00:15:03 well yeah that's beautiful during this re-imaging period you started the grace
00:15:03 --> 00:15:07 to grieve movement explain to the listeners the concept of that.
00:15:08 --> 00:15:13 Grace to Grieve. I'm a certified grief coach. I actually have a background in
00:15:13 --> 00:15:16 psychology with a master's degree in psychology as well.
00:15:16 --> 00:15:23 And I didn't, I'm a big advocate of therapy, but I'm also a teacher at heart,
00:15:24 --> 00:15:27 a coach at heart, a mentor at heart, an advocate at heart.
00:15:27 --> 00:15:35 And for me, I think it's better for me to reach people as an advocate, as a mentor,
00:15:35 --> 00:15:40 as a coach, someone to hold them accountable, let them know I have been there
00:15:40 --> 00:15:44 with you, but I'm not just holding you accountable, I'm walking with you because
00:15:44 --> 00:15:45 I know what you're going through.
00:15:45 --> 00:15:48 I'm very familiar with what you're going through.
00:15:48 --> 00:15:54 And I want you to see the value in this life. I want you to see the value in yourself.
00:15:55 --> 00:15:57 I want you to see the value in your faith.
00:15:58 --> 00:16:05 And the only way to do that, in my mind, in my conversations with God,
00:16:05 --> 00:16:10 is to show these women that grief is not the end of our story.
00:16:11 --> 00:16:16 And healing is not necessarily the beginning. Healing is the process.
00:16:16 --> 00:16:19 But our beginning starts with us moving forward.
00:16:20 --> 00:16:25 Our beginning starts with us being able to get up out that bed,
00:16:25 --> 00:16:27 out that dark room, out those dark thoughts.
00:16:27 --> 00:16:36 And as a grief coach and a mentor, someone who you can talk to about anything, I represent that woman.
00:16:36 --> 00:16:38 It doesn't even matter if they're black, white, Hispanic.
00:16:39 --> 00:16:41 It doesn't matter your background.
00:16:41 --> 00:16:43 We all go through a lot.
00:16:44 --> 00:16:48 But in particular, women of color, to speak of myself.
00:16:49 --> 00:16:54 I've lived a life so many years of suffering in silence.
00:16:54 --> 00:17:00 And with the various cultures of women out there, we all suffer in silence because
00:17:00 --> 00:17:02 we want people to see the best parts of us.
00:17:03 --> 00:17:09 So Grace to Grieve allows me to help the women to see their value,
00:17:10 --> 00:17:13 see how they can move forward, see how it has been done for me.
00:17:13 --> 00:17:18 See how God has blessed me from one tragedy to another, from one traumatic situation
00:17:18 --> 00:17:22 to another, to one redemptive story and testimony to another.
00:17:22 --> 00:17:25 Because that's basically what all that was.
00:17:25 --> 00:17:29 And I want them to see that for themselves. I want to point them to God.
00:17:29 --> 00:17:35 I want them to think that if it wasn't for God, they would not be where they are right now.
00:17:35 --> 00:17:38 And they still have a way to connect with God.
00:17:40 --> 00:17:44 Live the rest of their life here with whatever is going on.
00:17:45 --> 00:17:50 And in a sense, it's kind of weird to say this, but I actually heard someone
00:17:50 --> 00:17:52 say this before, but in a different way.
00:17:53 --> 00:17:58 I'm actually thankful for the tests, the many tests that I've been through,
00:17:58 --> 00:18:03 because without those tests and without my faith, I would not have a testimony
00:18:03 --> 00:18:08 to prove that God, that was evidence that God was there the entire time.
00:18:08 --> 00:18:13 So no matter who you are, where you are in life, as a woman, yes, it is harder on us.
00:18:14 --> 00:18:22 As a black woman, it is harder on us. Mix, it is harder on us because all people do is see what they see.
00:18:22 --> 00:18:27 But what's deep down inside needs to overshadow that.
00:18:27 --> 00:18:34 And I feel like God has given me that living testimony to show people domestic violence, check.
00:18:35 --> 00:18:38 He can help you through that. He can walk you out of that.
00:18:39 --> 00:18:44 Sexual assault, a victim of rape, check. He can walk you through that.
00:18:45 --> 00:18:46 He can get you out of that.
00:18:47 --> 00:18:51 Being incarcerated when you shouldn't have been, he can get you out of that.
00:18:52 --> 00:18:55 He can walk you through it in any aspect of your life.
00:18:56 --> 00:19:01 So I'm actually thankful for all the tests, even more grateful.
00:19:01 --> 00:19:08 I continue to trust and have faith, but that he's using that in me to help so
00:19:08 --> 00:19:11 many others that I hope that I can help.
00:19:12 --> 00:19:20 Yeah. When I hear a title like Grace to Grieve, that's almost like you giving
00:19:20 --> 00:19:23 yourself permission to do that.
00:19:23 --> 00:19:31 And I think a lot of people feel that they feel guilty about a natural emotion.
00:19:32 --> 00:19:36 And I think it's very important that, you know, in our faith,
00:19:36 --> 00:19:41 we talk about getting grace from God, but a lot of times we have to give grace
00:19:41 --> 00:19:44 to ourselves and we feel that we can't do that.
00:19:44 --> 00:19:49 So I appreciate the concept in what you're trying to do.
00:19:49 --> 00:19:55 That was spot on, Erik. That is exactly it. And sometimes I just get to talking, but that was spot on.
00:19:55 --> 00:19:59 Thank you so much. That is exactly what most of the movement is about,
00:19:59 --> 00:20:01 giving yourself the grace.
00:20:01 --> 00:20:04 Yes all right well i'm glad i
00:20:04 --> 00:20:07 can help thank you uh what is
00:20:07 --> 00:20:13 a phenomenal black woman so phenomenal black woman and actually it's not a race
00:20:13 --> 00:20:19 is just for those listeners it's actually spelled in an acronym form of b-l-a-q-u-e
00:20:19 --> 00:20:26 and it's it's representative of a woman blessed like a queen in every way.
00:20:26 --> 00:20:28 So that's what black stands for.
00:20:29 --> 00:20:35 So, and with the grief movement, with my speaking, motivational speaking.
00:20:36 --> 00:20:41 With my being a mentor, all that encompasses you being a phenomenal woman yourself.
00:20:41 --> 00:20:45 So I'm embracing every woman to be phenomenal.
00:20:45 --> 00:20:53 I'm embracing every woman to be the queen that they are and to show that,
00:20:53 --> 00:20:56 you know, they can get through this no matter what we go through.
00:20:57 --> 00:21:00 We got to have God on the focus focal point and giving that,
00:21:01 --> 00:21:03 giving yourself that grace moving forward.
00:21:03 --> 00:21:07 If you need me to come talk to you, talk to your church, talk to your,
00:21:07 --> 00:21:12 to a group or a woman's group, book group. I'm an author.
00:21:12 --> 00:21:16 Like I've gotten so much to the point where it's like.
00:21:17 --> 00:21:22 This is phenomenal to get through all of this. So that name just came to me.
00:21:22 --> 00:21:23 But that's really who it's for.
00:21:23 --> 00:21:28 It's for every woman that feels like they're not phenomenal, but they are.
00:21:29 --> 00:21:31 And I hope to help bring that out of them.
00:21:31 --> 00:21:36 Yeah. Yeah. When I saw the acronym, I said that was pretty cool how you do that. Thank you.
00:21:37 --> 00:21:42 So your life journey, as stated before, has given you a unique wisdom.
00:21:42 --> 00:21:46 If you had a chance to impart that wisdom with public policymakers,
00:21:47 --> 00:21:49 what would you share with them?
00:21:50 --> 00:21:56 I apologize. Try that one more time. If you had the chance to impart your wisdom
00:21:56 --> 00:22:00 with public policymakers, what would you share with them?
00:22:01 --> 00:22:05 Okay. Your mental is so important.
00:22:06 --> 00:22:10 Your mental well-being, your mental welfare, your family's mental,
00:22:10 --> 00:22:12 anybody you surround, your children. If you don't have children,
00:22:13 --> 00:22:16 whomever that you have that's close to your partner, your husband,
00:22:16 --> 00:22:20 your spouse, whomever it is, your mental health.
00:22:21 --> 00:22:26 Any type of relationship, work relationship, personal relationship is important.
00:22:27 --> 00:22:30 It should be right under your spirituality.
00:22:31 --> 00:22:36 It should be about, okay, God, and then is my head straight? Am I good today?
00:22:36 --> 00:22:42 Because what you feed in this brain of ours, it will dictate your entire day.
00:22:42 --> 00:22:43 It will dictate your mood.
00:22:44 --> 00:22:48 It will dictate whether you want to get into the physical aspect of your body.
00:22:48 --> 00:22:51 You want to go work out. No, I really don't. Well, that's that mental aspect.
00:22:52 --> 00:22:55 For work, for individuals that work all the time, if you don't give yourself
00:22:55 --> 00:23:00 that grace to take some time off for yourself, your mental will be off balance.
00:23:01 --> 00:23:04 When you are going out and you're in a relationship and you're dating,
00:23:05 --> 00:23:09 if your mental is not there because you're still focused on the prior relationship
00:23:09 --> 00:23:14 that hurt you so badly that you don't know how to function with the next person,
00:23:14 --> 00:23:15 that probably is good for you.
00:23:15 --> 00:23:20 But you don't know that because your mental is off. It works in so many ways.
00:23:20 --> 00:23:28 When we're parents and we're inundated with work, spouse, no spouse,
00:23:28 --> 00:23:31 no partner, you're doing it by yourself. Your kids are hungry.
00:23:31 --> 00:23:33 You still got to do this. You got to do that.
00:23:34 --> 00:23:40 Your mental is important. And that is why I went from a forensic science major
00:23:40 --> 00:23:43 thinking about science because I love science.
00:23:43 --> 00:23:47 However, I love the mental aspect of human beings.
00:23:47 --> 00:23:58 And I have so much to share, so many techniques, so many advocacy messages that
00:23:58 --> 00:24:01 I want to share with people, individuals, not just women.
00:24:01 --> 00:24:08 But to share, to show that if your mental isn't okay, no matter where you are,
00:24:09 --> 00:24:11 that dictates your mood.
00:24:12 --> 00:24:15 You can have God in your life. You can leave church. And your mental,
00:24:16 --> 00:24:21 if you're depressed about something and you were good when you left that church
00:24:21 --> 00:24:24 building, but now your mental has gotten to you. It can happen anywhere.
00:24:24 --> 00:24:29 So, yeah, that spirituality is there, but that mental has to be number two in my book.
00:24:30 --> 00:24:34 So I want to promote that as best I can to anyone listening.
00:24:34 --> 00:24:38 I want to, like I said, I'm an advocate of therapy. I'm an advocate of mental
00:24:38 --> 00:24:42 health care, taking that day off. for you.
00:24:43 --> 00:24:47 My birthday is coming up on my next Monday, the 30th of March.
00:24:47 --> 00:24:49 And people are asking me, what
00:24:49 --> 00:24:53 am I going to do? Guess what I'm going to do? I'm going to do Latrice.
00:24:53 --> 00:24:57 I'm going to relax. I want to say a me day. Seriously.
00:24:57 --> 00:25:02 It's not about a party. It's not about going out to eat. I just want to do me.
00:25:03 --> 00:25:08 And that's what I hope individuals, when they come to me and they ask me, how do you do it?
00:25:08 --> 00:25:11 What's going on? How can I do it?
00:25:11 --> 00:25:16 You walk around with this smile and you got so much going on because it's my mental.
00:25:18 --> 00:25:22 Well, consider this interview your birthday present for me, because it's going
00:25:22 --> 00:25:24 to drop right around your birthday.
00:25:24 --> 00:25:26 But happy birthday in advance for that.
00:25:27 --> 00:25:34 Thank you. I guess from from your answer, what you're saying is that if you were talking to people,
00:25:34 --> 00:25:43 public policy makers, is that that they need to put more focus in on mental
00:25:43 --> 00:25:48 health and give people like you more opportunities to talk to constituents and
00:25:48 --> 00:25:54 and people to try to help them and prioritize that. Correct. Yes.
00:25:54 --> 00:25:59 Yes. All right. So now I'm going to ask you the same question,
00:25:59 --> 00:26:01 but it's going to be a different group of people.
00:26:02 --> 00:26:08 If you had the chance to impart that wisdom with white women, what would you share?
00:26:08 --> 00:26:11 The same thing that's why
00:26:11 --> 00:26:14 i said black means queen blessed like
00:26:14 --> 00:26:21 a queen in every way it doesn't matter if they are caucasian it just well the
00:26:21 --> 00:26:26 stigmatism is different for caucasian women i mean just like it is for black
00:26:26 --> 00:26:31 women indian women native american it doesn't matter it does it.
00:26:32 --> 00:26:36 We all go through so much of the same thing, but not the same way.
00:26:37 --> 00:26:45 You know, like I'm divorced. But if I had, I know of several women like this.
00:26:46 --> 00:26:51 If they, they're Caucasian. And if they got the divorce, it will be detrimental
00:26:51 --> 00:26:53 for them because they're bred.
00:26:53 --> 00:26:56 Everything is in their spouse working.
00:26:56 --> 00:26:59 And they're just so focused on taking care of home.
00:26:59 --> 00:27:05 I mean, they see themselves as valuable, but if something were to happen to
00:27:05 --> 00:27:10 that spouse, I would be highly concerned of them because they wouldn't even
00:27:10 --> 00:27:13 know how to probably handle stress, only because I know them personally.
00:27:13 --> 00:27:18 But I can't speak for every Caucasian woman because we're all so uniquely designed.
00:27:18 --> 00:27:24 But I'm just trying to say that it really doesn't matter, Caucasian, any color, any race, no.
00:27:25 --> 00:27:28 Your mental just has to be on point. And when I say on point,
00:27:28 --> 00:27:35 I mean, get it under control before you deal with your day. I love meditation.
00:27:35 --> 00:27:40 So I don't care who you are. Meditate. Do more sitting there in peace and quiet.
00:27:41 --> 00:27:44 You can hear a lot about yourself and you could talk to yourself and you could
00:27:44 --> 00:27:48 probably find some answers before you even jump in that shower about what you
00:27:48 --> 00:27:50 need to do for your next task.
00:27:50 --> 00:27:55 So it honestly, I really can't gear that toward a specific race.
00:27:55 --> 00:27:57 But I think my answer remains the same. Gotcha.
00:27:58 --> 00:28:04 When a person sees Leatrice De Bruhl today, what do you hope they observe?
00:28:06 --> 00:28:13 Someone that may have gone through so much in her life that she still can wake
00:28:13 --> 00:28:17 up with a smile, even if she's crying, because there are tears of joy as well.
00:28:18 --> 00:28:23 But when I see God's work, sometimes it makes me tear up because I'm grateful.
00:28:24 --> 00:28:27 But honestly if you really look at my life you
00:28:27 --> 00:28:32 would say I literally and actually I've had this from a close friend tell me
00:28:32 --> 00:28:36 this and I just want to leave with this she said I was I was actually it was
00:28:36 --> 00:28:41 many years ago and I was still going through a lot back then and she said to
00:28:41 --> 00:28:47 me man if I was I don't know how you're doing it because if that was me I would have you know I would I.
00:28:49 --> 00:28:53 Let me just give you a little piece of advice. When a person is that close to
00:28:53 --> 00:28:58 the cliff, don't help push them because that statement was not helpful at all.
00:28:58 --> 00:29:02 But so I am grateful that when people look at me, they're like,
00:29:02 --> 00:29:06 man, you might've been through a lot, but you're strong.
00:29:06 --> 00:29:11 You look strong because you're walking around here still the same Latrice,
00:29:12 --> 00:29:16 still taking charge, still cracking a humorous joke just to lighten someone's mood,
00:29:16 --> 00:29:19 giving advice for free just because you
00:29:19 --> 00:29:22 see someone down just it's nothing is
00:29:22 --> 00:29:26 really about money with you it's about happiness comfort and
00:29:26 --> 00:29:28 security that's exactly it but you'll
00:29:28 --> 00:29:34 never see that i'm lonely you never see that i wish i can get married again
00:29:34 --> 00:29:38 you'll never see that you know i was recently incarcerated you'll never see
00:29:38 --> 00:29:43 i just lost the love of my life the true love of my life you'll never see that
00:29:43 --> 00:29:46 distance away from my granddaughters who i wish I could see every day.
00:29:46 --> 00:29:51 You'll never see that. You'll never see I lost a 20-year career in law enforcement.
00:29:51 --> 00:29:56 You'll never see that on my face and the way I walk.
00:29:56 --> 00:30:00 And that is all given because of the glory of God.
00:30:01 --> 00:30:06 That's given to him. So the Leatrice today has been the Leatrice for years,
00:30:06 --> 00:30:09 and no circumstance is going to change me.
00:30:09 --> 00:30:15 All right. So finish this sentence. I have hope because.
00:30:16 --> 00:30:20 I have hope because I know God is in control. All right.
00:30:20 --> 00:30:24 That's another mic drop. I like that. And I greatly appreciate that.
00:30:25 --> 00:30:30 So look, Leatrice De Bruhl, I greatly appreciate you taking the time to do this.
00:30:30 --> 00:30:32 I know your schedule is kind of tight.
00:30:34 --> 00:30:38 Tell people how they can get in touch with you, how they can get involved with
00:30:38 --> 00:30:41 the Grace to Grieve movement, the Phenomenal Black Women organization.
00:30:41 --> 00:30:44 Just go ahead and make your pitch.
00:30:45 --> 00:30:53 Yes. So you can reach me. I'm actually on LinkedIn, social. God, let me get it together.
00:30:53 --> 00:30:56 I'm on LinkedIn, Instagram and TikTok.
00:30:57 --> 00:31:02 And under LinkedIn, you'll see my name, Leatrice De Bruhl, and you'll also see
00:31:02 --> 00:31:03 Phenomenal Black Women.
00:31:04 --> 00:31:09 If you, when you see Instagram or TikTok, it's Latrice speaks life.
00:31:10 --> 00:31:15 So, and that's on purpose. Like I want to speak life into existence.
00:31:16 --> 00:31:21 You know, I don't want to focus on the things that are kind of going south in your life.
00:31:21 --> 00:31:26 I speak life. So hopefully that will remind you to look me up with Leatrice,
00:31:26 --> 00:31:32 which is L-E-A-T-R-I-C-E speaks life. And you'll remember that.
00:31:33 --> 00:31:37 And so that's a way you could definitely DM me, look me up that way.
00:31:37 --> 00:31:40 And you'll see all kinds of messages. You'll definitely know who it is because
00:31:40 --> 00:31:43 you'll see a lot of messages with me and my son or me in the business.
00:31:44 --> 00:31:47 And there's another way you can contact me. I'll give out my work sale.
00:31:48 --> 00:31:56 I don't mind doing that. And it's area code 757-284-6283. Had to think about it.
00:31:57 --> 00:32:01 That's my business sale. But either way, if you get me on either three of those
00:32:01 --> 00:32:03 platforms, I will definitely respond to you.
00:32:04 --> 00:32:07 And I also have another book that's coming out. I have one book that's already
00:32:07 --> 00:32:09 out. It was an anthology project.
00:32:09 --> 00:32:14 It's called In the Pursuit of Living. and that's authored with other,
00:32:14 --> 00:32:17 co-authored with other women with fantastic stories.
00:32:17 --> 00:32:20 But that was really just an opener, a sneak peek for my book,
00:32:20 --> 00:32:23 which is on the way. And it's called Craziness Faith.
00:32:24 --> 00:32:28 So please be on the lookout for that. And I can't wait to do speaking engagements,
00:32:29 --> 00:32:32 hint, hint, for anyone that's interested in hearing more about my story.
00:32:33 --> 00:32:39 Well, when you, our rule is, is that with the podcast, is that you have an open
00:32:39 --> 00:32:43 invitation now that you've been on, have an open invitation to come back.
00:32:43 --> 00:32:46 So once that book is completed and you're ready to, you know,
00:32:46 --> 00:32:51 share that with the world, then feel free to come back on and we'll talk about that book as well.
00:32:52 --> 00:32:55 Amazing. Thank you so much, Erik, for this opportunity. Well,
00:32:56 --> 00:32:58 Leatrice, I thank you for taking the time.
00:32:58 --> 00:33:03 And I know you got to go and we'll chat some more later on, but I really appreciate
00:33:03 --> 00:33:10 you taking the time because I wanted my audience to meet somebody.
00:33:11 --> 00:33:15 My goal is always to get somebody on that inspires other people.
00:33:16 --> 00:33:19 And I felt that you were that kind of a person. So I'm really,
00:33:19 --> 00:33:21 really glad that we were able to make this happen.
00:33:22 --> 00:33:25 Wow. And that means a lot. You're right. This is an early birthday gift.
00:33:25 --> 00:33:28 Thank you so much. Guys, we're going to catch y'all on the other side.
00:33:47 --> 00:33:55 All right, and we are back. And so it is time for my next guest, W. Ralph Eubanks.
00:33:55 --> 00:34:00 W. Ralph Eubanks is a faculty fellow and writer in residence at the Center for
00:34:00 --> 00:34:03 the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi.
00:34:03 --> 00:34:09 He is the author of A Place Like Mississippi, A Journey Through a Real and Imagined
00:34:09 --> 00:34:12 Literary Landscape, as well as two other works of nonfiction,
00:34:13 --> 00:34:17 Ever is a Long Time, and The House at the End of the Road.
00:34:17 --> 00:34:21 A Guggenheim Fellow and a Harvard Radcliffe Institute Fellow,
00:34:21 --> 00:34:29 he is also the recipient of a 2023 Mississippi Governor's Arts Award for Excellence in literature.
00:34:29 --> 00:34:33 His writing has appeared in Vanity Fair, The American Scholar,
00:34:33 --> 00:34:35 The Georgia Review, and The New Yorker.
00:34:35 --> 00:34:40 His latest books, which we are going to discuss on the podcast,
00:34:41 --> 00:34:43 is When It's Darkness in the Delta.
00:34:44 --> 00:34:48 Ladies and gentlemen, it is truly my distinct honor and privilege to have as
00:34:48 --> 00:34:52 a guest on this podcast, W. Ralph Eubanks.
00:35:04 --> 00:35:09 All right. Ladies and gentlemen, as you know from this podcast that I spent
00:35:09 --> 00:35:12 a long time in Mississippi.
00:35:13 --> 00:35:18 And, you know, one of the things that Mississippi is known for,
00:35:19 --> 00:35:26 surprisingly to a lot of people, is that there have been some literary giants that have existed.
00:35:26 --> 00:35:30 You've heard names like William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Richard Wright.
00:35:31 --> 00:35:35 Matter of fact, there's a statue of the three of them in downtown Jackson.
00:35:35 --> 00:35:44 John Grisham, Jesmyn Ward, and I have another member of that writing pantheon
00:35:44 --> 00:35:46 as a guest on the podcast.
00:35:46 --> 00:35:54 Ladies and gentlemen, I want y'all to enjoy the conversation I'm going to have with W.
00:35:54 --> 00:35:58 Ralph Eubanks. Mr. Eubanks, thank you for coming on the show.
00:35:58 --> 00:35:59 I greatly appreciate that.
00:36:00 --> 00:36:02 Oh, thank you. It's great to be with you.
00:36:03 --> 00:36:06 Great to be with, I guess, another fellow Mississippian. Yes, sir.
00:36:06 --> 00:36:10 Yes, sir. I spent 34 years there. And I used to tell people,
00:36:11 --> 00:36:14 I grew up in Chicago, but you know the history of the migration.
00:36:14 --> 00:36:16 So my dad was born than Mark's.
00:36:17 --> 00:36:20 So it's, I tell people, I used to
00:36:20 --> 00:36:22 tell people all the time, I'm from North Mississippi, a little small town.
00:36:24 --> 00:36:29 Yeah, well, you're from the town where the mule train started out for the Poor
00:36:29 --> 00:36:31 People's Campaign in 1968.
00:36:31 --> 00:36:33 Yeah, that's right. That's right.
00:36:34 --> 00:36:40 So, Mr. Eubanks, what I'd like to do is to do a couple of icebreakers to kind
00:36:40 --> 00:36:41 of get the conversation going.
00:36:42 --> 00:36:46 So the first is a quote that I want you to respond to.
00:36:47 --> 00:36:53 And the quote is, brethren, I could not myself to have apprehended,
00:36:54 --> 00:36:55 but there's one thing I do,
00:36:56 --> 00:37:01 forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things
00:37:01 --> 00:37:05 which are before. What does that quote mean to you?
00:37:06 --> 00:37:09 Well, that quote is from the Apostle Paul.
00:37:09 --> 00:37:17 It's also from the King James translation of the Bible, which is why it's a
00:37:17 --> 00:37:21 little bit kind of obtuse in the way that it's constructed.
00:37:22 --> 00:37:28 And it's one that sits outside of the—it's all over the State Penitentiary Department,
00:37:28 --> 00:37:32 where I taught writing for a year.
00:37:33 --> 00:37:40 And what it says to me, it is about the Apostle Paul, and he's talking about
00:37:40 --> 00:37:45 his, the Apostle Paul is actually kind of taking a victory lap here.
00:37:45 --> 00:37:50 And he's not really talking about, you know, the stoning of St. Stephen the Martyr.
00:37:50 --> 00:37:53 He's ignoring all these things that have happened.
00:37:54 --> 00:37:59 And it is about this forgiveness that he's being granted.
00:37:59 --> 00:38:04 And what I realized from that quote that's there, he's being granted this forgiveness,
00:38:05 --> 00:38:14 yet I'm going every week at the time to teach in Unit 29 at Parchman State Penitentiary,
00:38:14 --> 00:38:17 which is where people are in prison for life.
00:38:17 --> 00:38:22 And there is no forgiveness that's being granted to these men.
00:38:22 --> 00:38:26 There's none of the grace that the Apostle Paul is talking about that's going
00:38:26 --> 00:38:34 to be bestowed on these people, which makes me question why is this sign even outside of the prison.
00:38:34 --> 00:38:39 It also speaks to me about the way that Parchment was once a place that was.
00:38:40 --> 00:38:43 As a means of social control, race was a means of social control.
00:38:44 --> 00:38:50 What it says to me now is that religion is being used as a means of social control
00:38:50 --> 00:38:56 to make people passive and not really resist the forces that they're having
00:38:56 --> 00:38:58 to confront while they are incarcerated.
00:38:59 --> 00:39:04 Yeah, yeah. And I got that sense from the book.
00:39:04 --> 00:39:07 So the next icebreaker is what I call 20 questions.
00:39:08 --> 00:39:11 Okay. So I need you to give me a number between 1 and 20.
00:39:12 --> 00:39:16 Okay. I'm going to give you my lucky number, 13. Okay.
00:39:16 --> 00:39:22 Do you think there is such a thing as unbiased news or media and why?
00:39:22 --> 00:39:26 There is not such a thing as unbiased news or media.
00:39:27 --> 00:39:37 I think we all bring our biases into what it is that we are writing about or reporting on.
00:39:37 --> 00:39:45 But it's how we actually present those biases.
00:39:45 --> 00:39:52 For me, I'm very upfront about my connection to Mississippi,
00:39:52 --> 00:39:55 my relationship with the South,
00:39:55 --> 00:40:01 and that I look at writing about the South from a perspective of exile.
00:40:01 --> 00:40:06 That's very much a part of the way that I frame the way that I am writing about it.
00:40:06 --> 00:40:11 But that doesn't mean that anything that I'm writing is less truthful,
00:40:11 --> 00:40:14 but it is coming from that particular lens.
00:40:15 --> 00:40:19 And I think we all kind of put our lens over what it is.
00:40:19 --> 00:40:24 And it's important to understand what is the author's particular lens.
00:40:24 --> 00:40:30 And there are people who may not engage with my writing because of that lens.
00:40:31 --> 00:40:36 But can it ever be completely unbiased?
00:40:37 --> 00:40:39 No. Can it be...
00:40:41 --> 00:40:47 Even-handed. And yes, but I think the most important thing is truthful.
00:40:48 --> 00:40:53 Truth is probably the most important piece of it. And I see this connection
00:40:53 --> 00:40:55 between knowledge and truth.
00:40:55 --> 00:41:04 Once we learn about things, more about them, and we can kind of come to what
00:41:04 --> 00:41:07 we see as the truth, Or at least a shared truth.
00:41:08 --> 00:41:15 Okay. Well, the way you answer that kind of helps me ask this personal question
00:41:15 --> 00:41:18 I want from you. I want to ask you, I should say.
00:41:18 --> 00:41:23 Do you look back on your life and think about your success, especially as a
00:41:23 --> 00:41:25 purveyor of Mississippi stories? stories.
00:41:26 --> 00:41:30 And I don't know if you, I don't know if you heard the, the, the,
00:41:31 --> 00:41:38 when I was starting off the interview, when I was citing all those names and stuff, and, you know,
00:41:39 --> 00:41:43 I, I put you in that pantheon with those other Mississippi writers,
00:41:43 --> 00:41:49 but do you, because you feel that you're, you're writing from a position of exile,
00:41:49 --> 00:41:53 are you surprised of how successful you have been, how people have received
00:41:53 --> 00:41:55 your work talking about Mississippi.
00:41:56 --> 00:42:00 Guess i am but there's another important thing that i have to say that i always
00:42:00 --> 00:42:05 do is that someone told me a long time ago never believe the publicity about yourself.
00:42:09 --> 00:42:16 So um so yeah i just i it's it's great to be you know for people to kind of include me in that,
00:42:17 --> 00:42:23 pantheon but do i actually kind of walk around thinking about being part of
00:42:23 --> 00:42:25 that pantheon no i don't.
00:42:26 --> 00:42:28 I think more about.
00:42:31 --> 00:42:35 This. I want, I write about the South, and I write about Mississippi because
00:42:35 --> 00:42:38 I want it to be a better place.
00:42:39 --> 00:42:48 And I do use that perspective of exile in order to try to get to some type of truth about the place.
00:42:48 --> 00:42:55 I fear that if I get too close to it, there are things that I won't see,
00:42:55 --> 00:43:01 that I want others to see, and that I may be kind of engaging in some,
00:43:01 --> 00:43:06 bringing some coding of nostalgia to writing about the place.
00:43:07 --> 00:43:13 And I try to stay away from that as much as I can. Does it creep in sometimes?
00:43:14 --> 00:43:19 Yeah, it does. Because this is the place where I'm from, this is the place that shaped me.
00:43:19 --> 00:43:22 But I'm also trying to keep, you know,
00:43:23 --> 00:43:30 that perspective of outsiderism while at the same time being an insider,
00:43:30 --> 00:43:34 having been born here, being, as Richard Wright would say, a native son.
00:43:35 --> 00:43:43 Right. So you've had the privilege of teaching at UVA, George Mason, Howard, Millsaps.
00:43:43 --> 00:43:47 But do those students compare to the writers you taught at Parchman?
00:43:48 --> 00:43:59 Do. I would put them as their equals. And I think what separates them is I guess
00:43:59 --> 00:44:02 the thing that really separates them is very often privilege.
00:44:03 --> 00:44:10 So many of the students that I worked with in Parchman said I saw this connection
00:44:10 --> 00:44:11 between poverty and violence.
00:44:12 --> 00:44:18 That poverty and violence at an intersection led them to commit crimes that
00:44:18 --> 00:44:20 landed them in Parks and Rec.
00:44:21 --> 00:44:27 Whereas my students at Millsaps and all these great schools that I've had the
00:44:27 --> 00:44:30 opportunity to be a professor at,
00:44:31 --> 00:44:37 those students were able to, they had a more middle-class background that shielded
00:44:37 --> 00:44:41 them from kind of having to move into that violence because they had the things
00:44:41 --> 00:44:43 that they needed that didn't lead
00:44:43 --> 00:44:49 them into committing crimes that they committed because they were poor.
00:44:49 --> 00:44:55 And that's the thing that separates them. Are they just as perceptive?
00:44:55 --> 00:45:02 And also, the other thing is, I realize too, is so many of the men that I worked
00:45:02 --> 00:45:09 with at Parchman didn't quite fit into the round hole.
00:45:09 --> 00:45:14 They're the square pegs that didn't fit into the round hole of the education system.
00:45:15 --> 00:45:22 And they did not come from families that had the means to figure out where I
00:45:22 --> 00:45:25 can take this child to get them to learn these things.
00:45:25 --> 00:45:29 I mean, I have three children, and they all went to three different schools
00:45:29 --> 00:45:33 because I saw they were all very different.
00:45:33 --> 00:45:36 And I wanted to find somewhere that fit for them.
00:45:37 --> 00:45:43 And I did that because I'm a person of great privilege. But these men did not
00:45:43 --> 00:45:44 come from families of privilege.
00:45:45 --> 00:45:47 Have the power to do that. Yes.
00:45:48 --> 00:45:54 All right. So this book we're discussing, When is Darkness on the Delta?
00:45:54 --> 00:46:00 You said only by looking at both the forces of history and the way we live now
00:46:00 --> 00:46:05 can we begin to understand not only the Mississippi Delta, but also the forces
00:46:05 --> 00:46:08 of inequality that have shaped America itself.
00:46:09 --> 00:46:13 That means the story of the people of the Delta is not just the Mississippi
00:46:13 --> 00:46:15 story, nor is it just the Southern story.
00:46:15 --> 00:46:19 At its very core, the Delta story is an American story.
00:46:19 --> 00:46:25 Was that your motivation to write this book, to have the world understand the
00:46:25 --> 00:46:27 importance of the Mississippi Delta?
00:46:28 --> 00:46:32 Was to understand the story of the Mississippi Delta, but I have to say it's
00:46:32 --> 00:46:34 maybe not where I started.
00:46:34 --> 00:46:40 It's kind of where I ended up with this, realizing that it was,
00:46:40 --> 00:46:44 I think I started out writing about the Mississippi Delta.
00:46:44 --> 00:46:49 It wasn't until I was deep into the project that I realized I wasn't really
00:46:49 --> 00:46:51 just writing about the Delta.
00:46:51 --> 00:46:57 I was writing about America itself and beginning to see the Delta in so many
00:46:57 --> 00:47:02 ways as a mirror to America, Mississippi as a mirror to America.
00:47:02 --> 00:47:08 So those are things that I really came to in the course of doing my research,
00:47:08 --> 00:47:09 in the course of writing.
00:47:09 --> 00:47:14 And this is a book that I started 10 years ago, and I put aside,
00:47:14 --> 00:47:17 and I wrote a book called A Place Like Mississippi, which is a journey through
00:47:17 --> 00:47:19 Mississippi's literary landscape.
00:47:19 --> 00:47:26 And it was while I was working on that book that I began to kind of get a sense
00:47:26 --> 00:47:28 of my voice to tell this story.
00:47:29 --> 00:47:34 And my editor was reading a chapter in a place like Mississippi,
00:47:34 --> 00:47:37 and he said, I really like what you're doing here, but where are you?
00:47:38 --> 00:47:42 And I was kind of deliberately kind of taking myself out of the narrative.
00:47:42 --> 00:47:46 One of the things that I learned from them is kind of like, where could I kind
00:47:46 --> 00:47:50 of go into the narrative, and how did I begin to kind of fade out of it and
00:47:50 --> 00:47:56 let these other voices kind of expand and have and take hold of the narrative?
00:47:57 --> 00:48:00 And that's what that editor taught me. It was that lesson that I learned while
00:48:00 --> 00:48:05 writing that book that I began to apply what I returned to this book.
00:48:06 --> 00:48:09 And when I returned to it, that's when I kind of,
00:48:10 --> 00:48:16 to that revelation, this is really about America itself. The original subtitle
00:48:16 --> 00:48:17 was An American Reckoning.
00:48:18 --> 00:48:22 And I use that as a working subtitle because I realized that's what I'm doing.
00:48:22 --> 00:48:27 It is not just a Southern Reckoning, it's an American Reckoning. Yeah.
00:48:27 --> 00:48:31 All right, so what is the deal with all the blues lyrics in the book?
00:48:33 --> 00:48:41 You know, the reason I use the blues lyrics as epigraphs is I wanted the reader
00:48:41 --> 00:48:48 to see that the blues tells the story of the Delta.
00:48:48 --> 00:48:57 And that everything that I'm writing about, whether it is health care, education, place,
00:48:57 --> 00:49:05 history, there's some thread from the blues that connects all of those things.
00:49:06 --> 00:49:11 And I wanted people again to think of them the way that sociologist Clyde Woods
00:49:11 --> 00:49:13 said we should think about the blues.
00:49:13 --> 00:49:18 We should think about people who wrote the blues as sociologists,
00:49:18 --> 00:49:23 as therapists, as, you know, poets.
00:49:23 --> 00:49:28 So that's how I wanted people to begin to think about the blues.
00:49:29 --> 00:49:35 And if you go to Spotify, I actually have a Spotify playlist with all the music,
00:49:35 --> 00:49:38 so it's almost like it's a soundtrack for the book.
00:49:39 --> 00:49:42 I wanted the reader to kind of get this story
00:49:42 --> 00:49:45 of of it but i also wanted them to kind of have these
00:49:45 --> 00:49:48 this other other soundtrack that kind
00:49:48 --> 00:49:51 of told a parallel story along with it yeah and
00:49:51 --> 00:49:55 you you're kind of self-revelatory when you said you
00:49:55 --> 00:49:58 know you was young i think you were had a chance to meet one of
00:49:58 --> 00:50:00 the the blues greats a book of
00:50:00 --> 00:50:03 white yeah and you were like yeah mama why why
00:50:03 --> 00:50:07 are we going to dab dinner with this dude you know what i'm saying so yeah
00:50:07 --> 00:50:13 so as your evolution in your exile as you put it is that evolution and in the
00:50:13 --> 00:50:20 love of the blues grown it has grown and it has you know it's it's interesting
00:50:20 --> 00:50:25 i i i came to that revelation about book of white,
00:50:26 --> 00:50:31 while I was on a fellowship at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute.
00:50:31 --> 00:50:37 And I got to go into this archive that had this interview that was done with Booker White.
00:50:37 --> 00:50:42 He was going to make an appearance at Club Passing in Harvard Square in Cambridge.
00:50:43 --> 00:50:46 But on the trip there, he had a stroke.
00:50:47 --> 00:50:50 And a local journalist sat down and did a long history with him.
00:50:50 --> 00:50:55 And I'm reading this, and I'm thinking about the date. And I'm saying, this is 1976.
00:50:56 --> 00:51:03 I saw him in 1976. What I realized is that he left that performance and went
00:51:03 --> 00:51:08 to Massachusetts after that, had the stroke, and was dead six months later.
00:51:10 --> 00:51:15 And that's when I began to realize this great missed opportunity I had as an
00:51:15 --> 00:51:20 arrogant 19-year-old telling my mother the blues is the music of oppression,
00:51:20 --> 00:51:24 because that's the way that my friends and I saw that music.
00:51:25 --> 00:51:32 We saw it as connected to slavery, but it had no connection to slavery at all.
00:51:32 --> 00:51:38 It had connection to survival, people in the 20th century post-Reconstruction.
00:51:39 --> 00:51:46 And that's when I realized what an arrogant, ignorant little snot I was at 19.
00:51:48 --> 00:51:55 And it began to, I mean, my relationship with the blues had been evolving,
00:51:55 --> 00:52:00 but that was, making that connection was a real revelatory moment for me. Yeah.
00:52:00 --> 00:52:06 All right. So why is Mileston a significant place for you and for the history
00:52:06 --> 00:52:08 of black folks in the Mississippi, don't you?
00:52:09 --> 00:52:13 And it's significant for me because my father went to work there in 1949 after
00:52:13 --> 00:52:14 he graduated from Tuskegee.
00:52:14 --> 00:52:19 He never really told me why. And I said, you know, why did you come to the Delta?
00:52:19 --> 00:52:20 He said, I came there for opportunity.
00:52:22 --> 00:52:27 And being very young, my father died when I was 18, I didn't ask more questions about it.
00:52:28 --> 00:52:31 So in some ways, this is a way for me to kind of probe a lot deeper.
00:52:31 --> 00:52:37 But the reason it's much so important for Black people of the South is it was
00:52:37 --> 00:52:40 a resettlement community that took a former plantation,
00:52:41 --> 00:52:45 subdivided, the federal government bought, subdivided it to,
00:52:45 --> 00:52:47 I think it was 111 families,
00:52:48 --> 00:52:50 if I'm not mistaken, the number there.
00:52:50 --> 00:52:54 And move them from sharecropping to land-owning.
00:52:54 --> 00:53:01 And today, that segment of land is the largest Black-owned segment of land in the Mississippi Delta.
00:53:02 --> 00:53:06 That's why it's significant. And there could have been more milestones had the
00:53:06 --> 00:53:11 state of Mississippi not blocked more of those black resettlement communities from happening.
00:53:12 --> 00:53:16 And they stopped it because they had these white politicians,
00:53:17 --> 00:53:23 these white segregationist politicians believed that if more black people owned
00:53:23 --> 00:53:26 this land, that they were going to ask to vote.
00:53:29 --> 00:53:34 They And Mileston and Holmes County, those were the first people to demand
00:53:34 --> 00:53:37 to register to vote in that county. So they were right about that.
00:53:38 --> 00:53:42 But that was the fear. That fear was actually a very real one.
00:53:43 --> 00:53:49 Yeah. Yeah. And it's a very significant place. I never had the privilege of stopping there.
00:53:50 --> 00:53:54 I always ended up either going to Tchula or Ruleville on that side of Holmes
00:53:54 --> 00:54:00 County if I had to go up that way. But you had to pass it if you took 49E.
00:54:00 --> 00:54:06 Yeah. And a lot of people need to understand the history of Mileston.
00:54:06 --> 00:54:10 And I'm glad that you highlighted it. But speaking of special places,
00:54:10 --> 00:54:15 Mount Bayou is a special place for me because I have family there.
00:54:16 --> 00:54:20 But why is it a special place for most black Mississippians?
00:54:20 --> 00:54:25 It's a special place because it was a black-owned town, an independent,
00:54:25 --> 00:54:35 black-owned, black-run town, established by formerly enslaved people from around Vicksburg,
00:54:35 --> 00:54:40 who were enslaved on the plantation of the brother of Jefferson Davis,
00:54:41 --> 00:54:42 the president of the Confederacy.
00:54:43 --> 00:54:46 And once there were some...
00:54:46 --> 00:54:50 Land that they were on was contested and crops started to fail,
00:54:50 --> 00:54:57 they left that place and moved to the Delta and created their own world there
00:54:57 --> 00:55:03 in Mound Bayou and were incredibly independent.
00:55:03 --> 00:55:08 And I'd say Mound Bayou went through two really significant periods,
00:55:08 --> 00:55:15 from its founding in the 1890s, probably through the collapse of Cotton in the 1920s.
00:55:15 --> 00:55:22 And then it undergoes a renaissance in the post-war era with the arrival of Dr.
00:55:22 --> 00:55:27 T.R.M. Howard, the establishment of Taborian Hospital, which becomes kind of
00:55:27 --> 00:55:30 a key spot for health care in the Mississippi Delta.
00:55:31 --> 00:55:37 And Meadow Bayou becomes a place of refuge for Mamie Till Mobley during the trial of Emmett Till.
00:55:38 --> 00:55:45 Yeah yeah we uh we we had our last family reunion i i went to we were in mount
00:55:45 --> 00:55:49 bayou we did like one thing and then we spent most of the time in cleveland.
00:55:50 --> 00:55:53 Just up the road but yeah there was
00:55:53 --> 00:55:56 a colleague when i served in the mississippi house there was
00:55:56 --> 00:55:59 a young lady named linda coleman was a state representative there
00:55:59 --> 00:56:02 at the time she's a judge now and i
00:56:02 --> 00:56:05 used to tell everybody you give linda what she wants because she represents
00:56:05 --> 00:56:10 my people and she always thought that was like why you putting that pressure
00:56:10 --> 00:56:16 off i just i mean you know it's the truth she represented my people so yeah
00:56:16 --> 00:56:21 mount bayou is a cool place what was the big deal about chinese grocery stores.
00:56:23 --> 00:56:26 Grocery stores, the Chinese were brought to the Delta to pick cotton.
00:56:27 --> 00:56:34 As the Exodusters were leaving, the ones that I guess Irving Painter referred
00:56:34 --> 00:56:35 to as Exodusters were beginning to move west.
00:56:36 --> 00:56:38 They brought in the Chinese. They also brought in the Italians.
00:56:39 --> 00:56:42 And both of those groups said, we are not doing this work.
00:56:42 --> 00:56:49 But what the Chinese did is they started grocery stores that were largely in Black communities.
00:56:49 --> 00:56:54 In a lot of ways, what they did is they competed with the plantation commissaries.
00:56:55 --> 00:56:59 And all of the clientele of those stores were Black.
00:56:59 --> 00:57:05 And actually the same with some of the Lebanese businesses too.
00:57:05 --> 00:57:09 It's like I was speaking with a friend of mine who's from Greenville and his
00:57:09 --> 00:57:11 family owned a grocery store in Greenville is Lebanese.
00:57:11 --> 00:57:15 And he said all of our clientele was Black.
00:57:15 --> 00:57:20 We served those communities because the white stores did not.
00:57:20 --> 00:57:26 And that's the significance of the Chinese grocery stores, as I see.
00:57:27 --> 00:57:32 Once they left, that's why I think the Delta is a food desert today,
00:57:33 --> 00:57:35 is those Chinese grocery stores
00:57:35 --> 00:57:40 filled a very important need in Black communities across the Delta. Yeah.
00:57:41 --> 00:57:46 You know, people look at Mississippi and they listen to the politics now and
00:57:46 --> 00:57:49 they're like, oh, that can't be a good place for immigrants.
00:57:49 --> 00:57:51 But it's like Mississippi was...
00:57:52 --> 00:57:59 So really, a haven, well, haven might be too altruistic a word,
00:57:59 --> 00:58:03 but it was a place where a lot of immigrants landed and contributed.
00:58:03 --> 00:58:09 One of the most popular weathermen in the history of Mississippi was this guy named Woodie Assaf.
00:58:09 --> 00:58:12 I know. I remember Woodie Assaf. And people were like, you know,
00:58:13 --> 00:58:15 it was like, oh, that's Woodie. That's Woodie.
00:58:15 --> 00:58:17 That's Woodie. But they didn't concentrate on the Assaf part.
00:58:18 --> 00:58:20 Right. And he, you know, he's Lebanese.
00:58:21 --> 00:58:25 And so his family, you know, I think his daughter was a city council person
00:58:25 --> 00:58:27 in one of the suburbs of Jackson and all that.
00:58:28 --> 00:58:34 So, you know, they were accepted because they had roots, right?
00:58:34 --> 00:58:38 The same as going to the Delta. It was a mind-blowing experience to walk into
00:58:38 --> 00:58:42 a store and you see somebody of Asian descent.
00:58:42 --> 00:58:45 And Sinners, the movie Sinners kind of highlighted that.
00:58:45 --> 00:58:49 When you walk into the store, you had this person of Asian descent,
00:58:49 --> 00:58:52 and they're talking just like Bubba from right down the road.
00:58:53 --> 00:59:00 Well, I went to school at the University of Mississippi with a number of Delta Chinese.
00:59:00 --> 00:59:06 My dear friend, Gwendolyn Gong, her family owned a grocery store in Boyle, Mississippi.
00:59:06 --> 00:59:09 And her mother arrived there from China.
00:59:10 --> 00:59:14 You know, very complicated story, kind of getting there. but her mother said
00:59:14 --> 00:59:16 her mother learned to cook from,
00:59:18 --> 00:59:22 the Black women who were patrons of the store. And she always asked me,
00:59:22 --> 00:59:23 what do you make with that?
00:59:23 --> 00:59:27 And because her mother wanted them to eat like Southerners.
00:59:28 --> 00:59:31 And those Black women taught her mother how to cook.
00:59:32 --> 00:59:36 Yeah, yeah. It's just a cool experience.
00:59:38 --> 00:59:43 So I want to get in a couple more questions while I have you.
00:59:43 --> 00:59:48 In another part of the book, you said, Caste may no longer divide the Delta's
00:59:48 --> 00:59:54 people into perceived superior and inferior groups, but race still regulates
00:59:54 --> 00:59:56 the behavior of each group.
00:59:56 --> 01:00:01 The plantation system is gone, but the remnants of that system still wield power.
01:00:01 --> 01:00:03 Break that down for the listeners.
01:00:05 --> 01:00:11 Well, race is still very much a divide, largely because the school systems are divided.
01:00:11 --> 01:00:16 There was never school integration, for all practical purposes,
01:00:17 --> 01:00:21 never really happened in most of those delta towns.
01:00:21 --> 01:00:27 And the other thing that I would say with the idea of the plantation that's
01:00:27 --> 01:00:34 there, the plantation mindset continued over time because there was nothing
01:00:34 --> 01:00:36 that kind of came into pain.
01:00:36 --> 01:00:41 I mean, getting suffrage really, and getting the vote and getting political
01:00:41 --> 01:00:47 power changed things a great deal, but economic power did not come with that.
01:00:48 --> 01:00:54 And therein kind of lies that divide, and then that allowed this whole idea
01:00:54 --> 01:01:00 of the plantation mentality to persist, because even though you've got political
01:01:00 --> 01:01:01 power, you've got political,
01:01:02 --> 01:01:08 There was never really this real change in mindset that happened there.
01:01:09 --> 01:01:13 It's all part of this continuum from the past.
01:01:14 --> 01:01:19 And I'm always looking for these connections between the past and the present.
01:01:20 --> 01:01:25 And when you go around the Delta, you see that connection to that plantation past.
01:01:27 --> 01:01:32 You see it on the landscape. And among the way that people interact with people,
01:01:32 --> 01:01:34 with each other all the time.
01:01:34 --> 01:01:41 It is a constant. So there may not be, you know, the idea of caste separating
01:01:41 --> 01:01:45 people, but race still separates people. Yeah.
01:01:46 --> 01:01:51 And, you know, you mentioned the schools because, you know, one of the things
01:01:51 --> 01:01:55 about being involved in Mississippi politics, you can travel the state.
01:01:55 --> 01:02:03 It's, you know, it's a good-sized state, But it's not huge, like Texas or somewhere like that.
01:02:04 --> 01:02:09 And I remember going and it was like, you know, if you live in Jackson,
01:02:10 --> 01:02:14 it's like when you say these private academies, right?
01:02:14 --> 01:02:18 And you use the term segregated academies because that's what they were because
01:02:18 --> 01:02:20 all of them started like after the Brown decision.
01:02:22 --> 01:02:26 Go to Jackson Academy, Jackson Prep, you see like, oh, wow, these,
01:02:26 --> 01:02:30 oh, yeah, you know, and, you know, the white folks paid for that.
01:02:30 --> 01:02:33 You know what I'm saying? But if you go up to the Delta, right,
01:02:33 --> 01:02:37 it's like where you've got the public schools and then you say,
01:02:37 --> 01:02:42 well, I want to go to, I think it's Pillow Academy, I think it's one of them. Pillow Academy. Yeah.
01:02:42 --> 01:02:48 And it's a bunch of permit steel buildings. And I'm like going, y'all paying for that?
01:02:48 --> 01:02:53 Y'all would rather pay for it to be in school, the permit. They go into a brick and mortar building.
01:02:53 --> 01:02:56 I just, you know, I said, oh, the racism is strong.
01:02:57 --> 01:03:02 You know what I'm saying? It just, you know, so that's why I want people to
01:03:02 --> 01:03:03 understand Mississippi has
01:03:03 --> 01:03:09 evolved in a certain way, but it's still that race thing is still real.
01:03:09 --> 01:03:14 And you highlighted the fact that it's more on the economic power rather than
01:03:14 --> 01:03:19 anything else. It is with respect to the economic power.
01:03:19 --> 01:03:23 And what is so interesting about the segregated school system,
01:03:24 --> 01:03:26 and one of the things that I kind of highlight in this book,
01:03:26 --> 01:03:36 is how that shift toward segregated academies, it's accepted by everyone that's there,
01:03:36 --> 01:03:41 because no one kind of remembers that time of integration.
01:03:41 --> 01:03:47 And it's so as when I interviewed students there, they had no idea that they
01:03:47 --> 01:03:52 said they're just these schools here that only white people go to because you have to pay to go to them.
01:03:53 --> 01:03:56 And they didn't understand that there was a whole history with those.
01:03:58 --> 01:04:05 Yeah. All right. So talk about the impact of philanthropy versus government
01:04:05 --> 01:04:08 assistance as it relates to the Delta.
01:04:08 --> 01:04:11 And I found out something in the book that I didn't even know.
01:04:11 --> 01:04:18 At one time, it was hard. It was a challenge for a native Mississippian to start a foundation.
01:04:19 --> 01:04:24 I did not know that. And when I was reading, I was like, huh, that's that's amazing.
01:04:24 --> 01:04:30 That explains why you have more foundations from outside of the state giving
01:04:30 --> 01:04:32 money as opposed to the local foundations.
01:04:32 --> 01:04:38 I just assume because Mississippi underpays everybody that you didn't have the
01:04:38 --> 01:04:43 abundance of rich folks to give money back. Right.
01:04:44 --> 01:04:48 That question I began to ask myself is, there's all this wealth that's created
01:04:48 --> 01:04:55 with cotton. And why didn't any of that wealth create a Carnegie or Rockefeller Foundation?
01:04:55 --> 01:04:59 And the reason it didn't is because there was something called a mortaring statute
01:04:59 --> 01:05:05 that did not allow people to leave estates to nonprofit organizations.
01:05:05 --> 01:05:09 You could if you were a bachelor. And so the Hardin Foundation,
01:05:10 --> 01:05:13 which is a foundation in Mississippi that supports educational initiatives,
01:05:14 --> 01:05:16 Phil Hardin was a bachelor.
01:05:16 --> 01:05:18 So he was able to establish a foundation.
01:05:19 --> 01:05:23 And those laws did not change until I think it was the mid-1980s.
01:05:24 --> 01:05:29 But thinking about philanthropy government is that the way that Mississippi
01:05:29 --> 01:05:33 has viewed philanthropy, people like the Kellogg Foundation coming to Mississippi
01:05:33 --> 01:05:35 with their Mississippi Delta Initiative,
01:05:35 --> 01:05:40 is they viewed them as, okay, you want to tackle that? You go right ahead.
01:05:41 --> 01:05:44 We don't have anything to do with it. Whereas what.
01:05:45 --> 01:05:48 Philanthropy is thinking, we're going to kind of do some work here,
01:05:48 --> 01:05:51 and we're going to figure out what actually works here.
01:05:52 --> 01:05:55 And then we want government to kind of come in and take that over,
01:05:55 --> 01:05:56 you know, state government.
01:05:57 --> 01:06:00 And then, you know, you have to have the federal government with monetary policy.
01:06:01 --> 01:06:06 You know, Mississippi Delta is on the supervision of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
01:06:06 --> 01:06:10 So you've got to have connections here. And if all those things could work together,
01:06:10 --> 01:06:13 there could be some transformative impact.
01:06:13 --> 01:06:17 But they don't really work together. They're not really coordinated in the way that they should be.
01:06:18 --> 01:06:22 As someone at the St. Louis Fed said to me, the Dalton has been philanthropy-bombed.
01:06:23 --> 01:06:28 So it's like there's lots of philanthropy that has come in, and nothing has
01:06:28 --> 01:06:34 really stuck because no one really asked the local people what it was they needed.
01:06:34 --> 01:06:39 And what was needed in Drew is different from what's needed in Greenwood than
01:06:39 --> 01:06:43 what's needed in Mount Bayou, what's needed in Clarksdale.
01:06:43 --> 01:06:48 So realizing these are all places with unique histories and cultures,
01:06:48 --> 01:06:52 and you have to figure out what's going to work each of those places. Yeah.
01:06:52 --> 01:06:56 Yeah. And there's so many things. I had so many questions for you, man.
01:06:56 --> 01:07:01 It's like, you know, because you highlight Robert Kennedy's tour of the Delta
01:07:01 --> 01:07:06 and you really get into why that was a monumental thing.
01:07:06 --> 01:07:13 You highlight people like Gloria Carter Dickerson and her family and their big
01:07:13 --> 01:07:14 role in the Delta and all that.
01:07:14 --> 01:07:18 But we don't have time to do all that. I just want people to read the book.
01:07:18 --> 01:07:21 But what do you want readers of this book
01:07:21 --> 01:07:24 to take away from it what i want readers
01:07:24 --> 01:07:31 to take away is i want them to begin to see and know things about the delta
01:07:31 --> 01:07:37 in a very different way as i say you can't read i mean thinking about piggybacking
01:07:37 --> 01:07:43 what robert kennedy said when he came to delta unless we change what we see.
01:07:44 --> 01:07:54 Can't change what we know. And he really wanted to kind of change what we see
01:07:54 --> 01:07:58 and what we know, and then to kind of create greater social change there.
01:07:59 --> 01:08:04 And that's the big takeaway I want people to come away from with this book,
01:08:04 --> 01:08:08 is how do we change our way of seeing the Mississippi Delta?
01:08:09 --> 01:08:13 And the way we change it is by what we know about it. I want them to learn about it.
01:08:13 --> 01:08:18 And then I want them to think about how many other places around the country are deltas.
01:08:19 --> 01:08:23 You know, whether it is Appalachia, whether it is the Black Belt of Alabama,
01:08:24 --> 01:08:26 or whether it's Western Pennsylvania.
01:08:26 --> 01:08:31 There are all these places. I think about, I quote the photographer Latoya Ruby
01:08:31 --> 01:08:33 Frazier, who's from Braddock, Pennsylvania.
01:08:33 --> 01:08:37 She says, I go around the other parts of the country and I see Braddock.
01:08:37 --> 01:08:40 Well, I go to other parts of the country and I see the Mississippi Delta.
01:08:41 --> 01:08:45 And I want people to begin to see that and make those connections and realize
01:08:45 --> 01:08:51 that the connections between these places and the roots of American income inequality.
01:08:51 --> 01:08:52 That's what I want people to take away.
01:08:53 --> 01:08:58 And ladies and gentlemen, I think Braddock, Pennsylvania is the place that Senator
01:08:58 --> 01:09:01 Fetterman was the mayor of before he got elected as the senator.
01:09:01 --> 01:09:03 That is exactly right. Okay.
01:09:04 --> 01:09:06 There's a tie-in to that later on in the podcast. But anyway,
01:09:07 --> 01:09:10 I'm glad you brought that up.
01:09:10 --> 01:09:14 Finish this sentence. I have hope because.
01:09:15 --> 01:09:22 I have hope because there are people in the Mississippi Delta who have hope
01:09:22 --> 01:09:28 and are actually doing the work to transform the place in spite of forces to
01:09:28 --> 01:09:31 the contrary that would say that they should not have any hope at all.
01:09:32 --> 01:09:38 Okay. So how do people get this book?
01:09:38 --> 01:09:43 When is darkness on the Delta? How can people reach out to you?
01:09:43 --> 01:09:49 Just go ahead and make it. People can find my book in bookstores everywhere.
01:09:49 --> 01:09:53 And if you would actually like a signed copy of the book, you can order one
01:09:53 --> 01:09:58 from Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi at squarebooks.com.
01:09:58 --> 01:10:02 You can find me at wralfeubanks.com.
01:10:03 --> 01:10:09 Well, W. Ralph Eubanks, it is truly an honor of mine to have you as a guest
01:10:09 --> 01:10:13 on the podcast. When I was approached and said, would you like for him to come on? I was like, sure.
01:10:14 --> 01:10:18 It was just kind of like, so let me put it in perspective for you, sir.
01:10:19 --> 01:10:23 When I was student body president at Jackson State, we were trying to put together a homecoming concert.
01:10:24 --> 01:10:28 And initially, we had this rapper named Joski Love that was coming in.
01:10:28 --> 01:10:31 He was kind of popular, but, you know, he wasn't big time.
01:10:31 --> 01:10:35 But it was somebody we thought we could afford, right?
01:10:35 --> 01:10:41 And so the promoters called us and said, yeah, Joski Love ain't going to make it.
01:10:41 --> 01:10:44 Would y'all accept Run DMC instead?
01:10:44 --> 01:10:47 And we were like yeah we'll take
01:10:47 --> 01:10:50 run dmc so when i was
01:10:50 --> 01:10:53 approached for you coming in it was that same kind of enthusiasm it
01:10:53 --> 01:10:59 was like uh yeah yeah mr eubanks wants to be on my podcast sure sure so it's
01:10:59 --> 01:11:04 really really been an honor to talk to you and to form and to meet you and the
01:11:04 --> 01:11:09 rule is is that once you've been on you have an open invitation to come back
01:11:09 --> 01:11:11 so when you write your next book or whatever.
01:11:13 --> 01:11:16 Yeah, feel free to come on back and we'll talk about that too.
01:11:16 --> 01:11:21 I would love to do that. All right. All right. All right, guys,
01:11:21 --> 01:11:23 we're going to catch y'all on the other side.
01:11:34 --> 01:11:41 All right, and we are back. So I want to thank Leatrice De Bruhl and W.
01:11:41 --> 01:11:46 Ralph Eubanks for coming on the podcast.
01:11:47 --> 01:11:53 It really is cool when people feel comfortable enough to tell their stories.
01:11:53 --> 01:12:00 And I know Leatrice has been through a lot,
01:12:00 --> 01:12:08 but the fact that she has decided to take all of those experiences and try to
01:12:08 --> 01:12:12 help others as they go through is commendable.
01:12:12 --> 01:12:19 And, you know, the timing couldn't be any more perfect in that she's celebrating
01:12:19 --> 01:12:28 another year of life while she's working to help people get through their life
01:12:28 --> 01:12:30 and the challenges that they face.
01:12:30 --> 01:12:39 So I think that's commendable and I wish her continued success in that journey and in her work.
01:12:39 --> 01:12:49 And then to sit down and talk to Ralph Eubanks, man, that's, you know, I try to,
01:12:50 --> 01:12:54 to be starstruck. But, you know, I'm human.
01:12:56 --> 01:13:03 And, you know, it's not like, you know, I got like this Eubanks fan page and
01:13:03 --> 01:13:04 all that stuff. It's not like that.
01:13:04 --> 01:13:08 But I mean, to have somebody of his magnitude,
01:13:08 --> 01:13:14 somebody of his talent, and, you know, the fact that he is teaching,
01:13:14 --> 01:13:19 we had to get through that interview as quick as possible because he had to
01:13:19 --> 01:13:23 meet a student like right away after the interview.
01:13:23 --> 01:13:30 You know, it's just that rare combination. He's very humble and down-to-earth
01:13:30 --> 01:13:33 person, but a tremendous talent.
01:13:33 --> 01:13:42 And just another reminder to the nation and to the world that Mississippi has a lot to offer.
01:13:42 --> 01:13:49 You know, I remember growing up in Chicago, you know, Mississippi was the butt
01:13:49 --> 01:13:55 of a lot of jokes, and that was based off of bitter and terrible experiences.
01:13:56 --> 01:14:03 And even living there, you know, you would hear the connotations.
01:14:03 --> 01:14:10 So it was always important for me whenever I was on a national stage or platform,
01:14:10 --> 01:14:14 whatever, whether it was at a convention or a meeting,
01:14:14 --> 01:14:18 conference, whatever, that I was,
01:14:18 --> 01:14:25 one, on my best behavior, and two, I put my best foot forward because I wanted
01:14:25 --> 01:14:29 people to have a different mindset about Mississippi.
01:14:30 --> 01:14:39 And for some folks, I was probably the first person or the closest they ever
01:14:39 --> 01:14:42 got to somebody from Mississippi, right?
01:14:43 --> 01:14:50 And, you know, and it wasn't just me. It was a lot of us that had the privilege to do that.
01:14:50 --> 01:14:53 We kind of felt we had that obligation.
01:14:54 --> 01:14:59 You know, when we were in a position to relax and, as the folks say,
01:14:59 --> 01:15:01 let your hair down and all that stuff.
01:15:01 --> 01:15:06 I mean, you know, we enjoyed, like if we were out of town or whatever,
01:15:06 --> 01:15:08 enjoyed the city we were in.
01:15:09 --> 01:15:17 But when it came down to business we were about that business and it's,
01:15:18 --> 01:15:22 obligation because people say so many bad things.
01:15:23 --> 01:15:26 And when you look at all of these people, it doesn't matter what,
01:15:26 --> 01:15:36 whether it's music or sports or film, the arts, as far as, you know, sculpting or whatever.
01:15:37 --> 01:15:43 I mean, writing, Mississippi has contributed in a great way.
01:15:43 --> 01:15:49 And I hope that some people recognize that there's been some decent people that
01:15:49 --> 01:15:52 came out of Mississippi in politics as well.
01:15:53 --> 01:15:56 So, you know, it's just that kind of vibe.
01:15:58 --> 01:16:04 And to just be in the presence of somebody else that has represented Mississippi
01:16:04 --> 01:16:06 well was really, really cool.
01:16:08 --> 01:16:14 And so y'all need to get that book. when it's darkness in the Delta.
01:16:16 --> 01:16:20 Please get that. And I hope I said that right.
01:16:23 --> 01:16:29 But it was really a treat to talk to both of them.
01:16:30 --> 01:16:34 But now I got to get into the dirty stuff.
01:16:35 --> 01:16:42 And this particular rant is directed toward two individuals.
01:16:43 --> 01:16:49 Now, I know I'm just a voice out here in the wilderness and my opinions are
01:16:49 --> 01:16:55 based on my experience and, you know, what I see and what I hear,
01:16:56 --> 01:17:02 You know, I have the right to say it. And if by some chance these people hear
01:17:02 --> 01:17:05 it and they got a problem with it, well, you know, refine me.
01:17:06 --> 01:17:09 And, you know, or they can find out.
01:17:10 --> 01:17:15 And, you know, we can deal with that. because, you know, when I was elected,
01:17:15 --> 01:17:21 people had no problem saying, Fleming, I think this, or I don't agree with that,
01:17:21 --> 01:17:22 or whatever the case may be.
01:17:23 --> 01:17:27 So I expect people to live by that same standard.
01:17:27 --> 01:17:32 Now, I know that in this day and age, because I have to remind myself that I
01:17:32 --> 01:17:37 haven't been an elected official in almost 20 years, things have changed.
01:17:38 --> 01:17:41 Personalities have changed of people that get elected.
01:17:42 --> 01:17:47 And, you know, I just, the biggest thing I miss is the honor part of it,
01:17:48 --> 01:17:50 right? The accountability part of it.
01:17:51 --> 01:17:54 And, you know, leadership sets the example.
01:17:55 --> 01:17:59 And if we've got a president that never admits when they're wrong,
01:17:59 --> 01:18:06 doesn't have any sense of morality or accountability for himself,
01:18:06 --> 01:18:11 let alone others, has no empathy for other people, then that fans out.
01:18:12 --> 01:18:15 It's a ripple effect. It fans out throughout the nation.
01:18:16 --> 01:18:21 And so the people that are aligned with him politically are going to act the same way.
01:18:22 --> 01:18:28 Even people that are opposed to him will dive into that behavior, right?
01:18:29 --> 01:18:31 So there's two examples, two gentlemen.
01:18:33 --> 01:18:37 One, I didn't expect anything better. The other one, I had high hopes for,
01:18:37 --> 01:18:40 and it's been a total disappointment.
01:18:41 --> 01:18:45 And, you know, I'll start with the disappointment first.
01:18:46 --> 01:18:51 And that's the senior senator from the state of Pennsylvania,
01:18:52 --> 01:18:55 or I guess if I was being formal, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
01:18:56 --> 01:19:09 Fetterman, you know, when he ran, it was kind of an awkward deal because he was so favored to win.
01:19:09 --> 01:19:12 And this was his second time running for the U.S. Senate.
01:19:12 --> 01:19:16 But this time, you know, he had been mayor of a town, Braddock,
01:19:17 --> 01:19:24 Pennsylvania, and he was the lieutenant governor of the state at the time he was running.
01:19:24 --> 01:19:27 And so he had built up a cachet.
01:19:27 --> 01:19:31 So by the time he ran the second time, even though a U.S.
01:19:32 --> 01:19:35 Congressman was running against him, he was still the favorite.
01:19:36 --> 01:19:37 And then he got sick.
01:19:38 --> 01:19:42 Right. He beat, I think it was Congressman Lamb.
01:19:42 --> 01:19:48 He beat him in the primary. And then he got, he had the stroke right at the end of the primary.
01:19:49 --> 01:19:55 And so, you know, his Republican opponent is Dr. Oz.
01:19:56 --> 01:19:59 That's who Fetterman beat. He beat Dr. Oz.
01:20:00 --> 01:20:07 So, of course, you know, Dr. Oz is, you know, he is what he is.
01:20:08 --> 01:20:15 And, you know, while he's busy trying to explain to us what a chudery,
01:20:15 --> 01:20:19 a chudery or, you know, hors d'oeuvres is, right?
01:20:20 --> 01:20:22 The fancy word for hors d'oeuvres.
01:20:23 --> 01:20:31 He was trying to explain how that was a problem in grocery stores and prices.
01:20:32 --> 01:20:37 You know, Fetterman was trying to recover from a stroke, a serious stroke.
01:20:37 --> 01:20:42 I mean, anytime you're dealing with a stroke, that's life or death, right?
01:20:42 --> 01:20:50 So, you know, we rallied around him because he really needed surrogates.
01:20:51 --> 01:20:57 You know, whether it was through our podcast or interviews or actually going
01:20:57 --> 01:21:01 to Pennsylvania and campaigning on his behalf alongside his wife,
01:21:01 --> 01:21:05 who, you know, was the second lady of Pennsylvania.
01:21:05 --> 01:21:09 It was like it was kind of a crusade to get him over the finish line.
01:21:11 --> 01:21:17 And there were concerns. But then when he started his recovery process and was
01:21:17 --> 01:21:22 brave enough to step in front of a microphone, knowing that he wasn't quite all there.
01:21:22 --> 01:21:26 I mean, you couldn't help but rally around him.
01:21:26 --> 01:21:31 You know, and we knew he was a different kind of cat because he didn't like to wear suits.
01:21:31 --> 01:21:34 He always liked to wear a hoodie or whatever the case may be.
01:21:35 --> 01:21:38 And, you know, I guess when he had to speak on the Senate floor,
01:21:38 --> 01:21:44 he's he's conformed to wear at least a jacket and a tie for those moments.
01:21:44 --> 01:21:47 But, you know, most of the time he's casually dressed.
01:21:48 --> 01:21:51 That was just kind of his quirk, his nature. Right.
01:21:53 --> 01:22:02 But as he recovered and I assume he was back in his right mind, fully functional.
01:22:04 --> 01:22:10 Still got some side effects from the stroke, but he's a lot healthier now than
01:22:10 --> 01:22:12 he was when he won the seat.
01:22:13 --> 01:22:17 Now we're seeing a side of him that is very, very concerning.
01:22:19 --> 01:22:28 Because in December of 2021, he made a statement that, you know,
01:22:28 --> 01:22:32 this is when everybody was gearing up to run for the Senate in Pennsylvania.
01:22:32 --> 01:22:34 He made a statement that he wasn't going to be a U.S.
01:22:35 --> 01:22:39 Senator like Joe Manchin of West Virginia or Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.
01:22:40 --> 01:22:44 He wasn't going to be that kind of Democrat. He was going to be a progressive
01:22:44 --> 01:22:46 Democrat. That's what he said.
01:22:47 --> 01:22:53 Now, since he's been up there, he hasn't been the most reliable vote.
01:22:53 --> 01:22:58 He's been more of a Manchin or a Sinema Democrat, especially when it comes to
01:22:58 --> 01:23:07 issues dealing with Israel, right? It was one thing to stand with Israel when October 7th happened.
01:23:07 --> 01:23:12 That was understood. That was just, you know, we went through 9-11. So we understood.
01:23:13 --> 01:23:16 All right, we got to deal with these folks.
01:23:17 --> 01:23:23 But then when it got to the point where it was a bloodlust, it was a genocide
01:23:23 --> 01:23:29 deal, then it was like, okay, we didn't sign up for that.
01:23:29 --> 01:23:35 We were down with you to deal with Hamas. We weren't down with you to wipe out
01:23:35 --> 01:23:37 every Palestinian that you see.
01:23:39 --> 01:23:46 If you got somebody from a mall shooting back at you and you take them out, that's one thing.
01:23:46 --> 01:23:50 If you got somebody standing in line to get food and you shoot them,
01:23:50 --> 01:23:51 that's something totally different.
01:23:52 --> 01:23:56 And for some reason, there are people that don't get that.
01:23:57 --> 01:24:02 There's some reason that people can't make the difference in that.
01:24:03 --> 01:24:10 Nobody cheerleads for people that kill thousands of folks, kidnap people.
01:24:11 --> 01:24:15 Nobody cheerleads for that except the people that do that kind of stuff.
01:24:16 --> 01:24:24 But on the flip side, you can't kill their third cousin who's not involved with
01:24:24 --> 01:24:27 any of that at all for no reason.
01:24:27 --> 01:24:34 You can't do that. I tell this story because this guy was a good guy as far
01:24:34 --> 01:24:38 as our relationship goes, but he was an inmate.
01:24:39 --> 01:24:46 And the reason why he was in jail was because somebody killed his brother.
01:24:46 --> 01:24:50 It was back in the day. They were gambling and stuff.
01:24:51 --> 01:24:57 You know, you all know that gambling culture, rolling dice, whatever.
01:24:57 --> 01:25:03 So his brother got killed. So he killed the dude that killed his brother, right?
01:25:03 --> 01:25:08 So he got charged with manslaughter instead of murder.
01:25:09 --> 01:25:12 So he went to jail. He did his time.
01:25:13 --> 01:25:21 And then when he came out, he killed other people in that family.
01:25:21 --> 01:25:29 The family of the person he had already killed, he came back and killed a couple more of them. Right.
01:25:29 --> 01:25:33 So at this point now, he's in jail for life.
01:25:34 --> 01:25:39 And he has been in jail, you know, for both of his adult life now.
01:25:41 --> 01:25:49 And before I left the sheriff's office in Mississippi, he was assigned to what
01:25:49 --> 01:25:51 we call the county farm, where I was in Hines County.
01:25:52 --> 01:25:57 And so a lot of us in the sheriff's office was trying to appeal to the governor
01:25:57 --> 01:26:05 to give him a pardon because, you know, he had died over 40, 50 years in jail. Right.
01:26:06 --> 01:26:13 And so at that point, you know, we were working it and it seemed like we were getting some movement.
01:26:14 --> 01:26:19 But a couple of us talked to him about it and let him know and say,
01:26:20 --> 01:26:23 well, hey, look, you know, you've been a good trustee all these years.
01:26:23 --> 01:26:28 And, you know, you've done more than your time.
01:26:29 --> 01:26:37 And, you know, we want to see you at least the last few years of your life be free.
01:26:38 --> 01:26:45 And he told us that if he got out, he was going to finish the job.
01:26:45 --> 01:26:47 And he said, finish the job, what are you talking about? He said,
01:26:48 --> 01:26:55 as long as those people, that family still exists, the family of the person
01:26:55 --> 01:26:57 who killed his brother, they still exist.
01:26:58 --> 01:27:01 He's going to deal with them. He's going to take them out. I said,
01:27:01 --> 01:27:05 you're too old to do all that. He said, I would do my best.
01:27:07 --> 01:27:10 Basically, we said, yeah, you know that pardon thing we were talking about?
01:27:10 --> 01:27:13 Yeah, don't worry about that, right?
01:27:13 --> 01:27:16 And that's what he wanted. He wants to die in jail.
01:27:17 --> 01:27:24 He's a grown man. He can make that decision, right? And he told us why he should stay.
01:27:25 --> 01:27:31 The mindset that he has, the hatred he has for that family that killed his brother,
01:27:31 --> 01:27:38 is the same hatred we see in Netanyahu and the Israeli government when it comes
01:27:38 --> 01:27:41 to Palestinians, right?
01:27:42 --> 01:27:47 Because Hamas is an organization that you can pinpoint the leaders and take
01:27:47 --> 01:27:50 out, which they did. They took out the leaders.
01:27:50 --> 01:27:54 And, you know, after they negotiated with them for a while and got some of the
01:27:54 --> 01:27:59 hostage out, they decided to take them out. So the remaining hostages were released
01:27:59 --> 01:28:04 by the temporary leadership that Hamas had put together to finish the deal.
01:28:06 --> 01:28:11 You started killing everybody else just because they're Palestinian and you're
01:28:11 --> 01:28:16 still going into the West Bank with the people who are ruled by the Palestinian
01:28:16 --> 01:28:20 Authority, who are not friends of Hamas.
01:28:20 --> 01:28:26 You're still just taking land from them, just building settlements or whatever.
01:28:27 --> 01:28:34 And, you know, it's just like, it's just like the way that America was set up.
01:28:34 --> 01:28:38 It was like the Klan was in the South, and then you had all this other stuff
01:28:38 --> 01:28:44 going on in other cities. You had the riots and the rebellions and all that
01:28:44 --> 01:28:47 kind of stuff, race-related, you know, throughout the years.
01:28:48 --> 01:28:54 Well, that's the way it is in Israel. It's like the West Bank is where the Israeli,
01:28:55 --> 01:28:56 clan, for lack of a better term,
01:28:57 --> 01:29:03 those extremists go in the West Bank and harass the Palestinians and take land
01:29:03 --> 01:29:07 and all that kind of stuff, land that was supposed to be set aside for them, right?
01:29:08 --> 01:29:12 Well, we've got to expand. Well, you're just going to have to build taller buildings.
01:29:12 --> 01:29:14 You just can't go into other people.
01:29:14 --> 01:29:17 You set that land, right?
01:29:17 --> 01:29:22 That's just like if the United States government decided, now that we have all
01:29:22 --> 01:29:28 these Native American reservations set up, right, and then all of a sudden, you know what?
01:29:29 --> 01:29:34 We need to build some condos over there. It would be holy hell over here if
01:29:34 --> 01:29:36 we did that. But that's what's going on.
01:29:36 --> 01:29:40 And then on the flip side, you just basically wiped out the other settlement,
01:29:41 --> 01:29:45 because Hamas was based out of there and they were running that part. Right?
01:29:48 --> 01:29:53 But when you say that, then people want to say, oh, you hate Jewish people.
01:29:53 --> 01:29:56 Oh, you're anti-Semitic, all this stuff. That is not true.
01:29:57 --> 01:30:01 But nonetheless, they don't have to worry about that from John Fetterman because
01:30:01 --> 01:30:06 John Fetterman is down with the genocide. He's down with it.
01:30:08 --> 01:30:13 And, you know, it's like the minute people started saying, well,
01:30:13 --> 01:30:16 I think Donald Trump was influenced by Israel to attack Iran.
01:30:17 --> 01:30:21 And John Fetterman's like, let's go to war. What are we talking about?
01:30:22 --> 01:30:28 You want to go to war on behalf of Israel and you're a U.S. senator?
01:30:28 --> 01:30:38 What are we doing? You know, and then he's he he when Rand Paul voted against
01:30:38 --> 01:30:42 Mark Wayne Mullen to be the DHS secretary.
01:30:44 --> 01:30:47 Fetterman had voted with his fellow Democrats.
01:30:48 --> 01:30:51 Mullen wouldn't have got the job because he wouldn't have got a committee.
01:30:52 --> 01:30:57 But it was because of Fetterman, Mullen got the job, right?
01:30:57 --> 01:31:01 And it's like, well, you know, I served with him. Rand Paul served with him.
01:31:02 --> 01:31:08 Y'all were in the Senate together as of like two weeks ago. Y'all were all there together.
01:31:08 --> 01:31:13 If the chairman of the committee he had to go through did not want him.
01:31:13 --> 01:31:17 Now, I blame Rand Paul for even having a hearing.
01:31:17 --> 01:31:27 If I was the chairman, that hearing would be like, maybe we'll do it in November after the election.
01:31:28 --> 01:31:33 He would be the acting secretary for a long time, if that was me.
01:31:34 --> 01:31:37 And I had the history that Rand Paul had with him.
01:31:38 --> 01:31:43 But Paul had the hearing. He said what he needed to say, and he voted against it.
01:31:43 --> 01:31:47 So in a normal world, that nomination would be dead.
01:31:47 --> 01:31:54 But John Fetterman decided to be a hero to a guy that doesn't give a damn about
01:31:54 --> 01:31:58 him or people that look like his wife.
01:31:59 --> 01:32:05 Right? Which is a whole other dynamic I'm trying to figure out because Donald
01:32:05 --> 01:32:06 Trump is married to an immigrant.
01:32:07 --> 01:32:11 John Fetterman's married to an immigrant. J.D. Vance is married to an immigrant.
01:32:12 --> 01:32:15 But they all hate immigrants.
01:32:15 --> 01:32:21 And in Fetterman's case, it's your actions, not your words, right?
01:32:21 --> 01:32:25 Because you voted for Mark Wayne Mullin. You voted for Kristi Noem.
01:32:26 --> 01:32:27 Let me see how that turned out.
01:32:29 --> 01:32:33 Like your wife, but you don't like any other immigrants. I'm just saying,
01:32:34 --> 01:32:37 you know, they've all had kids by these immigrants.
01:32:38 --> 01:32:46 So all this talk about birthright citizenship and all that. Now they're down with ending that?
01:32:47 --> 01:32:54 Your current life existence, you have children that fall in that category.
01:32:55 --> 01:32:56 What are we talking about?
01:32:57 --> 01:33:02 You know, people are going to be cruel and, you know, say something,
01:33:02 --> 01:33:04 well, he never recovered from the strokes. I mean, you know,
01:33:04 --> 01:33:05 that's just how I go ahead.
01:33:06 --> 01:33:10 Bruh, I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt because he's still showing up.
01:33:11 --> 01:33:15 Yeah, I've heard reports that he's cruel to his staff and all that stuff,
01:33:15 --> 01:33:19 but that's usually how they try to get you out in a smooth way.
01:33:20 --> 01:33:26 You know, there's a number of House and Senate members that people say on both
01:33:26 --> 01:33:30 sides that say, oh, you know, well, yeah, she's really tough to work with.
01:33:31 --> 01:33:32 He's really tough to work with.
01:33:33 --> 01:33:38 You know, you are dealing with certain types of personalities that run for office.
01:33:40 --> 01:33:47 Hung up on this, this mindset where it's like, I don't like immigrants, but I'm married to one.
01:33:48 --> 01:33:58 I want to support a country destroying an entire population of people for what money?
01:33:59 --> 01:34:05 I don't get it. And I think, and then you, you, you broke your promise because
01:34:05 --> 01:34:08 you had people like Bernie Sanders and all these other folks.
01:34:08 --> 01:34:12 Hell, you had people like me saying, please vote for this guy.
01:34:13 --> 01:34:17 Now, was he better than Mesmit Oz? Of course he was.
01:34:20 --> 01:34:26 But, you know, we didn't think we were just getting Oz-like, right?
01:34:27 --> 01:34:33 So he's safe this year because his seat is not up. His seat won't be up till 2028.
01:34:35 --> 01:34:38 So we'll have to deal with him Just like we have to deal with the president
01:34:38 --> 01:34:40 Until that election cycle.
01:34:42 --> 01:34:51 That something happens, that he has a Damascus Road experience and he gets back
01:34:51 --> 01:34:56 to the person that people thought he would be,
01:34:57 --> 01:35:02 the kind of mayor that he was, the kind of lieutenant governor that he was, right?
01:35:02 --> 01:35:09 That's what they're hoping for. The guy who was listed as one of America's best
01:35:09 --> 01:35:14 mayors, who single-handedly, because he fought with the city council two for nail,
01:35:15 --> 01:35:20 single-handedly did everything he could do, whether it was like reviving a building,
01:35:21 --> 01:35:25 starting a restaurant, whatever, to kind of keep the economy going in the town
01:35:25 --> 01:35:30 that he was only getting paid $150 a month, I think, to be the mayor of.
01:35:33 --> 01:35:37 So anyway, that's my deal with Fetterman. Now, this other guy,
01:35:37 --> 01:35:40 I guess I won't have a whole lot of time to talk to him because he's not really
01:35:40 --> 01:35:45 worth it, but he's, this guy's name is James Utmeyer.
01:35:46 --> 01:35:50 So James is an attorney in the state of Florida.
01:35:52 --> 01:36:00 Was until Marco Rubio became the Secretary of State, the Chief of Staff for Ron DeSantis.
01:36:01 --> 01:36:05 So already, he's the Stephen Miller of Florida, right?
01:36:07 --> 01:36:12 So because of Rubio ascending, that meant that the Attorney General,
01:36:12 --> 01:36:17 I think her name was Moody, DeSantis moved her into the Senate position,
01:36:17 --> 01:36:21 and then he gave his Chief of Staff the position of Attorney General.
01:36:22 --> 01:36:28 And, you know, I mean, he was just doing the typical stuff that all these Florida Republicans are doing.
01:36:29 --> 01:36:37 And, you know, but up until this point, his most egregious thing was Alligator Alcatraz, right?
01:36:37 --> 01:36:40 Because he was the brains behind that.
01:36:41 --> 01:36:49 He was the one who made the proposal, picked a spot, came up with a plan to build it, right?
01:36:51 --> 01:36:59 And, of course, led the fight in court to stop the Native American nation that
01:36:59 --> 01:37:03 was suing on the land day in Crowadstone.
01:37:05 --> 01:37:10 And, of course, being the attorney general, he fought them and got the case
01:37:10 --> 01:37:12 dismissed, the lawsuit. Yeah.
01:37:13 --> 01:37:17 Showed his utter brazen ignorance, right? Because that's where we are now.
01:37:17 --> 01:37:22 It's not just normal ignorance and naivete. It's brazen.
01:37:23 --> 01:37:28 A lot of people are humbled by their ignorance. At least that's the way it used to be.
01:37:28 --> 01:37:34 But over these last 10 years, these folks are wearing their ignorance like a badge of honor.
01:37:35 --> 01:37:40 And so he got on. He decided he was going to write a letter to the National
01:37:40 --> 01:37:43 Football League, just random as hell.
01:37:44 --> 01:37:52 And he decides to write and to state to them that the Rooney Rule was a violation of Florida law.
01:37:53 --> 01:37:57 And he felt he had jurisdiction to say that because there are two NFL,
01:37:57 --> 01:38:01 well, there's three NFL teams in the state of Florida.
01:38:01 --> 01:38:08 The Jacksonville Jaguars, the Miami Dolphins, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, right? Okay.
01:38:10 --> 01:38:18 So Jacksonville has, the Rooney rule is the rule that was brought in after Tony
01:38:18 --> 01:38:22 Dungy was fired by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
01:38:22 --> 01:38:28 Tony Dungy had built the Tampa Bay Buccaneers into a contending team and they
01:38:28 --> 01:38:30 fired him and hired John Gruden.
01:38:30 --> 01:38:33 And that's the year that John Gruden won his Super Bowl.
01:38:35 --> 01:38:42 With the Raiders and they lured him from the Raiders to coach Tampa Bay and they won.
01:38:42 --> 01:38:47 And of course they beat the Raiders, right? The team he had just coached, the team he knew.
01:38:47 --> 01:38:53 And he took the team that Dungy had built and won. And so Dungy,
01:38:53 --> 01:38:57 when he played, he primarily played for the Pittsburgh Steelers.
01:38:57 --> 01:39:04 Well, Mr. Bruni is the owner of the Steelers and him and Tony were close.
01:39:05 --> 01:39:10 And so he got with the other owners and said, hey, look, we got to protect these
01:39:10 --> 01:39:14 black coaches from getting fired and they're doing their job.
01:39:15 --> 01:39:19 They're winning. They may not win the Super Bowl. Not everybody can win the Super Bowl.
01:39:19 --> 01:39:24 But you get into the playoffs, winning your division, whatever.
01:39:25 --> 01:39:26 You have a winning record.
01:39:27 --> 01:39:30 That's the National Football League. It's not supposed to be easy.
01:39:31 --> 01:39:35 And there was another coach that got fired around the same time, had a winning record.
01:39:35 --> 01:39:43 And so Mr. Rooney convinced the other owners to come up with a rule that would
01:39:43 --> 01:39:50 say that all of them have to at least interview, you know,
01:39:51 --> 01:39:55 black perspective coaches, right?
01:39:55 --> 01:40:01 They have to at least interview some black candidates for those vacant positions whenever they come up.
01:40:02 --> 01:40:08 And they agree to that. So that's been going on since, I guess, 2003.
01:40:10 --> 01:40:15 So since the Rooney Rule has been in place, which obviously Mr.
01:40:15 --> 01:40:17 Utmeier has no clue about, right?
01:40:18 --> 01:40:24 Since the Rooney Rule has been in place, two of the three teams in Florida has had a black coach.
01:40:24 --> 01:40:32 But Ryan Flores was the coach in Miami for a minute, and Todd Bowles is still the coach at Tampa Bay.
01:40:33 --> 01:40:39 So, I don't know if Mr. Utmire even pays attention to that, for him to write that letter.
01:40:39 --> 01:40:44 But to sit there and say, well, you know, it discriminates against white men,
01:40:44 --> 01:40:48 because that's the whole argument about DEI.
01:40:48 --> 01:40:53 It's like diversity, equity, and inclusion is discriminatory to white men.
01:40:56 --> 01:41:00 Anyway, so, again, I don't know.
01:41:01 --> 01:41:06 He ran, Mr. Utmire ran track at Florida. I don't know if he paid attention to
01:41:06 --> 01:41:10 what happened to the football players that played at Florida during that time
01:41:10 --> 01:41:12 and where they went in the National Football League.
01:41:12 --> 01:41:19 But obviously, Mr. Utmire doesn't understand that all of the owners are white.
01:41:20 --> 01:41:23 Only three of the coaches are black.
01:41:24 --> 01:41:31 I mean, you know, I think you have a few more general managers than coaches
01:41:31 --> 01:41:33 that are black. Not many.
01:41:36 --> 01:41:40 But there's nothing in the National Football League that discriminates against
01:41:40 --> 01:41:43 white people. Nothing. The commissioner's white.
01:41:44 --> 01:41:47 I mean, it is, we never had a black commissioner.
01:41:48 --> 01:41:53 If there's any disparity, it's the fact that 75 to 80% of the players are black,
01:41:54 --> 01:41:58 which is the reason why people are like, well, these guys that played the game,
01:41:58 --> 01:42:03 the white guys that don't play anymore, get a shot to coach.
01:42:04 --> 01:42:08 Why not the black guys, especially since they make up the majority of the league?
01:42:10 --> 01:42:18 Meyer is too fragile for that. We all know that his boss is too fragile for that, DeSantis.
01:42:20 --> 01:42:26 So all I need to say about all this stuff is that we've got to get these people out of office.
01:42:28 --> 01:42:31 Because Udmeyer is running this year in Florida.
01:42:31 --> 01:42:36 He was appointed to the position, but the position is up on the ballot this year.
01:42:37 --> 01:42:40 And I hope that Florida can continue to do the thing.
01:42:40 --> 01:42:45 We congratulate Ms. Gregory for pulling off the victory and flipping that seat.
01:42:45 --> 01:42:52 So now Donald Trump is actually represented in the state house of Florida by a Democrat.
01:42:53 --> 01:42:58 Love that for him. And I hope that that's a trend in Florida,
01:42:59 --> 01:43:06 that we can see some Democrats get the statewide office because the last statewide
01:43:06 --> 01:43:09 Democrat is now the chair of the party, Nikki Freed.
01:43:10 --> 01:43:17 And if they had been smart, they would have had her run against DeSantis the second time.
01:43:17 --> 01:43:18 First of all, they should have
01:43:18 --> 01:43:21 voted for Andrew Gillum. That was the first thing they should have done.
01:43:21 --> 01:43:26 But they didn't do that. And so at least not enough folks because it was close.
01:43:27 --> 01:43:31 But the second time around, Nikki should have had her shot.
01:43:31 --> 01:43:37 Nonetheless, Ms. Freed is doing a wonderful job as the chair of the Florida Democratic Party.
01:43:37 --> 01:43:40 And so now we hope that she can...
01:43:42 --> 01:43:45 Turn statewide, especially for these statewide positions.
01:43:45 --> 01:43:55 But I promise you, if you can't get anybody else, please get Utmire out of there.
01:43:55 --> 01:44:01 Get him out. You got it. The positions you got to get is governor,
01:44:01 --> 01:44:03 secretary of state, attorney general.
01:44:04 --> 01:44:07 You know, the insurance commissioners, Republican or Democrat,
01:44:07 --> 01:44:13 you know, I mean, I'm partisan, so I want Democrats to win, right?
01:44:13 --> 01:44:18 But in the scheme of things, the most dangerous positions right now that the
01:44:18 --> 01:44:23 Republicans are using as weapons is the Secretary of State, the Attorney General,
01:44:23 --> 01:44:24 and the Governor's Mansion.
01:44:25 --> 01:44:31 Those are the three positions that you got to get Republic this MAGA influence out of in every extent.
01:44:32 --> 01:44:39 And, you know, Utmeier has proven with this letter to the National Football
01:44:39 --> 01:44:41 League that he's not worthy of the position.
01:44:42 --> 01:44:47 If you want to have a podcast, bro, like me, if you want to be an advisor to people, that's fine.
01:44:48 --> 01:44:53 But you should not be given a taste of any kind of power or political responsibility
01:44:53 --> 01:44:57 because you're crazy, right?
01:44:57 --> 01:45:02 You didn't have a stroke like Mr. Fetterman. You're crazy on your own fruition.
01:45:03 --> 01:45:07 The NFL discriminates against white people? As old folks say,
01:45:08 --> 01:45:09 I didn't hurt at all, y'all.
01:45:10 --> 01:45:16 It's just, we got to get away from these people. We got to get them out.
01:45:16 --> 01:45:21 You know, we can't be like the movie The Purge and violently take them out,
01:45:21 --> 01:45:24 although there's some people I know that desire that.
01:45:25 --> 01:45:29 But we got to use the process to get them out, which means that you got to show up.
01:45:30 --> 01:45:35 Shout out to all the people that attended the No Kings rallies, right?
01:45:36 --> 01:45:40 Up on election day, too. Just like you took the time to show up to any kind
01:45:40 --> 01:45:46 of demonstration, you got to take the time in your respective states on election day.
01:45:46 --> 01:45:50 If your state has early voting, take advantage of that.
01:45:51 --> 01:45:53 But we got to get these people out.
01:45:53 --> 01:46:00 Again, you know, it's like, and they say that when Rome burned,
01:46:00 --> 01:46:06 Nero fiddled in the United States, Trump is golfing.
01:46:06 --> 01:46:13 We're talking about the price of ballpoint pens or how many cognitive tests he's taken, right?
01:46:14 --> 01:46:18 Enough of that foolishness. It's just time out for that.
01:46:19 --> 01:46:24 We've got to take it to the new level for the next 250 years.
01:46:24 --> 01:46:34 And the way we do that is that we don't vote for people who don't have the conviction of their campaign.
01:46:35 --> 01:46:39 And we just don't vote crazy fanatical people in either.
01:46:39 --> 01:46:42 We need people that are even keeled, that have common sense,
01:46:42 --> 01:46:47 that can disagree without being disagreeable, right?
01:46:48 --> 01:46:51 Because now everybody's going to see the puzzle the same way.
01:46:52 --> 01:46:57 But if we can all figure out a way to put the pieces together, job done.
01:46:58 --> 01:47:02 It's more than one approach to solve a problem. them is just which one is the
01:47:02 --> 01:47:04 most feasible at that moment.
01:47:05 --> 01:47:10 Which one is going to do the less harm to the people that you're supposedly trying to help?
01:47:12 --> 01:47:17 Adics don't understand that. They just believe in something and come hella high
01:47:17 --> 01:47:22 water, no matter how many times it's been disproven.
01:47:22 --> 01:47:26 That's their belief and they're sticking to it. That's James Utmire.
01:47:27 --> 01:47:32 No more of those type of folks. And then we have to vet people that say they're
01:47:32 --> 01:47:38 your friend when they're campaigning and really see if their actions match their words.
01:47:39 --> 01:47:46 So we won't get another John Fetterman. or Joe Manchin or Kirsten Sinema.
01:47:46 --> 01:47:51 Again, you don't need to go extreme.
01:47:52 --> 01:47:56 And there are some folks that are unfairly called extreme because they have
01:47:56 --> 01:47:59 radically different ideas.
01:48:00 --> 01:48:06 But if the difference between an extremist and somebody that's radical,
01:48:06 --> 01:48:12 liberal in thought is that extremists want to tear the system apart.
01:48:13 --> 01:48:19 Radicals want to change the system from within, do a whole remodel, right?
01:48:21 --> 01:48:24 Of the building, but the interior, we're going to move this wall here.
01:48:24 --> 01:48:28 We're going to move this wall there. The bathroom should be in the back instead of the front.
01:48:29 --> 01:48:35 That's radical thinking. We just want to keep the house, but we don't rearrange
01:48:35 --> 01:48:39 some things now, right? We're not going to keep the status quo.
01:48:40 --> 01:48:43 Extremists is like tear the whole fucking house down and start over.
01:48:43 --> 01:48:52 And right now we have extremists leading us and we got to get them out because
01:48:52 --> 01:48:53 they don't care about us.
01:48:53 --> 01:48:55 They care about their extreme.
01:48:56 --> 01:49:02 They want their agenda and care about you and how that impacts you.
01:49:02 --> 01:49:05 They just want to see it come to fruition.
01:49:05 --> 01:49:07 That's why Doge was a failure.
01:49:08 --> 01:49:14 That's why this latest excursion, as the president refers to it, in Iran is a failure.
01:49:14 --> 01:49:17 Because you just wanted to do something.
01:49:18 --> 01:49:22 You had no plan. It is what it is, ladies and gentlemen.
01:49:22 --> 01:49:27 So I just, just let's be careful.
01:49:27 --> 01:49:33 Let's commit to electing American leaders, people who actually give a damn about
01:49:33 --> 01:49:35 the country and give a damn about their fellow citizen.
01:49:36 --> 01:49:41 And stop voting in these folks that are crazy.
01:49:41 --> 01:49:45 All right, that's all I got. Thank y'all for listening. Till next time.