Full Transcript for Black Misleadership Exposed

reason, I vividly remember in my head telling myself that I should do my best to keep quiet and be patient, because everyone around me was so sad and so serious. 00:06:30.629 --> 00:06:41.269 Washington was Chicago's first ever black mayor, and in only four years, he had done probably as much as anyone in that city's history to dismantle the corrupt core of the city government. 00:06:41.430 --> 00:06:45.029 He helped pull more black people and women into the city's administration. 00:06:45.110 --> 00:07:02.789 He created processes to make the city's finances more transparent, he helped black contractors and businesses get access to city contracts in ways that they were usually barred from doing and pretty much did everything possible to address the needs of the city's most needy people, and then he literally died in office of a heart attack in 1987. 00:07:02.949 --> 00:07:11.509 I'm sure there's analysis or criticism of Washington that someone out there has or will have to conflict with the narrative I remember from my childhood. 00:07:11.670 --> 00:07:16.230 But overall, Washington's legacy, at least amongst black people, is pristine. 00:07:16.310 --> 00:07:22.069 He is seen as one of the greatest leaders the city has ever seen, and for the most part seems to deserve that moniker. 00:07:22.230 --> 00:07:30.389 What's clear about his legacy is that he put the people first and fought against entrenched oppressive systems in order to represent the needs of the people. 00:07:30.550 --> 00:07:38.709 He was how we often imagine black leaders when they emerge from our communities and are carried by us into the halls of power to represent black interests. 00:07:38.949 --> 00:07:42.870 But sadly, this is not always what happens when black leaders emerge. 00:07:43.110 --> 00:07:53.509 For example, a little over 20 years later in the nearby city of Detroit in 2002, another so-called black leader who somewhat resembled Washington became Detroit's youngest ever mayor. 00:07:53.670 --> 00:07:57.670 His name was Kwame Kilpatrick, and he was an immediate star in politics. 00:07:57.829 --> 00:08:03.269 He was charming, well-spoken, youthful, and touted as the first leader of the hip hop generation. 00:08:03.430 --> 00:08:13.829 He had an energy about him that black Gen Xers had at the time, but seemingly still carried himself with the traditions of the era of civil rights and social progress that came before him. 00:08:13.990 --> 00:08:16.949 Unfortunately, this was all very much of a side. 00:08:17.189 --> 00:08:23.670 You vowed to uphold honor, integrity, and loyalty in the performance of duties as your mayor, as as mayor. 00:08:23.909 --> 00:08:29.589 You were a leader in this community, and you occupied the highest office in one of the largest cities in the nation. 00:08:30.069 --> 00:08:37.029 With all the challenges faced by this city, you were expected to lead from the front and set the example. 00:08:37.509 --> 00:08:53.190 Instead, you violated your fiduciary responsibilities by misrepresenting and misleading the city council into accepting a legal settlement, which ultimately cost the people of Detroit in excess of$8.4 million, all in an attempt to protect your political career. 00:08:53.509 --> 00:08:54.789 Shout out to Kenny J.D. 00:08:54.950 --> 00:09:01.029 who does great pop culture deep dives, but is also a Detroit native who was there when Kwame Kilpatrick was mayor. 00:09:01.110 --> 00:09:03.990 She has a full video on this dude that I'll leave in the description. 00:09:04.070 --> 00:09:11.909 But in short, this city with its deep black history and cultural legacy was grievously failed and exploited by Kwame Kilpatrick. 00:09:11.990 --> 00:09:15.110 He proceeded to be the worst black leader it had ever seen. 00:09:15.190 --> 00:09:25.590 Some details about Kilpatrick's record include nepotism, money laundering, stealing, drugged-out mansion parties, corruption, and an alleged mistress who was also a stripper that was murdered. 00:09:25.669 --> 00:09:37.669 And her murder case was closed before the police could actually investigate it, or maybe the police investigated it and then lost most of the evidence because the murder weapon just happened to be the same exact type of gun that the police used at that time. 00:09:37.909 --> 00:09:40.069 But, you know, we won't worry about that again. 00:09:40.149 --> 00:09:42.470 Shout out to Kenny JD, she has a great video on it. 00:09:42.629 --> 00:09:44.309 All of this is during his first term. 00:09:44.470 --> 00:09:47.189 Yes, his first term, as in, there was a second. 00:09:47.350 --> 00:09:51.909 He was re-elected in 2005 for reasons I really can't fathom. 00:09:52.069 --> 00:09:58.389 Thankfully, he would eventually be convicted of corruption charges and sentenced to nearly 30 years in federal prison in 2013. 00:09:58.470 --> 00:10:05.590 But by 2018, after only five years, he campaigned for an early release that was granted by none other than President Donald J. 00:10:05.750 --> 00:10:06.230 Trump. 00:10:06.470 --> 00:10:19.509 A similar thing happened with Eric Adams in New York when he was brought up on numerous corruption charges and then had the feds decline to prosecute because he showed his bellot to Trump, all while claiming racism was the reason he was being prosecuted. 00:10:19.750 --> 00:10:22.230 If he doesn't come true, I'll be back in New York City. 00:10:22.549 --> 00:10:28.389 And we won't be sitting on the couch, I'll be in his office up his butt saying, where the hell is the agreement we came to? 00:10:28.629 --> 00:10:31.909 O'Lay has a video on all of his dirty shit, if you want more details on that. 00:10:32.069 --> 00:10:36.629 And these are just the leaders that get caught doing dirt, the ones with obvious crimes on their resume. 00:10:36.789 --> 00:10:40.470 This doesn't get into the actual bad shit they do with their leadership. 00:10:40.629 --> 00:10:47.830 For example, going back to Eric Adams, he expanded the

police state and ignored numerous human rights atrocities in New York's prisons. 00:10:47.990 --> 00:10:52.309 He also invited Trump and ICE to wreak havoc on New York's immigrant population. 00:10:52.389 --> 00:11:04.549 It's no wonder it was Trump's Justice Apartment who also quietly closed Eric Adams' corruption case, after which he ran off to the same nation he was accused of taking money from, in the first place, go figure. 00:11:04.710 --> 00:11:10.950 This is only a scratch on the surface of the modern issue of black leadership, or should I say, black misleadership. 00:11:11.189 --> 00:11:21.429 Black misleadership is a concept greatly attributed to the late great Glenn Ford, who made it a core framework of his analysis of black politicians right before and after the Obama era. 00:11:21.669 --> 00:11:51.990 This black misleadership class has always been among us, and it is the tension uh between these representationists, these who see uh only uh the goal of being represented, that is, having a few black folks in business and in motion pictures, and maybe one day, now is the day in the White House, uh, but do not see uh the need for a transformation of society. 00:11:52.230 --> 00:11:59.990 According to an article written by Ford himself that can be found on Hood Communists, he credits one James Warren with first use of the term back in 2005. 00:12:00.069 --> 00:12:10.389 In an article titled 37 Years of Non-Struggle Misleadership, Ford goes on to define the black misleadership class as the following: Black misleadership class is not a scientific term. 00:12:10.549 --> 00:12:17.830 It is a weaponized political terminology with specific meaning based on black historical and current political realities. 00:12:17.990 --> 00:12:31.909 The term refers to those black political forces that emerged at the end of the 60s, eager to join the corporate and dual polypolitical, mostly Democrat ranks, and to sell out the interests of the overwhelmingly working class black masses in the process. 00:12:32.149 --> 00:12:41.429 It is both an actual and aspirational class, which ultimately sees its interests as tied to those of US imperialism and its ruling circles. 00:12:41.590 --> 00:12:50.950 It seeks representation in the halls of corporate power and dreads social transformation, which would upset the class's careful, cultivated relationship with power. 00:12:51.189 --> 00:12:54.710 We know who those people are based on their political behaviors. 00:12:54.870 --> 00:13:01.909 Our job as conscious political people is to expose their treachery to the black masses who reject their misleadership. 00:13:02.149 --> 00:13:13.110 Now to assuage the fears of the more hardcore black radicals in the audience, I do not think so highly of myself as to perfectly translate the work or legacy of Glenn Ford, who passed away back in 2021. 00:13:13.350 --> 00:13:17.029 But I do want to make the attempt of furthering that last sentence. 00:13:17.189 --> 00:13:22.870 Because I

think that last sentence is important for pretty much everything going on with black politics right now. 00:13:23.029 --> 00:13:39.269 If you've been locked into black political anything for the last few years, you've seen a shifting wave of energy happening amongst black voters, but not in the not in the way that the mainstream media likes to imagine when they trot out a bunch of with messed up haircuts to ask for the hundredth time in a row. 00:13:39.509 --> 00:13:42.629 Will this be the year that black voters vote Republican? 00:13:42.870 --> 00:13:45.669 What the hell do you have to lose? 00:13:48.470 --> 00:13:55.029 The answer to that question is and has always been no, and I really wish a lot of y'all would stop entertaining that as a serious question. 00:13:55.189 --> 00:14:00.950 However, there is a shift started with black voters, but it's not to the right, it's to the left. 00:14:11.909 --> 00:14:14.149 Who are you supporting in the Senate race today? 00:14:14.309 --> 00:14:14.789 Abdul. 00:14:15.029 --> 00:14:15.669 And why is that? 00:14:15.990 --> 00:14:17.750 Because he doesn't take money from API. 00:14:18.069 --> 00:14:24.069 We gotta start taking care of home and the same old status quo. 00:14:24.470 --> 00:14:30.950 Democrats, Republicans, all seem to have the same agenda for another country. 00:14:31.189 --> 00:14:36.230 And a lot of people in black political establishment circles are starting to get worried. 00:14:36.470 --> 00:15:03.990 After Kamala Harris lost the 2024 presidential election, there was a backlash from many black, moderate, and liberal voters against those to their left for not being more supportive of Harris, who, aside from a sketchy past as a politician in California, most troubling, Miss Harris fought tooth and nail to uphold wrongful convictions that have been secured through official misconduct that included evidence, tampering, false testimony, and the suppression of crucial information by prosecutors. 00:15:15.269 --> 00:15:22.710 If anything, would you have done something differently than President Biden during the past four years? 00:15:23.669 --> 00:15:31.590 There is not a thing that comes to mind in terms of, and I've been a part of most of the decisions that have had impact. 00:15:32.230 --> 00:15:42.309 And the result of her failure to win the election has been a second Trump term that has undoubtedly been far worse than the first, and undoubtedly been far worse than if she were president. 00:15:42.470 --> 00:15:54.069 But thankfully, it has manifested in a reaction movement from the left with the rise of the DSA as well as many other left of Democrat voices in media and politics and just communities in general. 00:15:54.230 --> 00:16:01.669 There's criticism and limitations to all of these movements and what they mean long term and whether or not they are the real solutions for black people and our needs. 00:16:01.830 --> 00:16:14.549 But what's more important and interesting is that this disruption has manifested in a clash between black leftists and progressives who see the Democratic Party as broken versus black moderates and liberals who seek a return to the status quo. 00:16:14.629 --> 00:16:20.309 And at stake in this battle is the Democratic Party's 60-year hold on black voters and black political thought. 00:16:20.470 --> 00:16:24.149 And this is why I want to engage with this concept of blackness leadership. 00:16:24.309 --> 00:16:29.189 Because as a leftist, I see this as a moment where a lot of black people are looking for answers. 00:16:29.429 --> 00:16:36.870 As Ford stated, they need to be encouraged to find those answers away from the systems and structures that have held us back for a generation. 00:16:37.029 --> 00:16:40.470 And to be clear, this is not an endorsement of the DSA or electoralism. 00:16:40.549 --> 00:16:42.950 I'm just using that as a framing advice and a starting point. 00:16:43.029 --> 00:16:52.629 Because any one of these new figures that I do like that have come out of the DSA could still exhibit the same problems and platforms of black misleadership once the opportunity presents itself. 00:16:52.789 --> 00:17:04.789 So the goal instead is to set up a framework and a way of looking at things that allows you to recognize the patterns and tricks that are used to lull black people to sleep with these misleaders. 00:17:04.950 --> 00:17:09.990 We all agree tonight, all of the speakers have agreed that America has a very serious problem. 00:17:10.230 --> 00:17:15.670 Not only does America have a very serious problem, but our people have a very serious problem. 00:17:15.990 --> 00:17:17.910 America's problem is us. 00:17:18.549 --> 00:17:19.670 We're her problem. 00:17:20.150 --> 00:17:23.990 The only reason she has a problem is she doesn't want us here. 00:17:24.309 --> 00:17:38.230 And every time you look at yourself, be you black, brown, red, or yellow, a so-called Negro, you are you represent a person who poses such a serious problem for America because you're not one. 00:17:38.470 --> 00:17:42.870 I want to start out by asking why certain folks emerge as leaders. 00:17:43.029 --> 00:17:48.870 What frameworks do they apply to get us to lower their guard and allow them to be held up by us? 00:17:49.029 --> 00:18:02.230 Because once you start to think about that, once you recognize that our leaders, good and bad, often present a specific image to black people that we are known to get behind and support, it makes it easier to spot when that facade is actually hollow on the inside. 00:18:02.470 --> 00:18:07.990 For example, if you put Kwame Kilpatrick and Harold Washington side by side, you could believe that they were related. 00:18:08.150 --> 00:18:17.349 They both evoke an image of confident, charming, classically masculine authority figures, and this image clearly has some universal appeal no matter what race or culture you come from. 00:18:17.509 --> 00:18:29.430 It's no accident that aside from a

few female mayors here or there, who have also had their own traditional aesthetic to appeal to, these black leaders all tend to be well-spoken, clean-cut, affable, straight black men. 00:18:29.589 --> 00:18:37.589 And if we're gonna keep it a buck, we have to acknowledge that this image here in America is meant to imitate white images and concepts of gender masculinity. 00:18:37.750 --> 00:18:39.589 This is a beautiful audience. 00:18:39.910 --> 00:18:41.829 It's a beautiful audience. 00:18:42.549 --> 00:18:48.470 An audience which I have been proud, whether you know the time, to have worked for you for years. 00:18:48.789 --> 00:18:59.509 Even if I didn't get a vote out of this room, you would get from me 100% absolute head-to-toe, hip-to-hip dedication to your product because that's what it's all about. 00:18:59.589 --> 00:19:00.629 Thank you very much. 00:19:01.670 --> 00:19:12.069 I won't spend a lot of time on this just for the sake of keeping on topic, but it's important to know that the ways in which black people idealize and define gender are a derivative of white concepts of gender. 00:19:12.230 --> 00:19:15.990 But the hook is that these white images of gender were never meant for us. 00:19:16.150 --> 00:19:18.309 They were modeled to us by society. 00:19:18.549 --> 00:19:29.109 We were expected to aspire to and idealize these images, but since slavery, everything that makes the performance of white gender possible has been explicitly kept away from black people. 00:19:29.269 --> 00:19:43.829 Black men were never meant to be seen as equal to white men and the same goals for black women, and if we somehow did manage to embody that performance appropriately, then we usually just change the rules and flip the script on what the performers are supposed to be in order to keep us excluded. 00:19:43.990 --> 00:19:53.029 But this is all critical gender theory stuff that doesn't carry a whole lot of weight among us historically, so we still have been imbued with this desire to play these roles regardless. 00:19:53.190 --> 00:20:01.349 We still presume that these manifestations of gender are natural and good, and thus we reward those who can play those roles well. 00:20:01.509 --> 00:20:08.390 We see images of traditional men and women who can perform that white gender while being black to be the epitome of success. 00:20:08.629 --> 00:20:13.349 But to be fair to us, it's not as simple as replicating white masculinity or femininity. 00:20:13.589 --> 00:20:15.910 We also have to have that black twist on it. 00:20:15.990 --> 00:20:17.430 It has to be well seasoned. 00:20:17.509 --> 00:20:23.990 If it's too white, then we're actually untrusting of the performer in question and whether or not they're kinfolk or skinfolk. 00:20:24.069 --> 00:20:26.230 That's a phrase that's gonna come up a lot in this video. 00:20:26.470 --> 00:20:28.789 All skin folk ain't kinfolk. 00:20:28.950 --> 00:20:33.349 A phrase that we all understand, and if you don't, you're probably not kinfolk. 00:20:33.509 --> 00:20:42.390 When we think of the concept of fallen idols who black people celebrate because they evoke this aspirational image of blackness, there's a lot of people to choose from. 00:20:42.549 --> 00:20:54.230 For example, Jasmine Crockett was highly beloved because she seemed like an around the way girl that had still made it to the highest halls of power in our government and wasn't afraid to, to be blunt, read people on Capitol Hill. 00:20:54.470 --> 00:21:03.430 Corey Booker flashed his big smile and just gave off that type of big brother energy for years while he was the mayor of Newark and then a senator in New Jersey. 00:21:03.670 --> 00:21:21.190 Hakeem Jeffries, Jim Clyburn, Richie Torres, all of these folks, while they're bought and controlled by various corporate lobbies and APAC, not by us, they still manage to give off this energy and this image that makes us feel like they're a part of us when they're not. 00:21:21.430 --> 00:21:29.430 Meanwhile, people like Angie Dixon in Florida, because she doesn't have that corporate backing, are struggling to get the support of the Democratic Party. 00:21:29.589 --> 00:21:42.390 I can go on and on into the duplicitous nature of the Democratic Party and how they weaponize this love for aesthetics to make sure that we're never overly critical of those black people they position in front of us to lead us. 00:21:42.629 --> 00:21:48.309 But really, I can get all of that done by talking about one person that really solidifies all of that. 00:21:48.390 --> 00:21:57.750 And there's someone I know a lot of you are gonna be very mad at me for criticizing everyone's favorite president and the master of this balancing act, one Barack Hussein Obama. 00:21:59.269 --> 00:22:02.150 Uh can can I get some water? 00:22:06.150 --> 00:22:07.349 Come on up there. 00:22:08.069 --> 00:22:09.750 I really didn't need a glass of water. 00:22:09.829 --> 00:22:10.869 This is not a stunt. 00:22:11.029 --> 00:22:23.349 Believe it or not, I've already made two videos explaining how Barack Obama failed black people and a lot of criticisms that you can and should have about his paying off the banks, the incomplete health care bill, the drone strikes, etc. 00:22:23.670 --> 00:22:31.190 So I will just point you to those videos and a few others if you just want to understand why I think Barack Obama should be seen in a worse light. 00:22:31.430 --> 00:22:36.390 This video is not going to serve as the Obama is bad and here's why video. 00:22:36.549 --> 00:22:40.549 I promise I was gentle in those videos, probably more than I should have been. 00:22:40.629 --> 00:22:45.109 And despite all of that, a lot of folks haven't watched those videos because I think people just aren't ready for. 00:22:45.670 --> 00:22:47.269 For that conversation at scale. 00:22:47.430 --> 00:22:56.230 But I want to make sure that people understand that this section isn't trying to explicitly convince you that

Obama is bad based solely off his political record, right? 00:22:56.470 --> 00:23:03.990 Just for the moment, assume that you might agree that Obama is not so great, and in fact was pretty harmful to black people. 00:23:04.150 --> 00:23:13.750 And if that's the case, and it is, I want to instead focus on why it's so hard for people to acknowledge this and how he got to that point in the first place. 00:23:13.910 --> 00:23:23.910 What exactly did Obama do to get him an infinite amount of grace with most black Americans, to the point where my videos criticizing him are some of my least watched political videos. 00:23:24.069 --> 00:23:39.509 Obama is the ultimate misleader because, unlike every other person that term might apply to, he can lay claim to actually being a real full-on leader, having truly been empowered by the system, by the state, by the American people at the highest possible level. 00:23:39.670 --> 00:23:44.230 You might look at most people in the black misleadership class as like middle management. 00:23:44.390 --> 00:23:47.349 Their job mostly is to hold us in place. 00:23:47.509 --> 00:24:09.430 But Obama was the man at the top of the food chain, the president of the United States, the leader of the free world with his African name, his unambiguously black wife, his black daughters, his hobby of playing basketball, his love of hip hop, his unflappable response to his haters and critics, his randomly singing Al Green at the podium for really no reason. 00:24:18.789 --> 00:24:22.629 Just came off the blue because he knew we were gonna eat that shit up. 00:24:22.789 --> 00:24:23.509 And we did. 00:24:23.589 --> 00:24:24.150 This shit. 00:24:24.309 --> 00:24:28.549 Listen, as as much critique as I have of Obama, I ain't gonna front. 00:24:28.710 --> 00:24:31.670 In the moment, especially early on, the shit was kind of dope. 00:24:31.829 --> 00:24:37.349 U Z and younger millennials may clown us for our Obama Mania past, but y'all wasn't there. 00:24:37.509 --> 00:24:38.789 People love this man. 00:24:38.950 --> 00:24:41.349 His crowds looked like Michael Jackson crowds. 00:24:41.589 --> 00:24:46.470 Obama had something that has never been repeated, but it has been replicated. 00:24:46.629 --> 00:24:51.829 And if you pay attention, you actually realize Obama wasn't even doing anything new himself. 00:24:51.990 --> 00:24:57.269 He was just mostly running the same plays a lot of black leaders and misleaders have ran the entire time. 00:24:57.430 --> 00:25:05.990 The same plays you could attribute to a Harold Washington or a Kwame Kilpatrick, just with a level of sophistication and talent that had never been seen before. 00:25:06.150 --> 00:25:11.670 Obama figured out exactly the right ingredients to get black people on board with laser precision. 00:25:11.829 --> 00:25:15.589 Ingredients that if you really know Obama's story, he didn't have naturally. 00:25:15.750 --> 00:25:18.390 He had to build them as he went along. 00:25:33.750 --> 00:25:43.509 Breaking this point down is going to be complex and a little precarious, so I want to be clear that I'm calling Obama's blackness a performance for specific reasons illustrated from his life and his work and his legacy. 00:25:43.589 --> 00:25:51.430 I'm not saying that Obama's blackness is a performance based solely on the fact that he's biracial or the fact that his father was from Kenya and not Kentucky. 00:25:51.509 --> 00:26:00.309 I'm not trying to take Obama's black card or using nationalistic arguments championed by right-wing black weirdos on the internet, who I won't even bother to name right now. 00:26:00.470 --> 00:26:08.950 But I am saying that how we've come to perceive Obama was meticulously crafted, and we need to understand it so that we can stop it from happening again. 00:26:09.349 --> 00:26:15.430 Let's start with the fact that Obama was raised by a progressive white family in Hawaii and in Asia. 00:26:15.589 --> 00:26:22.950 He spent his early childhood living abroad in Indonesia, and then from 10 until graduating high school, he was in Hawaii going by Barry as opposed to Barack. 00:26:23.349 --> 00:26:28.069 My family actually called me Barry up until my father passed away when I was uh 20. 00:26:28.309 --> 00:26:34.950 And uh at that point I I decided that uh I should use the name that I was born with and have used it ever since. 00:26:35.269 --> 00:26:36.390 Out of respect. 00:26:36.710 --> 00:26:37.990 Out of respect for my father. 00:26:38.150 --> 00:26:38.549 Yeah. 00:26:38.869 --> 00:26:41.190 Now, much much to the regret of political consultants. 00:26:41.509 --> 00:26:41.829 Exactly. 00:26:42.309 --> 00:26:47.430 This by itself isn't the hugest smoking gun, and it is often the experience of a lot of biracial black children. 00:26:47.589 --> 00:26:52.069 Barack himself had the typical struggle of identity that biracial black people tend to have. 00:26:52.230 --> 00:26:58.309 However, it does illustrate the fact that Barack did not have the same black socialization that most black Americans had. 00:26:58.549 --> 00:27:04.549 A socialization that he low-key pretended to have as he ingratiated himself to us during his presidential run. 00:27:04.789 --> 00:27:07.349 Obama didn't grow up in or around black church pews. 00:27:07.670 --> 00:27:14.309 I was pretty green behind the ears, not really knowing anything about Chicago, not knowing that much about the church. 00:27:14.549 --> 00:27:22.309 Obama didn't directly engage with typical American policing, especially in the 60s and 70s, when many of his peers would have been learning harsh lessons about America. 00:27:22.470 --> 00:27:31.190 Obama didn't have those near universal experiences that root him in black American ethics, which again isn't an automatic disqualifier. 00:27:31.349 --> 00:27:33.109 It just makes your black different. 00:27:33.269 --> 00:27:34.629 And this isn't conjecture. 00:27:34.789 --> 00:27:48.069 Obama seemingly understood this about

himself and did a lot of work to immerse himself in blackness as a young adult from his early organizing days in Chicago before Harvard to his time working under Derek Bell, the father of critical race theory at Harvard. 00:27:48.309 --> 00:27:51.750 And one of the persons who spoke at that orientation was Professor Bell. 00:27:51.910 --> 00:28:03.509 And I remember him sauntering up to the front and not giving us a lecture, but engaging us in a conversation and speaking the truth that I've carried with me ever since. 00:28:03.750 --> 00:28:07.430 And then returning back to Chicago to work in communities after getting his law degree. 00:28:07.589 --> 00:28:19.670 Obama, like many biracial and economically privileged black people, recognized that there was a gap between their black experience and the ones most upheld and celebrated in black culture and communities, and he understandably sought an immersion experience. 00:28:19.750 --> 00:28:23.750 And he speaks of this himself basically throughout his first book, Dreams of My Father. 00:28:24.150 --> 00:28:25.109 They know too much. 00:28:25.190 --> 00:28:31.670 We have all seen too much to take my parents' brief union, a black man and a white woman, an African and an American at face value. 00:28:31.829 --> 00:28:35.190 As a result, some people have a hard time taking me at face value. 00:28:35.269 --> 00:28:44.150 When people who don't know me well, black or white, discover my background, and it is usually a discovery, for I cease to advertise my mother's race at the age of 12 or 13. 00:28:44.230 --> 00:28:47.990 When I began to suspect that by doing so, I was ingratiating myself into whites. 00:28:48.069 --> 00:28:52.309 I see the split second adjustments they have to make, the searching of my eyes for some telltale sign. 00:28:52.549 --> 00:28:53.750 They no longer know who I am. 00:28:53.829 --> 00:28:55.509 I don't fault people their suspicions. 00:28:55.670 --> 00:28:59.190 I learned long ago to distrust my childhood and the stories that shaped it. 00:28:59.269 --> 00:29:07.269 It was only many years later, after I had sat at my father's grave and spoken to him through Africa's red soil, that I could circle back and evaluate these early stories for myself. 00:29:07.349 --> 00:29:23.589 Or more accurately, it was only then that I understood that I had spent much of my life trying to rewrite these stories, plugging up holes in the narrative, accommodating unwelcome details, projecting individual choices against the blinds of history, all in the hope of attracting some granite slab of truth upon which my unborn children could firmly stand. 00:29:23.990 --> 00:29:35.509 Dreams of My Father is greatly a book about Obama reconciling two things, his unique but conveniently palatable beliefs about race and his experience as yet another black man growing up without a father. 00:29:35.670 --> 00:29:41.029 It's his thesis on the validity of his blackness, and to be fair to him, his thesis is overall correct. 00:29:41.190 --> 00:29:49.990 Blackness isn't a monolith, blackness has a lot of different shapes and permutations, and what matters most is one's dedication and willingness to serve black causes. 00:29:50.230 --> 00:29:55.990 The only thing you could choose as your own was withdrawal into a smaller and smaller coil of rage. 00:29:56.230 --> 00:30:02.069 Until being black meant only the knowledge of your own powerlessness and your own defeat. 00:30:02.950 --> 00:30:09.349 And the final irony: should you refuse this defeat and lash out at your captors, they would have a name for that too. 00:30:09.589 --> 00:30:11.990 A name that could cage you just as good. 00:30:13.190 --> 00:30:19.029 Like paranoid or militant or violent. 00:30:21.589 --> 00:30:34.230 But another way to look at this book, which he openly admits, take some liberties with the truth, is that it does serve to help solidify and maybe sanitize his blackness in the eyes of black people and to an extent white people alike. 00:30:34.470 --> 00:30:48.869 Barack Obama understood maybe better than anyone ever that he needed a mixture of black approval and white acceptability if he were ever going to be president, which according to many of his biographers and peers at the time is something that he knew he wanted to do by his late 20s. 00:30:49.029 --> 00:30:59.190 You have to perform blackness well enough for us to see you and proclaim you to be part of us, to be part of our culture and to be a paragon of what that means. 00:30:59.349 --> 00:31:03.829 We give you support, we give you credibility, we rubber stamp your blackness. 00:31:03.990 --> 00:31:08.309 And it's that rubber stamp, that connection that is then sold to systems of power. 00:31:08.470 --> 00:31:18.710 However, if you aren't acceptable to those white systems of power, if you're too abrasive, too radical, too unpolished, too unwilling to work within that system, then you won't make it very far. 00:31:18.789 --> 00:31:21.670 But Barack was low-key built in a lab to do both. 00:31:21.910 --> 00:31:26.230 Obama called me that night and I said, Gee, I heard it went great. 00:31:26.390 --> 00:31:27.029 I really appreciate it. 00:31:27.109 --> 00:31:28.069 Thank you for taking the shot. 00:31:28.230 --> 00:31:31.029 He's very kind of why do you sound so surprised? 00:31:31.269 --> 00:31:35.589 I said, I don't know, a black guy named Barack Obama from the south side of Chicago. 00:31:35.670 --> 00:31:37.670 I thought it might be a little challenging. 00:31:37.750 --> 00:31:39.430 And he said, No, no, you don't get it. 00:31:39.589 --> 00:31:48.309 We talk about my grandfather who marched in Patton's army and my grandmother who was a Rosie the Riveter, and we get along great. 00:31:48.470 --> 00:31:56.309 His dedication to this performance is low-key probably why he broke up with his then Asian girlfriend back in the late 80s before meeting Michelle Obama. 00:31:56.470 --> 00:32:02.950 And no shade to Michelle in this

regard, but I bet money that she was the first black woman Barack Obama ever dated. 00:32:03.190 --> 00:32:07.509 That is something that's, again, that's not me, it's not conjecture, that's written in the books. 00:32:07.670 --> 00:32:12.789 From a purely cynical tactical standpoint, Obama was right to feel this way. 00:32:12.950 --> 00:32:22.390 And this is not meant to take away from the fact that Michelle Obama is and has always been widely known to be the more talented, intelligent, and dynamic person in that couple. 00:32:22.629 --> 00:32:29.670 She was a mentor for Barack when they first met, and she's arguably today still the most popular part of their union for a reason. 00:32:29.829 --> 00:32:35.190 Michelle being a key to Obama success has also been documented by numerous historians. 00:32:35.269 --> 00:32:47.910 However, her talent and dynamicism aside, it has also been documented that black people, black women in particular, would have been less supportive of Barack Obama had it not been for the fact that he was with a dark-skinned black woman. 00:32:48.069 --> 00:32:55.430 In a time where darker-skinned black women were being erased in the public eye, Michelle was often one of few black women that black girls had to look up to. 00:32:55.589 --> 00:32:59.990 I doubt Barack understood all of that immediately upon meeting Michelle. 00:33:00.150 --> 00:33:05.670 I don't think he sent out a casting call and said, I need a dark-skinned black woman so I can be president. 00:33:05.829 --> 00:33:16.629 But he knew enough to know that if he wanted to be president as a black man and be fully embraced by the black community, showing up with a non-black woman on his side was not going to work. 00:33:16.950 --> 00:33:30.710 If you're willing to heed Haran Scott King's words and not be afraid of the future, but have faith in God's grace, then I truly believe that severe there's no challenge that we can't overcome. 00:33:31.029 --> 00:33:31.829 Thank you. 00:33:34.950 --> 00:33:42.390 Black people's trepidation toward him was a consistent concern in his early days as a politician, which I want to remind people of was not very successful. 00:33:42.549 --> 00:33:51.349 Obama won his first election on a technicality, a technicality that he personally exploited to disallow his opponents to even be on the ballot, an opponent that he had a long-standing relationship with. 00:33:51.430 --> 00:33:57.029 He then lost in a landslide to Bobby Rush, a former Black Panther, for the nomination of Rush's congressional seat. 00:33:57.190 --> 00:34:14.390 He won his Senate seat in 2004 against a replacement Republican candidate after the original candidate got exposed in a sex scandal, and he only won the primary to be in that position because he was able somehow, despite not ever winning anything up to this point, to enlist the support of one David Axelrod. 00:34:14.550 --> 00:34:23.670 Axelrod, especially at the time, was a highly sought-after political strategist, and he helped Obama craft his image to be that perfect balance between black approval and white acceptability. 00:34:23.829 --> 00:34:28.630 Axelrod advised Obama on his fame speech in 2004 that essentially started his presidential run. 00:34:28.789 --> 00:34:36.550 Axelrod chose Obama over Hillary and other peers in 2008, and this was after he helped Duvall Patrick win governor in 2006 in Massachusetts. 00:34:36.630 --> 00:34:43.829 Axelrod helped Obama learn an important lesson in 2008, which is that the real audience to manage is white voters. 00:34:43.990 --> 00:34:50.869 Because when you transgress against black voters, they will make excuses for you as long as they see you as still belonging to the community. 00:34:51.110 --> 00:34:55.270 And this is something that happened all through Obama's presidency and campaign. 00:34:55.510 --> 00:34:59.110 How important is race in defining yourself? 00:34:59.430 --> 00:35:03.430 I am rooted in the African-American community, but I'm not defined by it. 00:35:04.070 --> 00:35:04.630 How are you? 00:35:05.030 --> 00:35:09.830 I am comfortable in my racial identity, but that's not all I am. 00:35:10.150 --> 00:35:14.470 But most of the time, Obama left it to his surrogates to defend him when it came to race. 00:35:14.630 --> 00:35:22.710 In narrowing the differences between Obama and the majority white nation he was appealing to, the campaign simply set out to erase race as a negative. 00:35:22.870 --> 00:35:24.310 This was no accident. 00:35:24.470 --> 00:35:31.430 The formula counted on white voters to be comforted by this approach, and for black voters to be willing to look the other way. 00:35:31.590 --> 00:35:40.470 The story of this race is that race didn't play the decisive role people thought it would, David Axelrod, the campaign's chief strategist, told me shortly after the campaign ended. 00:35:40.710 --> 00:35:46.870 During the campaign, voters came to judge him as something other than just potentially the first African American president. 00:35:47.110 --> 00:35:49.750 People very much came to judge him on his merits. 00:35:50.070 --> 00:35:53.430 And this is where the misleadership really shows its face. 00:35:53.590 --> 00:36:03.350 That pattern of giving Obama the benefit of the doubt and looking the other way that black people adopted during his presidency whenever he did things that actually didn't serve a black agenda. 00:36:03.510 --> 00:36:18.310 It's the same energy that allowed us to fall in line with him as he led black people for the first time to embrace American exceptionalism and all of its features, including nationalism, not the black kind, but the white kind, and most alarmingly, support of American imperialism abroad. 00:36:18.550 --> 00:36:24.310 The Nobel Peace Prize laureate for 2009, President Barack Obama. 00:36:24.870 --> 00:36:28.390 But accepting the award, he had a surprise. 00:36:28.870 --> 00:36:32.630 The anti-war candidate would be a wartime

president. 00:36:33.750 --> 00:36:41.270 President Obama may be the first person to accept the Nobel Peace Prize and use it as an opportunity to lay out his philosophy of war. 00:36:42.390 --> 00:36:46.230 I cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. 00:36:46.870 --> 00:36:50.230 For make no mistake, evil does exist in the world. 00:36:50.470 --> 00:36:53.830 A nonviolent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies. 00:36:54.070 --> 00:36:58.070 Negotiations cannot convince Al-Qaeda's leaders to lay down their arms. 00:36:58.310 --> 00:37:10.390 Ever since the National Pollsters began tracking African American public opinion, surveys have shown black people to be consistently clustered at the left side of the national political spectrum. 00:37:10.630 --> 00:37:14.710 More than any other ethnicity, African Americans have opposed U.S. 00:37:14.870 --> 00:37:18.150 military adventures abroad by wide margins. 00:37:18.470 --> 00:37:31.750 Indeed, the sheer size of the bloodlust gap between the races indicates that black international worldview differs quite radically from white Americans and, to a lesser but marked degree, from Hispanics. 00:37:31.990 --> 00:37:34.630 That is, until the advent of Obama. 00:37:34.870 --> 00:37:51.590 A Washington Post and ABC poll conducted between August 28th and September 1st showed 40% of African Americans supported Barack Obama's threats of airstrikes against Syria, two points more than white people, and 9% more than Hispanics. 00:37:51.830 --> 00:37:55.190 Majorities of all three groups opposed bombing Syria. 00:37:55.430 --> 00:38:01.110 56% of black people, 58% of white people, and 63% of Hispanics. 00:38:01.350 --> 00:38:09.990 But African Americans were, for the first time in polling history, the most bellicose major ethnicity in the United States. 00:38:10.390 --> 00:38:34.070 Before Obama, black people were always, always the most anti-war population in the country by far, reflecting a history of black Americans recognizing that American wars abroad were reflections of their wars against us at home, and that supporting those wars was essentially supporting our own oppression, something that I think we still understand now, but some of y'all, some of y'all might need to update in that lesson. 00:38:34.230 --> 00:38:41.350 And that's probably because by the time Obama finished his second term, black Americans were supporting wars in ways that were unprecedented. 00:38:41.750 --> 00:38:47.350 This shift in black sensibilities in America was a simple process. 00:38:47.510 --> 00:39:00.070 We had allowed Obama to lead us into the American dream with the foolish assumption that one, that dream was ever meant to be ours in the first place, and that we would be allowed to possess that in perpetuity without consequences. 00:39:00.230 --> 00:39:08.630 And two, that America's history of imperialism and genocide abroad and domestic is something that we should want to be a part of in the first place. 00:39:08.950 --> 00:39:23.830 We were still and are still too caught up in the fact that it was a black man with the levers of power in his hand, and we deluded ourselves into believing that Obama's effective maintenance of American empire was somehow beneficial to black people. 00:39:24.150 --> 00:39:27.430 Unlike the old empires. 00:39:27.750 --> 00:39:32.470 We don't make these sacrifices for territory or for resources. 00:39:36.550 --> 00:39:38.230 We do it because it's right. 00:39:41.110 --> 00:39:49.750 There can be no fuller expression of America's support for self-determination than our leaving Iraq to its people. 00:39:50.070 --> 00:39:52.310 That says something about who we are. 00:39:52.710 --> 00:39:56.790 Instead, Obama manifested an American dream, but black. 00:39:56.950 --> 00:40:03.830 And America is a country built on slavery, genocide, and imperialism, which meant that that was Obama's job to do at the time. 00:40:03.990 --> 00:40:07.270 And he was always very clear that he wasn't the black president. 00:40:07.510 --> 00:40:09.190 He was the president of the United States. 00:40:09.270 --> 00:40:14.070 And in that regard, he was responsible for maintaining the empire the United States was. 00:40:14.230 --> 00:40:21.910 And I'm not sure any president in modern history has been better at that than Barack Obama for all the negative things that that comes with. 00:40:22.070 --> 00:40:29.830 The drone warfare, the neoliberal transfer of wealth, the militarization of police, the continued wars against the undeveloped world in the name of corporate power. 00:40:29.990 --> 00:40:38.870 None of these things were a part of Martin Luting's dream or in the interest of the types of communities Barack Obama worked within on Chicago's South Side. 00:40:39.110 --> 00:40:43.670 Black America's dream wasn't to be the one wearing the boot or holding the whip. 00:40:43.990 --> 00:40:48.550 We weren't the ones imagining ourselves with the levers of power or imperialism in our hands. 00:40:48.710 --> 00:40:52.790 We were imagining us, all of us, free from those systems. 00:40:53.030 --> 00:41:01.270 But after Obama, it feels like a lot of black people were just satisfied with a black person holding that power regardless of what it meant to everyone else. 00:41:01.350 --> 00:41:07.590 And it's no surprise that after the rise of Obama, we see a rise in lowercase C black conservatism. 00:41:07.670 --> 00:41:15.910 There's this great skit from In Living Color that has aged worse than any other piece of comedy from the 90s, which was an era where Andrew Dice Clay was a top-tier draw. 00:41:16.150 --> 00:41:18.870 Catch me early evenings, you fucking bastard. 00:41:23.990 --> 00:41:31.190 It's this skit where David Allen Greer plays the newly appointed second ever black Supreme Court Justice, Clarence Thomas. 00:41:31.350 --> 00:41:38.870 I was just a child at the time, but I remember how big a deal it was that Thomas was taking over for Thurgood

Marshall, the previous black Supreme Court Justice. 00:41:39.030 --> 00:41:48.870 I, like many people, didn't know that Thomas was a product of the Heritage Foundation, the long-standing conservative think tank that is the thought leader behind things like Project 2025. 00:41:49.190 --> 00:41:56.070 There's also the issue of Thomas's sexual harassment accusations from Anita Hill and the fact that he was appointed by George Bush. 00:41:56.390 --> 00:42:06.710 I am very pleased to announce that I will nominate Judge Clarence Thomas to serve as Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. 00:42:07.270 --> 00:42:14.230 But despite all of that, as is illustrated comedically by this skit, black people still expected Thomas to be one of us. 00:42:14.310 --> 00:42:21.270 We still, for some reason, expected Clarence Thomas to be kinfolk when he first came on the scene back in the early 90s. 00:42:21.510 --> 00:42:22.790 So let me get this straight. 00:42:23.510 --> 00:42:27.510 No matter what I do, no matter who I piss off, I'm here to say. 00:42:27.910 --> 00:42:29.030 More or less, yes. 00:42:29.350 --> 00:42:30.150 Oh man. 00:42:35.670 --> 00:42:37.350 I love a refill on my coffee. 00:42:37.430 --> 00:42:38.950 Yo, man, you better get out of my face. 00:42:39.670 --> 00:42:40.710 Send your damn disease. 00:42:40.870 --> 00:42:41.430 Get it yourself. 00:42:41.590 --> 00:42:46.790 Now, Thomas obviously and very quickly made it clear that he was, in fact, not kinfo. 00:42:47.030 --> 00:42:52.070 And while we understand that we got it wrong, I don't think enough of us processed why we got it wrong. 00:42:52.310 --> 00:43:01.670 Why we just assumed that a black man who had attained power and status was going to automatically advocate for a black agenda based solely off of racial loyalty and self-esteem. 00:43:01.830 --> 00:43:07.350 We did not consider just how and why a man like Thomas would be in the position he's in in the first place. 00:43:07.510 --> 00:43:10.470 A position, mind you, that we did not put him in. 00:43:10.630 --> 00:43:23.270 Now, black people being the ones to proclaim someone a leader to represent our needs, that's not a foolproof way to make sure the leader is actually one of us, but it's at least something to evaluate. 00:43:23.430 --> 00:43:32.390 And as I continue with the video, you'll notice a pattern of black figures being positioned in front of us, not by us, but by white power structures. 00:43:32.550 --> 00:43:35.670 And like it or not, Obama is an example of this. 00:43:35.830 --> 00:43:58.390 While Thomas pretty quickly squandered any goodwill that we might have given him, as is seen in this skit, Obama's performance of blackness and his embodiment of certain ideals and aesthetics, the ones I talked about earlier, of being affable and charming and still masculine and authoritative, that gave Obama a lot of rope and excuses on his limited dedication to black people. 00:43:58.550 --> 00:44:06.150 Even as he openly made it clear he was not going to be the black president, we still kept saying, eh, yes, you are. 00:44:06.310 --> 00:44:12.070 Obama told us outright in the beginning that he admired Ronald Reagan before he was president. 00:44:12.310 --> 00:44:30.070 He signed a surprise$858 billion tax cut that would have made Reagan weep with joy, and huddled with Reagan's former White House Chief of Staff, Ken Duberstein, for lessons learned when the Gipper governed amid economic troubles. 00:44:30.390 --> 00:44:37.510 Over the Christmas break, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs tweeted that Obama was reading a Reagan biography. 00:44:37.670 --> 00:44:43.830 And just to confirm the bond, Obama recently wrote an homage to Reagan for USA Today. 00:44:44.310 --> 00:44:55.830 Quote Reagan recognized the American people's hunger for accountability and change, Obama wrote, conferring on Reagan two of his most cherished political slogans. 00:44:56.230 --> 00:45:02.390 He distanced himself from people like Jeremiah Wright when Jeremiah Wright was speaking truth for the power about the reality of America. 00:45:02.630 --> 00:45:16.310 We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back into our own front yard! 00:45:18.070 --> 00:45:19.670 The record thing we've talked about. 00:45:19.750 --> 00:45:23.510 Look, the uh I joined a church to worship God, not a pastor. 00:45:23.670 --> 00:45:31.430 This whole notion that he was my spiritual mentor and all this stuff, this is something that I've uh consistently discussed. 00:45:31.590 --> 00:45:36.790 I had not heard him make the offensive comments that ended up being looped on this show constantly. 00:45:36.950 --> 00:45:38.790 And I was offended by them and ultimately at least. 00:45:39.110 --> 00:45:39.910 You'd never heard those comments. 00:45:39.990 --> 00:45:40.710 I hadn't heard those comments. 00:45:40.870 --> 00:45:42.470 He was selling them in the lobby to church. 00:45:42.710 --> 00:45:58.710 When Jesse Jackson and other leaders who had been in the game for years got caught throwing shade at what they saw was arrogance and talking down to black people coming from Obama, we took his side, not the people that had served us this entire time, even if, of course, those servants were imperfect themselves. 00:45:58.870 --> 00:46:05.350 When Obama filled his cabinet with bankers and lobbyists, we said, hey, he's just playing politics. 00:46:05.510 --> 00:46:16.070 When he co-signed his boy to become mayor over Chicago and preside over one of the most abusive errors of police misconduct the city had ever seen, we kept running to the fact that Obama was one of us. 00:46:16.230 --> 00:46:17.910 And we had to have his back. 00:46:18.230 --> 00:46:20.310 Obama was kinfolk. 00:46:20.550 --> 00:46:24.630 And I have to challenge you to ask, was he? 00:46:25.110 --> 00:46:32.230 All of the

manufactured stuff, the Al Green singing, whatever, all that aside, because that's not what defines blackness, right? 00:46:32.390 --> 00:46:37.350 I agree with Obama's stance that blackness isn't defined by one specific theme. 00:46:37.510 --> 00:46:49.510 What makes someone kinfolk is their dedication to the people, to a black agenda, or at least to protecting us from harm that they perceive and can intervene in. 00:46:49.670 --> 00:46:57.830 That's what should earn you the type of support that we give to Obama, not just the ability to perform a particular familiar black aesthetic. 00:46:58.070 --> 00:47:02.310 We have seen the limitations of black firstisms and insurrection and motivation. 00:47:02.470 --> 00:47:04.230 Black people don't need new role models. 00:47:04.310 --> 00:47:10.390 We need role players, especially since the role being modeled is often one intrinsically tied to whiteness. 00:47:10.550 --> 00:47:14.950 But I want to dig deeper into how that process of managing resources actually plays out. 00:47:15.110 --> 00:47:26.150 For example, one clear battle that has been going on amongst black people recently is a conversation around what's called respectability politics, a concept I've talked about before that sadly never seems to go away. 00:47:26.310 --> 00:47:40.390 I touched on this in an old related video when I spoke to the legacy of serial rapist Bill Cosby, who, in between drugging and raping, dozens of women had the nerve to preach about black men and women not respecting themselves because they had weird names or listened to too much hip-hop. 00:47:40.550 --> 00:47:43.670 To be fair to Cosby, he did not create this concept. 00:47:43.830 --> 00:47:48.950 This concept is much older than even him and has existed as long as black people have existed in this country. 00:47:49.110 --> 00:47:55.910 And understandably so, considering the levels of anti-blackness that all of us have had to witness and engage in since slavery. 00:47:56.070 --> 00:48:14.470 There has always been a tension or desire for black people to separate themselves from the ugly image that we have been saddled with, and in that process, some problems have emerged where some black people seem to think that changing our image is all or even a major thing that is needed to fix black people's problems. 00:48:14.630 --> 00:48:22.710 This begassed the concept of respectability politics, the term for which seemingly originated in 1993, coined by Evelyn Higginsbottom. 00:48:22.870 --> 00:48:37.110 Coined by Evelyn Higginsbottom, the politics of respectability, describe how early 20th century black women presented themselves as polite, sexually pure, and thrifty to reject stereotypes of them as immoral, childlike, and unworthy of respect and protection. 00:48:37.270 --> 00:48:48.150 Paisley Harris summarizes that respectability had two audiences: African Americans who were encouraged to be respectable, and white people who needed to be shown that African Americans could be respectable. 00:48:48.310 --> 00:48:56.710 Respectability also encompasses messages of class, status, and privilege, denoted through dress, organizational affiliation, and behavior. 00:48:56.870 --> 00:49:07.990 Thus, respectability refers to a set of rules embodied by the white middle class that appealed to black American reformers and subsequently other marginalized groups as a tactic for social uplift. 00:49:08.150 --> 00:49:16.630 A perfect modern example of this can be found in a recent policy being emphasized at Tuskegee University, one of the oldest and most prolific HBCUs in the country. 00:49:16.870 --> 00:49:29.670 This policy outlawed bonnets and do-rags being able to be worn in classes, forcing students, pretty much all black students, to always have to have their hair be seen as presentable along with other rules. 00:49:29.910 --> 00:49:39.990 Now, if you know anything about black hair, you know that bonnets and do-rags are immensely important items for the care of black hair and thus also staples of black aesthetics and fashion. 00:49:40.150 --> 00:49:53.430 However, because of this, they have been labeled as urban or ghetto, or whatever euphemisms you want to use to imply that they are the wrong type of blackness, the type of blackness that even Barack Obama could not fake no matter how hard he tried. 00:49:53.590 --> 00:50:00.630 This decision is clearly made with the intent of making the school less welcome to a certain type of black and gender performance. 00:50:00.790 --> 00:50:06.150 Black women with 3A hair are going to be far less affected by this policy than black women with 4C hair. 00:50:06.310 --> 00:50:12.630 And this draws upon the ugly reality in past that many HBCUs were low-key built on colorism. 00:50:12.710 --> 00:50:25.910 The school says it's to instill discipline, which is also some bullshit and fits perfectly into the respectability narrative, that if black folks just work hard enough to discipline themselves and did more to fit in, that society would be less hostile to us. 00:50:26.150 --> 00:50:27.750 And this just isn't true. 00:50:27.910 --> 00:50:36.390 We were just as quick and likely to get beaten by clubs chased by dogs and lynched, whether we were wearing regular street clothes or our Sunday's best. 00:50:36.710 --> 00:50:45.190 And although we're talking about Tuskegee right now, understand that I'm pretty sure almost every HBCU has a policy similar to this in their books. 00:50:45.350 --> 00:50:46.390 They just aren't enforced. 00:50:46.470 --> 00:50:51.350 Or in the case of Tuskegee, for whatever reason, announced out loud for everyone to argue about on the internet. 00:50:51.750 --> 00:51:05.990 But it is fitting and ironic that this came out of Tuskegee this time around, because Tuskegee just happens to be founded by maybe the father of respectability politics and a historical figure that I've been wanting to discuss for a while, one Booker T. 00:51:06.070 --> 00:51:07.030 Washington.

00:51:07.590 --> 00:51:16.390 The slave master took Tom and dressed him well and fed him well, and even gave him a little education, a little education. 00:51:16.630 --> 00:51:22.950 Gave him a long coat and a top hat and made all the other slaves look up to him. 00:51:23.190 --> 00:51:25.030 Then he used Tom to control them. 00:51:25.910 --> 00:51:31.910 The same strategy that was used in those days is used today by the same white man. 00:51:32.150 --> 00:51:35.430 He takes a Negro, so-called Negro, and make him prominent. 00:51:35.750 --> 00:51:40.230 Build him up, publicize him, make him a celebrity. 00:51:40.470 --> 00:51:45.270 And then he becomes a spokesman for Negro and a Negro leader. 00:51:51.910 --> 00:51:53.590 Before I begin, I just want to be clear. 00:51:53.670 --> 00:51:55.750 I have a lot of love for all HBCUs. 00:51:55.830 --> 00:51:57.590 I'm an HBCU grab myself. 00:51:57.750 --> 00:52:02.950 This is not intended to be shaved to Tuskegee students who I'm sure aren't happy with the way they're getting all this attention. 00:52:03.110 --> 00:52:07.430 And I already know that there are people clutching their pearls at the mentioning of Booker T. 00:52:07.590 --> 00:52:10.070 Washington's name and the term missleadership. 00:52:10.310 --> 00:52:15.110 But it's really about time we've had a more public reassessment and critique of Booker T. 00:52:15.270 --> 00:52:17.350 Washington's legacy in popular culture. 00:52:17.510 --> 00:52:24.790 It's important to start with him because he's one of the most widely revered, studied, and celebrated black civil rights figures in American history. 00:52:24.870 --> 00:52:28.390 And have you ever stopped to ask yourself how and why that is? 00:52:29.670 --> 00:52:36.230 From 1881 to 1915, he will achieve what to many is considered the impossible. 00:52:36.550 --> 00:52:41.510 He will build one of the most impressive education institutions in all of Afro-America. 00:52:41.910 --> 00:52:47.910 He will, in addition, become the center of heated controversies, debates, even riots. 00:52:48.230 --> 00:52:52.070 And by the time of his death, his name will be known throughout the world. 00:52:52.310 --> 00:52:53.750 In many ways, Booker T. 00:52:53.830 --> 00:52:56.870 Washington is the quintessential black American success story. 00:52:57.030 --> 00:53:04.310 Washington was born a slave at the tail end of slavery and was freed after emancipation in 1865 at nine years old. 00:53:04.470 --> 00:53:07.110 From there, you could genuinely say that Booker T. 00:53:07.190 --> 00:53:10.150 Washington pulled himself up by the bootstraps. 00:53:10.230 --> 00:53:14.230 He paid for college at Hampton University by working as a janitor there. 00:53:14.390 --> 00:53:23.830 And he did so well while he was there that years later, when the president of Hampton wanted someone to help start a new project in the South, he was tapped for the job at only age 25. 00:53:24.230 --> 00:53:36.150 Pulling upon the experiences of self-reliance and hard work that had made him successful, Washington had his students of what will eventually become the Tuskegee Institute literally helped build the buildings of the college with their bare hands. 00:53:36.310 --> 00:53:43.430 And over the next 30 years, he led the college to be one of the most premier black colleges in the country, which is still to this day. 00:53:43.590 --> 00:53:45.190 Shout out to the Tuskegee Tigers. 00:53:45.350 --> 00:53:46.630 Tuskegee's a dope institution. 00:53:46.710 --> 00:53:53.510 There's a lot of famous graduates such as Lionel Richie, Betty Shabias, Ralph Ellison, Tom Joyner, and Derek Jackson. 00:53:53.670 --> 00:53:54.790 This is Derek Jackson. 00:53:54.870 --> 00:53:58.630 Um a lot of people think of him as a relationship expert and guru and all of that. 00:53:58.710 --> 00:54:00.550 Well, he and his wife are making this video. 00:54:00.710 --> 00:54:01.190 Alright, that's it. 00:54:01.270 --> 00:54:02.470 That's all the Tuskegee shade. 00:54:02.550 --> 00:54:03.190 I'm sorry, I'm sorry. 00:54:03.590 --> 00:54:04.710 Y'all had to let me have that one. 00:54:04.790 --> 00:54:05.830 Y'all had to let me have that one. 00:54:05.990 --> 00:54:07.510 I got a whole video about Derek Jackson. 00:54:07.590 --> 00:54:09.990 Y'all can watch when you want to finish, by the way, but moving on. 00:54:10.150 --> 00:54:14.150 Washington's ethos of self-reliance and racial uplift was his guiding principle. 00:54:14.310 --> 00:54:17.510 He literally named his autobiography Up from Slavery. 00:54:17.590 --> 00:54:29.270 His goal was for black people to find liberation via building our own structures of power and commerce, brick by brick, just like he had built Tuskegee, cajiling into what would eventually be known as the Tuskegee model. 00:54:29.750 --> 00:54:35.830 The idea of building black structures and industries and economies is not by itself a bad thing. 00:54:35.990 --> 00:54:38.310 In fact, it's a fundamentally good thing. 00:54:38.550 --> 00:54:41.830 It's just not a thing that actually leads to black liberation. 00:54:41.990 --> 00:54:43.350 Surf-reliance is a good thing. 00:54:43.510 --> 00:54:52.230 Independence from white institutions and dollars is a good thing because it means that we don't have to be subjected to the whims of white sensibilities and interest convergence. 00:54:52.390 --> 00:54:58.070 For example, we're boycotting Target right now, or maybe not, depending on who you ask, more on that in a future video. 00:54:58.230 --> 00:55:04.630 But this whole Target boycott and many other boycotts are manifestations of the fact that we don't have our own shit. 00:55:04.790 --> 00:55:09.750 So the idea of building something for us by us, I'm with that. 00:55:09.830 --> 00:55:12.790 And that was what Booker T was doing with his Tuskegee model. 00:55:13.030 --> 00:55:17.590 Going into black communities, teaching skills, and translating those skills into an economic engine. 00:55:17.750 -->

00:55:22.230 And in many ways, it was highly successful, almost too successful. 00:55:22.470 --> 00:55:25.590 Definitely too successful, but not in the way you're thinking. 00:55:25.830 --> 00:55:25.990 Mr. 00:55:26.070 --> 00:55:29.670 Baldwin, I understand that you're very supportive of Booker T Washington. 00:55:29.990 --> 00:55:30.310 Yes. 00:55:30.470 --> 00:55:31.350 I am for Mr. 00:55:31.430 --> 00:55:35.110 Washington because the work he's doing at Tuskegee is exactly right. 00:55:35.430 --> 00:55:38.230 Not just for the colored people, but for the entire sub. 00:55:39.190 --> 00:55:41.510 He's not a firebrand, a rabbir. 00:55:42.550 --> 00:55:46.790 He's a master politician who knows we're sitting on a powder gate. 00:55:46.950 --> 00:55:51.670 And he understands that most white people will never accept Negroes as their social equals. 00:55:51.830 --> 00:55:53.030 It's an impossibility. 00:55:53.270 --> 00:56:00.550 See, one of the keys to the Tuskegee model's success was his stance on being accommodating to racism and white supremacy. 00:56:00.630 --> 00:56:02.790 And this is most notably illustrated in Booker T. 00:56:02.870 --> 00:56:07.030 Washington's infamous speech, now known as the Aladdin Compromise in 1895. 00:56:10.710 --> 00:56:21.430 Who underestimate the importance of cultivating friendly relations with a southern white man who is the next door neighbor? 00:56:22.150 --> 00:56:26.230 I would say cast down your bucket when you um. 00:56:29.830 --> 00:56:39.030 And before we cast judgment on this logic, we do have to understand that unlike other notable black leaders of the time, such as his ideological on and off again rival W.E.B. 00:56:39.110 --> 00:56:45.910 Du Bois, Booker T lived as a slave in the South and saw the barbaric and heinous nature of white violence firsthand. 00:56:45.990 --> 00:56:50.950 And for him, direct resistance was less desirable than a truce or a compromise. 00:56:51.190 --> 00:57:02.630 While northern blacks were agitating for access to the machine, resistance segregation, etc., Washington felt that that was ultimately a harder route than just accepting the racism of whites in exchange for being left alone. 00:57:02.710 --> 00:57:05.430 And that sentiment congealed into this speech. 00:57:05.670 --> 00:57:07.510 Cast down your bucket where you are. 00:57:07.750 --> 00:57:18.310 Cast it down among the eight millions of Negroes whose habits you know, whose fidelity and love you have tested in days one to have proved treacherous meant the ruin of your firesides. 00:57:18.630 --> 00:57:46.550 As we have proved our loyalty to you in the past, in nursing your children, watching by the sick bed of your mothers and fathers, and often following them with tear-dimmed eyes to their graves, so in the future, in our humble way, we shall stand by you with a devotion that no foreigner can approach, ready to lay down our lives, if need be, in defense of yours, interlacing our industrial, commercial, civil, and religious life with yours in a way that shall make the interests of both races one. 00:57:46.870 --> 00:57:47.990 I'm not gonna hold you. 00:57:48.150 --> 00:57:49.590 That shit sounds really bad. 00:57:49.830 --> 00:57:52.310 Black Twitter would eat that nigga alive right now. 00:57:52.390 --> 00:58:01.510 He sounds like a black Republican, which makes sense because low key he was a black Republican, and black Republicans today love them some bookers he washed in more on that later. 00:58:01.830 --> 00:58:11.670 Known by his admirers as the modern Moses, his role in helping blacks establish themselves after their liberation from slavery is a testament to the man and to America. 00:58:11.910 --> 00:58:30.470 While the Tuskegee model was valuable and successful and did lift a lot of black people into a higher social, economic, and education status, the success was in part due to its support by white institutions who saw it as preferable to anything that would actually challenge white power in their systems. 00:58:30.950 --> 00:58:38.310 One of the supreme ironies in Washington's career concerns the very contributions that allowed Tuskegee to expand and prosper. 00:58:38.950 --> 00:58:49.350 His critics will claim that by his dependence on the kindness of the Carnegie's and the Rockefellers, the Baldwins, to finance the Institute, Washington has become their unwitting tool. 00:58:49.670 --> 00:58:57.830 Forced by his needs for their continued support into adopting positions that may not necessarily reflect the best interests of the country's blacks. 00:58:58.070 --> 00:59:02.390 It was successful because it wasn't going to be that successful. 00:59:02.550 --> 00:59:04.150 White newspapers applauded him. 00:59:04.230 --> 00:59:07.830 The president at the time, Grover Cleveland, wrote him a letter of congratulations. 00:59:07.910 --> 00:59:11.270 He made extremely rich white friends such as Andrew Carnegie and John D. 00:59:11.350 --> 00:59:11.990 Rockefeller. 00:59:12.150 --> 00:59:15.670 He was even invited to the White House at the behest of Theodore Roosevelt. 00:59:15.830 --> 00:59:24.230 These are things that we have been taught to see as great accomplishments, but if you feel like I feel these days, these are all red flags. 00:59:38.390 --> 01:00:00.950 Washington's principle of passiveness and permissiveness to racist and white supremacist, and his position as a black leader resulted in him becoming the premier black figure of his time and imbued him with great power over black people that he in turn used to stifle and resist more radical black efforts of addressing the plight of black people. 01:00:01.110 --> 01:00:05.430 The most notable example being his eventually strained relationship with W.E.B. 01:00:05.510 --> 01:00:20.790 Du Bois, who at first supported and greatly aligned with Washington, but over time Du Bois became more and more radical and left-leaning, much as you see happening with black people now, becoming probably the most

prominent American socialist of his time, which eventually brought him into conflict with Booker T. 01:00:20.870 --> 01:00:29.590 Washington, who, to be blunt, began to play a very dirty game to maintain his position with the white power institutions he had worked so hard to belong to. 01:00:29.830 --> 01:00:49.110 With the financial support of capitalist robber barons, Washington bought controlling shares in black newspapers, planted spies and black organizations advocating agitation and protest, and paid black newspaper editors to attack his ideological competitors who advocated political strategies and rejected any accommodation to gym core segregation for his much-appreciated services. 01:00:49.430 --> 01:00:57.430 Washington was granted access to the White House and influence over federal job appointments for black people, a powerful use to award his acolyte and punish his critics. 01:00:57.670 --> 01:00:58.950 It sadly doesn't end there. 01:00:59.110 --> 01:01:03.270 Washington was even instrumental in colonial and imperial projects abroad. 01:01:03.430 --> 01:01:15.350 Whether due to his own hubris or due to being seen as useful, his Tuskegee model was employed to pacify and stabilize imperial projects across the globe, specifically in parts of Africa, Germany, and even Puerto Rico. 01:01:15.430 --> 01:01:28.390 The Tuskegee model was seen as an excellent framework to create a functional working underclass that would be stable enough to undergird capitalist projects and never have them fall into chaos or seek to rise up against those exploiting them. 01:01:28.630 --> 01:01:35.350 The Atlanta compromise was being exported to Africans, and so was Jim Crow and white supremacy alongside of it. 01:01:35.510 --> 01:01:42.550 The work that philanthropy supported agricultural and educational programs did to create and maintain the color line at home was extended globally. 01:01:43.510 --> 01:01:49.270 Washington's Tuskegee Project emerged as a major site of race development and collaborator with Imperial projects. 01:01:49.430 --> 01:02:09.030 Washington's earlier vision of hierarchical tutelage of African and Native Americans was extended to places such as German and British Africa, where it was deemed useful for inhibiting African political participation while increasing Africans' value to the economy and keeping the African true to his own best nature, including the implementation of forced cotton cultivation in 1901. 01:02:09.270 --> 01:02:17.430 Now had Booker T had the right idea and was just fighting dirty to win the big battle for black liberation, all of this could be forgiven. 01:02:17.590 --> 01:02:29.590 If we weren't still an eternal colony here in America, or if people outside of America that look or don't look like us weren't being colonized by America, we might celebrate Booker T as the greatest liberator of all time. 01:02:29.830 --> 01:02:36.310 However, what's clear now, especially in hindsight, is that Washington was truly compromised. 01:02:36.470 --> 01:02:49.030 Like many in the black misleadership class since then, he imagined his success and his ability to willpower and help a handful of black people in the process as evidence for the value of what he was doing for everyone. 01:02:49.190 --> 01:02:59.110 Washington was an elitist, the OG, the top dog, the hokage of the black bourgeoisie, or to quote the homie Think Peace tribe, the black excellence brunch crowd. 01:02:59.270 --> 01:03:02.230 He was a lover of respectability politics. 01:03:02.390 --> 01:03:09.110 By way of his success, his white power connections and status, he felt empowered to push forward an agenda. 01:03:09.270 --> 01:03:18.310 But what he didn't take into account, or maybe didn't care about, is that white people were never going to allow us to be anything but an internal colony in this country. 01:03:18.470 --> 01:03:29.190 Without dismantling white supremacist ideologies, there would never be any accountability, security, or liberation for black people because anti-blackness is the oil this country's engines run on. 01:03:29.270 --> 01:03:31.030 And this has been shown throughout history. 01:03:31.190 --> 01:03:39.430 Whenever black people get to a certain point economically, socially, or communally, white folks will eventually come with pitchforks and torches. 01:03:39.670 --> 01:03:51.190 The dominant logic of the post-Reconstruction era held that the real problem wasn't white racists, but carpetbaggers and meddlers from up north who'd elevate illiterate blacks above their station. 01:03:51.270 --> 01:03:56.150 The white Southerner, presumably, had no existential objection to blacks. 01:03:56.390 --> 01:04:03.030 They just didn't want to live next door to them or have an illiterate and morally degenerate population electing their politicians. 01:04:03.350 --> 01:04:08.310 To this, Washington and much of black America said, fine, ceasefire. 01:04:08.390 --> 01:04:10.390 You let us be, we'll let you be. 01:04:10.550 --> 01:04:13.590 In retrospect, this was a grievous error. 01:04:13.830 --> 01:04:18.630 In point of fact, whites actually did have an existential objection to black people. 01:04:18.870 --> 01:04:24.550 Their beef wasn't that illiterates and moral degenerates might get too much power, no, quite the opposite. 01:04:24.710 --> 01:04:32.550 Their beef was that blacks would prove not to be illiterates and moral degenerates, and thus finally be able to compete with them. 01:04:32.710 --> 01:04:38.470 To see this point illustrated, one need only to look at the history of race riots in the South. 01:04:38.630 --> 01:04:45.190 When white mobs set upon black communities, they didn't simply burn down the quote-unquote morally degenerate portions. 01:04:45.350 --> 01:04:50.950 They attacked the South's burgeoning black middle class and working class and its institutions. 01:04:51.350 --> 01:04:54.790 They went for the churches, the schools, the businesses. 01:04:55.110 --> 01:04:58.390

It's one thing to be opposed to black immorality. 01:04:58.630 --> 01:05:02.230 It's quite another thing to be opposed to black progress. 01:05:02.550 --> 01:05:07.350 And even this quote doesn't do enough to extrapolate the role of capitalism in the equation. 01:05:07.510 --> 01:05:15.110 Even today, as seen with the Target boycott, the absence of white physical violence has nothing on the role of white economic violence. 01:05:15.270 --> 01:05:21.030 Often the Tulsa riots are brought up to show how white people treat black excellence, but that gets too big. 01:05:21.190 --> 01:05:27.910 But as I said in a previous video, and this information is based on research from the Black Mist Podcast, I'll leave the description for you to give more details. 01:05:28.070 --> 01:05:33.830 The fame Tulsa riots that destroyed Black Wall Street did not actually destroy Black Wall Street. 01:05:33.910 --> 01:05:34.790 That is a myth. 01:05:34.950 --> 01:05:40.790 Mind you, they did go in there and burn shit down and murder a bunch of black people because of racist, terrorist violence. 01:05:41.030 --> 01:05:47.590 But understand that Black Wall Street was rebuilt within years because they had insurance and because that's how black people wrote. 01:05:47.670 --> 01:05:56.230 But it was rebuilt better than ever, and it wasn't until the same city planning that destroyed black neighborhoods all across the country came, and that is what killed Tulsa and Greenwood permanently. 01:05:56.390 --> 01:06:05.190 Those folks in Tulsa were the talented tent, the black elite, the black bourgeoisie, and they still could not save themselves from a white supremacist government framework. 01:06:05.350 --> 01:06:12.550 In my heart, I like to think that Washington did all of that dirt because he genuinely thought he was doing something good for black people. 01:06:12.710 --> 01:06:30.790 But it's hard to see and read about his white benefactors, his pension for high society, and the dirty work he did behind the scenes to other black leaders at the time and not seen for what he was, not a sellout, which I don't think that term applies here, but instead a black person who bought in. 01:06:31.030 --> 01:06:41.270 Let me break down this theory I have of selling out versus buying in, which partially stems from a conversation I had with a mentor, Diallo Kenyatta, a few years back. 01:06:41.750 --> 01:06:43.590 Selling out requires a buying into. 01:06:44.790 --> 01:06:51.270 So Most of the people I would define as sellout, they begin to really not say, Well, I'm not selling out. 01:06:51.350 --> 01:06:52.470 This is what I truly believe. 01:06:52.550 --> 01:06:57.430 They buy into the lie as opposed to promoting the lie to everyone else. 01:06:57.750 --> 01:07:04.470 To build off of what Diallo's saying here, selling out is cynical, overt, and pretty much indefensible. 01:07:04.710 --> 01:07:11.030 These are people that sell themselves to our enemies as a way to separate themselves from

us. 01:07:11.350 --> 01:07:17.190 Black people that sell out usually know exactly what they're doing and why they're doing it. 01:07:17.350 --> 01:07:18.310 They just don't care. 01:07:18.470 --> 01:07:29.830 They may, and I would say, probably hold a deep hatred for black people or themselves, or both, like a Clarence Thomas or a Candace Owens, or most black Republicans in general. 01:07:29.990 --> 01:07:38.630 Or they're just very eager to tap dance for white people as long as they get paid like an officer Tatum or even a liberal figure like Van Jones. 01:07:38.870 --> 01:07:44.790 The major key is that these types in general openly distance themselves from blackness and black people. 01:07:44.950 --> 01:07:46.230 Often it's aesthetic. 01:07:46.390 --> 01:07:49.990 They openly reject our fashion, our slang, our music, etc. 01:07:50.230 --> 01:07:55.510 Now, just because someone likes a little country or anime or something, that doesn't make them a sellout. 01:07:55.590 --> 01:08:04.230 But you can sometimes tell that people with those outside interests find those interests because they're purposely trying to not be like other black people. 01:08:04.470 --> 01:08:06.790 Kind of on that respectability politics tip. 01:08:07.190 --> 01:08:09.430 If that's the case, you're dealing with a sellout. 01:08:09.590 --> 01:08:18.470 And as a whole, black people are pretty good, sometimes even too good, to be honest, at identifying and castigating the sellouts among us. 01:08:19.109 --> 01:08:23.670 But buying in is different, and we have little to no protection against it. 01:08:23.989 --> 01:08:29.189 And that's because someone who buys in has to remain within blackness. 01:08:29.350 --> 01:08:32.630 They don't sell themselves to our enemies like sellouts do. 01:08:32.789 --> 01:08:37.430 Instead, they are put in a position to sell our enemies back to us. 01:08:37.670 --> 01:08:51.750 And this is why they have to remain in blackness, because that means they can be trusted and loved and respected by us in order for it to be possible for our enemies to use them to harm us in the first place to their benefit. 01:08:51.909 --> 01:08:58.630 So someone who's buying in will be close enough to say, you know, we really do need more, better trained police officers. 01:08:58.789 --> 01:09:04.230 They will tell us that what we really need as a community is financial literacy and business laws. 01:09:04.390 --> 01:09:10.230 They will tell you that we need to continue to send weapons to Israel because that's good for America and we love America. 01:09:10.390 --> 01:09:17.430 They will tell you that capitalism is the only viable economic system and all that socialism stuff is some white people shit. 01:09:17.590 --> 01:09:22.869 And because they are kinfolk and they are trusted, we tend to believe them sight unseen. 01:09:23.190 --> 01:09:24.710 Because why would they lie to us? 01:09:24.869 --> 01:09:26.550 They made college dropout. 01:09:26.869 --> 01:09:29.829 This

in many ways makes them more dangerous. 01:09:29.989 --> 01:09:32.550 I've said it before, I'll say it a thousand times. 01:09:32.789 --> 01:09:37.590 Candace Owens, Officer Tatum, and the rest of those do not have a large black audience. 01:09:37.750 --> 01:09:39.350 Niggas do not watch them. 01:09:39.430 --> 01:09:43.909 We only watch them when other niggas show them to us so we can laugh at or deride them. 01:09:44.070 --> 01:09:46.869 They are never and will never have a large black audience. 01:09:47.030 --> 01:09:51.989 All those types of folks are only viable in white spaces, same as most black Republicans. 01:09:52.150 --> 01:09:55.829 However, someone like Jay-Z does have a black audience. 01:09:55.989 --> 01:10:11.829 Jay-Z is one of the greatest rappers of all time, an iconic figure, especially during my era, never was a huge crossover success with white audiences, in fact, compared to folks like Kanye or 50 Cent, and is arguably the most talented artist turned mogul out of all of the black billionaire crowd. 01:10:11.989 --> 01:10:16.869 Unlike Kanye or Rihanna, Jay-Z did not make his money off of one big deal or product. 01:10:16.949 --> 01:10:20.150 He made his billions through a series of shrew business deals. 01:10:20.310 --> 01:10:25.750 The first of which I've talked about before, which was him buying the Brooklyn Nets in 2004. 01:10:25.909 --> 01:10:39.670 When Jay-Z invested with the Nets, it was promoted as this huge thing for the culture that a black man would finally have a piece of an NBA team where we all know black players make millions of dollars so that they can make white owners billions of dollars. 01:10:39.829 --> 01:10:53.510 And that would have been cool on some level, but in reality, it was just his name and cultural cachet being used to sell the building of a new stadium, the Barclay Center, in a predominantly black working-class neighborhood, Brooklyn, where Jay-Z is from. 01:10:53.670 --> 01:11:02.070 And after the deal was done, he sold his stake and parlayed that into other deals, most notably and fruitfully, was his deal with the NFL in Rock Nation. 01:11:02.150 --> 01:11:14.710 And this would have and was to an extent looked at as such a betrayal because of the fact that the NFL was in an ugly and open dispute with Colin Kaepernick during the Black Lives Matter protest back in, I guess this was 2016 and 17. 01:11:14.789 --> 01:11:29.750 And while Jay and his peers like to insinuate that Kaepernick had a chance to regain his NFL career, thankfully Colin Kaepernick recently told a very different and to me much more truthful story about what really happened between him, Jay-Z, and the NFL. 01:11:29.909 --> 01:11:32.630 They were like, We're not, we are not doing that. 01:11:32.869 --> 01:11:37.190 They had been protesting um with me from the beginning. 01:11:37.829 --> 01:11:45.989 So there was a split there, and part of what came in advance of that deal was a players owners meeting. 01:11:46.550 --> 01:12:01.190 Where within that meeting, it's Roger Goodell, it's Jed York and Bob Kraft and Terry Pagula, um, Stephen Ross, like all of the decision makers within the NFL. 01:12:02.470 --> 01:12:11.670 And Terry Pagula during that meeting, like, we need a blackface to help us lead this. 01:12:13.909 --> 01:12:16.470 I've never heard anyone explicitly say it that way. 01:12:17.270 --> 01:12:20.070 Like, we need a blackface to put out in front. 01:12:20.310 --> 01:12:29.510 And they tried that with the players' coalition, that wasn't successful, and Jay-Z was the the 2.0 version of that, in my opinion. 01:12:29.750 --> 01:12:35.909 And in this statement, Cap inadvertently gets to the Malcolm X of it all, the Glenn Ford of it all. 01:12:36.070 --> 01:12:44.390 He speaks to the need for the NFL to have a black leader to sell the NFL back to people, and that's just what Jay did. 01:12:44.550 --> 01:12:55.590 Now, if you listen to Jay-Z talk about his entrepreneurship along with many of his peers and those who think like him, they in my mind really think that they're doing something that is good for black people in some way. 01:12:55.750 --> 01:12:58.390 Or at least that's what they keep telling us. 01:12:58.550 --> 01:13:08.630 I don't know if it's fully fair to call that anti-black in the typical sense, and this is what makes it hard to address the harm they do, because in the eyes of many, it's not harm. 01:13:08.789 --> 01:13:14.230 The NFL isn't hurting anyone, and a lot of black people, myself included, love watching football anyway. 01:13:14.390 --> 01:13:21.590 But if that was truly the case, they wouldn't feel the need to constantly hide and lie about what they're doing and what they've done. 01:13:21.750 --> 01:13:36.470 This behavior from Jay is persistent, whether it'd be crossing the line in the ongoing target boycott, or more significantly, recently trying to build a casino in Times Square, something that his one-time nemesis and one of my other favorite rappers of all time, Nas, did do in Queens. 01:13:36.630 --> 01:13:47.350 And the fact that Nas got to build a casino in Queens, but Jay didn't get to do it in Times Square, tells you where the real power is whenever you deal with these black capitalists, even if they're a billionaire. 01:13:47.590 --> 01:13:54.070 Jay-Z was basically told by the white establishment of New York, keep that jiggable shit out of Times Square. 01:13:54.230 --> 01:13:55.270 That's our space. 01:13:55.430 --> 01:13:56.630 We don't deal with that here. 01:13:56.789 --> 01:13:59.670 But Nas, you can go and do that where y'all live. 01:13:59.829 --> 01:14:02.230 That's cool with us as long as we get our cut. 01:14:02.390 --> 01:14:08.869 Nicki Minaj showing up at Trump rallies is more embarrassing and harmful to her than us at a grand scale. 01:14:09.030 --> 01:14:15.670 But the building of a casino in New York in a black neighborhood will be extremely detrimental to the poorest New Yorkers. 01:14:15.829 -->

01:14:19.030 And this is why I say that sellouts are usually a distraction. 01:14:19.190 --> 01:14:27.110 They give us easy targets to throw tomatoes at that at the end of the day aren't really doing anything all that bad that wouldn't be done otherwise. 01:14:27.270 --> 01:14:37.030 But those who buy in, those who we trust, when they lead us to our doom, it's almost impossible for us to know what's happened until it's too late. 01:14:37.270 --> 01:14:49.270 Someone black who buys in is more difficult to contend with, because deep down inside, a lot of us want to be where they are, even if it means other black people are suffering in the process. 01:14:49.510 --> 01:15:08.949 To buy in means your success in some regard to begin with, but it also means you can only maintain that spot or get to a higher spot as an intermediary of white power and violence by offering yourself as a manager, a misleadership class to maintain white power and control over the black masses. 01:15:15.670 --> 01:15:19.430 So much so that he is able to give up his salary at Tuskegee. 01:15:22.710 --> 01:15:31.590 At home, Washington finds rest and relaxation in his morning rides on his horse, Dexter, and intending to his livestock and his garden. 01:15:32.150 --> 01:15:37.510 This is ultimately what Washington was, and that's the essence of blackness leadership. 01:15:37.590 --> 01:15:53.350 And I can't help but theorize that it's because Washington's beliefs were so amenable to the status quo that he is widely and safely taught to black people and black children as the standard, the prototype of what our liberation and our struggle for freedom should look like. 01:15:53.590 --> 01:16:00.630 We should focus only on ourselves and our people and never on the power structure above us killing us and our people. 01:16:00.869 --> 01:16:05.190 Washington died rather abruptly in 1915 at only 59 years old. 01:16:05.430 --> 01:16:15.350 Tuskegee, however, did not die with him, but its proponents could not maintain Washington's compromised sensibilities, and his ideological foes and followers took things in different directions. 01:16:15.510 --> 01:16:16.470 Most notably W. 01:16:16.550 --> 01:16:16.630 E. 01:16:16.710 --> 01:16:16.789 B. 01:16:16.869 --> 01:16:22.390 Du Bois, who had initially again aligned with Washington, split with him as Washington became more and more compromised. 01:16:22.550 --> 01:16:32.710 Still, Washington was a huge influence on one Marcus Garvey, who connected Washington's racial uplift and self-reliant sensibilities to a more radical and militant race-first vision. 01:16:32.949 --> 01:16:39.110 Du Bois and Garvey were intense rivals throughout the 19th century, but Du Bois outlived Marcus Garvey as well. 01:16:39.270 --> 01:16:54.869 Over time, Du Bois actually moved even further left, helping to father Pan-Africanism and died in Ghana in the 1960s, but not before influencing the next wave of civil rights in America, including one Martin Luther King, which explains King's socialist inclinations that he usually hid. 01:16:54.949 --> 01:17:00.310 But if you paid attention to what he said and who he ran with, it's recognizable that Martin Luther King was a leftist. 01:17:00.390 --> 01:17:12.150 But that doesn't mean that Garvey was not influential because his teaching would become a guiding force behind what would eventually grow into the black radical tradition, specifically due to his influence on the early stages of Malcolm Mex's political development. 01:17:12.310 --> 01:17:18.630 So it's important not to mistakenly think that nothing of value can come from these figures, including a Booker T. 01:17:18.789 --> 01:17:19.190 Washington. 01:17:19.270 --> 01:17:29.829 They all have their flaws and their virtues, and their work will go on to influence the views and actions of future generations, which eventually begets the civil rights movements where Malcolm and Martin did most of their work. 01:17:30.070 --> 01:17:38.230 The accomplishments of the movement and the removal of certain barriers to economic and social empowerment manifested in a better life for a lot of black people at the time. 01:17:38.390 --> 01:17:49.510 Despite other ongoing problems, such as overpolicing, high crime, and the encroaching crack epidemic, the 70s actually saw a significant rise in black wealth because of the wins the civil rights movement provided. 01:17:49.670 --> 01:17:52.869 However, this also had unintended consequences. 01:17:53.110 --> 01:18:02.550 The reality is that the gains made by the civil rights movement were most beneficial to black people best positioned to take advantage of this less hostile environment. 01:18:02.789 --> 01:18:11.510 He and his family are among some five million members of a unique and little-known group in the United States, the Negro middle class. 01:18:11.829 --> 01:18:23.829 Essentially, black people who are already of a relatively higher socioeconomic status, often lighter skin, and coming from relatively educated families, they were in a position to be the main people to receive the benefits of that work. 01:18:23.909 --> 01:18:32.630 And this produced a splinching effect where many blacks rising in class position began to take on the sensibilities of their class and not their race. 01:18:32.789 --> 01:18:36.949 This schism became a breeding ground for misleadership, and it was intentional. 01:18:37.110 --> 01:18:52.630 Richard Nixon, one of the top five most racist presidents ever, which is saying a lot, was even quoted as saying we need to replace black radicalism with black entrepreneurship, knowing that the result would be bifurcating black people's interests from collective to individual. 01:18:52.949 --> 01:19:06.150 Some aspects of black power are very disturbing to us because it means uh revolution, it means violence, but other aspects of black power are very constructive because it means that black people they want to stand on their own feet. 01:19:06.230 -->

01:19:09.909 Uh they want to have black banks and not just go to white banks. 01:19:10.070 --> 01:19:15.909 They want to have black businesses and not just go to the white businesses, and they should have, and they will have. 01:19:16.470 --> 01:19:24.470 He and the system he represented recognized that it was too costly and dangerous to constantly fight, exile, and execute black revolutionaries. 01:19:24.630 --> 01:19:34.230 So the goal became to siphon energy from those movements by getting enough black people to buy in to the American dream and abandon revolutionary sensibilities, and it worked. 01:19:34.390 --> 01:19:41.909 As described by one of my favorite black thinkers of the current moment, Van Lathen, a lot of black people don't want to be free, they just want to be white. 01:19:42.150 --> 01:19:47.270 I believe that a lot of our brothers and sisters don't actually want to be free. 01:19:47.510 --> 01:19:49.030 They want to be white. 01:19:49.350 --> 01:19:55.909 And the difference between uh being free and being white is freedom is something that you share. 01:19:56.070 --> 01:19:58.869 And whiteness is oriented around domination. 01:19:59.110 --> 01:20:02.150 Now, if you ask people, do you want to be free? 01:20:02.310 --> 01:20:04.150 The question is what does freedom mean to you? 01:20:04.230 --> 01:20:16.150 A lot of times when whiteness or when you talk about freedom on the right, they're talking about freedom from not having to go into the bathroom with the same bathroom that trans people use, not having to go in the same bathroom that black people use. 01:20:16.390 --> 01:20:22.070 The freedom to be away from what they believe are the dregs and the dis the undesirables of their society. 01:20:22.310 --> 01:20:30.630 They want to have freedom to live exactly the life that they want to live without anybody else's perspective being considered. 01:20:30.789 --> 01:20:31.989 That's freedom today. 01:20:32.789 --> 01:20:47.670 Now, if you've learned that version of freedom, and what you want, you're a black man or black woman, is the ability to dominate somebody, to be a shot caller, to call shots and do all of that stuff, you don't want to be free. 01:20:47.909 --> 01:20:48.869 You want to be white. 01:20:49.110 --> 01:20:57.430 The concept of being white is complex, and I feel like it might mean something different depending on what black person saying it and who you're saying it to. 01:20:57.590 --> 01:21:07.510 For example, I know that there's more than a few black folks watching that got accused of being white based solely on the fact that they talked more properly or into alternative media and entertainment. 01:21:07.670 --> 01:21:12.310 Some folks get accused of wanting to be white because they are a legitimate Uncle Tom's. 01:21:12.550 --> 01:21:20.949 But if I may deign to further interpret Van's words here, I think what Van is referring to is the feeling of what it means to be white. 01:21:21.110 --> 01:21:27.350 And I think

that's much deeper than how someone talks or any typical version of anti-blackness. 01:21:27.590 --> 01:21:35.270 What people often misunderstand is that whiteness isn't just an aesthetic or a phenotype or nationality or an ethnicity. 01:21:35.430 --> 01:21:36.630 Aesthetics can be complex. 01:21:36.789 --> 01:21:45.670 Kim Kardashian is technically white based on being Caucasian, but aesthetically and ethnically, she's not the same type of white that her old friend Paris Hilton is. 01:21:45.829 --> 01:21:54.550 However, both possess the status of white because whiteness is not a race or ethnicity, it's really best described as a property. 01:21:54.710 --> 01:21:57.590 It's a class status, it's something you own. 01:21:57.750 --> 01:22:04.949 And when Van is speaking to black people wanting to be white, he's mostly referring to the ability to own that white status. 01:22:05.190 --> 01:22:13.030 To simplify all that, to be white is to possess an explicit class position that grants you privileges. 01:22:13.190 --> 01:22:20.470 Now, you might think that it's impossible for a black person to truly possess that status, and you'll be correct for the most part. 01:22:20.630 --> 01:22:35.350 Who is or isn't white has actually changed and shifted a ton throughout time to include and exclude different people when necessary, such as the Italians, the Irish, even Latinos and West Asians like Kim Kardashian have been in or out of the white club at different times. 01:22:35.510 --> 01:22:40.630 However, at no point in time have black people been included in that status in this country. 01:22:40.789 --> 01:22:49.590 But while it's impossible for any unambiguously black person to possess whiteness in its truest form, it is still possible for black people to get very, very close. 01:22:49.670 --> 01:22:52.630 And that is through a combination of money, power, and access. 01:22:52.789 --> 01:22:59.510 If you have enough money, power, and access, you can basically buy your way out of black status in 99% of most situations. 01:22:59.670 --> 01:23:08.230 Some bad situations will persist because anti-blackness is that strong, but for the most part, you can exist in a way that at least in our head feels white. 01:23:08.390 --> 01:23:10.710 But to do that, it's not as simple as being rich. 01:23:10.869 --> 01:23:17.190 It requires a specific set of circumstances and intentional decisions to remove oneself from blackness. 01:23:17.350 --> 01:23:31.110 And this brings me to the next misleader I want to speak on: a person who at no point in time has not been perceived as black, but through wealth, power, and access has in many ways left their black status far behind for decades now. 01:23:31.270 --> 01:23:33.909 And that person is Oprah Winfrey. 01:23:34.230 --> 01:23:38.470 This modern house Negro loves his master. 01:23:38.869 --> 01:23:40.550 He wants to live near him. 01:23:40.869 --> 01:23:45.190 He'll pay three times as much as the house is worth just to live near his master. 01:23:45.350 --> 01:23:48.470 And then brag about I'm the only Negro out here. 01:23:51.750 --> 01:23:56.630 Oprah Winfrey became the first black woman billionaire all the way back in 2003. 01:23:56.789 --> 01:24:02.630 I remember when this happened because in my underdeveloped mind back then, it didn't sound right. 01:24:02.789 --> 01:24:07.430 I didn't understand how Oprah could become a billionaire just for being on a TV show. 01:24:07.590 --> 01:24:12.470 Especially at a time when there were far less of them and there was no like streaming or anything. 01:24:12.630 --> 01:24:16.710 What was she doing to be a billionaire from a TV show and a magazine? 01:24:16.869 --> 01:24:23.430 Little did I know and understand about the nature of media and the wealth that one can accumulate by owning their own media empire. 01:24:23.590 --> 01:24:31.590 And that should start sounding familiar because Oprah basically did exactly what Tyler Perry did, except 20 years earlier, and with less shady business practices. 01:24:31.909 --> 01:24:37.030 She was born 32 years ago in Cosciesco, Mississippi, and raised by her grandmother. 01:24:37.110 --> 01:24:38.550 Her parents were divorced. 01:24:38.789 --> 01:24:51.989 Oprah was born into abject poverty in Mississippi, and much like the aforementioned Tyler Perry, she had a very troubled childhood, which included physical abuse, sexual abuse, housing instability, a teenage miscarriage, and probably a lot more stuff. 01:24:52.150 --> 01:24:57.190 Unlike Perry, however, it was actually her father who helped her get her life back on track in her teenage years. 01:24:57.350 --> 01:25:11.430 She eventually went on to attend an HBCU at Tennessee State University, and by her early 20s was already making headway in media, first at a radio station in Tennessee, and by 1984, in her early 30s, she was on TV in Chicago. 01:25:11.829 --> 01:25:13.590 Now, uh Oprah, where are you? 01:25:13.750 --> 01:25:15.590 You're standing by with uh Henry uh again? 01:25:15.829 --> 01:25:16.150 That's right. 01:25:16.869 --> 01:25:17.909 We're getting those calls. 01:25:17.989 --> 01:25:18.390 How many? 01:25:18.550 --> 01:25:21.510 Well, on my stopwatch, three minutes and twenty-three seconds have gone by. 01:25:21.670 --> 01:25:22.310 And how many calls? 01:25:25.270 --> 01:25:28.630 And just a few years after that, she was a megastar and a millionaire. 01:25:28.869 --> 01:25:31.829 She arrives at the studio in Chicago each morning by seven o'clock. 01:25:32.150 --> 01:25:32.630 I'm gonna say this. 01:25:33.030 --> 01:25:36.150 She insists she doesn't do much in the way of preparing for a daily show. 01:25:36.390 --> 01:25:39.030 Ladies and gentlemen, she prefers to wing it, she says. 01:25:39.190 --> 01:25:43.989 Feels that if she talks about the things that interest her, the same things will interest the audience. 01:25:44.230 --> 01:25:44.630 I love it. 01:25:46.150 --> 01:25:46.949 I love this. 01:25:47.190 --> 01:25:59.030

Yeah, my staff kids me because they say, you know, the reason I can interview all these people is because I think I'm every woman and I've had every, you know, malady, you know, and I've been on every diet, and I've had oh, men who have done me wrong, honey. 01:25:59.270 --> 01:26:01.430 So I I relate to all of that. 01:26:01.510 --> 01:26:04.310 And and I'm not afraid or ashamed to say it. 01:26:04.470 --> 01:26:09.590 So whatever is happening, if I can relate to it uh personally, I always do. 01:26:09.829 --> 01:26:23.590 And she was getting ready to make the shrewd decision to purchase the rights of her show and its production from ABC, which meant, much like Tyler Perry, she would own all the parts of the animal and be able to sell and consume those parts at her discretion. 01:26:23.750 --> 01:26:27.750 Syndication rights, reruns, etc., all went to her company. 01:26:27.909 --> 01:26:34.470 She then parlayed those resources into other ventures, which eventually includes her own magazine and whole ass cable network. 01:26:34.789 --> 01:26:40.470 We're gonna be back with more Oprah after the show, right after this break here on Oxygen O. 01:26:42.310 --> 01:26:48.390 So, whenever you wanted anything from Oprah, and please believe me, people wanted everything from Oprah. 01:26:48.630 --> 01:26:53.590 You had to pay her first directly, but then also pay access to her through her own company. 01:26:53.670 --> 01:26:59.270 And she was such a bankable, constantly in demand star that she kept eating off of her own work. 01:26:59.510 --> 01:27:00.949 People couldn't get enough of her. 01:27:01.110 --> 01:27:02.390 Not just black people either. 01:27:02.550 --> 01:27:11.989 While black women were her base, she was universally beloved, especially amongst a middle class to upper middle class white, moderate, or liberal audience. 01:27:12.150 --> 01:27:17.350 And this is because, in like this part, I actually don't mean any shade, it's gonna sound shady, but no shade to Oprah. 01:27:17.510 --> 01:27:20.390 She kind of just gave really dope auntie energy. 01:27:21.110 --> 01:27:22.630 I wanted to ask you a question. 01:27:22.710 --> 01:27:24.390 I love this expression on your face, too. 01:27:24.550 --> 01:27:25.510 Stand up with Elliot. 01:27:25.670 --> 01:27:26.470 I wanted to ask you a question. 01:27:26.550 --> 01:27:30.710 This is Elliot, who's the manager to, you know, major Hollywood stars, including Don Johnson. 01:27:30.789 --> 01:27:32.550 He's been Don Johnson's manager for how long? 01:27:32.789 --> 01:27:36.710 I've known Don for about uh 20 years and I've handled his media now for about seven. 01:27:37.030 --> 01:27:37.909 Oh, very professional. 01:27:40.230 --> 01:27:42.710 Like, especially if you're younger than me and you don't remember Oprah. 01:27:42.949 --> 01:27:46.310 Just think about your favorite auntie and like put her on TV. 01:27:46.390 --> 01:27:57.270 Some some problems in there, I get it, but like it worked, and I can't blame

people from appreciating what she gave at a time when most people on TV that were like her were old Crotchety white men. 01:27:57.510 --> 01:28:02.470 I guess this Kathy Lee Gifford, her book, I Can't Believe I Said That is a major bestseller. 01:28:02.789 --> 01:28:05.190 And uh she now has a new record album. 01:28:05.270 --> 01:28:06.550 Now is this your first album? 01:28:06.789 --> 01:28:08.150 This is my fourth. 01:28:08.470 --> 01:28:13.350 An interview with Oprah would be richer and cosier than an interview with Larry King. 01:28:13.510 --> 01:28:17.510 And it also didn't hurt that Oprah put a lot of herself into her media. 01:28:17.670 --> 01:28:23.909 She was kind of in a weird way cultivating parasocial relationships in a time where we didn't know that was a thing. 01:28:24.150 --> 01:28:30.470 All that stuff about abuse and her abuse history, she revealed that on screen, something that was not happening back in the 80s. 01:28:30.630 --> 01:28:33.270 We also traveled with her through her weight loss journey. 01:28:33.430 --> 01:28:39.909 We saw her glow up and grow from TV talent to the owner of her own show and the owner of her own media empire. 01:28:40.070 --> 01:28:45.270 As a black person, seeing Oprah be the first black female billionaire and be able to do it while. 01:28:45.750 --> 01:28:51.430 Being so universally loved and respected, it put her in that iconic status that we've been talking about throughout this video. 01:28:51.590 --> 01:29:02.550 However, it's also clear that this status exists in part because Oprah took care to curate her image to never brush up against the boundaries of the white sensibilities that gave her power. 01:29:02.789 --> 01:29:09.909 Oprah was effective because she transcended race, meaning that she effectively stopped being black in the eyes of white people. 01:29:10.070 --> 01:29:16.310 She did this through a lot of mechanisms, again, her warm personality and charm, along of course with her eventual immense wealth. 01:29:16.470 --> 01:29:23.750 But more than anything, it was through the general avoidance of anything that might agitate her white audience by being too black. 01:29:24.070 --> 01:29:26.150 She works with a very small staff. 01:29:26.310 --> 01:29:28.390 Almost all of them were there when she came to the show. 01:29:29.030 --> 01:29:30.230 And almost all of them are white. 01:29:30.949 --> 01:29:34.390 She says that when the show expands, she'll look to hire more black people. 01:29:35.750 --> 01:29:40.630 But I'm I also believe in excellence, and the people that I have are excellent. 01:29:40.869 --> 01:29:44.550 I mean, it would be absolutely ridiculous to get rid of those people just because they're white. 01:29:44.630 --> 01:29:46.310 You know, that's racism in reverse. 01:29:46.550 --> 01:29:52.789 So as we um uh bring on additional staff, you know, I will I will make sure that there's some black people included. 01:29:53.110 --> 01:30:02.310 Though she did make some appearances

for black politicians that were in support of black people, such as the aforementioned Harold Washington, who was huge at the same time Oprah was becoming a star. 01:30:02.470 --> 01:30:12.789 She was also quoted as saying she avoided black politics and militancy starting in her college days at Tennessee State, stating that she knew she wasn't a dashiki kind of girl. 01:30:13.030 --> 01:30:17.190 Even as a lifelong liberal, Oprah refused to operate in the political sphere. 01:30:17.350 --> 01:30:24.070 Famously in 2000, she invited both George Bush and Al Gore as to not take sides on the presidential race. 01:30:24.150 --> 01:30:31.510 And she only changed this policy when endorsing Barack Obama in 2008 and doing the same things just a couple of years ago for Kamala Harris. 01:30:31.670 --> 01:30:47.270 Now, of course, supporting black Democrats isn't actually the flex that some people think it is, but Oprah's disdain for a lot of black people, just to be honest, also showed in the things she invested and put her name in and the initiatives and projects she promoted the most. 01:30:47.430 --> 01:30:51.110 In 2007, Oprah opened up an all-girls school in South Africa. 01:30:51.190 --> 01:30:55.909 And while the idea of building a school for girls in South Africa is amazing, right? 01:30:56.070 --> 01:30:57.350 She should be commended for that. 01:30:57.590 --> 01:30:58.710 Many here in the U.S. 01:30:58.789 --> 01:31:10.390 couldn't help but wonder why she didn't bother to do the same thing in South Chicago where she filmed her show, where there were plenty, plenty of black children that needed and could have utilized those types of resources. 01:31:10.630 --> 01:31:13.110 Her response was emblematic to her politics. 01:31:13.270 --> 01:31:19.829 When asked about her decision not to build a similar institution for black American children, this was her response. 01:31:20.150 --> 01:31:31.909 Oprah also knows that some people will complain that charities should be good at home, even though she has provided millions of dollars to educate poor children in the United States, especially via her Oprah Winfrey Scholars program. 01:31:32.390 --> 01:31:35.270 But she sees the two situations as entirely different. 01:31:35.510 --> 01:31:40.470 Quote, say what you will about the American educational system, it does work, she says. 01:31:40.710 --> 01:31:43.430 If you are a child in the United States, you can get an education. 01:31:43.590 --> 01:31:50.470 And she doesn't think that American students, who unlike Africans, go to school free of charge, appreciate what they have. 01:31:50.710 --> 01:31:56.230 I have become so frustrated with visiting inner city schools that I just stopped going. 01:31:56.390 --> 01:31:59.670 The sense that you need to learn just isn't there, she says. 01:31:59.909 --> 01:32:06.470 If you ask the kids what they want or need, they will say an iPod or some sneakers. 01:32:06.630 --> 01:32:09.909 In South Africa, they don't ask for money or toys. 01:32:10.070 --> 01:32:13.110 They asked for uniforms so they can go to school. 01:32:13.430 --> 01:32:24.630 As you could imagine, this statement caused a lot of criticism to come her way, as it seemed incredibly dismissive and out of touch with what black youth actually desired and felt about their lives and education. 01:32:24.789 --> 01:32:30.949 This was indicative of the constant antagonism Oprah had toward black people, not of a specific social class. 01:32:31.190 --> 01:32:51.190 Oprah was another purveyor of respectability politics, and while she didn't go as far as serial rapist Bill Cosby, she did go out of her way to criticize hip-hop whenever she had the chance, such as when she ambushed Ludacris, probably the cleanest and most like mainstream rapper of the time, when he came to film an episode of her show about his acting role in the film Crash. 01:32:51.350 --> 01:32:55.430 It's hard to find old footage of anything from Oprah, so I don't know if I'll be able to show it. 01:32:55.510 --> 01:33:03.030 But what basically happened is that Oprah, kind of out of nowhere, started asking Ludacris about the raunch and misogyny in his music. 01:33:03.190 --> 01:33:23.750 Now, of course, hip-hop music should always be criticized for its content, but it felt highly out of place and very much hypocritical because it was an ambush on her part trying to save, face, or maybe even perform this like self-righteous distance between her and Ludacris to make sure that her mostly white audience knew that they were two different types of black. 01:33:23.989 --> 01:33:24.789 She cut you off. 01:33:24.949 --> 01:33:25.270 Right, right. 01:33:25.430 --> 01:33:27.350 She cut you, she added out what you had to say. 01:33:27.510 --> 01:33:27.989 Pretty much. 01:33:28.150 --> 01:33:28.310 Okay. 01:33:28.470 --> 01:33:29.350 That's what it came down to. 01:33:29.430 --> 01:33:30.630 That was the only time I was on over. 01:33:30.869 --> 01:33:30.949 Okay. 01:33:31.110 --> 01:33:36.150 It was a lot of different, it was certain comments that she had made about, you know, I was I was there for Crash for the movie. 01:33:36.230 --> 01:33:36.390 Yeah. 01:33:36.550 --> 01:33:41.590 And basically she said something about not agreeing with my music, but she thought I did great in the movie. 01:33:41.670 --> 01:33:44.710 And of course, I was up there with the whole cast of Crash. 01:33:45.190 --> 01:33:48.789 And so I didn't necessarily feel like that needed to be said. 01:33:49.110 --> 01:33:52.710 She was able to say what she said, and then I had my rebuttal. 01:33:52.789 --> 01:33:56.470 And when I saw the final show, her comments were in there. 01:33:58.230 --> 01:34:00.390 Mine weren't in there, so it just looked like I kind of took it. 01:34:00.550 --> 01:34:11.590 On top of the fact that a great man once pointed out that Oprah interviewed legitimate ex-felons like Martha Stewart in her show and didn't make any bones about what her being an ex-felon

meant. 01:34:11.750 --> 01:34:22.070 It's also something to note that Oprah started her show doing real slop shit, like the brain rot that was the 90s or 80s, was happening on her show. 01:34:22.310 --> 01:34:29.430 My next guest was used also in worshiping the devil, participated in human sacrifice rituals, rituals and cannibalism. 01:34:29.510 --> 01:34:33.270 She said her family has been involved in rituals for generations. 01:34:33.510 --> 01:34:45.829 And furthermore, later in her career, when she was a billionaire and had way more power to make the show a little more highbrow, she still ended up constantly platforming weirdos and cracks, such as current Trump advocates Dr. 01:34:45.989 --> 01:34:46.869 Phil and Dr. 01:34:47.030 --> 01:34:47.430 Oz. 01:34:47.670 --> 01:34:57.510 Oprah has been positioned as a leader in our community and icon, despite the fact that she clearly isn't interested in leading and being iconic to all of us. 01:34:57.670 --> 01:35:02.630 She has very purposely kept any level of investment with black people at an arm's distance. 01:35:02.789 --> 01:35:12.390 Instead, she engages in support with a kind of subtle nod or, you know, puts a little love into the projects he's attached herself to, such as Color Purple or the Women of Waverly Place. 01:35:12.550 --> 01:35:28.230 She's never been overtly anti-black, but she's always required that whatever support she has with black people be something that can be plausibly denied, or more accurately, she never does anything that will agitate anyone but the most foaming at the mouth right-wing figures and races. 01:35:28.550 --> 01:35:34.390 Despite being skin folk, Oprah never puts that skin in the game on our behalf. 01:35:34.550 --> 01:35:38.949 And I feel like, especially at this point, she kinda doesn't even think that that's a thing. 01:35:39.110 --> 01:35:49.270 For the longest, Oprah has been perceived as a black icon who has done a lot for black people, but as much as she alludes to in the previous passage, she's mostly only been about her individual success. 01:35:49.510 --> 01:35:59.829 Had a vision for what the future was, even though I couldn't place exactly where my future would be, I knew uh who held the future. 01:36:00.070 --> 01:36:03.989 Because I am really guided by a force that's bigger than myself. 01:36:04.150 --> 01:36:06.949 I know that my being here on the planet is not just of my own. 01:36:07.829 --> 01:36:12.550 Black misleaders love to occupy positions of inspiration and role modeling. 01:36:12.710 --> 01:36:27.989 They love what are called black first isms, as in being the first black person to do this or that, the first black female billionaire, the first black president, the first black millionaire, the first black astronaut, the first black man to visit the White House, and so on. 01:36:28.070 --> 01:36:37.590 And don't get me wrong, it is and has always been valuable just for a sense of racial pride that is needed and it world in anti-blackness, to have these black firstisms. 01:36:37.909 --> 01:36:42.230 But these things often end up being tools to defame black liberation efforts. 01:36:42.390 --> 01:36:52.150 Instead of asking the question, why did it take so long to get the first black person to do X, why is it so hard for them to do that compared to their white counterparts? 01:36:52.310 --> 01:36:57.430 Black firstisms turned into, well, if this person can do it, then you can do it too. 01:36:57.590 --> 01:37:06.710 So stop complaining about the white man and get to work and pull yourself up by the bootstraps and cast your bucket down by your feet or whatever the hell Booker T was on. 01:37:06.869 --> 01:37:20.710 And while it's important and there's value in self-reliance and perseverance, this sentiment's fundamental purpose is to absolve the status quo from its complicity and responsibility and the damage it does to black people. 01:37:20.789 --> 01:37:25.350 It endeavors to blame black people for a condition that is imposed upon them. 01:37:25.430 --> 01:37:33.190 And it works because going back to Van Leighton's wise words, we kind of get lost in the admiration of what Oprah is. 01:37:33.270 --> 01:37:43.750 And we stop being critical of the clear aversion she has to risking her spot, of Miss Leader's aversion to that, and just dream about what being in that spot must feel like. 01:37:43.989 --> 01:37:47.989 Oprah can easily remain disengaged from black struggle because she is. 01:37:48.150 --> 01:37:50.470 She's just that rich, powerful, and successful. 01:37:50.630 --> 01:37:59.110 And in those rare moments where she does have to face racism, such as when she is told by a luxury store in the Netherlands that she wouldn't be allowed to get a bag because they didn't think she could afford it. 01:37:59.270 --> 01:38:03.510 People will say, see, racism is so real that even Oprah has to face it. 01:38:03.670 --> 01:38:15.030 It won't take a moment to think about how different Oprah's world and position is that her issue with racism is that someone told her she couldn't buy a$40,000 Tom Ford bag. 01:38:15.270 --> 01:38:19.829 This is where the class element of black misleadership class comes into play. 01:38:20.070 --> 01:38:31.989 Oprah and her peers, such as the Obamas, Jay-Z and Beyonce, Tyler Perry, etc., are not required or even really asked to do much for black people because they represent an aspirational class. 01:38:32.230 --> 01:38:47.989 One criticism that I know I'm gonna get that I've constantly gotten for videos like this is that I hate black people who are successful, that I hate black success, that it's important to support and uphold these figures and not criticize them publicly because of the ever-present eye of white folks. 01:38:48.230 --> 01:38:54.230 The problem with that logic, among many things, is that it doesn't go both ways. 01:38:54.470 --> 01:39:03.430 Folks like Oprah are capable of marginalizing other black people with impunity because

they're so successful, because they are so unassailable. 01:39:03.590 --> 01:39:11.909 Any criticism of them can be written off as hate or ignored for the purposes of black decorum because those are kinfolk. 01:39:12.070 --> 01:39:16.949 When Oprah built that school, I was actually in my first year as a teacher. 01:39:17.110 --> 01:39:23.190 I was in front of the types of kids Oprah said care more about shoes and ipods in their education. 01:39:23.350 --> 01:39:24.869 And it made me furious. 01:39:24.949 --> 01:39:34.710 It's making me angry now reading these words, that she could even be capable of saying that and not face any real consequences for it. 01:39:34.869 --> 01:39:43.750 In just my first few years of teaching, I had athletes cry on my shoulder about their suicidal thoughts because they feared their inability to go pro. 01:39:43.909 --> 01:39:49.350 I had kids displaced by Hurricane Katrina trying to keep themselves together in a new environment. 01:39:49.510 --> 01:39:58.070 I had students who never did their homework because they worked night jobs and didn't have time to read Macbeth in between shifts at work. 01:39:58.230 --> 01:40:03.030 And yeah, I probably did have a few students who didn't value their education as much as they could have. 01:40:03.190 --> 01:40:09.030 And I confess that I sometimes got frustrated with them and didn't give them the grace I should have then. 01:40:09.110 --> 01:40:17.350 But I knew enough to say that the students I was serving were just as deserving as the resources Oprah had given to a country thousands of miles away. 01:40:17.510 --> 01:40:21.590 Because please believe, Oprah could build multiple schools if she wanted. 01:40:21.750 --> 01:40:27.510 But she said that they didn't value their education, and if a white person had said that, it'd have caused a riot. 01:40:27.590 --> 01:40:31.270 But because Oprah said it, it was comparably barely a peep. 01:40:31.430 --> 01:40:38.550 As I drove to school every morning during my teaching days at that time, I was often filled with rage when I was writing this. 01:40:38.710 --> 01:40:49.989 My eyes genuinely welled up because I remember how angry I was every day in the classroom, knowing that I was fighting against a system that wanted me and every student I taught to lose. 01:40:50.150 --> 01:40:53.510 And what I usually did every morning was stem my rage with music. 01:40:53.590 --> 01:40:57.190 Sometimes it would be chill stuff, some Neil Souls, smooth jazz. 01:40:57.350 --> 01:41:01.430 Every once in a while, I'd break out some rock music to get my blood rushing. 01:41:01.590 --> 01:41:08.470 But when it was really bad, it was always hip-hop, especially hip-hop that aggressively went at the problem as I saw it. 01:41:08.550 --> 01:41:13.829 People like Dead Press, Taleb Kwili, the ghost of Kanye West Pass, if you could believe it or not. 01:41:13.989 --> 01:41:23.190 But when this Oprah stuff was happening, there was one song I fucking loved that said to Oprah exactly what I wish I could have said. 01:41:23.350 --> 01:41:30.630 It was a song called That's Life by probably my favorite rapper at the time, and one of my favorite rappers of all time. 01:41:31.350 --> 01:41:32.550 Killer Mike. 01:41:43.030 --> 01:41:50.789 And at this point, it's become abundantly obvious what the twist of this video is that this is really a video about Killer Mike. 01:41:50.949 --> 01:41:52.230 And I'm just gonna be blunt. 01:41:52.310 --> 01:41:56.949 I've become very aware that I don't think Killer Mike wants me to come out with this video. 01:41:57.590 --> 01:42:08.710 He's gonna say something like he just wanted to have a conversation, he just wanted to talk things out, but you'll find out that that's not something he was interested in until he knew this video was coming. 01:42:08.869 --> 01:42:10.310 But more next some other time. 01:42:10.470 --> 01:42:22.070 With that in mind, as I start going through the upload process and what it takes to get YouTube videos onto YouTube, I'm running into some very odd challenges and barriers. 01:42:22.150 --> 01:42:30.310 Now y'all know if you watch me, I'm constantly running into those barriers, but usually I know exactly why I'm hitting certain barriers and I know how to work around them. 01:42:30.470 --> 01:42:34.789 This time around, some of these barriers a little odd, a little anomalous. 01:42:35.110 --> 01:42:45.510 I'm still gonna get past them, because the only way to keep this video from being monetized from certain people is for them to sue me, and surely folks aren't gonna want to try to take it that far. 01:42:45.670 --> 01:43:01.670 So I'm not too worried about it, but I did just want to let people know once again that there may be some parts of this video, especially from this point on, that are oddly edited, and maybe there's frozen screens, maybe there's big black boxes or blurs over what should be on screen. 01:43:01.829 --> 01:43:05.110 That's just kind of how the game works, and I apologize if that bothers you. 01:43:05.190 --> 01:43:15.590 And if that bothers you and you're willing to pay a couple of more dollars, you can go to Nebula and watch it uncut because that's the only place I can pretty much guarantee that the video will exist as it was intended. 01:43:15.829 --> 01:43:17.670 Uh, that's it, hopefully. 01:43:17.909 --> 01:43:20.150 So we just gonna go ahead and get started. 01:43:21.590 --> 01:43:26.470 I'm a leader, not because I'm a rapper, I'm a leader because I've been an actor since I was 15 as a rapper. 01:43:26.789 --> 01:43:33.510 I mean, trying to use my grandmother, but I would not want rappers to be the leader of any of civil rights, anything. 01:43:33.590 --> 01:43:40.470 I would like them to speak on the behalf, I would like them to be with the families of, but they are capitalists and we have a capital interest. 01:43:40.630 --> 01:43:43.270 So I'm not gonna sell you out for a contract. 01:43:43.430 --> 01:43:55.750 When I

first started planning for this video, it was gonna be in three, realistically four parts, as I looked at different examples of black misleadership using well-known black misleaders. 01:43:55.989 --> 01:43:58.869 I knew I needed to spin the block on Obama again. 01:43:59.030 --> 01:44:02.390 I have been waiting years to discuss the mythologized legacy of Booker T. 01:44:02.470 --> 01:44:02.789 Washington. 01:44:02.949 --> 01:44:08.710 Oprah was a last-minute edition, I'll admit, but this video was always going to include Killer Mike. 01:44:08.869 --> 01:44:12.550 In fact, that version of the video is still partly what you're watching. 01:44:12.710 --> 01:44:15.430 Here's how the Killer Mike section was originally supposed to start. 01:44:27.270 --> 01:44:34.789 And here's where I want to introduce the next major misleader I want to speak on, one Michael Render, aka Killer Mike. 01:44:34.949 --> 01:44:48.470 Now, initially I had had a lot to say about Mike, but I cut it down because I wasn't sure if it made sense to give Mike so much time in this video that included figures that were far more powerful and maybe even fundamentally more harmful than he is. 01:44:48.630 --> 01:44:52.710 I mean no shade in what I'm about to say next, and I hope that's understood going forward. 01:44:52.869 --> 01:44:58.710 But the fact is Mike is much smaller in comparison to many of his misleadership class peers. 01:44:58.869 --> 01:45:04.230 He doesn't own any powerful media conglomerates like the Obamas or Jay-Z or even Charlemagne the God. 01:45:04.550 --> 01:45:13.670 He isn't a billionaire or an elected official or anything where his words and actions directly lead to harm for black people on the same scale. 01:45:13.909 --> 01:45:27.750 However, there is one thing that Mike has that his peers don't that has made him a problem in his own unique way, and thus necessary to be a target of criticism for people like me for years now, which is thought leader credibility. 01:45:27.989 --> 01:45:34.949 What I mean is that Mike has earned a position in black culture where the people value his words and respect his views. 01:45:35.110 --> 01:45:37.909 In an old video, I compared Mike to Tupac. 01:45:38.070 --> 01:45:44.710 And while that comparison is wrong in a lot of ways, it speaks to the fact that Mike is seen as a voice for black people. 01:45:44.869 --> 01:45:51.110 You know that joke Dave Chappelle made years ago on the absurdity of asking Ja Rue his views on the world after 9-11? 01:45:51.270 --> 01:45:52.789 We got Ja Rule on the phone. 01:45:52.949 --> 01:45:55.430 Let's see what Ja's thoughts are on this tragedy. 01:45:55.590 --> 01:45:57.829 Who gives a buck with Ja Rule thinks at a time like this? 01:45:57.909 --> 01:45:58.949 Like, this is ridiculous. 01:45:59.190 --> 01:46:01.110 That joke wouldn't work with Killer Mike. 01:46:01.270 --> 01:46:06.310 For over a decade now, when Killer Mike spoke, people, especially black people, listen. 01:46:06.630 --> 01:46:17.909 Within mainstream black media, Killer Mike represents the radical limit, the end point of how we should engage with and utilize black radical traditions, at least within normative mainstream thought. 01:46:18.070 --> 01:46:19.750 And that's really bad. 01:46:20.789 --> 01:46:25.430 And not just because he keeps finding himself in rooms with Republicans and bankers. 01:46:25.670 --> 01:46:28.150 And thank you, Tony and Killer Mike. 01:46:28.230 --> 01:46:29.909 I gotta tell you, just Michael is fine. 01:46:30.070 --> 01:46:30.949 Mike, just Mike. 01:46:31.670 --> 01:46:37.670 What this means is that when it comes to missed leadership, Mike occupies a uniquely important position. 01:46:37.829 --> 01:46:42.230 He is meant to represent the black radical tradition of people like Huey P. 01:46:42.390 --> 01:46:46.789 Newton, George Jackson, Franz Fanon, the type of folks Mike likes to say he read. 01:46:46.949 --> 01:46:51.829 Malcolm X once said that he who controls the media controls people's minds. 01:46:51.909 --> 01:46:55.190 And in media, Mike is seen as a black thinker. 01:46:55.350 --> 01:47:03.590 He speaks with a level of conviction and confidence where you can't help but engage with what he's saying, even if what he's saying is some bullshit. 01:47:03.670 --> 01:47:12.630 And this section of the video was going to expand on all of that and somehow squeeze what is a lot of thoughts into no more than a 30-minute section. 01:47:13.030 --> 01:47:17.989 And then literally a day after I recorded that section, Mike, along with T.I. 01:47:18.150 --> 01:47:22.150 and his son Domani, drop a freestyle in Red Bull showcase series. 01:47:22.230 --> 01:47:28.150 And in this freestyle, Mike spits a verse that hits a few familiar nerves. 01:47:28.630 --> 01:47:31.510 Top of the back of the list, look like a capitalist. 01:47:31.750 --> 01:47:39.350 Humbling Capital Bitch, a rap was word and heard and helped the new pality understand capital bitch, leader of books and the leader of crooks. 01:47:39.590 --> 01:47:41.190 I am the Negro Magneto. 01:47:41.430 --> 01:47:44.470 More than familiar, it seems directed. 01:48:06.470 --> 01:48:08.630 Probably more so than the average Killer Mike fan. 01:48:08.789 --> 01:48:15.670 The divine irony is that if it weren't for Killer Mike, I wouldn't be here on screen holding this mic right now. 01:48:15.829 --> 01:48:28.550 There's things about Mike's story and his music and his trajectory from also ranning Atlanta to one of the most influential rappers of his generation that resonate with me on a personal and meaningful level. 01:48:28.789 --> 01:48:30.710 I want to show people this time around, man. 01:48:30.789 --> 01:48:35.510 The music ain't about uh, you know, a market scheme or you just buy my record. 01:48:35.590 --> 01:48:37.350 This is about I'm a part of this community. 01:48:37.430 --> 01:48:38.150 You know what I'm saying? 01:48:38.230 --> 01:48:38.710 In every way. 01:48:38.869 --> 01:48:42.310

This record, my album is a part of this community, shared experience. 01:48:42.390 --> 01:48:46.150 So before I leave town, I'm like, I'm gonna make sure these kids got smiles on their faces. 01:48:46.230 --> 01:48:53.030 You know, so you know, if I drop a side call two singles, it's not just for the dope niggas, it's not just for the thugs, it's for these babies out here. 01:48:53.430 --> 01:49:07.750 But it's also personal because of all the black celebrities or celebrities in general that I've critiqued in my career over the years, Killer Mike is the only one to respond directly, even if through sneaknesses. 01:49:07.989 --> 01:49:24.070 And because of that, I feel like I need to take the opportunity to make a more comprehensive and robust response to everything that Killer Mike has been saying, not just about me, but about politics, black people, and himself for years now. 01:49:24.310 --> 01:49:26.550 But first, how do we get here? 01:49:26.789 --> 01:49:29.909 It actually doesn't start with that freestyle, believe it or not. 01:49:30.150 --> 01:49:36.070 One might argue even that this freestyle low-key isn't about me, but about another person that we'll talk about later. 01:49:36.230 --> 01:49:43.670 Or you could even say that Mike is just responding to a widespread criticism from black radicals that he's been getting for years at this point. 01:49:43.829 --> 01:49:48.869 And I just happen to be the loudest voice offering that criticism right now. 01:49:49.030 --> 01:49:57.670 Which I still, to be honest, take umbrage with because I know that Mike knows that these bars were going to come off as directed at me. 01:49:57.829 --> 01:50:06.230 He knows that folks like myself would take this some kind of way, and he knows this because this isn't the first time Killer Mike has sneaked this thing. 01:50:06.390 --> 01:50:10.470 Now, some of you might be thinking, even though you've watched this far, who the fuck does this guy think he is? 01:50:10.630 --> 01:50:21.270 That he's just a little YouTuber to be getting sneaked diss by Grammy Award-winning rapper, and boy, you'll be surprised at the level of petty that Killer Mike has when he feels like he's been insulted. 01:50:21.430 --> 01:50:28.310 At the risk of sounding egotistical, I know these folks, Mike and the people he hangs with, know who I am. 01:50:28.470 --> 01:50:31.750 It's kind of their job being figures in black media. 01:50:31.909 --> 01:50:37.430 I've had numerous people in mainstream traditional black media reach out to me over the years. 01:50:37.590 --> 01:50:43.510 There's even an old video of Alex Media, Charlemagne's producer and business partner, wearing one of my t shirts. 01:50:43.670 --> 01:50:53.670 Low key, I feel like if my political Political stances or really just my general criticism about certain black media figures wasn't so abrasive and cutting. 01:50:53.909 --> 01:51:01.350 If I weren't making videos about people like Oprah and Obama and Jay-Z, etc., I'd probably

have been welcome into those spaces years ago. 01:51:01.590 --> 01:51:15.590 Indulge my ego for a moment to understand that the fact that I've built a platform with millions of subscribers talking the type of shit I talk that regularly has videos released with millions of views, nobody has that shit. 01:51:15.750 --> 01:51:17.190 That shit's pretty unique. 01:51:17.270 --> 01:51:20.869 So it would behoove them to know what I'm talking about. 01:51:21.030 --> 01:51:48.470 But if you still don't believe me and think I'm reaching, let's look at the last time Killer Mike sneak this me along with Charlemagne the God on his podcast Conversate, where they pretty obviously addressed me directly, not saying my name, of course, because that would have been a mistake, but referring to my content explicitly and very importantly misrepresenting my criticisms from a video I made about Killer Mike a little over a year ago called The Problem with Killer Mike. 01:51:48.630 --> 01:52:06.470 The way they come at my good brother, Killer Mike, Michael Rinder, the way they come at people like Jay-Z, the way they come at people like Tyler Perry, the way they come at people like Steve Harvey, and the reason and the reason I'm naming those individuals is because those are the people that I see actually pouring back in the black people. 01:52:06.550 --> 01:52:08.550 Whether y'all see it or not, from black people. 01:52:08.949 --> 01:52:09.350 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 01:52:09.590 --> 01:52:10.230 It's a nigga right now. 01:52:10.470 --> 01:52:16.390 The problem with Killer Mike, I was just like, and I was like, boy, what I see is it might be a problem. 01:52:16.630 --> 01:52:20.710 If I was really installed about him, I'm like, damn, maybe you're talking about my mama, but you put a picture of my grandmama up. 01:52:20.869 --> 01:52:22.869 Everybody who really knows my story knows I have two dads. 01:52:22.949 --> 01:52:24.070 You put the wrong dad up. 01:52:24.310 --> 01:52:26.070 What if I put your wife and children on TV? 01:52:26.230 --> 01:52:26.470 That's right. 01:52:26.949 --> 01:52:28.070 Was that a threat? 01:52:28.390 --> 01:52:30.949 Did he just bring up my wife and kids out of nowhere? 01:52:31.110 --> 01:52:36.150 Did he just lie about what I said in my video and insinuate that I was begging for money? 01:52:36.310 --> 01:52:43.190 By the way, Mike was so pressed about that video I made that he brought it up again a week later with Vic Mincer. 01:52:43.430 --> 01:52:48.869 The amazing thing for me sometimes is it, especially when I get, you know, you know, people, you know, the problem with your right is it? 01:52:49.030 --> 01:52:51.190 And then at the end of the video, they ask you for some money. 01:52:51.909 --> 01:52:54.630 I've never went to a communist website that didn't beg for money at the end. 01:52:54.789 --> 01:52:55.430 Shout out to Vic. 01:52:55.510 --> 01:52:56.230 He didn't take the bait. 01:52:56.310 --> 01:53:00.470 He low-key didn't know what the fuck Mike was talking about, but you know, it is what it is. 01:53:00.630 --> 01:53:05.030 So, yes, Mike knows who I am, and he knows I'm in Atlanta. 01:53:05.110 --> 01:53:13.989 And he knows that bar is about being a capitalist, a meeting with politicians, along with the rest of the verse, which Loki like, if the verse wasn't about me, that shit would have gone hard. 01:53:14.230 --> 01:53:14.869 I'm still a fan. 01:53:14.949 --> 01:53:15.590 I'm still a fan. 01:53:15.750 --> 01:53:17.909 But he knows I heard it differently. 01:53:18.150 --> 01:53:22.869 But I can't front, a year ago when I saw this, I was big mad. 01:53:23.270 --> 01:53:29.270 Not just at the slick talk and the crossing of certain lines, but also the blatant dishonesty. 01:53:29.430 --> 01:53:31.190 Maybe mad's not the right word. 01:53:31.350 --> 01:53:32.710 I was disappointed. 01:53:32.869 --> 01:53:35.590 I will apologize directly here to Mike. 01:53:35.750 --> 01:53:38.150 Mike, I apologize for bringing up your parents. 01:53:38.310 --> 01:53:40.710 I didn't think that would be a raw point for you. 01:53:40.789 --> 01:53:50.630 You've talked about your parents publicly on numerous occasions, and I think your unique upbringing informs some of the unique, I would say, flaws that you have in your political views. 01:53:50.789 --> 01:53:51.750 But I'm sorry. 01:53:51.909 --> 01:53:53.350 I can understand the feeling. 01:53:53.430 --> 01:53:57.110 It's never fun being analyzed the way I'm about to do right now. 01:53:57.270 --> 01:54:02.630 Uh, it's never fun to be at the center of someone else's discussion when you're not there. 01:54:02.949 --> 01:54:08.470 But bringing up someone's wife and children is very different, and I feel like we both know that. 01:54:08.630 --> 01:54:14.310 Further, my wife and kids were not mentioned or pictured in any video where I address you. 01:54:14.949 --> 01:54:17.110 Where did that come from in the first place? 01:54:17.350 --> 01:54:22.230 How much homework has been done on me by Mike in this regard? 01:54:22.550 --> 01:54:24.550 What am I meant to feel about that? 01:54:24.710 --> 01:54:28.630 What was I meant to feel about that when I watched it a year ago? 01:54:28.949 --> 01:54:33.989 Now, it is a year ago, and I've had no issues with my personal safety and security. 01:54:34.150 --> 01:54:40.550 I don't have security, and I never thought that I would, and I don't plan on getting it on principle, but maybe I'm being too sensitive. 01:54:40.789 --> 01:54:42.630 But that was out of pocket. 01:54:43.190 --> 01:54:44.390 Very out of pocket. 01:54:44.470 --> 01:54:47.909 But beyond that is the lies and the misrepresentation. 01:54:48.150 --> 01:54:52.869 Mike replies in his response that I asked for money for my Patreon. 01:54:53.110 --> 01:54:54.869 Y'all always ask for money at the end. 01:54:55.829 --> 01:54:58.390 After telling you that you ain't shit for being a black capitalist. 01:54:59.270 --> 01:55:01.750 Can I have$10 for my

for my Patreon? 01:55:01.909 --> 01:55:03.829 I'm like, you piece of shit ass nigga. 01:55:04.310 --> 01:55:05.670 When that was nowhere in the video. 01:55:05.829 --> 01:55:09.030 In fact, I rarely plug my Patreon in my videos. 01:55:09.190 --> 01:55:15.030 But even if I did, that would be a bad argument to begin with because this is work. 01:55:15.190 --> 01:55:15.909 This is labor. 01:55:15.989 --> 01:55:16.789 This is my job. 01:55:16.949 --> 01:55:18.470 Am I supposed to work for free? 01:55:18.630 --> 01:55:26.070 Mike, do you know what socialism or communism actually is to imply that the need or desire for money is capitalism? 01:55:26.390 --> 01:55:29.829 Indicates that you don't actually know what capitalism is or how it works. 01:55:29.989 --> 01:55:31.510 But I don't think that's true either. 01:55:31.750 --> 01:55:44.150 I think Mike knows exactly how capitalism works, but he knows that response, you criticize capitalism yet you want money, is something that uninformed people get caught up on all the time. 01:55:44.470 --> 01:55:54.470 Mike knows, and this will come up over and over, that the population he's talking to on his side of the political aisle isn't informed on that rhetoric he's misrepresenting. 01:55:54.630 --> 01:56:07.110 So he spits what is legitimately CIA propaganda about socialism or communism in order to deflect from the legitimate criticism I made of him and his politics in that video, which by the way was really mild. 01:56:07.270 --> 01:56:20.230 And for all the criticisms I have of Mike, I can't give up on the possibility that there's value in his work and potential in his words if we could just get them to be less fetishizing of capitalism in general. 01:56:20.390 --> 01:56:32.869 And I'm sure that for some, hearing that song Reagan, or hearing Killer Mike even mention some of these luminaries was a way for them to discover these politics in earnest and maybe just maybe start them on a journey of real political awakening. 01:56:33.190 --> 01:56:45.909 Way nicer than I needed to be, way nicer than I usually am with people that I have disagreements with, which is something I do need to improve on, especially considering the status I'm suddenly thrusted in. 01:56:45.989 --> 01:56:56.710 But the clearest indication that he's full of shit is that the video was a fundraiser for community movement builders, a local black radical organization here in Atlanta that was trying to raise money for a land project. 01:56:56.869 --> 01:57:02.869 In the past, on other channels or social media posts, you may have seen me promote the work of community movement builders here in Atlanta. 01:57:02.949 --> 01:57:07.350 I talked to one of their leaders, Kamal Franklin, about the Stop Cop City movement a couple of years back. 01:57:07.590 --> 01:57:23.989 They were very active and one of the leading organizations in that movement, and they recently reached out to me about their Love Land and Liberation Project with the goal of showing

how a collective can use land for something useful, not to start a weird episode of Survivor, but to continue the Black Radical tradition. 01:57:24.150 --> 01:57:31.510 In observance of Black August, which is a month of resistance, fasting, and education meant to engage with the plight of political prisoners across the globe. 01:57:31.670 --> 01:57:35.110 Community movement builders is doing a funding drive for this project. 01:57:35.270 --> 01:57:39.270 And I want you, and maybe even killer Mike, if he sees this, right? 01:57:39.510 --> 01:57:39.750 Right? 01:57:39.829 --> 01:57:42.310 You can make it right, Mike, to support this project. 01:57:42.789 --> 01:57:45.750 And I'm almost positive Mike actually knows this organization. 01:57:45.909 --> 01:57:47.670 He might have even given them money too. 01:57:47.829 --> 01:57:49.430 Shout out to you, Mike, if you did. 01:57:49.510 --> 01:57:54.550 But to act like that's not what I was talking about, that's that's that's weak shit, man. 01:57:54.710 --> 01:57:55.030 Weak. 01:57:55.190 --> 01:57:58.630 He even actually slips and almost says org the second time around. 01:57:58.789 --> 01:58:00.310 If you listen closely, you can hear it. 01:58:00.550 --> 01:58:04.150 Capitalist could I have$10 tomorrow for my Patreon? 01:58:05.110 --> 01:58:05.989 For my Patreon. 01:58:06.150 --> 01:58:09.270 Now, yes, this video was asking for money, but not for me. 01:58:09.430 --> 01:58:11.190 It was for righteous black cause. 01:58:11.270 --> 01:58:12.310 And Mike knew that. 01:58:12.390 --> 01:58:15.350 And it's awful that he would imply otherwise. 01:58:15.510 --> 01:58:17.350 So Mike is high key lying. 01:58:17.510 --> 01:58:25.909 Lying because the last thing he really wants to do is critically engage with what he's being criticized for and why. 01:58:26.070 --> 01:58:28.470 He says, I could have pulled up at the swag shop. 01:58:28.630 --> 01:58:32.310 The brother that criticized me is obviously something like bro, you could have you know you could have just pulled up on. 01:58:32.630 --> 01:58:33.270 You know what I'm saying? 01:58:35.989 --> 01:58:43.190 But I'll show later that Mike very explicitly does not want to talk to people like me and ignores the criticism that people like me have. 01:58:43.430 --> 01:58:48.230 He also low-key calls me a nerd, which I hold that one. 01:58:48.470 --> 01:58:50.550 Again, how do you know this? 01:58:52.470 --> 01:58:53.829 Somebody clip that shit. 01:58:54.070 --> 01:58:59.350 But it was heartbreaking for Mike's response to be so shallow, so ignorant, and shady. 01:58:59.510 --> 01:59:02.710 I completely get not wanting to say the names of your critics. 01:59:02.789 --> 01:59:14.070 I've got a million black manister weirdos, Republican, racist, white leftists, etc., that I send shots at on the regular, but never in any way do I misrepresent what they're saying about me. 01:59:14.230 --> 01:59:21.270 In fact, I go out of my way to my detriment to set the record straight

when necessary and to engage with criticism that I think is valid. 01:59:21.350 --> 01:59:22.710 Now I want to be fair to Mike. 01:59:22.869 --> 01:59:40.710 I and other black leftists have criticized Mike numerous times on his platform by this point, pretty much making the same argument over and over that Mike's love of capitalism clouds his judgment and decision making and his alleged love for black people, and that he needs to correct that or stop claiming to believe in an ideology that he doesn't represent. 01:59:40.869 --> 01:59:43.350 That's the basis of the criticism that's usually made about Mike. 01:59:43.510 --> 01:59:47.909 Anytime I've mentioned Mike, I am usually again very light and respectful. 01:59:48.070 --> 01:59:54.550 But that doesn't matter because if I say your name and I criticize you publicly, I can't be mad when you give me the same energy. 01:59:54.710 --> 01:59:58.630 But sneak dissing is kind of unbecoming of this situation, in my opinion. 01:59:58.789 --> 01:59:59.670 And I'm not a rapper. 02:00:00.070 --> 02:00:01.750 Why am I being barred up like this? 02:00:02.070 --> 02:00:16.230 But again, worse than a song, Mike has been sneak dissing black leftists for years at this point, usually from platforms far larger and more far-reaching than anything his critics could ever access until now. 02:00:16.710 --> 02:00:29.430 Until now, Mike could and has legit acted like the things I and others were saying are insignificant, and he can go on platforms like The Breakfast Club in his own little bubbles and talk that shit. 02:00:29.670 --> 02:00:33.030 Sneak discs and never have too many people connect the dots. 02:00:33.350 --> 02:00:37.989 But this freestyle, and the previous sneak discs kind of changed that. 02:00:38.070 --> 02:00:50.150 And now I get to use my platform, which is legit bigger than any platform Mike has access to, at least here on YouTube, to address the problems that Mike has been trying to avoid in full and excruciating detail. 02:00:50.390 --> 02:00:54.949 That said, I have a lot of love and respect for killer Mike. 02:00:55.270 --> 02:00:57.670 But Mike has been a misleader for years at this point. 02:00:57.909 --> 02:01:03.350 One who's pretended that he represents a radical approach to black people's issues. 02:01:03.670 --> 02:01:09.590 And I cannot allow this lie to go unchallenged now that I have the opportunity to do so. 02:01:09.829 --> 02:01:12.789 My goal here is not to destroy or cancel Mike. 02:01:12.869 --> 02:01:16.710 I'm going to reiterate my love for his music and his legacy throughout. 02:01:16.869 --> 02:01:20.550 I'm not going to dig up any type of weird information about Mike. 02:01:20.630 --> 02:01:25.510 There will be no meet the grams needle drop in this video if that's what you're looking for. 02:01:25.750 --> 02:01:28.630 What I want is community accountability. 02:01:28.789 --> 02:01:34.550 And now that I have been gifted with an excuse to dig in, I most surely will pursue that.

02:01:34.710 --> 02:01:43.909 Because while Mike isn't nearly as powerful as the other black misleadership figures I've talked about, he's the one who made the mistake of breaking my containment. 02:01:44.070 --> 02:01:47.750 So the rest of this video is the problem with killer Mike 2. 02:01:47.909 --> 02:01:52.230 Or more appropriately, for those who know, that's life three. 02:01:57.110 --> 02:02:02.470 The way they come at people like JC, like these are these. 02:02:02.869 --> 02:02:09.989 The way they come at people like Tyler Perry, these are puppets and clowns that uh have been set up over the black community. 02:02:10.230 --> 02:02:13.270 Wait it, the way they come at my good brother Killer Mike, Mike Lorinda. 02:02:20.310 --> 02:02:24.150 With the people who like cartoons too much, got a beautiful wife and children. 02:02:26.310 --> 02:02:27.829 I read the Resident Mother. 02:02:27.909 --> 02:02:28.949 I read Fox Mother. 02:02:29.110 --> 02:02:31.110 I've read, I read all these books. 02:02:34.869 --> 02:02:44.470 I'm not gonna sell you out for a contract, but the other people who do what I do are readily willing to do that because they are capitalists and they're broken, and they're in it's a capital game. 02:02:44.630 --> 02:02:46.390 Y'all always ask for money at the end. 02:02:47.190 --> 02:02:49.750 I'm telling you that you ain't shit being a black capitalist. 02:02:53.829 --> 02:03:03.430 Humble a capital bitch, a rap was working, her and help the little powder on the understanding, capital bitch, leader of books and the leader of truth. 02:03:03.829 --> 02:03:05.430 I am the Negro Magneto. 02:03:08.949 --> 02:03:09.670 Part one. 02:03:09.989 --> 02:03:11.110 How did we get this? 02:03:19.510 --> 02:03:27.510 So let's first start with a little background on who Killer Mike is and why his journey from rap also ran to superstar is so significant. 02:03:27.750 --> 02:03:32.150 Famously, the last person to kind of get under Killer Mike's skin was maybe Kai Sanette. 02:03:32.310 --> 02:03:37.829 Not for anything political, but because Kai Sonette, I guess, doesn't know about any rapper that came out before 2010. 02:03:37.909 --> 02:03:43.030 And he had this hilarious moment after Killer Mike beat Travis Scott for the Grammys of 2024. 02:03:43.270 --> 02:03:45.110 Hey brother, God bless you. 02:03:45.350 --> 02:03:46.550 Congratulations. 02:03:46.710 --> 02:03:48.070 I don't know who you are. 02:03:48.949 --> 02:03:52.070 Positivity you playing for you, bro. 02:03:53.270 --> 02:03:55.190 Positivity out the window. 02:03:55.510 --> 02:03:59.909 Who decided this m Who the f decided this? 02:04:03.110 --> 02:04:04.150 Utopia! 02:04:04.470 --> 02:04:13.430 I bring this up to make the point that if you're not my age and you're not really into hip hop, you might not know who Killer Mike is or why he's kind of a big deal. 02:04:13.590 --> 02:04:16.070 So Mike, man, let us know how you got on, man. 02:04:16.150 --> 02:04:17.430 How everything jumped off for you. 02:04:17.829 --> 02:04:22.789 Well, really, man, it was like me and Big Boy had a mutual friend and I was slinging tapes on the street, my other things. 02:04:22.949 --> 02:04:25.829 Big and his brother would get my tapes, they listened to him, he liked them. 02:04:25.989 --> 02:04:26.550 You know what I'm saying? 02:04:26.630 --> 02:04:28.470 He told me he was gonna try to get me a deal. 02:04:28.630 --> 02:04:29.110 You know what I'm saying? 02:04:29.270 --> 02:04:32.390 Stop them paying out with other labels in Atlanta because I really wanted to suit it for them. 02:04:32.630 --> 02:04:33.510 Big got a label. 02:04:33.670 --> 02:04:35.670 He said, come on, we're gonna ride this thing out together. 02:04:35.750 --> 02:04:37.510 Me and him been riding for the last two years. 02:04:37.750 --> 02:04:44.550 Mike starts out his career signed to Equimini Records under the legendary rap group Outcast, or at least half of it, Big Boy, to be specific. 02:04:44.710 --> 02:04:52.070 I honestly don't know what, if any, stake Andre ever had in Aquimini, especially since it turned into Purple Ribbon right after that, but that's not really important. 02:04:52.230 --> 02:04:57.030 His first big splash was a standout verse on Outcast the Whole World in 2001. 02:04:57.190 --> 02:04:59.270 And presently, man, on the whole world single. 02:04:59.430 --> 02:05:02.789 Been around the world about two, three different times this year with them boys, man. 02:05:02.869 --> 02:05:04.550 Actually getting ready to leave again tomorrow. 02:05:04.710 --> 02:05:06.230 So just happy to be a part of it, man. 02:05:06.310 --> 02:05:08.949 And just look for mine coming like hopefully March of next year. 02:05:09.030 --> 02:05:09.590 You know what I'm saying? 02:05:09.670 --> 02:05:10.789 It's like it's like that good work. 02:05:10.869 --> 02:05:13.909 So we gotta make sure it comes back real hard when we bring it out the pot, man. 02:05:14.710 --> 02:05:18.070 And then he had his own big hit named Action in 2002. 02:05:18.230 --> 02:05:20.310 And action was an immediate hit for me. 02:05:20.390 --> 02:05:27.510 At a time where Trap was just beginning to take over, especially in the South, action kind of didn't sound like anything that was happening at the moment. 02:05:27.670 --> 02:05:31.270 It had this beat that sounded like it sampled the rug rat theme. 02:05:31.430 --> 02:05:35.190 I know that sounds silly, but no, that shit banged, that shit was amazing. 02:05:35.430 --> 02:05:37.350 You know, we're starting off on the good foot. 02:05:37.510 --> 02:05:45.030 Mike's debut album, Monster, was also full of, for the time, unique sounds and melodies that combined with Mike's traditional gangster rap bars. 02:05:45.270 --> 02:05:52.710 This combination of seemingly disparate sounds in some ways previews the alternative hip-hop sounds that would bring Mike to rap stardom later in his career. 02:05:52.869 --> 02:05:56.390 However, in the moment, the album

failed to really find an audience. 02:05:56.550 --> 02:06:06.070 Even today, over a decade into Mike being a rap superstar, this album doesn't have a ton of spins, which is sad because it's it's a pretty good album, one of my favorites of the time period. 02:06:06.230 --> 02:06:09.590 I was a bit of a rap snob at the time, which I'm sure you can imagine. 02:06:09.750 --> 02:06:13.670 So Mike not being a household name made it even more endearing to me. 02:06:13.750 --> 02:06:17.350 I even met Mike once while working at Peppermint Music and Western Mall. 02:06:17.510 --> 02:06:20.150 And this is probably one of the few times I was ever starstruck by anyone. 02:06:20.310 --> 02:06:25.750 However, I was sadly one of very few that was starstruck by Killer Mike way back in 2002. 02:06:25.989 --> 02:06:35.989 I don't know the details of everything, but the album was pretty much a flop, and Mike languished in label release limbo for years after that, only popping up on Purple Ribbon All-Stars in 2005. 02:06:36.070 --> 02:06:43.909 And shortly after this, Mike left Purple Ribbon on seemingly good terms, as he and Big Boy still seem to have a good relationship to this day, which is rare. 02:06:44.070 --> 02:06:51.750 A lot of rappers signed to other rappers throughout the history of hip-hop do not have good relationships with those people after they leave those labels. 02:06:51.909 --> 02:06:56.390 But Mike and Big Boy were able to avoid this, and this is probably a testament to Mike's good nature. 02:06:56.550 --> 02:06:59.270 Mike seems like a guy that everyone likes. 02:06:59.430 --> 02:07:13.829 In 2006, after leaving Purple Ribbon, Mike goes independent, and this is where we meet the killer mic that most of us love today, even though I'm gonna argue later that this killer mic that we meet here is very much not the same killer mic that sneaked dissed me a year ago, but we're not there yet. 02:07:13.909 --> 02:07:18.230 I know I say we'll get to that later a lot, but I promise you we will get to that later. 02:07:18.390 --> 02:07:22.550 In 2006, being an independent rapper isn't the flex it is today. 02:07:22.710 --> 02:07:26.949 There was no real streaming framework for rappers to distribute their music or get a buzz. 02:07:27.110 --> 02:07:34.470 We're in the blog mixtape era, and to be fair, that era was not overly kind to Southern rappers, especially ones that were conscious. 02:07:34.710 --> 02:07:52.230 As much as I loved Mike around this time, he was no Big Crit or David Banner, and Bit Crit and David Banner still didn't get a lot of love because they made deep and thoughtful, soulful hardcore hip-hop, but without Knife Wonder or Kanye beat, so they weren't given as much love from the rap nerds as they probably deserved. 02:07:52.390 --> 02:07:59.829 But then Mike drops I Pledge Allegiance to the Grind, a two-disc 60-minute behemoth that becomes an immediate independent classic. 02:07:59.989 --> 02:08:08.630 While it does have some bloating being 23 tracks long, the high points of this album are what turned me and others into killer Mike evangelizers. 02:08:08.789 --> 02:08:15.350 Tracks like HIC, The Juggernaut, I'm Coming Home Atlanta, Pay Style, Deuce is Wild, all these amazing tracks. 02:08:15.430 --> 02:08:20.310 But it was songs like That's Life One that separated Mike from its counterparts. 02:08:20.470 --> 02:08:36.710 In That's Life, Mike takes aim at what he sees as the black bourgeoisie, specifically the aforementioned Oprah, along with Bill Cosby, two prominent black figures at the time with a long history of denigrating hip hop and street culture and pandering to white folks and all the things I said in that section. 02:08:36.789 --> 02:08:39.590 And Killer Mike wasn't having none of that shit. 02:08:54.390 --> 02:08:55.750 Like, it was amazing. 02:08:55.909 --> 02:09:05.430 Understand, this is 2006, and I personally hadn't heard any rapper talk like this since Dead Preds in 1999, especially about figures that were considered black icons. 02:09:05.670 --> 02:09:12.390 I had never heard a nigga use the word bourgeoisie in a rap song, bougie maybe, but not bourgeoisie. 02:09:12.789 --> 02:09:20.869 Consider the fact that Killer Mike was addressing class warfare preaching against the black misleadership class in 2006. 02:09:33.829 --> 02:09:42.310 And I was very receptive to this because I just happened to be beginning my career as a heist teacher at the same time, teaching initially in South Atlanta before taking a job in Comp County. 02:09:42.390 --> 02:09:46.949 And if you know anything about Comp County and Metro Atlanta, then you know that area has a bit of a reputation. 02:09:47.110 --> 02:09:49.270 Things have probably changed a little bit since then. 02:09:49.430 --> 02:09:52.150 But at the time, that wasn't the most friendly place for black people. 02:09:52.470 --> 02:09:55.510 And yes, that was where I met the principal who ruined my teaching career. 02:09:55.590 --> 02:10:01.510 I didn't know I'd have the chance to say fuck two videos in a row, but God works in mysterious ways. 02:10:01.750 --> 02:10:09.670 So I was ready for the type of energy Mike was giving because I was on the front lines of the types of struggles he was talking about. 02:10:09.829 --> 02:10:21.350 Now, obviously I don't know this for sure because I don't know Mike personally, but it's clear from interviews then and now that Mike had connected to legitimate black radicals and organizing spaces at this point in his career. 02:10:21.590 --> 02:10:28.470 You know, if you listen to my music, you know I have a strong pan-Africanist or black nationalist influence in my life. 02:10:28.710 --> 02:10:37.510 Um, I was raised with my grandparents, one grew up in Tuskegee, Alabama, and it great dreams for me to go to Tuskegee University. 02:10:37.829 --> 02:10:49.190 Important because I did a photo shoot two weeks ago and I read, I replicated a Huey Newton shot, and one of the video models who was in

her mid-20s says, who was Huey Newton, a drug dealer? 02:10:49.510 --> 02:10:54.949 So her expectation was that all rappers trying to emulate drug dealers are not necessarily revolutionary. 02:10:55.110 --> 02:11:03.829 So I found it a little shameful that this young woman didn't know um who Huey Newton was, and I responded to her, he's the reason you have free breakfast in the schools. 02:11:04.869 --> 02:11:08.550 He was going through a political awakening and it was manifesting in his music. 02:11:08.789 --> 02:11:12.949 This is probably why no one was coming as hard as he was at the black establishment. 02:11:13.110 --> 02:11:15.590 No one was developing the analysis he was developing. 02:11:15.670 --> 02:11:25.190 This is why the Tupac comparison is at because it wasn't since Tupac that rappers were presenting a legitimate critical analysis that came from this radical tradition. 02:11:25.350 --> 02:11:31.829 I had loved conscious rap since middle school, and by the time I came to college in Atlanta, I was a full-on backpacker hip-hop snob. 02:11:31.989 --> 02:11:36.789 But after a semester in Atlanta, I started to recognize I may have been missing out a little bit. 02:11:36.949 --> 02:11:42.550 I realized pretty quickly that I have been ignoring this amazing world of Southern hip hop that I never knew existed. 02:11:42.630 --> 02:11:57.030 In high school, I was too much of a purist to appreciate master peeing cash money, but now I was starting to get the picture, not just on them, but UGK, Big Mo, The Ghetto Boys, 36 Mafia, CMP, Hitman Sammy Sam, Pastor Troy. 02:11:57.190 --> 02:11:57.590 T.I. 02:11:57.829 --> 02:12:01.270 comes out around this same time, and the list can go on. 02:12:01.510 --> 02:12:04.869 I didn't stop loving East Coast hip hop and conscious hip-hop. 02:12:04.949 --> 02:12:08.710 I just opened my mind to how big and beautiful rap was. 02:12:09.030 --> 02:12:19.350 But the hip-hop conscious rap purist in me and the southern rap dirty south crunk enthusiast in me both met in the middle whenever Killer Mike released new music. 02:12:19.510 --> 02:12:22.550 Mike was one part Tyler Kwili, one part T.I. 02:12:22.949 --> 02:12:32.869 He was now on the level of David Banner and Big Crit, but he was more radical than both of them and really just connected dots about the shit we're dealing with in the world in a way that stuck with me. 02:12:32.949 --> 02:12:43.909 And it wasn't until years later, living more life, teaching more black children, etc., that I fully understood the foundation that Mike's music was creating for the political beliefs that I have today. 02:12:43.989 --> 02:12:45.350 It's ironic, all things considered. 02:12:45.750 --> 02:12:48.150 His next album in 2008 continued this pattern. 02:12:48.310 --> 02:12:52.949 2008's I Pledge Allegiance to the Grind 2, which has the song Pressure featuring Ice Cube. 02:12:53.190 --> 02:12:55.909 He calls out black politicians and the Clintons. 02:12:56.310 --> 02:13:11.350 And in the last verse, it's directed at police officers and anyone who sides with police officers after the murder of Sean Bell in New York, who was killed the night before his wedding, and Catherine Johnson, a 90-year-old grandmother in Atlanta, who was killed after an erroneous no-knock warrant. 02:13:11.430 --> 02:13:15.350 What he says here is that scathing is anything you'll ever hear on Wax. 02:13:23.989 --> 02:13:42.550 Not long after that, he releases a third album, Pledge, aka Pledge Least to the Grind 3, and he's immediately back on Oprah and Cosby in That's Life 2, and adds another name to his shit list in Barack Obama, which made him the second major rapper to take shots at the black president, only losing to my other favorite rapper who low-key doesn't like me. 02:13:42.789 --> 02:13:44.070 Maybe I'm the problem. 02:13:44.869 --> 02:13:48.230 I'm not, but like, you know, I gotta own some shit. 02:13:48.470 --> 02:13:55.989 But that's life too, even goes at Diddy a little bit for his bourgeoisie money flaunting, and Bishop Eddie Long, the then pastor of New Birth in Atlanta. 02:13:59.909 --> 02:14:04.630 The folly of capitalism with Diddy a little bit for his bourgeoisie money flaunting and Bishop. 02:14:05.750 --> 02:14:18.949 But that's life too, even goes at Diddy a little bit for his bourgeoisie money flaunting and Bishop Eddie Long, the then pastor of New Birth in Atlanta, Georgia, fresh off of a secret double life scandal featuring multiple very young male lovers coming forward. 02:14:19.110 --> 02:14:31.190 There's also Byrne, yet another reference to Mike's belief and threat to burn shit down if things don't improve for black people, but also again professing class consciousness and armed resistance. 02:14:31.350 --> 02:14:37.670 And believe it or not, the folly of capitalism with lyrics like they get a job you can think you're a witch. 02:14:37.750 --> 02:14:42.230 But what are you gonna do when the job ain't worth shit and the jobs ain't hiring? 02:14:42.470 --> 02:14:43.750 Undepartment is gone. 02:14:43.829 --> 02:14:46.869 They gonna recoat your car and foreclosure all. 02:14:50.470 --> 02:14:53.190 So when they come to the key, you can make them one. 02:14:53.510 --> 02:14:56.230 Thanks, God damn, got a piece of feel suffering. 02:14:56.550 --> 02:14:59.350 So I gotta do it, cause I didn't have enough of them. 02:14:59.829 --> 02:15:06.070 Killer Mike was speaking truth to power in a way that was probably only possible to an outsider. 02:15:06.310 --> 02:15:16.869 Someone who was independent of the machine that he was trying to get access to, and thus was not afraid to tell that machine and the misleadership class within it that they were full of shit. 02:15:17.110 --> 02:15:24.470 And if you know me and you know my content, you can see how this reflects in my own work then and now. 02:15:25.030 --> 02:15:29.670 Because this whole time in my life, I'm a full-on social justice warrior. 02:15:29.750 --> 02:15:31.590 I am

positive brother Hakeem. 02:15:32.230 --> 02:15:37.190 Excuse me, uh, my name is Positive Brother Hakeem from Positive Big Black Brothers and Sisters of America. 02:15:37.350 --> 02:15:41.110 And I understand you have two misguided young brothers who need some positivity. 02:15:41.430 --> 02:15:51.110 I am in schools, I am in courts, I am in community centers, I am in kids' houses, I am on a crusade to save the world one black kid at a time. 02:15:51.270 --> 02:15:56.150 I'm listening to Killer Mike on the way to Jenna, Louisiana, for the Genna 6 rally. 02:15:56.310 --> 02:15:59.110 I'm listening to Mike when I'm teaching in Decav County. 02:15:59.190 --> 02:16:01.750 I'm listening to Mike when Trayvon Martin is murdered. 02:16:01.909 --> 02:16:04.390 I'm listening to Mike when Occupy Wall Street happens. 02:16:04.550 --> 02:16:07.190 I'm listening to Mike when I teach in Clayton County. 02:16:07.350 --> 02:16:10.550 I'm listening to Killer Mike as I'm working in the juvenile justice system. 02:16:10.710 --> 02:16:17.110 I'm listening to Killer Mike when I'm in grad school being introduced to Fanon and Du Bois seriously for the first time. 02:16:17.510 --> 02:16:28.949 This Mike, this killer Mike, connected to me in ways that I'm gonna be honest, I had forgot about until I had to sit with those experiences while writing this video. 02:16:29.430 --> 02:16:30.630 And I wasn't alone. 02:16:31.270 --> 02:16:37.030 It was around this time that Mike started to take on the title of your favorite rapper's favorite rapper. 02:16:37.190 --> 02:16:47.510 Mike wasn't really popular, but he was adored by those who knew of him, by those who really appreciated the essence of what hip hop was supposed to be when it first emerged. 02:16:47.670 --> 02:16:57.190 But if you know anything about real hip-hop, you know that it's never been a theme to make niggas rich, as explained by the now famous Kendrick Lamar line of Hood Politics. 02:16:57.430 --> 02:17:02.629 Everybody wanna talk about who this and who that, who the realist and who wack, or who white and who black. 02:17:02.709 --> 02:17:05.430 Critics wanna mention that they missed when hip-hop was rapping. 02:17:05.510 --> 02:17:08.389 Motherfucker, if you did, they kill a mic or be platinum, yup. 02:17:08.949 --> 02:17:12.549 This is the problem with integrity, radicalism, and independence. 02:17:12.709 --> 02:17:14.789 It don't come with a bag. 02:17:15.030 --> 02:17:15.350 Dr. 02:17:15.510 --> 02:17:24.870 Ball, who's more important to this part of the video than some of you realize right now, has said before that you cannot be rich, popular, and politically radical at the same time. 02:17:25.110 --> 02:17:29.829 Our current reality of media and capitalism will not allow for all three. 02:17:29.989 --> 02:17:32.069 At best, you can choose two. 02:17:32.469 --> 02:17:37.430 Mike at this time was popular and radical, but he was not rich. 02:17:37.670 --> 02:17:47.670 He had just dropped three of the best albums of that era, and not enough people had even heard that they existed because he had done them independently of the machine. 02:17:47.829 --> 02:17:51.989 Because this is what I want kids who want to be rappers or DJs or whatever else to know. 02:17:52.149 --> 02:18:00.870 You're gonna put in a shitload more work that nobody's gonna acknowledge you for, or a very small amount of people are gonna acknowledge you for, but that's your cornerstone. 02:18:01.030 --> 02:18:04.710 You know, when people look at a skyscraper, they look up and they look at the tall, it's amazing. 02:18:04.870 --> 02:18:06.950 But the cornerstone was set at the bottom. 02:18:07.110 --> 02:18:20.469 So I never let anyone forget that before I got to run the jewels, before I got to rap music, there's a whole series of albums called I Pledge Allegiance to the Grind, in which I just I left Outcast Company and I used my own money and I got out there on the road and I did it myself. 02:18:20.630 --> 02:18:29.670 And what's worse, whatever distribution deal he did for those albums was so jacked up that two of those three albums aren't even available on streaming to this day. 02:18:29.909 --> 02:18:33.110 For the record, I fucking hate that that keeps happening to rappers. 02:18:33.190 --> 02:18:35.750 I know De La Sole just got their catalog back. 02:18:35.909 --> 02:18:38.469 Master P has music and litigation hell as well. 02:18:38.630 --> 02:18:42.309 I hope that at some time Mike can reintroduce those records to the world. 02:18:42.469 --> 02:18:53.430 Regardless, Mike says himself that he was considering quitting rap at the time and going full-time into activism, which, if his lyrics were of any indication, he clearly had a lot of passion for. 02:18:53.670 --> 02:19:06.309 But things change when Mike connects with Cartoon Network of all people, along with the legendary independent labor-owning producer and greatest white rapper of all time, argue with your mama, LP. 02:19:06.630 --> 02:19:13.350 So the story goes, according to Mike, that he was at Cartoon Network doing voiceover work for the adult swim show Frisky Dingo. 02:19:14.069 --> 02:19:15.670 Burr, this is a duck hunt. 02:19:15.829 --> 02:19:17.750 You gotta chill on the quacky. 02:19:19.190 --> 02:19:21.510 And LP was just seemingly around at the time. 02:19:21.670 --> 02:19:27.829 Unlike Mike, rappers like LP were darlings of the blog era and for good reason, also racism, but also for good reason. 02:19:27.909 --> 02:19:29.030 I also love LP. 02:19:29.110 --> 02:19:34.149 I remembered his music from that time, and it would always be playing in the background of random adult swim commercials. 02:19:34.229 --> 02:19:40.870 So Mike Cartoon Network recognized his value and the fact that he was being underappreciated and offered to fund his next album. 02:19:40.950 --> 02:19:44.309 And for whatever reason, it was decided that LP would produce it. 02:19:44.469 --> 02:19:47.190 On paper, this sounds fucking stupid.

02:19:47.350 --> 02:19:48.790 Like, just being real. 02:19:48.950 --> 02:19:50.469 When I heard this, I was like, uh. 02:19:51.190 --> 02:20:00.309 Because Mike has spent the last decade almost rapping like a conscious TI or Jeezy or Gucci Mane, and LP has spent his whole career sounding like LP. 02:20:00.469 --> 02:20:08.229 LP is in many ways the father of modern alternative rap music like JPEG Mafia and Def Grips and Backwash, Infinity Nas and Brian Engels. 02:20:08.389 --> 02:20:09.590 It all comes from LP. 02:20:09.670 --> 02:20:20.790 Billy Woods, in fact, his first appearance was on Def Jux Records, a label that LP founded in the late 90s that housed and nurtured alt and indie rap at a time when ringtone rappers were dominating the charts. 02:20:21.030 --> 02:20:26.790 So, as ridiculous as it sounds now, Killer Mike and LP did not sound like a winning combination. 02:20:26.950 --> 02:20:32.550 These were two seemingly very different styles of hip-hop and definitely two very different audiences. 02:20:32.710 --> 02:20:42.229 There had to be some within Mike's camp telling him that throwing in with these white boys at Adult Swim was probably a bad move, but he did it and it paid off. 02:20:42.469 --> 02:20:52.069 Just from a technical lyrical level, this is one of the greatest rap performances of all time by Killer Mike on this album titled RAP Music. 02:20:52.550 --> 02:20:59.590 Mike somehow became a brand new rapper overnight while also still being the exact same rapper he had always been. 02:20:59.829 --> 02:21:11.829 Basically, LP managed to tone down his abstract off-kilter production style just a bit and provide Mike with sounds that were still distinctly alternative but close enough to tradition that Mike could do his magic. 02:21:11.989 --> 02:21:30.790 The first track, Big Beast, is a perfect blend of normal Southern rap tones with the bass kick that sounds like you're getting your head slammed in the Chevy car door, but it still had just enough cacophony and weird sounds that you know it was some wild shit that LP cooked up, and to drive it home, it featured Bun B and T.I. 02:21:31.030 --> 02:21:32.630 The shit is just fucking great. 02:21:32.950 --> 02:21:33.829 It's great. 02:21:34.149 --> 02:21:35.110 Damn it, Mike. 02:21:35.430 --> 02:21:41.510 This album gives us maybe Mike's most famous song, Reagan, where he extols the horror of Ronald Reagan's presidency. 02:21:41.670 --> 02:21:44.950 So he still has those radical policies on display throughout the album. 02:21:45.110 --> 02:21:50.630 It is critically acclaimed and far more, far more successful than anything he's done up to that point. 02:21:50.790 --> 02:21:57.670 It also is the impetus for Run the Jewels, the super group that Mike and LP formed in the aftermath of RAP music. 02:21:57.829 --> 02:22:09.750 And as Run the Jewels, Mike allowed LP to go a little bit further into his indie rap bag on the production, but Mike still constantly gave some of the most hard-hitting,

quotable verses, and the result was another legendary run of albums. 02:22:09.909 --> 02:22:20.550 So now we're talking about Killer Mike coming out with like six or seven of the best albums in hip-hop over a 20-year period, and he doesn't get enough credit for how amazing that is. 02:22:20.790 --> 02:22:33.590 Mike was cemented as a household name, and as Run the Jewels, we still hear that radical anti-establishment stuff from him on songs like Lie, Cheat, and Steal and the legendary track Kill Your Masters. 02:22:46.309 --> 02:22:51.030 During this season of Mike's career is when most of you probably met Killer Mike. 02:22:51.190 --> 02:23:00.069 He had spent 15 years underappreciated and under-supported, and now he was emerging not just as a rap superstar, but also a public intellectual. 02:23:00.309 --> 02:23:10.229 Mike arguably becomes the most respected and politically astute rapper again since Tupac, but Mike lives in a media landscape where he can put this on display constantly. 02:23:10.389 --> 02:23:15.989 Mike begins doing speaking engagements, tours, and appearances on various radio shows, podcasts. 02:23:16.149 --> 02:23:19.350 He gets into public views with like Jason Whitlock. 02:23:19.510 --> 02:23:29.270 He forms a friendship with Charlemagne the God, who is also one of the select few, probably the most prominent black figures singing Killer Mike's praise during his Pledge of Allegiance to the Grind era. 02:23:29.590 --> 02:23:35.270 In 2016, Killer Mike becomes the first major black figure to co-sign Bernie Mania. 02:23:35.510 --> 02:23:41.270 And for better or for worse, he's kind of responsible for the left kind of re-emerging in the mainstream. 02:23:41.430 --> 02:23:53.350 And at the same time, he begins to establish himself as a businessman and entrepreneur, getting TV deals with Netflix and just winning in a way that usually does not happen for rappers like Killer Mike. 02:23:53.510 --> 02:24:00.870 I know this is kind of happening now with Kendrick Lamar, although Kendrick is very elusive and really isn't as radical as a lot of y'all believe. 02:24:01.110 --> 02:24:09.350 But as a fan of Mike at this time, watching him win the street and retreat it into a more private world once the industry tried to give her this type of attention. 02:24:09.510 --> 02:24:17.030 Rappers that said the type of things that Killer Mike said that feuded with K publicly, that talked about killing their masters, full of this. 02:24:17.270 --> 02:24:21.270 Mike was highly intelligent and well-spoken, but still real and relatable. 02:24:21.430 --> 02:24:24.710 Mike had that classic southern draw of a black pastor. 02:24:24.790 --> 02:24:27.590 He could still talk that street shit and make you believe it. 02:24:27.670 --> 02:24:31.350 And he would name drop some of the most important radical black thinkers of all time. 02:24:31.510 --> 02:24:34.630 It was killer Mike who I first heard the name George Jackson from. 02:24:34.710 --> 02:24:38.950 It

was killer Mike that taught me to critique and distrust the black bourgeoisie. 02:24:39.030 --> 02:24:42.710 It was killer Mike who taught I have been nothing but blessed. 02:24:43.030 --> 02:24:44.069 My whole path. 02:24:48.389 --> 02:24:51.590 I have never, you know, never is a strong word. 02:24:51.750 --> 02:24:54.469 I've never dealt with racism. 02:24:54.550 --> 02:24:56.389 And I'm glad I didn't have to. 02:24:56.630 --> 02:24:58.950 Mike was showing us why we should. 02:24:59.110 --> 02:25:01.110 Mike was presumably breaking Dr. 02:25:01.190 --> 02:25:01.989 Ball's rule. 02:25:02.149 --> 02:25:07.270 He was now popular, politically radical, and rich all at the same time. 02:25:08.229 --> 02:25:09.909 And then this happened. 02:25:10.149 --> 02:25:14.469 I didn't want to come, and I don't want to be here. 02:25:29.110 --> 02:25:44.870 And I got a lot of love and respect for police officers, down to the original eight police officers in Atlanta, that even after becoming police, had to dress in a YMCA because white officers didn't want to get dressed. 02:25:47.270 --> 02:25:57.829 So I'm duty bound to be here to simply say that it is your duty not to burn your own house down for anger with an enemy. 02:25:58.389 --> 02:25:59.670 How did we get here? 02:25:59.829 --> 02:26:14.469 How do we get to this moment of Mike working through tears as he pleads to the angry, downtrodden people of Atlanta to stop riding in the streets during the George Floyd uprisings of 2020 while wearing a kill your master's t-shirt? 02:26:14.790 --> 02:26:18.389 Truth be told, for the longest, I actually defended Mike for this moment. 02:26:18.469 --> 02:26:23.510 And if I'm honest, I do think we're unreasonably hard on him for this event. 02:26:23.670 --> 02:26:31.510 Atlanta is his city, and low-key, Atlanta actually has a very interesting history of we'll say questionable pacifism to radical activity. 02:26:31.670 --> 02:26:41.430 Keisha Lance Bottoms was his friend, and as were many in Atlanta's local government, his dad was a former cop, so like it or not, he was sympathetic to the humanity of police. 02:26:41.510 --> 02:26:47.750 And just keeping it a buck, it's not easy watching parts of your city where you shop and live go up in flames. 02:26:47.909 --> 02:26:56.309 And if you care about black people, especially the youth who were in the streets, you do fear the repercussions and danger of the state coming down on them. 02:26:56.389 --> 02:26:59.510 You fear the fact that some of these children may not go home. 02:26:59.750 --> 02:27:04.630 It's easy for people to LARP in the comment sections and on Twitter about what they're gonna do. 02:27:04.790 --> 02:27:11.030 All of y'all got your little Antifa masks on and pictures of yourselves holding guns and Molotov cocktails. 02:27:11.190 --> 02:27:14.069 But I was here at the time, and y'all motherfuckers went out there. 02:27:14.229 --> 02:27:17.590 That shit hits different when you can see the flames from your

home. 02:27:17.750 --> 02:27:18.630 And I could. 02:27:18.790 --> 02:27:25.590 As I pointed out in a video a little while ago, the Wendy's where Richard Brooks was murdered, is down the street from where I used to live. 02:27:25.750 --> 02:27:30.229 And from that perspective, I couldn't help but notice it was niggas out there that wasn't from my neighborhood. 02:27:30.389 --> 02:27:32.229 Like, I don't know where they came from. 02:27:32.469 --> 02:27:36.389 Didn't have many white people live around me, but they were all there at that Wendy's. 02:27:36.550 --> 02:27:42.229 But excuses aside, as MLK said, the riot is the voice of the unheard. 02:27:42.469 --> 02:27:56.069 King effectively drew the line at his aversion to violent uprisings while also recognizing the necessity of violent resistance at times, that we cannot allow the state to have a monopoly on violence. 02:27:56.229 --> 02:28:06.229 There was never a better time to use that quote and engage with that paradox than this moment, even if it meant not perfectly satisfying why you were brought there. 02:28:06.389 --> 02:28:08.469 And Mike really didn't do that. 02:28:08.630 --> 02:28:17.829 Mike had a chance to really speak to why people were furious, to channel the radical thought that we all assumed he pulled from his music. 02:28:17.989 --> 02:28:19.350 But that's not what happened. 02:28:19.430 --> 02:28:28.550 Instead, Mike started a pattern that he's yet to stop, trying to evoke radicalism through aesthetics while his actions are moderate to conservative. 02:28:28.710 --> 02:28:36.469 Mike the Radical was wearing a Kill Your Masters t-shirt, and Mike the landlord and business owner was telling people to go home. 02:28:36.710 --> 02:28:43.909 Here's where Mike the Radical dies, at least in the eyes of those who understand what radicalism actually is. 02:28:44.069 --> 02:28:49.829 And this is also where it becomes clear that Mike himself has become a part of the black misleadership class. 02:28:50.069 --> 02:28:58.069 I think Mike's anguish here was genuine because he had to know in his head that this is a deep contradiction to the public persona that he had built for himself. 02:28:58.229 --> 02:29:01.989 I didn't want to come and I don't want to be here. 02:29:02.229 --> 02:29:06.469 And all of us, no matter how radical we think we are, deal with contradictions. 02:29:06.630 --> 02:29:13.270 We don't live in the society our politics were designed for, we don't live in a society as black people, or we're even fully seen as humans. 02:29:13.350 --> 02:29:24.950 So there's no way to not have to engage in behavior and beliefs that conflict with the ideals that you might want to live by if you call yourself a radical or a leftist or anything along those lines. 02:29:25.190 --> 02:29:27.670 But it's usually not this bad. 02:29:27.829 --> 02:29:39.110 And if Mike was just a normal person, if Mike hadn't spent most of the previous decade saying, I will burn this motherfucker down, this moment probably wouldn't have been so big of a deal. 02:29:39.350 --> 02:29:45.590 But what this illustrated is that Killer Mike's class allegiance was no longer with the people he said he was among. 02:29:45.829 --> 02:29:50.790 The black misleadership class's role is to do exactly what Mike did that night. 02:29:50.950 --> 02:29:57.030 To control and contain radical, transformative, liberatory energy that is needed to make serious change. 02:29:57.190 --> 02:30:01.430 And this is exactly the point of this Malcolm X speech that I've been playing throughout the video. 02:30:01.750 --> 02:30:10.469 The slave master took Tom and dressed him well and fed him well, and even gave him a little education, a little education. 02:30:10.710 --> 02:30:17.030 Gave him a long coat and a top hat and made all the other slaves look up to him. 02:30:17.270 --> 02:30:19.030 Then he used Tom to control them. 02:30:19.989 --> 02:30:25.989 The same strategy that was used in those days is used today by the same white man. 02:30:26.229 --> 02:30:29.510 He takes a Negro, so-called Negro, and make him prominent. 02:30:29.829 --> 02:30:39.350 Build him up, publicize him, make him a celebrity, and then he becomes a spokesman for Negro and a Negro leader. 02:30:42.309 --> 02:30:53.510 Fast forward to 2023, Killer Mike released Michael, his first solo album in nearly a decade, and it's just as amazing as all of the rest of his work, though there's some peculiar elements we'll come back to later. 02:30:53.670 --> 02:30:58.389 And for a lot of Mike's OG fans like myself, this is a return to form. 02:30:58.550 --> 02:31:01.430 This return to predominantly black sounds was highly welcome. 02:31:01.590 --> 02:31:15.270 It needs to be recognized that even though it was great to see Mike finally getting the love he deserved during the Run of Jewels era, it can't be ignored that like other misleaders I've talked about in this video, Mike's boost to prominence happened because of white support and fandom. 02:31:15.350 --> 02:31:25.110 So I'm sure that it meant so much for Mike to have this album be the thing that really gets well received by a black audience and celebrated by hip-hop fans at large. 02:31:25.350 --> 02:31:30.389 And then a year later, Mike won the Grammy for Best Rap Album in 2024. 02:31:30.550 --> 02:31:41.030 And this should have felt like this amazing full circle moment from being mostly ignored nearly 20 years earlier when he was making better music than most of his peers. 02:31:41.190 --> 02:31:47.510 I should have watched him win that award and feel like it was a win for real niggas everywhere, which is just not something that happens. 02:31:47.670 --> 02:31:54.069 While I still loved Mike's music, Mike the public figure was proven to be a huge disappointment. 02:31:55.190 --> 02:31:55.909 Part 2. 02:31:56.069 --> 02:31:58.550 Smiling with our enemies. 02:32:04.790 --> 02:32:13.030 This past April, the Supreme Court voted to strike down the Voting Rights Act,

essentially rolling back civil rights for black people to the 1960s. 02:32:13.110 --> 02:32:15.350 And it hit a lot of black people hard and for good reason. 02:32:15.510 --> 02:32:26.389 And in response to this, a day or so after this happened, Killer Mike took it upon himself to release a short video seeking to send an uplifting message to black people to keep fighting and get organized. 02:32:26.870 --> 02:32:29.030 And Nick has got on his head for this shit. 02:32:29.270 --> 02:32:37.270 Folks notice political voices for black people has been eerily silent on mainstream politics and the issues of Trump for years. 02:32:37.430 --> 02:32:42.630 These folks even went as far as say that he was one of the reasons why MAGA and Trump was back in the first place. 02:32:42.870 --> 02:32:49.750 They pointed out that he didn't help Stacey Abrams back in 2022 and that he didn't say anything at all about Kamala Harris in 2024. 02:32:49.909 --> 02:32:55.909 And even I, much to my detriment, said publicly that I was gonna vote for Kamala Harris despite my issues with her. 02:32:56.069 --> 02:33:02.870 So I can understand why Mike, who had this much bigger image and much more trusted image, is getting a lot of flack for this. 02:33:02.950 --> 02:33:13.030 But I gotta be honest, I share probably many of the same criticisms that Mike has of the Democratic Party and the Democratic Establishment, something that can be seen throughout all of my content. 02:33:13.190 --> 02:33:24.229 Thus, there is a part of me that feels like people getting on Mike's head about this particular thing is kind of wrong, or more accurately, he's being blamed for the wrong reasons. 02:33:24.469 --> 02:33:40.630 And I'll do more to explain the real problem with killer Mike in the next section, but first I do want to at least still man why many people have been on Mike's head recently, which is that his criticisms of the Democrats and his support for just normative black politics has been very poor for years now. 02:33:40.870 --> 02:33:46.069 Any criticism that Mike has of the Democratic Party kind of comes from the right of the Democratic Party. 02:33:46.149 --> 02:33:55.750 And when I say that, I mean that the Democratic Party doesn't fully uphold progressive values, doesn't support workers, free health care, wealth redistribution, and of course defunding Israel. 02:33:55.829 --> 02:34:00.229 And if those were the things that Mike was saying about the Democratic Party, I'd be 100% with him. 02:34:00.309 --> 02:34:07.270 However, when Mike criticizes Democrats these days, he just low-key sounds like a Republican, and people have been noticed this shit. 02:34:07.430 --> 02:34:10.950 And while it's not the main problem, it is a problem. 02:34:11.110 --> 02:34:24.069 A problem because Mike keeps pretending like he doesn't know why he's being called out for this shit, and he constantly is smiling, dealing, and shaking hands with people that everybody else seems to understand are black people's enemies. 02:34:24.149 --> 02:34:29.110 But Mike loves the attention so much that he refuses to stop. 02:34:29.350 --> 02:34:42.149 Mike started this pattern, as far as I can tell, way back in 2018 when he met with some black Trump voting nigga on behalf of the NRA named Colion Noir or something, which low key sounds like a porn name, but I don't want to get off topic. 02:34:42.309 --> 02:34:44.950 Goon World episode three probably out as soon as you see this. 02:34:45.590 --> 02:35:11.350 Just agreeing to be a part of this farce would be bad enough, considering that the NRA was and still is a bastion of right wing power who openly and constantly support Republican candidates, and those candidates go on to strip away voting rights for black people and women as well as enforce police brutality, rip away social safety nets, and do all the things that we know the Republicans have been doing since Ronald Reagan was president and really before then. 02:35:11.590 --> 02:35:28.069 Now, my beliefs on gun control are probably closer to Mike's than your typical Democrat or liberal, but I would never ever reach across the aisle to build alliance with a group like the NRA, because the NRA isn't about guns, they're about right-wing power and accumulating capital. 02:35:28.229 --> 02:35:40.550 And their fight against sensible gun control always tends to flare up after some 16-year-old neo-Nazi shoots up a school, which is exactly what happened a month before Mike did this stupid interview. 02:35:40.710 --> 02:35:49.030 This interview happened in March of 2018, literally a month after the Parkland shooting in Florida, where Nicholas Cruz, don't let that last name fool you. 02:35:49.110 --> 02:35:55.909 This is a white Florida boy who hated black people and Muslims, took an AR-15 to his high school and killed 17 people. 02:35:55.989 --> 02:36:06.790 And the NRA somehow got Mike to do an interview with one of their black shills at the time and released it on the same day where anti-gun control protests were happening across the country. 02:36:09.590 --> 02:36:09.909 Yeah. 02:36:10.149 --> 02:36:10.710 Period. 02:36:10.950 --> 02:36:15.190 But somehow, because my method doesn't agree with your method, I'm a monster. 02:36:15.270 --> 02:36:15.430 Yeah. 02:36:15.510 --> 02:36:16.229 Or something wrong with that. 02:36:16.469 --> 02:36:16.950 That's unfair. 02:36:17.670 --> 02:36:21.030 Now people think the black voters are a monolith. 02:36:22.149 --> 02:36:23.190 We're not a monolith. 02:36:23.510 --> 02:36:24.149 You know what I mean? 02:36:24.389 --> 02:36:29.750 I have worked as a tireless advocate on the behalf of children, disenfranchised women in my community. 02:36:30.309 --> 02:36:37.909 And I've also worked with gun groups like Georgia's Against Gun Violence that are not, you know, the most pro-secondary. 02:36:38.469 --> 02:36:41.989 But I say if there's a table to be sat at, the gun owner needs to be there. 02:36:42.149 --> 02:36:51.909 Now

again, I don't really fully disagree with Mike's opinions on guns, but the issue here isn't the guns, it's who Mike allows himself to be used by. 02:36:52.069 --> 02:36:57.750 And this one time, Mike even recognized the problem and apologized and admitted that it was a mistake. 02:36:57.909 --> 02:37:05.190 He apologized for the interview after fan backlash, stating he didn't intend for the interview to be weaponized against a cause that he agrees with. 02:37:05.430 --> 02:37:16.069 Sadly, though, it doesn't seem like Mike learned much from this experience because he's been repeating this behavior over and over for years at this point, calling it sitting down with people he doesn't agree with. 02:37:16.229 --> 02:37:21.110 And what makes it worse is that now he won't even bother to acknowledge that it's fucked up that he's doing it at all. 02:37:21.270 --> 02:37:23.110 He just keeps on making excuses. 02:37:23.350 --> 02:37:32.870 Fast forward a few years after his speech during the uprisings, Killer Mike met with Governor Brian Kemp about some type of job training economic empowerment program here in Georgia. 02:37:33.110 --> 02:37:52.550 Mind you, Brian Kemp was very much also a Trump man at this time, upholding white supremacy and had just beaten Stacy Abrams, the black female candidate for governorship in 2018, in part because of orchestrated and systemic black voter suppression that he was in charge of orchestrating himself as the top commissioner over elections in the state at the time. 02:37:52.790 --> 02:38:06.389 Kemp was also literally suing Mike's friend, Keisha Lance Bottoms, who he stood next to at the podium that night, by trying to force her to open up Atlanta during the COVID lockdowns, making the city less safe for thousands of people and causing probably a lot of people to get killed. 02:38:06.550 --> 02:38:13.670 This is the man who Mike went to meet with during this time, and I can't see this as someone he just disagreed with. 02:38:13.829 --> 02:38:19.350 This person was an open and currently acting enemy to black people in the state where killer Mike is from. 02:38:19.590 --> 02:38:29.909 People were again big mad at Mike about this, but he's constantly, constantly over the years doubled down, giving the excuse that he has to go talk to our enemies on behalf of black people. 02:38:30.069 --> 02:38:39.270 According to Mike, they discussed ways to help black and oppressed people around business and contract programs for black vendors, expanding vocational training and other important issues. 02:38:39.510 --> 02:38:47.670 Something I agreed on and big, and I think that if you get this right, you don't have to ever use gang enhancement props because ain't nobody gonna be joining no gangs and we're gonna work. 02:38:47.909 --> 02:38:49.270 I believe in the trades. 02:38:49.430 --> 02:38:55.510 I believe in the trades because I've seen, I've heard the stories of students building tuskes. 02:38:55.750 --> 02:38:58.389 I've seen Washington High School who taught my teachers. 02:38:58.550 --> 02:39:04.790 My teachers not only knew how to teach, they knew how to lay floors, they knew how to reupholster, um, re-upholster furniture. 02:39:04.950 --> 02:39:09.350 And I can at least find some evidence that Brian Kemp expanded vocational school funding. 02:39:09.430 --> 02:39:10.550 So, yay for that. 02:39:10.630 --> 02:39:11.270 Good job, Mike. 02:39:11.430 --> 02:39:15.030 But Kemp also passed bills to further disenfranchise the black vote. 02:39:15.190 --> 02:39:25.909 He passed bills to get race politics out of the classroom, meaning that the same black figures that Mike likes to quote himself and his music literally cannot be taught to black youth in schools right now. 02:39:26.149 --> 02:39:34.469 He also invested millions into Georgia's prison systems, expanded Georgia's surveillance state, signed laws to limit women's access to reproductive rights. 02:39:34.630 --> 02:39:45.350 In Georgia, a black woman last year was kept on life support for months and eventually died just so they could basically test run how to use a black womb as an incubator for babies. 02:39:45.590 --> 02:39:52.469 No amount of black jobs makes up for the fact that Kemp has actively harmed black people for eight years now. 02:39:52.710 --> 02:39:59.750 I say that to say Mike really didn't get shit for black people in the grand scheme of things, considering all the things that Kemp did. 02:39:59.909 --> 02:40:01.829 And he low-key admiss this himself. 02:40:01.989 --> 02:40:03.750 I've met with him more and talked to him more. 02:40:03.829 --> 02:40:09.030 I met with him around the issue of him signing a gang, give you a gang indictment. 02:40:09.270 --> 02:40:11.190 I say, Governor, please don't sign this year. 02:40:11.270 --> 02:40:12.069 I knew he was right. 02:40:12.469 --> 02:40:14.550 Gave me an ear, or other people wouldn't. 02:40:14.710 --> 02:40:17.510 After he signed us, after he signed us, after he signed out. 02:40:17.989 --> 02:40:32.550 Even if you wanted to take Mike at his word about wanting to sit down to represent his people to state leadership, you still have to explain why we haven't heard Mike say shit about all this other stuff Kemp is doing and has done to black people in this state and city. 02:40:32.710 --> 02:40:43.350 It doesn't take much to notice that Mike has said more negative things by people he says he's on the side of than the enemies that have literally lied to his face about what they're going to do for black people. 02:40:43.510 --> 02:40:46.870 Enemies that we know from experience only seek to do us harm. 02:40:47.030 --> 02:40:52.469 He said more negative things to me and other black leftists than he has about any Republican in Georgia. 02:40:52.630 --> 02:40:58.550 Mike got sneak disses for me, but Brian Kemp got a photo op at the swag shop after this meeting. 02:40:58.790 --> 02:40:59.989 This is embarrassing. 02:41:00.309 --> 02:41:08.870 When it comes to

stuff like this, Mike likes to gaslight people about why they're mad at him, just like he did in the video I showed you earlier, where he sneak disses me. 02:41:09.030 --> 02:41:13.430 He likes to focus on the fact that some people are misinformed about this particular relationship. 02:41:13.670 --> 02:41:24.229 When you start to straight lie, like I have gone from he met with Kemp to he's he's he's he softly endorsed Kemp to he to he ran Kemp's campaign. 02:41:24.389 --> 02:41:25.110 I'm just like what? 02:41:25.430 --> 02:41:31.190 Or that there's people that say he campaigned against Stacey Abrams, the same black woman who ran against Kemp again in 2022. 02:41:31.350 --> 02:41:36.870 To be fair to Mike, he never explicitly campaigned against Stacey Abrams or campaigned for Kemp. 02:41:36.950 --> 02:41:42.790 And according to Mike, he supported and worked and voted for Abrams during her first and second run for governor. 02:41:42.950 --> 02:41:44.550 I remember I did your show. 02:41:44.790 --> 02:41:49.030 Um, you asked me about um Miss Abrams followed by support twice. 02:41:49.350 --> 02:41:50.870 I supported her on the first and second round. 02:41:50.950 --> 02:41:53.750 When she stopped taking my advice on the second round, I say I'm a gracefully bow. 02:41:53.989 --> 02:42:04.469 But it's not hard to notice that Mike consistently took a very different tone when talking about Democrats versus Republicans at a time when Republicans are openly acting as overt white supremacists. 02:42:04.630 --> 02:42:08.950 As a governor, judging by his you know record, he's done some stuff. 02:42:09.190 --> 02:42:14.790 Man, I could flip over, flip over Rainbow and say, wow, for he's done some other stuff I didn't agree with. 02:42:15.030 --> 02:42:17.190 Um I but I believe he has integrity. 02:42:17.430 --> 02:42:25.909 The things that he's um spoke about with me, the things that he's he's turned me on to, that are not for my personal game, but for the great game of my community, it made sense. 02:42:26.069 --> 02:42:28.309 The things we disagreed on, we disagreed agreeably. 02:42:28.469 --> 02:42:33.590 If the tone was even both ways, if he was attacking both from the left, I wouldn't have a problem. 02:42:33.670 --> 02:42:47.510 But Mike provides little to no challenge to the beliefs and behaviors of conservatism, and he acts like we're lying on him for noticing this difference in energy and for taking issue with the fact that he constantly is taking pictures, shaking hands with black people's enemies. 02:42:47.670 --> 02:42:53.190 Mike also gave a softball interview to Herschel Walker, a man who had no business running for Senate in Georgia. 02:42:53.350 --> 02:42:57.750 Now, Mike likes to point out that he also talked to and openly supported Raphael Warnock. 02:42:57.909 --> 02:42:58.710 Thanks for that, nigga. 02:42:58.870 --> 02:42:59.829 Like, yay. 02:42:59.989 --> 02:43:00.950 But that's not the point. 02:43:01.030 --> 02:43:11.350 You can go and

look and see that him and Warnock had a pretty real discussion that touched on major political issues, but with Walker, who was legit unwell, they're talking about football. 02:43:11.590 --> 02:43:16.469 And do you approve of athletes now in the free market being able to use their name, image, and likeness? 02:43:16.550 --> 02:43:19.670 Because athletes didn't used to get paid for the college video games. 02:43:19.750 --> 02:43:21.270 They didn't used to get paid for the jerseys. 02:43:21.350 --> 02:43:24.469 And I know your jerseys, your jerseys sold out every week in UGA. 02:43:24.630 --> 02:43:36.550 Going back to this conversation with Charlemagne on Conversate, Mike and Charlemagne try to downplay how they talked about Abrams and Democrats versus Republicans when she was running for governor, and pay attention to the difference in tone and analysis. 02:43:36.870 --> 02:43:43.510 They told me they said uh killer Mike and Charlemagne ruined Stacy Abrams' campaign. 02:43:43.670 --> 02:43:44.069 How? 02:43:44.229 --> 02:43:46.389 But my thing was, did you hear what he said? 02:43:46.550 --> 02:43:50.950 All he said was, Brian Kip did this, and this is how he had an effective week. 02:43:51.350 --> 02:43:55.670 If you're gonna appeal to those people, you know, you can appeal to we don't want hospital shutting down, absolutely. 02:43:55.750 --> 02:43:57.270 We want teachers to get raped, absolutely. 02:43:57.430 --> 02:44:08.149 But the Democratic Party in the last two weeks, they've done um vote versus Vucking, and it had two incredible entertainers with Saucy Santana and Trina, but that ain't gonna get black folks out to the polls. 02:44:08.469 --> 02:44:12.790 And in fact, it feels condescending, it feels mocking, and it feels like slave cartoons. 02:44:13.190 --> 02:44:19.510 I mean, that's not to dish those artists, that's to say in the way that it's presented, the way that people take it, it doesn't feel right. 02:44:19.670 --> 02:44:24.790 The problem, though, is the guy she's running against is running an effective campaign. 02:44:25.270 --> 02:44:28.790 And Brian Kemp is running an effective campaign because this week, what Mr. 02:44:28.870 --> 02:44:35.590 Kemp did was he went to an all-black boys school that's ran by a conservative black man down in Albany, Georgia, young black man. 02:44:35.829 --> 02:44:38.309 This guy got a charter school with all black boys. 02:44:38.469 --> 02:44:40.389 So guess who the picture goes up with him yesterday? 02:44:40.550 --> 02:44:42.550 He has Governor Kemp with the boys yesterday. 02:44:42.630 --> 02:44:43.590 That picture goes up. 02:44:43.750 --> 02:44:49.829 Shelly Winters, who's an incredible black man, does a lot in Atlanta, happens to be a conservative, has a great radio show host. 02:44:50.149 --> 02:44:53.670 He's a great radio show host, but he goes in the public and out in the streets every day. 02:44:53.829 --> 02:44:55.590 He got a bunch of conservative black men together. 02:44:55.829 --> 02:44:56.790 Kemp went with them. 02:44:56.950 --> 02:45:05.670 Then he went over to a Democratic kind of enclave with um Ryan Cameron, one of the most popular radio hosts every Georgia, staunch Democrat, and then pressed the Democrats in that room. 02:45:05.909 --> 02:45:09.350 I would advise if I was in Miss Kemp's camp, you need to go everywhere he just went. 02:45:09.430 --> 02:45:09.510 Ms. 02:45:09.670 --> 02:45:09.989 Abrams. 02:45:10.069 --> 02:45:15.590 And Miss Abrams, you need to go everywhere Brian Kemp just went, because what Brian Kemp did was have an effective week with black people. 02:45:15.829 --> 02:45:19.590 And I would love to see her do that, but if she doesn't, that ain't our fault. 02:45:20.550 --> 02:45:32.229 Mike complains about saucy Santana and calls it pandering, but doesn't recognize that it's definitely pandering for Kemp to trot out well-known black conservatives to do to them what he did to Mike. 02:45:32.469 --> 02:45:35.510 Fake like he cares about black people while stabbing them in the back. 02:45:35.670 --> 02:45:47.909 King Ron, the Trump voting black dude in Albany that Mike likes to shout out who works with educating black children, he lost funding for his school projects last year when Trump took office and they cut funding to pretty much any program like that. 02:45:57.989 --> 02:46:01.270 We have a little over 250 jobs that'll be leaving the city of Albany. 02:46:01.510 --> 02:46:09.670 And while this is not the City of Albany government's fault, this is a time for our local and state leadership to step up, because we'd be stupid to act powerless in this situation. 02:46:09.829 --> 02:46:16.790 They had to use that money to pay for bombs in Iran and Palestine, along with holding a UFC fight on the White House lawn. 02:46:17.030 --> 02:46:30.469 We all know that black conservatives make up a fraction of the Republican voter base, but somehow it's not pandering to find that fraction and parade them around as if Kemp is not and has not been an enemy to black people this entire time. 02:46:30.550 --> 02:46:35.510 And mind you, Mike has also sat down with this other black conservative figure he's talking about. 02:46:35.829 --> 02:46:38.069 So welcome uh to the Shelly Winter show. 02:46:38.149 --> 02:46:41.829 I'm joined by my good friend, my brother, one of my longest supporters. 02:46:42.069 --> 02:46:46.710 These things I'm saying and critiquing Mike for are not radical deep criticism of Republicans. 02:46:46.790 --> 02:46:57.030 And I don't have to be a Democrat chill to point out that Republicans who are in charge of most of our government right now are running things incredibly poorly as they always tend to do. 02:46:57.190 --> 02:47:08.229 To have Mike spend this whole time on this talk show criticizing Stacey Abrams and being pretty much negative about everything she's doing, and then praise Kemp for doing some bullshit, this is gaslighting. 02:47:08.309 --> 02:47:10.229 This is exactly what

people are talking about. 02:47:10.469 --> 02:47:15.989 This is two very different frames of analysis that does seem to betray who you're really in support of. 02:47:16.229 --> 02:47:23.350 For a man who has rightfully clowned the behavior of Jason Whitlock, a man who's such an uncle Tom that even Stephen A. 02:47:23.510 --> 02:47:28.149 Smith doesn't like him, why is he so gracious and friendly with other black conservatives? 02:47:28.309 --> 02:47:32.309 Why doesn't he call them out for their complacencies with white supremacy? 02:47:32.469 --> 02:47:35.270 Where's the guy from that verse at the end of pressure? 02:47:35.430 --> 02:47:36.229 This is a pattern. 02:47:36.389 --> 02:47:40.550 Mike is very comfortable and affable around Republicans, black and otherwise. 02:47:40.710 --> 02:47:45.989 He never challenges them on their anti-black policies, never calls them out for pandering and lying. 02:47:46.069 --> 02:47:48.149 That is only reserved for Democrats. 02:47:48.389 --> 02:47:55.510 This is not the behavior of a radical, this is the behavior of a centrist, and if we want to keep it a buck, a moderate black conservative. 02:47:55.670 --> 02:47:58.149 That's who Killer Mike has come to be. 02:47:58.309 --> 02:48:04.149 But beyond platforming Republicans, Mike has also gotten into the habit of co-signing crooked liberals as well. 02:48:04.389 --> 02:48:14.229 He recently sat down with former Atlanta Mayor Cassim Reed, who was the one that helped broker that ridiculous deal to Tyler Perry to sell him 300 acres of land in a black community for a fraction of his worth. 02:48:14.389 --> 02:48:18.630 Most alarming, he did a softball interview with the current black governor of Maryland, Wes Moore. 02:48:18.790 --> 02:48:26.229 This Tyler Perry looking dude has built in Obama's image, and to be honest, kind of scary because low-key, he might be our next president. 02:48:26.389 --> 02:48:31.350 And at least Obama had some type of background in serving people, serving black people. 02:48:31.510 --> 02:48:36.550 This dude has only been serving himself and serving other people with money pretty much his entire career. 02:48:36.710 --> 02:48:42.309 I won't get into the reports that Moore used to go to secret meetings with Peter Thield because allegedly that relationship is overblown. 02:48:42.389 --> 02:48:46.630 But I will point out that he is deeply invested in big data and techno fascist. 02:48:46.710 --> 02:48:51.989 He has openly admitted to going to what's called the Billionaire Summer Camp, aka the Allen and Coast Sun Valley Conference. 02:48:52.229 --> 02:48:59.350 I had a smaller creator reach out to me about this after Mike had yet another softball interview with Wes Moore, where none of this comes up. 02:48:59.510 --> 02:49:05.909 She has been organizing around trying to help residents resist the building of data centers and communities so that they don't get their water poisoned. 02:49:06.149 --> 02:49:11.909 Let me tell you the story of Charles County, where in 2025, the Charles County government met with 10 data centers behind our back. 02:49:12.069 --> 02:49:19.909 In the same year, our Proud Boy MAGA funded district commissioner Gilbert Bowling accepted$2,500 from a data center company in April. 02:49:20.069 --> 02:49:28.229 By 2026, a data center company showed up in his district that also wants to use diesel generators in our county. 02:49:28.469 --> 02:49:30.710 And Mike doesn't seem to be interested in any of this. 02:49:30.790 --> 02:49:34.550 They just have a real good old time talking about black capitalism. 02:49:34.950 --> 02:49:35.510 Ownership. 02:49:35.670 --> 02:49:35.829 Yes. 02:49:35.989 --> 02:49:44.790 And so that's why, for example, in Maryland, we did procurement reform to making sure that our minority-owned businesses and our black owned businesses are getting their fair share of state government contracts. 02:49:45.030 --> 02:49:46.870 That's one of one of the greatest drivers of wealth. 02:49:47.110 --> 02:49:48.069 Thank you for saying that. 02:50:04.790 --> 02:50:05.510 What's going on? 02:50:05.590 --> 02:50:07.430 This is FD from the editing bay. 02:50:07.590 --> 02:50:13.270 And um going through final edits, and Mike likes to name drop people a lot. 02:50:13.510 --> 02:50:19.670 Um he just, this is something he does, I think, to, you know, try to add more influence or validation to what he's saying. 02:50:19.750 --> 02:50:20.790 Or maybe just to give credit. 02:50:20.870 --> 02:50:21.190 I don't know. 02:50:21.270 --> 02:50:23.430 I don't want to throw too much shade at him for that. 02:50:23.670 --> 02:50:27.670 And so I just got into the habit of Googling people when he says their name. 02:50:27.909 --> 02:50:36.389 And this Omar Ali character is pretty interesting because much like Mike, he seems to be very much a black business-oriented figure. 02:50:36.710 --> 02:50:47.670 He uh created a super PAC called G PAC, it seems, which stands for Justice, Equality, and Economics PAC, a all-black, black business super PAC here in Atlanta, Georgia. 02:50:47.909 --> 02:50:52.229 And wouldn't you know it, in 2022, the G PAC endorsed Brian Kemp. 02:50:52.389 --> 02:50:58.229 And Omar Ali himself was appointed to Kemp's board of governors for business muckety muck. 02:50:58.630 --> 02:51:04.950 They were already, so it's not like he, you know, Omar is on the on one of the government's governors' boards now. 02:51:05.030 --> 02:51:05.909 So they're successful. 02:51:05.989 --> 02:51:14.149 They're now I'm not one for conspiracy theories, and I'm not about to do a whole bunch of extra research, especially it's 11 o'clock at night, um, where I'm trying to finish this up. 02:51:14.309 --> 02:51:33.190 But if anybody wants to look into connections between Mike and G Pack and these other black Republican figures that Mike was running around real hard with in 2022 while saying that he supported Stacy up until a certain point, then said, hey, he had to let her go, I

kind of wonder what that point was. 02:51:33.350 --> 02:51:36.149 I wonder, you know, theorizing. 02:51:36.389 --> 02:51:38.389 Unfounded conjecture at this point. 02:51:38.550 --> 02:51:48.870 But it makes me wonder what made Mike so lukewarm with Stacey Abrams that got him running around with black Republicans for the better part of two or three years around this time. 02:51:49.030 --> 02:51:59.510 Now it seems like Omar Ali, G Pak, and a lot of these folks have gotten their heads out their asses and are not supporting Republicans in the current moment. 02:51:59.670 --> 02:52:18.469 But it does speak to, you know, this black moderate, centrist, capitalist, economic empowerment, Booker T Washington style Negroes that are very willing, able, and eager to sell out black folks when they think there's a check involved and they say the check is for everyone. 02:52:19.030 --> 02:52:19.909 But I was here. 02:52:21.110 --> 02:52:22.389 I didn't see them checks. 02:52:23.270 --> 02:52:23.989 Moving on. 02:52:25.590 --> 02:52:36.790 Mike was idolized because people felt like he was a truth teller and wasn't afraid to speak on behalf of black issues, but also put skin in the game at the same time. 02:52:36.950 --> 02:52:44.710 And he's a fallen idol now to a lot of folks because those aspects of his persona have seemingly disappeared in the last few years. 02:52:44.950 --> 02:52:49.270 But to be fair to Mike, I don't know if that's really what's happening. 02:52:49.590 --> 02:52:55.909 I know enough to know that Mike is still involved in smaller scale political action and support for black people. 02:52:56.149 --> 02:53:02.069 It's just being done in a way that pretty much requires that he needs to move pretty funny in the process. 02:53:02.229 --> 02:53:07.110 And you have to start the question: is this really for black people or for killer Mike? 02:53:07.350 --> 02:53:10.710 Killer Mike's odd behavior is a symptom of a bigger issue. 02:53:10.870 --> 02:53:24.309 There is a reason why Mike has positioned himself like this within community, why he loves to shake hands and carry favor for RFK or Brian Kemp, why he hangs around with a lot more black Republicans than anyone should be comfortable with. 02:53:24.469 --> 02:53:30.550 And it's because in between wearing the Kill Your Master's t-shirt, Mike has adopted a new master for himself. 02:53:30.710 --> 02:53:36.389 A master that requires that he consistently blurs the lines between a black agenda and his own. 02:53:36.550 --> 02:53:38.710 And that master is black capitalism. 02:53:38.870 --> 02:53:47.750 And once you fully understand the reality behind black capitalism and Mike's belief in it, all this other stuff he's doing makes way more sense. 02:53:49.590 --> 02:53:50.550 Part three. 02:53:50.950 --> 02:53:52.550 Fuck you, pay. 02:53:58.389 --> 02:54:14.550 One thing I know that's gonna happen when people watch this is people who just kind of want folks to get along and aren't thinking critically about what's being said will say, you and Mike probably agree on 90% of the things that you're talking about. 02:54:14.710 --> 02:54:18.710 And if that's the case, why let that 10% cause such a problem? 02:54:18.870 --> 02:54:28.790 Why can't y'all just sit down and hash things out without going public with possible diss tracks or long ass video essays explaining why you have beef with another black man? 02:54:28.950 --> 02:54:30.309 And I won't front. 02:54:30.550 --> 02:54:37.590 I hope there is a future where I could feel like I was on one accord with Killer Mike to the point where we could have a normal conversation. 02:54:37.750 --> 02:54:41.750 I wish I could go back to seeing Killer Mike the way I saw him six or seven years ago. 02:54:41.909 --> 02:54:46.229 But I have to disagree with the premise that me and Mike are only 10% apart right now. 02:54:46.469 --> 02:55:09.510 The truth is that while I believe Mike does somewhere in his heart want better for black people, he has moved so far to the right in many ways or has gotten so disconnected with what supporting black people actually means in his newfound socioeconomic status that allowing Mike to seem like he's just this guy that has different ideas is fundamentally detrimental to black people. 02:55:09.750 --> 02:55:20.790 Mike in this state is far more of an enemy to black people than a friend at this point, which makes his position as a trusted black voice in these spaces untenable and in need of correction. 02:55:20.950 --> 02:55:28.630 And the reason for this comes down to Mike's love and belief and willingness to defend through unscrupulous means black capitalism. 02:55:28.790 --> 02:55:36.389 Now, recently, Mike's been trying to underplay and kind of subterfuge the fact that he's been a huge pro black capitalism for years now. 02:55:36.550 --> 02:55:42.309 And that's partly because I think a lot of you kind of know that capitalism isn't good. 02:55:42.469 --> 02:55:54.790 You may not fully understand why, you may think the alternatives are worse, but it does sound weird to most regular people these days to hear someone be as big of a proponent as capitalism as Mike has been over the years. 02:55:55.829 --> 02:56:01.670 But Adrian Birch's job with the Department of Agriculture was eliminated last February. 02:56:02.069 --> 02:56:10.469 Or maybe you believe that there's a better version of capitalism that can be good for black people, which is also what Killer Mike believes and has been supporting for years. 02:56:10.630 --> 02:56:18.550 And just like Killer Mike, you are wrong in these beliefs, so I'm gonna do my best to try to explain this without getting into any type of deep political theory. 02:56:18.710 --> 02:56:26.309 It's obvious when you look at Mike from his underground era to the last five or six years that he has had a political change of heart. 02:56:26.550 --> 02:56:33.110 Mike, in his own words, got rich, became a businessman, and has been able to live a lifestyle he

always dreamed of. 02:56:33.270 --> 02:56:39.670 And that has very clearly made him a proponent of black capitalism, which, by the way, is not a requirement. 02:56:39.829 --> 02:56:43.909 Like, you don't have to become a capitalist to enjoy nice things. 02:56:44.069 --> 02:56:45.270 The first thing you need to understand. 02:56:46.069 --> 02:56:52.149 Is that to be a capitalist doesn't mean to have money or to run a business or to be successful in general. 02:56:52.389 --> 02:56:57.989 Even under socialism, there is no requirement or expectation for people to take a vow of poverty. 02:56:58.149 --> 02:57:01.670 There is no expectation that there will be no rich people or no luxury products. 02:57:01.829 --> 02:57:03.909 Having money doesn't make you a capitalist. 02:57:04.149 --> 02:57:06.469 Seeking money doesn't make you a capitalist. 02:57:06.630 --> 02:57:12.309 Having a good job or even running a business that is successful doesn't automatically make you a capitalist. 02:57:12.469 --> 02:57:17.590 To be a real capital C capitalist, you have to actually possess capital, i.e. 02:57:17.829 --> 02:57:18.950 the means of production. 02:57:19.030 --> 02:57:25.590 Or in similar terms, you have to have control over the resources that are required to move currency or industry. 02:57:25.750 --> 02:57:33.989 And the irony is, while killer mike might call himself a capitalist, he really wasn't up until a recent point that I'll bring up later. 02:57:34.229 --> 02:57:38.309 Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, those are capitalists. 02:57:38.469 --> 02:57:47.590 They can manage their industries, and their industries change everything for everyone, especially the relationship between their workers and the industry they work in. 02:57:47.829 --> 02:57:54.229 Conversely, your homeboy that has a lawnmower or a landscaping business, he's not who we're worried about when we say eat the rich. 02:58:13.829 --> 02:58:14.710 But it's not. 02:58:14.950 --> 02:58:21.190 Mike and his peers like to lean into this nonsense, this bait and switch, and people call them out for their capitalist practices. 02:58:21.350 --> 02:58:31.030 However, this is an excuse meant to distract from the fact that for black people under this system, one of the best ways to get rich is to exploit or betray other black people. 02:58:31.190 --> 02:58:37.030 Hence my whole explanation of buying in earlier in Jay-Z's behavior with the Nets and so many other things. 02:58:37.270 --> 02:58:50.149 And Mike should know that under capitalism, there has to be a group of people who lose, who no matter what, have to remain at the bottom rung of society for capitalism to properly function. 02:58:50.309 --> 02:58:56.870 And Mike should know that under white supremacy, that group will always be predominantly black people. 02:58:57.110 --> 02:59:06.630 Mike should know this because, at least according to him, he's a student of art history and has read all the books, or because people have tried to explain this to him multiple times, which I know is a fact. 02:59:06.790 --> 02:59:15.430 However, he saw it fit to constantly move in the direction that just so happens to make him richer, with the excuse that in the process he helps some black people. 02:59:15.590 --> 02:59:19.110 And this is exactly how misleadership functions and has always functioned. 02:59:19.270 --> 02:59:36.630 While he never seems to use the term black capitalism, the core of Mike's view on how to help black people, along with his peers, is that by them being an elite rich class of black folks, they will help protect black people, advocate for them, and lead them out of the bottom rung of the system. 02:59:36.790 --> 02:59:45.110 That somehow using the very system that can only function off our exploitation, we will also be able to help the same people being exploited. 02:59:45.190 --> 02:59:48.389 And if that sounds impossible, it's because it is. 02:59:48.630 --> 03:00:03.190 In case you're not with me, we're gonna review some history to explain how we go from a sense of black solidarity and genuine leftist approaches to addressing black people's problems to believing that a group of elite rich black people are gonna be the ones to lead us out of the struggle. 03:00:03.430 --> 03:00:10.950 One of the first things that the independent African nations did was to form an organization called the Organization of African Unity. 03:00:11.190 --> 03:00:36.550 The purpose of our organization of Afro-American Unity, which has the same aim and objective to fight whoever gets in our way, to bring about the complete independence of people of African descent here in the Western Hemisphere, and first here in the United States, and bring about the freedom of these people by any means necessary. 03:00:36.790 --> 03:00:43.829 So in 1963, King does the I Have a Dream speech during the march on Washington, and this is often presented as King's crowning achievement. 03:00:43.909 --> 03:00:55.350 While in reality it might be his biggest mistake, which is not some hot take for me, this is something he alludes to himself later in life, saying that he fears that he may have integrated his flock into a burning building. 03:00:55.590 --> 03:01:03.110 These young people are saying that there must be a revolution of values in our country. 03:01:03.270 --> 03:01:09.909 As Jimmy Baldwin said on one occasion, what advantage is there in being integrated into a burning house? 03:01:10.149 --> 03:01:16.790 And I feel that uh there is a need for a revolution of values in America. 03:01:17.030 --> 03:01:30.069 Because some of the values that presently exist are certainly out of line with the uh values and the idealistic structure uh that brought our nation into being. 03:01:30.229 --> 03:01:32.870 Unfortunately, we haven't been true to these ideals. 03:01:33.110 --> 03:01:40.309 In the years before King died, he would come to understand that Malcolm was right in that speech he made after the march on

Washington. 03:01:40.469 --> 03:01:46.389 Well, Malcolm spells out plainly that they were not acting as a part of the revolution, they were used against the revolution. 03:01:46.550 --> 03:01:48.550 And Negroes was out there in the streets. 03:01:48.710 --> 03:01:50.870 They was talking about we're gonna march on Washington. 03:01:50.950 --> 03:01:56.309 By the way, and right at that time, Birmingham had exploded, and the Negroes in Birmingham, remember, they also exploded. 03:01:56.469 --> 03:01:59.430 They began to stab the crackers in the back and bust them upside the hill. 03:01:59.510 --> 03:02:00.389 Yes, they did. 03:02:00.630 --> 03:02:03.510 That's when Kennedy sent in the truth down in Birmingham. 03:02:03.750 --> 03:02:08.469 So, and right after that, Kennedy got on the television and said, this is a moral issue. 03:02:08.950 --> 03:02:11.190 That's when he said he's gonna put out a civil rights bill. 03:02:11.350 --> 03:02:17.829 And when he mentioned civil rights bill and the Southern Crackers start talking about they were gonna boycott it or filibuster, then the Negroes start talking about what? 03:02:17.989 --> 03:02:25.270 We're gonna march on Washington, march on the Senate, march on the White House, march on the Congress and tie it up, bring it to a halt. 03:02:25.430 --> 03:02:26.870 Don't let the government proceed. 03:02:26.950 --> 03:02:32.069 They even said they were going to go out to the airport and lay down on the runaway and don't let no airplanes land. 03:02:32.309 --> 03:02:33.829 I'm telling you what they said. 03:02:33.989 --> 03:02:35.350 That was revolution. 03:02:35.590 --> 03:02:36.870 That was revolution. 03:02:37.190 --> 03:02:38.710 That was the black revolution. 03:02:38.870 --> 03:02:47.670 What Malcolm details in his speech is that King's movement was losing steam, and regular black people, independent of a larger movement, were collecting together to continue the fight. 03:02:47.829 --> 03:02:54.550 And when our oppressors saw that developing, they called on who were called the Big Six, which was King, Whitney Young, John Lewis, A. 03:02:54.710 --> 03:02:59.909 Philip Randolph, and James Farmer, to essentially co-opt this organic grassroots movement. 03:03:00.069 --> 03:03:06.069 And in exchange for keeping that movement from getting too out of control, they would get the passage of a civil rights bill. 03:03:06.229 --> 03:03:07.190 And the rest is history. 03:03:07.350 --> 03:03:10.710 King delivers the I have a dream speech, and the bill is eventually signed. 03:03:10.790 --> 03:03:14.469 And in most mainstream discussions of King, his story usually ends here. 03:03:14.710 --> 03:03:26.710 We are encouraged to see the signing of the Civil Rights Bill as a result of the I Have a Dream speech and as the end of racial oppression in this country, as if racism pretty much ended there once that law went into action. 03:03:26.870 --> 03:03:38.389 But in reality, we know that wasn't the case today, and King understood that in only a matter of time before he died, and understand that that march, that speech, was five years before King was assassinated. 03:03:38.550 --> 03:03:50.630 Now, of course, the Civil Rights Bill was a massive victory for black people, but it wasn't enough by a long shot, and King understood this, but he also recognized that he had probably hit a wall with the current wave and strategy of resistance. 03:03:50.710 --> 03:03:55.670 So he started to become more radical and critical of American Empire and become anti-war. 03:03:55.989 --> 03:04:02.710 He started criticizing capitalism and he even began to advocate for black reparations, and that's when he got assassinated. 03:04:02.870 --> 03:04:11.430 The irony of the views of King and Malcolm is that while they seemingly started from two very different positions, by the time they both died, they were both meeting at almost the same exact spot. 03:04:11.590 --> 03:04:21.430 The part of King's story where he becomes a more open radical is almost always left out in order to keep those radical sentiments out of the public consciousness, especially from black people. 03:04:21.590 --> 03:04:30.710 And this is because it was Ronald Reagan of all people that gave us Martin Luther King's birthday as a federal holiday, and he made sure to have certain parts of his story edited out in the process. 03:04:31.670 --> 03:04:45.430 And this is a pattern often referred to as the Santa Clausification of Martin Luther King that we constantly see in the media, where he is only discussed in ways that don't brush up against the status quo, and any elements of his story that do brush up against radicalism are edited out. 03:04:45.590 --> 03:04:52.469 One of the most blatant examples of this comes from the movie which was produced by Oprah Winfrey, where they completely cut out Kwame Tore from that historical event. 03:04:52.630 --> 03:05:04.870 Kwame Tore was a leading figure in SNCC, and for most of that time period with Martin Luther King, you can see him literally standing next to Kwame Tore, but he doesn't appear at all in the movie because Tore went on to become a radical socialist and Pan-Africanist. 03:05:05.190 --> 03:05:05.989 You know what happens next. 03:05:06.149 --> 03:05:17.110 The CIA infiltrates these groups, they turn people against each other, they carry out targeted assassinations, they politically imprison people, and for those they don't kill or imprison, they usually are chased out of the country. 03:05:17.270 --> 03:05:26.389 But that was just phase one of their plan because eventually they realized that it would be easier and more efficient to co-op this movement than to fight it in perpetuity. 03:05:26.550 --> 03:05:31.110 And this brings us to the pivotal role of Richard Nixon and everything related to black capitalism. 03:05:31.510 --> 03:05:38.870 Nixon is probably a more evil president than Reagan, and he came out to say that we need to replace black power with black

entrepreneurship. 03:05:39.030 --> 03:05:50.950 What he wanted to do was convince black people to invest in the system as it exists, because he understood that once a few of us were invested in the system, it would be much harder, nearly impossible for us to fight against it. 03:05:51.110 --> 03:06:00.149 In 1969, only a year after King's death, Nixon created via executive order the Office of Minority Business and Enterprise, or the OMBE. 03:06:00.389 --> 03:06:04.710 We must rescue the ghetto from its despair, but not with more promises. 03:06:04.870 --> 03:06:07.110 Not with the old solution, the handout. 03:06:07.350 --> 03:06:10.149 We must offer a new solution, the hand up. 03:06:10.790 --> 03:06:16.630 With your help, I will begin a new program to get private enterprise into the ghetto and the ghetto into private enterprise. 03:06:16.870 --> 03:06:18.469 I call it black capitalism. 03:06:18.630 --> 03:06:31.909 And it was a farcical program meant to create enough misdirection and miseducation from radical and revolutionary energy to mutate anything black people were doing away from something that actually threatened the system and into the myth of black capitalism. 03:06:32.069 --> 03:06:48.790 The office's overseer, Secretary of Commerce Maurice Stanz, quickly made clear that the most important objective of the OMBE was to manufacture and broadcast success stories, which would, quote, create pride among the minority, which in turn creates aspirations of those down the line. 03:06:48.950 --> 03:06:53.430 In other words, the program was to be symbolic and propagandistic. 03:06:53.670 --> 03:07:03.989 The initial Black Panthers movement had held a modicum of power, even if it was derived from the reason the business community and the federal government had focused on black ownership in the first place. 03:07:04.229 --> 03:07:10.469 The black capitalism program and its reliance on the white power structure removed this source of power. 03:07:10.710 --> 03:07:16.229 It also deprived the black community of another important source of power derived from collective action. 03:07:16.389 --> 03:07:23.750 By dividing the community between the entrepreneurs and the masses of consumers, the black community was placed at cross-purpose. 03:07:23.989 --> 03:07:34.149 By linking large white corporations with aspiring black businessmen, the race cohesion that rage the Panthers had channeled and amplified was dissipated. 03:07:34.469 --> 03:07:54.950 So what we come to understand here is that while there were always black businessmen and black entrepreneurs and black people trying to make it, trying to organize themselves economically, trying to use cooperative economics to serve black people, it wasn't until Richard Nixon that black capitalism, this framework and imagery that Killer Mike and a lot of his peers promote, really came into existence. 03:07:55.270 --> 03:08:01.989 And I don't know if there's any better way to get across how and why this is a problem than this piece of evidence. 03:08:02.309 --> 03:08:06.229 Capitalism cannot fix black people's problems in this country. 03:08:06.389 --> 03:08:06.950 Period. 03:08:07.110 --> 03:08:08.389 This is not up for debate. 03:08:08.469 --> 03:08:10.630 This is not a difference of opinion situation. 03:08:10.790 --> 03:08:13.829 This isn't a we're entitled to our own views type of thing. 03:08:13.909 --> 03:08:20.069 It is a plainly and demonstrably incorrect ideology backed by literal history and American law. 03:08:20.229 --> 03:08:24.710 And thus this is far more than 10% of something that I might disagree with Mike on. 03:08:24.950 --> 03:08:28.550 To be clear, once again, this doesn't mean that cooperative economics are important. 03:08:28.630 --> 03:08:30.870 This doesn't mean that people should be taking a vow of poverty. 03:08:31.030 --> 03:08:36.149 This doesn't mean that it's impossible or wrong for black people to make money or accumulate individual wealth. 03:08:36.309 --> 03:08:56.550 It's just to make clear that there is no liberatory praxis within the accumulation of wealth, and that for any individual or group of black people, and that anyone, anyone who tries to promote the idea of black wealth as a vessel through which black people can protect themselves as a whole from this system is either ignorant or willfully lying to you. 03:08:56.790 --> 03:08:58.389 And now re-enter one Dr. 03:08:58.469 --> 03:09:05.270 Jared Ball and his book, The Myth of Black Buying Power, which pretty much explains everything and has everything I just talked to you about. 03:09:05.510 --> 03:09:07.590 Please go buy the book and read it. 03:09:53.110 --> 03:10:03.030 And with a clarity in the differences between wealth and income, the latter being what one earns in exchange for labor, the former being income earned from the labor of others. 03:10:03.270 --> 03:10:08.229 A point the book goes into is that buying power is not the same as economic power. 03:10:08.389 --> 03:10:11.829 It's not the same as capital, land ownership, market ownership. 03:10:11.989 --> 03:10:17.670 That alleged$1.2 trillion that is literally every dollar that exists in a black person's hand. 03:10:18.069 --> 03:10:22.309 And it usually goes to paying rent, car notes, healthcare bills, and so on. 03:10:22.469 --> 03:10:28.149 Collective wealth by and of itself will not be enough to create the environment to dictate better treatment for black people. 03:10:28.309 --> 03:10:43.270 So this begs the question: why do individuals like Killer Mike, along with people like Charlemagne the God, Jay-Z, and so many others promote the idea of wealth as a liberatory mechanism, that them being rich and being in a position to hire other black people is tantamount to black progress. 03:10:43.430 --> 03:10:45.750 There's been rich niggas since slavery ended. 03:10:45.989 --> 03:10:55.110 It has not led to collective progress, the same way that poor white people have always existed, and there's

always still been poor white people ignored by white people with more money. 03:10:55.430 --> 03:10:59.989 Jay and all these other black folks have literally not moved the needle with their billions. 03:11:00.149 --> 03:11:04.710 But they keep telling us they are and that they will, and we keep falling for it. 03:11:04.790 --> 03:11:12.630 And you have to start to question not so much why we're falling for it, we'll get to that later, but why is it that this is a strategy for them in the first place? 03:11:12.790 --> 03:11:13.110 Dr. 03:11:13.190 --> 03:11:15.190 Ball alludes to that later in the text. 03:11:15.510 --> 03:11:30.550 Buying power is a concept developed by advertisers for advertisers, where the goal is not to have money remain in any given community, but to move from that community into the pockets of the advertisers and the owners of the products being marketed. 03:11:30.710 --> 03:11:39.110 The goal, as Nielsen points out, is that notice be taken by corporations of the power black people have to make them more money. 03:11:39.430 --> 03:11:43.350 So, in short, what we're seeing once again is the Tuskegee model. 03:11:43.430 --> 03:11:47.909 We're seeing a situation where black folks with money are trying to buy in. 03:11:48.069 --> 03:11:51.270 The misleadership class, it does look good on the ground. 03:11:51.430 --> 03:11:59.989 It looks so good that it's able to inspire many of us to continue to buy in and support them with the hope that one day we will be in their position. 03:12:00.149 --> 03:12:10.389 And if you don't agree with that and you feel like that's all very deceptive and manipulative, then you're called a hater or broke, and maybe even sneak this on a rap freestyle one of these days. 03:12:10.550 --> 03:12:15.750 And at this point, I will just own that because what's not to hate about this situation? 03:12:16.149 --> 03:12:21.670 And that attitude has been reflected by black leftists in all of these issues for all of these people for years now. 03:12:21.829 --> 03:12:35.909 But for Killer Mike in particular, it does low-key feel personal because he's the one that keeps on trying to name drop and connect with this legacy of scholarship and philosophy that he says he's read that is not being put on display in his actions. 03:12:36.069 --> 03:12:40.790 It's not George Jackson or Fanon that influenced who Killer Mike is today, is definitely Booker T. 03:12:41.030 --> 03:12:41.430 Washington. 03:12:41.510 --> 03:12:46.149 Instead of helping us kill our masters, Killer Mike just wants our masters to help us get a job. 03:12:46.309 --> 03:12:49.989 And that's exactly why he took that meeting with Brian Kemp back in 2021. 03:12:50.149 --> 03:12:51.110 Much like Booker T. 03:12:51.190 --> 03:13:03.270 Washington, Killer Mike was taking it upon himself to meet with our enemies to make the deal that would give us a handful of jobs, with the unspoken acknowledgement that us getting those jobs would probably make us less likely

to tear shit up. 03:13:03.430 --> 03:13:07.750 This is the ultimate role of misleaders to manage the struggle, not to support it. 03:13:07.829 --> 03:13:10.630 And that's what Mike is doing, whether he wants to admit it or not. 03:13:24.870 --> 03:13:27.750 And Governor Pence, uh, he tweeted or Governor Pence. 03:13:28.069 --> 03:13:33.030 Governor the governor is tweeting out this photograph getting a trim at Killer Mike's swag shop. 03:13:33.110 --> 03:13:37.909 The Atlanta rapper and businessman received some criticism after meeting with the governor earlier this month. 03:13:38.069 --> 03:13:47.510 Today he posted an update sharing some positive outcomes from the discussion, like an effort to recruit more black young people, particularly men, to trade schools. 03:13:47.750 --> 03:13:55.750 The point of this section was to get into why actual black radicals and leftists take issue with Killer Mike in the simplest and most straightforward sense. 03:13:55.909 --> 03:14:02.309 It's not just because Mike moves a little funny in the political streets and hugs fascists and tells them to text him. 03:14:02.469 --> 03:14:07.590 It's because the core of Mike's philosophy on a black agenda is demonstrably wrong. 03:14:07.750 --> 03:14:12.309 And if it were just this, this would probably have been the end of the video. 03:14:12.469 --> 03:14:15.430 This is essentially everything I said in the last video. 03:14:15.670 --> 03:14:23.510 There's a version of this whole situation where me and Mike just talk, express our differences respectfully, and move on from there. 03:14:23.670 --> 03:14:27.270 I'm not bothered to dig in despite probably needing to. 03:14:27.430 --> 03:14:40.550 But as I said earlier, when Mike responded to me the way he did with lies, deception, bringing up my family, and low-key veiled threats, it was emblematic of his character and what he really values, which is status. 03:14:40.710 --> 03:14:50.069 And in reality, Mike doesn't want to be challenged or even have a calm discussion around these issues because the truth around them threatens his status. 03:14:50.229 --> 03:14:54.950 And because of that, Mike has moved far shadier than folks realize. 03:14:55.030 --> 03:15:00.790 And I've known this for a while, and really I should have responded with a more robust response a long time ago. 03:15:01.030 --> 03:15:02.950 So that's what we're gonna do now. 03:15:05.510 --> 03:15:07.750 Black began to hit the news on a regular basis. 03:15:07.909 --> 03:15:15.750 In 2016, in particular, we have the killing of Jamarion Robinson here in Atlanta, a man that was shot 59 times during what seems like a Bosch raid. 03:15:15.829 --> 03:15:19.110 We had the deaths of Orlando Castile, the deaths of Corne Gaines. 03:15:19.270 --> 03:15:23.190 Years earlier, we had Mike Brown, Aaron Gardner, Trayvon Martin, and so on. 03:15:23.430 --> 03:15:33.510 So in that same year, November of 2016, Mike goes on the radio, and in the middle of a passionate rant, he

probably makes his first major public foray into the black buying power myth. 03:15:33.750 --> 03:15:40.790 I'm tired of living in an environment where this city is the only place in this country I feel safe as a black person. 03:15:40.870 --> 03:15:43.989 You know, people wonder why people love Atlanta so much, why you come? 03:15:44.069 --> 03:15:45.430 You steal, oh, you steal. 03:15:45.590 --> 03:15:49.510 But we not running around worried that we're gonna be murdered tomorrow. 03:15:49.750 --> 03:15:58.309 You can go to your bank tomorrow and you can say, until you as a corporation start to speak on our behalf, I want all my money. 03:15:58.630 --> 03:16:01.030 And I'm taking all my money to Citizen Trust. 03:16:01.110 --> 03:16:03.750 And I will deal with the inconvenience of an ATM charge. 03:16:03.829 --> 03:16:08.950 In fact, we can sit down with Citizen Trust and we can tell them like some of the other smaller banks, we're gonna get you to waive your ATM charge. 03:16:09.110 --> 03:16:16.469 If we move this amount of money to your bank, then what we're gonna do is to start to divert money away from the system. 03:16:16.630 --> 03:16:17.430 And this works. 03:16:17.590 --> 03:16:31.430 Apart-time ended in South Africa because students in America said we're not flying there, knows that he's saying something that is incorrect because he's saying it with a passion and a belief that what he's doing will somehow, someway help black people. 03:16:31.750 --> 03:16:37.190 This is what made Mike beloved in the first place, and this is what made him be seen as a leader. 03:16:37.430 --> 03:16:49.909 This moment congeals into the hashtag bank black movement, where black Americans across the country were encouraged to invest money into independent black banks to hopefully give them resources to better serve black communities. 03:16:50.149 --> 03:17:00.550 Mike did a photo shoot with Usher at a Citizens Trust Bank, a still independent black-owned bank in Atlanta, and his advocacy helped that bank earn nearly a million dollars in what seemed like only a few weeks. 03:17:00.710 --> 03:17:03.670 And again, I want to point out nothing is wrong with this. 03:17:03.829 --> 03:17:08.389 This cooperative economics and black commerce as a whole is not automatically evil. 03:17:08.550 --> 03:17:14.630 I imagine the Citizens Trust Bank does a lot in that community that that community probably could not do without them. 03:17:14.790 --> 03:17:21.510 But it's foolish to look at that as, and that's not something that can be replicated at scale, because, word to Dr. 03:17:21.670 --> 03:17:28.870 Ball, even at this time, there were only about 20 black banks operating in America that were independent of the greater system. 03:17:29.030 --> 03:17:33.989 And today, as far as I can tell through my research, that number is all the way up to 23. 03:17:34.710 --> 03:17:39.829 So this was a nice and admirable gesture, even if it was built on a false ideology. 03:17:39.989 --> 03:17:44.149 It is something that should only be looked at as Mike doing his part to help. 03:17:44.309 --> 03:17:50.870 That said, this is the most likely turning point that I can see where we go from killer Mike to landlord Mike. 03:17:51.030 --> 03:17:54.710 I don't know what happened, only Mike could explain the transition around this point. 03:17:54.870 --> 03:18:00.870 But it's here where Mike gets truly integrated into banking and investment and financial, i.e. 03:18:01.110 --> 03:18:02.389 capitalist circles. 03:18:02.550 --> 03:18:08.309 He had shown himself viable and useful as a possible candidate for buying in. 03:18:08.469 --> 03:18:15.670 He helped a small black bank with just his social media presence raise$800,000 in a week. 03:18:15.909 --> 03:18:19.110 That type of power and influence does not go unnoticed. 03:18:19.190 --> 03:18:33.430 And somewhere around here, Mike gets connected with other opponents of black perspective, combined with the sudden interest in banking and venture capital, eventually leads us to the formation of the Greenwood Bank, probably the most dishonest and awful thing Killer Mike has done to black people. 03:18:33.750 --> 03:18:34.950 Tell us about Greenwood. 03:18:35.110 --> 03:18:43.190 Now, this man is on a mission to bridge the generational wealth gap by building a digital bank, hoping to fit the needs of people of color. 03:18:43.430 --> 03:18:45.110 But there needs to be a banking institution. 03:18:45.670 --> 03:18:48.790 Knowledge that he is being awfully harmful and misleading to black people. 03:18:48.870 --> 03:18:54.550 I've already talked about the Greenwood Bank fiasco a few times, others have gone into greater detail, and I'll leave a lot of that out. 03:18:54.630 --> 03:18:58.710 Again, links in the description for people that want more of what the situation was. 03:18:58.870 --> 03:19:15.590 But in short, Greenwood Bank was Mike and his peers taking advantage of the literal revolutionary potential and energy of black people at a time when we were genuinely threatening and scaring the white power structure during the Black Lives Matter uprisings and putting that energy literally into their own pockets. 03:19:15.750 --> 03:19:37.670 So again, the Black Buying Power myth says that if we circulate the black dollar, if we buy black, if up even for people that are proponents of this ideology, is that no matter where you spend your money in a black community, at some point that business is going to have to deposit that money into a bank, and those banks historically have not been kind to us and historically have always sided with our enemies. 03:19:37.909 --> 03:19:52.309 So something like Greenwood, an independent black bank, which is what it was marketed as initially, solves that problem by creating a space where black people could now completely dissolve themselves from the white supremacist loop that is connected to our money. 03:19:52.469 --> 03:20:13.590 So when Greenwood Bank was

launching, you could hear them talk about it and present it, and the aesthetics and the marketing and the branding was put out to again take advantage of black people's innate desire for freedom and liberation, but also that desire that we don't like to talk about to be apart from, or better yet, perform, a version of whiteness with a black face on it that I was talked about in the Barack Obama section. 03:20:13.750 --> 03:20:17.430 But the reality is Green was not a win for black capitalism. 03:20:17.590 --> 03:20:18.870 In fact, it was the opposite. 03:20:18.950 --> 03:20:26.389 It was a case study into exactly why black capitalism doesn't work and why black capitalists cannot be trusted. 03:20:26.630 --> 03:20:30.149 First off, there's all this talk about circulating the black dollar, right? 03:20:30.309 --> 03:20:33.110 But the bank got its start from white dollars to begin with. 03:20:33.350 --> 03:20:39.590 Mike talked in one of these interviews about how the big banks don't know how or aren't interested in serving black people. 03:20:39.750 --> 03:20:43.829 But it was the big banks that gave him the startup money to do this in the first place. 03:20:43.989 --> 03:20:52.950 Greenwood did get initial seed money of around$10 million from private investors, and let's just give the benefit of the doubt and say that these were all black business people who did it. 03:20:53.030 --> 03:20:54.870 It was all Jay-Z and Beyonce. 03:20:55.190 --> 03:21:08.069 But then after that, they got somewhere between 80 and 160 million from places like Wells Fargo, Bank of America, JP Morton, etc., some of the most normy and completely white-owned banking institutions that you can think of. 03:21:08.309 --> 03:21:14.229 But it actually gets worse because Greenwood itself is a white banking institution at its core. 03:21:14.469 --> 03:21:16.790 Greenwood Bank was never a bank. 03:21:16.950 --> 03:21:32.069 Greenwood is a fintech app which serves as a black-owned interface to a white bank called Coastal Community Bank, which is a white-owned bank with an all-white board, which, aside from Greenwood, probably has no real investment in anything related to a black agenda. 03:21:32.229 --> 03:21:37.350 So any money you put into Greenwood is not being deposited into a black-owned bank. 03:21:37.510 --> 03:21:42.149 It's going to a white bank like it was going to Truist or Chase or anywhere else. 03:21:42.309 --> 03:21:51.750 At the end of the day, Greenwood is a black portal back into the white economic system that black capitalism is supposed to somehow protect us from. 03:21:51.989 --> 03:22:00.550 For all the dollars you put in Greenwood, they just get a percentage, and surely with that, Greenwood can donate to the NAACP or the United New York College Fund. 03:22:00.710 --> 03:22:03.989 But you can do all that shit yourself without opening up an extra bank account. 03:22:04.149 --> 03:22:10.309 Even the investment resources that Greenwood towels they use are backed by a white agency called Drive Wealth. 03:22:10.469 --> 03:22:18.950 So at no point has any black money put into Greenwood truly circulated in black communities the way they say it is. 03:22:19.190 --> 03:22:30.389 During Nixon's time promoting this OMBE stuff, we actually have black economists such as Andrew Bremer who still point out that black capitalism isn't a viable solution to black problems. 03:22:47.350 --> 03:22:55.430 He himself was a capitalist, not a socialist or a Marxist or anything, and he himself saw through the shell game that was Nixon's OMBE. 03:22:55.590 --> 03:23:06.870 He referred to the idea of black capitalism as a cruel joke and recognized it was built on the false premise that what black people needed was more business owners and entrepreneurs and that black banks were an ornament. 03:23:07.030 --> 03:23:19.750 The general conclusion from this analysis is that the strategy of black capitalism, as we have defined it, offers a very limited potential for economic advancement for the majority of the Negro population. 03:23:19.989 --> 03:23:29.110 The ghetto economy, as we understand it today, does not appear to provide profitable opportunities for large-scale business investment. 03:23:29.270 --> 03:23:39.909 And any economic advancements made by residents of this marginal sector of the economy, in all likelihood, will not materially alter the investment prospects. 03:23:40.149 --> 03:23:49.110 This situation is in large part due to a tendency for affluent Negroes to shop in the more diverse national economy. 03:23:49.350 --> 03:23:55.590 The strategy of black capitalism fails, however, for an even more fundamental reason. 03:23:55.750 --> 03:23:59.190 It is founded on the premise of self-employment. 03:23:59.430 --> 03:24:12.469 Our research has indicated clearly that self-employment is a rather rapidly declining factor in our modern economy because the rewards to employment in salary positions are substantially greater. 03:24:12.710 --> 03:24:25.110 Self-employment may be the path to affluence for the fortunate few who are successful, but for the great majority of the Negro population, it offers a low and rather risky expected payoff. 03:24:25.430 --> 03:24:35.030 Bremer also tacitly points out that certain folks, like Killer Mike, are proponents of black capitalism because they benefit from the bubble economy that black capitalism creates. 03:24:35.270 --> 03:24:50.790 He recognized that all this circulate the black dollar stuff really mostly just benefits a few rich black entrepreneurs who get to access that dollar first and foremost and then sell access to that dollar to white benefactors like Coastal Banking Solutions. 03:24:51.030 --> 03:24:58.469 Instead of being a black-owned bank, Greenwood is basically just Cash App or Venmo, but owned by black people. 03:24:58.550 --> 03:25:01.270 And low-key, that's fine. 03:25:01.510 --> 03:25:03.430 That would be fine in isolation. 03:25:03.590 --> 03:25:08.630 Black people

have supported projects like that numerous times over the course of our history. 03:25:08.790 --> 03:25:14.469 Once again, it's not that the idea of black business and money bothers me or should bother anyone. 03:25:14.550 --> 03:25:18.870 It's the deception and the griff that should piss you off right now. 03:25:19.030 --> 03:25:25.750 I've talked about this in other videos, or because I wanted to be gracious, I've often underplayed how deceptive and foul this was. 03:25:25.909 --> 03:25:32.870 Black folks were being murdered in the streets and in their homes, and black people erupted in rage across the country. 03:25:33.030 --> 03:25:38.870 They erupted in a way that Killer Mike himself advocated for before he became a capitalist. 03:25:39.030 --> 03:25:43.270 Again, quoting Martin Luther King, violence is the voice of the unheard. 03:25:43.430 --> 03:25:44.469 I don't love violence. 03:25:44.630 --> 03:25:47.510 I don't want to see black people in the streets burning down buildings. 03:25:47.590 --> 03:25:52.950 But I understand that sometimes, as Malcolm points out, that type of uprising is necessary. 03:25:53.110 --> 03:25:54.630 Disruption is necessary. 03:25:54.790 --> 03:25:57.510 And in the aftermath, real work can be done. 03:25:57.670 --> 03:26:06.229 But not only did Mike not do that real work, he stood in front of the camera to tell everyone else to calm down and go home. 03:26:06.389 --> 03:26:16.149 And then he and his partners decided this would be a once-in-a-generation moment, not for black political industry, but to prop up their fake black bank. 03:26:16.309 --> 03:26:25.909 They lied to the people and told them that the way to stop us from being killed in the streets was black capitalism and circulated the black dollar and then created Venmo in blackface. 03:26:26.149 --> 03:26:29.909 Marching, protesting, is fine. 03:26:30.149 --> 03:26:37.270 But the only way that we can move our culture forward, in my personal opinion, is through bank capital. 03:26:37.510 --> 03:26:40.630 We've got to get back to that point in history. 03:26:40.790 --> 03:26:48.550 That point of black excellence, that point of black ideation, that's the way we will grow our community. 03:26:48.790 --> 03:26:51.829 Greenwood plans to start taking deposits later this year. 03:26:52.069 --> 03:27:00.630 In the middle of a revolutionary moment, they would funnel our resources right back to the same system that they know is destroying us. 03:27:00.790 --> 03:27:05.989 But they at least will get a percentage off the top, and in their minds, that's all that mattered. 03:27:06.149 --> 03:27:11.190 They were somehow going to save us with the crumbs they were left from JP Mort. 03:27:11.510 --> 03:27:12.950 And the grift worked. 03:27:13.110 --> 03:27:20.710 In the last few years, Greenwood has reportedly gone from somewhere around$150,$160 million in value to well over$300 million. 03:27:20.870 --> 03:27:23.670 And this is only possible because of Killer Mike. 03:27:23.829 --> 03:27:30.149 There's a reason why Mike was the main spokesperson and not Andrew Young or this other dude who I don't really know nothing about. 03:27:30.229 --> 03:27:36.630 And it's because we heard him on Pledge Allegiance to the Grime, because we heard Reagan and Burn and Kill Your Masters. 03:27:36.790 --> 03:27:45.110 Because he so passionately told us he would help us this way years earlier, because he has that aesthetic that we believe and invest in. 03:27:45.270 --> 03:27:49.270 Because he seems to be a charismatic, fearless, proud black man. 03:27:49.510 --> 03:27:54.550 We let him mislead us literally all the way to the bank. 03:27:54.950 --> 03:27:58.630 I'm not gonna say this is a scam because it's all legal. 03:27:58.790 --> 03:27:59.510 It's all legal. 03:27:59.670 --> 03:28:04.469 They put it at the bottom of the website so that they can't say, hey, you didn't have a chance to know. 03:28:04.630 --> 03:28:17.989 But what is a scam is this image that Mike keeps promoting that what he's doing is for the people when so obviously it is not, and until he is accountable to that, I don't know what y'all want me to do. 03:28:18.069 --> 03:28:20.069 This is way more than 10%. 03:28:20.790 --> 03:28:26.710 So you could imagine a lot of people peaked what Mike was doing and immediately solved a problem with it. 03:28:26.790 --> 03:28:32.870 A lot of people like black leftists, such as No Name, who is usually one of the first people to call a nigga out. 03:28:33.030 --> 03:28:34.950 And shout out to her for this one. 03:28:35.190 --> 03:28:46.149 She pointed out that Mike was using names like Fannie Lou Hamer to uphold the idea of capitalism saving black people, pointing out that that's some bullshit, but it is what it is. 03:28:46.309 --> 03:28:48.229 But not long after no name, Dr. 03:28:48.389 --> 03:28:57.510 Ball enters a chat literally, and he and Mike have what I believe was a somewhat contentious Twitter exchange, and that eventually turned into a phone call. 03:28:57.670 --> 03:29:09.430 Uh and I was trying to make the point that, in short, you teaming up with Andy Young is a representation of the split in the civil rights movement, where Dr. 03:29:09.590 --> 03:29:14.710 King told Andy Young, your problem, Andy, is you're a capitalist and I'm not. 03:29:15.190 --> 03:29:22.149 And he went off to a leftward trajectory, and Mike is saying, I'm carrying on the civil rights tradition through Andy Young. 03:29:22.229 --> 03:29:28.069 And I was trying to point out that you are decidedly choosing a side that is antithetical to the work that Dr. 03:29:28.229 --> 03:29:29.350 King was doing. 03:29:29.670 --> 03:29:40.229 So it it you can argue that Andy Young is right, you could argue that black capitalism is the solution, but you cannot also argue that you're you are also on the team of Dr. 03:29:40.389 --> 03:29:46.469 King and more radicals on the left who were very clear that capitalism and black capitalism are not

solutions. 03:29:46.550 --> 03:29:48.710 And from there it just kind of descended into madness. 03:29:48.870 --> 03:29:49.670 Now I love Dr. 03:29:49.829 --> 03:29:51.110 Ball, but I know Dr. 03:29:51.190 --> 03:29:54.149 Ball, and I'm sure he gave as much as he took during his conversation. 03:29:54.229 --> 03:30:03.989 And if you know anything about these types of elderly pro-black, you know, folks that's been in these politics for a while, it's not always easy to get along with them. 03:30:04.149 --> 03:30:04.790 I get it. 03:30:04.950 --> 03:30:07.670 So maybe you can't be mad at Mike for telling Dr. 03:30:07.750 --> 03:30:09.190 Ball to lose his number. 03:30:09.430 --> 03:30:09.829 Maybe. 03:30:10.069 --> 03:30:10.309 Dr. 03:30:10.389 --> 03:30:24.469 Ball went on to continue to document and critique Mike's constant bad behavior in this realm from his very small channel, and that probably would have been the end of it because it seems like for a couple of years around this time, there was no real exchange between either of them. 03:30:24.550 --> 03:30:30.309 And I think this because not long after this exchange would have happened, we see Mike bring Dr. 03:30:30.469 --> 03:30:34.389 Ball up for the first time publicly in an interview that he does with T.I. 03:30:34.630 --> 03:30:36.950 in the middle of promoting the Greenwood Bank. 03:30:37.190 --> 03:30:38.309 I I've seen it argued. 03:30:38.389 --> 03:30:41.750 I think the name of the book is The Myths and Propaganda Black Vinepower. 03:30:42.069 --> 03:30:44.469 There there are there are two sides of the argument now. 03:30:44.550 --> 03:30:51.510 So one side you have very leftist of what people describe liberal as typically very conscious and pro-black in perception. 03:30:51.750 --> 03:30:54.630 So this isn't overly adversarial or shady. 03:30:54.710 --> 03:30:55.190 Although Dr. 03:30:55.270 --> 03:31:03.190 Ball would bristle at being called a liberal, and the phrase conscious and pro-black in perception is an interesting choice of words. 03:31:03.430 --> 03:31:08.550 There's still not a lot to complain about other than the fact that Mike is misrepresenting the argument that Dr. 03:31:08.630 --> 03:31:09.670 Ball is making. 03:31:09.909 --> 03:31:14.149 Still, this is the energy of someone that you might actually conversate with. 03:31:14.389 --> 03:31:15.430 Mike is wrong. 03:31:15.670 --> 03:31:19.909 He seems to want to stay wrong, but at least it's respectful and principled. 03:31:19.989 --> 03:31:26.229 It's not hard to look at this and say that Mike may be misguided, but he still is thinking about black people and what he's doing. 03:31:26.469 --> 03:31:28.950 Unfortunately, that's not how things maintain. 03:31:29.030 --> 03:31:30.069 At the end of the day, Dr. 03:31:30.149 --> 03:31:45.909 Ball is just a college professor with a small YouTube channel at a HBCU, a really good one, but a small school in comparison to any of the more big institutions that we usually think about

as creating influential figures that can move media and public perception. 03:31:46.149 --> 03:31:55.030 And Mike is a world-famous, soon-to-be Grammy Award-winning rapper with access to the largest platform for black media at the time, the Breakfast Club. 03:31:55.190 --> 03:32:00.790 So Mike should be changing his ways, but at this point, logically speaking, what would force him to? 03:32:00.950 --> 03:32:03.510 There's no greater force to hold Mike accountable. 03:32:03.590 --> 03:32:08.710 There's not enough black people or people above by saying, hey, you're wrong, stop doing that. 03:32:08.870 --> 03:32:13.590 The only people openly criticizing him are too small to make a dent in his public reputation. 03:32:13.670 --> 03:32:14.229 So Dr. 03:32:14.309 --> 03:32:18.550 Ball did continue to call Mike out on his politics, and Mike mostly ignored him. 03:32:18.710 --> 03:32:25.350 But guess who starts posting YouTube videos and getting way more popular than he realizes right about that same time? 03:32:25.590 --> 03:32:27.430 A person that eventually reads Dr. 03:32:27.510 --> 03:32:32.550 Ball's book becomes somewhat of a mentee of his and interviews him for several videos. 03:32:32.790 --> 03:32:37.909 In 2022, my channel started really blowing up, and I was going through a political evolution. 03:32:38.069 --> 03:32:49.110 I was already starting to get more into leftist ideology and politics, and I was already wary of killer Mike's behavior because I am here in Atlanta, and I saw him with the Kill Your Master shirt at that press conference. 03:32:49.270 --> 03:32:50.950 And once I started engaging with Dr. 03:32:51.030 --> 03:32:56.550 Ball's critique and learning more about Greenwood, it was kind of up for Mike in my head at that point. 03:32:56.710 --> 03:33:06.630 So I decided to include a discussion of what happened with Greenwood in a larger video about black conservatism that I did in 2023, that also included an interview from Dr. 03:33:06.710 --> 03:33:07.190 Ball. 03:33:07.270 --> 03:33:07.909 And while Dr. 03:33:07.989 --> 03:33:15.590 Ball's channel at the time probably had less than 10,000 subscribers, and his videos maybe at a good one could do one or two thousand views. 03:33:15.750 --> 03:33:21.909 That video for me, the real faces of black conservatism, to date has 3.6 million views. 03:33:21.989 --> 03:33:31.190 And up until my Kendrick Lamar Drake Beef video, it was my most watched video by far, and still is my third most watched video to date. 03:33:31.430 --> 03:33:37.190 Now, at the time, I'm not considering just how big 3.6 million views is. 03:33:37.430 --> 03:33:45.270 I'm not thinking about the fact that these rich and powerful people that I'm critiquing are starting to hear my critiques from their own audiences. 03:33:45.430 --> 03:33:56.229 I move along with my business, just assuming that my next video, which may have been about fucking anime, is something that only I and my small group of dedicated viewers are paying attention to. 03:33:56.389 --> 03:34:06.950 And then about a month later, after my video drops, Mike drops Michael, the first studio album he did in around a decade, that the one that won him a Grammy, and it has this song called Talkin' That Shit. 03:34:07.030 --> 03:34:13.510 And I don't know, some of these bars, some of these bars hit my ear differently, especially all things considered. 03:34:13.909 --> 03:34:21.430 This when you think about them, then you meditate on positivity and re releasing the vengeful thoughts you have, and then you say, nah, fuck that. 03:34:21.510 --> 03:34:22.309 I'm gonna do this song. 03:34:22.469 --> 03:34:22.870 Let's go. 03:35:02.149 --> 03:35:09.110 If you listen closely, Mike is hitting a lot of the same points he hits in that Red Bull freestyle from a few weeks ago. 03:35:09.270 --> 03:35:18.309 He starts out using woke the same way Republicans use woke, which would be a red flag if you ignored all the other red flags that I've talked about at this point. 03:35:18.469 --> 03:35:26.550 He then accuses this unidentified target of his lyrics to be broke and gay and most interestingly unworthy of his attention. 03:35:26.710 --> 03:35:33.989 He has not said shit since, before then bragging about his power, importance, money, and access to other powerful people. 03:35:34.149 --> 03:35:43.670 Now, of course, this is a rap song, a gangster rap song, and that particular genre of rap music is all about the traditions of roasting, capping, playing the dozens, etc. 03:35:43.829 --> 03:35:50.309 It's all about letting a nigga know the type of shit you on versus the type of shit they on and how that shit hits different when it's you. 03:35:50.550 --> 03:35:54.309 So to assume that this is a sneak diss of me or Dr. 03:35:54.469 --> 03:35:56.469 Ball would probably be a reach. 03:35:56.550 --> 03:36:15.350 Like, why would a Grammy Award-winning famous rapper waste time and energy on his own album in front of what would be a large audience to sneak this a relatively unknown college professor at an HBCU just because they had an ideological disagreement on Twitter that probably all of a thousand people saw. 03:36:15.670 --> 03:36:17.270 A few moments later. 03:36:17.510 --> 03:36:26.550 Now, I know it's some people and I uh who who done wrote books and shit about how the the the the myth of the black economic spending power, I'm not arguing that with niggas, man. 03:36:26.630 --> 03:36:28.069 Shouts out your book, my nigga. 03:36:28.149 --> 03:36:31.270 You know what I'm talking about, and you won't be on your show, and I'm never gonna go, right? 03:36:31.430 --> 03:36:32.550 But but there you go, nigga. 03:36:32.630 --> 03:36:34.149 That that makes you happy I've mentioned you. 03:36:34.309 --> 03:36:35.989 And now we see this as a pattern. 03:36:36.229 --> 03:36:43.190 Here, as he did with me, Mike mentions the work of the scholar, but not the scholar himself. 03:36:43.350 --> 03:36:53.510 He disrespects the work,

disrespects the scholar, disregards their work, and never mentions them to ensure that it would be nearly impossible for anyone to check the work out for themselves. 03:36:53.670 --> 03:36:56.389 And this wasn't the respectful tone from a few years earlier. 03:36:56.469 --> 03:36:58.550 Instead, this was talking that shit. 03:36:58.630 --> 03:37:02.229 And just in case you feel like, well, that's not serious, really. 03:37:02.389 --> 03:37:09.909 It's just killer mic disrespecting a black radical educator on probably the largest national black media platform in the world at the moment. 03:37:10.069 --> 03:37:11.750 Understand, he wasn't finished. 03:37:11.829 --> 03:37:12.870 He sneaked this Dr. 03:37:13.030 --> 03:37:15.989 Ball again on the Shannon Sharp podcast like two years later. 03:37:16.229 --> 03:37:17.430 So the fuck you gonna tell me? 03:37:17.510 --> 03:37:19.030 Nigga, you talking about your imagination. 03:37:19.190 --> 03:37:20.790 I'm talking about some shit I seen for real. 03:37:21.190 --> 03:37:21.829 You know what I mean? 03:37:21.909 --> 03:37:23.510 So I don't I don't listen to y'all Negroes. 03:37:23.590 --> 03:37:27.989 Just know when you write that kind of shit, I giggle, I roll over my big old bed, my lemon thousand dollar bed. 03:37:28.550 --> 03:37:31.430 You know, you know that my wife got the post thousand dollars, you know what I'm saying? 03:37:31.510 --> 03:37:34.469 I wake up and I yawn, I look at y'all niggas like man, y'all niggas don't know what y'all talking about. 03:37:34.550 --> 03:37:35.829 Cause you ain't never seen nothing. 03:37:35.989 --> 03:37:37.590 You don't know what you talking about. 03:37:37.750 --> 03:37:44.630 I read The Retin Art, I read France on us, I read, I read all these books, but I also read why should white guys have all the fun. 03:37:45.350 --> 03:37:48.149 If you only read an instructor, you read, you're just a clunk. 03:37:48.389 --> 03:37:52.870 You know, I read that nigga book, he read that book, he ain't do never quote a bunch of other people to tell me what I can't do. 03:37:53.270 --> 03:37:53.909 Shut up. 03:37:54.149 --> 03:37:55.270 I'm out here doing. 03:37:57.190 --> 03:37:57.989 You a professor. 03:37:58.069 --> 03:37:58.790 Professor what they say. 03:37:59.190 --> 03:38:00.790 They say those who can do do. 03:38:01.030 --> 03:38:04.069 Those who can do, those who can't teach. 03:38:05.030 --> 03:38:34.870 It's so funny being able to finally reveal this to a lot of people because I can't tell you how like amazed that we have been privately at the level of pettiness from a legit hip-hop legend who swears he's not bothered or paying attention to his critics to use his precious time literally the night after winning the Grammy and well into the future to sneak this college professors and black radicals, all while he shakes hands with Republican governors. 03:38:35.030 --> 03:38:36.710 And this is just what I found. 03:38:36.870 --> 03:38:44.149 Like, part of me feels like Mike probably has more podcast appearances where he does this that we just didn't recognize. 03:38:44.389 --> 03:38:51.750 Now, again, fairly you can say that Mike is just responding to being publicly named and criticized, and that is completely fair. 03:38:51.989 --> 03:38:57.510 Again, in my book, if you criticize me, you bring it to my door, there's no reason I shouldn't be able to respond. 03:38:57.670 --> 03:38:59.590 But the key is how he's responding. 03:38:59.829 --> 03:39:08.950 For example, this is something that Killer Mike released maybe two weeks after people blew up his spot, knowing that that Red Bull freestyle was a sneak distant me. 03:39:09.270 --> 03:39:23.110 And notice the complete, just complete 180 of energy and aggression around the idea that these small peons who he obviously didn't know had millions of YouTube subscribers could possibly say something to him. 03:39:23.350 --> 03:39:31.030 But I'm going through a situation now when I got a call from a brother and say, hey man, if I can sit you down with this person, would you be willing to talk to that person? 03:39:31.190 --> 03:39:33.510 I was like, you know, absolutely, I don't have anything against the person. 03:39:33.590 --> 03:39:39.750 This person has a lot of things against me for what you say from their feed or whatever they put up on social media. 03:39:39.829 --> 03:39:42.069 I was like, but yeah, I'd be willing to. 03:39:42.229 --> 03:39:48.710 And um, because ultimately I think that even if we're on the same bus, we I hope we go into the same place trying to get the freedom. 03:39:48.870 --> 03:39:55.909 Mike realized here that he had low-key sneaked disc a little too close to the sun and was likely going to get this public response. 03:39:56.069 --> 03:39:59.989 All this talk about pull up and talk to me is bullshit. 03:40:00.229 --> 03:40:05.750 Once this video releases, Mike is gonna try to play the victim and act like we could have had a conversation to clear this up. 03:40:05.989 --> 03:40:11.670 But not one phone call was made a year ago when that podcast went up on his channel when he was putting out veiled threats. 03:40:11.829 --> 03:40:17.190 Not one concern was voiced or considered before that verse was kicked on that freestyle. 03:40:17.430 --> 03:40:21.430 Mike did not care to conversate because he didn't think he had to. 03:40:21.590 --> 03:40:22.870 And I'm fine with that. 03:40:23.030 --> 03:40:25.110 I don't like talking to niggas that much anyway. 03:40:25.190 --> 03:40:28.469 But at least I kept the energy positive this whole time while speaking the truth. 03:40:28.630 --> 03:40:37.270 It's the sneak dissing and the punching down on folks who you know don't have the opportunity or platform to speak at the same level to defend themselves. 03:40:37.510 --> 03:40:40.149 That's why this video is as long as it is now. 03:40:40.389 --> 03:40:42.309 Mike could have gone and talked to Dr. 03:40:42.389 --> 03:40:45.270 Ball years ago, it'll

have gotten all of 3000. 03:40:45.829 --> 03:40:46.389 Views on Dr. 03:40:46.469 --> 03:41:00.389 Ball's channel, he could have gotten dog walked into discussion, but it wouldn't have mattered because the reality is until a person is big enough to expose an idea or an opinion to a large enough amount of people, folks don't have to change anything that they're doing. 03:41:00.469 --> 03:41:03.030 That's one of the reasons why I'm making this video in the first place. 03:41:03.270 --> 03:41:15.110 But Mike didn't even want to do that because Mike, like most black capitalists, knows that in the face of people who really know this history and this system, you can't double-talk past them. 03:41:15.270 --> 03:41:16.790 When Mike is talking to T.I. 03:41:16.950 --> 03:41:20.550 or Charlemagne, he doesn't have to actually discuss the issue honestly. 03:41:20.630 --> 03:41:26.550 He doesn't have to reveal that he knows that the nature of black capitalism is fundamentally anti-black. 03:41:26.710 --> 03:41:29.750 He can low-key say whatever he wants and get away with it. 03:41:29.909 --> 03:41:35.430 For example, even when Mike was trying to be friendly years earlier, he brings up two black figures that would disagree with Dr. 03:41:35.510 --> 03:41:35.909 Ball. 03:41:36.149 --> 03:41:37.670 I've also read some Thomas Solomon. 03:41:37.750 --> 03:41:38.710 I also read some Walt E. 03:41:38.790 --> 03:41:39.110 Wiggs. 03:41:39.190 --> 03:41:41.670 Now, on the other side, you have conservatives like Walter E. 03:41:41.829 --> 03:41:43.430 Williams, who's a national economist. 03:41:43.510 --> 03:41:44.469 You have Thomas Solomon. 03:41:44.870 --> 03:41:54.870 The problems that black people face today, uh, for the most part have very, very little to do with the heritage of slavery, with the heritage of uh uh discrimination in our country. 03:41:55.110 --> 03:42:03.670 When you think about it, I mean, uh, centuries of slavery, generations of Jim Crow did not destroy the black families. 03:42:03.909 --> 03:42:06.710 But one one generation of the welfare state did. 03:42:07.030 --> 03:42:12.870 Racism in our country could have earned a well-deserved death. 03:42:13.590 --> 03:42:32.790 But it has been uh resurrected by race hustlers, or poverty pimps, I call them, uh, such as Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and many others in the civil rights movement who make a living on the grievances of blacks. 03:42:33.190 --> 03:42:42.389 I think one of the great handicaps that uh blacks and other minorities face across the country is that they are systematically mismatched with universities in the admissions process. 03:42:42.550 --> 03:42:58.710 That is, if if Harvard feels that it must have X percent of blacks, and if the pool is such that they can't get X percent of blacks at the same level as the rest of the Harvard students, they're gonna take those blacks who would have succeeded in some state university and bring them to Harvard, where many of them will fail. 03:42:58.950 --> 03:43:10.309 But my point is, you believe there's not enough black women and men out there that are the same as white women and men to be able to go through Harvard and MIT. 03:43:10.790 --> 03:43:13.110 But you're saying what I think is a factual matter. 03:43:13.350 --> 03:43:14.069 Walter E. 03:43:14.149 --> 03:43:20.229 Williams and Thomas Saul are two of the biggest Uncle Tom niggas in United States history. 03:43:20.469 --> 03:43:22.710 Williams thankfully died a few years ago. 03:43:22.950 --> 03:43:36.950 Sal, unfortunately, is still holding on, but the pack watch is out there, and both of them spent most of their careers being frontlined by conservatives, popping up on Fox News, talking to any white person that would let them say bad things about black people on their behalf. 03:43:37.110 --> 03:43:43.030 Both constantly, constantly, as you can see from their own words, downplay the role of racism and black struggle. 03:43:43.110 --> 03:43:47.350 They absolved white institutions for the responsibility and the maintenance of oppressive systems. 03:43:47.510 --> 03:43:55.670 They were against affirmative action, they were against reparations, and neither of them ever, ever, ever, ever saw a black barber in their lives. 03:43:55.829 --> 03:44:03.510 These are the exact types of dudes that killer Mike would have told to kill themselves back in 2008 on pressure. 03:44:03.670 --> 03:44:13.750 But somehow, here in 2020 and beyond, because Mike brings these niggas up on multiple occasions, he promotes them as people who have inspired his beliefs. 03:44:13.989 --> 03:44:16.870 He's putting them not just in the same sentence as Dr. 03:44:17.030 --> 03:44:22.309 Ball, which is crazy enough, but in the same sentence as legends like Franz Fanon and Fred Hampton. 03:44:22.389 --> 03:44:31.350 And the best way I can explain this is if, like, imagine that someone said, My two favorite rappers are Tupac and Tom McDonald. 03:44:31.510 --> 03:44:33.430 This shit don't make no sense. 03:44:33.750 --> 03:44:54.790 I honestly don't know what could be a middle point between Franz Fanon, a black Marxist psychiatrist turned revolutionary whose work is the core of many black radical ideologies, and Thomas Sowell, whose main contribution of many, I'm sure, has been trying to convince people that slavery wasn't all that bad and white people shouldn't feel so guilty about it. 03:44:55.030 --> 03:45:00.870 Like, literally, just look up Thomas Sowell quotes, and you won't be able to go far until you see some anti-black shit. 03:45:01.030 --> 03:45:03.430 So I don't know what this niggas read. 03:45:03.670 --> 03:45:04.950 Thomas Sowell and Walter E. 03:45:05.110 --> 03:45:15.670 Williams are loved by Clary Elder, Candace Owens, Clarence Thomas, Jason Whitlock, who Mike used to beef with, and for some reason these days, also killer Mike. 03:45:15.829 --> 03:45:31.110 I don't like the implications of what I'm saying right now, but I am not the one who

publicly stated their appreciation for these men, unprompted on numerous occasions, for the sole purpose of deflecting from criticism to black people to his left. 03:45:31.270 --> 03:45:33.270 And of course, this is a pattern. 03:45:33.430 --> 03:45:42.710 Mike has more smoke for us, more smoke for even just normal black liberals, than he's had for any Republicans, black or white or otherwise, for years now. 03:45:42.870 --> 03:45:56.149 He is very quick to smile and agree and get along with crackers that do not want us to live, then to live with the fact that the people on the other side of the fence might have some issues with his beliefs and his actions. 03:45:56.469 --> 03:46:03.909 If it hasn't become overwhelmingly obvious at this point, I'm gonna just spell it out for you here. 03:46:04.069 --> 03:46:06.069 A lot of y'all got Killer Mike fucked up. 03:46:06.229 --> 03:46:10.950 Killer Mike is not a leftist, killer Mike is not a revolutionary, killer Mike is not a radical. 03:46:11.030 --> 03:46:18.309 Killer Mike is at best a libertarian, and at worst a straight-up black conservative, a low-key Republican. 03:46:18.389 --> 03:46:28.630 And that would make him like many of the black men he hangs out with on the low, like Colion Warr and Shelly Winters and King Randall, and like the man he idolizes in quotes, such as Booker T. 03:46:28.710 --> 03:46:29.750 Washington, Walter E. 03:46:29.829 --> 03:46:39.350 Williams, Thomas Sowell, like the man who he gave a free haircut to at his barbershop and gave a softball interview to when he had that love and respect show. 03:46:39.590 --> 03:46:47.270 Killer Mike is like the men he flashes that wild smile at when he's invited to financial events and podcast recordings. 03:46:47.430 --> 03:46:59.030 He's like the men he refuses to publicly criticize as they continue to find new ways to kill us, black women, immigrants, children, queer people, and even white people these days. 03:46:59.190 --> 03:47:12.389 And it needs to be said that Killer Mike isn't just a black misleader, he's a bully who likes to throw rocks and then hide his hand and then play victim as if he's just being misunderstood or being represented. 03:47:12.550 --> 03:47:25.030 And what's made it possible for him to move like this is the same shit that a lot, a lot of y'all faves weaponize, which is popularity, status, and reach, trust from us. 03:47:25.350 --> 03:47:35.350 I guarantee you that when Mike was shooting at me a year ago, he didn't realize till afterward that I had as large a following as I do, which is why the tone was so different from here. 03:47:35.590 --> 03:47:42.469 Nigga, right now, the problem with killer might, I was just like, boy, when I see you, it might be a problem. 03:47:42.710 --> 03:47:43.750 But at least not gonna be a problem. 03:47:44.069 --> 03:47:44.469 To hear. 03:47:44.710 --> 03:47:52.389 But I'm going to a situation now when I got a call from a brother, you know, and say, hey man, if I could sit you down with this person, would you be willing to talk to that person? 03:47:52.469 --> 03:47:53.510 I was like, you know, absolutely. 03:47:53.590 --> 03:47:54.630 I don't have anything against a person. 03:47:54.950 --> 03:48:11.430 And of all the things I hope this video does, the one that I'm gonna be real, I desire the most personally from a personal standpoint, is to make sure that Mike can never comfortably talk that shit as if he's about black liberation again without someone checking exactly whose side he's on. 03:48:11.590 --> 03:48:17.190 Because if he says he's on our side, well, goddamn, there must be two sides. 03:48:17.430 --> 03:48:23.030 The killer mic that we have today is not the killer mic that we had 20 years ago. 03:48:23.190 --> 03:48:25.510 That mic has mysteriously disappeared. 03:48:25.670 --> 03:48:35.829 The killer mic that raged against black misleadership and the black bourgeoisie and now brags about his own bourgeoisie status and gives Republican governors free haircuts. 03:48:36.069 --> 03:48:38.950 And no, I will not stop showing this picture. 03:48:39.190 --> 03:48:42.229 This picture should be everywhere killer Mike is. 03:48:42.389 --> 03:48:49.829 This seems like a bad dream, an alternate reality, but the truth is that Mike actually told us he was gonna do this. 03:48:50.069 --> 03:48:56.309 He told us about this coming change years ago before he even had the opportunity to let it fully set in. 03:48:56.469 --> 03:49:03.989 In fact, as soon as he signed the deal with those white boys at Cartoon Network, Mike had already seemingly decided that this was his future. 03:49:04.149 --> 03:49:13.430 Going back to R.A.P music on the song Ghetto Gospel, Mike openly speaks to the change he's going through and his desire to abandon revolutionary intentions for personal gain. 03:49:22.550 --> 03:49:31.590 Now I feel like this is what you got to feel that I'm gonna be talking about. 03:49:41.750 --> 03:49:46.950 When I re-heard this verse for the first time in years while writing this, it hit me like a ton of bricks. 03:49:47.190 --> 03:49:48.710 Cause it explains everything. 03:49:48.950 --> 03:49:50.229 It's all in this verse. 03:49:50.469 --> 03:49:55.510 Mike's new politics and his misleadership and the status he's wanted to attain in just a few bars. 03:49:55.670 --> 03:50:01.510 Again, off the rap music album, the album that saved his career as he was coming out of his lowest point. 03:50:01.670 --> 03:50:09.430 And he starts the verse already having claimed that success would come, knowing that he was shedding his revolutionary spirit to make it happen. 03:50:09.590 --> 03:50:21.350 He evokes the image of him holding a Brightland watch, which is a watch that costs$10,000, a true luxury item, indicative of the life Mike admits that he's always wanted for himself at whatever cost. 03:50:21.590 --> 03:50:23.909 He continues by evoking the spirit of Huey P. 03:50:24.069 --> 03:50:28.389 Newton, saying this must be what

it felt like when somebody turned him onto a Saka Yeo. 03:50:28.630 --> 03:50:30.389 This is a reference to the fact that Huey P. 03:50:30.469 --> 03:50:41.590 Newton, the former legendary leader of the Black Panther Party, saw the entire movement die because of the CIA and Fed interference, assassination, himself getting put in prison. 03:50:41.670 --> 03:50:49.270 And then after his time in prison, which included him being tortured, he himself fell into cocaine addiction and was never the same person, was also assassinated. 03:50:49.430 --> 03:50:57.750 And this combined with the next few lines really probably tells the totality of the story when he talks about the fact that both revolutionaries and drug dealers get put in jail. 03:50:57.989 --> 03:50:59.350 And this is cope. 03:50:59.590 --> 03:51:05.190 Because while Mike definitely did talk a good game on his music, he was never really a revolutionary. 03:51:05.350 --> 03:51:08.149 And I may be mistaken, but I don't think Mike has ever even been to jail. 03:51:08.229 --> 03:51:09.510 Comparing himself to Huey P. 03:51:09.590 --> 03:51:16.710 Newton and comparing revolutionaries to drug dealers, while you know it sounds cool, no shade to drug dealers, they're not revolutionaries. 03:51:16.870 --> 03:51:26.710 Drug dealers are attacked by the state, but they're attacked by the state as they're in a process of exploiting mostly other black people, whereas revolutionaries are there to try to liberate black people. 03:51:26.870 --> 03:51:29.989 So they're putting their lives on the line for two very different reasons. 03:51:30.149 --> 03:51:37.190 One is for the people, and one, the one Mike has done in the past and is still doing to this day, is for his own individual aggrandizement. 03:51:37.350 --> 03:51:55.350 And I get the thought of watching people like QEP Newton like live and die the way they did and mostly come out with nothing to show for it, much like Mike was being a rapper with principles beloved highly by small few, but still very much struggling in the rap game. 03:51:55.430 --> 03:52:03.510 I get that comparison in Mike's head, but him choosing to sell out, or in his case, or in most cases, buy in, it's still bad. 03:52:03.829 --> 03:52:11.909 This verse is very prophetic because not long after it, Mike, as I said, becomes one of the most famous, prolific, respected rappers in the world. 03:52:11.989 --> 03:52:19.190 He's able to move through the streets, through the booth, through the boardroom, and the statehouse as if he belongs to all of those places. 03:52:19.430 --> 03:52:20.870 And that sounds amazing. 03:52:20.950 --> 03:52:24.229 He became a statesman for his city, a spokesperson for black people. 03:52:24.389 --> 03:52:32.309 And it's hard as someone who was once a diehard fan to hear this verse now, recognizing the future that it predicted. 03:52:32.630 --> 03:52:36.469 Mike is no longer of the class he came from and used to rep for. 03:52:36.630 --> 03:52:38.550 This is what that verse is letting us know. 03:52:38.710 --> 03:52:42.790 Mike has since this moment entered into a managerial role for black people. 03:52:42.950 --> 03:52:48.389 His job, as designed by Nixon 60 years ago, is to launder Black Rage. 03:52:48.630 --> 03:52:51.270 Link in the description for that book that everybody should read. 03:52:51.430 --> 03:53:02.389 And in laundering black rage, he helps the system take the revolutionary potential of black people and transmute it into something valuable, maybe even say a not real black bank. 03:53:02.550 --> 03:53:04.950 And what's fucked up is that I can low key keep going. 03:53:05.190 --> 03:53:14.229 As is the case with most capitalists, their business records are full of shady business deals that look good on paper until you read what the paper is saying. 03:53:14.389 --> 03:53:17.030 I could talk about the shit that happened with the gathering spot. 03:53:17.110 --> 03:53:19.350 Feel free to look up Greenwood and the Gathering Spot. 03:53:19.430 --> 03:53:32.229 I could talk about the fact that early this year, Mike became the frontman again for a white-owned company trying to build housing in a black community, but the housing is all rent to own and rent to own has never been good for any poor people, let alone poor black people. 03:53:32.389 --> 03:53:37.670 I could talk about the fact that when the Cop City protests were going on here in Atlanta, Mike was nowhere to be seen. 03:53:37.829 --> 03:53:40.389 And people directly asked Mike what he thought and would say about it. 03:53:40.469 --> 03:53:43.110 And Mike was like, We need better police training. 03:53:43.510 --> 03:53:51.909 And I honestly didn't want to dig too deep into those things or go even deeper into Mike's business dealings because I didn't want this to turn into that type of video. 03:53:52.069 --> 03:53:58.149 Because the reality is, I don't want you to come away from this video thinking that Killer Mike is evil. 03:53:58.550 --> 03:54:03.510 I want Killer Mike to come away from this video thinking about how he's going to do things differently. 03:54:03.670 --> 03:54:09.430 Because the truth of the matter is, it doesn't take that much digging to also see the good things Killer Mike is still trying to do. 03:54:09.670 --> 03:54:10.710 Killer Mike and T.I. 03:54:10.870 --> 03:54:16.309 did buy and reopen Bankhead Seafood, a cultural staple in the city that was almost long dead after COVID. 03:54:16.469 --> 03:54:28.149 He does constantly use his clout to create avenues for financial services for black people that while that is not revolutionary, those black people that are getting those services definitely do appreciate that, and that does help people. 03:54:28.309 --> 03:54:34.069 Shout out to Mike for clearly and openly this time around supporting Keisha Lance bottoms for governor of Georgia. 03:54:34.229 --> 03:54:36.469 There's something we can agree on, right? 03:54:36.630 --> 03:54:48.149 Like any criticism of

Keisha's side as a person who is an establishment Democrat, you best believe I'd rather her be the governor than this weird diet trump motherfucker that's running for the Republicans. 03:54:48.309 --> 03:54:55.110 And that happened because Killer Mike has, for however long, been in black political spaces here in Atlanta. 03:54:55.270 --> 03:54:57.590 Now, are these establishment political spaces? 03:54:57.750 --> 03:55:01.590 He definitely doesn't have any smoke for Andre Dickens, like I would have smoke for Andre Dickens. 03:55:01.750 --> 03:55:04.550 But that's still work, and that work is still meaningful. 03:55:04.630 --> 03:55:12.309 And it's more than I've been able to do as a nigga that's just been a local social justice warrior for most of the last 20 years. 03:55:12.469 --> 03:55:24.149 Up until YouTube, I pretty much dedicated my life to small-scale work in black communities with black people, but none of that really compares to the type of work that I believe Killer Mike has also been up to. 03:55:24.550 --> 03:55:31.110 It's just a shame that he's used that work as an excuse to enrich himself in the process. 03:55:31.270 --> 03:55:33.190 And that's what really bothers me. 03:55:33.590 --> 03:55:44.389 Because as I sit here at the end of this project, the one thing I can't figure out or find is a truly solid explanation as to how and why. 03:55:44.630 --> 03:55:47.670 I know obviously he planned to switch up. 03:55:47.829 --> 03:55:55.030 We see it in the music, we see it in the behavior, but I don't know where that really happened, what caused it. 03:55:55.270 --> 03:55:56.710 People switch up all the time. 03:55:56.870 --> 03:56:01.270 That's not new, but it's usually not so blatant and drastic. 03:56:01.510 --> 03:56:07.190 It's not so often you can use a person's own rap lyrics and interviews against them so easily. 03:56:07.350 --> 03:56:12.069 And so I want to understand this transition because low-key, I want to know how to avoid it. 03:56:12.469 --> 03:56:22.389 People tend to imagine selling out as if you might get invited to the Illuminati meeting and they hand you a briefcase full of gold and then a contract for your soul and you sign on the dotted line. 03:56:22.550 --> 03:56:24.630 But that's a real big oversimplification. 03:56:24.790 --> 03:56:27.750 Nobody would sell their soul if it were that obvious. 03:56:27.989 --> 03:56:44.710 Instead, my working theory is that it's a series of small decisions and choices and behaviors that don't seem all that significant in the moment that make sense when you don't think about it too hard, and then that adds up over time, and then suddenly you're a very different person than who you used to be. 03:56:44.870 --> 03:56:56.790 It's a disagreement with someone who has your best interest in mind, the folks who want to exploit you when those who you really need to be in community with don't have enough to hold up what you desire. 03:56:57.030 --> 03:57:12.469 It's like small decisions and moments and situations and opportunities that you take or don't take, and you take enough of them, and you go from kill your masters to wearing the kill your masters t-shirt at the anti-riot press conference. 03:57:12.630 --> 03:57:24.870 And so, like, I want a whole space for Mike to, now that he cannot hide the fact that he's been acting kind of like an asshole, to do a self-inventory and say, maybe I am fucking up with this. 03:57:25.030 --> 03:57:28.870 Maybe I do need to stop comparing Franz Fanon to Thomas Sow. 03:57:29.270 --> 03:57:38.790 Maybe I should go back and apologize for the fact that we presented Greenwood Bank as if it was a revolutionary movement when it was really just me and my homeboys doing a dope black business venture. 03:57:39.030 --> 03:57:48.389 Maybe I should openly admit that meeting with our enemies is a bad thing because our enemies were only using me to dissuade criticism of themselves. 03:57:48.550 --> 03:57:52.790 Maybe talking shit about Stacey Abrams in the middle of her election run wasn't a good idea. 03:57:53.110 --> 03:58:05.670 Maybe, maybe, maybe I should be less gracious to people who we know are enemies of black people and more gracious to people that I disagree with that are not. 03:58:07.110 --> 03:58:20.149 And I offer that grace because I would want the same grace in myself, and I would hope that I would hear these critiques and have a response that I'm hoping Mike has, because I don't know how it feels to be in Mike's shoes. 03:58:20.229 --> 03:58:28.630 I don't know how it feels to be newly rich, how it feels to be in an industry where people that are less scrupulous and less principled than me are rewarded more. 03:58:28.870 --> 03:58:35.829 I don't know what it feels like to have the pressure of that iconic status and not necessarily know what you're supposed to do with it. 03:58:36.069 --> 03:58:46.550 I don't think Mike or anyone is all good or all evil, but I do think Mike needs to sit back and evaluate the balance of where his interests are versus the interests of black people. 03:58:46.710 --> 03:58:54.790 And if he says he's still acting in black people's interests, then he does need to make an adjustment to either his politics or his public persona. 03:58:54.950 --> 03:59:01.510 Because it comes back to Glenn Ford, clocking exactly what's been going on, not just with Mike, but his whole cohort low-key. 03:59:01.829 --> 03:59:07.909 The current black misleadership class voluntarily joined the enemy camp, calling it progress. 03:59:08.229 --> 03:59:28.870 As soon as the constraints of official apartheid were lifted, they exploited the political and business opportunities made possible by the people's mass movement in order to advance their own selfish agendas and in the process made a pact with power to assist in the debasement and incarceration of millions of their brothers and sisters. 03:59:29.030 --> 03:59:34.389 Students of black history will immediately recognize the role played

by these black firemen. 03:59:34.550 --> 03:59:38.870 They are the house Negroes that Malcolm X invade against. 03:59:39.110 --> 03:59:49.909 The aspiring or professional type of Negro who, when the master's house was burning down, would fight harder to put the master's house out than the master himself. 03:59:50.149 --> 03:59:55.750 Malcolm struggled on behalf of the field Negro, the working class masses. 03:59:56.069 --> 04:00:00.309 House Negro and Field Negro were not scientific terms. 04:00:00.469 --> 04:00:04.149 They were political weapons that resonated amongst the black masses. 04:00:04.389 --> 04:00:14.630 They had sharp, cutting edges designed to rebuke and isolate the internal enemy and to discourage other black people from collaborating with the ruling class. 04:00:14.870 --> 04:00:17.350 Our mission today is no different. 04:00:17.829 --> 04:00:27.829 Mike uniquely embodies every facet of what makes someone a misleader and every few black people look really good in the process, but keeps the rest of us in the same positions we've always been. 04:00:27.989 --> 04:00:50.469 And he moves through his industry and uses influence much like Oprah, keeping a safe distance from hardline stances that may risk his position, but allows him to still be weaponized against black struggle by sanitizing and downplaying our enemies or by keeping the real radicals out of the conversation by making it seem like he is as radical as it can get, and you should only listen to him if you want a radical perspective. 04:00:50.710 --> 04:00:55.909 Mike is not the most powerful misleader in the game right now, but he might still be the worst. 04:00:56.069 --> 04:01:13.829 Whether it's Mike or Oprah or Kwame Kilpatrick or Hakeem Jeffries or Jay-Z or Insert Finance, Bitcoin, LLC, Scammer here, or anyone I'm thinking of that you might think of, that I didn't think of, we have to develop a better framework for identifying enemies that look like this. 04:01:13.909 --> 04:01:21.670 Because it doesn't matter who I might bring up, if we have a rubric and a standard that is different than the one we have now, then we don't have this problem. 04:01:21.909 --> 04:01:28.149 And I say all this, but also want to say, I don't want to be the call niggas out god. 04:01:28.309 --> 04:01:37.110 I know that sounds crazy right now, especially if you look at my if you look at some of my videos, you might think that I'm capping there, but I'm not. 04:01:37.270 --> 04:01:44.229 I'm legit just a chill dude with a strong sense of social justice that started making YouTube videos out of boredom during the COVID lockdown. 04:01:44.389 --> 04:01:48.149 So my dream was not to be a thought leader or public intellectual. 04:01:48.309 --> 04:01:49.590 I want to make a video game. 04:01:49.670 --> 04:01:53.750 I want to make a video game that's like, what if Persona meets Pan-Africanism? 04:01:53.909 --> 04:01:55.829 That may sound dumb to you, but that's my dream. 04:01:55.989 --> 04:01:57.670

Maybe a TV show about professional wrestling. 04:01:57.829 --> 04:01:59.270 Mike is right about one thing. 04:01:59.430 --> 04:02:07.510 I do love cartoons too much, but that doesn't change the truth of the matter and why I feel obligated to say what I'm saying and do what I've been doing. 04:02:07.750 --> 04:02:14.550 However, you feel about me, understand I am not saying or doing anything new or special. 04:02:14.710 --> 04:02:20.229 I'm just repeating the things that I've heard and read from black radicals for years. 04:02:20.389 --> 04:02:31.270 I'm just taking Malcolm X and Glenn Ford and all these concepts and synthesizing and presenting them as best as I see fit from a platform I've been blessed to control. 04:02:31.670 --> 04:02:42.550 And I say blessed because what's very, very clear from my perspective at least, is that very few people are allowed to say what I'm saying from the soapbox that I've attained. 04:02:42.710 --> 04:02:45.190 I'm not supposed to be here, and because I know. 04:02:45.670 --> 04:02:47.030 I'm probably on borrowed time. 04:02:47.190 --> 04:02:48.950 I gotta use that time wisely. 04:02:49.110 --> 04:02:58.790 So it'll be an abject failure for me not to call things out as I see them, especially as the ideas that they're trying to hide and dissuade us from are needed more than ever. 04:02:58.950 --> 04:03:07.590 And they're needed because as a community, as a culture, we need to supercharge our desire to hold these people accountable. 04:03:07.829 --> 04:03:11.590 What I want for Mike is accountability, not cancellation. 04:03:11.750 --> 04:03:14.630 I want him to be called in, not called out. 04:03:14.870 --> 04:03:20.630 Mike needs to be accountable to more than just his rich friends, his black Republicans, and white bankers. 04:03:20.790 --> 04:03:27.510 And I'm trying to contribute to a culture that expects more from our idols so that they know when they're falling before it happens. 04:03:27.750 --> 04:03:40.229 Miss leaders like to use ideas of solidarity and kinfolk, not skin folk, as well as celebrity cultures and black aesthetics to convince folks like me to stay quiet, to play along, to not rock the boat. 04:03:40.309 --> 04:03:44.309 They want us to trust them and believe that they are acting in our best interest. 04:03:44.550 --> 04:03:49.190 And I still do think some of them, or at least a few of them, believe that they are. 04:03:49.350 --> 04:03:52.389 But again, to quote Malcolm, they are not a part of the revolution. 04:03:52.469 --> 04:03:54.469 They are set up against the revolution. 04:03:54.630 --> 04:03:59.909 They are using our connection to them as a bridge between them and white power structures. 04:03:59.989 --> 04:04:13.030 And it's only through some form of community accountability, through a standard or code of expected behavior for our celebrities, for our icons, for the people we put our support behind, that we can stop that process. 04:04:13.190 --> 04:04:14.149 And guess what? 04:04:14.309 --> 04:04:15.510 We're kind of doing it. 04:04:15.590 --> 04:04:16.550 It's kinda working. 04:04:16.790 --> 04:04:21.909 Jay-Z isn't doing pro-capitalism freestyles because he's not pressed by the criticism he gets. 04:04:22.069 --> 04:04:26.229 Mike ain't sneak dissing niggas because he doesn't hear us when we call him out on his bullshit. 04:04:26.389 --> 04:04:34.469 The media landscape has altered and changed, and we will continue to erode at this class of fallen idols that just wants to maintain their spot. 04:04:34.630 --> 04:04:38.309 Because as I've said many times, these niggas very much owe us. 04:04:38.550 --> 04:04:43.030 Every politician, entrepreneur, every celebrity, they don't exist in a vacuum. 04:04:43.110 --> 04:04:46.069 They cannot hold their spot without us. 04:04:46.229 --> 04:04:48.950 They can't maintain their spot without us. 04:04:49.110 --> 04:04:52.950 If you are in community with us and getting rich off us, you owe us. 04:04:53.110 --> 04:04:55.270 You owe it to us to not just give back sometimes. 04:04:55.350 --> 04:05:01.350 You owe it not to just be an inspiration and to just throw white parties and celebrate with us. 04:05:01.510 --> 04:05:05.190 You owe it to act in our best interest, even if in conflicts with your own. 04:05:05.270 --> 04:05:12.950 You owe it to be educated, actually educated on the politics that actually support black people, on our history for real. 04:05:13.110 --> 04:05:18.630 You owe it not to just name-drop these legends, but to understand what they believed in and follow suit. 04:05:18.790 --> 04:05:30.870 And if somehow you do get things fucked up, you do make a mistake, you do have an idea that ends up backfiring on black people, then you owe it to us to listen when we try to explain that to you. 04:05:31.030 --> 04:05:35.750 And if after that you still want to be on bullshit, so what? 04:05:36.069 --> 04:05:36.870 That's life. 04:05:38.149 --> 04:05:40.149 That's what all the people say. 04:05:48.950 --> 04:05:50.550 Alright, we're done. 04:05:50.870 --> 04:05:52.149 It's finished. 04:05:52.710 --> 04:05:54.069 It's a whole other night. 04:05:54.229 --> 04:05:55.909 Got a whole different shirt on. 04:05:58.790 --> 04:06:01.590 It's kind of appropriate as you wrap things up. 04:06:01.909 --> 04:06:04.469 Um thank you so much for watching this far. 04:06:04.550 --> 04:06:09.030 Uh, thank you so much for watching another four-hour video from FD Signifier. 04:06:09.190 --> 04:06:10.630 Don't know how this keeps happening. 04:06:10.790 --> 04:06:13.829 Don't think it'll happen again, but you never know. 04:06:14.069 --> 04:06:17.110 Never know what happens next in this line of work. 04:06:17.670 --> 04:06:20.950 One thing I do know is that this video is sponsored by Nebula. 04:06:21.430 --> 04:06:30.790 Um, as I wrap this up, my other editor, Babilla, is also wrapping up Goon World Episode 3, which will be out in the next couple of weeks, definitely before the end of October.

04:06:30.950 --> 04:06:35.430 It's currently slated for October 21st, but things do change. 04:06:35.510 --> 04:06:38.069 It will be out soon though, and it is really good. 04:06:38.229 --> 04:06:42.069 It's part of several exclusive videos that will only happen on Nebula. 04:06:42.309 --> 04:06:54.710 So please, if you want to learn more about how to support me as a creator and to find other good content just like the stuff you just watched, but without any weird edits that I'll have to make, please go check it out. 04:06:54.870 --> 04:06:56.630 Please stay tuned for the rest of the ad. 04:06:56.790 --> 04:06:57.989 Read, thank you so much. 04:06:58.309 --> 04:07:14.469 Nebula is an independent streaming service created by YouTubers that has evolved from a place where we get to house videos not treated well by the YouTube algorithm and transformed into a place where some of the internet's most talented creators get to make pretty much whatever we can imagine, and with your help, fund. 04:07:14.870 --> 04:07:19.030 For me, it's been a few things: a short documentary on the concept of whiteness. 04:07:19.110 --> 04:07:29.670 There's a video where I briefly talk about the complex masculinity of Tupac, and most recently, and significantly, a deep dive into the world of pornography consumption, addiction, and sex work called Goon World. 04:07:29.909 --> 04:07:37.829 Goon World is exactly the type of project Nebula was made for, as it's just subject matter that won't be allowed to be monetized on YouTube. 04:07:37.989 --> 04:07:39.909 Trust me, I've tried in the past. 04:07:40.069 --> 04:07:44.229 But by doing it on Nebula, I get to level things up a bit and work on my terms. 04:07:44.309 --> 04:07:57.909 I interview psychologists, sexologists, sex workers, only fans models, and actual gooners to dive heavily into what this world that we all know is there but pretend not to see, and how it's actually affecting us in modern society. 04:07:58.149 --> 04:08:03.909 The first episode is out right now, the second will be out early August, with the final episodes to drop soon after. 04:08:04.069 --> 04:08:14.870 I have so many other ideas for projects like this that don't work on YouTube as a platform, and Nebula allows me options to bring things to life on my terms, but it can only do that with your help. 04:08:15.030 --> 04:08:20.550 By signing up, you won't just be helping me and getting access to uncensored and uncut versions of my content. 04:08:20.790 --> 04:08:36.630 You'll also be getting tons of that from other creators, along with hours upon hours of content from narrative podcasts, original short films, reality shows, travel shows, all independent and all at your fingertips if you file the QR code on the screen and get 50% off a year's subscription. 04:08:36.870 --> 04:08:38.630 I appreciate that you've made it this far. 04:08:38.790 --> 04:08:42.309 Thank you so much for that, and thank you to Nebula for sponsoring the video. 04:08:42.550 --> 04:08:43.350 Peace.