W. Kamau Bell
W. Kamau Bell is a Peabody Award winner, 4X Emmy Award winner, documentary filmmaker, stand-up comedian, Celebrity Jeopardy! champion, Official Ambassador of the band Fishbone, self-proclaimed #1 Bruce Lee Expert…
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Kamau starts the show by giving Joshua Doss his flowers. Joshua discusses his interview with Stephen A. Smith, describing him as reminiscent of family members he respects but disagrees with, and shares that Smith said “I never thought about it that way” three times during their conversation. They explore why successful people like Stephen A. Smith and Kanye West often pivot to politics, attributing it partly to American capitalism’s endless demands for more achievement.
The conversation shifts to social media addiction, with Joshua citing his research background to share an alarming statistic: young men under 18 spend more time indoors than incarcerated Americans. He describes how Gen Z parents are over-correcting with strict screen rules. Joshua delivers a pointed critique: tech companies invest more in addictive algorithms than casinos do in gambling, diverting “our best brains” from medicine and climate research.
They analyze the recent midterms, where Democrats unexpectedly flipped seats in Texas, Ohio, and other Republican strongholds. They express disappointment that Black women candidates like Angie Nixon in Florida didn’t receive adequate party support despite Black women’s reliability as Democratic voters. Kamau introduces the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact as a potential structural reform, prompting Joshua to reframe the Electoral College’s purpose as “DEI for rural communities” — a framing he notes its defenders typically oppose. They close with Joshua praising Mamdani’s “easy wins” strategy of tangible constituent services.
Donate to My Block, My Hood, My City at formyblock.org.
Who’s With Me is produced by Rabbit Grin Productions. Music by Chris Dowd. Distributed by Pushkin Industries.
Welcome to Who's With Me. I'm W. Kamau Bell.
00:17
Speaker 2
This is episode 26. Today, the guest is Joshua Doss. Joshua Doss is a pollster and a political strategist. I know him best from just being on Instagram, talking about the world, talking about race and racism, talking about media, talking about, you know, American politics. He's got over a million followers. You can follow him at Doss.Discourse on Instagram. Super happy to meet him. Glad to sit down and talk with him. Yeah, so we're going to talk about the midterms and a lot more.
00:47
Speaker 1
Whew, I'm tired. Anybody else tired?
00:49
Speaker 2
Last week was a big week for America, and hopefully a big week for the future of American democracy. I am recording this on Monday after the midterms from last Tuesday. Mississippi is still counting votes, so maybe you'll know by the time you get this on Wednesday. Who knows?
01:07
Speaker 1
I'm exhausted. Are you exhausted?
01:09
Speaker 3
I mean.
01:10
Speaker 1
Maybe it's a good kind of exhaustion. I think it's this.
01:12
Speaker 2
It's the exhaustion of following everything going on in the midterms and following election results in places you don't live and never even heard of before, and suddenly you're obsessed with counties around the country counting votes. A county you've never heard of, never been to, never going to, but you're like, come on, Massapequa County. I'm just making that up. But yeah, so the exhaustion of paying attention to that, the exhaustion of being excited by the blue tsunami, the exhaustion by realizing that blue tsunami doesn't fix everything. Ice is still out there. Teachers are still afraid to teach. Over 300,000 black women are unemployed. Trans kids still can't play sports the way that other kids can without fear of retribution from nonsense. You know, groceries are high. Gas prices are high. Housing prices are high. There's all the regular things that happened before the blue tsunami that you're like, yay, we had a blue tsunami.
02:04
Speaker 1
But also, we still got a lot to figure out.
02:07
Speaker 2
Also, Chuck Schumer and Akeem Jeffries are doing a victory lap when it's like, is this really your victory, guys? Is this really your, you know, much to talk about in the upcoming.
02:19
Speaker 1
Weeks.
02:20
Speaker 2
This is the sort of the, I don't know, a little bit of like, yay, but we're still at war with Iran. We're still, you know, scheduled to be giving Israel money for weapons for genocide. It's all, but it's, but yay, we had a moment of like, Yay! So I think it's important to celebrate the yay. I did my election night coverage with Joy Reid on her show, The Joy Reid Show, in conjunction with my friend, Pastor Michael McBride. Pastor Mike and some of his folks at Live Free are starting a new, like, you know, justice network, a platform, black-led platform, justice.pixel.plus. We did the People's Desk on election night, me and Joy Reid. Also that same day as the midterm election before that, I had to go– I read at three schools in Berkeley for the new book, Rock, Paper, Scissors, Cheese. Me and Adam Mansback read at three different public schools in Berkeley. And then we read at some public schools in San Francisco a couple days later and read at my kid's school tomorrow. Yeah, so we are out here promoting the book. So, you know, there's your regular life that is probably busy. And then there's the dealing with midterm elections issue. And following every story about that, that makes you feel extra stressed out or happy, but also just adds more. So yeah, I'm tired. Anyway, but don't worry about that. This weekend, I'll be at the Facing Race Conference this Saturday. I believe it is November 13th. I'll be at the Facing Race Conference in Raleigh, North Carolina. I started my political sort of commentary career at Facing Race. I used to do stand-up. I did stand-up there years ago. I think it was in Chicago. But yeah, so I'm back at Facing Race now. It's weird to think about it when facing races on my calendar, I started being after the midterms and I was like, oh, that's going to be a lot with everything going on. But I think there'll be a little bit of lightness in the room, but also these are the people who know you need to do the work. You can't just celebrate a victory. You need to do the work. So yeah, a lot of exciting things come out of the midterm victories. Texas turned blue. They got a blue governor, Gina Hinojosa. And then we got James Tallarico in Texas. So Texas is blue now. Who knew that was coming? And you know, uh, we got, uh, Abdullah Syed won in Michigan. Keisha Lance Bottoms is an upcoming governor from Georgia.
04:28
Speaker 3
Yeah.
04:28
Speaker 1
So there's, you know, there's some victories all over the country.
04:30
Speaker 2
One of my favorite ones is a woman named Lakeisha Womack out of North Carolina. She won her congressional seat, a black woman who raised $ 56, 000. That's all she could raise for her congressional seat in North Carolina. And she beat like a Republican who's one of those powerful Republicans in the state. Here's where Republicans screwed up. So after the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act, a lot of Republicans around the country in political positions, went around to redraw their districts to make sure that Republicans, make sure in scare quotes, had easier wins and there were more Republican districts. And then California, Gavin Newsom redrew some of our districts so we had some more Democratic districts to sort of match what they were doing. But here's what Republicans did wrong, because racists are stupid. They redid some of those districts, but they did it like out in public where everybody could see it and they bragged about it. And so what they did is they fired up Democrats in those districts and pissed off some Republicans because they were just like, we're going to actively cheat in public now that we can, thanks to the Supreme Court gutting the Voting Rights Act.
05:30
Speaker 1
And then it fired up some people to run against Republicans.
05:32
Speaker 2
And many, many, many Republicans who had their districts redrawn, many districts that were won by Trump by double-digit margins, lost to Democrats.
05:42
Speaker 1
That's one of the big stories that comes out of that. That many.
05:46
Speaker 2
Republicans who had their districts redrawn. And this guy who ran against Lakeisha Womack in North Carolina, he was in charge of redrawing the district lines. He redrew his own district. And Lakeisha Womack, a black woman in North Carolina, beat him with $ 56, 000 when he had raised $ 2 million. So we definitely need to get money out of politics. There's no question. But it is great to see that money is not the be-all, end-all. As Elon Musk found out, spending over $ 424 million and Most of that he threw down the toilet because most people he backed did not win, including Greg Abbott in Texas and Ken Paxton in Texas. And then Elon's stock prices dropped. And then he announced, Tesla announced they were ending production of the Cybertruck. Rest in peace, cars look like toasters. But again, this is not everything. This is just part of it. I actually wrote my top 10 favorite takeaways from the midterm from the loose tsunami. It's on my sub stack. You can put the link in the chat. Yeah, so you can check out what I thought, more of my thoughts on that. But yeah, I think the too long, didn't read is like, yay, a lot of Democrats won. But also there's more work to do. Also, not all those Democrats are the Democrats we want them to be. A lot of them are taking money from people we don't want them to take money from or don't have the exact right politics around issues. But it is still better. The power is better than their hands than it is in the hands of MAGA, of the fascist MAGA. So we just have to Be prepared to hold these people to account and push them to make the correct decisions in ways that MAGA is invulnerable to logic or peer pressure. So there you go.
07:25
Speaker 1
The other big.
07:26
Speaker 2
News that I feel sort of I have to mention, because I often position myself as the sheriff of comedy, is Russell Brand is going to prison for 10 and a half years. I don't know if he's going to serve the whole sentence, but he's been sentenced to 10 and a half years in prison in England for rape. And also, even though he's been sentenced for those charges, Apparently they're investigating more rape cases against him. So there may be more time added to that, but in the midst of Cornell seven, which we haven't, which we're not talking about really anymore in the news cycle in the midst of the young woman who was raped at Louisiana state university by an athlete who had to sort of out herself on Tik TOK because she felt like the university wasn't doing enough.
08:05
Speaker 1
This is a part of that.
08:07
Speaker 2
And these charges were all in England, but he's also certainly a big comedy star in America. And I'm sure there's some, some dirt can come out in America. It's just, it's interesting to watch because, you know, I'm not, England and America are often sort of doing the same thing, the same dance at the same time. So you can't go, this is better than this. But, and if you have chance, watch the sentencing of Russell by this very sort of like, you know, this very English British judge, old white man who's literally wearing the white wig like they do over there. I met Russell Brand once. This is story time. So my first big break in show business, as I've talked about over the course of this podcast several times, is this show Totally Biased. It was on the FX network, and this was back when the FX network was the FX network. They were FXing all over the place.
08:53
Speaker 1
This was during the heyday of Louie, Louie, Louie, Louie, another famous sexual assaulter.
09:02
Speaker 2
I'm not laughing about that, just the irony. But yeah, so Louis C.K. was the big wig of the network. They were trying to sort of double down on comedy. They were sort of like, maybe we'd be the comedy network, because FX is known for a lot of things. And so they brought me and Russell in both to host late-night talk shows on FX. Russell's was initially just going to be him, I think, monologuing for a half hour, about once a week to talk about the world. And mine was more of a sort of a daily show-style traditional talk show. I don't know what the pitch was, but it was based on my solo show, The Debbie Kamau Bell Curve, Ending Racism, at about an hour. So it was going to be very like, about very issue forward we weren't on the air i don't think we ever maybe we overlapped a little bit but it was like a season of russell and then i was the following season maybe we overlapped one night but we were both were brought out to the upfronts in la uh which is the big advertising showcase for the networks so they bring out whatever the new shiny things are they bring them out to the upfronts or even the old shiny things so i was brought out to la it's the first time I've ever done that, where you go to sit in a room among the advertisers and they ask you questions if they care. And if they don't care that you sit there while they don't ask you questions at the time, they cared a little bit. So they asked me some questions. Also, again, my show was produced by Chris Rock, who was also there. So I think mostly just ask Chris Rock questions. Russell's panel was on right before my panel. And so backstage, we sort of came across each other. And again, we hadn't met before, but there was a lot of press around. Russell Brand, this famous British comedian, and W. Campbell, this black guy who Chris Rock is putting on television, which is basically what happened. And so backstage, I was sort of waiting to go on, and Russell comes offstage, and he walks right up to me, and he sort of stands inches from my face to look at me, clearly sizing me up. And I think literally sizing me up, because Russell Brand is over six feet tall, but then so am I. So I think there's a little bit like, oh, wait a minute. I can't size this guy up the way I normally size people up because he's the same height as I am.
10:53
Speaker 1
I remember he had no shoes on.
10:55
Speaker 2
He was very like Russell Brandy t-shirt, lots of beads and tight pants and no shoes. And at that moment, I felt like he's trying to either intimidate me or enthrall me. And I was like too nervous to either have time for either. I was like, I got to go out there and sell this thing. And also just not interested in being intimidated or enthralled. But that's my memory of Russell Brand is like he really was trying to like in some way dominate me by stepping right up to my face and look. I think he wanted to look down on me, but he's probably looking up because I think I might be taller than him. But anyway, I'm not shorter than him in sort of any grand way.
11:32
Speaker 1
And I always remember that story.
11:33
Speaker 2
So whenever Russell Brand comes up and you can see him in the news and the press, he's definitely trying to pull a whole like Svengali thing, like some sort of Rasputin thing where he finds himself very– he needs to dominate the scene. And so I had not heard that he was a rapist in any sort of way, the way that I certainly heard that Louis C.K. was masturbating in front of people at the time and just didn't know what to do with that information. But having been around him that one time and also having sort of connected that to how I see him acting in the world, none of this is that surprising to me. And I'm just glad for the survivors that they are finding some measure of justice and hope that the other ones who come forward also find their measure of justice. But it's also good to see We really, the criminal justice system, and this is true in the UK too, does not do a good job of bringing men to account for sexual assault and rape. So when you see a white privileged man like Russell Brand being brought to account for that, it's just like a win for justice. Not that it takes away the harm that they did. But anyway, that's a lot. Midterms and Russell Brand. That's what this is going to be called. Anyway, today's episode is with Joshua Doss. Joshua Doss is a political strategist. He's an actual pollster. He's a person who actually does the polls. He works for Hit Strategies. He's based out of Chicago. We talk about he didn't know where I was from, so I didn't tell my story, which you may have heard before, but he's based out of Chicago, born and raised. I know him as somebody that comes across your algorithm either explaining a complicated situation, because we talk about his big brain, I thought he had a master's, but he doesn't have a master's. But he explains complicated situations. He's a black man. He's got great race politics and great just American politics and really knows how to break situations down. So I started following him on Instagram doing that. And then he sort of bubbled up enough that he was like on the panels on CNN, like, you know, sitting in those CNN hot seats where you're next to a Republican or a fascist or a Republican fascist. And you have to sort of go toe to toe. And he does very well going toe to toe. And he shows up where he's invited. Like, he's been on Chris Cuomo's podcast. He's been on Stephen A. Smith's podcast. So he doesn't mind holding people's feet to the fire. He has a great– he did a great job on Chris Cuomo's podcast holding Cuomo's feet to the fire in a way that Cuomo had to be like, maybe. So, yeah, he's just great. Joshua Dawson. As my hair gets grayer, I'm really seeing this next generation come up, and I'm like, man. They're doing it better than I could. I didn't know what I was doing at that point. I was just trying to be a comedian, but they are really coming through. I mean, also, don't be a comedian, I guess, is the other information there. Yeah, so Joshua Dosh. We talk about the midterms. We also just talk about America in general. We get into a lot of different subjects. He's a great conversationalist. Please follow him on his platform. We also might know him as Doss Discourse. You can follow him on Instagram. Yeah, so great conversation coming up. Please enjoy it. Thank you. Hey, thanks for watching an episode of Who's With Me. If you're on YouTube, please like and subscribe, share, hit that hype button. I hear it makes all the difference. Please like, subscribe, share, hit the hype button. Thank you.
14:54
Speaker 1
Welcome, Joshua Doss.
14:55
Speaker 2
How you doing?
14:55
Speaker 1
Is it Joshua or Josh? Which way do I go?
14:57
Speaker 3
Either one's fine. I think My friends actually call me Doss.
15:02
Speaker 2
Oh, there we go.
15:03
Speaker 3
But, you know, either one's fine.
15:05
Speaker 2
Well, by the end, you let me know if I can call you Doss, but I'll call you Joshua for now.
15:10
Speaker 1
Sounds good.
15:11
Speaker 2
Yeah, but let me know. I'm going to check in, and it's fine if you... I know you don't mind reading people and telling them the truth, so you'll let me know.
15:18
Speaker 3
Okay. I'm curious as to why you said that, but I'll let you know. No, no, no, no.
15:23
Speaker 2
This is... Be clear. This is not a setup. This is not a... I've got a dossier. I have... So I started a podcast by giving people their flowers. So let's segue into that much quicker than I was going to. I only have people on my podcast who I have the utmost respect for or have personal connections to. So this is the first time I think we've ever talked in real, you know, in real life other than maybe comments online. Yes. Yeah, so let me start by saying I have the utmost respect for you and what you're doing. You came across my feed on social media, obviously on Instagram, with those videos where it looked like there were.
15:57
Speaker 1
Stairs behind you. Is that what was behind you?
15:59
Speaker 3
Yeah, my old apartment. Rest in peace.
16:00
Speaker 1
Rest in peace.
16:01
Speaker 3
I got kicked out of there.
16:02
Speaker 1
Oh, wow. For your opinions or for something else?
16:07
Speaker 2
Oh, okay.
16:07
Speaker 3
That's my theory because there was no other reason. But, you know, that's why that ends well.
16:12
Speaker 1
Well, that's good.
16:12
Speaker 2
Well, so anyway, it was a compelling shot and it's sort of like DIY-ness. I always think it's cool when you can find a shot that's like, ooh, that looks interesting, even though it's probably just the stairs back there. So first of all, flowers for composing social media content well. But also just for your very clear-headed, clear-minded, but also the hardest part to be there is entertaining and you don't seem to have a problem doing that. And I just very quickly, after watching probably two or three videos after they entered my algorithm, I was like, oh, okay, I got to follow this person now. New person to follow. So thank you for the work you are putting out in the world.
16:47
Speaker 3
I appreciate that, man. Yeah, I am a very big fan of yours and all the work that you've put out as well. So excited to have the conversation with you.
16:54
Speaker 2
Yeah, thank you. I appreciate that too. So yeah, just to double back, this was not like, and now here's the other part. This is not the compliment sandwich of like another shitty thing. No, it's going to be all compliment sandwiches. The other thing you do that I really steer clear of, even though people think I'm sort of anxious to get into confrontations is, you know, you show up places with people who disagree with you, which maybe you thought we were going to do today, but we're not going to do.
17:18
Speaker 1
And you don't mind mixing it up.
17:21
Speaker 2
And, you know, and even, even with the most mixing it up, mixing it up person out there, Stephen A. Smith. Yeah.
17:28
Speaker 3
You know, I've said this a couple of times, like Stephen A. kind of reminds me of a number of my uncles for real. You know, I think like, I think a lot of non-Black people maybe hear him and they hear something different than what I hear, which is somebody who I think, who I do think that Stephen A has a number of good intentions. And I think I deeply respect who he has been to the sports culture. And I think he's wrong about a lot of things. And so are all my, so are my uncles, you know what I mean? And so I always, I wanted to have that conversation with respect and just kind of give him my perspective and push back where I felt, you know, should be, you know, the place to push back.
18:12
Speaker 2
So. I guess the question is, do you think you, and you don't, it's no judgment either way. Do you think you got him to think about things in any, in any different way?
18:20
Speaker 3
I don't know. I don't know.
18:24
Speaker 2
You're not the first person to try to, to sort of, hold him's feet to the fire, but I just wonder what the results are.
18:29
Speaker 3
He, I mean, he said on the show, he said three times, I counted all three. He said, I never thought about that that way, which made me feel good. I'm like, okay, good. And you know, I do think that it speaks to like how you talk to someone. I think in political discourse, we're just ready for someone to come after our character and our values. And I think he could feel that He's somebody I respect, you know, like I'm not really trying to make you look bad, but, you know, I have done some research and I want to share that with you. And, you know, to your question, I don't know if I got him to change his mind on anything, mainly because afterwards he went back to some of the same activities. But, you know, maybe it's a seed. Maybe somebody will come and water the seed and then maybe down the line we'll see the plant grow.
19:18
Speaker 2
Yeah, I mean, I think that certainly, even having somebody go, because I've certainly had that happen with people that I talk to on camera.
19:25
Speaker 3
Oh, that's a good point.
19:26
Speaker 1
I never thought about that.
19:27
Speaker 2
And I think I always know in that moment, you may not change your mind, but maybe somebody who's watching this who's not as invested in their ego as you are, they may change their mind.
19:38
Speaker 3
You know, I have enormous respect for Stephen A. I have respect for Chris Cuomo. Other people have gone on their platforms and disagreed. But I will say what you just said there is is the real reason why I want to go on those platforms. Like, you know, Stephen A has an outstanding, like he's created this massive audience of people who really trust him. And so maybe I can't get Stephen A with this piece of logic or that historical situation, but maybe someone who listens to him will hear me and be like, I actually think that Joshua made some sense there. And that's the reason why I do it, you know?
20:11
Speaker 1
Yeah, I used to hear that on my CNN show.
20:12
Speaker 2
I used to get emails from people like, I'm a 70-year-old conservative Republican, but you make some good points.
20:18
Speaker 1
You know what I mean? Like, and you go, all right, that's a start, you know?
20:22
Speaker 3
Yeah, I mean, the way that you blend comedy with, you know, your overall perspective of the world is really disarming. And so I absolutely could see you breaking through some walls that folks, because comedy does that, right? It just gets people real relaxed and then you can kind of have those authentic conversations. So yeah, I'm sure you get that.
20:43
Speaker 2
Yeah, it can get people real relaxed or real riled up depending upon which way you're aiming as we see in the culture. I guess, not to make this the Stephen A commentary show, to me, the thing with Stephen A is that this happens to people of all, when they achieve a certain level of privilege, it's just a thing. I think, I don't know if it's an American thing, but like if you're good in one thing and get well paid for it, suddenly people around you tell you you could do everything.
21:06
Speaker 3
Yeah.
21:06
Speaker 2
And it seems to me that Stephen A, because I don't know if you remember, there's a point in which Stephen A, when he got big at ESPN, suddenly his goal was to be a late night talk show host. He actually guest hosted a couple of versions of the Jimmy, like he guest hosts for Jimmy Fallon at least once. And at the time I was like, dude, I don't think you're a talk show host. Like, no offense, but I don't think you're a talk show host. And now I look back and go, man, we should have just gave him a talk show.
21:29
Speaker 3
You know who I was thinking about when you said that? I was thinking about Kanye. like someone who is is truly brilliant when it comes to music and then he's like i could do all these other things and it's like you can't do some of these other things like you but you're really good at.
21:44
Speaker 4
This you're a genius at this just be a genius at this there's no need to be like you know paul mccartney's not walking around being like you know also it's like i'm a beetle i think that's generally that seems to be enough.
21:56
Speaker 3
Uh There's something to be said there, though, about I think black men who from a really young age get told that they won't be good at much of anything.
22:03
Speaker 2
Yeah.
22:04
Speaker 3
And so then you have a Stephen A. Smith or Kanye West who maybe their original dream is to be an artist or a sports commentary person. And then people tell them that they can't do that. And so then they do that and they've gotten really desensitized to hearing that they're not good at something.
22:20
Speaker 4
Right.
22:21
Speaker 3
To get where they got, they had to ignore people.
22:23
Speaker 2
Yep.
22:24
Speaker 3
And so then Kanye takes that into fashion and then he tries to take it into politics. And at some point we're like, all right, it's done.
22:32
Speaker 2
Then politics and fashion collide with a Confederate flag shirt.
22:35
Speaker 1
And you're like, okay, man, this is, you've gone, yeah.
22:38
Speaker 2
Yes, yes. The other thing I appreciate about you is you have a big, well-researched, well-studied brain.
22:43
Speaker 1
You have a master's in economics, right?
22:46
Speaker 3
You know, in fact, I actually didn't finish my master's. I was like, oh, OK. Thanks a lot, producers. But yeah, I was like one class away.
22:55
Speaker 2
I dropped out of college. I didn't even get to drop out of master's or stop doing a master's. So I understand. But college aside, you have a big brain, a lot of wrinkles in that brain, which I appreciate.
23:06
Speaker 1
So it means that you can have lots of conversations.
23:08
Speaker 2
And so I feel like I can have conversations with you that I feel like it's helpful for me.
23:12
Speaker 1
I learn a lot from you.
23:14
Speaker 2
And I think about American capitalism as being the ultimate enemy of everything.
23:18
Speaker 1
You know, like that. And racism is just, is one of its tools, one of its main tools.
23:22
Speaker 2
And it happens to everybody where they feel like, man, I'm the highest paid person in my profession. I must have to have ambition to do something else. I can't just be this.
23:32
Speaker 3
Yeah.
23:33
Speaker 2
Like for some reason you can't, I mean, back in the day, I think you'd be like, man, I'm the highest paid person in my profession.
23:38
Speaker 3
I won.
23:40
Speaker 2
Yeah.
23:40
Speaker 1
You know, or I have a good job. I won.
23:43
Speaker 2
But we, that something about American capitalism says, then what else do you want to win?
23:48
Speaker 3
There is no, there's no like final door to greed. Like, you know, and capitalism breeds a greed mentality. Like you almost have to be greedy with your ambition to do really well. There's, there's, there are exceptions of course, but you know, enough, enough is never enough for he whom enough is too little, you know?
24:08
Speaker 1
Yeah.
24:09
Speaker 3
So it's like, the system tells you that you need more and more and more. And then, you know, people go and they change their living conditions. Like one of the reasons why Stephen A told me that he doesn't want to run for president is because he's like, well, I wouldn't make as much money. And I'm like, Trump made $ 4 billion in the white house. So maybe that's not even true, but that's interesting to me how you're like, your ambition is even having friction with your greed in that regard.
24:35
Speaker 2
Yeah. Which is funny. It's like the fact that you, that you're upset you can't make as much money as you want to make when you're the president is actually the proof you should absolutely not run for president.
24:46
Speaker 3
Honestly, that's a really good point.
24:49
Speaker 2
That's actually 100% the reason you shouldn't run for president. It has nothing to do with you wanting to make more money. It's the fact that you want to make more money. That is the thing, that you should not be in that office, which is what we're finding out now, that when that office is filled with someone who just cares about their own greed, it is bad for the world.
25:03
Speaker 3
Yeah. So in a way, he did like a self.
25:07
Speaker 3
Like a self-selecting exercise and pushed himself out, probably for good reason, right?
25:15
Speaker 2
I mean, I also think that somewhere behind the scenes, because I think it's also like we talked about Kanye. At some point, it seems like people don't have anybody around them who can tell them no or who tells them no that they trust. Yeah. Which I feel like I'm always proud of the fact that I have any number of friends who can be like, nuh-uh, nope, not that.
25:31
Speaker 1
Yeah. And I'd be like, really? But I thought, nope, Kamau, that ain't it.
25:35
Speaker 2
And I think living in Oakland helps me because I'm not in show business, in the center of show business. And so I think that there's a thing that you can tell when I see people make these decisions. Like for me, if I went to my family and said, I mean, things like this have happened on different levels. But if I went to my wife and said, hey, I got invited to go eat dinner at the White House with Trump, Kid Rock, and Bill Maher. I wouldn't be allowed to leave the house.
26:02
Speaker 1
Right. Like, no, no, no.
26:04
Speaker 2
Or if I left, she'd be like, take these divorce papers with you.
26:09
Speaker 3
You know, you're touching on something that is really interesting, though, because I think I've noticed this happen with stand-up comedians and other folks in comedy is when they get outside of what the situations and the environment that made their, like, observations unique, they become worse comedians.
26:27
Speaker 2
Oh, yeah.
26:27
Speaker 3
Oh, yeah.
26:28
Speaker 1
Money does not help. Does that help you be funnier? Lots of money.
26:32
Speaker 3
They become like less, significantly less funny.
26:34
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think the thing about George Carlin that kept him sort of so hungry all the years is a drug problem that was recurrent throughout his life. And Kelly Carlin, I love George Carlin's daughter. I think she would, that he was always in the middle of some shit. Yeah. You know, that he was, even if he had money, he was always in the middle of some shit. You know, the phrase billionaire comedian, those are, it's like jumbo shrimp.
26:58
Speaker 3
No, no. Honestly, like when you're talking about George Carlin, like I was thinking about how Chappelle lives in like.
27:04
Speaker 2
Ohio, right?
27:05
Speaker 3
Like rural Ohio. He's from like Baltimore. But there's a part of one of his specials I can't remember where he's talking about the opioid epidemic and how. how it is hitting young white kids in a way that is worth remark. And the way he was talking about it, I'm like, oh, you've been around some of these people. You didn't just read about this. You're seeing this in Ohio.
27:33
Speaker 2
You've driven past them, past the many buildings you own in your town.
27:37
Speaker 3
Yes, this commentary came from an experience. You can feel it. So that's interesting that you say that and Yeah, I'm sure that you being in Oakland, probably. Are you originally from Oakland?
27:48
Speaker 2
I'm not originally from Oakland, but I moved here in 97. It's funny. I moved to the Bay Area in 97 to do stand-up comedy and found a place in Oakland. I was going to live in San Francisco, find a place in Oakland. And really just over the course of years, even though I lived in San Francisco, always felt connected to Oakland and always hung out in Oakland. Me and my wife went to New York a couple years, moved back from New York, got a different job when that job ended, when it got canceled. And then we were like, we have to settle in Oakland because that's where all our friends were. And also we have mixed race kids and Oakland, California is one of the mixed race kids capital of the world.
28:20
Speaker 3
Is it actually or is that like a colloquial joke?
28:23
Speaker 1
I mean, I don't know if it's been measured, but it ain't.
28:25
Speaker 2
I don't think anybody hearing this in Oakland is going to think I'm saying something. untoward even if they don't like the fact that it is that like it is very much like because the Bay Area even though it's not as diverse as it used to be we mix races here that other people can't dream of is all I'm saying you know like there's just lots of people coming across each other and being like I did a movie called a thousand percent me growing up mixed and you know it's like black and Filipino because you know and before I moved to the Bay Area I didn't even think I met a Filipino but like there you know there's a lot of black and Filipino people out here I.
28:55
Speaker 3
Haven't spent that much time in Oakland or in California in general but that is the one thing that I Like I have noticed that as well. I'm like, wow, there's a lot of mixed race couples, like interracial couples here. Whereas like in New York, I feel like I see a lot of interracial friend groups, but not as many couples. But like you'll see a friend group that'll have like an Asian person, a Jamaican person. So yeah, it's interesting. Chicago's not like that.
29:17
Speaker 1
I'll tell you that much.
29:18
Speaker 3
Very segregated.
29:19
Speaker 1
I went to high school in Chicago, so I know.
29:21
Speaker 3
Oh, okay.
29:21
Speaker 1
Yeah, I went to, I went to, I would, have you, did you grow up there all your life?
29:25
Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah, I grew up in Chicago.
29:26
Speaker 2
So then I have to ask you the thing, I ask people when they know Chicago. So I went to high school in Chicago. Where do you think a dude like me went to high school? If you know your Chicago high schools.
29:36
Speaker 3
I feel like you maybe went to like a, like a witch Young.
29:40
Speaker 1
Not Whitney Young.
29:42
Speaker 3
Okay, Jones?
29:43
Speaker 2
No, I think Private.
29:45
Speaker 3
Oh, Private.
29:47
Speaker 2
My Netflix special is called Private School Negro.
29:51
Speaker 3
Northside College Prep?
29:53
Speaker 4
Lab.
29:53
Speaker 2
Lab?
29:58
Speaker 3
Wait, I thought Lab was like a new high school.
30:01
Speaker 1
How long has that been?
30:01
Speaker 2
No, no, Lab's been there for, Lab, there's a Supreme Court justice who graduated from Lab. No, Lab, it's on the University of Chicago campus. It's been there, it started out as a laboratory for schools, which is why it's called Lab Schools, but yeah.
30:12
Speaker 3
Lab did not get on my radar until the Obamas kids.
30:15
Speaker 2
Well, that's, yeah, but they had been there, yeah, it's been there for, I don't know, I would say hundreds of years, but over, it's been there for, it's been there for, it's been there for a long, long time.
30:25
Speaker 1
Wow.
30:25
Speaker 3
Okay.
30:26
Speaker 2
Lab.
30:26
Speaker 3
Yeah.
30:26
Speaker 2
Yeah.
30:27
Speaker 3
I was off.
30:27
Speaker 2
No, I think that's when the Obama girls made it famous and they didn't even, they just were there for a couple of years, but I was there. I graduated from him in 1990 and it, it was already like, it was like, it was labbing. It had been labbing for a long time.
30:37
Speaker 3
Oh, well we played lab. I think we played them.
30:41
Speaker 2
Yeah.
30:41
Speaker 3
I'm pretty sure we played lab one time and I was like, these kids are smart.
30:45
Speaker 1
Yeah. That means you, that means you, they lost, they lost.
30:49
Speaker 3
Yeah, no, no, no, for sure.
30:51
Speaker 2
My favorite lab memory is we had a, uh, uh, Just to tell you about our athletics, this is a high school in Chicago, and they had a slam dunk competition during a basketball game one time of the students, and they had to use a mini trampoline.
31:06
Speaker 1
People did.
31:09
Speaker 2
I'm not saying I would have done better, but I'm just saying it's Chicago.
31:13
Speaker 3
Kevin Garnett went to high school in Chicago. I've got to find that clip. I want to see if there's videos of that. I doubt there's videos. I graduated in 90, man. There might be a Polaroid.
31:29
Speaker 2
Anyway, I know that Chicago, when I moved from Chicago to Oakland, the segregation was clear. It was very different to come here. It's smaller, it's less populated here, but way more people stumbling across each other. And also because what New York calls boroughs, we call cities. You got Berkeley, which has its own character. Oakland has its own character. San Francisco and then surrounding cities. So there's lots of different pockets of everybody everywhere that you can sort of stumble across.
31:54
Speaker 3
I got to spend more time out there. I haven't been out there much.
31:56
Speaker 2
Hey man, I tell this to everybody. You got, please come out here. And if you do let me know, cause I will make sure you get treated right. I know a lot of the people I'm friends with the mayor. So like we can, we can, we can make it happen.
32:06
Speaker 3
Yeah. Hell yeah. I'm with it. I'm with it. Yeah.
32:08
Speaker 1
Anyway, this is enough about you interviewing me. I appreciate that.
32:12
Speaker 2
Uh, no, I just think that just the idea that like, I think just, I want to wrap this one point up about Stephen A. Smith running for president. I think the other thing that I feel like happened behind scenes and happens to a lot of people like him, I think it happened to the rock having Stephen A. Smith.
32:25
Speaker 1
I think it's about to happen to Matthew McConaughey.
32:28
Speaker 2
You can't run for president of this country without declaring you're a Democrat or a Republican. And none of those dudes wants to really do that. You know?
32:39
Speaker 3
I didn't know that this was even on The Rock's radar.
32:42
Speaker 2
He sort of has played footsies with it. He's never gone as full as Stephen A. Smith, but I do think that somewhere, you know, The Rock is trying to do everything. Somewhere there's a dry race board that has, like, pluses or minuses of running for president. And, you know, Matthew McConaughey, I'm sure you saw that video he just put out about And people were like, what's he doing? And I'm like, I think he's trying to see, can I be an independent and run for president?
33:02
Speaker 3
He's been trying to position himself as this check on the establishment voices on both sides of the aisle for a long time. Honestly, the first time I realized he was trying to do this is when he was on Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man. former football player.
33:18
Speaker 2
That's the first Emmanuel Acho reference on this podcast.
33:21
Speaker 1
Yep.
33:22
Speaker 3
The Acho thing, which Van Lathan called Emmanuel Acho an emotional butler for white people, which might be one of the funniest things ever. This is just a reminder.
33:35
Speaker 1
Stay on Van Lathan's good side. That's what that was for me. Honestly, honestly, yeah.
33:40
Speaker 3
But that's when I was like, oh, Matthew McConaughey thinks that he is what the country needs. And you know, listen, we're coming off of the celebrity apprentice guy doing it. So I guess I can't sit here and act.
33:50
Speaker 1
Like it's impossible.
33:50
Speaker 2
I mean, he's not a bad candidate, but I think even Trump for a long time, Trump was a registered Democrat for many years, but then he had to fully commit to Republican because there was no lane in the Democratic Party. And I think that a lot of these, especially these people come out of straight up entertainment, like Trump was sort of found his way into entertainment.
34:05
Speaker 1
You're sort of used to trying not to alienate.
34:07
Speaker 2
A fan, but especially of like The Rock, these people were trying to be billionaires.
34:10
Speaker 1
So how do you say I'm running for president?
34:12
Speaker 2
So I think Matthew McConaughey, is trying to figure out if he says independent enough times, it'll just suddenly be a legitimate thing he can do and run for president as an independent, which we know the levers of political, and we're about to talk about the midterms, the levels of political machinery in this country do not have room for that. I wish they did have room for all these different parties, but they don't currently have room for that.
34:32
Speaker 3
Look, the more prominent people seek that out, the more some of that infrastructure might get created, right?
34:38
Speaker 2
Yeah.
34:39
Speaker 3
Um, but like, yeah, it's going to take a couple of sacrifice official lambs. I mean, there's just no, yeah, there is just no political infrastructure for that at the moment, but it's possible.
34:49
Speaker 2
Yeah. I mean, but also it's like, I don't know if I want to be possible for my, for Matthew McConaughey. I think I'd rather aim a little bit. Uh, no, no, no shade. Matthew kind of a little shade. I hired the Matthew McConaughey for being the first nonpartisan, non-Republican, non-Democrat who runs, who wins the presidency.
35:04
Speaker 3
I think I'm just over, I think we're, we can all just be over celebrities in general.
35:08
Speaker 2
I think we did it. I think we, yeah, we did it.
35:10
Speaker 1
You know what I mean?
35:12
Speaker 3
It feels like we did it and we figured out not, not that smart, you know, Reagan, Trump. Yeah.
35:18
Speaker 2
Yeah.
35:18
Speaker 1
I mean, Obama was a celebrity.
35:20
Speaker 2
I'm not saying he's the same as Reagan and Trump clearly, but I think that the idea of like, I guess this is, I don't know if we can get us a president who doesn't, easily engage with celebrity culture because of the fact that so much of it now requires you to make videos and and and you know like mom donnie is good at it yeah you have to be able to be good at like sort of like popping up on tiktok in a way that feels organic and doesn't feel like i don't i remember seeing ken martin who i don't know if he's still the head of the dcc he had a video like when he was introducing himself as the new head of the dnc and it was just clear there's an intern like natural. And it was like, oh, you're not going to be able to leave this party because you got to be good on TikTok, sir.
36:01
Speaker 3
Yeah, I wonder how long this will last. I think that there is going to be a little bit of a backlash at some point. And I can see, especially as my generation, the millennials. Are you a millennial?
36:16
Speaker 2
No, no, no. I'm a member of the greatest generation, Generation X.
36:21
Speaker 3
People don't talk about y'all ever.
36:24
Speaker 2
We're fine with that. We're fine with that, but then don't disrespect us. When we get, like, suddenly people are like, what is Gen X? Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey.
36:31
Speaker 3
Y'all just found a way to stay out of all the controversy. It's suspicious over there.
36:36
Speaker 2
That's because we were latchkey kids who were unparented because our parents had to work full-time jobs and couldn't afford childcare. I mean, my mom parented me, but I had a lot.
36:47
Speaker 1
Of time on my own to figure it out.
36:49
Speaker 3
Yeah, I be thinking about that. I'm like, what is Gen X got cooking up over there?
36:54
Speaker 1
Real, real quiet.
37:15
Speaker 3
But no, yeah, I think as our generation is developing, I would a relationship with social media where, you know, it's obviously clearly we're like addicted clearly, but we're moving into this new like era that I call like a conscious addiction.
37:31
Speaker 4
Right.
37:31
Speaker 3
Like it's in, and now people are making like active steps. Like there's a, there's a, a little thing you can buy now where it only has your, it connects to your phone, but it only has like, your photos app, and your iMessage.
37:50
Speaker 2
And then people are.
37:50
Speaker 3
Leaving the house with that, so they can call, they can text, they can take photos. And I think as we're becoming aware of how addicted we are, our relationship with social media might change, and where social media plays a part in politics might change. It's possible.
38:03
Speaker 1
I would hope so, or at least hope.
38:06
Speaker 2
I hope that, for example, that the failure of the social reckoning movie the sequel to the social network also portends the failure of social media sort of predicts because like i just think that we're sort of like not caught up in the cult of celebrity around mark zuckerberg anymore and realize no he's an arch villain and as much as i like movies about arch villains i don't want to watch that arch villain you know yeah and so i think and i know that there are young people who are like actively spending less and less time.
38:34
Speaker 1
On their phones and aware of it.
38:36
Speaker 2
And I think I would also need a GPS app if I'm, if I'm taking everything on my phone and yeah, we're all aware, we're sort of in our addiction, aware of the addiction as we're in the addiction, but also just sort of keeping the addiction going. And I think that as we learn, then you're being piloted by the AI algorithm that just wants your attention and not your respect or your, or your love, you know?
38:55
Speaker 3
Yeah, no, I like, I work in public opinion research, so I'm always dealing with data. And one of the, um, that's that just blows people away every time I say it is young men under the age of 18, spend more time indoors than people who are incarcerated in America, literally like, and it's not even quote, like it's.
39:16
Speaker 2
It's not, it's not, it's not like bias. It's not in the market.
39:19
Speaker 3
It's not like by like 10 minutes. And, you know, obviously they're on their phones, they're on their iPads, they're on their playing their video games. And as this group are becoming parents, they know they're addicted. They are kind of overcorrecting for their kids.
39:36
Speaker 2
Right.
39:36
Speaker 3
So you're seeing more like Gen Z parents, which is crazy to think that Gen.
39:40
Speaker 2
Z is having kids. Yep. Yep.
39:42
Speaker 3
But you're seeing them have rules like they don't have TVs in the house. And there's like, you know, rooms where like, this is the room where you can use your phone and you can't use it outside of this room. So, you know, when their kids are in that room, they're on the phone, get out of the room, you know, things like that. So it'll be interesting to see how it changes. My youngest, who's eight, has a phone called the 10 can. Have you heard of these?
40:06
Speaker 2
Yeah. So it's basically like a phone. It looks like a traditional landline, but it's hooked up to Wi-Fi.
40:15
Speaker 1
But she's eight.
40:15
Speaker 2
And so what it is is that a small handful of her friends also have tin cans. And they have numbers that they call, like our old school landline, but they just can call each other. It's like a closed network. But it's funny to see your eight-year-old. you hear her phone ring, ring, ring, and she runs out of her room and is suddenly on the phone with a cord, because it has a cord.
40:33
Speaker 3
It doesn't need a cord.
40:34
Speaker 2
It has a cord.
40:35
Speaker 1
And she's suddenly on the phone like, hi. And he's like, look at that. Look at that.
40:39
Speaker 3
Even that would have been, look, from my generation, we had one phone.
40:43
Speaker 2
Yeah.
40:43
Speaker 3
Like I wouldn't have a, I didn't have a phone in my room.
40:46
Speaker 2
No, no, no.
40:46
Speaker 1
This phone is in the living room.
40:48
Speaker 3
Oh, okay.
40:49
Speaker 2
But the idea that it is her phone. Like I can't, I can't use that phone to call anybody. It's just a dedicated land. It's a, it's not a landline, but it's a dedicated line for her and her friends that if it rings, you know, it's for her.
40:59
Speaker 1
It's called a tin can.
41:00
Speaker 2
I'm, you know, so. It's the new device so that they can connect because you want your kids to connect with people. Right. But you'd rather them not do it through a device that has also got like Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk at the end of it.
41:13
Speaker 3
Throwing them the most addictive. They put more money into making those algorithms addictive than casinos put into making gambling. Like truly. Wow. The science behind it is crazy. insane the colors the things that they pressure test to figure to get you like it's it's truly it's disgusting it's disgusting i think this is like literally one of the one of the things that is making life in america so bad is that some of the smartest people truly the smartest people in the country are only focused on how to make focusing on how to make social media as addictive as possible yeah our best brains are just doing that now they're focused on that Not medicine.
41:57
Speaker 2
Not cancer research.
41:59
Speaker 4
No.
42:00
Speaker 2
Not how to combat climate change.
42:03
Speaker 1
Yeah.
42:04
Speaker 3
Yeah.
42:05
Speaker 1
Yeah.
42:05
Speaker 2
Not how to make crickets taste better because we're going to have to eat them because we're going to run out of cows because the land will not be able to feed cows, you know, whatever. The guy who runs Instagram, Adam Mosseri, he wrote the Instagram in Threads. he pops up every now and again, and there's something about him that I feel like they actively pick the guy who sort of feels like a little bit like, I don't know, guys, so you can't get too.
42:29
Speaker 1
Mad at him.
42:30
Speaker 2
For sure.
42:30
Speaker 1
Like, it's like.
42:32
Speaker 2
He doesn't feel like he's in charge of anything, so that when he speaks, like, recently there's been a bunch of comedians who've had their bits stolen by, like, sexy AI bots.
42:40
Speaker 1
Have you seen this?
42:42
Speaker 3
I've seen some of it, yeah.
42:43
Speaker 2
So it's kind of a quiet thing with comedians, where it's like, a comedian, because it used to be that AI was just doing bad stand-up comedy, but now it's literally, like, A comedian will put a bit on Instagram.
42:52
Speaker 1
The AI will steal it.
42:53
Speaker 2
And now instead of a real comedian doing it, it's like a woman who has impossibly large hips and breasts doing the same bit but very poorly with AI laughter. So none of it is real. But that thing, because it is attuned to the algorithm– will get millions of views, whereas the original Comedians gets 100,000 views, and now people are thinking he stole it from this AI.
43:15
Speaker 1
You know what I mean?
43:15
Speaker 2
It's just a he or she. It's happened to a lot of women, too. And they sort of asked him about it. He's like, we got to figure it out. I don't know, guys. Or you could just stop letting AI do that.
43:25
Speaker 3
Yeah, this is the bit that they keep trying to run with him. I saw that they just released that they're going to do all this long form. Yeah, yeah. And in that video, it was him and a woman, and they spend the first two minutes talking doing exactly what you're talking about he's like i didn't really want to but then you convinced me then i was like you know that is a good and i was like get to the point yeah but i do think they're doing something psychological which is they're kind of reshuffling culpability right like it's like uh well our team here we think of ideas we try stuff basically like don't hold my feet to the fire the way y'all did Dorsey or Zuckerberg or, you know, and whether it will work or not.
44:05
Speaker 2
I remember the woman who was quote unquote in charge of X when Elon took over, Linda Yaccarino, I think her name was.
44:09
Speaker 3
Oh, I don't remember this.
44:10
Speaker 2
She was just, she was like, when Elon bought it, she was in charge of it and she was sort of like, got held to the fire every, every, everywhere she went trying to justify Elon's nonsense. But Adam sort of does it like, as if he's like an intern who was in charge with like being in charge for the day or if he's like a temp, like he doesn't do it. And the way he talked about the AI state of comedy thing was as if Well, on the one side, we have real people doing their stand-up comedy. On the other side, we have AI comedians, and we just got to figure out how to make this all work.
44:36
Speaker 1
As if these are two equal sides.
44:37
Speaker 3
How are you all lives mattering an AI stand-up comedian? What are you talking about? He's all lives mattering. That's particularly sinister because stand-up is one of the, yes, do we put the clips online and people enjoy it that way, but it is one of the like, I think like final art forms that is so personable.
45:00
Speaker 2
It's supposed to be live. You're supposed to be in the room with the person. Yes.
45:03
Speaker 1
There's standup comedy specials. That can be great.
45:05
Speaker 2
Yes. You can listen to albums, but at its best, every standup will tell you you're supposed to be in the room with me, with a human who you can see and breathe the same air.
45:14
Speaker 3
We did some research. I had a, like a sit down conversation with Stephen A or Stephen A with Cedric the Entertainer.
45:20
Speaker 2
Oh yeah.
45:21
Speaker 3
And we conducted a study before and, We found, and this is not going to surprise you, the dominant way that somebody consumes their stand-up, right? So you have either vertical, short, and then you have television. So they watch most of it on Netflix specials and then people who go in person. Every inch bigger those screens get to the real-life person, the more charitable somebody is when they hear a joke that they don't like. So short form, they're quick to be like, cancel this guy. And then in Netflix, they might be like, you know, I didn't like that joke. But I heard the rest of it. And it was like, and then in person. You just roll with it. And fun fact, Black people are two times more likely to go see stand-up in person than white people are. There are more white people in America, right? But that was also fascinating to us as well.
46:11
Speaker 2
Well, I mean, it makes sense because, you know, Stan Connolly was invented in this country, but black people very early on invented the Chitlin Circuit as a way to have their own rooms where we could talk to each other. And that meant that black people felt more, like, catered to than a white person going to see Bob Hope.
46:27
Speaker 3
Hmm.
46:28
Speaker 2
Like it was like they're like, I get to go see Red Fox and Red Fox is talking to me. Whereas the white person is like, maybe I'll see Bob Hope. Maybe I'll see Alan King or whatever. It's like it's not the same level of like that's my guy.
46:40
Speaker 3
You know what I mean?
46:40
Speaker 2
So it's like it's more like a punk band. It's like just so it makes sense to me that black people, especially you see the rise of like black comedians online, like Mojo Brooks. There's like a thing where it's like people have are invested in that person's success more. So then you want to go see your friend on stage at Madison Square Garden.
46:59
Speaker 3
That makes sense. Especially, as we know, Black people have like that interconnectedness where like you see another black person, like the Easter line, right? Everybody black. But then also it makes sense from another standpoint too. Like when you think about how black people consume comedy, like we're quite physical with how we laugh, how we emote. Like if you go to like a white standup show, like the white people are.
47:20
Speaker 2
Like, ha ha ha ha.
47:21
Speaker 3
Black people slamming shit, running around, like jumping. And so it would make sense that we would enjoy a medium that's like really in person a little bit more. You know, I remember though, like the first time I had a friend growing up, a white boy who's from the north side of Chicago. And there was a scary movie that came out. And we went to go see it in the theater by my house on the west side of Chicago.
47:44
Speaker 2
And.
47:45
Speaker 3
You know, the people, the black folks in the crowd, don't go in there. Oh, what you doing? And he's like, they're talking during the movie. I'm like, yeah, you ain't never been to a black movie, dude. So, you know, it's interesting.
47:56
Speaker 4
Yeah.
47:57
Speaker 2
It's funny because I, this is, so the new Spider-Man movie for some reason was the first time my three daughters were interested in the Spider-Man movie at the same time. It's really Zendaya who did it. Like they grew up with Zendaya as a Disney star. Zendaya also lived in, grew up in Oakland. So there's an Oakland connection. And then my oldest daughter, who's 15 now, Started wanting to see more Zendaya stuff. Oh, she's in Spider-Man. I'll watch that. And then sort of fell in. And then my middle kid fell in. And then my youngest kid fell in because it was superheroes. And we went to see the new Spider-Man movie. And she, because she's eight and also hasn't spent a lot of time going to movies. just really was like talking throughout the whole thing. And I really was like, sort of like not wanting people to be annoyed, but also like, yeah, that's what we do.
48:36
Speaker 1
And we were.
48:38
Speaker 3
Just like a regular theater in Alabama.
48:40
Speaker 2
Luckily it wasn't full. So it was no big deal, but she was just really engaged. Like, yeah, like it's an eight. I thought, I felt like it was one of the blackest moments. And she didn't know that's what we do, but I'm like, this is what we do.
48:52
Speaker 3
Yeah, that shows that it's really in there.
48:54
Speaker 1
It's in there. It's just part of the DNA.
48:56
Speaker 2
I didn't go, so when you go to a movie, if you're excited, you have to let the screen know. Also related to that, Ryan Coogler lives here. I don't know if you know he lives in Oakland.
49:05
Speaker 3
Oh, yeah, okay.
49:06
Speaker 1
And so I got to go to the premiere of Sinners.
49:08
Speaker 2
And at the premiere of Sinners, Ryan told the audience at this Grand Lake Theater, which is like the best theater in Oakland, one of the best theaters in the country, nobody has seen Sinners yet. like we just think it's a vampire movie and he's just like make noise eat popcorn throw it at the screen have a good time and he was basically saying that's what this movie is for and it was a great and then people were like got it and then they made noise they screamed and said don't go in there girl and he's dating you know and it was great especially in a movie like that it was a really great way to take that.
49:36
Speaker 3
Movie in Yeah. Wow. I didn't know he was from, I didn't know he still lived there, but that's, he's so, I'm such a big fan of Kubler. And that makes sense. His, his films do feel like they are being, they are to be consumed as your blackest self.
49:51
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, yes, yes.
49:52
Speaker 1
This is like.
49:53
Speaker 3
Come as you are.
49:54
Speaker 1
Yeah, come as you are. And there may be some.
49:56
Speaker 2
High-minded points in there because black people, we like to make high-minded points, but it's also for you to have a gut laugh and to yell at the screen and to scream at the scream and to tell that person, don't go in there, girl. Don't go in there. So as we record this, the midterms happened last night. People kept asking me, how do you feel? And I was like, I feel like I'm going to know in a few hours. I didn't have like a real like take on it. Like I didn't feel optimistic or anything. How did you feel going into it? And then talk us through the evenings.
50:24
Speaker 3
I think anybody who says that they knew that that particular outcome was going to happen is lying out of their ass. Um, I, you know, I'm a pollster. The majority of the work I do is predicting elections. I had the Democrats flipping four seats for Republican stronghold seats, taking back the Senate. I did. It was very clear that the Democrats were going to take back the house of representatives, you know, Every midterm election is a referendum on the sitting president, every single one.
50:54
Speaker 2
Right.
50:55
Speaker 3
So usually presidents lose by six to seven points. Trump was already like having a really bad year with the tariffs and the gas prices and the straightforward moves being shut down. So, yeah, I mean, I was like, oh, Democrats will probably take back the Senate and the House. Democrats won in Iowa. Democrats won in Kentucky. Democrats won in, or I'm sorry, in Kansas.
51:15
Speaker 1
Yeah, Kansas.
51:16
Speaker 3
In Texas.
51:18
Speaker 1
Texas is blue now.
51:20
Speaker 3
Ohio. I mean, I had no idea that that was going to happen.
51:24
Speaker 2
Yeah. There's so many headlines come out of that. And by the time that this comes out, they will have all been poured over. But for me, there was two things that really sort of struck with me. Texas going blue. I know Texas has enough voters to make it blue. I just know that Texas goes out of its way. Greg Abbott, up until last night, did a great job of suppressing the black and brown vote in Texas and the Democratic vote in Texas. Like that's a thing that they, you know, like by not putting enough polling places around and making it hard and also intimidating people, they did a great job of suppressing the vote. So I didn't know that Texas would go blue this, like I thought there'd have to be more work to be done. So shout out to all the organizers on the ground in Texas who did that because, you know, Texas is blue also.
52:07
Speaker 1
Rest in peace, Joe Rogan.
52:08
Speaker 2
All right.
52:10
Speaker 1
And then the other thing is comedian on comedian violence.
52:12
Speaker 2
That's okay. So I feel like Joe Rogan's outside presence in Texas made Texas voters will be like, I think we don't like this. Let's vote blue.
52:20
Speaker 3
Joe Rogan claims that he votes Democrat.
52:23
Speaker 2
But he also endorsed Trump the night before the election.
52:24
Speaker 3
He sure did.
52:25
Speaker 1
I don't want to tell you. There's evidence he endorsed Trump. I don't know that Rogan strikes this guy who probably doesn't vote that often.
52:33
Speaker 3
No, yeah, he seems like he doesn't vote at all.
52:36
Speaker 2
Like a guy who probably never votes in the midterms, you know what I mean? Like probably like a guy who votes, you know, but whatever. It's not, and again, it's also, I would say it's not about who you, if you vote Democrat, but you endorse Trump, I don't have any, like, I don't know what I care about.
52:47
Speaker 3
You probably canceled out your vote like 5,000 times over.
52:50
Speaker 1
Yeah, especially when you're that level of influential.
52:52
Speaker 2
Like you're telling people to vote for Trump and also everything he, and also the way his podcast is run. Like when you, when you consider Peter Thiel a friend, I don't care who you vote for in the voting booth.
53:03
Speaker 3
Yeah, he's done more damage than good on that regard. I have heard Rogan actually take very left-leaning stances on a number of issues. I've actually heard Stephen A do this too.
53:15
Speaker 2
For sure.
53:15
Speaker 3
And they both get upset that people don't talk about that. But... it's like you guys understand how social media works well enough to have grown this platform so you got to also know when you go say 10 pro you know left-leaning things and then one thing about trump you have to know that that's going to be the thing like yeah you're savvy enough to know that so i.
53:38
Speaker 2
Still don't blame to me it's about like it's not a consistent like ideology yeah so like for example Joe Rogan is a famous weed smoker.
53:47
Speaker 1
So he lived in California.
53:48
Speaker 2
You can be a famous weed smoker and smoke weed because it's legal here. But you moved to Texas and you're a famous weed smoker and you haven't done anything public to get Texas to legalize weed?
53:56
Speaker 1
Yeah.
53:57
Speaker 3
Yeah, that's a good point.
53:58
Speaker 2
But you have taken pictures with Governor Greg Abbott?
54:01
Speaker 1
Yeah.
54:02
Speaker 3
Yeah.
54:03
Speaker 2
And you own a comedy club where I'm sure Latinos work, and I'm sure there's probably some undocumented people there, and you haven't done anything, and you live in Texas, but you haven't done anything publicly. Every now and then he'll say, this Ice thing is out of control, but nothing that sort of really puts him on the line. So anyway. Yeah.
54:36
Speaker 1
Enough Rogan talk.
54:38
Speaker 2
I'm sorry. That's my fault. The other thing I think is painful last night is Angie Nixon losing in Florida. It's not that Florida was a blue state, so it's not like she lost the state. She almost won the state. And I just hope that we can think of this as like Angie Nixon has put Florida in play because she's definitely laid the groundwork for Florida to go blue.
55:00
Speaker 3
I think, I mean, you're absolutely right that not only was it not a blue state, it wasn't a purple state. Trump won Florida by 13 points, right? That was two years ago. Nixon lost it by two points and was outspent significantly, I think like seven to one. So we got to talk about two things here. One, the Democratic Party has given up on Florida in a lot of ways, right? Like they are not pouring into their campaign. The second thing is like, Now, I've talked about this a little bit last night. I was on live with the Breakfast Club team and Angela Rye and such. And, you know, Black women are of the most reliable Democratic voters all across the country. Black women show up, they turn out at a higher rate than white women, and they vote for Democrats almost twice as frequently as white women. And it is particularly disappointing to see when Black women run for office, run to be the representatives of inside of the party that they shoulder, that they don't get the type of help from the DSCC, the DLCC, the DNC, and all the other powers that be on the Democratic Party.
56:09
Speaker 2
Yeah, and as you said, I learned last time from Joy Reid that the thing, because I said the DNC, she's like, no, that's the DSCC, which is the Democratic Senators, the people, the wing of the Democratic Party that is supposed to fund Senate campaigns or help fund Senate campaigns, and they did not show up for her. And also didn't put boots on the ground and didn't send all the famous leaders and everything to go out there. And a lot of people won last night up against big Republican money, even though they didn't have big Democratic money. But it just felt like Florida would have been the cherry on top of this. And she didn't fail, but I feel like if the party hadn't failed her.
56:44
Speaker 3
Yeah, it honestly would have. I mean, they're not... Texas is.
56:50
Speaker 3
I didn't think I'd be seeing it in my lifetime. But the reason why Florida would have really been the cherry on top is because that is MAGA country, right? President Trump lives in Florida. President Trump, I believe, votes in Florida.
57:01
Speaker 2
Yeah, he does. Absentee, he votes.
57:04
Speaker 3
Yeah, while he tells other people not to. And I think that the infrastructure that he's built in Florida, particularly, also, I want to say this too. This is important to note. The post-COVID in-migration in Florida is, made it so that now Republicans outnumber Democrats by 1.5 million. And that was a lot of that was just because Florida relaxed a lot of their COVID restrictions.
57:32
Speaker 2
Right.
57:32
Speaker 3
And so you kind of have this like awkward influx that comes. You have President Trump, who's like charismatic to the people who he speaks to. And, you know, a state like that, having that much headwinds against a candidate and that candidate only losing by two shows you just how talented that candidate is. Yes.
57:50
Speaker 2
You know. Yeah. I had Angie on the podcast, Angie Nixon on the podcast right before the election. And she, you know, she gives all the vibes that you want and all the the leadership and has done all the work and is not new to this and is there for the fight.
58:03
Speaker 1
And she's not scared at all.
58:04
Speaker 2
In the same things you get from like an Abdul El-Sayed or a Mamdani, but there's that thing you said about black women, like maybe sometimes don't even get the credit. So she'll, she'll get the credit for what she did there, but not, not the success you deserve.
58:19
Speaker 3
Yeah. Yeah. Very unfortunate. But I think, I think I saw somewhere she said she's going to, she's already saying she's going to run again.
58:26
Speaker 2
Yeah.
58:26
Speaker 1
I mean, I, I'm glad to know that.
58:27
Speaker 2
And I think that like Florida should be in play for the next election is all I'm saying. If we, now that we say how close that election was, It might be.
58:33
Speaker 3
This is, you know, midterm electorates are different than general electorates, right? Like midterm voters are typically more tapped in. They're typically more college educated. The group that Trump turns out the strongest are non-college educated white voters and non-college educated people in general just vote at a lower clip than college educated people do in midterms. I got you.
58:55
Speaker 2
I got you.
58:55
Speaker 3
We'll have a different. like demographic of people that'll be participating in the 2028 election but it does not mean that florida is not in play like it'll be interesting thing to watch.
59:05
Speaker 2
Yeah because a lot of this last night was people I get what you're saying, that the presidential elections just bring out more people. Yeah. And if you're bringing out more people in Florida, then you're automatically kind of bringing out more Republicans. More Florida men.
59:18
Speaker 3
Bring out more Floridians.
59:22
Speaker 1
Yeah.
59:22
Speaker 2
Any other takeaways from the midterms last night? Anything that you want to highlight?
59:26
Speaker 3
Yeah, I mean, I think it was... For all the infighting that the Democratic Party does, I think it was actually a really good show of the ideological dexterity of the party. They ran super progressive candidates in some states that people told them not to and won. But they also ran really moderate candidates in some moderate states and won. And so I think that as we're thinking about what the party can look like, I think we get really, we're going to have a primary. We're going to tear each other alive, right? Like everybody's idea is going to be bad.
1:00:04
Speaker 2
Yeah.
1:00:05
Speaker 3
And I think as we're doing that, I think we need to remember that like pragmatism looks like running the right candidate in the right state. And it worked and it worked last night.
1:00:14
Speaker 2
Yeah. I mean, there's also the thing about like, and I've seen people sort of already, and I, you know, I, because of who I follow online, because I live in, in, in the Bay area.
1:00:22
Speaker 1
Like one of the activist hubs of the.
1:00:24
Speaker 2
Known universe, you can't really celebrate any victory. You're like, you know, Because there's people out here who go, but also this. You know what I mean?
1:00:30
Speaker 3
Yeah.
1:00:31
Speaker 2
So there's also things I've seen of people saying that, like, yeah, some of these candidates we're celebrating also have some APEC checks that they cash to get there, you know.
1:00:37
Speaker 1
Because it's politics, most people are not clean.
1:00:41
Speaker 3
Most people aren't clean. And also, I think, you know, at the end of the day, it comes down to who do we want running the federal government, right? And so I think that, like, I don't agree with everything that every Democrat is saying. But I know that if Republicans are... running the federal government, we're going to see things, we're going to see wins that black and brown people have experienced disappear, right? And so I'm always weighing those two things and I encourage voters to do the same.
1:01:07
Speaker 2
No, for sure. I mean, I feel like that all the time and that you have to sort of like, you know, what is the, I always forget who said this, but a vote is not a valentine.
1:01:18
Speaker 3
No, I mean, it's a really good point. Like our ancestors knew that we didn't have the luxury of falling in love with our politicians, right? Like Frederick Douglass didn't, didn't like abraham lincoln he talked about it all that he wrote about it all the time he knew he could manipulate abraham lincoln right he knew he was smarter than abraham lincoln but he didn't like him and so you know i think that we have to be pragmatic if we want to we want to win i would say it's.
1:01:43
Speaker 2
Like mom donnie and trump it's like it's like yeah yeah.
1:01:45
Speaker 3
They're negotiations like they're business deals yeah right so yeah when you see akeem jeffrey sort of having able to have his moment last night in the like moment of like celebration and and sort of saying.
1:01:56
Speaker 1
Like, America's back. And you're like, hey, man.
1:02:01
Speaker 3
Slow down, man.
1:02:03
Speaker 1
Slow down.
1:02:04
Speaker 2
I get that this is going better than you thought it was going to go. But also, a lot of these people who won want to talk to you for a minute. They want to talk to you for a quick little second. Yeah, America's back.
1:02:14
Speaker 1
Come here. Can I talk to you about something?
1:02:16
Speaker 3
I think, and they should.
1:02:17
Speaker 1
Yeah, for sure.
1:02:17
Speaker 3
They should talk to him. I mean, listen, I've had.
1:02:23
Speaker 3
Hakeem, on my podcast, we've sat and we've talked. I'm not going to sit here and act like somebody who has never met and worked with or around him. But I will say that I think a lot of the structure of the Democratic Party right now needs to hear more from the.
1:02:44
Speaker 3
Uprising electorate that has some ideals that are not necessarily in line with where the leadership is. And the reason why it's so important, if nothing else, to the speaker, who will, to our next speaker, if nothing else, so that you can retain power and not concede it to literally the country's most dangerous white folks. Let's call it what it is. That's what's happening on the right side of that. So if you need to hear out some people who have a different perspective on Israel than you do. And if you need to make concessions, make them over here. Don't end up having to make them over there.
1:03:21
Speaker 1
Yeah, make them on the left.
1:03:22
Speaker 2
Don't make them, yeah, don't, because the right will lie to you, will concede to you and then lie to you about it, yeah. Yes, yes.
1:03:28
Speaker 3
So it'll be interesting. It'll be real interesting.
1:03:30
Speaker 2
One of the things that I saw as I was getting ready for this, again, we talked about phone addiction, so I was looking at my phone. I want to pull this up and make sure I get it right. Ben Sheehan, who I follow on Instagram, who has a show called Civics Made Easy on PBS where he just explains how the government works. I don't know if you know his work, but he's one of the good whites. And I've heard of us for the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. Which is this thing where states would just agree that whoever wins the popular vote, they would give their electoral college votes to.
1:04:00
Speaker 1
Have you heard about this?
1:04:02
Speaker 3
I haven't, no.
1:04:02
Speaker 2
So there's a bunch of states that have already agreed to be a part of it, like California, of course. But you sort of need a state that has Democrats in all branches of the government to agree to do it. And so last night, enough states have all Democrats in all branches of the government, like their legislative body, their Senate, their governor, that there's enough states if they agree to do it, they could ratify it. It would just be a thing they had to do in the states. It doesn't have to go before the federal government. It's in the Constitution. It's a state rights issue. Then whatever the popular vote is, the states would just have to give their electoral college votes to the popular voter, to whoever won the popular votes.
1:04:36
Speaker 3
Yeah. I hadn't heard about this.
1:04:37
Speaker 2
Well, now I'm giving you some homework, Mr. Big Wrinkled Brain. And Ben, I've heard about it before, but I didn't realize that because it was such a big blue tsunami last night, there's enough states that have the ability to make that decision.
1:04:50
Speaker 1
And it's a decision they have to make.
1:04:51
Speaker 2
They don't have to go to the federal government.
1:04:54
Speaker 1
It's a state's rights issue.
1:04:55
Speaker 2
And so he's saying this is an issue that if you want to get behind something that we could maybe accomplish now, especially now that Texas is blue, maybe even Republicans might want to feel a certain way about this. It could be a thing, a popular issue that could secretly change the vote in America, which should be popular vote and not who wins the right number of chits, you know, whatever.
1:05:19
Speaker 3
Yeah, I don't even remember what the arguments for the electoral college are. I don't even remember what they are.
1:05:26
Speaker 2
I mean, they all go back to the South feeling like because they had more black people than white people, they didn't feel like they were going to be represented.
1:05:33
Speaker 1
So they needed more.
1:05:35
Speaker 2
It's basically the idea that land doesn't vote, so they needed more votes because they were the economic engine of the country at the time because of slavery. It all ties itself back to slave math, as I would say.
1:05:45
Speaker 3
No, and I know it's where it ties. I'm trying to, like, what is the modern day? Because they won't say that. They won't be like, well, it's a relic of slavery. Of course. They have a fake reason now, and I can't even remember what it is.
1:06:00
Speaker 2
I think it's still about, like, that if it's popular vote, then the population centers get to have more outsized power than the rural places. But the fact is, it's not about the population centers, it's about individual people having their votes mean something.
1:06:15
Speaker 3
So their idea is that if a rural community is underrepresented, then they might not have as much electoral power. So they want to give an underrepresented community an opportunity to have a larger seat at the table. That sounds like DEI to me. And that's interesting because I know that the people who are against getting rid of the electoral college do not like DEI. But that sounds a lot like DEI to me.
1:06:48
Speaker 1
You done said it. You done said it.
1:06:50
Speaker 2
Again, that big wrinkled brain does it again.
1:06:52
Speaker 1
Exactly.
1:06:53
Speaker 2
And which is why they do the silly thing about like, how come the presidential election starts in Iowa? Why does it matter? What Iowa who Iowans think should be the president. It's because of this sort of like wanting to make sure that the rural areas are represented because they know that like if individual Californians votes matter, you can't ignore California anymore.
1:07:10
Speaker 3
Yeah.
1:07:11
Speaker 2
Yeah.
1:07:12
Speaker 3
Well, luckily they changed it to South Carolina being the first state.
1:07:15
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah.
1:07:17
Speaker 3
So now at least black people get, can get a little bit of that, a little bit of that D I.
1:07:21
Speaker 2
Yeah.
1:07:22
Speaker 3
Yeah.
1:07:22
Speaker 2
They keep talking about, yeah. Jim Clyburn got that in the Joe Biden. I'll give you this election, but we need to, I need you to wet. I need to wet my beak a little bit. I need a little, I need a little something. I'll toss it your way. I just need a little something.
1:07:33
Speaker 3
I know they had that conversation.
1:07:35
Speaker 2
Yeah. So that's an idea that I think is like, I'm so excited about like sort of looking into that and sort of, cause I think it's a, it's a thing to sort of hit on. That is an easy, that could be, you know, that doesn't take as much as like, uh, dismantle the federal government. It's on our way to arresting Donald Trump. We can sort of accomplish this too.
1:07:53
Speaker 3
That's one of the things I will, you will rarely ever hear me talk positively about Project 2025, but I did read all of it. I read all of it. And one of the things that I can say that I learned from it is like, there's a lot of these little things that we don't take as much advantage of that don't have a massive impact two thirds majority in the Senate over. And to their credit, they thought about a lot of them, like a lot of little ways to do that. So like stuff like this is, I think, yeah, we just started looking at how we can do that to take back power from some of the craziest people in America.
1:08:29
Speaker 2
Yeah. Before I let you go, is there anything else about the midterms or anything you're looking forward to in this next era of America?
1:08:38
Speaker 3
I hope that the Democrats don't spend the majority of their time trying to impeach Trump. I hope they focus on actually just trying to stop Trump. And I hope that they don't think that this repudiation of Donald Trump means that they have the good graces of the American people because they don't. They are still the lesser of two evils. And that pops up in that not my opinion. We see that in surveys all the time. Yeah. It'll be interesting to watch.
1:09:05
Speaker 2
Yeah, I mean, I feel like the Mamdani thing that I saw was like he had all the goodwill of the people. And then what did he do when it snowed? He hired people to clean the sidewalks. And it was all over social media. People were like, I got $ 30 an hour to clean sidewalks. It's like you need to look for some easy wins.
1:09:21
Speaker 3
Easy wins.
1:09:22
Speaker 2
Yeah, and so that are actually legitimate wins, not just about saying stuff, but actually people feel the benefits of the thing you do.
1:09:30
Speaker 3
Yeah, that's real. That's real for sure.
1:09:33
Speaker 1
Well, thank you for this.
1:09:34
Speaker 2
I feel like we could talk for much longer because I appreciate it. I'd love to continue to have more conversations with you. And I appreciate you sitting down with me for this midterm spectacular that went lots of different places other than the midterms, midterm reflections. My penultimate question is I ask people if there's a charity or a cause that they want people to know more about because my audience likes homework. Yes.
1:09:55
Speaker 3
The one I would say is called My Block, My Hood, My City in Chicago.
1:09:59
Speaker 2
Yes.
1:10:00
Speaker 1
They're out.
1:10:00
Speaker 3
They're doing the work. You talk about somebody, a group of folks that are just every time I see little black kids run around having their first experience, you know, going to the beach for the first time from the west side of Chicago, never made it down to the beach, spending money. And it's like they're a part of this group. He's given all these kids this opportunity just to see more of the world and more of the city. So my block, my hood, my city is the one I love.
1:10:20
Speaker 2
That is great because I know Chicago enough that people, like you said, segregated. People will like stay in their neighborhood on the west side and never go downtown.
1:10:27
Speaker 3
Their whole lives.
1:10:28
Speaker 2
Or never go to the, there are beach areas in Chicago. Never go to the beach area of Chicago. The beach area of Chicago is hotter than the beach area of Northern California. So it's actually, on a hot day, it can be nice out there.
1:10:38
Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah. And so they're doing a lot of that work and, you know, a ton of other work. So I love those folks over there.
1:10:43
Speaker 2
Yeah, no, I'm sure they're doing some real community building, but it's also great to provide experiences where Black people can, Black kids can have some joy. Yeah.
1:10:51
Speaker 1
Hell yeah.
1:10:51
Speaker 2
All right. The podcast is called Who's With Me? My final question is, Joshua Doss, are you with me? I'm with you. Okay. All right. Cool.
1:11:02
Speaker 3
All right.
1:11:02
Speaker 2
I appreciate it.
1:11:03
Speaker 1
You said that in a low-key Chicago way.
1:11:04
Speaker 2
I appreciate that.
1:11:06
Speaker 3
I'm like, what are we with?
1:11:07
Speaker 1
No, no, no. Just generally.
1:11:08
Speaker 3
Yeah, I'm with you, man. It's been a good conversation.
1:11:11
Speaker 1
I'm not asking you to. We ain't got to rob a liquor store.
1:11:14
Speaker 3
I got a very body. I got a very body.
1:11:15
Speaker 1
Who with me?
1:11:16
Speaker 3
No, no, for sure.
1:11:17
Speaker 2
I like that from the very beginning you were like suspicious when I said something. You're like, hey, man, what's going on here? No, no, no.
1:11:22
Speaker 1
That's the Chicago way.
1:11:23
Speaker 2
That's the Chicago.
1:11:24
Speaker 1
You got to watch it.
1:11:25
Speaker 2
I'm with you to the end of this recording, and then I'll re-up if it keeps going well. So, yeah, appreciate it.
1:11:30
Speaker 1
Appreciate it, Joshua.
1:11:31
Speaker 3
Appreciate you, brother.
1:11:35
Speaker 2
Thanks for listening to this episode of who's with me. Thanks to my guests, Joshua Doss, Josh Doss, AKA Doss dot discourse on Instagram. D O S S dot discourse is how you find them on Instagram.
1:11:47
Speaker 1
Uh, great conversation. Love to talk to him.
1:11:50
Speaker 2
This podcast really works best for me when I think it's like, I don't know that I would have ever talked to this person otherwise. So, uh, I'm glad to have that conversation with him, follow him on all of his platforms and everywhere. clearly we will see more of this brother out there in the future. Again, my book, Rock, Paper, Scissors, Cheese, is available for sale. Great for kids four to eight. We've been out there reading this everywhere. Really proud of this book. Again, this Saturday, November 14th, I'll be at the Facing Race Conference in Raleigh, North Carolina. If you're out there, you want to come out there, be out there with us. All the links to everything are in the show notes. And the organization that Josh wanted us to look into is My Block, My Hood by City, formyblock.org. We believe in taking personal responsibility for our communities. It is only through our efforts of service, empathy, and collaboration we will truly see our communities evolve. So it is a black-led youth organization in Chicago that is helping black people thrive, survive, and have a good time. So, yeah, so check them out. Thank you to Josh. Thank you to Rabbit Green Productions. Thank you to Pushkin Industries. Thank you to Who Knows Best Productions, which is me right here. Thank you to Chris Dowd from the Mighty Fishbone for the theme music. And we did the midterms last week, and I feel like we did the thing that we talked about. You did something good for yourself if you voted. You did something good for your community.
1:13:08
Speaker 1
If you voted.
1:13:08
Speaker 2
You did something good for the world if you voted. So let's keep it going. Do something good for yourself, for your community, and for the world. Are you with me? I'm with you. Who's with me? See you next week.
The Host
