Taniesha Henry on Integrity, the Courts, and the Power of Voting | We Talk Weekly

Cop in the window shop and trying to figure about what's in store without something and you feeling lost. Just understand opportunity walk not to you fel the floor. What you based the facts? You back to track to get your inspiration back this game uncess. When your patient said the vocus frock is something to you, would you choose to ride that? She is never who should try? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah y'all. We talked weekly, definitely in the building. We talk weekly is after talking to people m r P Philadelphia one oh six point five film. We talked weekly after they talk and of course we got a dynamic show I'm so excited about. But first, you know, she boy with the beautiful classic beautiful. It's definitely in the house. And we got a dynamic show for you today. You know, we got some good news and wait, it's a good news. It's good news, and yeah, it's it's pretty much good. I'm gonna just give you all the good news to that. I appreciate it. Yeahs or whatever? Good bad news, right, and so we got good news, bad news. We got some information, ladyes, you got some story or something for us today? Yeah, you know, how keep you up going on in the city. There you go, there you go. We got some stuff that's going on in the city. And of course we got the good old folks, the beautiful people that's doing those things in the greets. As I say, they're doing some good work. And you know, if you don't already know, let me pull this slide up because we talk about this a lot, because you know what we talk we try to do our civi of duty right and so so get ready to vote and make sure you register to vote. That last day to register the vote is the fifth uh yeah, yeah, right around the corner of the municipal primary. Right. The last day to apply for a mail in Bolot is May thirteenth, and then a good day to day that everyone is waiting for is May twentieth. And we have some of the people that said hired that's running for election that's coming up. You know, we had a good old folk here, right, and we put them through, like, yo, what are you gonna do for these people? Right? And uh so we're gonna talk a little bit about that. But we got some great people. We got Kadeta coming in too, you know, so she's gonna talk a little bit about some of the good, great work that she's doing and making sure that people know not only their rights, but you know, make sure that there are understanding how to operate within this ecosystem and their civic duty as well. So as I gave you a little you know, kind of run down on the show, you know, I got to ask you how was your day? How was you dak? I had a great day, a great day. Can I give a shout out to shout out my little sister Valentina. So she has big beer barbershop in Germantown. She also has a nonprofit called United from Strife and she does a lot in the community giving food and everything away. And today Krasner came to just talk to the people. It was just really talking to the people she has. She has helped release xgoneries, you know, inmates or people who were convicted of something that they didn't do and they later found out that they were, you know, innocent. So the x Hogneries were there and they were basically just praising Krasner because if it weren't for him, it's what they said that you know a lot of them wouldn't be home. So yeah, so did a lot of that and yeah, it was just a beautiful day. Went to the plat just set out and just I mean literally just looked up into the sky. Who don't know what the plant is for those who don't know what the plant is. Me and my cousin actually went out to the plateau. So she was like, let's just go and just where don't know, I mean, which is in Philly. It runs long, so it's like it covers South Philly, south southwest West Philly plateau. Don't go on no south south Philly, I said, southwest and come from southwest Philly. Yes, West Philly. Okay, west, yes, yes, I do. It covers West Philly going in the wind. But yeah, all that stuff. So yeah, so we we sat there, we uh we looked at the sky and just just it was just a good vibe. The the people were out, the children, just people with their bikes. It was just it was just just great, which is. Amazing for the Philadelphia people out there. And I know I'm here from her when she'd be like, come on, Spark, why you know where it's at in southwest But we had a good park does go through Southwest, so I'm gonna give you that. But okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and that's what I'm okay. You know, I'm gonna tell you. Fairmount Park is the I think it's the biggest park, and that's what I was thinking. So thank you, thank you for saving me on that. Okay. And so that runs past the airport that's actually part of Fairmount Park A lot. I don't know that that is like literally right, it's huge. Yeah, yeah, it's okay. So for people who don't have grass in your front yard and Philly, it's like you yeah, y'all could go to the park. Yeah, So that was my day. My day was good. I had a good day. It started out with so that was nice. My nephew and my aunt gotized. So it was nice to witness that and be a part of that and just had a day with family. So that's what I was going on there. Family, Manta family. And so without further wait, your dad he always gets he just he's so modest. Can you let us know what you just? Can you just tell us what you just encountered abroad? All yeah, So well, so let's bring it up later because we got a guess one of this. Don't forget that. We'll run back into it in between guests and dark. What had happened was right, and so we'll talk a little bit about that, but without further ado, class lady, why don't you let us know who we have to day? Who do we have to day? Absolutely so, today we have Miss Tanisha Henry. She's a West Philadelphia native and a lawyer legal expert. She's dedicated her career to advocating for vulnerable youth and families. With the Juris Doctorate and Dispute Resolutions Certificate, she has served as a family court mediator and assistant city solicitor. Guided by her motto, I love this. Whomever desires to be great among you is one who lives in service of others, she continues to uplift her community through legal and pro bono work. Y'all already know what to do. Let's give a warm we talk weekly. Welcome to Miss Tanisha Henry. How are you? How are you? Welcome? Welcome, welcome, thank you. So oh so let's talk. Let's start from the beginning and talk about what pretty much got you into you know you ya. Let's talk about your civic work you engage in the community. Before we talk a little bit about where you are right now, because I like to walk people through the story. Right, And so do you have any siblings? Yes? I do, I have siblings now the parents, the siblings you growing up? Right? What was that like and what pushed you to kind of like some of the work you do. Was it your siblings or your siblings doing some similar work? Was your mom like, look, baby, I need you, I need you to get in and get in them streets and go hard. I mean, what got you no focus and started in that? Ye? So I was raised for a good deal by my maternal grandparents, who, for sure and my grandparents were known in the neighborhood as servants. They had a policy where they never changed their number and if you showed up and needed something, they would provide it and you would never hear about it in the street. And so living with them and seeing that inside the home, because community service starts at home, which tangible to you was right at your front door. They also were churchgoers, avid churchgoers, heavy in their faith, and so there was the church that we went to had a shelter for homes, families and individuals. People would struggle with addictions and things like that. I still vividly remember after school, I was not allowed to go home. I had to report to the shelter to help my grandmother cook the food for the women, the children, and the men who came through the shelter. I remember knowing that every week, so even that they were demonstrating to me, we are servants, we are here to serve, We are here for one another, not for ourselves. And so that's how I was trained, that's what I was built upon coming from that bringing. When I became a teenager, my mother was an international missionary. She didn't take me and my sisters with her when we lived in Saint Michael, Barbados, West Indies, and we helped to stabilize a church and help them get off the ground, increase the membership, revitalize the music department, and engaged with the community. And so we became essentsion like, not just there to serve in that area, but an extension to the family, to the community where they took us on as family. I was only a teenager at the time. My sisters were a little bit younger than me, but we were very active. We did everything alongside my mother because it was just us. I was also there long enough to attend school, and I had to. I walked miles to and from school every day. There were no sidewalks, just dirt rolls. You had cars driving on the opposite side like they do in Europe, and dodging cars and chickens literally gathering at my ankles. For miles in my track to and from school. I could look to my left or right and see my neighbors publicly bathing because not everyone had access to indoor water. And so I thought, coming from West Philly, where there were times where I would go to school and didn't have shoes or the souls were missing for a semester or season, I'm thinking I'm poor at home. It's idea exactly, a very different experience and eye opening when you get to that level of poverty. That resonated with me. When I came back home, I was inspired. I had to do more. People need things at a basic level, and if you're able to give, like my grandparents taught me, you do so and you never asked for a dime, you never look for a thank you, and you don't mention it because it's what in your heart that matters when you give to people. So one of the problems I saw on my community was access access to legal resources. Sometimes it's just too expensive. Sometimes people didn't have access to the internet. People are just not in the know. When you're so down and out on the struggle, you don't know why let me run over here because so and so can help me, or you're afraid to for whatever reason, and so, you know, don't talk about it, be about it. Somebody has to step up. You're going to say something, you need to also show up. So I said, okay, I need to be an attorney so that I can give people, not just you know, my people, but there are poor people of every race, every background, every everything, access to resources. And so for the past at least ten years, I've been providing pre and legal pro bono work two people who can referred by telephone, people that find me on social media. People if I'm talking to somebody and they hear I'm an attorney, they're like, oh, well, we're glad you hear because we need your help. And so I am very accessible. People contact me Facebook, social media, Instagram, in the street. People call me from Philadelphia, from other counties, from other states and jurisdictions, and people need help. People need guidance. People don't know things, but they know there's somewhere in attorney little inser the phone, no matter what's time and today, what's to night. And even if I'm not knowledgeable in your subject area, I will find the resources that you need and I will connect you to them and we're gon. We're going to get there. Because you kind of jumped over because one of the things your alma maters girls high Yes, and so as you were in college, I mean, I'm sorry, as you were in high school, was that something that you knew that you wanted to pursue in terms of your legal work. Was it a teacher or was it a friend that was like, you know what you kind of you know you can talk, you know, you need to be an attorney or something like what was that impetus that sparked that fire to be an attorney? If you ask one of my auntie, she will tell you that I've been telling people I was going to be an attorney since I was five years old, and I probably couldn't even understand the concept of that because in my mother's family there were no attorney attorneys, there were not a lot of people who went on to college most of them just finished high school. And so growing up that stuck with me, and people would say things just like you just said. Because I wouldn't step down from a fight, I'll be able to talk myself from being in trouble with my parents. So my grandparents and my aunties and they're like, you know what, you got a really good point. You need to go. And so as people were telling me that, and I was literally feeling that this is something I had to do, and as I grew up, I did not leave sight of that. I would tell you, you do everything you said you was going to do when you were little. You told us this is what happened, and you did that. Wow. So fast forward graduate girls high. Now you're in college, black college, right, yeah for that, you know, because I think we don't give them, you know, enough enough credit because they're putting out black excellence. Right. And so you get into college, did you know what subject he was going to be in? From that or it's like the normal kind of thing because I know, shout out to my Ama, Mam Timper University. But uh, I never knew what I wanted to do until like maybe maybe maybe maybe soft mayre but definitely junior. You know, so what was that? Like, that's a good question. The college journey was very interesting because I didn't have any insight or direction and there was nobody before me that can kind of tell me how to do this. It was actually my girlfriends in high school. They were all applying to college. I wasn't really doing it. I didn't have the guidance and I knew it was something I had to do, but I was relaxed days about it. They helped me fill out my applications. They told me where I needed to be to take the pretest and things like that, and they make sure that I got into school. It was a toss up between Hampton University and Howard University, two rival schools age. Exactly. I got accepted to Hampton and I said I'm going to Hampton, And when my girlfriends found out, they were like, no, You're going to Howard US. They came to class the next morning with my complete application filled out and said, please put your social Security number. Wow, you know I'm part of a black letter organization and you know we just found out Howard University. But I'm not going to go through all that, right, But no, shout out to you. And but so still without the guidance, I went. I showed up. I knew I had something to do. I wasn't sure, so I didn't declare a major immediately. I was good in English. I'm like, okay, let me just play with this English very quick. But as I matriculated, I was like, no, I really need to do this law thing. Because when I'm there, I became serious about Okay, you only got four years to get this right, and you got to go on from here. You got to do what you know that you were sins of this earth to do. So I transitioned to majors and minors that have sent it around legal stuff. I think Howard University is the only institution in the country that has this major. It's called legal communication, and it's a variety of things. There's some law, there's some government, there's some politics, there's some administration of justice. But they also teach you communication from a verbal aspect, but also they teach you nonverbals, even how to I don't want to say read people, but to pick up psiology definitely, psychology and cultural sensitivities, things that weren't mainstream when I was in college. In two thousand and three, and so for me, I was learning not just legal stuff, but stuff that'll prepare me beyond college for life, life applications. O your sisterhood, do you still keep in contact with those same AF girlfriends? I know absolutely. We could be anywhere across the country and it could be a year if we talk to each other. But every time we connect, it's like we never missed a beat. We got a group chat and everything, and we check in. They talk about their lives, their kids, their jobs, and when we're going to meet again. We talk about our endeavors, we talk about our problems, we talk about our relationships. The girls I went to college what I actually went to high school with too, So we are really we are really connected. So you graduated with what your undergrad was? What undergrad I got to be a in communication, which was where the legal communication came from, and my mind was an administration, administration of justice. Then graduate from there and that's where all the legal stuff start. Right, So let's talk a little bit about you now graduated right undergrad? Uh, some people in there right? What pushed you to the next step? Well, honestly, I kind of flatlined after graduating when I was in high school, I worked two full time jobs every so often every few seasons. And when I wasn't doing that, I was class vice president. I was in music, I was in dance, I was in this. I was always going and so by the time I got to college. When I went to college, I worked two full time jobs for the three years because they wouldn't allow us to work the first year because I didn't have the income that I needed to stay in college. So I worked two full time jobs. I was a resident assistant, which is a twenty four to seven thing, and then I worked at a restaurant in DC, at the Pentagon. And so I did that and gradually still graduated with honors. I was draped and honest schorus. My mom came down for graduation day. You don't hear that from a lot of people. How did you do all that and still graduate with honors? And I went to Howard and you know, they like to call us the party school, but we worked hard and we played hard too, So I ain't even gonna lie. But you had to do both because they were preparing us for life, Like you're going to take some time and do what you need to do. But you need to also focus on what's important. So even that was a valuable skill that they made sure we have before we were out the door. After that, I was done. I didn't have a plan. I knew I was going to get to law school. I did not know when, I didn't know how. I was tired, and I just wanted to take a break. I've been going hard and fast since I can remember. And so I stayed there for a while and I just worked. Cut two jobs. Just work, just work, just work. But you know d C, if you know what DC is now, it's very difficult to live there. It was difficult for me to live there. Even though I had a college degree. I was still in the restaurant industry. I did ten years in food service, and so I found myself not able to make ends meet. And I found myself temporarily homeless in DC with a college degree in two jobs. And I wish my mom could have came and told you. She'll tell you that one day I showed up at her doorstep in Philly and say, hey, Mom, I need somewhere to stay. I need to get into law school. She opened the door, and that's where we started. Wow. Wow, So law school now, right, and you started working with some diningmic people are in law you know. So anyway, now you jump into the community, right, what was your first experience with now your law degree, you making your connections, you uh, connecting deep into the community because it wasn't like using a rural or or or like a you know, acidity area. You was in them streets, in those streets, right. And I attribute that to your your your your childhood growing up and being in the thick of it, right and being able to connect with those within the community. And so I'm gonna talk a little bit about that. Now you have your you have your license, you start practicing, you start your network. What now, like, what is the fire that's burning for you to do your civic engagement, you support and doing pro bono work because now you're an attorney, right, So what is that like? Let me take you a step back. While I was here and trying to get law school, I did work my first legal job before I actually went to law school. Sixty third in Landsdown. There's a law office there. I was the only staff member for the team that was there, and it was an Islamic man who ran the firm. He's still my mentor still my friends, still my boss. And what he part of his practice work was to develop a legal end of life documents, you know Will's stage trust, funeral directors, healthcare directors, power of attorneys and things like that. But a lot of his clients were Islamic and before they would take their religious journeys overseas, they wanted documents and paperwork to account for their families should something happen to them. And what Islamic religious law is not always exacting, does not completely match the federal law, and so he had to be strategic about how he was able to balance the interest in these of the religious law versus the federal law. And so I was there to walk through that process with him. It was like he was the only attorney in Philly that they could get these documents from who had figured out the gray area where these people can have what they believe they deserve. That inspired me because people need things they didn't like, I said, access, They don't always know where to go. But they found this man the horses of people that I saw that he gave what they needed to from a legal perspective, That meant something to me because again for me, it was about a lack of access, it was about a lack of resources, and so I took that with me and then I went on to law school. I went to a law school where I got a degree at my Georisch doctorate, but I also sought out a law school. At the time, it was in the top ten law schools in the country that had an alternative dispute resolution program. That's where you develop your mediators, your facilitators, your arbitrators, your negotiators. At that time, I knew I wanted to sit as an arbitrator to help people deside things. I'm really big on collaboration, bringing everybody to the table, making sure that everyone's interests are heard, and balancing that everyone walks away with something because people have to live after litigation. It does not have to be ugly. There are issues and contest, but what can we do to kind of please everybody. That means a lot to me, and so bringing that into law. You know, law is rigid, it's black and white, it's this and that. But with my mediation background, I'm able to bring in another skill set and some other factors to consider. Or we're focusing on the people, the person, the human the needs and the other underlying interests that I oftentimes lead them to need the help of the court room. So when I came back home, I became a mediator. I was assigned to I Work for Good Shopard Mediation program, and I was assigned to Family Corps. So I was helping the families mediate their disputes before going into court. If we could have gotten them agreement, it would cut out the emotional aspect of it, because we're talking about families, we're talking about children, we're talking about separation. We're talking about people who don't have stable housing, who don't have food, who don't have a running electric and that impacts whether or not they get to school. So now they're truing. There's so many things going on, and one do you want to go to court and literally are you about basic life necessities? That doesn't sound appropriate to me, right and so, and because these are families, regardless of what happens in the court system, there's still going to be a family unit well after the court system. So for me, that mediation was important. Can we help get you guys what you need without you having that traumatic experience before a judge and all those people that are in a courtroom and all the documents in the paperwork and somebody literally making a history of all the bad things that just happened to happen to you. So I did that for a while and I liked it because to me, it was a way to help people. And while I did it, I was able to teach skills. You can take the mediation skills back home to help you mediate your own family disputes or to help see things differently. You didn't have to see it from a place of argument or a place of pain. But these are issues, but let's put our energy in working to resolve them, and let's do it together. I love that because this is the platform that we have. One thing that we do say is we can point fingers at everyone, right, but it's about solutions. So we solutions based, right, And so that's how we pretty much run a lot of the work that we do, especially as it relates to you know, talking to the people like you, right, the people, and I say the people because you are part of the community. I think what tends to happen is we disconnect maybe elected officials from the people, right, and sometimes they want to be disconnected from the people. Right. But when you have people like you, know that has come from a background like you, that have been doing the work, it's a little it's a different connection that's there now. I wanted to walk everyone through that journey so they can know who you are. Right. We tend to just see people advocating and promoting and I want your vote, I want your vote. Well, who the hell are you exactly? Why do you want my vote? And why should I vote for you? Right? So now that we know you, right, I want you to talk a little bit about you now jumping into this electoral process, right, and what do you running for and what does that actually mean? Okay, so I am running for common Police Court. That's a court of it consists of four courts. You got your family court, your Orphan's court, and your higher level civil court in criminal court and so it's a collection of courts in right now, the need is in criminal court. They will put you where they need you. You can make a request to be positioned at a certain area. People or excuse me, judges do make requests every so often to move around. So there's placements available for all of the candidates right now. There are nine seats available for the Common Police Court, and I believe there are eleven of us running for those seeds. And so what was the other part of the question, What it means for me? What it means for you? Okay? And so my entire career has been in public service, either working for the city or working for the court. And after a mediator, I became a litigator. After that, I did serve as a judicial law clerk for the Honorable Double Lcanti and she helped open my eyes to a lot more things. She is known to be a very fair and very wise woman, and she would sit me on the bench right next to her, which I was very uncomfortable doing because these were my colleagues that I had just left as a litigator from and why she's sitting on the bench with the judge was usually the people in the room, you know, clutching their pearls. But she would use me as a live league encyclopedia because she trusted my brain. I'm not a genius by any stress of the imagination, but I'm very smart, and I can take complicated things and kind of break them down into lay persons terms of kind of spoon feed to people. So she liked how I was able to do that, and there would be times where people would have issues that come into the courtroom and all of her years of practice, she had never seen it. And she'll say, I know you've been practicing, you know less time than me, but have you seen this too? And we're like no. So these are what we call matters of first impression, where there's not a lot of legal precedent. And so we would sit there, she would pause the record, but we're stealing a room full of people. What do you think we should do? Now? What statue should we look at? And if we make these decisions, what do you think the Superior Court we're going to do? And she would we would work together to do it. She would take my advice, my reasoning, and she would apply it. And she has never been overturned. I wrote all of her opinions. I drafted all of her opinions, and she's never once been overturned. That was a teamwork. But it was also her compassion for people. It was also the gentleness of her speech. It was respecting people in boundaries on how people wanted to be addressed. She wasn't one of those judges that put on a black robe and kind of get nasty, and so I was able to glean all that stuff from her. She was also the type of person who would calling resources from the bench. We need to find X, Y and Z from so and so. Can you go in back and figure this out? And it didn't matter if people were right, wrong or indifferent. When people need something, they need something, and so this is what she placed them to me. I didn't realize it now then when she would send me on the bench and I'm like, can I sit over there, please, I don't want to sit up here. But she was preparing me for now. When I left her after about five and a half years, I became a hearing officer, used to be called a master and I was presiding over my own cases, different practice area of law, and I was issuing orders. But because I'm a mediator first, I would turn my litigation into a conversation and people would thank me at the end of the hearings, even if I had to issue rulins against them, they would say, we appreciate you slowing things down for us, for explaining the law to us like you did. They would they would learn things, They would understand what the procedures were, what the next steps were they felt confident about moving forward in their processes. I would have ex murderers and child molesters coming into court asking for access to their children, and they would say to me after the hearings, why were you so kind? Why didn't you prejudge me? Why didn't you, you know, bang my past over my head. That's not the job. You're still a human being first, right, And while those things are a factor, and yes we have to look at them under the law, it's not my job to after you'dn't done your twenty years and you done rehabilitated yourself to society, it's not my job to make you a victim of that. We're here for a different purpose, and so I would give that to play Tim defended. It did not matter. These are still people at the end of the day. And so the treatment which I got from Judge Knty the even temperament. People tell me, now, you've always been ready to do this because of your temperament, and I like to think Judge Canty for helping to cultivate that and bring it to what it is now. And then to me, it was okay. After hearing their stories and they're comparable. I've never had this kind of experience in the court before. And you know, Judge such and such talks to me like blah blah blah, and I'm hearing all those stories and I'm like, wow, this is a obviously, it's a systemic problem, and it's affecting lots and lots of people. I saw hundreds of people with these cases, and I'm like, there needs. To be a change. People don't even have access to judges with gentle temperament. I'm not saying all of them are bad, because they're not. There are some really good judges on the bench, and sometimes people just have bad days, right, But there's a need here and it's time. I'm either going to talk about it or I'm going to be about it. So I need to step up. People people need this. People need people to have this temperament. People need people to have this unique balance for people. Things in the law still follow the law, but I still treat it people like human beings. I like that, and I like that you're talking human and bringing the human out of the people as opposed to judging on face value. Now you're running for common please judge right. For those who are watching and not familiar with that particular ecosystem, Can you explain what that position or common please judge does And that's the first question. And then what makes you different or what do you believe makes you different from any other judge within that seat. So the Common Police Court does prize of the four different court houses, and so they are obviously different things going on at each one. So you have judges with the ability to separate families, to remove children, to terminate parental rights, to free children for adoption. You have the the criminal justice system where you're processing the higher crimes and the felonies and you're getting those murder cases and things like that. You're monitoring people's parole and probation. You have the civil court where I believe actions of over twelve thousand dollars, whether there's contract dispute, things like that. Then you have the Orphans Court kind of talked about the end of life documents where people bringing their wills for contests and trying to you know, working out the executive of the state. So you have all of these different things hitting all of these major areas of people's lives. And so I think oftentimes, I know Philadelphia historically does not show up for these kind of elections. People don't know the importance of it. But judges make very powerful decisions. They make decisions that impact lives for a lifetime, not only affecting the individual, but their family units, the economy, their job prospects. And so I want people to know how important it is for you to look at who's running for these positions, for you to not just look at, oh, their resume and what they've done to be qualified for this, but who are what is their character? Like? Are they integral? Do well? They suffer from the black road syndrome when they put that thing on and they start becoming nice, nancy and abusive, up their power. You gotta watch for those things when you got to look for that when people are out giving their speeches or because who you are is going to show, even if it seeps out a little bit. And so I tell people I have to vote to right, and so I have to know who these people are too. I have to know what kind of person I think they'll be from this point. And so I'm looking for your character. I'm looking for the things you're mumbling under your breath. I'm looking if you speak to people in the room, and if you address everybody and if you're kind, I look for that, and I think people should look for that too. Fantastic, So why should they vote for you? Per se? You know that you said how many people want to for that seat? It's eleven four nine seats? Eleven four nine seats, all right, So I mean the percentage of you getting in there is pretty good, you know, But that's the possibility that you want, right, And so people have to make a decision, right, And so for those who are watching, and it's like, you know, especially when it comes to people who look like me, you know, they like I ain't a fan of these judges, right, so what would make them? What would be a reason for them to vote for you? So I do tell people my campaign slogan is that I'm someone for everyone, and I'll explain what that means. And I've already kind of given you some of the brick crumbs to that. It's not for me that I'm African American, it's not for me that I'm a female, And these things are important to diversify the mention so that people can see people who look like them and may have had some similar life experiences. But for me, that's the difference. What are your life experiences. I'm from the city. I was raised in the city, I went to school in the city. I've worked in the city. I've experienced a lot of the things that bring people into court. I'm no stranger to having DHS at my door. I'm no stranger to police at my door, no stranger to domestic violence. I'm no stranger for being targeted for armed robbery, home invasions, car theff and vandalism. I'm no stranger to losing a child or having a divorce. And even as an attorney, I'm no stranger to not having enough money to make ends meet and having to get my food at food banks. I still live in a food desert. We didn't recover after COVID in the riots. We never got our pharmacies back, and so I know what it's like to live here. I still live in the core of the city. I try to go walk my dog and they're like, no sense, get back in the house. You can't be outside right now, trying to catch the bus to work. You can't stand on this corner. You know, why don't you go over here? You can't be here and I'm thankful for that because it is a protection in a way. But that is real life. And so when you go in a court to tell your story or to give the background of yeah, I made the silly decision, but you got to understand what's going on. Depending on who's listening, that stuff can be going in one air and. Out the other. Are they considering your traumatic experiences? Are they considering what happened in your childhood that might have got you to become an aggressor in your adulthood? Those things matter before you beg the gabblo somebody. And then while you're listening in your hearing that people need access to resources, are you prepared to give them those things? So to me, is are you going to understand what I'm complaining to you about or is it going to bypass you. I think that people need to look for things like that because people want to be heard. They don't just want to tell the story. But do you get where I'm coming from? I do. I've been there, I've done that, and I'm still living right among the same things that you all. I think that's what sets me out, sets me apart from a candidate. I am the city I am one of you. I'm not separate from you just because I chose to help from a different a different realm. But I'm here, I'm right with you, and I get it. People need to be understood, and I think they would have better courtroom experiences. I think it will restore faith and confidence in the justice system if there were more people like that on the bench. So you have so Miss Johnson scared to come out her house right now. Philadelphia has been nuts with everything that's going out there right from the murders, the shooting, the robberies, the carjackings. It's crazy out there right for lack of a better term. So Miss Johnson who's scared to come out right and believes that someone like Larry Krashner has been too soft potentially on what we consider criminals. What would you say to Miss Johnson to make her feel or understand the need for you know, justice, you know, and in presiding over cases, what would you say to Miss Johnson? What would I say to Miss Johnson on her need to feel justice? Yeah, well, earlier I said you got to put up or show up. If you're going to talk about it, you got to be about it. So and then I have to recognize that she's a human being first and validate her experiences and where she is, because that's a very real fear, and she's not the only one. Sometimes I still feel like that. And so you do things. Call your committee people, you call your the leaders in your district, and to ask them to do different things. You tell them what their problem, what your problems are, and they're supposed to look for things or ways to make a change, to do something about your neighborhood and your experiences. You can start there a phone call, right at home. There are resources available to you. There are people who have been elected to actually serve in those capacities to make changes and differences in your neighborhood. But then I would also talk about voting. I know historically my people, oh, we don't do politics when you register to vote because it's all corrupt. And that's valid too, they're not wrong. But these people are going to get these jobs anyway, and so put your your head in the how you say, put your hand in the fight, and show up, go to these community meetings, figure out who these people are, and you vote for what you think will make a difference. And these people are going to be on the bench for generations essentially twenty years, thirty years. But if you don't participate, if you don't do your own work as a community member, then you're left with what you're left with, and that's not always the best thing. I like that you said that, And this is my last question to you. We are a part of every voice, every vote right, an initiative right. And one of the common things that we hear from the people is my vote don't count. Right now, you're up here running to ask for people's vote when you hear that my vote doesn't count or why should I vote? And kind of some of the similar things that you have you have been saying, as it relates to what you hear from the people, what does that make you film what then do you talk about people's civic duty when it comes to voting. So I'm no stranger to that kind of language, that kind of talk. That's actually kind of how I grew up. And so they're not wrong. It's no secret that politics are corrupt. It's no secret that some sketchy things happen. When it's time to count those votes or mail them in, there is validity there. So I always like to start where you're not crazy, this is happening, et cetera. But again, we can go ahead and put our tails between our legs and hide in the corner, or we can try. Life is about taking chances and making choices and doing something because at the end of the day, when you look at it, did you do anything? Did you try? And if the answer is no, then you didn't do something right? Right, So exercise that vote, get involved in active by Tell people all the time y'all talking about the politicians, Well when are you going to step up to become one? If you don't like what's going on, then get in a fight and be the different person, be the change that you want to see, which is essentially what I'm doing. I was raised from that construct that we don't do that because it's dirty, and we won't need to vote because we don't believe. I understand that. That was my life I lived in. But again I'm here because I see what the problem is and I'm not a politician. I don't come from politics. I don't necessarily like politicians because of all the things that are they are attached to. You know who's being straight with you, You don't know who's wicked. You don't know who's doing backdoor deals. You don't know who owes somebody money or owe somebody in favor, and all that stuff is happening then, which is why I stayed away from it. But I am not one of them. I'm a regular human being who is trying to live with integrity, who is trying to do things with clean hands and a pure heart. I can't be bought. I can't be so and I don't care if I'm the only person standing on an island saying right is right and wrong it's wrong. I will do that, and I will do. That well. With a lot of our youth. As you know in Philadelphia, a lot of the what do they call the mob attacks and everything like that. What do you think Philadelphia can do to uplift the children, to make Philadelphia better, to I guess decrease the crime amongst the youth. What would your thoughts be on that? So that's not just a legal problem, that's a community problem. That's at home problem, right because where are the homes that these children are coming from. Where are the guidance? Are they coming from households where parents, where they have structure, where they have actually things to do. Are they coming from school where theirs after school programs? Are they old enough to work, have working papers and someone's giving them something to do nights and weekends? Our parents being friends or are they setting healthy boundaries? Our parents still having kids have curfews or turn it absolutly phone so they can know where they are. Our parents still asking who are your friends? Bring them over for dinner so I can assess them. Who are they their parents? So that I can meet them and understand. You know, what you're opening yourself up to. I think that that starts at home. And if we don't have parents at home doing these things, then we're already starting off wrong. And then you get curious kids. Kids are going to be curious. They're going to get into stuff that's normal too, no right, wrong or indifferent. They're going to be kids. But if they have guidance, if they have resources, if they have mentors, because sometimes relationships with parents are strained, and it'll take a stranger to break through to a youth. It will take a teacher in the classroom to break through, or after school program or a sports program because it's about community, right, So it still takes a village. But are you giving that environment to your youth so that they can have a platform from which they can be propelled And so the problem is starting at home, then we get what happens legally. There are many resources in the city. There are many things that children can do, but our parents even educating themselves on Hey, I can sign my kids up for so and so and such and such. I don't see people taking advantage of resources. And people love to talk. Ain't nothing to do in Philly, OHI board the kids just want to play the video games. Shut them off. Take them somewhere you can show them by doing things with them, not just talking at people, but literally taking them by the hand. We're doing this on Saturday, on Sunday, We're going to do this, and you're creating that so that they can have a different perspective. I think this. I do think the leadership and Philly could do a better job with promoting said resources rightly. And speaking to promoting you mentioned people not necessarily knowing about this particular election right Why do you think that is? We know about you know, the presidential election right now? And the reason I bring this up because I kind of blame the leadership for that also because they only focus on certain things. So when it comes to I believe one of the most important election as relates to judges, right, because they're the ones that you know, I believe it could be better in terms of the promotion and marketing of that. Why do you think that is? You're absolutely right, and people have actually complained to me in this twelve months of campaigning November twenty four to November twenty five. How come we just now hearing about y'all? How come nobody said anything? And I think the problem one starts right back at home. What are parents teaching kids about voting in your rights and how if you don't use them you could potentially lose them With all the things that are going on in government. What happened to how we were taught voter education in elementary school and middle school and high school? What happened to As you're preparing kids to exit high school and you're making sure that they have ideas and working papers, are trying to go to trade schools and trying to get jobs, what happens to making sure or that we also have the voting conversation, that we have the civic duty conversation that we have the jury duty conversation. Where's the education, where's the repetition of that so they can get it? Where are the community members and community and leaders who are active and go to meetings every week and every Saturday, warn't y'all taking some teenagers with y'all so that they can see something. So I think that's a large part of the problem, and we still have We're still dealing with people who still cannot read and write, only have eight grade education. So how are we going back to capture them? I think we did ourselves a disservice as a community when we took all of that education out of the households and out of the schools. I do believe that our community, community members and groups can do a better job with voter education. Obviously, I just pointed out that there's a lack here. But where the resources? Where's the community meetings? What are the religious institutions doing? I know you separate law on politics, but do you at least say, hey, y'all, go check out, make sure you got readyh to vote. It doesn't even have to be political. But what are we doing collectively? Where are our politicians during the stuff outside of election season, not just all everything all the time in this one moment. But where's the build up, what's happening between the elections? Where's the programs, where's the resources, where's the YouTube videos? Anything? Yeah? So after the election, you promised to come back, right, I sure will? There you go? And so how can they get in contact with you? Know? Where did you get your like ballot number? Do you have all of that? Okay, so why don't you let everyone know how they can get in contact with you? Yes? I am on most social media outlets. I am on Instagram and TikTok and Facebook as t T for Tanisha Henry for Judge. I also have a personal Facebook page Tanisha Henry and I'm gonna spell it because my mom was real unique with this one. T A n I E s h A last name Henry h E n R Y. I also have a website www. Dot t Henry for Judge is really really consistent. If you put T Henry for Judge and in Google, I'm gonna pop up. I also have a contact phone number. It's two sixty seven three zero one to zero thirteen. That is my campaign phone, but I actually answer it and respond to text messages and people send me the photos that we take on the trail, and people still call and ask for help with their legal work. I am accessible, right, So again that number is two six seven three zero one to zero thirteen. Email address t Henry for judge at gmail dot com. So I try to keep it consistent, to make it easy for y'all. Fantastic, fantastic. Oh my ballot number is thirteen. Oh there you go. Keep you around the camp forget that. So I want to thank you for coming. You know, we you know, we talk weekly. We're non partisan, right, so we don't care what you do whatever, Purple Green. We just want to know that you and on streets and doing stuff for the community, and that's what we support, right, And so I just I hope for the best for you, and you know, we want good people in those positions. Right. We actually have our next guest, right, she she she's doing a lot of work in the streets, right as it relates to, you know, letting people know their work, letting people know their their rights and the things that they need to do. As it relates to voting, which is very important for us, right because a lot of people feel that their vote don't count, right, and so again I wish you the best, Thanks for coming one more time. How can they get in contact you socials? Yes, t Henry for judge. That's gonna be Instagram and TikTok and Facebook. Fantastic. All right, ladies and gentlemen, I want you to go anywhere. We got a jam packed show. We'll be right back. We're gonna go to a little break real quick. I'm gonna yeah, I'm going a fantastic noise So you already know I like that. Don't go to where We'll be right back, ya, Holland. We just want to get a little background as to who the fantastic noises and the noisemakers, if you can let us know, yes, absolutely so. Once again, I am fantastic noise. I am the original noisemaker. So no one's gonna make as much noise as me. And right here we have the Noisemaker Band. This is only half of it, and the other stuffs are upstairs. The my My, Kevin, Kevin, Lamar, Lannie and Dobbs, who are the actual band members. These are the background singers and we can to make some noise. We can to bring that noise today. So that's that's what we would do. That's right. How did you guys get together? Man? So it started with I've been doing this on my own for almost three years now, and man, I guess each of these people here have different background stories. Most of us went to the same church together, and we just kept going. This one her, this is my one of my assistants, said, one of like the my my biggest support of my biggest shitar hear, she's assistant. So we just been building and the same thing with upstairs with the band, just meeting through people kept networking, kept seeing them. It was just like God or dang bab here we are awesome. Yeah, well, could you guys do we talked weekly? A favor? Yeah? Can you give us a drop in a melody type way. A meli type way. Okay, So we talked weekly. Okay, So we're gonna do something like the we talk. We we come in here with us, we talk. We come in here. Them, we talk. We come in here now we talk. Make me come in here. We talk. We come in here now. We's all make me come in. You okay, get beautified because already cord. Yo, right, Hey, we talked weekly have to talk a w P P M O P Philadelphia one O six point five FL. We talked weeklies after they talk with your boy Charles Gergy and beautiful and beautiful Lady Yestod is definitely in the building now. You know how we talk about how important it is for us to get out in the streets and really through our civic duty do with the things that we're supposed to do out there. And I get it. I hear from a lot of folks, especially you know, the brothers. It's like, oh, what's going on? Man, My my vote don't count. But people are slowly coming around because they know that, you know, at the very least they're uh, you know, they're they're they're them not voting sometimes become a protest fool, you know. And so I'm not mad at them, as long as you have a reason for your madness. Uh, and you know that, you know, what you're doing is led by attention, you know, it's it's kind of like their opinion, and I think we have to stop, you know, the judgment. And certain people, right, that's what they that's what they do, that's what they want to do, you know, and it's kind of one of those things. And so shout out to all the brothers out there, shout out to you know, all my brothers that and that you know unfortunately incarcerated that's trying to get out, you know, and then't come out and don't even know their rights, you know. And they can vote, you know, once you touch brakes and you cleared, you can vote, you know. And it was a long time this this misnomer that you couldn't vote if you was ever locked up. And so, uh, I just want to make sure that we get all that fantastic information. So I'm gonna stop talking for a minute because I want classically tell me you do we have to day? Do we have to day? Today? We have the beautiful Kadida Kenner is the founding CEO of the New Pennsylvania Project and it's education Fund, driving voter engagement and justice reform across the Commonwealth. A fearless advocate for fair courts, education, equity, and living wages, she empowers community to vote to vote their values up and down the ballot. Y'all already know what to do. Let's give a warm We talk weekly. Welcome to Ms Cadeta Killer. How are you? How are you happy. Let me get your mic right because I can't hear you. I can't give me another sound check. And I'm like, hey, when you right there, man, make sure one more again, one more again. So let's move her over here. I'm gonna make sure you're going a camera right there. We go fantastic And so one, how are you? How are you? I'm maintaining, that's my answer in twenty twenty five. You gotta maintain these days, man, it's rough outing on the streets. Man. So you've been on the show a couple of times, and every time there has been something new happening that we need to make sure that not necessarily highlight, but the strategize and position for it, right. And it's a few things that I want to talk about, especially your altercation that happened to you, and that's part of the ecosystem that has been happening in the country in my opinion, right. And so what have you been noticing now And did the work that you're doing pivot from what you've been doing, did you have to do new strategies? What is it like for you now? Twenty twenty five is a little different than twenty twenty four, not that much so, and that we're still trying to overcome a lot of the misinformation and disinformation that exists in the ecosystem, trying to make sure we can also overcome the voter apathy that exists. There are people that are just really disgusted with politics, and you kind of heard that already, right Sae Kwan Barkley talking about you know, I'm not into politics. It's in political but we know that our black lives are political in nature. So for us, it is, you know, trying to maintain what's happening here, trying to be positive. I see particularly black women experiencing joy in this moment, clapping the fans, doing the line dances and changing that into the new narrative where we have to find joy in this moment. And for me, you know, leading a voting rights organization, for me right now, it's about making sure that there is joy as part of our strategy to win, because if we continue to do, you know, feel down and out about all the things that are happening every morning that we wake up, we're not going to be able to the stay in this movement. What does winning actually look like though. You know, that's a good question. You know, sometimes people ask me, what is the new Pennsylvania you're looking for? Right? What is winning? Winning is having a more representative democracy, having folks that truly represent your values in elected office. Winning is actually having people feel like the electedtoral process works for them. Winning is that people don't have a negative connotation when it comes to politics. Right where you have someone who says, I'm not here for the politics, I'm just here to meet the president. Right. So winning is knowing that how we win is at the ballot boxes. How historically we have one our rights and our freedoms have been won at the ballot box. Great, what do we. Tell the children that feel like you know, the young children, the adults that says, my vote doesn't count. It doesn't I don't have a voice with my vote. Unfortunately, in Philadelphia we have a young voter problem, I would say a young voter registration problem. We're only one in four high school students of voting age are actually registered. That's a statewide number, but in Philadelphia only fifteen percent of Philadelphia high school seniors of voting age are actually registered to vote. So there's a reason. So you fill up an auditoriy aboute hundred students, only fifteen of them are registered to vote. That's what that number is. WHOA WHOA? Well that see that put that in perspective, right, So one hundred kids, only fifteen of them are registered to vote. Interesting, Wow, and that's a Philadelphia number. That's also a Pittsburgh number. But it's not a suburban Philadelphia number, right, because you have places like where I grew up, Chester County where that number is very different. Those students are registered to voting. Maybe that's perhaps because they're watching their parents vote, right, And so it starts at home. I heard your earlier commentary starting at home. I'm a super voter because I watched my mom vote in every election. I'm a super voter because I knew when my dad got off of work he went right to the polls. I'm a super voter because I watched this in my life. And it does start at home. And we have to ensure young folks see us doing our democratic duty and recognizing that this is where change happens. Do you think the school should promoted more as well with civic engagement? Unfortunately, civics has been taken out of so many of our public schools that teachers are scared to even teach the subject and fear that they'll lose their jobs. So civic education is going to happen in third party organizations like ours. I know that Commissioner Omar Severe here in Philadelphia has been doing a great job working with other nonpartisan organizations to make sure that young people are getting engaged and getting registered to vote. But we do we have a voter registration problem here in Philadelphia. I will say this. I wrote down some numbers here so I have my statistics right because I like to give facts. And you know, in twenty twenty three, there was only Yeah, twenty twenty three, there were only one point zero three million Philadelphians registered to vote, and in twenty twenty five that number jumped up to one point one eight million Philadelphia's registered to vote. So that could be the change in the age demographic or it could just be the change in the fact that we're getting more folks registered to vote. So almost one hundred thousand people got registered to vote in that two year period in Philadelphia. Wow, you mentioned your organizations, two powerhouse organizations. Tell us more about those. Sure, So today's my four year anniversary today, Yes, today, is the four year anniversary of the New Pennsylvania Project. So it was on May third of twenty twenty one that I left a really good job to found a brand new organization that was going to mission statement, vision statement to expand the electorate and make. Sure more people will registered to vote. There are one point two million Pennsylvanians who are eligible to vote but not registered in this moment. So we're a statewide organization trying to impact disenfranchised communities. Historically it's the franchise communities, and for us that's black and brown communities, that's immigrant communities, that's the youth that we consider under thirty five. We don't want to just register these folks of what. We want to get them to mobilize them to the polls and actually vote. Because the newest, you know, the most recently registered to vote, are the least likely to actually show up and cast a ballot. So you have to do work after you register them to vote to actually get them to show up to the polls. Hold on, say that again, the say last part again. Yeah, the most recently registered to vote or the least likely to actually show up to the polls. Yeah, And it's because they don't know how to do it right. So if you haven't watched mom or dad do it, or grandmom or aunts and uncles cast a ballot, you don't want to go into a polling booth and make a mistake. And you don't want to look stupid going in there and not having the right IDs, or know what you need to take with you in there, or who it is you're supposed to be voting for what these folks do. And so the most recently registered to vote don't vote because they don't want to go in there and make a mistake and look stupid. And so that's part of our education process, part of our civic engagement process is what actually take folks to the polling apparatus so they can see it right. You can touch it, taste and feel it, so you know what you're doing on election day, so you don't go in there feeling unprepared to cast your ballot. This is like a kind of weird question, but I mentioned earlier that my sister had like a gathering at her barbershop as far as getting out the vote, and there was a lot of community people who had special needs, independent people, but special needs. And I'm wondering do they they had they can vote, but are people taking the time to take the elderly, the special needs, Are they taking the time to take them to the voting vote polls to vote. That's a great question. I'll say this. I sit on the board of an organization called Open Door Clubhouse. It's in Kensington, and it serves folks with mental disabilities and challenges, folks with schizophrenia, Like I'm talking about people diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar and all kinds of other issues. And so we want to make sure that they are ready to vote because in Pennsylvania, which is very progressive as it relates to those with mental challenges to vote because some states, if you have mental challenges, you can't vote, but in Pennsylvania you absolutely can. And so we take the polling apparatus to them so they can get some practice. On it before they go into the polls. Same thing goes for your your elderly, your young folks. It's the same scenario. We need to help people get to the polls. And so there's voting by mail which is a possibility. That's a great opportunity for the elderly or those with some mental challenges to be able to sit, you know, in a home, look at the ballot, take their time, do any googling that might be necessary to make good decisions. But voting by mail is a good way for those who need some additional time at the polls or maybe not have the capabilities to get to a polling location. Voting my voting my mail is legal in Pennsylvania. It is safe, and it is secure and your vote will count. And if you have a challenges getting to a pulling location from seven am to eight pm on one particular day of the week in the month of November, then you know, request a vote by mail ballot and take your time with it. Make it a family activity, you know, put it, take it. You know, you're eating dinner and you're talking about what's going on in the world. Have the kids have the twelve year olds on their phones because they have them right and googling these folks and learn about who is actually running for office and who wants to represent us in any particular office that we're currently accepting right now. So we're having usical local and judicial elections here in twenty twenty five. A lot of things on the ballot and I'll say this thing about Philadelphia. We will start at the top of the ballot and vote that top of the ballot. So if it was the mayor oral race in twenty twenty three, they voted the mayor all race. But when it dropped down to voting for judges on the Superior Court or judges on the Supreme Court, those numbers dropped and people voted for the mayor. And then they didn't know what to do after that and just turned in their ballot when they were done. And that's where we have to prove because when you have I'm looking at I'm again, I'm looking at my numbers here I wrote down, and I'm looking at you know, we have two hundred and ninety three thousand people in Philadelphia voted for the Supreme Court race. But then when it came time to vote down the ballot for the Superior Court race, only two hundred and forty seven thousand Pennsylvanian Philadelphians voted. So you have fifty thousand people who saw the ballot, voted at the top and said, I don't know what to do next. It walked away from it. It's instead of making it like a civic thing, it needs to be a cultural norm like to understand and know exactly what they're doing. From the last time you were here, I learned a lot that I didn't know, and I actually was able to share that information. One of the things you talked about and if you could just like reiterate and go back over that, A lot of incarcerated people when they come home, if you're in jail, you still have the right. Can you tell us about more about that and where people think. You know, people who have been incarcerated feel like they're used the good to society and their voice of vote doesn't count. Absolutely. One of my favorite things to do is register they formally incarcerated to vote because they've been lied to, Letterstree, Random UK all the things right, but can be umboozled right and straight up just lied to and told that they don't have access to the ballot. Pennsylvania. Again, this is where we're very progressive and that the moment your feet hit the street, you are eligible to vote in the Commonwealth unless your crime had something to do with voter fraud or part of your sentencing has you you know, you're released into a halfway house, but that's still part of your incarceration, you're not truly free. Then those folks are not eligible to vote for a certain amount of time. It's five year weight period for those who may have had a crime that related to voter fraud. But everyone else, the moment your feet hit the street, you're eligible to vote. And a lot of people don't recognize that because their parole officers might not be telling them the truth, or maybe they got out of jail in nineteen ninety six, you know, when you could not vote in me after getting out of jail. But the laws change in the Commonwealth and so now it is immediately. It's just a great thing to do. And I'll tell you this, and not everyone who is currently incarcerated is not eligible to vote. They are actually eligible to vote. So if you're incarcerated in a jail, they are a misdemeanor, you are eligible to vote from the jail. If you are. Currently in prison and awaiting sentencing, you have not been convicted of a crime, you are eligible to vote while still incarcerated. So it is not until you have been convicted of a felony and you are incarcerated that you are not eligible to vote. That's the only that's the only way. There's a lot of. People locked up in jail for parking tickets or whatever they may be locked up there for. And they are eligible to vote. Why why is advocacy so important to you? I mean, I'm gonna do the anti Saquon Barkley. So my life is political, right, I'm a black woman. Everything about me is political. My woman iss, my blackness, all of it is political. And so I know that there's folks like me who exist that need to have more agency. They don't have the ability to provide agency for themselves, and they might need a little assistance. And if I can help anybody get franchised, re enfranchised, even, I'm all about it. I just want to I want to make sure that these one point two million people get registered to vote. So, you know, they talk about organizations like ours, they say, oh, you lean left or you you know, other organizations be lean right. And I know this is all nonpartisan space. The activity of voter registration is nonpartisan. But for us, you know, if we want all one point two million Pennsylvanians who are not registered vote to get registered vote, if that's called leaning left, then I guess this organization leans left because I know, these one point two million artist Democrats, they're not just Republicans, it's everybody, and we want all of them because I want all of these folks to have a say and who is representing them in government. And you know, I know for US as an organization, we've been doing voter registration now for four years. We just had our four year anniversary is today. We've been doing voter registration for four years. When we first started doing registration, we had you know, it was seventeen percent, upwards of twenty two percent at the most of young folks in particular are saying, I don't want to register with the Dems. I don't want to register the Republicans. I want to be unaffiliated. Well, last year that number went up greatly and went up to twenty four point nine percent of those who registered to vote chose not to register with a major political party. Not in love with the Democrats or the Republicans. But guess what those folks couldnot vote on May twentieth four candidates. Yeah, that's unfortunate, and that's we had a brother Severe on the show before and he explained the closed primary. You know, Pennsylvania is a closed primary. Unfortunately, and what that means is that if you neither a Democrat or Republican, you cannot vote. Not sure if that's a great idea for us to be a closed primary, because the ecosystem is changing. So I believe there needs to be some advocacy work to change that. There needs to be some type of policy, some type of some new legislation to change this closed primary deal. Because if you have those who are very active in the community and they see that there are issues or challenges in both parties, there's a problem to say you can only have two parties. That's a problem, and so we need to start fixing that problem, especially especially if you have those who you historically voted for are against the morals and values that you have today. So then we are face to be in the same predicament to say, well, your vote counts, well, I don't like either one of them, right, and so now it becomes that I won't vote at all because I am now protesting, which goes to the beginning of my narrative saying that some people who did not vote it was a protest vote that said right, you mentioned, well you was here when we had someone who was running for judge. Right, when you look at our judges today, right, because you your organization is also non parson. Right. So when you look at the judges today, what do you look for? What do you believe is very important that the people should consider when trying to elect a judge in one of those seats. So this is the great question, and this is why there is such a drop off down ballance, right, because we don't know what these judges do. We don't know what makes a good judge. And so I'll start here Number one. I'm gonna plug this on Thursday. This coming Thursday, the eighth of May, I'm doing a judicial candidate form for common pease judges. It is going to be in the Sam Stanton Stanton Center on North broad Street. It is this Thursday, May eighth, six to eight pm. Is welcome to the public, Come and learn from the candidates, because you're not gonna have someone running for judge and knocking on your front door. That's usually doesn't that doesn't usually happen. So you're not going to see these folks that really have to have an opportunity to engage with them unless you attend these forms. So questions I love to ask so I'm going to moderate. And it's all eleven eleven judges that are running, so they've all been invited. We're still working on how many of those are coming through. There's a lot of judicial candidate forums happening next week in Philadelphia. That's a good thing, so you have an opportunity. If you don't get go to hours on Thursday evening, there will be another that you can attend. But you know what's really important. Questions that we'll be asked is you know what makes a good judge? What would make you a good judge? So I think about you know, you had a guest earlier, who's common Please, I'm thinking about we have retention elections for the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. I want to make sure we get to talk about that because that's the most important election we have in twenty twenty five, the judicial retention elections of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court justices. Three of them are up for retention election. But questions that we asked, I love to ask the question who is your icon? Who is your Supreme Court icon on the United States Supreme Court pastor or present? Right? And so if someone answers Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I have an idea of where they stand. If somebody answers Clarence Thomas, I have an idea of where they stand. If they say justice Alito, I have an idea of where they stand. So I think that's a great question that can be asked. And every time I've asked that, people have actually answered that question. You know, sometimes they may not want to answer some of these questions, but they do. Another question I dont want to know about these judges and justices is what are they doing in their free time? You know, what are you doing on the weekends. Are you hanging out at the Boys and Girls club and assistant in the community, Are you with the block captain cleaning up the neighborhood, or are you, you know, down in Mary Lago having a good time on a golf course. I want to know what people are doing in their free time. There's also ABA ratings, American Bar Association ratings that have been done on lots of these folks, So you can go and you can google somebody and check out their ABA rating, which kind of gives you an idea about their temperament. Do they show up to court on time as a lawyer or as a judge, they show up to work on time, How's their temperament, how's their demeanor in the courtroom. All these things are important to know about somebody. So unfortunately for some they're going to have to do their homework right. And you're gonna have to take your time. And before you go into the polling booth on May twentieth or November fourth for the primary and also for the general election, you need to have google these folks and found out about them. Is this a judge that we should be retaining for election or not? And I think that we have an onus on the electorate to take our time and investigate. We take our time and investigate what kind of you know, refrigerator we want to put into our kitchen. So take that same amount of time and figure out if this is a judge or a justice that could one day be dispersing justice on me and my family, and take your time to find out about them. Absolutely the like. Like you said, we had someone that was going for a common police judge. We've had other people that were running for judge and I'm not hearing about it. You hear about the mayorial what why do you think that is. Where I'm finish shot to be talked because we hear about this thing here, glad it's not home. Where's the Where do we fill in the gap? Why is that not even like being known? It's something that I think that needs to be, you know, heard a lot louder. I think a part of this is that Pennsylvania is one of only seven states in the entire country that we get to elect all of our judges and justices in partisan elections, So it makes that very rare. It also makes it very powerful for Pennsylvania voters that you have the pas to put a judge on a bench or not retain them and kick them off of a bench. That's a power only six other states besides us have. And I think that some of this isvited by design because a more ignorant electorate is an electorate that is going to stay home. Right. I'm an an electorate that doesn't really have all the information they need as an electorate who's not maybe going to make the best decisions for themselves in their community. So behooves some folks for us to not know about these you know about these elections and to stay home. I will say this I'm looking at statistics from twenty twenty three. The last time we had a judicial election, Philadelphia had a thirty one percent turnout and less in the twenty twenty three judicial election. That's not enough. This time around. We're coming off of other states like Wisconsin, who just had their Supreme Court race for Wisconsin state, they had fifty percent turnout. They had five hundred thousand extra people vote in Wisconsin than they ever voted before in a judicial election. And that's because millionions of dollars were being sent into Wisconsin dark money, you know, Elon Musk and others. And what colors Wisconsin for those who don't help. Well, it's one of you know, it's one of those swing states right right, like Pennsylvania. And so we're going to have that same situation happen here in Philadelphia. Dark money is about to flood Pennsylvania and our judicial election. Folks like Jeffreyaz, Pennsylvania's richest man, has already given millions Elon Musk. I'm sure we'll start to you know, as soon as he gets his tesla back in order again, I'm sure he'll be back into Pennsylvania dropping millions of dollars because they do not want to retain the three democratically elected Supreme Court justices that are up on the retention ballot this November. They do not want them to retain because it is the Pennsylvania Supreme Court who has decided whether or our voting rights are intact. They decided whether our provisional ballots account. They decided whether our vote by mail balloti account. They're the ones who will protect access to abortion. They're the ones to ensure clean air and water. They're the ones to ensure that we are actually funding our public schools. So there is a benefit for some to not have those justices on the bench. The most important thing the Pennsylvania Supreme Court justices will do in the next few years is we're going to have our twenty thirty census. And when we have our twenty thirty census, they will draw new maps right because we've had Pennsylvania historically has had some of the most jerry mandered congressional district maps in the country. And so to be the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to say this map is not right. It is a jerrymandered map, either as racially jerrymandered or it is politically jerry mandered, but it is a jerrymandered map which is diluting voting power, particularly a black and brown folks. So that is what the Supreme Court retention election is all about this November. And that is why you have folks like Ema Musk and others who want to flood millions of dollars into Pennsylvania to get those three justices off of the bench. Wow, I did not know that. Neither did I And unfortunately that type of money moves that moves things. But then you have those people that are in the seats who support them in terms of the party. They don't want to spend any money, and so you have to spend the money appropriately and reach out to those who are actually doing the work in the community and support them, because if you don't, then somebody may tap into that which you have already seen happen in this presidential election. There's a lot of and I'm very hard on I'm very hard on leadership who do not listen to their constituents in the community. And when you don't do that, they show you how they feel, whether it be a vote or no vote at all. Right, even when you're trying to push it it is the right thing to do to the people. That's the bottom hunt. Listen to the people, Listen to what the people want, because if you don't, there's another group of people who are pretty much getting everything they want. And I'll leave it at that. Ye, I'll say this right, I'm thinking about the last judicial election in twenty twenty three and looking now, turnout in Philadelphia. Ward nine is the biggest vote getter. They're mount Airy, so the mount Airy section of the city they vote Ward seven not so much. So what happens where's words I'm still looking at the map, wasn't really clear about where that is mostly, but it is part of center city, part of that area. I would say it's right around North Philadelphia, right around Broad and like ninth and Brown, that kind of area right where they're not voting as much. But the folks in mount Airy get their needs met because they're voting right. And they're also holding their elected officials accountable. That's where we get it wrong and twisted. We think we voted and we did all the things we had to do with their step two, which is holding these elected officials accountable for all the promises they make us and showing up at their offices and numbers of three and four on the same day at the same time talking about the same issue and having your needs met. I'm gonna just say this so just to quick Google. It's not hard, right, ladies and gentlemen, it's not hard. But for Ward seven, it says in Philadelphia, Ward seven is located in the older part of the city, so like old city spamming an area between sixth Street and twenty third Street and between Spruce Street and South Street. Okay, yeah, yeah, there it is there. It is so so so now now that we know right that there's some disparities, some issues, some challenges, right, you know, we always talk about solutions, right, what are what can we do better? And I includion because we try our best to get the information to people, right, But what can we do I include myself in it in Philadelphia, specifically to get more of the word out to the people, to try to get them encouraged to whether they vote or not, but at the very least to start to be civically engaged. What can we do? We just have to have conversations. I mean, I think we take it for granted, particularly you know here I'm in Philadelphia. I'm talking about, you know, black community. I think we take it for granted that all of our cousins and uncles and everybody's voting the right way, or they're voting the same way, or they're actually registered to vote. I think we do a disservice by just assuming people are politically engaged. I mean when you hear folks say and it was not just Sekuon Barkley, it was also Jordan my Latta, right, who are just like, my life isn't I'm not into these politics. And so we have to right now think that there are a lot of people out there like that who just think I'm not into these politics. These politics have not been working for me voting. My grandmother's been voting. Our streets still look the same, my neighborhood still looks the same. And so again I put the onus back on us as the community that is just not enough just to vote. You must follow up and hold elected officials accountable. They're not used to seeing people into their offices, you know, on a weekday ask them for something rather than I need my passport expedited or whatever you may ask of a state representative. So I think that what we can do as a community is just have good conversations. You know, I don't take it for granted that I don't have you know, a rockus Easter or Thanksgiving. We're all kind of agreeing on politics, but the last couple of years my family were not always agreeing on politics. So you can't really take that for granted. And you need to have these good conversations and talk to the young people in your life. I gave the statistic already. You have four grandkids. The odds are only one of them is registered to vote. You have four children, The odds are only one of one of your four children of voting ages registered to vote. So talk to the young people in your life. Have these conversations. We can't be scared to be having conversations about politics and religion and all the things. You know, Get off the weather, get into something more meaningful right now, and lead by example. Like you mentioned with your parents, you must you must leave by example. So knowing I just want to back up because you mentioned Sa Kwan right, knowing that you know what's been going on in the environment, Knowing many people have been or felt like they were let down, especially the past selection. Uh Is it truly surprising that he took a stance, you know, the way that he you know, he feels that, you know, politics just you know, I don't get into politics, politics, I don't care about it pretty much. Is that? You know? Is that a surprising thing to stand on now, knowing what's been going on and the disappointment? Is that truly because you know, I try my best, because although we are pretty progressive, right, I try my best to say, you know, you know the city, you know the state, We're not monolis, right, you know, we we you know, we're different. You know, we have different opinions. You know, we have different things that affects us, like all of us won't agree and everything right, and so you know, he has showed that I don't necessarily agree with what the quote unquote my my majority, the people that I'm around, my peers, I don't necessarily agree. They they push one side. I'm just kind of like neutral, so to speak. Is it a problem for someone to feel that way. There's a couple of complexions, and the complexion of green means some things to some folks, right, So you might think you have the complexion for protection, which is that green that that money, right, And so for you, if you have money, you may not feel how other things, like your cousins might be feeling they don't have the same amount of money that you have. Right, So there's that protection, that complexion for protection, which is the green I'm gonna you know, I personally will place that on Saquan Barkley. And maybe he forgot what it's like, you know what it's like out here for folks that don't have the type of finances that he might have. And so you know, there's that. And again, we're not a monolith. Yeah, black people are not a monolith. And I'll say this though, black women we continue to get things right, so. Maybe maybe we're there. We're a monolith here. Black women tend to get things right. But you know, when you are suffering, you know, when you can't afford to put food on the table, when you can't afford to put clothes on your kids back, when you can't afford to buy them the baseball bat for their league, those are the biggest concerns you have. Voting in May is not one of those challenges. It's not one of those things, right, And so when you're just trying to get by and survive. Voting isn't top of mine, but those closest to the pain must be closest to the power. And the power is at the ballot box. And we learn that in the fifties and sixties with our ancestors. That's how we got all the change, That's how we overcame Jim Crow by voting it out at the ballot box. So, you know, I'll just say that this is an opportunity that folks have, is that, Yeah, you may, Eli Musk may tempt you with fifty four dollars to sign a petition, and you may you may need that fifty four dollars to put groceries on the table. Take the fifty four dollars, but then vote the right way at the end of the day. Take the fifty four dollars, but at the end of the day, vote the right way. For your communities. Yeah, and not everybody has that protection, of that complexion for protection, and that is that green. I was gonna say, it's funny too, because when you think about May, that's also the season where parents are bogged down with proms and graduations and you know, school trips and all this stuff. So there, that's like their first priority. So when you say they're not thinking about it, they really are not. No, And you know Philadelphia, primary elections are very important in Philadelphia, just as important as they are in Pittsburgh because the primary election is essentially the general election. Because when you have a city this primarily of one political party, whoever wins the primary election will likely win the general election unless something major happens. So you have to come out in May to vote because that is essentially your general election in Philadelphia. But yeah, you have Mother's Day and bills to pay, in prom dresses and graduation parties and all the things coming up, and so you know that coming out on that one Tuesday, you know, on May twentieth, from seven am to apm may not be in your plans, particularly if you're working two and three ship jobs, because you're still stuck at that federal minimum wage of seven twenty five an hour. So let's talk about that. In Philadelphia, first class city, stuck at seven twenty five dollars an hour. That's why we're one of the poorest big cities in the country. So real quick, right, real quick, Now that you say that, right, and we're talking about election, right, who would be responsible, right or someone in leadership to make a policy or change that particular minimum wage. Who would that be? That is your state representative and your state senator. And I'll say this, if you were living in the city of Philadelphia and pretty much the call of counties of Philadelphia, your state reps and state senators are in favor of increasing the minimum wage. We've been stuck at this level because there's folks, particularly in the center of the state, those state reps and state senators who just don't believe that it's necessary to legislate and increase the minimum wage. They'll argue and say, oh, I know, I actually own a restaurant. We're paying more than minimum wage. But at the same time they may be paying more than that, but they don't want it to be legislated and qualified into law. So because it is required, absolutely, so Yeah, it's reaching out to your state representatives and your state senators they're up for election next year, and talking to them, going into their office grounds for our public opinion, saying it's time to raise the minimum wage. It's been a long time. Pennsylvania stuck for more than thirteen years at seven twenty five hour New York and New Jersey have all raised their minim way way and they just gave I think, like raises to the judicial system of judges and everything, and still have not did it for the minimum. Wait, so that's a that's a little weird. Yeah, yeah, it's a problem. Yeah, And that's why you don't have That's why someone can't come out and vote on one day of the week because they're working two jobs. I know my father, right, my dad has sold cars all my dad. Shout out to my dad, right my flat. You know, he sold cars all my life. And his shift at work was like eight in the morning till nine at night. So when was he going out to vote. You can't go out seven in the morning because you're trying to get to work and drive to work, right, and you can't if you're waiting in line. If the poling location is gonna take you thirty minutes to get through, you're not gonna gonna do it. Then you don't get off worked till nine o'clock at night. So the post closed eight, so my dad had. To risk it. You know, he was going out on his lunch break and hoping that it took him less than an hour. To make it happen if he got a lunch break that day. What if something happened that day and he couldn't get his lunch break, he just would have been disenfranchised. So one day the week is not enough. So if anything besides pushing for increase him in on wage, we need to reach out to our state reps and state centers and tell them we need a voting rights Act in Pennsylvania and we need to have same day voter registration like they have in North Carolina. We need to have true early voting at the polls like they have in North Carolina. Why we don't have this in Pennsylvania, the birthplace of American democracy. It should be the easiest to vote here in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania than any place else in the country. That's right, Tom Jesus. But I do want to I do want to give you the opportunity real quick, because you're doing some great work with your new podcasts, right, and so I will be remiss if I didn't allow you to amplify that because you are talking and doing some great work and trying to get that information out there. So why don't you talk a little bit about the podcast Yeah. So super excited to have launched a podcast this year. It launched in April, early April. It's called Slingshot the podcast. It's named Slingshot in homage of David and Goliath and how David was able to take down Goliath with a single slingshot. And so we're trying to you know, provide some you know, some entertainment. We're talking about you know, cultural issues. We're talking about music and sports and you know, all the things that we want to hear about, right when our lives aren't political, all the things we want to hear about, but then at the same time kind of weaving in some political talk into that. And we're going to have some really outstanding guests coming up in the future episodes. So I encourage you all the places that you watch your podcast. Did you get your podcasts Apple? You can go to our website slingshotthpodcast dot org and find us and watch the episodes and support content creation black women, content creation for black people. So this podcast is created for black people, particularly for black men. It's a place for us to have our voices heard, learn some information that we may have never heard before, and get it in a way that is still entertaining. Awesome, fantastic ten. So shout out to you with all of the work that you're doing, and shout out that to you for now giving platform or or acknowledging the brothers right knowledging the brothers out there right. I think a lot of the men out there now are feeling a little left behind or not acknowledged, right, And I think you're giving a platform to you know, show a little bit more of that. You know that that you know, we got you, We understand that there's a voice there and here's some information for you. So kudos. So but before I let you leave, why don't you let everyone know how they can get in contact with you, especially your organization and all the great work that you're doing. Yes, so again today our four year anniversary. Really excited about that. You know a lot of businesses go out of business early on. So this nonprofit non parts of an organization, we made it through four years. You can find us on all the social media channels are handled is at New Pennsylvania or at New Pennsylvania Project, depending upon where you're going. But you can find us on Twitter, you can steal, you can find us on threads, you can find us on Facebook, LinkedIn Instagram, the podcast against slink Shot, the podcast anywhere you get your podcast, and the website newpaproject dot org and you can find out where we're having events and where's our next canidate forums, and we're having cannon forms for school boards as well. Also very important elections, you know, outside of Philadelphia area. So yeah, follow us and donate to organizations like ours. Four years ago, I was the only staff member, and today we have more than fifty staff members. That's a five zero, right, So we're a job creator. We're paying good wages, and everybody's got one hundred percent of their medical insurance and dental and vision paid for, right, and we are hiring in Philadelphia. So if you're interested, go onto our website and find out what we're hiring for. You go there, you go see giving up them jobs to make sure you reach out. So I don't want you guys to go anywhere. When we come back. We got some good news and bad news. Some good news, yes, all right, some good news, right, and it's about. Okay, we're gonna talk a little bit about that. So I don't want you to go anywhere. We'll be right back after this. I'm gonna go to one of our young journalists out there doing some fantastic work that we've been working with. Important for them to understand media literacy and doing their journalistic and civic duties out there, and they're doing some great work. So don't go nowhere, and we'll be right back out of after this. Young and the Willow, we'll be right back. I'm club. Hi, I'm Willow Jordan with you Civic News and I'm here with my grandfather, Willie Jordan and Gpa. What brings you out tonight, Well, I'm here to discuss the importance of it and the election that's coming up and important. The responsibility that we have to do is out, get out the vote. What is your role? I have wear many hats, but one is a community activist, and that means to keep people aware and make them informed on the issues of the day so they can come out and make a real good choice on voting for the right candidates. What are some of the issues you see? Housing, education, transportation, There's a lot of things. Anything that we do in our lives, it has to do with elections. Politicians, elective officials making those decisions. The amount of time that you stay in school and the amount of days you stay in school is based on what some elective officials. Came up with. How important? How important is it to vote? It is very important. It's not just important, it's responsible. Voting shit is not a selfish activity. It's a selfless You vote to help others. So as you help others, people help you and be a better world, a better city, a better country to live in. Where do some of your beliefs come from? Well, my belief is based on I guess I would first come from my home training. My parents told me the importance of civic responsibility, caring, loving, sharing, being involved, being responsible on your actions. Is there any positive knowledge you would give to the people who don't vote. I would tell them if they can't come up with a reason why they should vote for themselves, come up with a reason why they should vote for someone else, for their parents, for their children, for more street lights, how they want a better community, do it for someone else. I'm Willow Jordan reporting from you Civic News, and I'm here with my grandfather Willie Jordan. Thank you, You're welcome. Peter Philadelphia want to six point five? When we talked week after we talked with you boy, Charles Gregmen and beautiful and beautiful and yeah we got good news and bad news coming up. You're ready, Yeah, I'm ready, all right. So, as our guests have been talking about, say Kwan Barkley, this is about Philadelphia's Eagles star sa Kwan Barkley. So he had a record breaking season. As for the Super Bowl win, y'all already know that he became an instant fan favorite. But this week he's under fire. And it's not for his game, but for his golf game. Barkley was spotted playing with playing golf with President Donald Trump, and he later attended the Eagles White House, something that his black fans weren't too happy about. Were you all happy about that? Did it? Man? I don't care? Okay, I didn't either. But Barkley he clapped back on social media, saying, maybe I just respect the office. I just golfed with Obama not too long ago as well. So critics say that doesn't line up with his past stance on racial injustice. NBC Sports Natalie Esquire said it's tone death, insulting and frankly hypocritical and careta parks of double tick sports said that golfing with a political figure will always be viewed through a political lens, especially in today's climate. Meanwhile, quarterback Jalen Hurts, who recently married his longtime girlfriends, skip the visit all together, so he wasn't there. So in silence, uh does silent speak very loudly as far as Jalen Hurt's not going, what do y'all think? I'm not even So this is the thing. He's the quarterback, so they want to put all that attention on him, and oh what he didn't do. But what they're not talking about is there was less than half the team who attended. So yeah, let's talk about that. Yeah, don't just you know, of which Jalen Hurts is he was the only one that actually had a like a real conflict schedule a conflict. So but why wasn't everybody else but there? You know, But he's the one that's like it because he's the quarterback. But it was less than half the team. So can you separate the athlete from the actions off the field? Like or sr public figures be held accountable for who they stand next to. Like he does his job, he goes to work, He does his job, why is he held to a standard outside of his. But this is the thing outside of his job. This is one of the reasons why conversations like religion, politics, all these type of things aren't really held, you know, a lot in these public places. And that's why your choice of who you vote for is not always public because everybody has a choice, and then everybody has an opinion, right and just because somebody feels different than you, does that make them a bad person. Everybody has their own political views. But I don't understand where it's like this crazy fight or argument or people just don't associate or talk to each other, or if you don't think the way I think, then I'm not talking to you anymore. That's the crazy things and why people and why we say that. And it sounds like, yeah, that doesn't make sense, but it's done so often because everybody's mad at snoop Dog. Everybody's mad at. It's more from and and people may disagree with me, but it seems like it's more from a liberal side than the conservative side on views. But this is my thing. I could I could see if you're you know, dragging somebody because they say one thing one day and not even switched in order because they flip flopping or they're not, you know, staying true to something. But if that's what they're doing, that's what they're doing. So do you agree with that? Like in music, like with the whole r Kelly and Puff Daddy, they you talk about you know what I'm saying, does that kind of apply in that regard as well? Who did something? But they're now saying, Okay, I can't support this person because of you know, what they do is their craft outside of what they do in their personal life. So then now you're getting into what's the reason you know what I'm saying, what is the reason you don't support Donald Trump? Do you not support this president because you don't like his political views? Or do you not support him because you don't like the fact that he's doing stuff other people are doing and getting away with it, like grabbing vagina's and all this other stuff. You know, if this is the person that you feel like is you also want to call a monster and should be in jail and charge for stuff, and you don't want to be associated with him because you feel he's a certain way from that aspect that's different from political views and how you run a country or a city, or you know, as political. So what's the reason you don't like him? What's the reason? You know what I'm saying, what is your issue? I always say something similar to that. I'll say, let's just say you go to your favorite brest ron or your favorite supermarket. You don't know who the CEO is and you don't know what he does, and you don't know but yet and still you're supporting because you don't know. Because right, so, but if you were. To find out about this person and see what characteristic traits that they have that you may not like, what happens, then you don't go to that supermarket. Nomore, you stop, you stop supporting. And that's a powerful question. If you knew what everybody did behind closed doors in their personal life, or what type of sexual X please them, would that deter you from supporting whatever business they bring? So pretty much y'all saying that people rather be lied to. Yes, for the bottom line, right, but I don't know, won't hurt me? Yeah? You know? Yeah? All right? Was that good news or was that bad news? All right? I got another news. All right, this is good news. This is good news. Now if you're dreaming of owning a home in Philadelphia, this initiative maybe for you. So the Turn the Key program is offering newly built, affordable home homes to first time home buyers. Many homes are reasonably priced under a two hundred and fifty thousand dollars marker, and these homes are geared towards working families earning about sixty thousand dollars a year for a household of four. Council Member Jamie Gauthier is pushing to speed up development in areas like Mantua, Fish Town, Brewerytown by removing zoning barriers. This exclusion is about making sure that inclusionary zoning does. Zoning does what it will always was intended to do and promote more genuinely affordable housing, says Got the Air. Another big move from city Hall Mayor Chiro Parker. She just introduced a package of five housing bill bills aimed at building and preserving thirty thousand homes throughout Philadelphia. These reforms will reduce parking mandates, speed up land transfers, and cut red tape on zoning. So if you like to apply for the Turn that Key program, you can call two one five seven zero nine four two nine five, or you can visit pH d C phila dot org. That's pH d C phila dot org. Some of the steps to take our free home ownership counseling course and getting pre approval for a mortgage that they will walk you through. And I told a lot of my family members about this. This is a true program. It's in the Grace Ferry area southwest North Philly, gentrified homes and gingrified neighborhoods. So yeah, no, it's a pretty decent program. Unfortunately, there's still some barriers there. I mean, you still need the down payment right that you still have to come up with. I don't think it's super expensive, but I believe it's between like three and five thousand dollars. Most people who are working pretty much, you know, check this check, don't have that that that type of money saved to give that down posit deposit. But they do have the first home time buyers closing costs program too, so you're right about that. But they have programs for those. Yeah, and so they only give like half of the thing. Because I've been looking, I've been looking into it. But the other piece of that also is if you you know finally get over that obstacle. Right then you got the obstacle of credit. Yeah, not that, And then you know, it's kind of like, you know, credit has been targeting a lot of people, you know in terms of you know, just you know, needing loans to put food on the table or doing this, and people are doing like after paying card and all these other type of things that you know, are putting them more in that and I don't know, it's just like this never ending cycle of still staying in the position that you are. Now. All of that said, I'm not trying to give anybody no pass or anything like that. It's just I see some little kinks in the armor of this. You know, there's this new kind of like program that they're putting out there for the people. But I like the intention, and that's pretty much the bottom line. I like the intentions. And with that being said, since there are barriers in that, what I'll do is on the next segment, I'm going to try to find more programs and more resources that people may need or want to look for in the Philadelphia area that may not be highly advertised. Yeah for sure, Yeah, they're calling this. I've been listening to a few people. They're calling this the new projects, right, But what I will say, I have seen a few of the houses and they're really nice, really nice. You know, they put them in there, you. Know, and back in the day, those neighborhoods were not the best neighborhoods, and now a lot of them are are are basically being you know, they're they're vamping. Up, so which I'm happy about. You know, you want to, you know, drive out to your city and not see because it's frustrating to see tons of abandoned buildings, houses that just tore down or maybe it was a fire on that block and it still looks like that five years later or ten years later, yet we have all this homelessness. Yeah, and they're holding a lot of the owners accountable. So back in the day, like in the a's when street was running and they had the dollar houses, that's what, Yeah, ramped that up, where a lot of the abandoned houses, people were getting them for a dollar and you had a certain time, but was conditional to fix it up in order for you to get the deeds. So I think that that may be something too. Instead of having all these developers come in and buying out these neighborhoods where they're you know, inman domain or kicking out us and we no longer have ownership of those. So I think that's how that's the way for the city to get the money. Though. Yeah, now we gotta vote. We got to go back to the voting. We gotta vote and make sure we got people in the office that won't be able to go back to the city because then now it's a vicious cycle. Like all of that's connected to voting, is it. Yeah, yeah, if you think of legislation, state reps, like all of that's a vote. Yeah. But I think it's still something good. I think it's still some things that some obstacles that's in place, that still has us running in place, and everyone, for some reason, it's scared to talk about the park in the Thard. So all of these new establishments that are being built up, these affordable housing, guess what they're doing on the streets. Yep, Yeah, they're putting up meters or they're putting up you only get part there for two hours in front of my own house, right, So that's a problem. Is something that people are scared that I don't I don't know what that is that we probably had to do some research. But for the Michael attorney, Michael cork, right, he talked a lot a bit about it. No, I was gonna say when they when they put those signs up on residential blocks, because I'm because maybe in the city, but it's the people live there housing. Like you said, those people have a permit, but do this, he'll have to pay. They have to pay for the permit. They have to pay for the permit. I think it's yearly or every few months. They have to pay for the permit. Not only that, right, because I used. To think them having a permanent because I live here, I thought that was. Too because I remember I remember a family member having it. And then they said if you want additional cars or people, then now you have. To pay for you have to pay for the permit this park when your block. Oh that's crazy. But who Okay, so does this go back to legislation for your council people, your state reps. And you know what I'm saying, like that that's like and. I mean there is I believe you have to have a certain amount of people that's kind of forward. The problem with that the people that are forward are gentrifying the blocks, right, And so they're the new people that's coming on the blox of the people who been there forever who now potentially are on fixed income that now have to go through another obstacle to stay on their own block that they already own the house. That sounds like I'm just saying like this is like we have to do something about the park authority. It's no, it's no question that that's a problem, and it's it has to be fixed, period question. Yeah, But and that I think even with the parking Authority, it's almost like that it's almost like scept that they're the only ones that have domain too, like nobody else. Again, if Candida was still here, she would say it, but she probably know it goes back to a vote, it does. It has to be someone in legislation that has to okay this, to write this out, to say that it was okay because as a native affilly with certain things that wasn't there, how did it become approved? You know? And and what it is is that people do complain. But do you go to the town halls and stuff. Do you go to those community times where they're about to say, okay, this is about to be considered a sanction or a law, and no one shows up, and then. Yeah, and and two. And my only pushback with that, right because I agree with you, right, so two things can be accurate, right, I agree with that position. However, it's just like what Kadida mentioned, there's certain like think of her dad, right, just think of her dad. Right. You can't even make it that they're working. They're working with a lot of people that's out there really working, and they don't have not necessarily the time to vote per se, but they don't necessarily have the time to turn on TV to even find out what's going on, right, And so we have to uh, I mean, they have to be held account the ball. So, but we have to acknowledge that everyone isn't doing the insane exact thing. And for those who are informed, right, there's others who are not. And it's not because they don't have the ability to or the capacity to it. It could be that they're just too busy. To do it. Honestly, It's like if it wasn't for the digital world. You know how you get mail and you got to see what the bill is and so then I was that person that didn't want to I didn't have. Yeah, I'm like I all time openness and read this and if it wasn't for the digital world, like, that's what made my life easier. So I understand what you're saying, Like, it's not that you are trying to avoid it ignore it. It's just you don't have the time. So I get it. Well, that was your good news and your bad news from your girl class lead as good as a bad class Late's Park, I'm your boy, beautiful. Classic ladies beautiful. Well, all right, so I'm just gonna since we already talk about this, just another reminder for the municipal primary election, last day to register is May fifth, and May thirteenth is the last day to apply for a mailing or a civilian absentee ballot as the election is May twentieth. So since we were at the top of the month, I just wanted to share with you guys everything that's happened this month. Actually, it's not so much happening this month, but I'm going to cover a few things. So first and foremost, tomorrow is the annual Broad Street Run. We're tens of thousands of athletes do this ten mile core straight down Broad Street from North Philly to South fully literally starting from like the Fisher Avenue all the way to the Navy Yard. Can we do this next year all the way te weekly, Yeah, yeah, we should do it. Did you know it was the largest tamil race in the country. No, it is, so yeah, tens of thousands of athletes who actually do the race. But then also on top of that you have thousands of spectators. So if nothing else, I'm just letting you guys know. It's tomorrow. It's kicking off at seven am. So if nothing else, avoid this area. What's gonna be cut for traffic? If nothing else, well, all of literally from Fisher all the entire Broad Street down to there. We are from North Philly all the way through to South Philly, So you're you're trying to navigate the area will be rough. Just so, just so you know. May fifth and May tenth, we have the Philly Tech Week to celebrates technology and innovation as spaces all throughout Greater Philadelphia. The multi day gathering features over fifty events, including networking events, an idea exchange, a summit for startups, which I'm really excited about. I know a lot of people have startups and are trying to figure out how to how to get their startups started, so this would be good for them. But you said the techy one, it's a Philly tech Week. Oh nice, Yes, that would be great. From the May tenth, May fifth to May tenth, yeah conference and a ton of other stuff. And this is happening at the Franklin Institute on twenty uh yeah, twenty two to to North twentieth Street. Sunday, May eleventh is Mother's Day. We all you reminders so you can't say that you forgot. And they're having a gospel uh Lead Core Center is doing a Mother's Day gospel celebration with Donnie Mcclerkland, Kirk car Has, Kyle Walker, Miranda Curtis, Leandrea Johnson, and Glinte Gavin. So yeah, yeah, that's the coolest that's gonna that's that starts at four o'clock on Sunday on Mother's Day. So if you're trying to find something to do with your mom, that may be an option. May seventeenth through the eighteenth, we have the South uh South ninth Street Italian Market. I know a lot of people like to shop down shop down ninth Street, so this is where it's gonna be a ton of food you can eat right then. The festival will feature over one hundred area vendors showing off their uh, you know, range of cosine and beverages and things that they can do. It's gonna cover city. It's gonna cover a span across seven city block and it's going but. They still did that. Yeah, it's gonna be from market ten am to five pm May May fifteenth through June eighth. The popular show Rent is gonna be running at the Art and Theater. I know a lot of people. You know, that's a really popular one and it's going to be here from May fifteenth to June eighth. Another big reminder, we talked about this a little while ago, is just the HBCU Festival. We talked a lot about HBCUs tonight, but May seventeenth, it's the hbu CU Festival at the Man Music Center eleven to five and they're gonna have marching bands and performances, food trucks, and there's also gonna be a huge college fair happening during this festival. So Man Music Center. And real quick for the Art and Theater. A lot of people don't know this but for like the opening nights or the I think they're called things. They they are discounted tickets. Yeah there, yeah, they will people's count of tickets and specials in the first night. And it's going to be here from May fifteenth to June. So the first night May fifteenth, Yes, definitely. Rent is real popular and it doesn't come that often. A lot of towns folks are trying to see it and they are trying to like catch it and they go to like Chicago, New York or whatever. But it's going to be here, so that'll be cool. Another reminder for just some fun things to do in our city. May twenty third through the fall our Delaware River Waterfront Columbus Avenue. You know, uh yeah, yeah, everything's gonna be open down there, so the Independence Blue Cross River Rink Summerfest. That's where they have the NHL size roller rink or by the double decker carousel, sixty foot ferris will mini golf, moon bounce, boardwalk, games and rides. I don't know if anybody knows that that's there, but it's down there. You can actually see the ferries wille like from the expressway. But and then a couple of miles just I don't know, maybe like a mile down the road on going in the south direction, you have the Harbor Park. So both of those are opening or the twenty third, and we'll be opening and we'll be opened through the fall. So Harbor Park is like now, it's just like a huge hangout with cocktail bars and music and stage performances. It's a lot of stuff that's going on down there. And even they even do like a they have an outdoor yoga down there or sometimes. And who says it's not nothing to do. I feel it's a lot going on. Like people are saying nothing to do here. I definitely want to give about a shout out to Pride Week. They call it Pride Week. It's like two days May thirty of the June first, the Pride around the city and city flag reason, it's going to be Friday, May twentieth, and then the Pride prim Ade will be Saturday, No, yeah, Saturday the thirty first, and then June first will be the actual Pride march and festival. And then that same same weekend it's Ruth's Picnic. So yeah, if again, if for nothing else, make note of these dates for travel. That's a lot everybody. Everybody talk about traffic in other cities. Traffic be here be trafficking too. And May is a great, a great month for weather. May is a great mom it's kicking off the spring. It's not too hot. You still got some nice nights, so get out and enjoy all this stuff that's happening, y'all. So that's all I got for what's happening in Philly in May. And it's May theory, so you got time to plan them out for all this stuff. That was nice. Gentlemen, we talk. We can after the talking w PPM on PEO Philadelphia on sixt we talk. We can after to talk with your beautiful, beautiful lady. And that's you show. Ladies and gentlemen. We see y'all next week. Be out of here like last year, by y'all,