Host Erik Fleming sits down with Akil Parker, founder of All This Math, to explore how mathematics — taught through culture and everyday life — builds critical thinking, empowers Black families, and reshapes how we learn. Parker explains "histematics," practical resources for parents, and why math is a language everyone uses.
Also joining the conversation is psychologist Cole Davis, author of The Stone Age Now, who warns that outmoded, tribal ways of thinking (atavism) are undermining modern society. Together the guests urge a rethink of institutions, politics, and education to foster long-term, evidence-based solutions.
00:00:00 --> 00:00:06 Welcome. I'm Eric Fleming, host of A Moment with Eric Fleming, the podcast of our time.
00:00:06 --> 00:00:09 I want to personally thank you for listening to the podcast.
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00:01:15 --> 00:01:20 The following program is hosted by the NVG Podcast Network.
00:02:00 --> 00:02:05 Hello, and welcome to Another Moment with Eric Fleming. I am your host, Eric Fleming.
00:02:07 --> 00:02:13 So this episode is going to be entitled, Rewiring How We Think.
00:02:14 --> 00:02:17 And the reason is because I have two guests on.
00:02:17 --> 00:02:23 One, the Kiel Parker is going to talk about mathematics.
00:02:24 --> 00:02:29 I know a lot of us are like, mathematics? I hated mathematics.
00:02:30 --> 00:02:35 Well, this brother is going to come on and tell you why you should love mathematics.
00:02:36 --> 00:02:39 Why the black community should love mathematics.
00:02:40 --> 00:02:43 And then the next guest is a gentleman named Cole Davis.
00:02:44 --> 00:02:53 Cole Davis is from England. He's a psychologist and is a polymorph. He's a lot of things.
00:02:54 --> 00:02:57 But he's written a book called Stone Age Now,
00:02:58 --> 00:03:06 which makes the argument that all this old way of thinking, us trying to solve
00:03:06 --> 00:03:12 today's problems with old ideologies and old labels.
00:03:14 --> 00:03:19 Basically just the thought patterns and strategies that we've been going through
00:03:19 --> 00:03:23 over the last, I don't know, 100 years, to be generous.
00:03:24 --> 00:03:26 He's saying it's time for us to break out of that.
00:03:27 --> 00:03:32 And so he sets the framework for that in his book.
00:03:32 --> 00:03:38 And so we'll talk about some of the things in the interview and,
00:03:39 --> 00:03:45 you know, how it relates to some contemporary issues that we're dealing with right this minute.
00:03:46 --> 00:03:51 So I just, I think this is going to be a thought-provoking episode,
00:03:51 --> 00:03:54 and I hope that you listen to it with an open mind.
00:03:55 --> 00:03:58 I believe most of you all that listen to this podcast do listen with an open
00:03:58 --> 00:04:02 mind and that you get something out of it.
00:04:04 --> 00:04:11 If you do get something out of it, please go to www.momenteric.com and let the
00:04:11 --> 00:04:14 people know on the website what you think about the podcast.
00:04:15 --> 00:04:19 Give it a five-star rating. Donate either one time or subscribe.
00:04:20 --> 00:04:24 Just continue to show your support for this podcast.
00:04:24 --> 00:04:29 And I encourage you also to listen to other independent podcasters as well.
00:04:29 --> 00:04:34 Continue to be well-rounded. it, I've noticed there's some more people,
00:04:34 --> 00:04:38 seems like every day people are doing podcasts, but there's more people that,
00:04:39 --> 00:04:45 really have had an influence that are starting to do that now.
00:04:46 --> 00:04:51 And podcasters are actually becoming political issues, right?
00:04:51 --> 00:04:56 And, you know, we'll deal with that a little later.
00:04:58 --> 00:05:02 But I want to say this before we move forward,
00:05:03 --> 00:05:09 A lot of us know that Dolly Parton passed away last week. And for those of you
00:05:09 --> 00:05:14 who had the chance to meet her, you know, I'm envious of that.
00:05:15 --> 00:05:17 Although most of us in America felt like we knew her.
00:05:18 --> 00:05:24 And if there was ever such a thing as an American saint, if we actually had
00:05:24 --> 00:05:32 a canonization process for sainthood in America, she would definitely qualify.
00:05:33 --> 00:05:40 Nobody is perfect. I'm sure if you really were into her life and,
00:05:40 --> 00:05:45 you know, if you're really, really into her family in that circle,
00:05:46 --> 00:05:50 I'm sure you would find some flaws, right, because we're all human beings.
00:05:51 --> 00:05:54 But as far as how she lived her life in public and in private,
00:05:55 --> 00:06:02 the example that she gave as far as being humble and being given a giving is
00:06:02 --> 00:06:07 something that all of us can relate to and all of us should strive for.
00:06:08 --> 00:06:13 So, you know, the tributes have been coming in and they'll be probably coming
00:06:13 --> 00:06:19 in for a while as more and more things are being revealed now that she's passed away, that she was.
00:06:20 --> 00:06:21 Involved in, had our hands in.
00:06:23 --> 00:06:27 But I did want to acknowledge that before we got into the podcast,
00:06:27 --> 00:06:35 because for so much of our lives over the last 10 years,
00:06:36 --> 00:06:39 we have seen the worst of this country.
00:06:40 --> 00:06:44 And for some of us, that's nothing new.
00:06:44 --> 00:06:52 But now I believe it's been exposed to the whole nation as opposed to people
00:06:52 --> 00:06:53 in certain areas of the nation.
00:06:55 --> 00:07:04 So whenever somebody like Dolly Parton leaves, we have to acknowledge the loss,
00:07:04 --> 00:07:06 that we as a nation suffered.
00:07:08 --> 00:07:15 Because that part of the country I am referring to or hinting towards, she came from that.
00:07:16 --> 00:07:22 And she could have very easily been part of that culture. But she chose to rise above it.
00:07:23 --> 00:07:30 And she looked at it as a challenge, and she fought against it in her own quiet way.
00:07:31 --> 00:07:36 She overcame poverty, but she didn't want to be greedy.
00:07:37 --> 00:07:42 She had things, but she wasn't satisfied till others had things.
00:07:44 --> 00:07:47 So we have to acknowledge people like that.
00:07:47 --> 00:07:50 And people acknowledged her when she was alive. When she died,
00:07:51 --> 00:07:55 she was literally the most popular American in the country.
00:07:56 --> 00:08:01 I want you to keep that in mind. The President of the United States has a favorability rating of 30.
00:08:02 --> 00:08:06 The President of the United States has a favorability rating of 30.
00:08:07 --> 00:08:10 Dalek Pardone, on the day she died, had a favorability rating of 70.
00:08:11 --> 00:08:15 So I'll leave y'all with that. So let's go ahead and get this show started.
00:08:15 --> 00:08:20 As always, we kick it off with a moment of news. With Grace Cheek.
00:08:28 --> 00:08:33 Thanks, Eric. The Supreme Court temporarily lifted one injunction against Trump's
00:08:33 --> 00:08:39 mail-in voting restrictions, but another legal challenge made by Democratic-led states is still active.
00:08:39 --> 00:08:44 Everton Blair won the special election in Georgia to replace the late Representative
00:08:44 --> 00:08:47 David Scott, defeating Scott's daughter, Marcy.
00:08:47 --> 00:08:52 Nikaila Jasmine Thomas won the Oklahoma Democratic Senate runoff for the seat
00:08:52 --> 00:08:54 vacated by Mark Wayne Mullen.
00:08:54 --> 00:08:59 Darlene Graham won the Republican Senate runoff in South Carolina and will face
00:08:59 --> 00:09:02 Democrat Annie Andrews in the November election.
00:09:02 --> 00:09:06 Thousands gathered in the nation's capital on the 63rd anniversary of the March
00:09:06 --> 00:09:10 on Washington to defend voting rights and other civil liberties,
00:09:10 --> 00:09:15 citing concerns about recent changes to voting protections and congressional redistricting.
00:09:16 --> 00:09:20 Gary, Indiana residents had their power restored after being without electricity
00:09:20 --> 00:09:23 for two weeks due to severe storms.
00:09:23 --> 00:09:28 An arbitrator ordered The Washington Post to reinstate journalist Karen Atsia
00:09:28 --> 00:09:33 with back pay after finding the newspaper lacked sufficient cause to fire her
00:09:33 --> 00:09:36 over social media posts concerning Charlie Kirk's death.
00:09:36 --> 00:09:41 ICE agent Christian Castro was released from a Texas jail after a federal judge
00:09:41 --> 00:09:46 declined to compel his extradition to Minnesota, where he faces assault charges related to a shooting.
00:09:47 --> 00:09:51 Former Illinois Deputy Sean Grayson, who was serving a 20-year sentence for
00:09:51 --> 00:09:58 killing Sonia Massey, died in prison at age 32 while undergoing treatment for advanced colon cancer.
00:09:58 --> 00:10:04 Luis Manuel Aviles Roa, the father of a deployed U.S. Navy sailor on the USS
00:10:04 --> 00:10:07 Abraham Lincoln, was released from immigration detention.
00:10:07 --> 00:10:13 Meta agreed to pay up to $18 billion and impose stricter limits on teen use
00:10:13 --> 00:10:19 of Facebook and Instagram to settle claims that its platforms were designed to addict children.
00:10:19 --> 00:10:24 And beloved entertainer and philanthropist Dolly Parton died at the age of 80.
00:10:25 --> 00:10:28 I am Grace Gee, and this has been a Moment of News.
00:10:35 --> 00:10:42 All right. Thank you, Grace, for that moment of news. And now it is time for my guest, Akil Parker.
00:10:42 --> 00:10:47 Akil Parker is a Black man playing his part by teaching math to anybody who
00:10:47 --> 00:10:51 will listen either in person, virtually, or on YouTube.
00:10:52 --> 00:10:57 He is the founder and CEO of All This Math, an educational services company
00:10:57 --> 00:11:01 with a mission to improve the relationship between math and the Black community.
00:11:02 --> 00:11:08 He provides physical and online math resources for parents, youth, and math teachers.
00:11:08 --> 00:11:13 In addition to All This Math YouTube channel, he has written a math resource
00:11:13 --> 00:11:18 guidebook for parents and guardians entitled, How Do You Use All This Math, Volume 1?
00:11:18 --> 00:11:23 One of his major initiatives is to help empower parents to feel comfortable
00:11:23 --> 00:11:24 and confident in assisting their
00:11:24 --> 00:11:29 children with math homework in order to improve student math outcomes.
00:11:30 --> 00:11:35 Kiel Parker was an adjunct professor at Cheney University where he taught math
00:11:35 --> 00:11:40 courses such as elementary algebra and math methods for teachers.
00:11:40 --> 00:11:45 He has been a math teacher for the past 20 years in Philadelphia and beyond
00:11:45 --> 00:11:48 in the classroom, as well as in virtual spaces.
00:11:48 --> 00:11:54 He has nearly 200 podcast slash radio show appearances in an attempt to rebrand
00:11:54 --> 00:11:58 mathematics in a more positive light has been featured in multiple magazine
00:11:58 --> 00:12:01 and newspaper articles regarding his work.
00:12:01 --> 00:12:06 He is also the father of three wonderful children that have greatly inspired
00:12:06 --> 00:12:07 his math instruction over the years.
00:12:08 --> 00:12:12 Mr. Parker is a firm believer in mathematics being a conduit for the development
00:12:12 --> 00:12:17 of highly necessary problem-solving skills and critical thinking ability,
00:12:18 --> 00:12:22 which can ultimately improve humanity overall.
00:12:22 --> 00:12:26 Ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct honor and privilege to have as a guest
00:12:26 --> 00:12:29 on this podcast, Akil Parker.
00:12:41 --> 00:12:45 All right. Akil Parker. How are you doing, brother? You doing good?
00:12:45 --> 00:12:47 I'm doing great, actually.
00:12:47 --> 00:12:49 Okay. Well, that's good to know.
00:12:50 --> 00:12:54 So I want to talk to you about math.
00:12:55 --> 00:12:58 So let me break down a little personal thing to you.
00:12:58 --> 00:13:05 My dad was great in math. He was actually thought about being a math major in college.
00:13:06 --> 00:13:09 And he went to college on a wrestling scholarship, believe it or not.
00:13:09 --> 00:13:16 But he He was really into math. He even learned German so he could understand
00:13:16 --> 00:13:17 math better. He was really serious about it.
00:13:18 --> 00:13:25 So raising me, he just thought genetically I was going to be good at math. That did not work out.
00:13:26 --> 00:13:30 And I tell people all the time I got into politics because I sucked at math.
00:13:30 --> 00:13:35 Accounting beat my butt in college, and so I switched majors.
00:13:35 --> 00:13:43 But you are a believer, a practitioner, an ambassador for mathematics,
00:13:43 --> 00:13:44 especially for black folk.
00:13:45 --> 00:13:49 So I wanted to have you to come on because the mission that you're doing,
00:13:49 --> 00:13:50 I think, is really, really important.
00:13:51 --> 00:13:54 It's more than just, quote unquote, being a teacher. There's some real thought
00:13:54 --> 00:13:58 behind it. So I wanted to highlight that during the interview.
00:13:59 --> 00:14:03 So before we get into all that, I do a couple of icebreakers.
00:14:03 --> 00:14:07 So the first icebreaker is a quote I want you to respond to.
00:14:07 --> 00:14:11 And the quote is, if you build it, they will come.
00:14:12 --> 00:14:16 When you say respond, what do you mean by respond? Like what my reaction is
00:14:16 --> 00:14:18 to that or what my... Yes, sir.
00:14:18 --> 00:14:23 Oh, I mean, I think it definitely is very relevant to the Black community in
00:14:23 --> 00:14:25 terms of institution building.
00:14:25 --> 00:14:33 Oftentimes, we become very critical of individual behaviors in the absence of
00:14:33 --> 00:14:38 institutions that are meant to form behaviors and influence behaviors.
00:14:39 --> 00:14:42 So I'm a staunch believer in building institutions.
00:14:43 --> 00:14:46 You know, so, and I remember that, that quote from Phil the Dreams.
00:14:47 --> 00:14:50 Yeah, I definitely remember that. Yes, sir.
00:14:52 --> 00:14:56 Yeah, so now my next icebreaker is what I call 20 questions.
00:14:56 --> 00:15:00 So I need you to give me a number between 1 and 20.
00:15:01 --> 00:15:02 19. All right.
00:15:03 --> 00:15:09 What are some values you think most people share, even if they express them differently?
00:15:10 --> 00:15:15 Values, I think most people share. The desire for justice is one.
00:15:16 --> 00:15:21 The desire to be part of something greater than themselves, such as a group, is another.
00:15:24 --> 00:15:28 The desire to be happy. Those are just, those are a few things that come to mind.
00:15:29 --> 00:15:34 Okay. All right. So where in your life journey did you decide to be a teacher?
00:15:34 --> 00:15:44 I decided to be a teacher in 2005 as an economic necessity because I was I just left the job.
00:15:44 --> 00:15:50 I was about to be fired from a job with the FBIC and instead resigned.
00:15:50 --> 00:15:54 So that way, when I wouldn't have a termination on my record in case I wanted
00:15:54 --> 00:15:57 another government job and I had a baby on the way.
00:15:58 --> 00:16:01 So that's when I decided to become a teacher because I knew there were a lot
00:16:01 --> 00:16:05 of opportunities for teachers, especially math teachers, since math teachers
00:16:05 --> 00:16:09 are in demand, still are. But this is we're talking about back in 2005.
00:16:10 --> 00:16:13 So that's when I decided to become a teacher. So I didn't major in education
00:16:13 --> 00:16:15 in college. I majored in finance.
00:16:15 --> 00:16:21 I had no desire to ever be a classroom teacher, but I am glad that it did happen.
00:16:21 --> 00:16:26 You know, my life went on this trajectory because it was one of the best decisions I ever made.
00:16:26 --> 00:16:31 Yeah. So you've been on this journey for over 20 years. Okay. Yeah.
00:16:32 --> 00:16:38 When you hear a student or even an adult ask the question, why do we need to learn all this math?
00:16:39 --> 00:16:44 We are never going to use One, how does that make you feel? And two,
00:16:44 --> 00:16:45 how do you respond to that?
00:16:45 --> 00:16:49 Well, at this point, it makes me feel inspired. You know, it makes me feel that
00:16:49 --> 00:16:52 this work that I'm doing is very needed and very necessary,
00:16:52 --> 00:16:57 because a lot of people respond that way or think of mathematics that way because
00:16:57 --> 00:17:01 of usually because of negative experiences in school, in math classes.
00:17:02 --> 00:17:06 And also in school, what often happens is we don't really get the opportunity
00:17:07 --> 00:17:12 to learn what math really is and be able to see the beauty of mathematics because
00:17:12 --> 00:17:13 it's really problem solving.
00:17:13 --> 00:17:17 You know, and a lot of people that say that they're never going to use math,
00:17:17 --> 00:17:22 are actually using math on a daily and regular basis, but they just don't recognize
00:17:22 --> 00:17:24 it because they don't know what mathematics actually is.
00:17:25 --> 00:17:29 Anytime you're doing any type of problem solving that you're going through a mathematical process.
00:17:29 --> 00:17:32 Anytime you're trying to, you're in a store shopping and you're trying to figure
00:17:32 --> 00:17:34 out if this is a good deal or a bad deal, or,
00:17:35 --> 00:17:37 you know, or if somebody's lying to you or telling the truth,
00:17:37 --> 00:17:41 like you mentioned politics, like there's a whole lot of mathematics and politics,
00:17:42 --> 00:17:44 you know, there's decision, there's game theory and, you know,
00:17:44 --> 00:17:48 decision theory, there's things like the Shapley-Schubick power index,
00:17:49 --> 00:17:52 you know, we want to, you know, I mean, mathematicians are working on political
00:17:52 --> 00:17:54 campaigns to figure out, okay, what's the,
00:17:55 --> 00:17:59 best course of action to spend, these resources, you know, and in which community
00:17:59 --> 00:18:02 should we spend the resources where we think we're going to get the most votes.
00:18:02 --> 00:18:08 So there's really, there's nothing you can do in life that doesn't involve some
00:18:08 --> 00:18:11 type of mathematical process. The question is, do we see it or not?
00:18:11 --> 00:18:14 You know, and as we know, a lot of times things are right in front of us,
00:18:14 --> 00:18:18 but if you can't recognize it, then you might not see it, but that doesn't mean that it's not there.
00:18:19 --> 00:18:22 You know, it's like the old heads used to say, you know, if it was a snake, it would have bit you.
00:18:24 --> 00:18:27 So it's kind of like one of those types of things. So I will admit,
00:18:27 --> 00:18:31 though, early in my teaching career, I used to frustrate me when when students
00:18:31 --> 00:18:33 would say that, you know, I'm never going to use this because I would take it
00:18:33 --> 00:18:35 personal, you know, which is which is a problem.
00:18:35 --> 00:18:43 But that was just my own immaturity and also my own like lack of content mastery.
00:18:43 --> 00:18:44 I hadn't mastered my content.
00:18:44 --> 00:18:48 So when they would say that, there would be that little voice in the back of
00:18:48 --> 00:18:50 my head like, wow, like maybe they're right.
00:18:51 --> 00:18:53 But that's only because I didn't understand the math well enough,
00:18:54 --> 00:18:57 you know, as well as I as I began to understand it as years progressed.
00:18:59 --> 00:19:01 But, yeah, so it inspires me when I hear that because, you know,
00:19:01 --> 00:19:06 I'm like, OK, well, maybe I can plant a seed at least, you know,
00:19:06 --> 00:19:07 to get this person to start thinking differently,
00:19:08 --> 00:19:12 you know, about mathematics and also and show them the relatability of it,
00:19:12 --> 00:19:16 because that's really, I think, a major key in school. School is such a high
00:19:16 --> 00:19:17 stakes testing environment.
00:19:18 --> 00:19:20 And school is really test prep at this point, you know, for the most part.
00:19:20 --> 00:19:22 School is really test prep.
00:19:22 --> 00:19:27 And test prep isn't really about giving you strong foundation in the conceptual
00:19:27 --> 00:19:31 aspects of whatever the concept is, whatever the subject is.
00:19:31 --> 00:19:36 Like when I do SAT prep, you know, I'm not really there to, that time is not
00:19:36 --> 00:19:42 really designated for teaching the actual foundations of how algebra one works,
00:19:42 --> 00:19:43 how arithmetic works, how geometry works.
00:19:44 --> 00:19:48 Test prep is really for me giving you the different tricks of the trade and
00:19:48 --> 00:19:54 the strategies to answer the maximum amount of questions correctly in the least amount of time.
00:19:54 --> 00:20:00 So, you know, with that in mind, you know, school has kind of adopted this like test prep model.
00:20:00 --> 00:20:04 I mean, teachers are under a lot of stress. Administrators are under a lot of stress.
00:20:04 --> 00:20:09 And, you know, there's this demand for increased test scores every year.
00:20:10 --> 00:20:14 You're not going to really get the opportunity in most cases to really develop
00:20:14 --> 00:20:17 an appreciation or a love for mathematics because that's not what the time is for.
00:20:18 --> 00:20:23 But that just means that as a community, we have to figure out ways and implement
00:20:23 --> 00:20:25 ways to develop some type of infrastructure,
00:20:26 --> 00:20:29 in the neighborhoods and the households and the churches, the moschets on the
00:20:29 --> 00:20:34 street corners, wherever to develop that foundation in mathematics.
00:20:34 --> 00:20:38 And that's a large part of the work that I do with the resources that I create.
00:20:38 --> 00:20:42 And, you know, I try to just, you know, share those resources and those ideas
00:20:42 --> 00:20:46 with the community, whether in person or using social media or the Internet,
00:20:46 --> 00:20:53 you know, so people can, you know, start to see like, you know, the relevance of math.
00:20:53 --> 00:20:57 And also, I also like to get people to understand who benefits when you take
00:20:57 --> 00:21:01 that position that math is irrelevant because math is really a tool.
00:21:01 --> 00:21:03 So it's a really viable, really viable tool.
00:21:04 --> 00:21:09 And once you say that, you know, you're not a math person or math is irrelevant
00:21:09 --> 00:21:12 or you're never going to use it, that just makes it easier for those that don't
00:21:12 --> 00:21:17 hold that position and don't hold that opinion because you've disqualified yourself from competition.
00:21:17 --> 00:21:22 Since there's so many opportunities that require a strong foundation in mathematics,
00:21:22 --> 00:21:25 algebra one and, you know, the higher level math.
00:21:26 --> 00:21:29 You're basically self-selecting yourself out of the competition,
00:21:29 --> 00:21:34 which is beneficial to people that don't have that opinion in that position.
00:21:34 --> 00:21:37 So I think that's also something I like to talk to people about.
00:21:37 --> 00:21:41 It's like, you know, don't do that to yourself, you know, because once you say
00:21:41 --> 00:21:44 I hate math, I'm never going to use math and this is irrelevant.
00:21:45 --> 00:21:48 You're also saying I'm never going to be a doctor. I'm never going to be a registered
00:21:48 --> 00:21:51 nurse, never going to be a lawyer, never going to be an architect,
00:21:51 --> 00:21:53 any type of engineer, computer scientist.
00:21:54 --> 00:21:57 You're also saying that because the math is a requirement, you know,
00:21:57 --> 00:21:59 for those types of careers.
00:21:59 --> 00:22:04 But, you know, and, you know, I go on and on. You know, it's so many things
00:22:04 --> 00:22:09 I could say to a person that says kind of like that reduces the value of mathematics.
00:22:09 --> 00:22:11 But, you know, this is this is the work that I signed up for.
00:22:12 --> 00:22:15 Yeah. Yeah. I can tell you, you, you were getting, you were getting cranked
00:22:15 --> 00:22:17 up there. I appreciate that.
00:22:18 --> 00:22:20 So what was the genesis for all this math?
00:22:21 --> 00:22:25 Genesis for all this math was me deciding to turn my hustle into a business
00:22:26 --> 00:22:29 because as a math teacher, people are always asking you like,
00:22:29 --> 00:22:32 can you tutor my child and, you know, some on the side here.
00:22:32 --> 00:22:34 And, you know, as a full-time teacher, you know, I used to all throughout my
00:22:34 --> 00:22:37 career since 2005, I would like, you know, tutor people on the side here and
00:22:37 --> 00:22:40 there, but I didn't really take it seriously.
00:22:40 --> 00:22:45 So one day around 2017, I decided to actually take it seriously and create an
00:22:45 --> 00:22:50 actual business, all this math, you know, around the end of that school year.
00:22:51 --> 00:22:57 I didn't really I guess I did a little bit of tutoring that that school year between 2017 and 2018.
00:22:57 --> 00:23:03 But it was really in 2018, the end of the 2018 school year that June that left
00:23:03 --> 00:23:05 the school district of Philadelphia. I was I was teaching at Overbrook High
00:23:05 --> 00:23:08 School at that time and I left the school district of Philadelphia,
00:23:08 --> 00:23:12 basically retired from from teaching, you know, full time at least.
00:23:12 --> 00:23:16 In the classroom. And I decided to, you know, go all in with math tutoring.
00:23:17 --> 00:23:22 So that was kind of the genesis of all this math. And then it grew into some
00:23:22 --> 00:23:26 consulting opportunities, some teacher coaching opportunities.
00:23:26 --> 00:23:29 You know, I had some relationships with some administrators,
00:23:29 --> 00:23:32 you know, around the Philadelphia area that brought me in to like work with
00:23:32 --> 00:23:35 some of their younger, you know, less experienced math teachers.
00:23:36 --> 00:23:39 And then I started like doing work with like developing and resources because
00:23:39 --> 00:23:43 what I realized was it's really about reimagining the household.
00:23:43 --> 00:23:46 You know, there's a lot of conversation about reimagining schools,
00:23:46 --> 00:23:50 which I do think is important, but I think what's equally or more important
00:23:50 --> 00:23:52 is reimagining the household.
00:23:53 --> 00:23:56 And especially because everybody says that, you know, they always throw this
00:23:56 --> 00:23:59 like cliche around that, you know, it starts in the home, it starts in the home.
00:23:59 --> 00:24:03 But oftentimes we're not telling people what that looks like or giving people
00:24:03 --> 00:24:07 instruction as to what it looks like when you start education in the home or
00:24:07 --> 00:24:08 when you start math education in the home.
00:24:08 --> 00:24:13 So I just, you know, I started developing resources. I published my book in
00:24:13 --> 00:24:18 2023, How to Use All This Math, Volume 1, available on Amazon.
00:24:18 --> 00:24:24 And, you know, basically the book is just me showing how as a math teacher,
00:24:24 --> 00:24:29 right, and a mathematician, me showing how everyday activities that,
00:24:29 --> 00:24:32 you know, we do all the time, you know, and take for granted.
00:24:33 --> 00:24:36 Can actually be math lessons and be arithmetic lessons.
00:24:36 --> 00:24:39 Like, you know, doing this thing over here when you're at the grocery store,
00:24:39 --> 00:24:43 when you're walking down the street or riding in the car, like these are opportunities
00:24:43 --> 00:24:45 to practice different math skills.
00:24:45 --> 00:24:49 And I think that's what's really going to that's what's really going to be required
00:24:49 --> 00:24:55 for us to win, because far too often children just go into school like these
00:24:55 --> 00:24:59 blank slates and they don't already have enough prior knowledge and prerequisite skills.
00:24:59 --> 00:25:04 So, you know, but if we could use the household as the first classroom or like
00:25:04 --> 00:25:08 essentially get a head start in the household, then once they get into school,
00:25:08 --> 00:25:11 we get into the classroom. Because, like I said, school is really test prep.
00:25:11 --> 00:25:13 They'll be ready for the test prep.
00:25:13 --> 00:25:17 But a lot of times they're not ready for the test prep. They need a lot of remediation.
00:25:17 --> 00:25:22 They have, you know, learning blind spots, you know, a lot of unfinished learning.
00:25:22 --> 00:25:27 And it makes it much more difficult for the teachers to really move through their curriculum.
00:25:27 --> 00:25:32 So a lot of my work these days is around, you know, helping families and,
00:25:32 --> 00:25:35 you know, the community, the mothers, the fathers, the grandparents,
00:25:35 --> 00:25:41 the uncles, the aunts, you know, helping them to become the primary math educators.
00:25:41 --> 00:25:45 So. So, yeah, that's what that's what, you know, all this math is is really
00:25:45 --> 00:25:46 focused on a lot these days.
00:25:47 --> 00:25:52 Yeah. So unfortunately, we we're audio only podcast, but you've got this cool
00:25:52 --> 00:25:55 T-shirt on that says Histematics.
00:25:55 --> 00:25:59 So the question I have is, what is Histematics?
00:26:00 --> 00:26:06 So Histematics is an idea that I just I decided to formalize it in 2019 when
00:26:06 --> 00:26:11 there was a conference that had a call for papers, call for proposals to discuss
00:26:11 --> 00:26:12 a topic that was related to it.
00:26:13 --> 00:26:16 You know, but histematics is basically when I use black history to teach math
00:26:16 --> 00:26:18 and I use math to teach black history.
00:26:18 --> 00:26:22 And this is really something I kind of organically had been doing throughout
00:26:22 --> 00:26:24 my entire career since 2005.
00:26:24 --> 00:26:28 And, you know, when you think about it, when I think about it,
00:26:28 --> 00:26:30 I was I'm the teacher, like whether it was a geometry class,
00:26:31 --> 00:26:35 algebra one class, algebra two, calculus, without fail, some teach,
00:26:35 --> 00:26:38 some student will raise their hand and say early in the school year and say, Mr.
00:26:38 --> 00:26:41 Parker, you should have been an African-American history teacher.
00:26:42 --> 00:26:47 Because students are so conditioned to compartmentalize education.
00:26:48 --> 00:26:51 And what I'm trying to do is like, you know, blur those lines,
00:26:51 --> 00:26:54 you know, we show the connections and the interdisciplinary nature of all the
00:26:54 --> 00:26:57 subjects, because that makes it make more sense anyway, I think.
00:26:58 --> 00:27:01 Right. So histematics is just a way to do that, because, you know,
00:27:01 --> 00:27:06 I'm creating like, you know, do now problems or quiz questions or test questions
00:27:06 --> 00:27:08 that, you know, involve mathematics.
00:27:08 --> 00:27:12 You know, they're about quantitative analysis, but the information in the problem
00:27:12 --> 00:27:18 might include the Black Panther Party for self-defense or Paul Robeson or Assata
00:27:18 --> 00:27:21 Shakur or Mary McLeod Bethune or, you know, people like that.
00:27:21 --> 00:27:25 So, you know, I'm trying to give the students an opportunity to practice math,
00:27:25 --> 00:27:29 but also learn about the black history as well.
00:27:29 --> 00:27:32 Because, you know, in my classes that I was teaching, you know,
00:27:32 --> 00:27:35 like there was there was a lot of deficiency in mathematics,
00:27:35 --> 00:27:39 but there also was deficiency in black history and just that knowledge itself
00:27:39 --> 00:27:40 and that, you know, historical awareness.
00:27:41 --> 00:27:42 So I always thought like, well,
00:27:42 --> 00:27:46 you know, if I could do two things at the same time, you know, why not?
00:27:47 --> 00:27:51 Why not, you know, teach the, you know, teach, expose them to the African-American
00:27:51 --> 00:27:56 history and the African history, as well as expose them to the Algebra 1 topics
00:27:56 --> 00:28:00 and the geometry topics, you know, you know, and, you know, it can be kind of,
00:28:01 --> 00:28:04 fundamental and basic or it could be, you know, more complex, you know, as an example.
00:28:05 --> 00:28:08 You know, like, so if we're talking about somebody like, you know,
00:28:08 --> 00:28:13 Fred Hampton, you know, Fred Hampton, unfortunately, assassinated in 1969.
00:28:13 --> 00:28:16 So a simple question might be, you know, asking the students,
00:28:16 --> 00:28:19 you know, how old were you in 1969?
00:28:19 --> 00:28:22 Now, of course, no student that I'm going to be in contact with,
00:28:22 --> 00:28:24 you know, was even born in 1969.
00:28:25 --> 00:28:28 But and they recognize that, which is good, you know, because that shows that
00:28:28 --> 00:28:29 they're thinking critically.
00:28:29 --> 00:28:33 But what I'm really trying to do is introduce them to integers and negative
00:28:33 --> 00:28:34 numbers and the negative and the number line.
00:28:35 --> 00:28:40 Right to get them to think okay well what was i doing like in relation to the year that i was born,
00:28:41 --> 00:28:45 you know how far away on the number line is the year 1969 so if a student was born in,
00:28:46 --> 00:28:50 i don't know let's say 2005 right then they have to do the calculation
00:28:50 --> 00:28:54 you know what's the difference between 2005 and 1969 so we're thinking like
00:28:54 --> 00:28:59 let's see 69 to 70 is one year 70 to 2000 is 30 years so 35 plus one that's
00:28:59 --> 00:29:01 36 years it's a 36 year difference,
00:29:02 --> 00:29:06 so that means that at that time of his assassination, you would have been negative 36 years old.
00:29:07 --> 00:29:10 So they're thinking about Fred Hampton and they think hopefully they'll be thinking
00:29:10 --> 00:29:14 about the Black Panther Party, Chicago, Mark Clark, rest in peace to those two brothers.
00:29:15 --> 00:29:18 You know, and maybe they'll, you know, do some further research on,
00:29:18 --> 00:29:22 you know, Huey P. Newton, you know, Bobby Sill, Kathleen Cleaver,
00:29:22 --> 00:29:27 Lane Brown, all of these types of people and also the work that was being done
00:29:27 --> 00:29:28 in the community. Right.
00:29:29 --> 00:29:32 But then they're getting to practice math at the same time, you know.
00:29:32 --> 00:29:36 And so that's that's kind of what what histematics. That's one example of what
00:29:36 --> 00:29:40 histematics looks like in real time. Yeah. Yeah.
00:29:41 --> 00:29:43 Yeah. So if you ask me a question, I'd say four.
00:29:44 --> 00:29:49 I was four years old when that went down and I was living in Chicago at the time.
00:29:49 --> 00:29:56 So in that line, is there a black mathematician that, that you,
00:29:56 --> 00:30:01 that you have as a favorite or do you, you don't, you don't really get into that?
00:30:02 --> 00:30:04 I definitely get into that. And I'm glad you asked that question because so
00:30:04 --> 00:30:07 histamatics is broken down into five elements.
00:30:07 --> 00:30:12 And the fifth element of histamatics is is what I call black math exemplars,
00:30:13 --> 00:30:17 because I also love the belief that part of the reason that a lot of our black
00:30:17 --> 00:30:20 children and black youth have deficiencies in mathematics is because we don't
00:30:20 --> 00:30:22 like like we believe that,
00:30:23 --> 00:30:28 we are never going to use math and math is futile and useless because we don't
00:30:28 --> 00:30:30 often don't see a lot of black people doing math.
00:30:30 --> 00:30:34 We don't see a lot of black math teachers, men or women. We don't see or we
00:30:34 --> 00:30:36 don't learn about black mathematicians.
00:30:36 --> 00:30:40 So it's hard for me to say who my favorite is, but I got a couple that come to mind.
00:30:40 --> 00:30:44 There's Dr. Abdul Aleem Shabazz, who actually taught in Chicago at the University
00:30:44 --> 00:30:49 of Islam for like 30 years before leaving there. And then he taught at several
00:30:49 --> 00:30:54 HBCUs. He taught at Lincoln University. He's actually an alum of Lincoln University in Pennsylvania.
00:30:54 --> 00:30:59 I taught at Clark Atlanta University, taught at Southern University down in
00:30:59 --> 00:31:01 Louisiana, either Southern or Grambling. I get those confused.
00:31:01 --> 00:31:04 I'm not sure which one it was, but it was one of those two, either Southern or Grambling.
00:31:05 --> 00:31:10 Then there's, well, his claim to fame is the fact that he is responsible for
00:31:10 --> 00:31:15 training more black math PhDs than any other single person, you know,
00:31:15 --> 00:31:18 in the history of the United States. That's his claim to fame.
00:31:18 --> 00:31:21 Then there's Dr. Gloria Ford Gilmer, who I often talk about a whole lot.
00:31:22 --> 00:31:25 She's born and raised in Baltimore. You know, I wasn't born in Baltimore,
00:31:25 --> 00:31:28 but I was raised in Baltimore, definitely, through my formative years.
00:31:28 --> 00:31:32 So she's from there. She's also a graduate of Oregon State, you know, my alma mater.
00:31:32 --> 00:31:37 So that's another reason. But she did a lot of work with an area of math called
00:31:37 --> 00:31:43 ethnomathematics, where we deal with problems that are significant to a specific
00:31:43 --> 00:31:45 exclusive to a certain cultures of people.
00:31:45 --> 00:31:49 Right. Part of her work was just talking about how, you know,
00:31:49 --> 00:31:51 ways that we can teach geometry through hair braiding.
00:31:52 --> 00:31:56 You know, and just noticing the tessellations and the different patterns of
00:31:56 --> 00:31:59 the parts in the hair and all those types of things, you know,
00:31:59 --> 00:32:02 which is very which is very important because what what you're really getting
00:32:02 --> 00:32:03 into is culturally responsive pedagogy.
00:32:04 --> 00:32:07 Because, you know, and I and I think that, you know, as teachers,
00:32:07 --> 00:32:08 we have to do a better job of that.
00:32:08 --> 00:32:11 And that's something that I didn't do as good of a job, you know,
00:32:11 --> 00:32:14 at when I was in the classroom, showing the relevance and the relatability of
00:32:14 --> 00:32:16 mathematics, because I'm sitting there thinking back.
00:32:16 --> 00:32:20 Sometimes I think in retrospect, like, how is it that I had?
00:32:20 --> 00:32:23 I taught I'm teaching in West Philly. I'm teaching in North Philly.
00:32:23 --> 00:32:25 I'm teaching, you know, students from all over Philadelphia.
00:32:25 --> 00:32:30 You got all these girls with these elaborate braided hairstyles and everything.
00:32:30 --> 00:32:33 And they sitting in my geometry class talking about they don't understand geometry.
00:32:33 --> 00:32:35 This don't make no sense. I don't get it.
00:32:35 --> 00:32:40 Right. But at no point did I ever think to meet them where they were and try
00:32:40 --> 00:32:44 to figure out ways of saying, OK, well, what about, you know,
00:32:44 --> 00:32:45 when you get your hair braided?
00:32:45 --> 00:32:49 Look at those little patterns, the patterns on your scalp. I see triangles.
00:32:49 --> 00:32:54 I see trapezoids. I see rectangles, you know, just to make the geometry more
00:32:54 --> 00:32:57 relevant, you know, to them. And even the brothers, the brothers with their
00:32:57 --> 00:32:59 locks and, you know, with their cornrows and everything. Right.
00:33:00 --> 00:33:04 So we have a lot of there are a lot of ways that even with our own cultural
00:33:04 --> 00:33:10 norms and cultural practices that we can leverage that and make that the basis
00:33:10 --> 00:33:12 for all different types of math lessons.
00:33:12 --> 00:33:15 You know, so then and that's what that's one of that was a large part of Dr.
00:33:15 --> 00:33:17 Gloria Ford Gilmer's work.
00:33:18 --> 00:33:21 But, you know, the list goes on. There's so many. There's, you know,
00:33:21 --> 00:33:26 David Blackwell, J. Ernest Wilkins, Catherine Johnson, you know,
00:33:26 --> 00:33:31 the sisters that, you know, were featured in the Hidden Figures movie that worked for NASA.
00:33:31 --> 00:33:35 There's so many. I'm actually going to be doing a series on black mathematicians
00:33:35 --> 00:33:38 where I'm going to be doing a lot of like research on black mathematicians and
00:33:39 --> 00:33:42 and using social media, trying to use social media for something positive because
00:33:42 --> 00:33:44 there's so much nonsense on social media.
00:33:44 --> 00:33:47 But I'll be doing some like some video content where I just talk about black
00:33:47 --> 00:33:52 mathematicians, you know, and hopefully that, you know, this will be used,
00:33:52 --> 00:33:54 you know, some of the school teachers will pick it up and, you know,
00:33:54 --> 00:33:57 expose their students to it, you know, because that's a big thing.
00:33:57 --> 00:34:02 A big part of our deficiency around mathematics is the fact that we don't,
00:34:02 --> 00:34:03 there's a lack of representation.
00:34:03 --> 00:34:06 We don't know about all of these black people that, you know,
00:34:06 --> 00:34:09 excel in mathematics and not just here in the United States,
00:34:09 --> 00:34:13 but, you know, in other countries, but also going back to ancient Africa, you know,
00:34:14 --> 00:34:17 we think about ancient Kemet, modern day Egypt, all the mathematics that had
00:34:17 --> 00:34:21 to be practiced just to build a pyramid, you know, and for them to still be standing to this day,
00:34:22 --> 00:34:25 you know, the mathematics that was required, you know, to make that happen.
00:34:25 --> 00:34:30 So. So, yes. So to your question, I don't know if I have a favorite mathematician,
00:34:30 --> 00:34:33 though. The two I mentioned are the two I initially mentioned,
00:34:33 --> 00:34:35 the two of my favorites. But.
00:34:35 --> 00:34:41 It would be hard for me to put one on top, you know, as the GOAT,
00:34:41 --> 00:34:43 I guess. It would be difficult for me to do.
00:34:44 --> 00:34:53 Yeah, and the only one I knew prior to, you know, even going to college or whatever was Ernest Just.
00:34:53 --> 00:34:57 And he was more known for being a founder of one of the fraternities.
00:34:58 --> 00:35:02 Black fraternities, more so than being a mathematician. But there's actually
00:35:02 --> 00:35:04 a building at Jackson State named after him.
00:35:05 --> 00:35:11 Because I think he talked there for a moment. But yeah, that's a group of people,
00:35:11 --> 00:35:13 just like black inventors.
00:35:13 --> 00:35:18 It's just a group of people that our culture and really American society don't
00:35:18 --> 00:35:24 know as fluently as they say other people. So I appreciate that you're going
00:35:24 --> 00:35:25 to be dedicating some time to do that.
00:35:26 --> 00:35:29 Yeah. How does math improve critical thinking?
00:35:30 --> 00:35:33 So I'm glad you asked this question too.
00:35:33 --> 00:35:36 Every time we're doing problems, and this is what I want people definitely to
00:35:36 --> 00:35:38 take away from listening to this episode, is that,
00:35:39 --> 00:35:42 I want us to really value, and as parents, I want you to have these conversations
00:35:42 --> 00:35:45 with your children that when your children are in math classes,
00:35:45 --> 00:35:48 whether it's an arithmetic class, algebra one class, pre-algebra,
00:35:48 --> 00:35:51 algebra two, geometry, whatever the math class is,
00:35:51 --> 00:35:55 every time they're presented with any type of example problem,
00:35:55 --> 00:35:58 they're getting an opportunity to practice critical thinking.
00:35:59 --> 00:36:01 That's that's that's really all it is. So when people say, like,
00:36:01 --> 00:36:04 you know, well, why do I need to know the Pythagorean theorem?
00:36:04 --> 00:36:07 Like, you know, when am I going to use that in life? When am I going to be in
00:36:07 --> 00:36:08 the grocery store and, you know,
00:36:08 --> 00:36:11 have to use this formula or the quadratic formula or whatever formula?
00:36:12 --> 00:36:17 I remind people it's not about that. It's about the thought process that you
00:36:17 --> 00:36:21 had to go through when you were sitting in that classroom and had to use the
00:36:21 --> 00:36:23 Pythagorean theorem or use the quadratic formula.
00:36:24 --> 00:36:28 You're training your brain to think in a methodical, systematic way,
00:36:28 --> 00:36:32 which is oftentimes very much needed. I mean, this is part and parcel of critical
00:36:32 --> 00:36:38 thinking, being able to identify all the relevant factors, being able to figure out, OK, what is my goal?
00:36:38 --> 00:36:42 What is my end result? What would the consequences be of me taking this route
00:36:42 --> 00:36:43 or not taking this route?
00:36:44 --> 00:36:49 Right. All of that is critical thinking. And when you're sitting in that geometry
00:36:49 --> 00:36:52 class and using the Pythagorean theorem and you're solving it,
00:36:52 --> 00:36:56 trying to solve the problem with the ladder is leaning up against the house.
00:36:56 --> 00:36:59 And, you know, you got to figure out, well, how long is the ladder?
00:37:00 --> 00:37:03 If you know how far the base of the ladder is away from the house,
00:37:03 --> 00:37:08 and you also know how far up the ladder touches the side of the house,
00:37:09 --> 00:37:12 you got to figure that out. You got to think to yourself, okay, what formula do I use?
00:37:12 --> 00:37:14 Okay, cool. Write that down. Okay.
00:37:15 --> 00:37:18 In this formula, I got three different variables. I got the A or B and the C,
00:37:18 --> 00:37:20 which one of these numbers goes in which place.
00:37:21 --> 00:37:24 All of that is critical. You're practicing critical thinking.
00:37:25 --> 00:37:29 And what we want to do is develop what we as educators call automaticity,
00:37:29 --> 00:37:33 right? We want to be able to automatically just know, okay, how to figure stuff out.
00:37:33 --> 00:37:37 So parents, make sure you're letting your children know, like when they're in
00:37:37 --> 00:37:39 that math class, it's not about...
00:37:39 --> 00:37:42 When they're going to be in the gas station or when they're going to be at,
00:37:42 --> 00:37:45 you know, grocery store or whatever and have to pull out this formula.
00:37:45 --> 00:37:50 It's about developing your ability to think, which is a skill they're going
00:37:50 --> 00:37:52 to need wherever they are, whenever they're in the gas station,
00:37:52 --> 00:37:53 grocery store, wherever.
00:37:54 --> 00:37:56 You know, it's very similar to athletics. Right.
00:37:57 --> 00:38:00 Your favorite football player, your favorite running back is not going to ever
00:38:00 --> 00:38:05 at any point during the game, run it down the field, put the ball down and,
00:38:05 --> 00:38:09 you know, get down and do pushups in the middle of the game.
00:38:09 --> 00:38:14 Right. But they'll do pushups in practice. They'll do the calisthenics in order
00:38:14 --> 00:38:17 to develop themselves to be ready to play.
00:38:17 --> 00:38:21 This is what mathematics. This is one of the many things mathematics does for
00:38:21 --> 00:38:24 us. It gets us ready for life. It develops our critical thinking ability because
00:38:24 --> 00:38:28 that's all you're doing in mathematics is just. You're using critical thinking on a regular basis.
00:38:29 --> 00:38:33 You know, you may be confronted with a problem and you may know five different formulas.
00:38:34 --> 00:38:37 You have to sit there and think, OK, which of these five formulas should I use right now?
00:38:38 --> 00:38:41 That's a thought process is if you use the wrong formula. And actually,
00:38:42 --> 00:38:43 you might be able. Here's another thing.
00:38:44 --> 00:38:48 You might be able to actually use any of those five formulas or methods to solve this problem.
00:38:48 --> 00:38:53 But now you've got to think in terms of efficiency and the economy of time.
00:38:53 --> 00:38:56 Which formula do I want to use? Which formula makes the most sense?
00:38:56 --> 00:38:59 Because if all of them are going to give me the right answer,
00:38:59 --> 00:39:02 I then got to figure out, okay, well, I don't want to pick the formula that's
00:39:02 --> 00:39:03 going to take the most time.
00:39:04 --> 00:39:06 I want to pick the formula that's going to take the least amount of time.
00:39:06 --> 00:39:08 So now we're back to using critical thinking again.
00:39:09 --> 00:39:13 So mathematics really gives us an opportunity to develop our critical thinking
00:39:13 --> 00:39:18 ability because these are choices and decisions that we have to make while we're
00:39:18 --> 00:39:19 sitting in that math class.
00:39:19 --> 00:39:24 So I just think it's it's unfortunate when the kids kind of tap out and give
00:39:24 --> 00:39:28 up and, you know, kind of fall back on that idea that I'm never going to use
00:39:28 --> 00:39:31 this or I don't want to be a mathematician. I don't want to be a math teacher.
00:39:31 --> 00:39:32 So why should I care about this?
00:39:33 --> 00:39:36 They're passing up a great opportunity to develop critical thinking ability,
00:39:37 --> 00:39:40 which we all which we all are going to need as human beings.
00:39:41 --> 00:39:45 Yeah. And it's something that's vitally needed now in my world,
00:39:45 --> 00:39:47 in the political world. Definitely.
00:39:48 --> 00:39:51 You make the argument that math is a language. Explain that.
00:39:52 --> 00:39:58 So it is. I make that argument because, well, I mean, that's part of an accepted
00:39:58 --> 00:39:59 definition of mathematics.
00:40:00 --> 00:40:03 There are a lot of symbols in it, which leads to a lot of confusion.
00:40:03 --> 00:40:06 And sometimes it's just an issue of not knowing what the symbols mean.
00:40:06 --> 00:40:10 And also sometimes one symbol can mean different things in different times.
00:40:11 --> 00:40:16 Right. You may often see people arguing over order of operations questions or
00:40:16 --> 00:40:17 PEMDAS questions. Right.
00:40:17 --> 00:40:22 And they may say, well, the parentheses PEMDAS says that the P is first in PEMDAS.
00:40:22 --> 00:40:25 That stands for parentheses. So therefore, whenever I see parentheses,
00:40:25 --> 00:40:29 I'm supposed to, you know, do the do the operation around the parentheses first.
00:40:30 --> 00:40:34 Well, when we say parentheses, we're actually referring to a grouping symbol.
00:40:34 --> 00:40:38 Sometimes a parentheses can be used for to group an expression inside of it.
00:40:39 --> 00:40:41 Sometimes parentheses just represents multiplication.
00:40:42 --> 00:40:47 So these are also things that we have to know. This is part of the language of mathematics, right?
00:40:47 --> 00:40:50 And also when you think about this too, think about word problems.
00:40:51 --> 00:40:57 One of the benefits of mathematics is that what it does is it takes a very more
00:40:57 --> 00:41:03 convoluted and more extensive word problem or situation, and you can condense
00:41:03 --> 00:41:05 it into just a simple equation.
00:41:05 --> 00:41:12 Like we could write out a five to seven sentence word problem describing the situation.
00:41:12 --> 00:41:16 But then if we want to answer the question that's being asked within that five
00:41:16 --> 00:41:21 to seven sentence question or word problem, we could condense it to an equation
00:41:21 --> 00:41:23 that basically just says three X plus five equals 20.
00:41:24 --> 00:41:29 So, but the issue is, okay, knowing how to do that translation.
00:41:29 --> 00:41:35 Just like going from, you know, Swahili to English or Spanish to English or
00:41:35 --> 00:41:38 English to Arabic, right? Knowing how to do that translation.
00:41:38 --> 00:41:43 And that's another thing I want to bring up, which is that there are many people
00:41:43 --> 00:41:47 that also adopt this position that, well, I'm not a math person,
00:41:47 --> 00:41:48 but I am a reading person.
00:41:48 --> 00:41:52 Well, I'll say this, in order to be a math person, you must also be a reading
00:41:52 --> 00:41:54 person because you must have reading comprehension ability.
00:41:54 --> 00:41:57 Because when we get into the applications and these long word problems,
00:41:57 --> 00:42:01 we got to know how to read that stuff so that we will know how to do that translation
00:42:01 --> 00:42:05 from the word problem to that, you know, shorter equation.
00:42:05 --> 00:42:08 Or sometimes we'll have a system of equations where we'll have two or three
00:42:08 --> 00:42:12 equations, you know, that we combine together in order to figure out the unknown values.
00:42:12 --> 00:42:18 So so, yeah, definitely math is definitely a language, a language that we we have to embrace.
00:42:18 --> 00:42:22 And I also think that if we thought about it that way, and if we as math teachers
00:42:22 --> 00:42:27 started to speak about mathematics that way, that would make it seem more understandable.
00:42:27 --> 00:42:31 Because if you're a student that can excel in your Spanish class or your Chinese
00:42:31 --> 00:42:36 class or in your Arabic class or your Swahili class, because you understand
00:42:36 --> 00:42:40 language and understand how to translate from one language to another.
00:42:40 --> 00:42:43 Then you may that may change your perspective around mathematics.
00:42:43 --> 00:42:46 Because now you're just saying, oh, OK, well, so that's what that exponent means.
00:42:46 --> 00:42:47 So the exponent means this.
00:42:48 --> 00:42:51 OK, when this is written like a fraction, it means this. The parentheses mean
00:42:51 --> 00:42:54 this. The brackets mean this. The absolute value symbol means this.
00:42:55 --> 00:42:58 You know, otherwise we often a lot of students end up just feeling overwhelmed
00:42:58 --> 00:43:00 because they're like, what does this even mean? I don't understand this.
00:43:01 --> 00:43:05 Not realizing that. Well, initially, you're not supposed to understand it because
00:43:05 --> 00:43:06 it's a different language.
00:43:06 --> 00:43:10 It's a different way of expressing an idea, you know. So. So,
00:43:10 --> 00:43:13 yeah, I definitely believe that mathematics is a language.
00:43:14 --> 00:43:20 All right. The Annie E. Casey Foundation reported in 2025 that 90 percent of
00:43:20 --> 00:43:23 black eighth graders were not proficient in math.
00:43:24 --> 00:43:29 So I have two questions and you kind of answered the first one in a sense.
00:43:30 --> 00:43:37 So I'll rephrase it as this test prep culture that's in schools.
00:43:38 --> 00:43:40 Do you feel that that's failing our children?
00:43:41 --> 00:43:45 I don't think it's beneficial for our children unless they already have those prerequisite skills.
00:43:46 --> 00:43:50 It wouldn't be a problem if the children already had the prerequisite skills. Now, they don't.
00:43:50 --> 00:43:54 Many of our children don't, which is evident by the standardized test scores
00:43:54 --> 00:43:56 that come out every year around August, September.
00:43:56 --> 00:43:59 Well, actually, now they're being tested, being graded by AI,
00:43:59 --> 00:44:03 I believe. So they're coming out even much sooner to when the tests are being taken in the spring.
00:44:03 --> 00:44:08 But but yeah, a lot of our children are not prepared with the prerequisite and foundational skills.
00:44:08 --> 00:44:12 So it does really do a disservice. But then we also have to think about,
00:44:12 --> 00:44:13 again, who benefits from that.
00:44:14 --> 00:44:19 I don't think any of this is accidental or coincidental. And also, it's not a new problem.
00:44:19 --> 00:44:23 You know, there's been math deficiency in public schools for years.
00:44:23 --> 00:44:26 You know, in 1950, you know, people were having these conversations. So,
00:44:27 --> 00:44:30 we have to at some point also think about what we're up against as a community
00:44:31 --> 00:44:36 and also consider that if this really were a problem, then entities that have
00:44:36 --> 00:44:40 resources, political entities, corporate entities that have financial resources
00:44:40 --> 00:44:44 that they use to solve problems, they would have solved the problem already.
00:44:44 --> 00:44:47 But the fact that the problem hasn't been solved, it leads me to believe that
00:44:47 --> 00:44:51 thinking about things mathematically and algebraically, perhaps this isn't actually a problem.
00:44:52 --> 00:44:55 Maybe this is actually because it's definitely a benefit. Because again,
00:44:55 --> 00:44:59 we talked earlier about when you disqualify yourself from competition,
00:44:59 --> 00:45:02 that's better for those that are not disqualified from competition.
00:45:02 --> 00:45:09 So there are certain groups and people that are able to excel with less competition, right?
00:45:10 --> 00:45:15 So I think that, you know, and again, that's why I always go back to the community.
00:45:15 --> 00:45:16 Like, what should the community do?
00:45:17 --> 00:45:21 I think we should advocate for schools to change some of their practices and operate better.
00:45:22 --> 00:45:27 But I think with the limited energy and time that we have, I think we'd get
00:45:27 --> 00:45:32 more bang for our buck if we make attempts to develop community members,
00:45:32 --> 00:45:36 develop parents, develop grandparents, develop,
00:45:36 --> 00:45:40 the aunts and uncles, and just create programming where,
00:45:40 --> 00:45:45 you know, we can help them to be able to help their children,
00:45:45 --> 00:45:47 their nieces, their nephews, and their grandchildren.
00:45:47 --> 00:45:51 So that way, when the children go into school, they'll already be prepared,
00:45:51 --> 00:45:58 you know, for that test prep culture and that, you know, those test prep type of classroom settings.
00:45:59 --> 00:46:04 So my follow-up is, what can all this math do to change that trajectory?
00:46:05 --> 00:46:09 Keep coming on podcasts like this and, you know, proselytizing about the value
00:46:09 --> 00:46:12 of mathematics, because that's a lot of it is not.
00:46:13 --> 00:46:17 There are a lot of people out here that will speak of how difficult math is
00:46:17 --> 00:46:19 and how hard math is and how they would never get at it.
00:46:19 --> 00:46:24 But if you dig into the personal lives of these people, you realize that they
00:46:24 --> 00:46:28 actually do things on a regular basis that I would say are much more difficult
00:46:28 --> 00:46:30 than the math that they think is very difficult.
00:46:31 --> 00:46:36 Right so really it's a matter of perspective like a lot of we we've been conditioned,
00:46:36 --> 00:46:41 over time to identify and view mathematics as this very difficult subject,
00:46:42 --> 00:46:45 but the question is like what if we didn't think it was a difficult subject,
00:46:45 --> 00:46:48 then what would we do right what if we thought that we could do it what if we
00:46:48 --> 00:46:50 thought we were supposed to do it,
00:46:50 --> 00:46:54 you got you got kids that you know think that black kids that think that they're
00:46:54 --> 00:46:57 supposed to be great at basketball they might be trash at basketball,
00:46:58 --> 00:47:00 but they think they're supposed to be great at basketball.
00:47:00 --> 00:47:02 So they'll still persevere. They'll keep trying.
00:47:03 --> 00:47:05 What if we could apply that to mathematics? Whereas a lot of,
00:47:05 --> 00:47:08 a lot of black kids have been conditioned to think that they're not supposed
00:47:08 --> 00:47:10 to be good at mathematics.
00:47:11 --> 00:47:13 But what if we were able to shift that narrative? And that's really a marketing issue.
00:47:14 --> 00:47:18 You know, cause we think about a lot of the things that we accept collectively
00:47:18 --> 00:47:21 in this society, just due to marketing, the things that we normalize and the
00:47:21 --> 00:47:24 things that we think make sense, you know, just because of.
00:47:25 --> 00:47:30 Strong, effective, and consistent daily repetitive marketing over and over again.
00:47:30 --> 00:47:34 I mean, I think about commercial rap music, and I grew up listening to commercial
00:47:34 --> 00:47:37 rap music. I still listen to it from time to time, but it is an excellent delivery
00:47:37 --> 00:47:43 system for ideas, products, ideology, a value system.
00:47:44 --> 00:47:47 But when you really take the time to listen to what the rappers are being paid
00:47:47 --> 00:47:53 to say to us and to our children, it is some of the most basic, mundane, nonsense.
00:47:54 --> 00:47:59 But because it's so consistent and it's so readily available,
00:47:59 --> 00:48:03 we normalize it and we think, oh, yeah, that does make sense.
00:48:03 --> 00:48:07 And nobody ever takes the time to step back and question the validity of it.
00:48:07 --> 00:48:12 Right. But imagine if we did that with mathematics, if we just marketed mathematics
00:48:12 --> 00:48:15 on a regular basis, if we actually. Because what often happens,
00:48:15 --> 00:48:19 too, in schools, a child will be in a classroom and say, I'm never going to
00:48:19 --> 00:48:22 use this in life. This is nonsense. Why are we learning this?
00:48:23 --> 00:48:27 And there usually won't be another student in the classroom to refute that point.
00:48:28 --> 00:48:32 It just becomes an instant consensus to that idea. And you may have a teacher
00:48:32 --> 00:48:33 that may try to refute it.
00:48:33 --> 00:48:38 But oftentimes the teachers may not have the that gift of gab or they may not
00:48:38 --> 00:48:42 have that, you know, in their their arsenal of a good rebuttal that will actually
00:48:42 --> 00:48:45 convince the students that, no, that student is wrong. Right.
00:48:45 --> 00:48:48 We got to get, you know, how, like, you know, young brothers might argue about
00:48:48 --> 00:48:51 who the greatest football player is, greatest basketball player is.
00:48:51 --> 00:48:53 It's always going to be two. It's always going to be two sided.
00:48:54 --> 00:48:55 It's going to be an actual debate.
00:48:56 --> 00:48:59 That's how we need to get that. When somebody stands up and says math is useless,
00:49:00 --> 00:49:03 they need to be in classrooms, students actually debating that point.
00:49:04 --> 00:49:08 But it's not a debate. But in order to get to that point, we got to keep like,
00:49:08 --> 00:49:12 you know, marketing math and like, you know, propagandizing it and promoting
00:49:12 --> 00:49:15 it, you know, because it really does. And it's not going to be easy,
00:49:15 --> 00:49:17 but what I'm really talking about is a paradigm shift.
00:49:18 --> 00:49:20 You know, this is like this is like something revolutionary,
00:49:20 --> 00:49:24 just like changing the way the whole black community like looks at math.
00:49:24 --> 00:49:27 And instead of and also that means we got to get rid of this,
00:49:27 --> 00:49:30 too. We got to get rid of this black unicorn concept because we do know people
00:49:30 --> 00:49:34 in our community we grew up with. So we might have that one person in our family
00:49:34 --> 00:49:36 or a couple of people in our family. Oh, they're good at math. Right.
00:49:37 --> 00:49:40 And then there's a comfort involved with that. But if we want for everybody
00:49:40 --> 00:49:44 to be good at MAV, then that means that that one person or those one or two
00:49:44 --> 00:49:47 people, they're not going to be that special no more. And I think that's fine.
00:49:48 --> 00:49:51 I think that's fine. And I think that's something else we're going to have to accept and deal with.
00:49:51 --> 00:49:56 And also those people that are the black unicorns in the community or in the
00:49:56 --> 00:49:58 family, they're going to have to start helping the people that aren't.
00:49:59 --> 00:50:03 They're going to have to stop gatekeeping their ability and,
00:50:03 --> 00:50:06 you know, really start sharing that skill set more aggressively.
00:50:08 --> 00:50:12 Yeah. All right. 20 years from now, what will you consider success?
00:50:13 --> 00:50:21 I would consider success a large percentage of black adults speaking positively
00:50:21 --> 00:50:23 about their experience in mathematics.
00:50:24 --> 00:50:29 Black adults, parents, grandparents feeling comfortable sitting down,
00:50:29 --> 00:50:34 helping, providing help with math homework because they were exposed to some
00:50:34 --> 00:50:38 of the resources of all this math, you know, 20 years prior,
00:50:39 --> 00:50:43 you know, or, you know, 10 years prior or five years prior or 15 years prior.
00:50:43 --> 00:50:45 You know, that's what I would consider success.
00:50:46 --> 00:50:50 You know, people saying that, you know, yeah, Matt. Yeah, I like math.
00:50:50 --> 00:50:54 I love math, you know, because, you know, I looked at some I looked at the all
00:50:54 --> 00:50:58 this math YouTube channel or I got tutored through all this math or,
00:50:59 --> 00:51:01 you know, we used to get the all this math books.
00:51:01 --> 00:51:05 You know, that's what I would that's what I would consider success. Yeah.
00:51:06 --> 00:51:10 All right. So finish this sentence. I have hope because.
00:51:11 --> 00:51:16 We're still here. When I say that, what I mean is more specifically is when
00:51:16 --> 00:51:19 we understand our history in this country and in the world,
00:51:20 --> 00:51:26 the fact that we're still here is a testament to our strength and resilience.
00:51:27 --> 00:51:30 Yeah. Because when we really understand, it's like, you know,
00:51:30 --> 00:51:34 it's like, wow, we survived all that. Why aren't we extinct right now?
00:51:35 --> 00:51:39 So that gives me a lot. That gives me hope every day. Amen, brother.
00:51:40 --> 00:51:46 All right. So Akil Parker or Professor Akil Parker, how can people reach out to you?
00:51:47 --> 00:51:51 How can people access all this great material you got with all this math?
00:51:51 --> 00:51:56 So definitely go to YouTube, go to all this math on YouTube, subscribe and share.
00:51:57 --> 00:51:59 Yeah, I like something that you said on one of your episodes.
00:51:59 --> 00:52:03 Don't don't don't treat it like a secret, like a guilty pleasure.
00:52:03 --> 00:52:06 Like your part, like you said about your podcast, share, share it, share the podcast.
00:52:07 --> 00:52:10 Yeah, do the same with my YouTube channel. Share the YouTube channel.
00:52:10 --> 00:52:15 Also on social media, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, follow me at All This Math,
00:52:16 --> 00:52:20 where, you know, you'll see me, you know, doing random math problems,
00:52:20 --> 00:52:23 you know, maybe with my youngest son or maybe with my daughter when she was younger.
00:52:24 --> 00:52:27 I'm just modeling for parents, you know, things that they can do because I'm
00:52:27 --> 00:52:30 a math teacher, but I'm a parent first. I'm a father first.
00:52:31 --> 00:52:36 So it's my responsibility to provide that math foundation for my children.
00:52:36 --> 00:52:40 And I just show I'm showing examples of how, you know, you can do it,
00:52:40 --> 00:52:43 too, without even being a math teacher. He doesn't. A lot of the things I do,
00:52:43 --> 00:52:47 you don't have to be a math teacher to be able to do these things. You know, not at all.
00:52:48 --> 00:52:52 But but, yeah, definitely. And also my Web site is all this math dot com.
00:52:52 --> 00:52:56 So. So, yeah, definitely, definitely follow, share.
00:52:56 --> 00:53:00 And I'm trying to change the narrative around mathematics in the black community
00:53:00 --> 00:53:05 Actually, the mission of the company is to improve the relationship between
00:53:05 --> 00:53:06 mathematics and the black community.
00:53:07 --> 00:53:11 Yeah. Well, I appreciate you being a brother to do that.
00:53:11 --> 00:53:14 I think, you know, we have to
00:53:14 --> 00:53:22 be creative and the way that you are using a science like mathematics to,
00:53:23 --> 00:53:28 connect with other relevant things like critical thinking, like history.
00:53:29 --> 00:53:36 Just, you know, expanding somebody's universe, right? Expanding their thought process.
00:53:36 --> 00:53:39 Because I think that's, you know, when I, in my political world,
00:53:40 --> 00:53:44 the biggest challenge I think we have is that we have people with too many people
00:53:44 --> 00:53:46 with too narrow concepts, right?
00:53:47 --> 00:53:52 And the more expansive people can think, the more qualified people we can get
00:53:52 --> 00:53:56 elected and the more productive things we could do as a society.
00:53:57 --> 00:54:02 Now, that may sound Pollyannish, but that's what I want to see achieved.
00:54:03 --> 00:54:08 And so you and others that are doing similar work and other things will help
00:54:08 --> 00:54:12 us get there. So I greatly appreciate that. I greatly appreciate your enthusiasm
00:54:13 --> 00:54:17 for wanting to be on the podcast and coming on, brother. I appreciate it. And thank you so much.
00:54:18 --> 00:54:21 Man i thank you thank you for sharing your platform with me and allowing me
00:54:21 --> 00:54:25 to you know talk my talk about mathematics and promote it you know to the to
00:54:25 --> 00:54:29 the community and and to the world and and yeah i definitely you know in the
00:54:29 --> 00:54:31 world of politics i think that,
00:54:32 --> 00:54:36 mathematics is key to politics because as you said it develops our critical
00:54:36 --> 00:54:40 thinking ability and it helps us to see it helps us develop our consequential
00:54:40 --> 00:54:44 thinking because you know somebody will politician will say well we should do
00:54:44 --> 00:54:46 this and we're going to do this and then it's going to have this outcome
00:54:46 --> 00:54:49 But I think if we're able to think more critically, we'll know,
00:54:49 --> 00:54:52 OK, well, even though he or she is saying that this is going to be the outcome,
00:54:53 --> 00:54:57 we know that when we think, look at things mathematically through that mathematical
00:54:57 --> 00:54:58 lens, it's not going to have that outcome.
00:54:59 --> 00:55:03 There's no way possible it's going to have that outcome. But critical thinking
00:55:03 --> 00:55:06 is required to be able to see that, you know, but oftentimes something a person
00:55:06 --> 00:55:11 will be marketed a certain way and we'll get into the identity politics and
00:55:11 --> 00:55:12 say, well, I like him or I like her.
00:55:13 --> 00:55:17 So then it's like anything they say, just, you know, it's like,
00:55:17 --> 00:55:20 all right, I'm going to take it at face value without having the ability to
00:55:20 --> 00:55:24 actually analyze and assess what the actual outcome is going to be.
00:55:25 --> 00:55:29 You know, which is actually what more to my point of why I believe that there's
00:55:29 --> 00:55:33 nothing coincidental or accidental about our level of math deficiency,
00:55:33 --> 00:55:35 because with that level of math deficiency, that means we're going to have a
00:55:35 --> 00:55:40 certain lack of critical thinking ability, which means that it's easier to control
00:55:40 --> 00:55:46 and manipulate and, you know, bamboozle, you know, large amounts of our people.
00:55:46 --> 00:55:50 Amen to that. Amen to that. All right. So the rule is, is that,
00:55:51 --> 00:55:54 you know, once you've been on, you have open invitation to come back.
00:55:54 --> 00:55:57 So please, please, please take advantage of it, brother. I'd like to talk to
00:55:57 --> 00:56:01 you some more about some, some, some, some stuff.
00:56:01 --> 00:56:06 And, and, and we'll, we'll definitely relate it to mathematics or whatever we talk about.
00:56:07 --> 00:56:11 Yeah, definitely. This is something I just was exposed to, that Shapley-Schubick
00:56:11 --> 00:56:17 Power Index, which deals with decision-making ability in politics.
00:56:18 --> 00:56:25 When congressmen and congresswomen make votes, it's like a mathematical formula,
00:56:25 --> 00:56:30 so to speak, which helps to predict what the potential outcomes could be.
00:56:30 --> 00:56:35 But yeah yeah we'll get it we can get into that next time you come on but definitely
00:56:35 --> 00:56:41 for sure it's going to be interesting to see after November how how,
00:56:42 --> 00:56:48 the Congress is going to shape up and then watch how they respond because,
00:56:49 --> 00:56:53 you probably wouldn't get a good reading based off this last Congress so we
00:56:53 --> 00:56:57 want to see an active Congress and see how that works but again Akil thank you
00:56:57 --> 00:57:00 brother I appreciate you coming on all right brother Appreciate you having me.
00:57:01 --> 00:57:03 All right, guys. We're going to catch y'all on the other side.
00:57:22 --> 00:57:27 All right, we are back. And so now it is time for my next guest, Cole Davis.
00:57:28 --> 00:57:33 Cole Davis is a psychologist and a polymuff who has been a researcher,
00:57:34 --> 00:57:38 data analyst, writer, educator, historian, and philosopher.
00:57:39 --> 00:57:43 With various books to his credit, his current publication is The Stone Age Now,
00:57:43 --> 00:57:50 which is, in particular, how ancient ways of thinking are laying waste to our world.
00:57:50 --> 00:57:54 And we'll be talking about the Stone Age now during the interview.
00:57:54 --> 00:57:58 So ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct honor and privilege to have as a
00:57:58 --> 00:58:02 guest on this podcast, Cole Davis.
00:58:13 --> 00:58:17 All right. Cole Davis, how you doing? So you doing good? Oh,
00:58:17 --> 00:58:21 I'm good to see you. Yes. Thank you. Well, I'm glad to have you on.
00:58:21 --> 00:58:27 You sent me a copy of your new book, The Stone Age Now, Be Happy and Save the World.
00:58:28 --> 00:58:31 And I said, OK, let's have a talk about that.
00:58:32 --> 00:58:37 Instead of just a book review, let's let's let's let's get into why you wrote
00:58:37 --> 00:58:43 this book and all that stuff. So first couple of things I do is icebreakers.
00:58:43 --> 00:58:47 So the first icebreaker is a quote that I want you to respond to.
00:58:48 --> 00:58:52 And the quote is, curiosity is the lust of the mind.
00:58:53 --> 00:58:59 Uh, I would hope that perhaps objectivities would suggest love rather than lust.
00:59:00 --> 00:59:05 But I do think that even if you know exactly what you're planning to do,
00:59:05 --> 00:59:13 the research is necessary and yeah curiosity definitely helps yes yes sir all,
00:59:14 --> 00:59:19 right so now my next icebreaker is what i call 20 questions so i need you to
00:59:19 --> 00:59:23 give me a number between one and 20 four all,
00:59:24 --> 00:59:29 right how should we balance individual freedoms with the common good.
00:59:30 --> 00:59:35 Actually, that's one question that does come up in the Stone Age now, is exactly that.
00:59:35 --> 00:59:42 Because whilst it's certainly reasonable to want your freedom,
00:59:42 --> 00:59:48 people sometimes, quite commonly, don't see when their freedom impinges on other people.
00:59:49 --> 00:59:54 And this is a fine balance, both at the governmental level, but also at levels
00:59:54 --> 00:59:58 of teams and even individuals in social life.
00:59:59 --> 01:00:03 And in terms of politics i think it's extremely important and it's one of the
01:00:03 --> 01:00:10 things that thomas hobbs who gets mentioned in stone age now has to say he he
01:00:10 --> 01:00:12 his answer is to have a mighty,
01:00:13 --> 01:00:19 leadership leviathan as he called it then but his main point was that individuals,
01:00:20 --> 01:00:24 often had different appetites and that there are some individuals who have appetites
01:00:24 --> 01:00:29 that are greater than others and who will want to consume and consume and consume.
01:00:29 --> 01:00:31 And obviously, there's quite a lot of meaning involved in this,
01:00:32 --> 01:00:37 and it can be extrapolated from the 17th century to now that.
01:00:38 --> 01:00:41 Yeah, some people are taking liberties with other people's freedom.
01:00:42 --> 01:00:47 Yes, sir. All right. So why did you decide to write this book at this time?
01:00:48 --> 01:00:51 Well, I wrote it out of exasperation.
01:00:52 --> 01:00:54 I wrote most of it in 2008.
01:00:56 --> 01:01:01 But at the time, it didn't seem quite so relevant to a lot of people,
01:01:01 --> 01:01:06 whereas now the breeders that have actually gone through it now really feel
01:01:06 --> 01:01:10 that it's much more relevant now than it was before.
01:01:10 --> 01:01:13 I personally would say the principles are pretty similar.
01:01:15 --> 01:01:20 Yeah, it's exasperation seeing the same decision-making going on now,
01:01:21 --> 01:01:26 as was damaging the world, as they were doing 20 years ago, 30 years ago, and longer.
01:01:27 --> 01:01:33 And part of this, my idea of atavism, well, not my idea, the idea of atavism, going,
01:01:35 --> 01:01:44 thinking and acting in ancient, outmoded ways, seems to me to be both the problem,
01:01:44 --> 01:01:49 but also potentially the way to actually make radical improvement again.
01:01:50 --> 01:01:53 So yeah it's exasperation let's see for example,
01:01:54 --> 01:01:59 i remember the time when yugoslavia broke up and each country would remember
01:01:59 --> 01:02:05 the atrocities that occurred by citizens of the other country and would then visit that upon.
01:02:06 --> 01:02:12 Upon that those other countries and that cycle is not just in yugoslavia we're
01:02:12 --> 01:02:18 seeing it here in other parts of the world as well but it is just this yeah
01:02:18 --> 01:02:19 people do not seem to be learning.
01:02:20 --> 01:02:24 And yeah, very exasperating and scary in terms of other people,
01:02:25 --> 01:02:29 seeing other people are in great danger from this sort of thing. Yes, sir.
01:02:30 --> 01:02:35 Who was Thomas Hobbes and why do you feel he was misunderstood?
01:02:36 --> 01:02:41 Right. Thomas Hobbes was a philosopher, in that he's still in print.
01:02:41 --> 01:02:44 I guess he is a philosopher, in the 17th century.
01:02:45 --> 01:02:52 He's most famous for a book called Leviathan. Leviathan was basically a.
01:02:53 --> 01:02:57 A type of, uh, study, no, not study.
01:02:59 --> 01:03:06 Sorry, the words go sometimes. Uh, basically he was interested in government,
01:03:06 --> 01:03:10 and the relationship between individuals and the government.
01:03:10 --> 01:03:17 You know, basically his was, if you like, one of the early visitations to the social contract.
01:03:18 --> 01:03:26 Now he me because his leviathan was a monarch and that was his choice people
01:03:26 --> 01:03:30 therefore take him as being an absolutist and ultra conservative that sort of thing,
01:03:31 --> 01:03:36 i am i don't believe that i just believe that he was actually trying to be logical
01:03:37 --> 01:03:42 and that happened when you live just after a civil war, you probably do want
01:03:42 --> 01:03:45 to go with the status quo of the leadership.
01:03:46 --> 01:03:52 But he actually said, your government could be an autocracy, a monarchy.
01:03:53 --> 01:03:58 It could be an aristocracy, an elite, or it could be a democracy.
01:03:58 --> 01:04:03 And whilst he personally was not fond of democracy at the time,
01:04:03 --> 01:04:06 which had a somewhat different meaning anyway, nevertheless,
01:04:06 --> 01:04:09 he was showing that all of these possibilities.
01:04:10 --> 01:04:16 So, as I say, he's been rather misread because Leviathan having a force that
01:04:16 --> 01:04:20 is a necessary governmental force did not have to be a monarchy.
01:04:20 --> 01:04:24 That just happened to be what he said at the time.
01:04:25 --> 01:04:27 I'm not the only revisionist of Thomas Hobbes.
01:04:28 --> 01:04:34 And also his individual psychology of how people think and act,
01:04:34 --> 01:04:41 I think is still quite useful and it certainly at least kicks off a debate between uh.
01:04:43 --> 01:04:49 About individuals and their relationships with the state. I think he's well
01:04:49 --> 01:04:52 worth reading, at least the first part of it, of Leviathan.
01:04:53 --> 01:05:00 Yeah, so Hobbes was, his Leviathan was similar to Machiavelli's The Prince,
01:05:00 --> 01:05:07 in that it was basically relating to the times that they were in and the governments they were under.
01:05:08 --> 01:05:11 Oh, yeah. And so what, you know, my.
01:05:13 --> 01:05:17 My bae if i when i used to have to summarize,
01:05:18 --> 01:05:24 like you know philosophers like that we would say that hobbes was the guy who
01:05:24 --> 01:05:30 thought that people were inherently bad and like plato who thought that people were inherently good,
01:05:31 --> 01:05:35 and i know that sounds simplistic but that was just kind of like for somebody
01:05:35 --> 01:05:39 that wasn't into politics all that stuff it's like well what is this hobbesian
01:05:39 --> 01:05:40 And when they say Hobbes,
01:05:41 --> 01:05:44 and so that's what we say is like, well, Hobbes just thinks that people were
01:05:44 --> 01:05:50 born bad and they have to have government or society to get them in line and get them in shape.
01:05:51 --> 01:05:57 Whereas Plato, you know, felt that people were inherently good and that,
01:05:57 --> 01:06:01 you know, government was designed to maintain that and to fight evil.
01:06:01 --> 01:06:07 So you know but the fact that you in the book were you weren't,
01:06:08 --> 01:06:12 you you basically said he was misunderstood but you went into some detail as
01:06:12 --> 01:06:18 to why he thought the way he thought and all that stuff so and and people have
01:06:18 --> 01:06:20 characterized you as a defender of Hobbes so,
01:06:21 --> 01:06:24 you know I just wanted to ask that question to you well,
01:06:25 --> 01:06:29 I'm one of the revisionists with regards to Hobbes who actually,
01:06:30 --> 01:06:35 I feel that both Hobbes and Plato for that matter are rather...
01:06:38 --> 01:06:44 Are treated with a rather broad brush, as in people identify one as this absolutist
01:06:44 --> 01:06:46 who thinks, well, yeah, the people are all up to him.
01:06:47 --> 01:06:53 I don't think he saw all people as bad. In fact, I'd be surprised if he would.
01:06:54 --> 01:06:59 But he did say that some people have bigger appetites than others.
01:06:59 --> 01:07:05 Basically, we know that regardless of what you're looking at,
01:07:05 --> 01:07:10 whether it's about personality types or intelligence or, in this case.
01:07:12 --> 01:07:15 Moral thinking, he did recognize,
01:07:18 --> 01:07:24 that there's quite a range. He wasn't actually – I think just to say basically
01:07:24 --> 01:07:27 one thought everybody was good and one person said everybody was bad,
01:07:27 --> 01:07:29 I think it's psychologically unlikely.
01:07:31 --> 01:07:35 I think it's a rather crude characterization.
01:07:36 --> 01:07:40 Part of it is because a lot of people like to hear what John Locke has to say,
01:07:41 --> 01:07:48 and certainly Locke and Hobbes were very different in their characterization of human beings.
01:07:48 --> 01:07:51 Locke basically was your top of the rails. He wasn't saying that people were
01:07:51 --> 01:07:56 necessarily good, but he was also saying they could be anything given their environment.
01:07:57 --> 01:08:05 Where Hobbes doesn't disagree with this, but he does suggest that there needs
01:08:05 --> 01:08:10 to be a governing force as well as just what people are.
01:08:12 --> 01:08:16 Let's put it this way. Let's say we look at today's Britain and today's America.
01:08:17 --> 01:08:21 Yes, democracy is important, and we do hope that democracy, well,
01:08:21 --> 01:08:24 I hope that democracy will win out.
01:08:24 --> 01:08:29 But there are, I would challenge people to say that you can get away without
01:08:29 --> 01:08:33 a government, and without a government that has lethal force.
01:08:35 --> 01:08:40 Well, I'd like to hear people telling me that that's not necessary.
01:08:41 --> 01:08:44 I have heard people say it's not necessary, but I'd be surprised.
01:08:45 --> 01:08:50 Apart from else even if the whole of the american people were democratically
01:08:50 --> 01:08:56 inclined what do you do when it comes to defending yourself from a country like
01:08:56 --> 01:08:57 today's russia for example,
01:08:59 --> 01:09:03 i don't think they would just sit looking at us and going oh that's okay you've
01:09:03 --> 01:09:08 got you've got a complete democracy that's got no power behind you that's okay
01:09:08 --> 01:09:10 we won't bother invading or attacking. Of course they will.
01:09:11 --> 01:09:17 Yeah. Yeah, so when you're saying lethal force, you mean as far as a nation-state
01:09:17 --> 01:09:22 and not a lethal force upon its own people? Uh.
01:09:24 --> 01:09:27 It does depend on what its own people are doing.
01:09:29 --> 01:09:34 I, I mean, I would like to, I would, I personally, if you're taking into account,
01:09:34 --> 01:09:40 for example, crimes, would far prefer that people are not, uh, executed.
01:09:41 --> 01:09:48 My emphasis is more on rehabilitation, but I can't say that you can run the country,
01:09:51 --> 01:09:56 without the need for force. Yeah, I got you. I got you. All right,
01:09:56 --> 01:10:01 so what is atavism, and why is it the greatest danger to modern civilization?
01:10:02 --> 01:10:08 Right. Atavism is basically thinking and doing things in an extremely outmoded way.
01:10:10 --> 01:10:18 And what's happening is that people are acting, they're doing things which appear
01:10:18 --> 01:10:23 to be natural, but they may have been appropriate in the Stone Age.
01:10:23 --> 01:10:28 I've used the Stone Age as a literary vehicle, by the way, because people quite
01:10:28 --> 01:10:32 often use this idea of the Stone Age man and modern technology,
01:10:32 --> 01:10:33 but it doesn't have to be.
01:10:33 --> 01:10:37 In fact, an awful lot of this probably comes from the early days of agriculture,
01:10:38 --> 01:10:43 when you to spend when there was a great danger from the agriculturalist point
01:10:43 --> 01:10:49 of view of the nomads who would come and seize what they needed when they wanted it.
01:10:50 --> 01:10:55 Now, things like personal impressions.
01:10:57 --> 01:11:01 Why do we think this political party is doing badly? And it's got nothing to
01:11:01 --> 01:11:06 do with facts. It's got nothing to do with policies. It's just what people happen to feel.
01:11:07 --> 01:11:11 Now this was appropriate when politics was extremely interpersonal,
01:11:13 --> 01:11:19 to use it now when basically prime ministers and presidents are at a great distance
01:11:19 --> 01:11:24 from us really what is impractical people are not able to make serious political
01:11:24 --> 01:11:27 choices because they're still using this impression idea.
01:11:29 --> 01:11:35 Similarly we've got a lot of partisanship and a lot of the partisanship isn't
01:11:35 --> 01:11:41 necessarily again about policy about policies or facts it's actually i'm,
01:11:42 --> 01:11:48 this i'm one of those i'm not one of those and again this was probably a lifesaver,
01:11:48 --> 01:11:54 some tens of thousands of years ago but that's actually the most dangerous thing now.
01:11:55 --> 01:11:59 One example of atavism is what is called revanchism.
01:12:00 --> 01:12:06 Revanchism is when you want your territory back from going back to whatever
01:12:06 --> 01:12:11 time you happened to deem was the time when it should have been yours and it hasn't been six.
01:12:12 --> 01:12:18 And that's a major problem at the moment. It's very much a theme of two of our,
01:12:18 --> 01:12:23 currently most vicious wars going on at the moment.
01:12:24 --> 01:12:29 And yeah and it's still driven by people actually who would go along with the
01:12:29 --> 01:12:32 idea of oh yes ukraine has always been russian,
01:12:33 --> 01:12:37 on this they've always been one of us that sort of thing and similarly you get
01:12:37 --> 01:12:42 the same thing in the middle east as well with different people making claims,
01:12:42 --> 01:12:46 some making claims to certain different times in the 20th century,
01:12:46 --> 01:12:50 others trying to make biblical claims and,
01:12:51 --> 01:12:57 it's not only crazy but it's also immensely dangerous and you know i can bring
01:12:57 --> 01:13:00 a personal point to it really painful to watch,
01:13:01 --> 01:13:05 and and to predict and to be able to predict that it's still going to happen
01:13:05 --> 01:13:08 and we're going to keep doing it yeah,
01:13:09 --> 01:13:13 why do you contend that the nuclear family concept is not natural?
01:13:15 --> 01:13:20 Well, it's a natural version of the family, but it's not the only one.
01:13:22 --> 01:13:28 It has been, and still is in some countries, a tendency for the grandchildren,
01:13:29 --> 01:13:32 and the grandparents to look after the grandchildren,
01:13:32 --> 01:13:38 leaving the adults much more effective in actually getting on with their getting
01:13:38 --> 01:13:44 on with making with what they getting on with the family's survival,
01:13:45 --> 01:13:47 and I,
01:13:49 --> 01:13:52 In terms of practicalities, I don't necessarily see.
01:13:54 --> 01:14:00 That the family unit of children living with parents is necessarily the only way of doing things.
01:14:01 --> 01:14:04 It's not something I feel quite as strong about as some of the other things
01:14:04 --> 01:14:09 I've been talking about, but yes, I think grandparents looking after children
01:14:09 --> 01:14:15 is not unheard of, and you could say economically it might be more practical.
01:14:17 --> 01:14:24 Yeah, because in America, especially in sociological or political conversations,
01:14:25 --> 01:14:31 the nuclear family, which is husband, wife, children, is, you know,
01:14:31 --> 01:14:37 has always been described as the basic unit of society and the ideal unit.
01:14:37 --> 01:14:44 And so a lot of the metrics as far as like whether a child is going to live in poverty or not, or,
01:14:45 --> 01:14:50 whether somebody is going to succeed in college, a lot of those metrics are
01:14:50 --> 01:14:53 determined based off that nuclear family concept.
01:14:53 --> 01:15:00 So it was really interesting to see you address that in the book.
01:15:00 --> 01:15:06 Now, this is audio only, so they can't see it, but the name of the book is called
01:15:06 --> 01:15:10 Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver.
01:15:10 --> 01:15:13 Kingsolver. Yeah, Barbara Kingsolver.
01:15:14 --> 01:15:19 It's partly about child poverty. In this case, it's set in Appalachia.
01:15:20 --> 01:15:24 But it's also about drugs, which is not something I've come to discuss today.
01:15:24 --> 01:15:27 But it's a wonderful book, and I think,
01:15:29 --> 01:15:34 it's worth considering if you're particularly interested in American poverty,
01:15:34 --> 01:15:41 and the strains on the family based on poverty.
01:15:44 --> 01:15:47 Okay. All right. No, she's not paying me anything, by the way. All right.
01:15:47 --> 01:15:52 I'm glad. And then, Ms. Barbara, if you were listening, And,
01:15:52 --> 01:15:56 you know, you're more than welcome to come on the podcast and talk about your own book.
01:15:57 --> 01:16:03 But thank you for recommending that. Why is it dangerous to allow religion to enter into politics?
01:16:05 --> 01:16:13 Religion is not alone. No, it shares with various other institutions this partisanship.
01:16:14 --> 01:16:20 Basically, I've come across this again and again and again, that somebody who
01:16:20 --> 01:16:24 believes in one religion will say, all the other religions are rubbish,
01:16:25 --> 01:16:27 garbage, except ours. Ours is better.
01:16:29 --> 01:16:34 You've already set up a new type of psychological nationalism.
01:16:37 --> 01:16:44 And I think it's Richard Dawkins who says that it can turn good people into bad.
01:16:45 --> 01:16:50 But certainly I don't necessarily agree that it's the only or main cause of
01:16:50 --> 01:16:53 problems in the world, but I don't think it helps either.
01:16:54 --> 01:16:57 And I hope this doesn't insult people who actually are religious.
01:16:58 --> 01:17:05 But I do feel a true separation of religion and state should be the case.
01:17:06 --> 01:17:13 And I think it's one this may be happening more in Britain where but,
01:17:14 --> 01:17:18 I'm not sure that there's sufficient secularization going on and I do think
01:17:18 --> 01:17:24 that religion can be part of the.
01:17:25 --> 01:17:33 Of an atavistic structure because most of them are partly based on history or
01:17:33 --> 01:17:37 prehistory of a particular people,
01:17:38 --> 01:17:42 or they're based on stories told
01:17:42 --> 01:17:48 about a particular religious figure many decades after that person lived,
01:17:49 --> 01:17:56 and people are asked to as people are asked to subscribe to a group of ideas,
01:17:57 --> 01:18:05 and my thinking has been i used to think well all of these have an inherent goodness, and,
01:18:06 --> 01:18:08 that's the tap, the stem of.
01:18:10 --> 01:18:18 Whereas now I'm inclined to think that they're more, again, a form of factionalism, largely.
01:18:19 --> 01:18:23 Well, you see it. I mean, you pointed out in the book, you mentioned about,
01:18:23 --> 01:18:29 you know, you have different divisions or sects of Islam.
01:18:29 --> 01:18:33 The same with the Jewish or Hebrew faith. Same with Christianity.
01:18:34 --> 01:18:36 Christianity just in the United
01:18:36 --> 01:18:40 States alone, you have like multiple denominations all over the place.
01:18:41 --> 01:18:50 And so, you know, it's inherently factionalized if within your own religion,
01:18:50 --> 01:18:54 there's different versions of how to practice the religion.
01:18:54 --> 01:19:00 So when you incorporate that into politics, which, for example,
01:19:00 --> 01:19:05 you know, we talk about Christian nationalism here a lot, but it's like,
01:19:05 --> 01:19:08 which Christianity are you talking about?
01:19:08 --> 01:19:10 Are you talking about Baptist? You're talking about Methodist?
01:19:10 --> 01:19:12 You're talking about Lutheran?
01:19:12 --> 01:19:18 Which one are you leaning toward in order to say that America is this Christian nation? Right.
01:19:19 --> 01:19:22 So I think, you know, I totally agree with you on that.
01:19:22 --> 01:19:28 And, and, you know, the founding fathers, even though people say that,
01:19:28 --> 01:19:31 you know, they were Christians and all that, if you actually study the history,
01:19:31 --> 01:19:35 most of them were not, or if they were, they were not trying,
01:19:35 --> 01:19:37 they were trying to separate that.
01:19:37 --> 01:19:41 And if you understand the history of the people that came here to settle,
01:19:41 --> 01:19:46 they were trying to get away from a situation where you actually had the Church
01:19:46 --> 01:19:50 of England and they said that all the citizens had to ascribe to that.
01:19:50 --> 01:19:54 And those that said, no, we're not feeling that we're going to leave and set
01:19:54 --> 01:19:57 up our own colonies. Right. And a new part of the planet.
01:19:58 --> 01:20:05 So, you know, I don't understand. I don't I don't I don't understand the psychology
01:20:05 --> 01:20:09 as to why people feel that they have to infuse religion.
01:20:10 --> 01:20:14 Other than the fact that they want to have some set of morals,
01:20:14 --> 01:20:21 right? That what you talked about, that inherent good that's in the practice of spirituality.
01:20:21 --> 01:20:29 Well, I would suggest, though, that the idea of the Puritans merely leaving,
01:20:30 --> 01:20:36 a repressive Europe to then have freedom over in the American colonies,
01:20:36 --> 01:20:41 It's a bit of a myth because I think that an awful lot of them came and were
01:20:41 --> 01:20:46 quite repressive of those they thought were not suitably moral people.
01:20:49 --> 01:20:53 They may have come over for their own freedom, but they didn't come over out
01:20:53 --> 01:20:56 of a love of freedom generalized.
01:20:57 --> 01:21:02 Yeah, well, point taken on that. History will agree with your point of view
01:21:02 --> 01:21:04 too. Let me ask you this question.
01:21:06 --> 01:21:10 When a political candidate identifies themselves as a democratic socialist,
01:21:11 --> 01:21:13 should a voter be afraid of them?
01:21:14 --> 01:21:19 On the whole, now, first of all, I need to say that democratic socialist doesn't
01:21:19 --> 01:21:23 necessarily mean exactly the same thing in Britain as it does in America.
01:21:25 --> 01:21:31 I feel that it is not as dangerous as some sets of political beliefs.
01:21:32 --> 01:21:40 It suggests that while they do believe in greater regulation than your mainstream
01:21:40 --> 01:21:45 conservative or Republican or Democrat, Democratic parties,
01:21:46 --> 01:21:50 I think it is crucial that they are still saying that we are nevertheless Democrats.
01:21:50 --> 01:21:55 Presumably they mean this with the small D as well as the necessary and as well as the big d,
01:21:56 --> 01:22:02 in our own setting here they are to the left wing of the labor party,
01:22:03 --> 01:22:08 now i personally am no longer on that side of things but i can see some validity
01:22:08 --> 01:22:15 to it so no i don't think you should be afraid unless you're,
01:22:16 --> 01:22:21 unless you're an adherent of the sort of idea where everything is free,
01:22:21 --> 01:22:25 including free speech, as including telling outright lies.
01:22:27 --> 01:22:32 Or if you're wanting a situation where businesses can do what they like,
01:22:33 --> 01:22:41 regardless of the effects on members of the public, and regardless of the law, then yes.
01:22:41 --> 01:22:46 But I don't think you should be afraid of democratic socialists per se,
01:22:47 --> 01:22:50 I think you will find that they are still Democrats with a small d.
01:22:51 --> 01:22:56 They're democratic in intent. I have not heard, I've certainly read that in
01:22:56 --> 01:23:00 America there are people who will take out the word socialism and that they
01:23:00 --> 01:23:05 will shout like mad about it and say, yeah, they're going to turn us into communists.
01:23:06 --> 01:23:09 I think this is an unreasonable extrapolation of what they're doing.
01:23:10 --> 01:23:18 So i yeah i don't think i don't think that you should be too worried about them personally,
01:23:19 --> 01:23:23 doesn't mean you have to agree with them right right it is one thing but you
01:23:23 --> 01:23:29 know like the fear mongering that's going on in in the political season here,
01:23:30 --> 01:23:35 one of the things that we're reminding people is that franklin delano rolleveld
01:23:35 --> 01:23:41 who was elected four times to be president united States was probably the best
01:23:41 --> 01:23:44 example of socialism in the United States.
01:23:45 --> 01:23:48 And he did that because the markets had failed.
01:23:49 --> 01:23:56 You know, he inherited the Great Depression. And so he took it upon himself.
01:23:56 --> 01:24:00 And he didn't get everything that he wanted. You know, he wanted to pack the
01:24:00 --> 01:24:05 Supreme Court and a few other things. But a lot of things like he did with the
01:24:05 --> 01:24:11 WPA and the Triple C and other projects that were out there.
01:24:11 --> 01:24:15 You know social security which all of us still benefit from here,
01:24:16 --> 01:24:21 i mean all that stuff was under him and so you know when people talk about socialism
01:24:21 --> 01:24:26 we have to remind people that it's like you know what the example they want
01:24:26 --> 01:24:29 to use is like you know like in cuba,
01:24:29 --> 01:24:33 where castro was saying he was a more of a socialist than a communist,
01:24:34 --> 01:24:40 and so for those people that left cuba if you say socialist or communist to
01:24:40 --> 01:24:43 them, they might have an adverse reaction to that.
01:24:43 --> 01:24:49 And so they, you know, and there's a lady running in Florida who has identified
01:24:49 --> 01:24:50 herself as a Democrat socialist.
01:24:50 --> 01:24:53 And so they're trying to say, well, see, she's trying to be like Castro.
01:24:53 --> 01:24:59 I mean, you know, even gone as far as to say she celebrates Castro's birthday, which is not true.
01:24:59 --> 01:25:05 But, you know, I wanted, because you address and define socialism in the book,
01:25:06 --> 01:25:08 I wanted you to answer that question because.
01:25:11 --> 01:25:19 People going by gut reactions instead of facts tend to make these generalizations.
01:25:19 --> 01:25:28 Once again, we're going by impressions and also a tendency to use words and to react to them.
01:25:29 --> 01:25:34 Very symbolist. Yeah, certainly, from what I can gather, the,
01:25:35 --> 01:25:40 Florida Republicans in particular, ones of Cuban extraction do rather react
01:25:40 --> 01:25:44 as soon as they hear the word and they compare it with Castro's government, things like that.
01:25:46 --> 01:25:52 What I say in my book is that socialism and capitalism, to some extent,
01:25:52 --> 01:25:57 can be more on a type of continuum, particularly of state control.
01:25:59 --> 01:26:05 In other words, it's not necessarily reasonable for people to shout, oh,
01:26:06 --> 01:26:13 these are communists, any more reasonably than it is for me to say about particular,
01:26:13 --> 01:26:15 conservatives, oh, these are fascists.
01:26:15 --> 01:26:19 They're both misuses of of terms,
01:26:20 --> 01:26:25 but as i say i personally feel that a more objective way of looking at it is
01:26:26 --> 01:26:32 the degree of state control that you need going i'm going back to hobbes i mean hobbes,
01:26:32 --> 01:26:37 is also suggesting that you do need control of one type or another,
01:26:38 --> 01:26:42 but how much of it is the more modern question is how much of it,
01:26:43 --> 01:26:52 where obviously the socialists do want more regulation than their conservative counterparts that's.
01:26:54 --> 01:26:57 Within certain bounds that i think is a reasonable thing to say,
01:26:57 --> 01:27:03 but so therefore where on the where on this continuum is it reasonable to say
01:27:03 --> 01:27:07 ah they're socialists they're communists they're they're one or the other i
01:27:07 --> 01:27:10 think that people do rather jump at names.
01:27:11 --> 01:27:18 One of, yeah. Okay. I'm an anti-symbolist, really, I guess, if I'm anything. Yes, sir.
01:27:18 --> 01:27:21 Has racism hindered America's growth?
01:27:23 --> 01:27:26 Yes, I think so. Perhaps I've answered that one rather quickly, but.
01:27:28 --> 01:27:35 It still appears that the Civil War and the failure of Reconstruction meant
01:27:35 --> 01:27:41 that the development of millions of people was damaged.
01:27:43 --> 01:27:48 It meant that literacy for millions of people just wasn't there.
01:27:49 --> 01:27:53 And this has an effect. We know just from,
01:27:55 --> 01:28:00 studies of educational progression, this is in Britain, but I'm fairly sure
01:28:00 --> 01:28:02 it's similar in America, that,
01:28:03 --> 01:28:09 homes without books mean that the children from those homes are less likely
01:28:09 --> 01:28:11 to thrive educationally.
01:28:12 --> 01:28:17 Now if you then move towards racism in particular obviously the treatment of
01:28:17 --> 01:28:24 black people well for hundreds of years including well at least well into the last century,
01:28:25 --> 01:28:31 this means that you've got a whole mass of people who are have the equivalent
01:28:31 --> 01:28:35 of that of being brought up with so much disadvantage,
01:28:36 --> 01:28:44 so you've got conflict obviously but you've also got a failure to thrive for millions of people.
01:28:45 --> 01:28:53 I just cannot see how you could see that as being anything other than a failure,
01:28:53 --> 01:28:55 in progress. Basically,
01:28:57 --> 01:29:03 people have been let down. Yeah. Yeah. I, well, I mean, it's just so obvious.
01:29:03 --> 01:29:11 I'm not sure I, I can say more without going into the details of Andrew Johnson and all the rest of it.
01:29:11 --> 01:29:16 Yeah. But you, you nailed it on the head and that's one of the examples that
01:29:16 --> 01:29:20 you use in a book about the, when the Roman empire was successful,
01:29:21 --> 01:29:27 it was people of all different ethnicities and, cultures and all that that fell
01:29:27 --> 01:29:31 under the empire and touted the empire even fought for the empire,
01:29:32 --> 01:29:39 and and and you know it was like that diversity helped the empire stay strong
01:29:39 --> 01:29:43 and when they started delving into things like slavery and other things that's
01:29:43 --> 01:29:47 you know and there was a whole lot of other issues as you point out in the book,
01:29:47 --> 01:29:51 that led to the empire's downfall but Slavery did not help it,
01:29:52 --> 01:29:54 right? Social and justice did a lot.
01:29:54 --> 01:30:00 It was a major problem, yes. Yeah, so it's like, you know, that's one of the
01:30:00 --> 01:30:04 arguments we've always tried to expose to people was that.
01:30:06 --> 01:30:11 America is the only nation on the planet where there is a citizen from every,
01:30:12 --> 01:30:17 country in the world that has residency in the United States.
01:30:17 --> 01:30:20 It's the only country that has that distinction.
01:30:20 --> 01:30:26 And we've always argued that is a strength for us that is not a hindrance,
01:30:27 --> 01:30:31 and when you get these people that have this nationalistic viewpoint you know
01:30:31 --> 01:30:35 it's like there's an american is this,
01:30:36 --> 01:30:40 and it's like oh an american is a person that looks in the mirror every day
01:30:40 --> 01:30:45 that lives in the united states that's a citizen that's what an american is and the sooner,
01:30:46 --> 01:30:51 we could grasp that concept, I think the sooner we can propel ourselves,
01:30:51 --> 01:30:56 because we always brag about being the number one nation in the world, but to really be that,
01:30:56 --> 01:31:01 one of the things we have to embrace is our diversity and all that stuff.
01:31:02 --> 01:31:07 Let me, I got a couple more questions, and I'm already over what I promised
01:31:07 --> 01:31:12 you, but let's see if we can power through. I'll do my best. Well, no, so will I.
01:31:13 --> 01:31:15 Why is self-sufficiency a delusion?
01:31:17 --> 01:31:23 All right. I do, I am aware over in America that you do have people who want
01:31:23 --> 01:31:28 to live in nuclear bunkers and want to get together as communities.
01:31:28 --> 01:31:38 Is i'm not sure how how possible it is for that to last a very long in any one place more generally we,
01:31:39 --> 01:31:44 if you're going to actually be a capitalist state where you are trying to actually
01:31:44 --> 01:31:50 or a capitalist society where you are going to allow the free flow of goods,
01:31:51 --> 01:31:53 so that there is genuine competition.
01:31:54 --> 01:31:57 That all sounds great, but there's another side to it too, which is that if
01:31:57 --> 01:32:03 you don't have that, you won't get the sort of competition of a healthy capitalism.
01:32:06 --> 01:32:11 In our case, for example, over here in Britain, we haven't been agriculturally
01:32:11 --> 01:32:14 self-sufficient for I don't know how long.
01:32:15 --> 01:32:23 I think an attempt was made during the days of invasion or potential evasion,
01:32:23 --> 01:32:29 Second World War, First World War, the polyonic wars, attempts were made to be, basically,
01:32:30 --> 01:32:32 at the moment, if we truly had a war,
01:32:33 --> 01:32:39 we would be so reliant on other countries, and we could literally be starved
01:32:39 --> 01:32:41 out. I hope Mr. Putin isn't listening to this.
01:32:44 --> 01:32:50 So, I think it's a dream, and it's part of this dream of,
01:32:52 --> 01:32:55 It's an atavistic dream. We have the whole world here.
01:32:55 --> 01:32:59 There are some disadvantages to being part of the world, but nevertheless,
01:33:00 --> 01:33:03 economically, it's a pike dream.
01:33:04 --> 01:33:08 We need food, and quite often food needs to actually move across different countries.
01:33:08 --> 01:33:12 And again, if you allow another country to starve.
01:33:14 --> 01:33:18 Leaving aside the moral implications, what are the likely political ones?
01:33:18 --> 01:33:24 We see people genuinely fleeing from certain African states at the moment.
01:33:25 --> 01:33:27 Basically, they're starving.
01:33:27 --> 01:33:34 And we should try to do something about it, although it sounds very socialist to do so. If we don't,
01:33:36 --> 01:33:41 the consequences are almost incalculable. So, yeah,
01:33:43 --> 01:33:46 lots of people want to be sufficient.
01:33:46 --> 01:33:51 Autarky, is it? Autarky, I think, is the insufficient system.
01:33:51 --> 01:33:53 I can't remember the word, but I think it's autarky.
01:33:54 --> 01:34:00 I think it's a bit of a dream. I won't even talk about your tariff situation at the moment.
01:34:03 --> 01:34:08 To be honest, I'm not sure I understand sufficiently. Well, you're not the only
01:34:08 --> 01:34:13 one. We're here, and we have no clue what the president is doing with the tariff
01:34:13 --> 01:34:15 thing, but we'll move on from that.
01:34:16 --> 01:34:18 How can politicians be better,
01:34:20 --> 01:34:28 How can politicians be better? Well, I think they have to try to overcome the
01:34:28 --> 01:34:34 electoral barrier, which is because they've got an election every two or four years,
01:34:35 --> 01:34:40 people are actually chasing policies which will get them back in. And I understand that.
01:34:41 --> 01:34:44 You know, if you want a democracy, you've got to have a democracy.
01:34:44 --> 01:34:45 You've got to have elections. I mean, that's why.
01:34:46 --> 01:34:52 At the same time, that chasing short-term policies is a problem because a lot
01:34:52 --> 01:34:57 of our problems won't be dealt with just by one star like Mr.
01:34:57 --> 01:35:00 Burnham or Mr. Trump or whoever just doing their thing.
01:35:02 --> 01:35:08 Many reforms are going to have to go on for years, eight years, 12 years, 30 years.
01:35:09 --> 01:35:16 So basically, politicians will do better to at least consider having committees,
01:35:18 --> 01:35:24 to agree on certain policies, regardless of their political shade.
01:35:25 --> 01:35:27 That's not happening. And...
01:35:29 --> 01:35:31 And I think, I mean, we have a thing called select committees,
01:35:32 --> 01:35:36 and they are specialists in whether it's defense or it's health,
01:35:37 --> 01:35:40 and they focus on those things.
01:35:40 --> 01:35:44 But basically, and I'm sure the Americans have got a similar thing.
01:35:45 --> 01:35:47 I do excuse my ignorance. While I know quite a lot about America,
01:35:48 --> 01:35:52 I don't have as much idea of modern politics as you guys do, obviously.
01:35:53 --> 01:36:00 But i do think that a greater focus on the long term and more power for these
01:36:00 --> 01:36:06 select committees in other words it's for the president for example to override,
01:36:06 --> 01:36:11 a select committee i think they'd have to be a rather difficult barrier for them to meet,
01:36:12 --> 01:36:17 so yeah an emphasis on on long-term work i would also say going to my theme,
01:36:17 --> 01:36:20 try to have a think each time you want to legislate about,
01:36:21 --> 01:36:26 is this just some belief that I've picked up from my upbringing,
01:36:26 --> 01:36:30 or is this actually something I objectively think is important for the country?
01:36:31 --> 01:36:38 But yeah, agreement to do certain things in the long term, I think is really important.
01:36:38 --> 01:36:40 I think it's possible too.
01:36:41 --> 01:36:45 Yeah. All right. So you end your book with this passage.
01:36:45 --> 01:36:50 Happiness can be achieved by good works and by independent reflection of what is good.
01:36:51 --> 01:36:55 The constellations of philosophy are those of active thought,
01:36:56 --> 01:37:00 as long as we do not reflect over much on whether or not we are happy.
01:37:01 --> 01:37:06 If you concern yourself with your overall value to society, however modest,
01:37:06 --> 01:37:10 then perhaps you can save the world and be happy.
01:37:10 --> 01:37:17 So my question to you is personal. What have you done to achieve that definition of happiness?
01:37:18 --> 01:37:23 Up until very recently, I've been doing voluntary work.
01:37:24 --> 01:37:29 I had to recognize, as a patriot, of course, that my country no longer needs me.
01:37:30 --> 01:37:38 So basically, yeah, I have done some voluntary work because now I'm getting old and also rather ill.
01:37:38 --> 01:37:43 I've now reduced my voluntary work to occasions when people happen to call on
01:37:43 --> 01:37:45 me or that problem bangs on my door.
01:37:46 --> 01:37:48 Did literally a couple of days ago. Drive me mad.
01:37:51 --> 01:37:57 Obviously, the writing of this book, I've previously been a conventionally published
01:37:57 --> 01:38:02 author of books on statistics, because part of my work has been in research.
01:38:03 --> 01:38:05 But I would like to think that this book,
01:38:08 --> 01:38:11 may gain some traction in getting people to look at,
01:38:13 --> 01:38:16 getting a look at longer-term, more objective ways of dealing with things.
01:38:17 --> 01:38:18 As far as happiness is concerned.
01:38:21 --> 01:38:26 What I've said about happiness in the book is, A, don't chase it,
01:38:27 --> 01:38:31 but by doing useful things, you may contribute to your own contentment.
01:38:32 --> 01:38:37 I'm not going to claim that this is my own formulation. It certainly isn't.
01:38:37 --> 01:38:45 It's based on a variety of research findings by psychologists of a greater caliber than myself.
01:38:46 --> 01:38:52 But the findings tend to suggest that happiness is a fleeting phenomenon.
01:38:53 --> 01:38:59 Quite often, as they say, I didn't realize I was happy until I looked back.
01:39:00 --> 01:39:04 And I do think that people actually can, by just chasing what they think is
01:39:04 --> 01:39:07 going to make them happy, is not necessarily going to do so.
01:39:07 --> 01:39:12 And also, it's been shown that people who do see there's a value to what they
01:39:12 --> 01:39:16 do and are trying to do something valuable for their country or for people,
01:39:17 --> 01:39:21 quite often do sense, not necessarily, well, let's stop calling it happiness.
01:39:21 --> 01:39:25 As I say, happiness is a fleeting concept, but may get a certain contentment.
01:39:27 --> 01:39:31 Whether or not they will actually help to change the world? Well, I hope so, but I'm not,
01:39:34 --> 01:39:37 I can't sound necessarily optimistic. All right.
01:39:38 --> 01:39:44 All right. So that leads me to my challenge. Finish this sentence. I have hope because.
01:39:47 --> 01:39:52 I have hope because people are still communicating with each other.
01:39:53 --> 01:39:58 And some of them are doing so with goodwill and with an ability to listen.
01:40:00 --> 01:40:07 I have hope that people will continue to read and will try to work a bit harder
01:40:07 --> 01:40:12 at reading other points of view than just their own.
01:40:13 --> 01:40:17 Unfortunately, there's quite a lot of that, but I do think it is possible.
01:40:19 --> 01:40:24 And quite frankly, if our current environmental community woes don't scare the
01:40:24 --> 01:40:28 living daylights out of people they they really should,
01:40:29 --> 01:40:35 yes sir all right well cole davis first of all thank you for for coming on to the podcast and,
01:40:35 --> 01:40:40 thank you for writing this book if people want to get the stone age now be happy
01:40:40 --> 01:40:44 and save the world how can they do that and how can they reach out to you.
01:40:46 --> 01:40:49 Generally speaking, people will buy via online stores.
01:40:50 --> 01:40:55 In Britain, we've got one bookshop that actually does stock it.
01:40:56 --> 01:41:01 You can see that on, but on the whole, most people would have to get it on online stores. Yeah.
01:41:02 --> 01:41:07 Amazon, Barnes and Noble, that sort of thing. Okay. And how can they reach out to you personally?
01:41:08 --> 01:41:11 While it would be very nice to hear from people and their views,
01:41:11 --> 01:41:14 I'm not selling it. I'm not selling them personally.
01:41:14 --> 01:41:19 And yeah but yeah by all means if people want to send me an email that's fine
01:41:19 --> 01:41:25 they can find on the publisher's website if they want to exchange ideas but but no i'm not actually,
01:41:26 --> 01:41:30 flogging them myself to use the cockney cockney phrase all,
01:41:31 --> 01:41:36 right well well mr davis thank you again for coming on i greatly appreciate
01:41:36 --> 01:41:40 it one of my rules is that once you've been on you have an open invitation to come back,
01:41:41 --> 01:41:46 and I fully expect you to take advantage of it and I look forward to having
01:41:46 --> 01:41:48 another conversation with you but thank you again,
01:41:49 --> 01:41:52 for for coming on today Eric that was a very uh,
01:41:53 --> 01:41:57 it was quite a tough interview I and it did show that you obviously took quite
01:41:57 --> 01:42:02 a lot of care and actually uh looking through my book and uh and picking at
01:42:02 --> 01:42:05 picking at its potential weak points. I was impressed.
01:42:06 --> 01:42:09 Yes, let's certainly think about meeting again.
01:42:25 --> 01:42:31 All right, and we are back. And so I just want to thank Akil Parker and Cole
01:42:31 --> 01:42:33 Davis for coming on to the podcast.
01:42:34 --> 01:42:37 And so you know that the feature works.
01:42:38 --> 01:42:44 These two gentlemen both requested to be on the podcast. They both sought me out.
01:42:45 --> 01:42:50 So just imagine this brother here and Mr. Davis over in England.
01:42:50 --> 01:42:53 Both of them sought to be on the podcast.
01:42:54 --> 01:43:00 And considering what they were bringing to the table, I was more than honored to have them come on.
01:43:00 --> 01:43:06 And I hope that you enjoyed those conversations. I hope you realize the commitment
01:43:06 --> 01:43:10 and dedication that both of these gentlemen have to trying to make this world a better place.
01:43:11 --> 01:43:17 And, you know, I don't know them know them, but based on the conversations we
01:43:17 --> 01:43:22 had off air, both of them have made tremendous sacrifices to get to this point.
01:43:23 --> 01:43:28 Where they have a platform to talk about how we can do better.
01:43:29 --> 01:43:34 And so I'm just glad that somehow, someway, I was a part of that journey.
01:43:35 --> 01:43:39 And I hope that you all got something beneficial out of those conversations.
01:43:40 --> 01:43:46 So I won't be long because I said what I wanted to say about Ms.
01:43:46 --> 01:43:52 Pardon at the beginning, but there's something else that's bothering me.
01:43:53 --> 01:43:59 And as somebody that's run for public office, somebody that's run for a statewide
01:43:59 --> 01:44:01 slash national position,
01:44:02 --> 01:44:10 you know, one of the things I try to do on this podcast is give you the uncensored,
01:44:10 --> 01:44:14 unfiltered opinions of those guests that I bring on.
01:44:14 --> 01:44:24 And I have told people either before or after the interview that this is not a got you show.
01:44:24 --> 01:44:27 We're not trying to put you in an uncomfortable position.
01:44:28 --> 01:44:32 I do try to ask challenging questions to get the best out of the guest.
01:44:33 --> 01:44:40 And so far from the reviews from the guests, I've done a pretty good job in
01:44:41 --> 01:44:42 pulling out stuff from them.
01:44:43 --> 01:44:45 Including these two gentlemen today.
01:44:47 --> 01:44:53 So that is my job. Now, if somebody says something on the show that's really
01:44:53 --> 01:44:58 crazy, I've got this moment in the podcast where I can address that.
01:44:59 --> 01:45:03 If it's something that needs to be fact-checked or whatever the case may be.
01:45:05 --> 01:45:13 But I try not to be confrontational with the guests, and I want them to get their point across.
01:45:15 --> 01:45:20 I just went to an event last week, and I saw a couple of people that I've been
01:45:20 --> 01:45:25 trying to get on the podcast, and I just reminded them. You know, it's like, hey, look,
01:45:28 --> 01:45:31 one in particular, we're not on the same political spectrum.
01:45:32 --> 01:45:39 But I do respect how that person operates and just reminded them,
01:45:39 --> 01:45:43 hey, look, the invitation is still there. I need you to come on the show.
01:45:44 --> 01:45:48 So hopefully we'll make that happen. But I,
01:45:49 --> 01:45:54 and I get that there are certain things that people do that you have to ask
01:45:54 --> 01:45:59 the question about if that's what part of the dynamic of the person.
01:46:00 --> 01:46:04 And there's ways that you can ask the question to get them to talk about it,
01:46:04 --> 01:46:06 in their own comfort zone.
01:46:06 --> 01:46:11 You don't necessarily have to be confrontational with them, but just give them
01:46:11 --> 01:46:13 the runway and let that plane take off.
01:46:14 --> 01:46:22 What I've been seeing with the Democratic candidates going on shows that allegedly,
01:46:23 --> 01:46:28 are liberal or pro-Democratic politics.
01:46:30 --> 01:46:38 Is the constant reminder of how we as Democrats figure out a way to snatch defeat
01:46:38 --> 01:46:39 out of the jaws of victory.
01:46:40 --> 01:46:46 It is amazing to me that we harp on things that are irrelevant or crazy.
01:46:47 --> 01:46:54 Because the only reason why you're doing that is to diminish the opportunities
01:46:54 --> 01:46:55 for those Democrats to win.
01:46:56 --> 01:47:01 I asked Mr. Davis, should people be afraid of democratic socialists, right?
01:47:02 --> 01:47:08 You know, but people want to, you know, it's like, well, why did you say you
01:47:08 --> 01:47:09 were a democratic socialist?
01:47:10 --> 01:47:15 Okay, that's a fair question. But then, you know, when they answer the question,
01:47:16 --> 01:47:22 and they say, look, you know, in the case of Angie Nixon, I am a member of the
01:47:22 --> 01:47:25 Democratic Socialist Organization.
01:47:25 --> 01:47:30 I don't agree with everything that they say. Now, that's what she said.
01:47:30 --> 01:47:34 And she even enumerated some things, right?
01:47:36 --> 01:47:40 You know, that's no different than me saying I'm a member of the Democratic
01:47:40 --> 01:47:45 Party, but I don't agree with everything that's on the Democratic platform.
01:47:45 --> 01:47:48 That's happened before and it'll happen again.
01:47:49 --> 01:47:54 Because when we get into those discussions about the issues we're going to run
01:47:54 --> 01:47:56 on, we have debates about them.
01:47:57 --> 01:48:02 And especially during the presidential year, at least we used to have platform
01:48:02 --> 01:48:10 committees and sit there and determine what is the Democrat platform for that election cycle.
01:48:11 --> 01:48:16 And the candidate addresses that. Now, sometimes the candidate doesn't like,
01:48:17 --> 01:48:24 everything on the platform, so he or she will just kind of cherry pick around that.
01:48:26 --> 01:48:32 Whereas our Republican friends run wholeheartedly with theirs.
01:48:32 --> 01:48:34 I mean, Project 2025 was their agenda.
01:48:35 --> 01:48:38 They didn't hide from it. Well, Donald Trump tried to lie and say that he didn't
01:48:38 --> 01:48:42 know about it. But everybody that was on the staff, campaign staff,
01:48:42 --> 01:48:49 everybody that's in this current administration, they all had like chapters in the book. Right.
01:48:51 --> 01:48:59 So, you know, but, you know, for the most part, they ran with that on their full chest, you know.
01:49:01 --> 01:49:09 And they don't equivocate. And their ecosystem tries to boost them up in such
01:49:09 --> 01:49:14 a way that once they get elected or, you know, they're like deified.
01:49:14 --> 01:49:18 I mean, Ken Paxson is the worst human being ever, but you wouldn't know that
01:49:18 --> 01:49:19 if you listen to Fox News.
01:49:20 --> 01:49:28 But on the Democratic side, we want to tear people up by who we are associated with, right? All right.
01:49:28 --> 01:49:32 We've got a young man who won the Democratic primary in Michigan.
01:49:33 --> 01:49:36 And there are some Democrats in Michigan that are like, well,
01:49:36 --> 01:49:37 I don't know if I'm going to support them.
01:49:38 --> 01:49:42 Well, if I'm in the leadership of the Democratic Party in Michigan,
01:49:42 --> 01:49:47 I would tell those folks, either you get on board or you can go on across the street.
01:49:48 --> 01:49:53 Because in the fair election, primary that was held, the majority of people
01:49:53 --> 01:49:58 that showed up in the Democratic primary voted for Dr. El Saeed.
01:49:59 --> 01:50:03 He won the nomination. In Florida, Angie Nixon won the nomination.
01:50:04 --> 01:50:07 So if you claim to be a Democrat and you can't get behind them,
01:50:08 --> 01:50:14 then you're really not a Democrat because you had your chance to support who
01:50:14 --> 01:50:18 you wanted to support and to get them over the finish line in the primary.
01:50:19 --> 01:50:22 It wasn't like these people were appointed. It wasn't like somebody was in a
01:50:22 --> 01:50:25 back room and just drew a name out of a hat.
01:50:25 --> 01:50:33 These people got before the electorate and they chose these individuals to be the nominee.
01:50:33 --> 01:50:36 The team has been selected for the most part nationally.
01:50:37 --> 01:50:41 Again, like I said last week, I wanted Jasmine Clark to have the opportunity
01:50:41 --> 01:50:42 to be a Democrat nominee.
01:50:43 --> 01:50:48 People in Texas said James Tallarico. You know what? Great. Team Tallarico, here I am.
01:50:51 --> 01:50:56 That's how that works. So if you claim to be a Democrat and you can't do that,
01:50:57 --> 01:51:00 then you're not a Democrat.
01:51:01 --> 01:51:06 You can in the primary you don't want that person to get in then you do what
01:51:06 --> 01:51:09 you can to get the person that you want in elected,
01:51:10 --> 01:51:15 but after the process is over that's it and even if you still don't like them,
01:51:16 --> 01:51:21 don't find a microphone or a tape recorder and say that you still don't like
01:51:21 --> 01:51:25 this person that's one number two,
01:51:26 --> 01:51:29 This association problem, right?
01:51:30 --> 01:51:36 You know, I had to denounce somebody when I was running for the U.S. Senate.
01:51:37 --> 01:51:44 And the main reason why I had to denounce that person was because Chuck Schumer,
01:51:45 --> 01:51:47 wanted to use that against me.
01:51:47 --> 01:51:52 He wanted to label me, an elected official, as some kind of lunatic, right?
01:51:53 --> 01:51:59 Because they wanted somebody that had a name who actually wasn't.
01:52:00 --> 01:52:04 I won't say he was a lunatic, but let's just say he was not fit for the job.
01:52:05 --> 01:52:08 And he's a good guy, but he wasn't ready for primetime.
01:52:11 --> 01:52:15 But because he had the name and because of where he was from,
01:52:16 --> 01:52:21 they wanted him to be token opposition, right, if they were going to have somebody.
01:52:23 --> 01:52:28 And I got called in. This is the first time I ran in 06. I got called in.
01:52:29 --> 01:52:34 And, you know, folks were trying to convince me to drop out. Party leaders.
01:52:35 --> 01:52:39 And I had to break it down to them because I was running against Trent Lott.
01:52:40 --> 01:52:47 And Trent was sitting on $10 million in 2006. He was sitting on $10 million.
01:52:49 --> 01:52:55 And their whole argument was, well, Eric, we need you to, you know, we don't,
01:52:56 --> 01:53:01 you know, we're trying to focus our efforts on getting these white Democrats
01:53:01 --> 01:53:06 in these swing districts reelected in the state house, in the state Senate.
01:53:08 --> 01:53:13 And I said, if I don't run against Trent Lott, then he's got $10 million to
01:53:13 --> 01:53:14 do whatever he wants to do.
01:53:15 --> 01:53:19 At least give me the shot to make him spend three of it so he'll only have seven.
01:53:20 --> 01:53:26 Can y'all manage to wage a campaign if he only has $7 million at his disposal,
01:53:27 --> 01:53:28 to help these candidates?
01:53:29 --> 01:53:32 And once I broke it down to him like that, I said yes.
01:53:33 --> 01:53:36 Now, Chuck Schumer wasn't sold on that.
01:53:37 --> 01:53:40 And when he found out that I was involved with Lyndon LaRouche,
01:53:41 --> 01:53:43 and when I say involved, it was like Mr.
01:53:43 --> 01:53:51 LaRouche invited me to events, you know, had me lobbying for causes like stopping
01:53:51 --> 01:53:55 the country of Mexico from selling their oil and national gas rights to a company
01:53:55 --> 01:53:56 that was about ready to go bankrupt,
01:53:57 --> 01:54:00 or closing the urgent,
01:54:01 --> 01:54:03 the emergency care.
01:54:03 --> 01:54:08 The trauma unit in D.C., the only hospital that had a trauma unit in D.C., stuff like that.
01:54:10 --> 01:54:18 And because of that, and Mr. LaRouche had said some things that were interpreted as being anti-Semitic.
01:54:19 --> 01:54:25 And even though his whole agenda was dealing with Zionism,
01:54:25 --> 01:54:36 which is the concept of European Jews wanting to establish a nation state in
01:54:36 --> 01:54:38 the homeland, which is Israel, right?
01:54:39 --> 01:54:44 So, he's a nationalist, just like the Christian nationalists,
01:54:44 --> 01:54:45 right? He's a nationalist organization.
01:54:47 --> 01:54:51 And so, because he was so firm on that, there were some people or a lot of people
01:54:51 --> 01:54:53 who felt that he was anti-Semitic.
01:54:54 --> 01:54:59 Even though he had Jewish people as his major lieutenants in the organization.
01:55:00 --> 01:55:05 Nonetheless, because there were people that actually cared about me,
01:55:06 --> 01:55:11 that said, hey, you might need to distance yourself from this guy, I did that.
01:55:11 --> 01:55:18 And I felt kind of bad about that because, you know, I remember when two years
01:55:18 --> 01:55:22 later, Obama had to do the same thing with Jeremiah Wright. And I went to high
01:55:22 --> 01:55:23 school with his daughter.
01:55:24 --> 01:55:27 And I knew what Reverend Wright was talking about. if you're black,
01:55:27 --> 01:55:29 you understood exactly what he was talking about.
01:55:31 --> 01:55:38 But Obama was at that point where he had to win and they didn't want anything.
01:55:38 --> 01:55:40 So he had to distance himself from Reverend Wright.
01:55:42 --> 01:55:47 And just like President Obama, it hurt me to distance myself from somebody just
01:55:47 --> 01:55:52 because they said something that we don't necessarily agree with or we don't,
01:55:53 --> 01:55:56 we wouldn't have said it the way that they said it. Right.
01:55:57 --> 01:55:59 They wanted me to distance myself from Farrakhan. And I'm like,
01:55:59 --> 01:56:03 I'm not even a member of the Nation of Islam. What are you talking about? Right?
01:56:04 --> 01:56:07 I mean, it was just all this paranoia about this, that, and the other.
01:56:08 --> 01:56:15 And so Schumer put this guy on me, Ron Gusenberg, who's been blogging about
01:56:15 --> 01:56:18 Florida politics and national politics for years.
01:56:19 --> 01:56:22 So he had been doing it for years before I met him. And so now 20 years,
01:56:23 --> 01:56:27 he's been in the game for over 20 years, probably 30 or 40 at this particular point.
01:56:27 --> 01:56:33 But Ron's a legit guy. And at that time, his blog was one of the influential
01:56:33 --> 01:56:36 blogs in the Democratic ecosystem.
01:56:37 --> 01:56:44 So he sicked Ron on me, and I basically made my denouncement on Ron's blog.
01:56:46 --> 01:56:52 And Ron put it out there, and that was the end of that.
01:56:52 --> 01:56:56 And I ended up getting the Democratic nomination, and then, of course,
01:56:56 --> 01:57:03 I lost to Trent. Then Trent put me on the target list along with the white Democrats he was after.
01:57:04 --> 01:57:10 You know, they found somebody, you know, the support of the Democratic primary against me and she won.
01:57:10 --> 01:57:12 That's politics. That's how it goes. Right?
01:57:14 --> 01:57:20 They just, and really, they got a bonus because they didn't think that she could
01:57:20 --> 01:57:25 beat me. They just wanted me to understand it and appreciate me running against Trent Lott.
01:57:26 --> 01:57:28 But they ended up backing a good candidate.
01:57:29 --> 01:57:34 So she won, right? That's how the ball bounces, you know?
01:57:35 --> 01:57:39 And they thought that was going to end my political career. And then I ended
01:57:39 --> 01:57:43 up being a Democrat nominee two years later in 2008.
01:57:45 --> 01:57:52 And so I know what Dr. El-Said, I know what Angie, I know what all these other
01:57:52 --> 01:57:54 folks are going through. Been there, done that.
01:57:55 --> 01:58:01 And I just think it's stupid for the media to keep harping on it.
01:58:01 --> 01:58:05 I know everybody wants their Pulitzer Prize moment or Peabody or Edward R.
01:58:05 --> 01:58:06 Murrow moment, whatever.
01:58:07 --> 01:58:10 But it's like if you hear other people asking that question,
01:58:11 --> 01:58:17 maybe you don't need to ask it. Or maybe you need to be more creative in how you ask it, right?
01:58:18 --> 01:58:23 This whole thing about Hassan Piker. Look, Hassan has his podcast.
01:58:23 --> 01:58:27 He's a comedian by profession. Let's get that straight, first of all.
01:58:28 --> 01:58:36 He's a comedian, and he uses his platform to support people that he believes in.
01:58:37 --> 01:58:43 Now, he is intelligent enough to know that everything that he says on his podcast,
01:58:44 --> 01:58:48 the people that he's endorsing are not going to agree with that because he's
01:58:48 --> 01:58:50 deliberately trying to push the envelope.
01:58:51 --> 01:58:57 No different than Joe Rogan or anybody else or Nick Fuentes, right?
01:58:57 --> 01:59:04 But if you show up on his podcast, well, okay, then we got to show up on Joe's or Nick's.
01:59:04 --> 01:59:08 Then people are going to ask questions, well, why did you feel comfortable going on those shows?
01:59:09 --> 01:59:13 That's a legitimate question. And if your answer should be.
01:59:15 --> 01:59:19 I don't agree with everything these people say, but I'm trying to reach as many
01:59:19 --> 01:59:28 people as I can get this message out, you know, and my advisors thought it would be safe for me to do that.
01:59:29 --> 01:59:32 Now, whether people accept that or not, that's it. But that's,
01:59:32 --> 01:59:39 it's really all you can do because you can't control if an asshole, right?
01:59:39 --> 01:59:44 Or a crazy person endorses you. You can't control that at all.
01:59:45 --> 01:59:49 You know, if somebody shows up and says, hey, I'm campaigning for Eric Fleming.
01:59:51 --> 01:59:55 I don't know this joker from Adam's house cat, or I may have heard about him on TV.
01:59:56 --> 01:59:59 I didn't ask him to come, or I didn't ask her to come. They just showed up.
02:00:00 --> 02:00:02 They used their platform to say, Eric Fleming's a good guy.
02:00:04 --> 02:00:07 And then they keep saying, well, are you going to campaign? I wasn't campaigning
02:00:07 --> 02:00:10 with him from Jump Street, right?
02:00:10 --> 02:00:17 He showed up or she showed up and said, I support this guy. I support Eric Fleming.
02:00:18 --> 02:00:22 So I'm supposed to be like, to hell with that? I said, that individual has the
02:00:22 --> 02:00:24 right to say whatever they want to say.
02:00:25 --> 02:00:29 I don't agree with everything, but I do agree with the fact that I'm the best
02:00:29 --> 02:00:31 person for this job. I do agree with that.
02:00:32 --> 02:00:34 That's the one thing we definitely agree on.
02:00:35 --> 02:00:38 And just keep it moving. But they keep bringing it up, over,
02:00:38 --> 02:00:40 everybody. Everybody's got to have their moment.
02:00:43 --> 02:00:47 Like it's Chinese water torture, and this is the moment that they're going to crack.
02:00:48 --> 02:00:54 It's like that's why people try to get exclusives, so they can get those questions in.
02:00:54 --> 02:00:57 And then everybody else is like, well, you're just going to have to do the best
02:00:57 --> 02:01:00 you can. And I know there's some producers that are like, hey,
02:01:00 --> 02:01:04 you got to ask them the question because so-and-so asked the question. No, we don't.
02:01:05 --> 02:01:07 We don't have to ask them the question, right?
02:01:08 --> 02:01:13 Because our job is not to destroy the people that are going to give us an opportunity
02:01:13 --> 02:01:15 to get out of this mess, right?
02:01:17 --> 02:01:21 And I want you to understand that, you know, and then some people will say,
02:01:21 --> 02:01:24 well, we're doing them a service because Republicans are going to bring it out there.
02:01:25 --> 02:01:29 Then let the Republicans do that work. You ain't got to test them no more.
02:01:29 --> 02:01:31 They battle tested. They won the primary.
02:01:32 --> 02:01:37 They're battle tested. Whatever nasty things were said by other fellow Democrats
02:01:37 --> 02:01:40 in the primary, they weathered that storm, and they're in there.
02:01:42 --> 02:01:44 There are black people in Detroit right now that are saying,
02:01:44 --> 02:01:46 well, you know, I don't know about this guy.
02:01:48 --> 02:01:52 And then it's like, hey, didn't you get your glasses from that guy?
02:01:53 --> 02:01:57 You remember that program he did? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah,
02:01:57 --> 02:01:59 that was him. You know, you've got to...
02:02:01 --> 02:02:07 Don't know. You know, I just, it's a self-destruct mechanism that's within the
02:02:07 --> 02:02:11 Democrat, the Democratic Party mindset.
02:02:12 --> 02:02:18 It's like, you know, it's kind of like you go through the military boot camp
02:02:18 --> 02:02:22 or you go through law enforcement academy.
02:02:23 --> 02:02:27 And the whole concept of that is to create an incredible amount of stress levels.
02:02:27 --> 02:02:32 So then when you actually are out there, whether it's at war or on your patrol,
02:02:33 --> 02:02:39 that you can handle it because you manage the stress for those 11, 12 weeks, right?
02:02:40 --> 02:02:44 The reason why they had these programs set up for like three months,
02:02:44 --> 02:02:51 basically, for you to just deal with the most craziest, illogical situations.
02:02:52 --> 02:02:54 You're at stress at all levels, whether you're taking a test,
02:02:55 --> 02:02:57 whether you're doing PT, whatever.
02:02:57 --> 02:03:00 Everything is a stress test, right?
02:03:01 --> 02:03:07 Because most of your military duty, most of your law enforcement duty is not
02:03:07 --> 02:03:09 going to be that stressful, not every day.
02:03:10 --> 02:03:13 There will be moments, but it won't be like that every day.
02:03:14 --> 02:03:19 But their whole goal is to get you ready for that moment, right?
02:03:20 --> 02:03:25 And so just imagine that after you've done all that, then the people that.
02:03:26 --> 02:03:32 Whether it's your military unit or your precinct, every day,
02:03:33 --> 02:03:38 they're constantly questioning the stuff that you've already dealt with in boot camp or in the academy.
02:03:39 --> 02:03:41 They're constantly putting you through a stress test for no reason.
02:03:42 --> 02:03:46 You could be having a calm day and then all of a sudden they come up with some
02:03:46 --> 02:03:50 crazy stuff in-house that you got to deal with.
02:03:51 --> 02:03:54 That's what's happening right now. These people have gone through the primary
02:03:54 --> 02:03:58 process. They've done that. They've survived. They've earned the nomination.
02:03:59 --> 02:04:04 So why do we have to put him through a stress test, right?
02:04:04 --> 02:04:09 That's, the enemy is there now. Now it's like, okay, we're out. We're out of boot camp.
02:04:10 --> 02:04:13 So now we're in battle. So I'm ready.
02:04:14 --> 02:04:19 I don't need, I don't need any war trading at this point. We're at war, you know?
02:04:20 --> 02:04:24 It's time to fight the enemy. It's time to focus on them.
02:04:25 --> 02:04:30 If you constantly, like, you know, hit me with friendly fire,
02:04:31 --> 02:04:36 then it's like that takes away my focus. If I got to duck your bullets,
02:04:37 --> 02:04:39 then I might get hit with one of theirs.
02:04:40 --> 02:04:43 You know, now people are going to do what they want to do. And they're going
02:04:43 --> 02:04:46 to say, well, you know, we're generalists. You don't understand.
02:04:46 --> 02:04:47 Yada, yada, yada, this, that, and the other.
02:04:48 --> 02:04:50 I know greed when I see it.
02:04:51 --> 02:04:56 And just like you can condemn the greed that Donald Trump and all these folks,
02:04:57 --> 02:05:00 you know, are doing with our taxpayer dollars, right?
02:05:01 --> 02:05:07 Your greed is different. Your greed is clout chasing your fame or trying to
02:05:07 --> 02:05:11 make a name for yourself or trying to prove your bona fides, right?
02:05:12 --> 02:05:16 But it seems to me that if you got your own show on national television,
02:05:17 --> 02:05:19 I don't think you got anything else to prove.
02:05:19 --> 02:05:24 You know, if the people watch your show, you'll stay on. If the ratings are
02:05:24 --> 02:05:25 bad, they'll take it off.
02:05:26 --> 02:05:31 But obviously you've done enough to prove that you're legitimate enough to have
02:05:31 --> 02:05:34 a national show. You've paid your dues.
02:05:35 --> 02:05:42 So you don't have to continue to destroy or attempt to destroy people.
02:05:43 --> 02:05:46 There's a proposal on your team. The Republicans get it.
02:05:46 --> 02:05:51 Like I said, Kim Paxson As contemptible as he is, I promise you,
02:05:51 --> 02:05:55 if you watch Fox News, they're not going to bring any of that stuff up.
02:05:56 --> 02:05:58 They're going to sugarcoat it and all that stuff.
02:05:59 --> 02:06:03 Whether it's right or wrong, it's strategy. Right?
02:06:04 --> 02:06:09 And if you claim that you want this to end, then you need to have a strategy.
02:06:10 --> 02:06:14 See, Graham Plattner got taken out in the primary. Right?
02:06:15 --> 02:06:18 When it got too much to bear for folks, he had to drop out.
02:06:19 --> 02:06:25 And now you've got another candidate in Maine that can possibly win, right?
02:06:27 --> 02:06:32 If you keep trying to dig up stuff on your own people and it just gets closer
02:06:32 --> 02:06:36 and closer to time, there's literally like 60-some days before the election.
02:06:38 --> 02:06:41 It's time to focus in on it. The Republicans are getting ready.
02:06:41 --> 02:06:46 Look, the Republicans are getting ready to have a midterm convention. That's how bad it is.
02:06:47 --> 02:06:54 They want to have a moment on primetime TV in a midterm year to remind people,
02:06:54 --> 02:06:57 hey, we're not as bad as it may seem like we are.
02:06:59 --> 02:07:02 Now, of course, it's not going to go away with the plan because the president,
02:07:03 --> 02:07:07 is who he is. And it's basically going to be like, I'm not the bad guy.
02:07:08 --> 02:07:13 And all these guys, if they want my endorsement, have to agree with that.
02:07:14 --> 02:07:17 If they want my blessing, if they want my money from my PACs,
02:07:18 --> 02:07:19 this is really all about me.
02:07:20 --> 02:07:23 I'm just saying it's for the midterm, but it's really all about me.
02:07:24 --> 02:07:29 So it's not going to benefit the Republicans at all, but it's just going to
02:07:29 --> 02:07:33 remind American people, I need to go vote.
02:07:33 --> 02:07:38 And we need to get all those people that showed up on stage out.
02:07:39 --> 02:07:48 That's all it's really going to do. But if, you know, if our shows are trying
02:07:48 --> 02:07:53 to tear down candidates in states that we need to win, we need to win all of them in the U.S.
02:07:53 --> 02:07:56 Senate. Every last one needs to win.
02:07:57 --> 02:08:00 It's not like, well, we got to have four, you know.
02:08:00 --> 02:08:04 No, if we got a Democratic candidate running, all of them need to win.
02:08:04 --> 02:08:06 None of them are sacrificial, whether it's Ms.
02:08:08 --> 02:08:18 Perolta in Alaska or Angie in Florida or Dr. El Saeed in Michigan or Jackson
02:08:18 --> 02:08:21 in Maine or whoever, right?
02:08:21 --> 02:08:23 Stratton in Illinois. She's running.
02:08:24 --> 02:08:28 It's not a given that she'd go in. She's running.
02:08:28 --> 02:08:31 Well, I think she's running for governor. No, she's running for the Senate.
02:08:32 --> 02:08:37 Yeah. So, I mean, we got all these people running all over the place,
02:08:37 --> 02:08:39 and they all need to win. All of them.
02:08:40 --> 02:08:43 We're not even talking about a person running in Wyoming.
02:08:44 --> 02:08:48 Ah, we can't win that. Hey, you know, the way things are going,
02:08:49 --> 02:08:54 there's cattle ranchers in Wyoming that are not happy that Argentinian beef
02:08:54 --> 02:08:55 is about to flood the market.
02:08:56 --> 02:09:03 Nothing is a given. Nothing. We cannot surrender any seat. We cannot throw anybody
02:09:03 --> 02:09:05 under the bus at this point.
02:09:06 --> 02:09:13 It's time for us to fight the real enemy and stop fighting amongst ourselves.
02:09:14 --> 02:09:18 The primaries are over. The team has been selected.
02:09:19 --> 02:09:24 It is time to support and root for the team. I'm in Georgia,
02:09:24 --> 02:09:27 so John Ossoff is my guy for the U.S. Senate.
02:09:28 --> 02:09:33 At this event I was at, somebody brought Mike Collins in there.
02:09:35 --> 02:09:39 Let Mike Collins speak. There's none more black folk in the room and let Mike
02:09:39 --> 02:09:40 Collins speak to these black folks.
02:09:41 --> 02:09:45 We weren't hearing that because we know Mike Collins.
02:09:47 --> 02:09:51 We're not supporting him. So, you know,
02:09:52 --> 02:09:58 so I guess it's not really a controversy here in Georgia about who's on It's
02:09:58 --> 02:10:02 also for Senate and bottoms for governor.
02:10:03 --> 02:10:06 That's pretty much dealt with and done.
02:10:07 --> 02:10:12 So now the question becomes, what are the rest of the country going to do?
02:10:12 --> 02:10:19 You know, we got to get people elected in spite of gerrymandered districts like,
02:10:19 --> 02:10:24 Shamari Figures in Alabama or Justin Pearson in Tennessee, right?
02:10:26 --> 02:10:31 Get Ms. Janew elected in Vermont, even though the Republican is like,
02:10:31 --> 02:10:37 well, you know, I don't really like Trump. It's like, bruh, you don't hate him either.
02:10:40 --> 02:10:51 He got to go. It's like Minnesota, Flanagan, everybody, everybody that's running for the U.S.
02:10:51 --> 02:10:57 Senate, you got to get behind them and stop trying to find something to boost
02:10:57 --> 02:11:02 your ratings or get you a shot at some kind of a war down the line.
02:11:03 --> 02:11:08 Because once they get elected, they'll have enough. There will be real issues.
02:11:09 --> 02:11:14 And we'll be watching to see if those folks live up to their promises.
02:11:15 --> 02:11:17 Because that's when you start holding them accountable.
02:11:18 --> 02:11:22 You don't want to assassinate somebody because somebody, It was some guy that
02:11:22 --> 02:11:29 lived on the same block of Barack Obama that either made a terroristic threat or did something crazy.
02:11:29 --> 02:11:33 And he said because he lived on the same block and they asked him,
02:11:34 --> 02:11:35 I was aboard my neighbor.
02:11:36 --> 02:11:40 So Barack Obama had to deal with this guy. He he probably barely knew.
02:11:41 --> 02:11:44 But because he lived on the same block, he had to address that. Right.
02:11:48 --> 02:11:53 You don't want to go after the Republicans for who they associate with. Sometimes you do.
02:11:54 --> 02:11:59 Some of y'all, a lot of y'all do. But y'all equivocate with them.
02:12:00 --> 02:12:03 Y'all actually have those folks come on your show, right?
02:12:04 --> 02:12:08 See, if you really wanted to send a message about Hasan Piker,
02:12:09 --> 02:12:10 have him come on the show.
02:12:11 --> 02:12:14 Not the candidates you're trying to get elected. If you think he's the problem,
02:12:15 --> 02:12:20 have him come on the show and ask him the questions because of your position
02:12:20 --> 02:12:24 on this, because you don't you think you're hurting the people that you're that
02:12:24 --> 02:12:26 you claim to support. Put him on the spot.
02:12:27 --> 02:12:32 Don't put the candidates on the spot because a candidate's job is to get every vote they can.
02:12:33 --> 02:12:36 You know, tell you another quick story. I got to go.
02:12:36 --> 02:12:41 I got, but, and I may have told this story before, but when I ran for a tax collector, right,
02:12:42 --> 02:12:48 they had this big event in Raymond, Mississippi, and I gave my speech and all
02:12:48 --> 02:12:54 that, and there was this white guy who came up to me and was just like, oh man.
02:12:56 --> 02:13:00 That was amazing, I'm supporting you, whatever you need, da-da-da-da,
02:13:00 --> 02:13:02 yada-da-da, this is another, Right.
02:13:03 --> 02:13:08 And I say, cool. So the reporter, it was this guy named Danny McKenzie.
02:13:09 --> 02:13:12 And Danny was, I guess he lived down in Raymond. I don't know.
02:13:12 --> 02:13:14 But he was the organizer of the event.
02:13:14 --> 02:13:20 And we literally had to stand. It was a stump, literally a tree stump that we had to stand on to speak.
02:13:22 --> 02:13:27 Danny kind of pulled me aside afterwards. He said, I noticed this guy was really, really talking to you.
02:13:28 --> 02:13:31 He said, do you know who that guy is? And I said, I have no idea who he is.
02:13:32 --> 02:13:36 He said, that's James Richardson. And I said, oh, snap.
02:13:37 --> 02:13:40 He said, yeah. I said, okay, well, glad you told me that.
02:13:41 --> 02:13:44 Now, Danny didn't have to do that, right? But he told me that.
02:13:46 --> 02:13:51 Okay I get it so Mr.
02:13:51 --> 02:13:57 Richardson was the reason my opponent at that time was in the office Mr.
02:13:57 --> 02:14:00 Richardson had been accused of stealing some money,
02:14:01 --> 02:14:08 and he resigned and so the governor appointed this guy Pepper to be the tax
02:14:08 --> 02:14:14 collector and then Pepper turned around and switched parties and became Republican so So...
02:14:16 --> 02:14:20 I was the first or second person to run against him after he became a Republican.
02:14:22 --> 02:14:25 And, you know, it was the long shot because it was a good old boy network.
02:14:25 --> 02:14:30 Pepper was in the good old boy network because they were flipping.
02:14:30 --> 02:14:33 He had already just made the switch. Others had not.
02:14:34 --> 02:14:38 And so the courthouse gang is what they called them.
02:14:39 --> 02:14:44 And so, you know, but Richardson was the reason why Pepper was in there.
02:14:45 --> 02:14:51 So naturally, I didn't want Pepper saying, oh, well, Richardson is helping that
02:14:51 --> 02:14:54 young man run. He's trying to control him and blah, blah, this.
02:14:54 --> 02:14:56 I didn't want to give him the opportunity.
02:14:57 --> 02:15:01 And the reason why I knew that, because Danny McKinney did something that he
02:15:01 --> 02:15:04 didn't have to do. And he gave me a heads up.
02:15:05 --> 02:15:07 Because he saw that I was, you know, being friendly with him.
02:15:07 --> 02:15:10 I was being friendly with everybody. Because I'm trying to give votes.
02:15:11 --> 02:15:18 And, you know, but Danny didn't do a story saying Richardson supports Fleming
02:15:18 --> 02:15:21 and none of that, because he could have, because he witnessed,
02:15:21 --> 02:15:22 he saw Richardson talking to me.
02:15:22 --> 02:15:26 He could have been an ambitious reporter and done that, but he didn't do that.
02:15:27 --> 02:15:31 He gave me a heads up, right? Say, hey, be careful.
02:15:32 --> 02:15:36 Now, if later on, after he gave me the heads up, I was hanging out with Richardson
02:15:36 --> 02:15:39 and doing this and doing that, well, then that's on me. Now,
02:15:39 --> 02:15:41 I do have to explain that.
02:15:42 --> 02:15:47 But again, I can't control the fact that Mr. Richardson is going to vote for me in the election.
02:15:48 --> 02:15:53 I can't control the fact that he probably went to his neighbors in Raymond and
02:15:53 --> 02:15:55 said, hey, I'm voting for that Fleming guy.
02:15:56 --> 02:16:00 His fear of influence. I don't know how many votes Mr. Richardson got for me,
02:16:01 --> 02:16:03 but he wasn't a part of my campaign.
02:16:03 --> 02:16:11 But I couldn't control him campaigning for me either because that's not how that works. I mean...
02:16:13 --> 02:16:18 Sure, there's some people with some questionable backgrounds that are fans of
02:16:18 --> 02:16:23 these reporters asking these questions, right? They can't control that.
02:16:25 --> 02:16:29 I mean, how would you feel if somebody went up to a reporter and said,
02:16:29 --> 02:16:31 well, hey, I heard Charles Manson loves your show.
02:16:32 --> 02:16:34 What do you think about that? What can you do?
02:16:35 --> 02:16:40 Yeah, I think Manson's still alive. I don't know. But what can you do?
02:16:41 --> 02:16:45 Sirhan, Sirhan. Big fan of your show. What are you going to do about that?
02:16:46 --> 02:16:50 Nothing. You can't. How can you even answer that question? What do you do?
02:16:51 --> 02:16:58 So if a podcaster or somebody that's throwing out flame-throwing takes says,
02:16:58 --> 02:17:02 I support this candidate, the candidate has no control of that.
02:17:03 --> 02:17:09 And, you know, I've yet to see a Republican denounce any of the crazy folks
02:17:09 --> 02:17:14 that's on their side because they understand their enemy is the Democrats.
02:17:15 --> 02:17:19 Now, if you want to make an ethical argument, so be it.
02:17:19 --> 02:17:23 But in reality, the whole concept of battle and war and all that,
02:17:23 --> 02:17:27 it's really not an ethical concept anyway, but we do it.
02:17:28 --> 02:17:31 So, you know, I just...
02:17:33 --> 02:17:37 Really bothered me. And if you agree with that, cool. If you don't agree with
02:17:37 --> 02:17:39 that, let me know either way.
02:17:40 --> 02:17:44 But that's just from my experience. That's just the frustration.
02:17:44 --> 02:17:50 I want to see Angie Nixon, Dr. El Saeed, and every Democrat on the ticket win.
02:17:51 --> 02:17:55 Will that happen? Probably not. The young sister in Oklahoma,
02:17:55 --> 02:17:59 Thomas, the nurse, you know, they're trying to jump on her.
02:17:59 --> 02:18:02 It's like, bruh, she is the nominee.
02:18:02 --> 02:18:09 Get behind her. It hurt my heart when I was in running for the U.S.
02:18:09 --> 02:18:15 Senate in Mississippi, and Shamari's mom was running for the Senate in Alabama
02:18:15 --> 02:18:19 at the same time, and the folks in Alabama were at my fundraiser,
02:18:20 --> 02:18:24 and basically saying that Miss Vivian couldn't win in their own state.
02:18:25 --> 02:18:29 And I told them, I said, I appreciate y'all coming over and showing support
02:18:29 --> 02:18:34 and all that, but Ms. Vivian can win if y'all get behind her.
02:18:35 --> 02:18:39 And I broke it down to them. Now, neither one of us won.
02:18:39 --> 02:18:47 But I'm hoping that my conversation with them at least gave them some kind of
02:18:47 --> 02:18:49 a commitment to at least show face for her.
02:18:50 --> 02:18:55 But that hurt my heart. It's like, well, you know, we can't win.
02:18:55 --> 02:18:59 Why even have a primary, right? Why accept the money?
02:19:00 --> 02:19:05 Because that's how parties initially make their money is off these filing fees.
02:19:06 --> 02:19:11 So if you don't want anybody to run, then don't accept any filing fees for that position.
02:19:12 --> 02:19:16 You're a private organization. You can do that. The Supreme Court said that you're a private club.
02:19:17 --> 02:19:21 So you can deny membership. If you don't want to have a primary because you
02:19:21 --> 02:19:24 don't think you can win, then don't accept the money from people wanting to run.
02:19:26 --> 02:19:28 But if you're a true political party...
02:19:29 --> 02:19:33 In every seat. And you compete for every seat.
02:19:34 --> 02:19:39 So not only do you accept the money, but you expend your resources to make sure these people win.
02:19:40 --> 02:19:43 Stop trying to tear them down from behind the scenes and all that.
02:19:44 --> 02:19:49 Because if this fool Rogers gets in in Michigan because somebody said,
02:19:49 --> 02:19:52 well, I didn't like the fact that he hung out with Hassan Piker.
02:19:53 --> 02:19:56 Bruh, that's one less vote toward impeachment.
02:19:57 --> 02:20:03 I mean, the goal should be to get every Senate seat available.
02:20:04 --> 02:20:08 If there's 36 seats out there, I don't know how many, 33, 36.
02:20:09 --> 02:20:15 We need to try to get all of them. Every last one of them is on the ballot. Every last one.
02:20:16 --> 02:20:19 Then you won't even have to worry about the conversation about a filibuster.
02:20:20 --> 02:20:25 Get them all. Help these people win. Stop trying to take them down on the slide
02:20:25 --> 02:20:29 because they don't fit your perfect definition, right?
02:20:32 --> 02:20:36 They don't meet the political availability test in your mind.
02:20:37 --> 02:20:41 They are the Democratic nominee. They are the team. Support the team.
02:20:42 --> 02:20:44 All right, that's all I got. Thank y'all.