Welcome back! We’re sorry we didn’t have an episode for you last week but we made up for it here. Today we talk about the #TexasFreeze and how independence came back to bite the state (03:46). We also continue our discussion from last week about racism and redemption (13:48). We then talk about Judas and the Black Messiah and how it impacted us (no spoilers) (16:56). Finally, in honor of #BlackHistoryMonth, we talk about our experiences as black men navigating this world (28:09). We would love to hear your feedback on this one. As always, LIKE, SHARE, & SUBSCRIBE! Thanks for listening! If you have a question to ask us please use this link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSebwcH-zavRYLwvOO6Gq3tv7CmrkkqRF9Cj5uRdqENiR42MVA/viewform Tell a friend to tell a friend! Be sure to leave a RATING/REVIEW on Apple Podcast! Thanks for listening! FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/justin_alzi/ FOLLOW THE PODCAST PAGE: https://www.instagram.com/polaroppositespod/ FOLLOW DONTE https://www.instagram.com/_donnie_f/ LEAVE A REVIEW & SEND LETTERS! If you would like a question answered on air, email us! We want to hear your feedback and offer advice on your situation! Ask away! polaropposites.pod@gmail.com
Welcome back! We’re sorry we didn’t have an episode for you last week but we made up for it here. Today we talk about the #TexasFreeze and how independence came back to bite the state (03:46). We also continue our discussion from last week about racism and redemption (13:48). We then talk about Judas and the Black Messiah and how it impacted us (no spoilers) (16:56). Finally, in honor of #BlackHistoryMonth, we talk about our experiences as black men navigating this world (28:09). We would love to hear your feedback on this one. As always, LIKE, SHARE, & SUBSCRIBE! Thanks for listening!
If you have a question to ask us please use this link:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSebwcH-zavRYLwvOO6Gq3tv7CmrkkqRF9Cj5uRdqENiR42MVA/viewform
Tell a friend to tell a friend! Be sure to leave a RATING/REVIEW on Apple Podcast! Thanks for listening!
FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM:
https://www.instagram.com/justin_alzi/
FOLLOW THE PODCAST PAGE:
https://www.instagram.com/polaroppositespod/
FOLLOW DONTE
https://www.instagram.com/_donnie_f/
LEAVE A REVIEW & SEND LETTERS!
If you would like a question answered on air, email us! We want to hear your feedback and offer advice on your situation! Ask away! polaropposites.pod@gmail.com
lying ted lying ted cruz he's lying ted he's no good i'm telling you l y i n apostrophe lionted
welcome welcome welcome to another episode of the show it's me justin as always i'm joined by your boy dante how are you dante i'm living the dream i guess some would say i'm alive that's what matters how are you justin i'm fantastic absence makes the heart grow fonder they say and we didn't deliver an episode last week a little freeze can't stop anybody i mean it stopped us but we're here this week and that's all that matters right yeah exactly you know prayers out to everybody um in texas i know your government isn't equipped to handle that type of disaster because you don't get snow in texas like that so they failed you and then your senator goes and runs off the cancun more on that in a second we will definitely touch on that when we get into off my chest but i hope you guys are doing well i'm sorry that y'all didn't get to hear us last week we had to protect the family we have to protect ourselves because when it rains in texas people don't know how to drive and you can only assume that when it snows or freezes in texas people also lose their minds and apparently so do our government officials but we'll talk more about that in a second but thank you guys for joining us for yet another episode i know secret fans really missed us because they listen every week and they expect an episode and we did not deliver an episode last week so sorry to the secret fans if you guys are new to the show this show is all about bringing together different perspectives we agree we disagree but most importantly we never feel afraid of running from uncomfortable topics thank you for listening be sure to subscribe be sure to follow on spotify if you listen on spotify and send us a question so you guys know if you click the link in the description of this episode you will see a link for you all to submit anonymous questions to the show so a couple people have asked justin justin are the questions really anonymous yes they are anonymous it's more fun for me to not know who they're coming from and it also adds to the content of the show so never feel afraid to reach out follow us on our social media all of that is linked in the description feel free to get in touch with the show because we're never afraid to have a conversation if you feel compelled but dante it's been almost maybe it has been two weeks since we recorded did you miss me yeah man you want to get all sentimental and weird on here yeah i miss you don't ask me that again it's like nah um yeah and i miss uh getting a message out to uh our loyal and faithful listeners our community that we've developed here the show was nothing without you guys and like i said like justin said i want to reemphasize you know we apologize for um not getting something out to you last week but you know if we didn't get something to you it must have been a strong act of god or climate change hey hey now hey now it must have been something like that to stop us from getting something out to you trust me we'll cover all that in another episode one day but today ain't the day for that i'm here to tell y'all right now so many stories to cover y'all have missed us so we're gonna deliver some good content as usual on this episode so i appreciate you guys for listening again so uh let's get into off my
justin and dante gotta get it off there
chase so we have to address the elephant in the room obviously a winter storm came and took over texas so a little bit of backstory i always look at the forecast for the weather i like to see what to expect when it comes to temperature so i kept looking a week in advance and i was noticing why is the low 0 degrees and the high 15 degrees y'all know i'm from texas we don't get weather like that i know it's february just because it's winter doesn't mean that we get you know cold temperatures like that so i was perplexed so as the week continued to progress that same you know prediction was still staying there i'm like man it's gonna be really cold on whatever day it was and sure enough pipes were bursting power went off it was a disaster this morning the humanitarian crisis in texas is accelerating millions still without power or water what is going on right now is completely unacceptable the city of houston the so-called energy capital of the world brought to its knees hundreds lining up for much needed supplies as officials here tell residents with power to boil water how can we boil water we don't even have power we have been without power for 60 hours now and without water for about 24 my family and i have been in the dark since sunday night frozen water pipes bursting destroying homes some causing ceilings to collapse if anybody doesn't know how texas runs things we basically run things like we're our own separate country we don't like regulation we don't like the government meddling in our business so apparently nationally there's a national grid that runs electricity for all of the states so here in texas we do something different we have our own independent grid that runs all of texas's electricity output so yes as you guessed if a disaster does strike it doesn't just affect one area it affects all of texas so that's exactly what happened so they were unprepared the power went off and so many people for days were without food were without water and it's a disaster i feel like it humbled a lot of people but at the same time it's something that should have never happened in the first place a lot of people were tweeting pictures of ted cruz at the airport when i was seeing the reports i didn't think it was him they showed the pictures and it surely was ted cruz trying to escape to mexico to get away from the storm rather than being a leader in our time of need we lost power for two days our house was dark we had no heat actually the fireplace behind me we were all huddled around the fireplace because it was the only heat in the house and and after a couple of days after the girls being really cold at being in the teens and the twenties outside uh our girl's ass said look school's been canceled for the week can can we take a trip and and go somewhere warm and and heidi and i as parents we said okay sure and so last night i flew down with them uh to the beach uh and then i flew back this afternoon remember during 11 when you know we had terrorists hit the two towers what did george w bush do he stood with the people he inspired them gave them hope told them to keep the faith and that he's here for them i can hear you the rest of the world hears you and the people
and the people who knock these buildings down will hear all of us soon
that's what a leader does regardless of what you stand for when it comes to politics everybody can identify good leadership and what ted cruz did was cowardly i'm not gonna act like i was shocked or surprised because obviously i know the type of person that ted cruz is it's very shameful it's very shameful what our government officials are doing some people are blaming a green new deal as the reason why this chaotic weather came mind you the green new deal has not been passed this deflection continues it's just annoying i'm happy to be safe luckily we were on the better end of everything that happened but i know a lot of people that still might not have water some people gradually got their power back but for the most part people were going through it i had a couple friends that went for days without power or water and the only way they could communicate with their family was by going to their car and using the car charger to charge their phone that's sad and especially when you're by yourself that's terrible so to everybody affected by it my heart goes out to you hopefully by now you've gotten your electricity and your water back and that you're trying to get back to how things were beforehand but i'll always say that when disaster strikes you have to learn from it and 10 years ago something similar happened and afterwards we did nothing about it to prevent something like this from happening again insanity as they say is doing the same thing and expecting a different result if you do not heed the warnings the same thing will happen so until we learn a lesson from this unfortunately this might happen in the future but this is basically what i need to get off my chest i needed to drag our government officials and hope for the best hopefully we learn from this terrible situation i appreciate that if you don't mind i would like to add on to that a little bit if you don't mind i don't mind okay so your governor down there abbott you know wants to blame a green new deal and windmills and renewable energy sources for what's going on in texas and saying that's why the grid field so there are three grids that power the entire united continental united states in this country there's the one that is the eastern grid which covers everything east of the mississippi there is the western grid that covers everything west of the mississippi and then you have texas then you have good old texas who said we don't like regulation and we need to privatize everything that we do because we need to make profit off of every single thing we're going to start charging people for air out this [ __ ] basically that's how i imagine those conversations went that's a dramatic reenactment i can't cite my sources on that one but um so you have abbott blaming the failure out there on renewable energy sources in the green new deal because obviously texas is oil country no secret there renewable energy sources make up less than 10 of what powers texas's power grid so no it was not a failure of renewable resources let's just get that straight if we've seen anything over the past you know four or five years is that good people step up and do other people's jobs because other people are too shitty to do their jobs federal work loss to ted cruz in 2018 for a senate election but he was the one working the phone bank getting donations getting information to people where they could go to get help and resources when this disaster struck he doesn't have any obligation to the state of texas not in a official capacity while ted cruz fled to mexico you're elected senator your senator who voted to not certify the election results of other states aoc the boogie woman right i feel so bad for her just a cyborg i feel so bad for her because by the time that she's ready to run for a higher office and let's say it's a national office i say she runs for president one day they are going to smear her worse than they smeared hillary clinton because they created this boogeyman out of her you know why ted cruz is flying to mexico blaming it on his daughters she raises almost 5 million for texas just saying my heart goes out to you people it just shows you people's priorities aoc represents a district in new york what does she have to do with texas nothing but she you know feels upon herself that she needs to do something with her platform to help those in need while the person that's directly elected to help people in texas was running off to cancun yeah i don't even want to talk about it anymore because i'll just continue to make myself mad so we definitely needed to get that off our chest but dante um you brought up something that you wanted to talk about based on what we said on last week's episode what's that about so there is something i want to talk about but i do actually have something to get off my chest if you don't mind go for it i want to talk about strong people and people being strong a lot of times strong people uh tend to get the short end of the stick right so me as i'm i consider myself a strong person right i have a great support system where i have people that really care about me and people that really love me and i never take them for granted but when it comes to dealing with stuff that i'm going through i like to do that by myself right it's just how i deal with things like when i decide to open up and bring somebody else into that then sure if you're there let's welcome it let's do it but don't press me on hey you need to open up you need it that's not how i function i like to carry a lot of this [ __ ] by myself but when you're strong like that when you're going through something you're giving to other people it gets kind of tough you know i like to use this analogy when i'm talking about this like think about a pie right you have you're giving all these slices to people you know like hey i need somebody talk to her hey i could use some advice here hey you know i'm looking for somebody to point me in the right direction for this or just a ear or a shoulder and you're giving out all these pieces to help them because you care about them and you want to make their life easier or take a burden away from them but then when you're low when you stop and look around it's like hey i don't have any more slices of this pie that i call myself left for myself so to the strong people out there i want to say to you it's okay to uh lean on the people that care about you that you know you love and that support you and that are truly there for you because we all need it sometime that's true dante is this a cry for help nah and that's not a cry for help it's just i know there's people out there that you know feel the way that i do and i need to i had to take my own advice sometimes i mean i think that's true i'm always of the belief that you can't help anybody else unless you help yourself and everybody likes to use the boat analogy like if your boat tips over and you have one life jacket you have to put it on yourself before you can save anybody else because if you try to save somebody else without it you're gonna drive them so it kind of works them that way too but um what did you want to say in reference to our episode last week yeah so i got a lot of feedback y'all get tired of hearing that but yeah you guys are great you reach out to us all the time and tell us about these episodes that we put out but i got a lot of feedback about the exchange that we had on the last episode and you know every i mean i'm making it clear again i was not defending this guy but there's something i wanted to say that you know me and you talked after this episode and stated our viewpoints like just so you guys know like we were not arguing justin was not attacking me i was not attacking justin i mean i feel comfortable speaking for myself there he might he might have been attacking me i don't know he might he might want to throw the hands with me i don't know what was going on it was just a heated discussion but that's the point of the show to have conversations like that because i feel that people aren't having those conversations enough yes and so my point and you know what i wanted to to bring up at the beginning of this episode and it plays off of our last episode you know you said somebody would be racist forever if they committed a racist act and we got into you know hey there's levels to this i don't want to rehash that but my question is isn't saying somebody is racist forever counterintuitive shouldn't shouldn't we want there to be less racist people so shouldn't we want to have people be reformed and educated them and not judge them off of one past action within reason within reason if they you know offer a sincere apology and do the work to change we want less racist people by educating and reforming right something like that is not something that we should be educating them about it's an internal thing if i do wrong i have to understand what i did and how i'm gonna grow from that situation it's not enough for me to do wrong and get a lecture because somebody can lecture you all day but if you're not receiving that information you really haven't done the growing to understand what you did wrong and i feel that too often the black community always wants to educate people that have done wrong without giving that person the chance to learn and grow from their own mistake and i'm never one to allow somebody to apologize and then move on you hear it from moms and dads all the time whenever you hit your sibling and you get in trouble for it it's not enough to say sorry you hear parents saying sorry for what it's not enough to just apologize what exactly are you apologizing for and then i have another question if somebody is 25 years or older why are they choosing to say the n word with the hard er surely people know that that's the wrong thing to do why do you feel so comfortable in that state of mind to say something like that because i will say when people drink too much sometimes the real them reveals itself he has to really do reflecting and figure out why he decided to use that word of course i believe that we should champion change we should champion growth but at the same time you cannot grow just by apologizing you have to really learn from your mistake that's my thing that's my feeling about it well good i'm glad we got to clear it up for the listeners that was important to me to segue into our main topic the time is here so to preface dante and i we love movies and for the longest time we've been wanting to watch a new film that just came out on hbo max called judas and the black messiah
the black bastards are forming a rainbow coalition of oppressed brothers and sisters of every color their aim is to show hatred and inspire terror i will learn all that i care these ain't no terrorists you can murder a liberator you can't murder liberation you can run a revolutionary but you can't murder revolution and you can murder a freedom fighter but you can't learn to freedom so this movie is about fred hampton who was a part of the black panther party so it details a little bit about his life but mostly it's about his relationships with other people and ultimately how somebody that was close to him ended up betraying him and in a way causing the downfall of the black panther party as we knew it back then it was a very powerful movie the performances were great give daniel kaluya an oscar but it was thought provoking as well dante and i love to think we had a conversation about our thoughts on the movie because our brains were rattling a little bit i think that that's a movie that needs to be shown in schools because personally for me i was never taught about fred hampton growing up in school and i think that it's a part of american history and when it comes to teaching american history we need to teach all of it and not just cherry-picking a few select parts to make people comfortable we should tell the truth tell the truth
tell the truth i think there's power and truth i think there's power in giving people free reign to have knowledge over the things that occurred in this country and with that movie my feelings are the same so dante you obviously had some thoughts what are your thoughts on the movie i have a lot of thoughts on it and i'll just focus on the movie right now before i get into everything else but so this movie is it so it's not a biopic of fred hampton because he's actually not the main character of the movie it's about lake stanfield's character bill o'neil [ __ ] ass rat ass that's who the movie's about um but just to give you all some some backstory on this right and if you're on the fence about seeing the movie like trust me as well worth is one of the best moves i've seen in a very long time fred hampton was a leader in the black panther party in the late 60s and early 70s the fbi and richard nixon said the greatest threat to america is not russia it's not china it is black people gaining power and organizing
yeah think about that right people that account for less than 10 of the population were the biggest threat to this country they saw that fred hampton was not only organizing black people and doing work in the black community but he was working with white people hispanic people people of all different backgrounds and his attack wasn't so much on the white power structure as it was capitalism run wild this movie details about how in life we all know there are people that are [ __ ] made and ain't about it and they got one of those people and they destroyed this man from within and the saddest part about it was the government had so much fear of him because they saw how he could talk and inspire people of different backgrounds and different races they killed him he was only 21 years old like this movie only details a year and a half of his life he was dead at 21 because the government killed him if y'all are ever especially the people that believe in conspiracy theories you should look at the declassified fbi files of a lot of stuff that went on back in the day it's wild but uh i'll give it back to justin yeah dante really felt you know a lot of emotion after watching that i wasn't as emotional as i thought i was going to be but you know the movie was good it was hard-hitting and i think it's a movie that people need to see just to be educated about a part of american history it's sad that it's not being as discussed as other movies in this award season because it is oscar season oscar season is among us you really felt compelled by this film and there's so much that you wanted to say about how it made you feel what other things you have to say before we get into what we're going to talk about thank you justin and i ask that you please indulge me for a couple minutes because i got a lot to say i think the best part of fred hampton's message was no matter your color you know if you're black white latino asian etc we're all in this together we are at a certain point we're all disenfranchised right it's about the money and the wealth gap and the saddest part about it is that there's a lot of bill o'neil's out there those people that talk about it but they're [ __ ] mate and they are not about it and they'll be a rat i said before on here that i'm not arguing with people that miss tubman would have left behind and y'all all know those people there are people like that that are around you you all know them we are surrounded by them i'm not fred hampton i'm not john lewis because i went to some marches this summer i'm not those men i'll never claim to be those men but you know what i did march i've fed less fortunate people i've mentored young men i've donated to charities that help my community and my people um but it's those people who are the fence sitters that i have a beef with those people that are like well you know i won't march but i support you well if this was 1850 they'd say well miss tubman it ain't that bad here because the master gives us off on sundays you are an obstacle to your people and you should be ashamed of yourself you should grow a spine sometimes choices are made for you and you can't decide what side you choose because it's been chosen for you if you're not advancing the position of your people people are fighting for the same battles as you regardless of color sex you know sexual preference everything you've already picked the side of the oppressor by default in my opinion but i'm not done justin i got more so you settle in i my player my prayer cloth is soaked right now okay um to our allies the people who are in this with us as a collective from the bottom of my heart sincerely i mean this that i love you i don't care what justin says but you were forever granted a seat at my cookout
but i have a beef with the ones that do it because they think they need to prove they're not racist alright white women it is time for your reading not all of you not all of you at all i know white women that are down for the cause that are super down but it's the ones that have sex or have had sex with us black men but can't support us in these battles you can go to hell you can open your mouth and your body but you can't open your mouth for black issues that doesn't sit right with my soul the ones that we posted up in the neighborhoods that i hung out in back in the day with all the homies back in the day but now they want to be silent because maybe they date a white man you should be ashamed of yourself it's those people that say i will support you and there's a heart stop there it's all talk once you say but in a sentence everything before it is null and void in my opinion that's like saying hey i believe you are treated unjustly but if i speak out about it and speak up for you it might make my friends and family uncomfortable pick a side because fence sitting is an impediment to progress to the maggots out there maybe you should pull your head out of your ass and realize that people of color the lgbtq plus community and marginalized people out there we're not your enemies we want the same rights and opportunities that the constitution has promised to us making us whole is not taking food off of your table we don't have power so who the [ __ ] is really holding you down and holding you back maybe you should stop fearing people for being different you let the system pull the wool over your eyes and the worst part about it all is we can't agree on facts anymore now it's like hey the deficit is two trillion dollars and the other side will say well you know some people out there say it's two million dollars if we can't agree on facts there's nothing else being that's going to be accomplished but what i'm saying to the maggots is look at who's really holding you down this is a black man having the same rights as you taking away from your life there's something that you're upset about who are the people in power that have made you feel that way like i said maybe you should pull your head out of your ass and in the spirit of fred hampton look around why are your kids having second rate educations why is it so hard for you to get access to health care why have you not gotten a raise at your job i don't think that people of color people who are atheists people who are part of the lgbtq plus community i don't think that we're the issue and i don't think that we're your enemy i really believe there's common ground to be gained here so it's just a thought i'm done
well thank you for that let's give a round of applause for that for dante's moment prayer cloth moment for sure you know i agree with a lot of what you said i think that a lot of the problems we have in this country is due to us not wanting to look in the mirror and reflect about the people that are actually holding us back we like to scapegoat in this country and in general we like to put our problems on things that don't have anything to do with the problem at all and i think that's you know the extent of our problems if we can just open our eyes listen read educate ourselves listen to one another again i think that a lot of our problems can be solved but that's not happening and it's getting worse because as you said people are turning to conspiracy theories rather than listening to the facts listening to the science and some people are too far gone and it's unfortunate that we can no longer have conversations with people anymore but we're always welcoming people that are willing to have an open-minded discussion we might disagree and that's fine you know everybody in this world is not going to agree on everything and if you ever come on this show we probably won't agree on everything either but most importantly we want to open our perspectives maybe we'll learn something from you and maybe hopefully you'll learn something from us that's always the hope and that's why you know we have this show to have conversations like that so you know the movie is good this isn't a review of the movie but we were inspired you know it made us think and i think that's the sign of good art art is supposed to make you think art is supposed to open your mind and have you know open dialogues with people and that's my hope you know for this year and you know moving forward in general thank you for saying that i wanted to just make sure you had the floor to get whatever you needed to get off your chest because i'm sure there's a lot of people that are resonating with what you just said i appreciate you for you know sharing your thoughts on that thank you for granting the time and one thing i would like to add to that about you know what i said and what you just said this is the place we're at right now in this country like think about this if gravity was discovered today it would be a political issue people would really debate whether gravity exists or not and if it's valid so that's where we are right now pretty sad but you know you know to segue into what we're going to be talking about this week it is black history month and i'm sad that we missed last week because i didn't get to devote another episode to the month for black history but nevertheless since this is the last week that we're going to be publishing an episode this month we wanted to talk about our black experience obviously dante and i are different he's from joycey i'm from texas and at the end of the day both of us are black we might have different experiences or maybe we have more similarities than we thought but we wanted to do this episode to talk about what we experienced growing up and how it shaped us and what we've learned you know in our years of living thus far the first question i have is when did we realize that we were black so for me you guys know i'm nigerian i've always known that i was black just by looking in the mirror i knew that i was black more specifically in my family everybody has light skin so there's five of us i'm the only one that's dark skinned so that you know right off the bat made me feel different growing up and sometimes i remember my mom would say in the summertime like don't go out in the sun too long otherwise you're gonna get darker but then i had to reflect i'm like what's wrong you know with being darker like i'm black like why does it matter so that's you know when i knew i was black somebody didn't point it out to me i didn't have this existence where i was living in this colorblind society and one day somebody's like you're black and i was like huh that never happened i always knew that i was black at the end of the day dante what about you yeah mine was a little bit of the opposite you know like i don't i wouldn't say that i grew up sheltered or not knowing who i was but like it was never a thing like i didn't know i mean like i'm doing air quotes right now i know y'all can't see me but like i didn't know i was black until i don't know i think i was like four years old i was on the playground one day and some little boy was like yeah well your skin's dirty and i was like what he was like yeah does it not come off and i'm like what are you talking about i'm going home asking my parents asking my grandma like yo what is this about you know and then like they explain to me like hey like you're black it's something to be proud of too so that was my awakening to blackness i would say that's interesting so for me you know i y'all know it's in the description of the show i grew up in the white suburbs of texas so i grew up with a lot white people and i feel like that experience you know shaped me to be who i am today all of our experiences and everything that we go through shapes who we are so it's no different with anybody else so i didn't really come into my blackness per se until i got to college obviously i've always known that i was black i was never shy and embracing my blackness but really i understood you know my position in the world when i got to college because i feel like in college for the most part you're learning you know the real history being from texas we learn a different version of history and it's kind of a warped version of history so after learning about history black history that's kind of when i had this awakening period and a lot of people have this awakening period where in high school you might be living through rose-colored glasses but then you get that shock when you graduate and move on to college and then you're like oh this is the real world welcome hello and that was you know what it was for me so you said that your awakening period was when that kid was like you're dirty or did you have another awakening period how was it for you i mean i think i've had different awakening periods i remember yeah this is like i think this is going to be like a really cathartic and therapeutic episode and i might be giving y'all too much i remember being between ages seven and nine and we went to baltimore as a family and went to uh a black history museum not the new one in dc but there was a one that was all wax figures right and i came out of this place crying because they showed pictures and reenactments of people getting lynched just because they were black they showed i'll never forget this as long as i live it's burned into my memory i should probably go to therapy about it guys but um they showed this one case where this woman was burned alive and they cut the fetus out of her out of her womb because she was black so it [ __ ] me up and i came out of there and like the first thing on my mind was like why are white people so evil
that that's the thought i had like why do people hate me and hate my mom and hate my dad just because the color of our skin now obviously that's not all people because yeah i had friends that were white at that time it was hard for my nine-year-old brain to process this you know because i like saw pure evil so i would say that's one of my black awakenings and then i would say over the past probably two years two and a half years i had another black awakening where it's like hey i'm a successful young man that's doing all these things and i'm black and i'm never going to compromise my blackness for it and i don't care if it makes you uncomfortable that i'm black and i speak on these black issues i present myself as a proud black man i don't care if it makes you uncomfortable that's your fault but i am me and i'm proud of it i'm blackity [ __ ] black so that's where we are today but there was a time there was a time where see i'm giving y'all too much information man there was a time where like i grew up in a blue state but a red county we had towns that were all white we had towns that were all black but my town was uh pretty mixed where we grew up is like the images that you see and the stuff that you saw in the paper and what's around you is not the best representation of black people like we didn't get to see successful black people that made something themselves we all knew the local crackheads we all saw the [ __ ] stand on the corner it was something that like made me feel ashamed you know so it was like wow if this is what people associate with being black like that's not me i don't want to be associated with that and because calling back to some of our past episodes where like i'm not going to let myself be put myself in a box or be on a mental plantation i was in a band and played guitar like we're playing places where there's nothing but white people you know what i mean so like i like rock music i like different types of music and so it was a weird time in my life to like figure out who i am and what i'm about i'm sitting here playing in this band playing this rock music listening this rap music but i got [ __ ] braids and i'm wearing a do-rag like very confused and what's funny is i remember growing up my dad walked in my room one time and he's looking around at the posters on my wall and he was like if somebody else walked in here they'd be very confused and here's why i had a poster of malcolm x muhammad ali michael jordan and then i had elvis presley johnny cash and kurt cobain a little bit of a mind [ __ ] there i mean there's nothing weird about that i feel like music is music music has no gender music really has no color so i feel like that's a weird thing to say because people just like what they like music-wise and it shouldn't matter that you like kurt cobain like i don't get that but for me you know since i grew up in the neighborhoods that i grew up in whenever i needed to get a haircut i had to travel to like the black part of town because obviously i'm not going to go to super clips like what is this i'm not going to go to super clips i hope to god not if you love yourself you don't go there as a black of course i love myself too much for that but i would go to you know the black barber shop so that was one of the times where i would interact with more black people and i always felt i don't know i always felt like uncomfortable not because it was dangerous or anything i always felt uncomfortable because i always felt like maybe they'll think that i'm not black enough because i remember sometimes i would bring a book to read while i was waiting to get my hair cut and i remember there was a lady that was sitting next to me she's like oh you one of those that like to read and i was like yeah and i felt confused why she was asking me that because i thought that reading was a perfect way to pass the time while i'm waiting for my haircut so stuff like that and then i'd be scared that if they heard the way i speak they'd be like man is he like whitewashed or whatever so you know i felt like i couldn't be myself and sometimes i would be like talking to my barber and be like yeah give me the number seven e like i'm talking in a way that i never talked just to you know not feel like they were thinking that i was different in any way and i felt like that was sad but since i grew up in you know mostly white areas i remember actually i remember this this was my freshman year of college so somebody i considered a friend at the time i remember she had texted me something i've said a joke or something in response she was like oh justin i love you oh you're so funny ah you're you're black on the outside but you're white on the inside and that right there in which she said that was so perplexing to me because i had to rewind and i've heard that before maybe somebody had called me that before but this is the first time where somebody that was a friend was saying that to me and they thought that it was okay to say that saying that to somebody is not a compliment and i was like man i think this is one of those times where i have to check my friend because i think in any friendship or relationship you have to be willing to confront your friends when they do wrong and in this instant i was like let me craft my words carefully but i texted her back that's not a compliment and if she ever says that to another black person they might have a different response than the response that i'm giving her so hopefully that was a teaching method for her because to call somebody white on the inside but black on the outside is nothing short of an insult man i can't tell how many times that has happened to me in the past yeah you're right about it like it is an insult you are stripping away a piece of me first i believe i'm a human right but i am black you know there's no you can't take that away i can't take that away you can't take that away nobody can take that away i said on here before there's no such thing as acting white or speaking white or like your barbershop incident oh you're one of them i'm i'm sorry like it is reading i'm acting white because i'm reading like do black people not read like maybe you should you should stop having such low expectations for your people you are the problem not me yeah i mean and the woman that said that to me she didn't say it in a derogatory way but she was just you know questioning or surprised that i was reading and i felt that that was sad because more people should read it's fun you learn stuff you know i recommend it to everybody this generation or people in general don't make time to read anymore and it's sad whenever i was in school some people might have imposter syndrome obviously i'm smart so i was always in ap classes and i never felt like people were questioning whether or not i belong there or not i feel like with black people sometimes you get into a room and you feel like you know you don't belong and that's sad that you ever have to have that thought run across your head but i never felt like that being in ap classes all through high school i was always one of like three black people in a class of 30 and i always felt like man i am like the representation for black people and it sucks that i have to have that weight on my shoulders but to go back to what i was saying before i never felt like people ever questioned that i belonged there but my senior year of high school i'll never forget this when everybody had finished applying to colleges and people were already getting accepted this was in an ap english class i remember one of my classmates she was a friend at the time i don't talk to her as much anymore but she's very smart she was top 10 in our class she got accepted into cornell university so i remember she wasn't in the specific class but the other students in the class were talking about her because they were talking about who got accepted where and then somebody was like oh of course she got accepted there that's the easiest ivy league to get into and then another one said oh i wish i was black i would get financial aid it's not fair so they were victimizing themselves because other people were getting scholarships and they weren't and they were in a way trying to make her feel like she was inferior or she only got to where she was because she was black and i just felt so bad because she wasn't in the room to defend herself and those were people i think that she would call her friends and they were talking about her like that and i felt so terrible i'm like just because somebody's black doesn't mean that they don't deserve to be where they are i went to a great university maybe there are people that question that i get in because i'm black and that's a sad reality that a lot of people have to go through and i just felt so bad in that situation that people were talking about her and making her feel like she doesn't deserve her spot because she's black isn't it crazy how it got flipped to where it's like oh well now being black is an advantage for you right like right what are you being serious right now like oh my god i'm sorry there's just so much to unpack there you can keep going whenever i was in my ap classes we would be talking about civil rights and as one of like three or four black people in an entire classroom you always feel the eyeballs coming your way when black issues get discussed because people want to see the way you react it's almost like a sitcom or something where somebody says black and everybody in the classroom turns to you and looks at you i always felt like that was the case i always felt uncomfortable a lot of people can relate to that because if you've ever been like one of a few black people in a classroom that's a common thing that some people may feel for sure i mean like you i was a pretty smart guy and i was in advanced classes and honors classes and everything and um the representation there the diversity in there was not abundant i could say so scholastically there was a lot of times that i was you know one of the only black people in the room like i got selected two years in a row to represent my county at different like leadership programs and stuff when i was in high school and um the diversity wasn't a lot there you know and uh it's just sometimes it's it's tough because now it puts extra pressure on you as a black person like okay there's not a lot of us here so we have to perform even better to show that we belong here nobody should have that expectation put on them obviously somebody is there for a reason if i was failing i wouldn't be able to finish the courses and then y'all would know maybe he didn't belong there but that was never the case i'll never forget in middle school i remember these guys were talking about some black girl that we went to school with and they were like yeah blah blah she's pretty for a dark-skinned girl and i remember being so young in middle school thinking there was something strange about what this person just said let's unpack that a little bit you're pretty for a dark-skinned girl so what exactly does that mean if you break it down it basically means black people or black women are ugly and because this woman that happens to be black is pretty she's the exception to the rule and the rule is that black girls are not cute or aren't pretty and that's what they were basically saying but the sad part is that they weren't saying it to be mean i don't think they even realized that what they were saying was so problematic there's so much that we have to unpack when it comes to unlearning because in life i've said it before we do a lot of learning but then we also do a lot of unlearning as well there are things that we are taught that's wrong and we have to do better i think that we've all grown we've all realized what right and wrong is and it's a continual process and i think for a lot of people they have to reflect and think man was i one of those people that was saying so and so was pretty for a dark-skinned girl what does that mean are dark-skinned people ugly you know the worst part about it is like you said they probably thought they were saying something very good like i don't think it came from a place of like malice or hatred i think it came from a place of ignorance so they probably thought like yo we're giving a great compliment here not wow this is kind of problematic because you're implying through your statement that people with darker complexions are inherently less attractive which isn't true right obviously this is not true oh look at this guy look at this guy i'm being real like anybody with eyes knows that it's not true but i think that i don't know if it's what we see in the media if we don't see enough representation that's why i always say that representation is important if all you've seen as stereotypes of black women and you don't have any experience with dealing with black women your perception of what a black woman is is your experience and if your experience is negative you're going to equate black women to negative stereotypes and that's unfair we have to get out of that and that's why it's always important for people to expand your horizons i always say it you know make friends with different people it's so important to open up your world view to see how other people are living people don't really do changing or growing until somebody around them is part of a culture that they're not familiar with if you are white and you've always been surrounded with white people once you get a black friend or befriend a black person then your world view is opened up to see how other people are living you know i've talked about whenever i went to community college obviously coming from you know a white neighborhood a suburban neighborhood went to school with a lot of white kids a lot of privileged kids mind you when i came to community college it was the complete opposite it was just eye-opening for me to see how other people are and their experiences and it really opened me up to be more empathetic to their desires and their challenges because it's different from mine it allows you to have empathy because when you understand how other people have it you won't judge them you won't talk about something that you've never lived because you don't know people that have walked in those people's shoes it's important yeah for sure i mean i think that's the best way to gain empathy and understanding is to be exposed to something right i say it all the time empathy is what separates us from the animals you know like if you don't have empathy you're not really a functioning human you know if y'all want to keep it funky right and y'all want to be honest and y'all want a certain level of contrition from justin myself you want to know about my black experience then if y'all really want to know you want to know what i deal with as a black man i'm in this this weird position where i have so much pressure on me by two different sides right so there's a lot of times that black people that i know and people that know of me or whatever they might think you know he he thinks that he's too good because he's successful and he's in air quotes made it whatever that means right i have to deal with unfortunately like all i ever do is try to help other people out and give back to my community and build people up but there's people that's going to resent you for that because they're looking at you hating on you and saying oh well this guy thinks he's too good or why is he doing all this but is it is this bragging it's not my fault that the only time you see pictures of me is uh you know me wearing a suit or something like that or the things i talk about social media aren't about women or [ __ ] it's about like hey this is something that's going on maybe you want to uh have somebody sign up for this scholarship or hey you know something about donating something somewhere but then i got to deal with it on the side that i don't ever want to be a token right i don't want white people especially in a corporate setting to view me as well you know he's he's the black guy here right i'll never forget guy rested sold my pop-up one time i don't even remember who he was talking about or what he was talking about but he was like you see that guy right did you see that right there or something on tv he was like he's he's brilliant but to them he's just a [ __ ] in a suit it don't matter how much success you have success ba is behind him or how qualified he is or how intelligent he is they still see him as just a [ __ ] in a suit and one of my biggest things is like that's probably how you know a decent portion of people see me right so i get this and then speaking on you know how i'm viewed in the white corporate world is like hey because i made it to a certain level it's the same feeling i had in high school when i was in those ap classes or when i'm at those leadership conferences i got to be so much better because it's not even it's not just about me right it's not about dante as the individual it's about the people that are going to come after me and i have to make a good impression to these people so i don't disqualify every other black person that comes after me to be in this position right so that's that's the cross i gotta bear yeah that's the burden i gotta bear so i gotta be great i have to be great just so other people have a chance but then those other people i'm trying to get a chance to resent me for doing what i'm doing so that's that if y'all want to know about my black experience that's my black experience that's kind of what i have to deal with and it's kind of similar to like barack obama somebody that worked really hard went about it the right way to achieve success and in an instant people can reduce him to nothing whether it be a racial slur whether saying that he's not born in this country in an instant they can take that all away and make somebody feel like they're worthless like they have no value and it's not fair i like what you said about how somebody sees somebody as successful but to other people they don't see it that way and tokenism is a lot of black people's experience i feel like a lot of people maybe you don't fall into this but you've been that token black friend where people might feel comfortable to say things around you because they're like oh but you're not really black oh but you're not like the others and that's ridiculous because what exactly does that mean and that's why i always say befriend other people especially if you have never been around certain people you know talk to people have a conversation with somebody that's different from you because you'll learn something new i promise you i find it hard to believe that somebody can have a conversation with somebody and learn nothing new it just doesn't happen i think people have to break out of your bubble that you've been in seek understanding seek different experiences and perspectives you know i worked with this one girl and she came from a bubble she's white and she said that she grew up in a white privileged bubble and it wasn't until talking to other black people listening working with me that she had a better understanding about black people because she honestly grew up in a bubble she said that she used to be a republican not that that really matters but now she's like liberal and everything i feel sad for people that have never had the chance to go somewhere else whether that be going away to college or going someplace new moving and meeting other people because that's how people get stuck in their ways when nobody challenges you there's no reason why you're gonna break out of your comfort level for a lot of people opening up yourself to different experiences will help us and help this country honestly because i think that's where a lot of our problems stem from i mean i one thing that i want to add on there right so if there's anybody that's listening to this or somebody gives you updates on what we talk about anything right if you ever have to preface me and say yeah my black friend dante we not friends if you gotta put black in front of it we not friends that's like saying turkey bacon that [ __ ] ain't bacon bro and i'm not your black friend if we are friends we are friends but i'm not your black friend so don't use me as some sort of object to i'm not your black square basically don't pull me out of your ass and say well no i can't be racist man like i'm friends with dante that's my black friend we're not friends the thing is people can also have prejudice views and have black friends you know people think i hate the excuse of i'm not racist because i have a black friend that doesn't make any sense because you can still harbor those same views you might have family members that you don't confront that say racist things so i feel like if you're even condoning racism you can't even use that excuse i try to challenge my parents all the time obviously my parents are from nigeria they view the world a certain way they're very traditional and with all the baggage that that comes with i have the duty of educating them and telling them when they should apologize or telling them when they've said something out of line i think that a lot more people need to do that because i always said i said in our thanksgiving episode that thanksgivings when you're having these family gatherings and you have this one crazy uncle that says wild things he's not just uncle charlie that's crazy and says well things that's your uncle and if you care about him you need to educate him and tell him what's not okay and it's not okay to be racist or say racist things and condone that type of behavior he can say it but what are you doing in response to that that would be my question because it's not enough to tolerate it because tolerating doesn't get to the root of the problem and change will never come out of it amen that's a word that's a word you know we want to talk about our black experience um you ever had any experiences with the the law i haven't i'm a good kid oh man nothing wow i've never had any experience with law enforcement on it to be honest i've never been pulled over never got a ticket i don't know how i would even get involved with police but luckily i've been lucky in that regard yeah you've been real lucky wow man like i've had yo i've had uh different experiences with uh being profiled and [ __ ] like that like that i've forgotten more of them than i remember to be honest with you but i can get since we told my black experience i can give y'all a couple that um stick out to me so there's one time i'm driving i'm doing 58 and a 55 right there's two undercover cops now they're not even in their cars they're standing on the corner they wave me down i'm like okay what's going on here i'm in a neighborhood that there's not a lot of black people just put it that way right so they end up giving me a ticket for 150 for going three miles over speed limit and i was like what the [ __ ] is this they come back and give me another 150 dollar ticket for uh disorderly yeah complete [ __ ] why'd they give you the second ticket because i said what the [ __ ] is this oh really how old were you 19 at the time so then there's another one where i was at a house party right and there was definitely underage drinking going on but i didn't even have the opportunity to underage drink because i decided to go walk to the store to get a mixer so i could drink party gets busted right eight cop cars are there they not letting the cops cop cars yo listen to a house party cops bust in and i see the cops kick a white girl in her stomach so i say to myself this is critical thinking you guys need to expand your brains this critical thinking i say to myself listen i'm a young black man if these cops hit a white girl they will [ __ ] shoot me what are they gonna do to me right so i was like i'ma sit in this corner right here until they come over to me here's my information i just want to go to [ __ ] home simple as that um but besides that you know being pulled over and they're not really saying nothing to you i used to walk home from school and i used to get questioned like oh what are you doing walking this neighborhood do you really live in that house wow are you serious so yeah i mean i i've dealt with that stuff and the worst part about it is like any time that you know if i get pulled over now or haven't have interaction with law enforcement like the only thing on my mind is like i just want to make it home man that shouldn't be the first thought because black men are three times more likely to die after you know uh having an interaction with a law enforcement officer then their counterparts and their white counterparts so something i'm very cognizant of and yeah that's a reality that a lot of people have to understand just because you've had you know great relationships with police in your life that's a great thing but also realize that there's other people that don't have that same experience and you have to open your eyes to that as well because sometimes people think just because it doesn't happen to them or affect them it must not be real and that leads to so many problems in this country we've talked about many on the show but that's unfair just because something doesn't happen to you doesn't mean that it's not real and you have to be open to other people's experiences i'm black but i've never had dealings with the police in that way so there's a difference right there i'm black and i've not had interaction with the police like that but dante has that doesn't mean that that stuff doesn't happen it just hasn't happened to me yet and hopefully it never happened so i'm gonna knock on wood i think that it's important to have this conversation because hopefully people are learning that's always the hope for all of these episodes that we do that people are learning from our experiences and are gaining something new that's always the hope with every episode did you have anything to add starting out expectations are very low because you're black but once you make it to a certain level now the expectations are super high because it's not just about you it's kind of like and like you said it's unfair but it's kind of like you got the whole race on your back now because now the spotlight's on you now you can't [ __ ] up now you can't under achieve now you can't even just be adequate at what you're doing you have to go above and beyond i haven't had a lot of diversity when it comes to teachers my teachers really like me i'm a well-liked person so my teachers really love me and i love them as well we had a substitute one time and this woman said that anybody that talks your name will be written on the board and whenever your teacher comes back she's gonna you know discipline y'all because our teacher left her a note that if anybody speaks while she's there write their name on the board and she'll deal with their punishment when she gets back so obviously i'm a good kid when i say that i really do mean it like i'm a good kid i don't get into trouble i'm the funny like class clown type person but nevertheless when it comes to school and studying like i'm very serious when it comes to that so i remember five minutes into class i think i asked somebody do they have a pencil or something like that i wasn't yelling i wasn't screaming i just asked them for a pencil and she goes you sir go and put your name on the board and i was so confused because all i did was ask for a pencil i didn't do anything i wasn't playing around or anything and i wrote my name on the board so this class was like 45 minutes long this is in um sixth grade i don't talk for the rest of the class because i'm scared obviously i don't want to get my parents involved my teacher that's gonna come back and see everybody's names is gonna be surprised to see my name on the board so i'm scared i'm like man i don't want people to think differently of me so i don't speak for the rest of the class so during the class other people get their name written down there's some black kids that get their name written down on the board but then as five minutes are remaining in the class she says you sir and she points at me and she goes go erase your name on the board and i erase my name and i feel like she would have a hard time justifying why she wrote my name on the board so that's why she had me go erase my name and it's little things like that she thought that because i was black and because i spoke during class that i'm like a problem kid or that i'm like wild or the bad kid and i feel like that's unfair because i feel like so many black students have that label attached to them without showing their character yeah i mean you know she came in there and she had a preconceived notion of what to expect from you like you said there was a lot of diversity in your school too so came in there thinking one way you asked somebody for a pencil she assumed that oh this guy wants to be a class clown or whatever the case may be right but you were probably judged unfairly is the best way i can think of that because she knew that she had to like justify to my teacher when she got back why is justin's name on the board because i've never got my name down on the board or anything like when i tell you i didn't get in trouble i never got in trouble so it would be a shock to the students in that class and it would be a shock to my teacher if she came back and saw my name written on the board so that teacher she she wised up and she had me erase my name because she'd have to also justify that to my parents because my parents one thing about them is that if you're in the right they will defend you like no other they will come up to that school the last thing you want is my mom coming up to the school an african woman oh she'll chew your head off do not try my mom so they don't want the smoke so you know she acted accordingly but i just feel bad for other students that are judged without showing their character because so many of us get that label of oh he's going to be a problem or he's a bad kid but you haven't even gotten to know me you ever like think of experience that you've had in the past and in the moment you were like you didn't even think of it that it could have been based on your race but then like you're looking back on it now or you know after it had been like wow that was that could have completely been based on my race like yo i had teachers say some wild [ __ ] to me man like i had one teacher i think it was like an ap english class and the girl i was dating that time we walked to class but like she had to class down the hallway or something like that so blah blah whatever it doesn't really matter but my teacher said um she was like dante you're such a smart and handsome young man she's a black lady you're such a smart and handsome young man why are you dating that white girl
and i'm like yo like that's kind of out of pocket for you to say to your student but like interesting the girl i did before that was black like you saw me with this girl i don't know it's just it's it's wild some of the things that we have you know experienced in our black experience so i was too busy having a good time in school like the thing about me like you said you were a good kid like i wouldn't sit here and lie to nobody and say that i was a good kid like i knew i was going to have my fun and do my thing but my the biggest thing for me was like yo you're actually smart so get these good grades like i got suspended from school a lot like a lot but i didn't fail classes because i was good i'm i was intelligent so i got all my work done i just got suspended for dumb stuff and one of the things that could have been racial that i just thought about here um i just told this story this weekend actually so there was one time in high school there's a kid i was cool with he was at the water fountain and i smacked him when i asked it was like good game right because like that's what you do i played basketball that's what you know you do [ __ ] like that in sports right good game but we weren't playing a sport at the time obviously right right so a teacher saw this unbeknownst to me and i get called down to the principal's office i had just got back from being suspended like a week before that right and he was like hey listen i hate to do this i hate that you're in here right now but um i gotta suspend you i was like suspend me for what uh attacking a student i said attacking a student i said i didn't get in the fight what are you talking about he's like well you know this teacher uh wrote you wrote you up and you know called me because they saw you attack a student oh he's like who did i i didn't fight nobody so who did i attack so well they saw you slap this man on the butt i said are you being serious right now he said this is what's on my on my desk i said i need you to call my dad and tell him why you're suspending me do me a favor and call my dad and tell him i should spend me if you called my dad and told him hey dante got to fight or hey dante you know got smart with the teacher and said some things that he shouldn't have said i'm not gonna repeat some of those things cool we could talk about it but if that's the reason you want to suspend me from school i was like call my dad tell him why my dad already been up there before so he looks at me it was like there's another way we can handle this because i'm not calling your dad to tell him this is why you're being suspended i was like so i'm not suspended then huh he was like well let's call that student in here and see what they got to say about it and the kid came in he was like what are you talking about you didn't attack me like joking around you know that could have been racially motivated i'm not saying that it was i'm not saying that it wasn't but you know looking back on it hey let's open the interpretation because that's some [ __ ] yeah stuff like that like microaggressions i don't know whatever you want to call it can be interpreted in a racial way but it's not until we're older that we get to reflect like man i would not have let that slide if that was now and that's my one regret when it comes to high school there's so many things that i didn't realize were microaggressions or maybe even racism in some way and i let them slide because i didn't know or didn't you know wasn't woke enough i guess to realize what it was that people were saying because i wish that i said something back whenever i was telling that story about them talking about that girl and how she got accepted to an ivy league school and how they don't get financial aid because they're not black knowing what i know now the justin of today would definitely have checked them i really would have because i feel like in that situation you shouldn't let stuff like that slide if you know better you have to do better if i'm holding y'all to account for your questionable relatives you know i need to you know have the wherewithal to challenge those people and defend my friend as well you know hindsight is 20 20 we live we grow we do better we know better it's a progression of life and like we were talking about in this episode with our black experience you know we've grown and all of these experiences that we've gone through is shapes who we are today and better yet who we want to become because i'm not finally formed yet i'm not in my final form neither is dante i don't know anything i don't claim to know everything you know i'm growing like everybody else and i hope that you guys learned more about us i hope you guys opened your eyes about our perspectives and where we come from and what we try and do here on this show because we just like to open a honest dialogue and obviously i feel like a lot of people relate to what we said so if you have an experience this is another segue for me to plug the anonymous thing ask an anonymous question or tell us about an experience that you went through and how you dealt with it have you dealt with microaggressions what is your black experience like or even if you're not black what is your hispanic or asian experience like because i'm sure they can be similar how did it feel to be one of a few you know minorities in a class how did you get through it um did you feel like a token or what is your white experience like and you know how have you dealt with privilege if you come from a place of privilege i'd love to know that have you you know over the past two years or whatever i don't know i'm not even gonna put a time cap on it but where what are times that you have noticed or been aware of privilege you have in certain situations i would love to know about that same this is all inclusive this is this podcast is rated e for everybody i always say it's not for everybody but it's for anybody anybody that's willing to listen to an open conversation with two friends talking about their experiences in pop culture entertainment music politics all of it if you are down to listen to a good conversation this podcast is for you so i never want y'all to feel like you can't vent to us or write us about an experience that you've been through please do we encourage it so never feel afraid to reach out to us because we do you know appreciate you guys listening and thank you for that you know i think that's it for this episode any last words dante yeah so this is for one of our listeners i said i would do a code word thing for you so pickles had to get that out the way and um i think i know who pickles is yeah so i give you all a lot of uh quotes like about being better and feeling better and doing better so here's the one i'll leave you with this week right if you are costing me my piece you gotta go because that's too expensive um let that sink in for y'all so just saying that and um justin if you don't have anything else i could take us out of here yeah that's i mean that's it for me um i just want y'all to subscribe as always rate the show dante's probably gonna say that anyway but i just wanted to say that i appreciate you guys i hate i hate i hate when i don't release an episode for a week maybe that'll be the last time that that happens all year i always love consistency and you know that's how you build something so in order to continue building y'all continue to interact with the show love the show and recommend it i appreciate it dante take us out all right we are polar opposites thank you for listening please go like share subscribe this leave an anonymous question leave a rating leave a review we love to see it i will say that again we love to see it tell your friends about it tell your friends to tell their friends about it um to all of our listeners old new secret and everything in between we appreciate you thank you for checking up on us every week sorry that you didn't have anything to listen to from us last week we'll catch you on the next one peace bye guys
me