Welcome back! This week, we discuss Naomi Osaka and her withdrawal from the 2021 French Open (18:05) and how NBA fans have lost their minds. Do fans need to be banned? What should an athlete's relationship be like with the media? We also talk about Monique's recent comments regarding black representation in public and it opens a larger discussion about representation and how/when it matters (29:10). Is Tyler Perry good for the black community? Is Shaun King exploitative? As always we read and discuss a very interesting listener question (02:16)! Keep writing in so we can hear from you too! Send a question by clicking the link below! Don't be afraid to reach out. As always like, share, & subscribe. Thanks for listening! SEND US SOME INTERESTING QUESTIONS BELOW: 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_aiiz/ FOLLOW THE PODCAST PAGE: https://www.instagram.com/polaroppositespod/ FOLLOW DONTÉ 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! This week, we discuss Naomi Osaka and her withdrawal from the 2021 French Open (18:05) and how NBA fans have lost their minds. Do fans need to be banned? What should an athlete's relationship be like with the media? We also talk about Monique's recent comments regarding black representation in public and it opens a larger discussion about representation and how/when it matters (29:10). Is Tyler Perry good for the black community? Is Shaun King exploitative? As always we read and discuss a very interesting listener question (02:16)! Keep writing in so we can hear from you too! Send a question by clicking the link below! Don't be afraid to reach out. As always like, share, & subscribe. Thanks for listening!
SEND US SOME INTERESTING QUESTIONS BELOW:
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_aiiz/
FOLLOW THE PODCAST PAGE:
https://www.instagram.com/polaroppositespod/
FOLLOW DONTÉ
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
oh my god is this who we are is this what we represent telling somebody to kiss it lick it suck it stick it f you your monkey
all right welcome welcome welcome to another episode of the show we are back if you guys are new to this show this show is called polar opposites because we agree we disagree like last week's episode it's something new every single week and it's always fun we talk about a variety of topics dealing with pop culture entertainment music and politics but we really do appreciate you guys listening to the show this is going to be another great week and another great episode be sure to subscribe be sure to tell your meemaws and p-paws if you're listening on apple podcasts hit that subscribe button rate the show leave a review it's been a minute since we got a review so if you're listening to this and you're feeling a little bit guilty because you haven't left the review i'm talking exactly to you because you'll be listening every week but you haven't left a review yeah we love it we love to see it dante how are you doing well on this uh memorial day um that's when we're recording on monday memorial day um so everybody remember the reason for the holiday you know i had to ask a veteran because sometimes i get them mixed up between memorial day and veterans day so memorial day is for the military personnel who lost their lives during their time in service and then veterans day is for all the you know the living military personnel so just in case anybody was ever wondering maybe i'm just an idiot on my own and didn't know but just in case anybody was wondering that's the differences between the two holidays there but how are you doing i'm doing good i'm doing good you learn something new every single day it's very true no matter how old you get you always learn something new and i learned something new or maybe it wasn't new but it was like refreshed in my mind based on what you said regarding veterans day and memorial day i think some of our listeners are more informed now so that's good that we know the difference now we try to spread the good word we love that we love that i'm feeling good this week we have a lot to get through so i'm gonna cut short the banter a little bit and go right into listener questions so if you guys are new to the show we have a link in the description of every single episode where you guys can chime in click the link and ask us anything so we have a segment devoted to you guys where we answer your questions and give some thoughts to your concerns i guess but before we actually address the question one of our listeners justin wrote in and this question is a little bit long so we will not address it on this week's episode but since i'm teasing it now we will talk about it on next week's episode i just wanted to let you know specifically because i have seen it we will read it and that goes for everybody as well just because we haven't addressed your question yet doesn't mean that we're never going to bring it up on the show we've seen it and it just takes a while to get through these questions because there's a lot so we want to make sure that each question gets a very good answer from both me and dante so our first question or our only question for this week that we're gonna address is do you think there's something to the idea that people that defend sexual assault do that because they're unsure whether they've crossed the lines in the past as well what do you think about that dante that's a great question first of all um it's a heavy thought process a heavy topic but i i think it's a a decent theory on the subject i always come on the show and tell you not everything's black and white not everything's a equals b whatever you know cliche that you want to use right i'm not going to say that everybody who defends sexual assault you know what i just had a brain for it there i listen you shouldn't be defending sexual assault right if you're sexually assaulting my i don't know what where you can step in and defend it um but i don't think that everybody that does it is because they're not sure if they've ever crossed the line in the past there are probably a lot of people who you know over the past five years the more understanding that we've gained especially with speaking out have questioned some of the things that they have done in the past and are wondering if they cross the line but me personally i don't think that would lead them to defend an abuser it should make them uh want to learn more and be better so they don't repeat the same mistakes i just can't put myself in the mindset of defending an abuser that's just me i'm curious to hear your thoughts i think that this is a very interesting question like i always say you guys are so smart and you guys ask us very thought-provoking questions like this one my thoughts on it um i think there's some truth to it i think that people that feel the need to defend sexual assault or always you know want to defend the person in question you know i think it's very possible that they too might have done something in the past and maybe there were blurred lines and they didn't know if they maybe committed assault or not so they always try and defend that guy because they don't know if they too can be the next victim of you know being accused or what not so i think that there's some truth to that does that apply to everybody no but my question would be why would anybody like want to defend sexual assault i think it's equal on both parts women fear you know being abused and men fear being accused so some men approach it like oh this woman how do we know she's telling the truth how do we know that she's not lying on this guy and in this culture right now we have the idea of believe all women where i see it i think that we should support all women give them the support to feel comfortable to come forward and look at things as the evidence comes to you that way you're making a fair decision and when all the evidence comes out the person that you know committed the offense will be you know held accountable for that i think that's the way i see it when it comes to that but i do think there's truth to what this person is saying because a hit dog is going to holler that's why a lot of people hate cancer culture because with cancer culture people go into somebody's past and dig up something problematic we know in life that none of us are perfect all of us are learning and growing and a lot of us have made mistakes i don't know if it's to the point of being cancelled but it's definitely to the point of somebody bringing it to somebody's attention and like hey what did you mean by this why did you do this why did you say this so because we're not all perfect because we all have an equal chance of somebody digging into our past it makes us feel defensive it's like am i going to be next so it's almost this idea of am i going to be next am i going to be the next victim of being accused am i going to be the next victim of canceled culture so i think that's where it comes from but i do think there's truth to what you just said and i don't want this to turn into a whole cancel culture discussion because we've talked about this right but where do you draw a line so let's say somebody is accused of something bad and then it's somebody's journalistic duty to go research this person's past to see if there's other transgressions in their past that you know build a case that hey this is a bad person they've done this one time and here's the other times we found out that we did this now there's people going out there that are just targeting people that they don't like let me find something that this guy said when he was 14 years old and things of that nature like a player gets drafted the rival team's like oh we don't like this guy let's go look at his twitter for when he was in high school to me that stuff is it's whack but i don't want to get too much off the topic of what this listener question was about i agree that i i that theory makes sense and i can see people doing that you know out of their own selfish self-preservation hey i'm going to defend this because i may have done this in the past tour i'm not sure if i've ever crossed the line so let me just err on the side of caution here because when they start coming for people i don't want them to be able to come for me so if i stand for this now it won't allow me to fall later this is why i said not everything's black and white because i've heard more times than i can count that i've heard people say oh well this person they don't support gay people or homosexuality because they're secretly gay i don't think that's true about every person that doesn't support it i think some people just are ignorant but i don't think that they uh are homosexual themselves or a closet of homosexual hate themselves for it i think some people are just ignorant or some people are just like hey it doesn't make sense to me so i don't like it you know but i i've heard that so many times i've seen that so many times on twitter like oh somebody said something negative about little nazex in that montero video or whatever the video is called you really just gay yourself because that's why you didn't want to see that no i don't think so i think that's a weird conclusion to draw i don't think this person said all people that feel the need to defend sexual assault are sexual offenders themselves she said is there truth to the fact that people that defend them are unsure whether they've crossed the line or not and yes it can be possible it's probably not you know applicable to everybody with what you said with homophobia i also believe that it's not everybody that's very homophobic that is gay themselves that's just not true nothing's ever 100 with sexual assault and nothing is ever 100 with the situation you brought up so good question good question i always really good question yeah i always love when you guys make us think and we definitely were thinking on this topic so thank you for that so moving right along let us get into off my chest justin's
dante has got to get
justin and dante gotta get it off you julia love hearing that so this weekend off my chest dante would you like to go first this week what do you need to get off your chest this week so i'm going to let you handle it because from the outline i see that we were going to talk about the same thing okay so you can get it off your chest for both of us um so we've been seeing in the nba that there have been fans that are doing a little bit too much so i saw tristan thompson a fan had dumped some popcorn on him and then tristan thompson got really upset and was charging him and there's 10 people holding him back and people were upset they wanted to find the person that felt brave enough to throw popcorn on the opposing team that's ridiculous keep your hands to yourself then today i saw that i think last night somebody threw a bottle of water at kyrie irving and i was like what are these fans doing last year everybody knows the nba did not have any fans because the nba was in a bubble to protect the players and the fans this year now that we have a vaccine they've opened it up and now fans are back and now they're about to snatch away the fans again because fans are out of line when you get when you feel disrespected as a person man or woman and someone calls you out your name or does something like that it doesn't make you feel good and then when you react and we had times in history where people are reacting and gone in the crowd then we're wrong and we need to we need to be civilized and we need to keep our calm and we need to keep our cool and it's reflected on us so um you know like i said just want to keep it uh upfront and truthful and it's just unacceptable for that stuff to be happening but we move on keep your hands to yourself because if you were on the street you wouldn't ever dare throw a water bottle at a tall huge nba player that can probably beat you up you would never do that you would never throw popcorn at that person so why do you feel that it's okay to do the same just because you know you're up in the rafters and that person might not be able to get to you because there's 10 people holding them back or they might even get in trouble for you know laying hands on you if you do not want to fight do not start anything i don't get it and anybody that does that i think this should be banned for a long time i don't know how long they should be banned but they should be fined they should be banned from the arena that's unacceptable and i'm tired of seeing that because we always hold players to this high moral standard and then when we see something like this if they choose to retaliate then they're the bad guy and i don't think that's fair and i'm not condoning violence but i think that that's just life don't hit somebody and expect not to be hit back if you don't want to be hit at all keep your hands to yourself yeah i agree with you there and so here's what i'll add on to it so it was last week in philadelphia actually russell westbrook got he got hurt and was walking back to the locker room and a fan at the wells fargo center uh dumped popcorn on him as he was leaving the court he had to be restrained as they were leading him off the floor and fans come out and cheer come out and boo yell all you want we encourage that this is just plain stupidity somebody pouring some popcorn and any athlete being westbrook or whomever they are pumped with their adrenaline he's probably feeling bad his team may be enroute here to losing this game too just a stupid thing to do like you said yesterday kyrie irving got a water bottle thrown at him uh emanuel quickly who plays for the new york knicks had a bottle thrown at him and then also atlanta hawks star player trae young got spit on you know these aren't the first times that we've seen fans get out of pocket with uh players right everybody remembers the malice at the palace the pistons and pacers were playing and a fan threw soda at ranoir test and the players charged the stands and were fighting the patrons the people that paid their money to beat to watch a game and didn't turn into this fight right vernon maxwell some some fan yelled something to him about his uh stillborn baby and he went in the stands and beat up this fan which he should have marcus smart when he was at oklahoma state a fan called him the n-word went into the stands right just because you pay your money to be there doesn't mean that you can disrespect people and treat them without dignity like they're animals like it's a zoo you know it's just there for your entertainment like you're throwing peanuts at the elephants or whatever they do at zoos i'm not really into animals like that so i haven't been at a zoo since the last time i was forced to be at one but my larger point on is that there's power in numbers right if people feel more comfort around other people that they think have their back you know no people don't like to act alone so if everybody was at uh the guard and screaming you know [ __ ] kyrie [ __ ] kyrie more people are going to join in you know it becomes a group activity if one person was screaming it and nobody else did it was just silence they'd feel like a [ __ ] and they'd probably leave so we said we have to stop encouraging uh this behavior from fans um there's a way to cheer on your team and not cheer for the opposing team being respectful and careful um the fan who threw by kyrie just got charged with a felony today i saw on bleacher report and the fan who threw the popcorn on russell westbrook in philadelphia has been banned from all wells fargo events i think that's ridiculous a felony for throwing something at someone i don't think that that offense fits the crime i don't agree with that at all i think the band from a stadium regardless of what sports team is playing there is completely appropriate i agree if you cannot conduct yourself as a reasonable adult you know you don't deserve to be there somebody else will gladly take your seat so i think that that's the right punishment but a felony i think is a bit much like felony it'd be one thing if you attack somebody with a knife or something but a felony i think is a little bit ridiculous but maybe you have to step that far in order to deter people from acting stupid because we don't want another malice in the palace we really don't it was not a good look for the nba and it just wasn't so i guess to deter that from happening they're gonna start with huge you know fines and huge punishments for people that decide to get out of hand so if you want a felony go ahead throw some stuff and see what happens play stupid games win stupid prizes exactly exactly but um yeah i guess we can head into in the news so dante what's our first news story oh right we're going to get politics out the way early this episode and just give you all a quick rundown last week we mentioned that the senate was voting on a house resolution to have a bipartisan commission to investigate the events of january 6 the insurrection the senate which would need a filibuster-proof majority to approve this which is 60 votes right now the senate's tied 50 50 common hairs would be the tiebreaker if it was just a simple majority vote but that's your you know your civics lesson for today whatever um the the senate did not reach the 60 votes needed to create this bipartisan commission to investigate the insurrection on january six five republican senators uh crossed over to democratic lines and voted for it but 35 republican senators said no we don't want to investigate this i wish that they kept that same energy and they had the same fervor that they did when 9 11 happened or when benghazi happened you know we want to investigate terrorism just not when our base are the ones committing the acts of terror that's kind of the hill that they choose to die on repeatedly so that's cool too and then what's our next story oh i mean one of the rising stars of the republican party marjorie taylor green was caught on the news i mean not caught because she willingly did it she said it she compared wearing a mask to the holocaust she talked about how wearing a mask is just like how jewish people had to wear a yellow star of david pins and she talked about how they were picked up in the middle night on trains and sent to internment camps and killed when she compared wearing masks to that on national tv she's a gem you know we can look back in a time in history where people were told to wear a gold star and they were definitely treated like second-class citizen citizens so much so that they were put in trains and taken to gas chambers in nazi germany and this is exactly the type of abuse that nancy pelosi is talking about yeah i really don't have anything to say honestly i think her words speak for itself but i guess it's just good that y'all know what your elected officials are up to so you know there's that so this week this is kind of a sports episode i don't know what's happening but our fave our tennis fave naomi osaka earlier in the week we heard that she did not want to do after game press conferences because it affects her mental health and she feels like some reporters can be insensitive with the way they ask questions especially when your adrenaline is up sometimes when you lose a match they ask you you know really stupid questions and you don't want to get upset and it's very hard so she said that she wasn't going to be you know giving press conferences and this is a no-no because players can get fined for choosing not to talk to the press it's a big deal it's you know a part of the game and as the biggest you know tennis star in the world her choosing not to do that in a way can set an example and it's just you know controversy because anytime a big player does something like that it's gonna you know have some ripple effects so i'll read a little bit of the story so y'all get more context and then we will give our thoughts the week-long confrontation between naomi osaka the second ranked woman in tennis and leaders of the sports for grand slam tournaments turned bitter on monday when miss osaka withdrew from the french open citing concerns for her mental health the move was a dramatic turn in the high-stakes standoff between the most powerful officials in tennis and miss osaka the 23 year old is not only the world's highest paid female athlete but a generational star who has quickly become the most magnetic figure in tennis and she said i think now the best thing for the tournament the other players and my well-being is that i withdraw so that everyone can get back to focusing on tennis going on in paris so this is the first time in professional tennis that a star as significant as osaka has not suffered a physical injury and has walked away from the middle of an event such as the french open and this is a big deal so some of her fellow players came out and said that they you know support her but they disagree with her stance because they believe that you know doing post game interviews is a part of the game and it's part of what you sign up for so it's a tradition that should stay because in a way the players help the media and it's a in a way symbiotic relationship that should stay so naomi you know took a stand against it and you know it caused some controversy so it's interesting now that she's withdrawing and now you know advertisers and everybody is probably mad because they don't get to see you know the number two ranked player participate in the french open because people were expecting her to do well because she's been on a hot streak in terms of winning at these last few grand slams so dante what do you think about her stance and her withdrawing from the french open first of all i applaud her stance to do what she thinks she what she thinks is the best thing that she can do for her mental health because at the end of the day that's more important than anything so if that's what she had to do to protect her peace then good for her i'm gonna always support somebody who does what they need to do to protect their peace in terms of how you mention the symbiotic relationship between the press and the athletes i wish that the press was more evolved and more civil when uh serena williams was going through this 10 15 20 years ago how they treated her and the cartoons that were drawn about her and the nasty comments about her and the press needs to do better when it comes to dealing with these athletes um you know athleticism especially playing professional sports this is your livelihood you've worked your whole life to get here you know and they ask them stupid questions or questions that might not have anything to do with the game whatever whatever the case may be they need to be better but what you said is you know how you said about how some of her contemporaries came out in support of her but disagree with the way that she handled it you know withdrawing from a tournament uh not due to physical injury but to due to mental health you know talking to the pres just like in the nba i mean i don't know the rules of tennis right so i'm not gonna come in here and talk like i'm some expert on how their deals are set up in relation to the media but i know in the nfl and the nba it's required that you go out there and speak to the press right it's a part of the job now for her she you know she viewed this as okay you're right it is a part of the job well i'm taking this one off then i respect it you were within the rules of whatever you know the organization said and you did what you felt was right so i applaud that but i do think that athletes do have some sort of responsibility to speak to the press even if you're out there if you give them the same answer every single time you know that's what the job details at least in profession north american professional sports so that's my thoughts because marshawn lynch a running back in the nfl famously i remember at the super bowl he's not a fan of speaking to the press because we know how the press can manipulate people make people sound a certain way cause distractions so in turn he was like you know i'm going to answer every single question the same and he answered every question by saying i'm just here so i don't get fined i'm just here so i don't get fined i'm here so i won't get fined i'm here so i won't get fined i'm here so i won't get fined i'm here so i won't get fun i'm here so i won't get fined i'm just here so i won't get fined and you know it worked because he gave his you know interview so what are you going to find him for because players do get fined for not talking to the press so naomi osaka since she didn't talk to the press after her round one victory she was fined fifteen thousand dollars and then i think the french open had come out and said that hey if you continue we can levy have your fines and sanctions against you and i think naomi was like honestly i really don't need this i don't want to be a distraction i did this for my mental health and wasn't trying to be selfish or take a stance just to cause some headlines i think it's in my best interest to withdraw that way y'all can go on with your match and my mental health is protected i think that that's great i applaud her for taking a position and taking a stance because it's hard um i don't know i feel like the media maybe needs to be reformed and challenged sometimes we need to take a look at things that have been accepted for too long and see if we can improve it i know she tweeted that something to the effect of people hate change and change makes people upset and i think that that's true and i think that the media has to reflect and think about asking better questions instead of trying to provoke the players into getting upset that way you have another headline because they do do that they ask them certain questions that that they know will irritate them that way they can get more headlines and it's annoying and i couldn't imagine being a professional athlete being tired having to sit there for 15 minutes and answer the same questions over and over again and then people trying to antagonize me and ask a certain question that way they can get a rise out of me it's very frustrating i agree that it's part of the game and it's part of what she signed up for but i feel like if she's taking the stance and saying that she's not going to continue you know doing the press conferences she's accepting the penalty for that she made like 50 plus million dollars last year so she has 15 000 in the bank to pay for each you know press conference that she misses so i don't know why they threatened her and said that we're gonna further punish you when she already you know was punished you know what i mean because they want to send a message that this is not okay because they don't want other players to take her example and do the same i my thoughts on it you know you mentioned this but it's like think about you she is the highest paid female athlete in the world you know these grand slams earn lots of money especially for all the sponsorships she's had she has and all of that stuff think about how passionate she is about one not tennis i mean she devoted her life to it these people don't get to these places by accident right like there's a lot of sacrifice and hard work that makes you get to the level uh that she's at but two about how passionate she is about how she feels right now about her mental health that she'll walk away from the game that she loves she'll walk away from all that money because she's like hey i just i'm not in the right place for this right now that's what that's what i want people to understand she loves this game she's very well compensated so for her to walk away she has to really be feeling something i think people need to be more supportive of that i think so as well i think so as well and in her long instagram post she mentioned that she's been suffering with depression since she won at the 2018 u.s open and that was the u.s open where she was playing her idol serena williams and that match did not end well because there was controversy with the official and saying that serena williams was getting coaching serena denied it and it was this huge blow up and you know naomi osaka ended up winning that match but due to all the controversy she never really got to have her true moment you know beating her idol in a grand slam championship and i know i know you guys were here rooting and i was rooting too but let's make this the best moment we can and we'll we'll get through it but um let's give everyone the credit where credit's due and let's not boo anymore we just we're gonna we're gonna get through this and let's be positive so um congratulations naomi no more booing so she said that she's been suffering with depression because of that and since that you know event and it can be hard for these athletes if anybody has heard naomi osaka speak she's very shy she's very reserved she's not you know this outgoing bubbly person so somebody that's an introvert having to talk to the press can be hard i do think that these athletes you know they're skilled they play a sport they sign up to play a game but they don't necessarily sign up to deal with the press she's not a motivational speaker she's not some you know you know what i'm trying to say she's not a motivational speaker like if it's hard for her to do that i think she should have the option to not do that and i think players should as well but then if other players do do that it'll kind of make the press obsolete because it's like you guys are useless you guys are annoying i don't need to deal with this a lot of these players are rich and can't afford to take 15 000 fines so then you know that opens up a pandora's box so i'm conflicted i support players because they make the game without naomi osaka's contributions to tennis nobody would be talking about it the way they do now and it's kind of hypocritical because i know the u.s open after the whole george floyd thing they had you know areas of the stadium in new york decorated with black lives matter art and all this so black lives matter is just not about life and death it's also about when we're alive as well black lives matter includes our mental health black mental health matters mental health in general matters so don't only care about us when our lives are in danger care about us when we're alive and we're going through stuff mentally because that's all a part of health as well so i know that that was the u.s open and you know the french open didn't have all these black lives matter stuff but at the same time if you value the health and the physical health of these players value their mental health as well that's a word that's a word i'm ready to move on you right you put a nice bow on it so the last thing that we'll talk about before we get into our main topic miss monique our fave came through with the word i don't know what compelled her to say this i guess monique was at an airport and she saw black women wearing bonnets and slippers and pajamas to the airport and she felt some type of way because she in her long statement was talking about how as black people we should carry ourselves well and carrying ourselves you know with wearing you know do rags and you know house slippers and pajamas and bonnets to a public space she said is not the best representation of us and she definitely felt some type of way because she went on a whole five minute rant i'll include a clip i've been seeing it not just at the airport i've been seeing it at the store at the mall i've been seeing sisters showing up with these bonnets and head scarves and they slippers and the question that i'm having to you my sweet babies when did we lose pride in representing ourselves when did we step away of let me make sure i'm presentable when i leave my home let me make sure i'm representing the family i created so that if i'm out in the street i look like i have pride in myself and i'm not saying no full face of makeup i'm not saying no full front lace frontal i'm not saying none of that all i'm saying is could you please comb your hair and she was not feeling it she said that if we're going to call ourselves kings and queens we should look like it too because how we present ourselves to the world in a way affects how people may treat us so dante what did you think about what she said do you agree with her stance because it's very controversial i'm conflicted by her stance um on one hand you know after watching the video i was like yeah you know if you dress like you don't care that's how people will perceive you but on the other hand the bible says come as you are this to me so at times sounded like the whole pull up your pants argument you if you're a book the outside and how you're dressing is your cover and you let people come to whatever determination that they want to without opening that book right but when it comes to flying because it's specific to the airport where she said she was at the airport right i truly believe in comfort over style who wants to fly in a suit i had to do that before [ __ ] sucks um so i i mean listen i believe in comfort over style at the airport um but for me personally i'm never going outside even when i have braids or when i'm trying to you know when my hair is short and i have waves i'm never going outside in my durag i'm not going out in public in my durag i'm never going out in pajamas that's just not me that's not how i was raised man like that's just my thing i ain't judging somebody else for doing it you do whatever you want to do you have your own volition and your own prerogative but people ain't going to take you seriously too much if you come outside pajamas and have no bonding on your head i know that for a fact it's just how people see you um what are your thoughts i'm conflicted as well and i respect monique for feeling the need to come out and say that black people should represent themselves in the way that they want to be seen because it's true that the way you present yourself to the world is how you want to be seen if you come out of your house looking dirty people are going to think that you're dirty you might be a clean person but that's not what you're showing us so it's weird to think that oh this person is clean but they don't look clean so that's not the conclusion i'm gonna come to if you wanna you know wear pajamas out people might think that you're lazy if you don't want people to think that you're lazy dress appropriately my issue was when monique said presentable this idea of being presentable because i'm like presentable to who because i think that individually everybody that gets up out of their house and presents themselves is representing themselves so who exactly are we trying to be presentable to because in the black community there's this idea of wanting to look a certain way in front of white people i'm sorry to say but it's very true i've even heard people saying oh don't do that don't act like that white people will think this white people will think that there's a lot of black people that are concerned with how white people will perceive them and this is unique to our community or maybe it's not and there's other people that you know experience the same thing where they want to be looked at a certain way by white people and i don't think that you should judge everything based on the eyes and the lens of white people i think it's very dangerous and i think it affects our mindset everybody represents themselves if i go out of the house looking dirty it's not a indictment on black people it's an indictment on myself so i'm questioning her and who she's talking about when she's saying look presentable and for me it's the airport monique says she was at the airport and she saw people with bonnets and pajamas and for me like dante said it's all about comfort this is not a job interview this is not a party this is to catch a flight to go from point a to point b so the most important thing for me honestly is comfort if you're more comfortable in a sweater in your pajamas and your bonnet so be it if you're more comfortable in the suit so be it i think we should leave people alone and we have to get out of this mindset of oh people will perceive us a certain way if we look a certain way they're not representing the black community they're representing themselves i've never seen white people be like oh this trailer tractor person with a hillbilly pregnant belly in the airport looking a fool and they're like oh this is making white people look bad i've never heard that said but with black people always like oh my god you look at how people are going to look at us oh they do not represent our race they just don't black people are not a monolith we do not think the same we do not dress the same we do not speak the same we're different white people are different so we should accept those differences stop judging people and let people come as they are exactly come as you are look we are not the judges of this thing i keep saying it on this podcast we are just witnesses we're not even the jury man we don't decide it's not up to us so you know if that's your if that's your steez that's your get down you want to go out in public with your spongebob pajamas on do your thing just know that people are going to see you a certain way that's all you know you know what you're signing up for that's my biggest thing with people is like we have free will you know what you're signing up for when you do certain things and if you're okay with that then fine be yourself do you do whatever you want just know that you can't control how people are going to react to you right i mean you kind of can if you didn't come whatever it's it's too much it's too much let's just like that wear whatever the [ __ ] you want to wear and if you get judged for it so be it but it's up to you to determine if those people's opinions matter to you or not right i mean you missed the important part you might have people like monique judging you and you have a lot of people who honestly don't care it does not affect me when people dress a certain way it really doesn't if people want to wear a do-rag and wear house slippers and pajamas so be it it doesn't affect me they do not represent me they represent themselves so i'm not concerned i'm not concerned my biggest lesson for this is that black people should get out of the idea of wanting to be looked at a certain way by a certain audience how somebody looks does not affect you and does not affect our community that's all i have to say um nope it shouldn't at least yeah should it it shouldn't at least which is true but yeah that's enough about that what do you guys think about what monique said does that tie into respectability politics does she have a point um do you agree with her what do you think i'd love to know so that's the last story before we get into our main topic we had this plan for a week and now the time is here to discuss it dante what are we talking about this week we are talking about well it's it's kind of a loaded topic but we are talking about sean king uh black authenticity and passing this week so we've all seen things on the internet about sean king who is a i'm justin is it fair to call him a civil rights activist or an activist i guess an activist okay so he is an activist who uh has a very large following online he's worked a lot with victims victims and families that have had things happen to them at the hands of the police there's been questions since day one on if this guy is truly an african-american if he's black because he looks like a white man in a lot of people's eyes so we kind of wanted to talk about this because recently uh last week when we were coming up with this topic like justin said he had posted on instagram picture of him and his brother and people were starting to attack him like yo look at his brother this guy is clearly a white man and he said well we have different dads i didn't have a relationship with my dad you know it's kind of disgusting that people are even talking about my race and ethnicity like that so just i kind of want to get your thoughts on i guess sean king and then we can get into passing and racial authenticity i really don't have a lot when it comes to sean king all i know is that he's an activist he likes to post a lot when it comes to injustice and situations that affect black people people find him you know useful as an informational resource on you know things dealing with civil rights and injustice so a lot of people you know find his work useful you know i appreciate the work that he does because he does a lot to you know help the black community um people obviously don't like him he's very you know unpopular with a lot of people within the black community because they feel like he's in a way exploiting black trauma for profit you know i don't have his bank statement i don't know if he is but i think that somebody can make an argument for that and plenty of people have you know it's funny that we bring him up because this week i saw that uh patrice cullers she's one of the i think founding members of black lives matter she's stepping down from her role and if you guys remember i think a couple weeks ago dante and i talked about how she purchased multi-million dollar homes and people were calling her out and saying oh i thought you were a marxist i thought you were against you know the rich hoarding all the stuff and yet you're buying million dollar houses make it make sense and now a couple weeks later she's now resigning from black lives matter interesting and honestly i think that people should open up the magnifying glass because i've been saying it from day one black lives matter raised so much money last summer where is that money going where's the transparency because it seems like from the outside looking in that a lot of people are lining their pockets on the pain of other people i don't know it's interesting but as it pertains to sean go ahead go ahead well i want to say that you know you brought up an interesting point there and i don't care what color you are if you are profiting off the pain of people and specifically in this case of black people because that's the organization that was taking this money then that's wrong i don't give a [ __ ] if sean king is black white purple if you are profiting off the pain and taking advantage of people's kindness that's wrong no it is wrong it is wrong it's wrong to exploit anybody to be honest exploitation is horrible look at the history of this country nobody likes being exploited i think that i don't know i feel like sean king's race isn't important because if you're fighting for black people or anybody in general are we right to assume that it shouldn't matter what your race is why are people so concerned with finding out if he's black or if he's not because i don't know about him is he claiming that he's black huh i did not see this going this way yeah so he is uh yeah he says that you know he's an african-american man he's lived his life as an african-american man just so i'm clear right i don't ever want to twist your words on here you're saying that you know we shouldn't be splitting hairs right if somebody's doing something for the benefit of a good cause and specifics of this cause it's black people it doesn't matter if this man is white or black in the case of sean king right right if yeah if you're helping us bottom line and you're not exploiting us or making profit off of black lives matter or anything if you're just simply there helping black people i see no problem with that okay i so the caveat there is what can be perceived as exploitative gotcha because that's going to come in handy when we get into our next topic after this about what is exploitation and you know if that you know is it being harmful um but with sean king i i agree with you i don't care what color the man is like from what i see what i've seen of him he's out there doing good work and he's spreading good information to people right at the end of the day it's kind of hard to argue that he's not spreading really solid information to people so that's what really matters to me uh when it comes to sean king i don't care what color he is um and how you mentioned being ex being exploitative it's not you know like rachel dolezal right where this is a clear a white woman that lived her life as a black woman she got to be the head of the naacp chapter in spokane washington nobody decided to do any digging in the in the world we live in now nobody decided to go look at some yearbooks that it's hard for me to believe that it took as long as it did for her to get exposed is the right word exposed as living a lie right because what she did is lying you're pretending to be somebody else in order to gain access and benefits to things that you should not have access to it's just not right it's exploitative because you should be who you are pretending to be somebody that you're not is fake it's fraud it's phony it's not good okay you know people should live in honesty and she did not do that and i'm so glad that she got exposed because that's ridiculous that's ridiculous you should not change your identity in order to gain benefits and access to things that you would not normally have access to you know i guess only time will tell with sean king but i think it's good that we mentioned it on this episode about uh sean king and the work that he's doing and you know if it matters does it matter to you guys the listeners if he's living his life as a black man but he's really white if the work that he's doing is good and he's not you know profiting and laundering money based on this fact you know what do you think about it if i was really black but i look white if i know who i am that's all that matters i don't have to address every situation where somebody is questioning my identity if i know who my mom and my dad are if i know you know who i am i don't know why he continues to address whether or not he's black or not just let it be and continue to do good work i just don't get it because if i was truly black i would not be addressing anyone because who are you to question who i am especially when i told you who i am and maybe it's situations like rachel dolezal that's making people dig into him and find out are you really black yeah i agree with everything you just said there i i don't even have anything like witty or worthwhile to add on to it i agree with everything you just said there is an excellent point so with that we have ellen's show you guys know that ellen's show um after 2022 justin's faves is ellen i've been i've been on game about ellen i exposed her for the hypocrisy with her relationship with george w bush um i always you know gave you know certain people side eye because i'm like nobody can be that nice and that's a unfair burden to place on anybody because we're human at the same time if there's abuse going on you should call it out and not let it fester but nevertheless ellen's show is going to be ending after 2022. people have already brought up people that they'd like to see replace her so some people were saying that they'd like to see tiffany haddish you know take on the seat that ellen is leaving and you know be the new host of the ellen show or the new version of ellen's show i guess with the new host and on twitter people were not having it because there's a lot of black people or people in general that do not like tiffany haddish if anybody doesn't know who she is she is a comedian and a lot of people call her ghetto a lot of people say that she makes black people look bad famously she attended the oscars a couple years ago and in her purse she had fried chicken in there when i'm hungry i turn into an evil [ __ ] so i said to myself this year i'm gonna make sure i'm not hungry and if i see somebody with a little attitude maybe i hand them a piece of chicken so what hang on you took what you took fried chicken so i took i put some fried chicken in my bag besides also the theme is camp i mean when you bring some chicken when you go camping i'm just saying sure so i don't know how y'all can't but that's how i camp so i brought some chicken in my bag you know in a plastic and i put it in a plastic sandwich bag post some holes in it so it can breathe
and then she saw meryl streep on the red carpet and ran up on meryl streep and middle street clearly did not know who this was she's like who is this you know person in front of me you know i think offering me a piece of fried chicken and i was just cringing and this goes with the idea of wanting to be seen a certain way in front of white people a lot of black people were embarrassed because they thought tiffany haddish was poor representation of black women and black people so how dare she you know embarrass us in that way because that's how some people think so a lot of people they don't like tiffany haddish and they feel like if she was given you know ellen's show that she would create you know black stereotypes or whatever and make black people a ghetto or uneducated or whatever what do you think about that the thing i want to address what you just said is how you said you know we saw that happen right and a lot of people black people felt bad about that like oh man you're making us look this way because of you know a certain mindset that's been put into us but i don't think it's a black problem i think it's that people who had no idea who this woman was saw this black lady behaving very cringely and fitting in the stereotypes they're like oh you know yeah black people do like chicken i don't think it's a it's isolated to black people feeling that way i don't think they feel that way for no reason i think it's because sometimes we do get punched in as a monolith right one person does something and we're all like oh my god you know i remember and this happens white people too i remember when i was younger and the dc sniper was going around and black people and even the comedians before they caught this person making jokes like well you know that that would never be a black person because we don't do stuff like that you know robin banks serial killers leading that up to the white people that's what they do and they found out this person was black and they're like oh [ __ ] like well i guess we had to have one right like but i don't know so i think that it's not specifically a black people problem i think that people view us as a group but one person can sway opinions on that one way or another positive or negative and i think it's like that for a lot of races it's about you know your personal interactions with these people but to the topic of replacing ellen what you said is interesting you know nobody can be that nice that's funny because i i believe in that too you could be so nice that it raises suspicion or it's like you were trying to like overcompensate for something here you know you're trying too hard here to to let us know that you're a saint and if tiffany hash was the person replaced her i feel about her the way i feel about kevin hart i don't think you're the funniest person in the world i just respect how the hell out of your work ethic that's what i can say i don't think that you're super funny i i don't i don't watch kevin hart specials anymore i don't watch tiffany haddish specials um i saw her in this netflix movie with eric andre like last month i don't get the the buzz or the hype about her i'm happy for her success would never put anybody down that's having success but i think that they could find a more compelling and interesting person to follow up ellen as the host and then you know you mentioned about being performative you know what the stereotypes be hurtful to black people by having her if she's you know behaving the way she did on the red corporate on this show every day yes it would be but like so here's the argument in the crux of what this conversation kind of is is it good for black people because hey there's a black person in this prime slot that ellen had following up ellen even if it's not the best representation of us you know is it still a win that's the question i have for you um well tiffany haddish actually is a unique case because even though people say that tiffany haddish acts stereotypical and engages in you know tropes about black people i really do think that that's how she really is i think i've seen enough interviews i've seen enough stand up to know that i think that that's really how she is and some people don't believe that that's how she is some people think that she puts on a little bit more in order to engage with a certain audience but i really do think that that's her so when it comes to her hosting ellen i think that she would be being herself i don't think that she would be doing stereotypical stuff just to be controversial or just to be stereotypical on purpose i think that she would be representing herself accurately because that's truly how she is now if it was somebody that is not like that then i can see how that would be you know harmful for somebody to be in a seat like that and you know with representation comes you know a lot of stereotyping because that's all people see that's why i think that oprah being on television for as long as she was was good for a lot of people because people might not have been familiar with black people oprah was relatable to a lot of women and a lot of people in general of all races and i think that for the most part she portrayed herself honestly and i think that she's very classy and represented herself well i think that there's nothing wrong with representation as long as you're being true to who you are now if you're engaging in tropes and stereotypes i have a problem with that but if that's who you are so be it is it a win yeah because there's never been a black person in that position so if tiffany haddish was you know the person that's chosen it would be a win so okay so if it's being authentic to who you are as a person then you're for it but this is medea hosting the ellen show that's where you draw the line well medea is a character yeah yeah for sure but i'm just i'm just saying like it's a character it's a black person you know is it a win even though this is like a very harmful uh trope well i don't know if that's i don't know if that's like the best example because medea is a character it's not a real person i understand what you're trying to say but you know if you gave me a better example i'd be better able to answer your question but i can't get past the fact that medea is a fictional character so a character is not real so i can't interpret that as a real representation of how black people are okay charlemagne the god um i don't really have a problem with that obviously i don't know he's not my favorite person but cool he's the host cool you know he hosts a popular radio show already so you know it is what it is okay i don't have any more like controversial black people that could do it so i can't spitball any more people to you yeah out of it because tyler perry speaking of him a lot of people feel like the films that he portrays are harmful to the black community because he has tropes that deal with negative stereotyping black men ain't this black woman can't find demand but a growing number of critics in the black community take issue with perry's work including director spike lee each artist should be allowed to pursue the artistic endeavor but i still think there a lot of stuff that's on today is kunrin buffoonery and i know is making a lot of money
breaking records but we could do better all these kind of tropes and a lot of people don't like it but at the same time there's an audience for it people keep returning to see tyler perry's stuff so if it was so bad if the representation was so harmful why do people continue to watch it surely black people because we'll reject it if it's so bad because tyler perry got his start in the church and religion was a big part of what the plays in the movies that he made so he has those those roots entangled and grown into the black church and i think that's why people go uh back to it and keep coming back to tyler perry's work you know regardless if it's what some would view as harmful or stereotypical or a trope i think that's why it's tyler perry has a black church behind them and that's why they keep going back tyler perry is definitely serving an audience that is underserved by hollywood especially black southern women do not see themselves at all in hollywood fair so when he's serving them movies where they appear to be in in situations that are naturalistic and recognizable to them and definitely have that christian message i absolutely understand why my grandmother my mother and my aunts love this stuff and my family down south why they love this stuff do you think that tyler perry and his success is a win for black people is it um is he a billionaire am i am i correct on that i think that that's what they say he is yeah i mean he has his own land his own studios he created his own table he didn't wait to get a seat at somebody else's table so in that sense then yeah that's a win i mean maybe he didn't go about it the way that a lot of people would have liked him to but he still did it and that could inspire somebody else to do the same exact thing another day so i would say from what i know of entire pairing like i said we don't ever know everything about someone you know yes the the tropes and the stereotypes are harmful but with him you know i think one could argue that the good outweighs the bad if you look at the the country and we have 17 black unemployment and all these other things going on tyler perry's in atlanta creating jobs he's doing something that nobody else in black hollywood has been able to do so when we talk about victimhood look at black hollywood you have so many actors and actresses complaining that they can't find jobs well tyler perry is creating jobs which i think is a beautiful thing so to write why do you think he's so successful just one thing i want to point out that drug dealers also create jobs but we're not giving them credit for creating jobs just creating jobs it's not he's not a drug trading bad jobs and i think maybe some people can argue that the bad outweighs the good because we always talk about representation and how when people see stuff on tv people that have never interacted with black people will think that that's how black people are and a lot of people argue that tyler perry's stuff is harmful to the black community because of the stereotyping and how a lot of it doesn't look good for us so that's why i think it's interesting what you said because he got to where he is on the backs of stereotyping and bad representation for black people and in turn a lot of people who aren't black that don't have any experience but black people are seeing that and in our in a way our sway to think that black people behave that way and are that way so you think that it's a win regardless of how harmful that was to the black community no i just said that you can make an argument you know for it being a win and you just made an argument for it not being a win i think no you said that it was a win though so i said that tyler perry the good outweighs the bad in my opinion right i remember it's a win you know he has he has created and built equity in this in this community he has like i said he has his own studios he's hiring people that look like him like i said not everything's black and white not everything's perfect right i don't agree with the troops i don't watch this stuff i don't find entertaining and i think it can be harmful like you said to people who don't have whom have never had or have had very limited or very small interactions with black people if they think you know they turn on bet and see a tire perimeter they think oh well this must be how all black people act i mean one that's just ignorant and your smooth brain but two that's unfortunate that that's the conclusions that they draw so you know it's not uh like it says not a black and white thing some things live in the gray area um it's just my personal opinion i think that he's doing so much good and by building you know not waiting for a seat at some stable building his own table and building equity in this community for other movie makers and writers and creatives um i think that that's very important like you said representation matters because the point of this episode is to show you know whether or not somebody can cause harm even though they're black what does that mean are we a monolith are we not what does it mean to be authentic authentic to yourself and i guess authentic to the community that you're representing because regardless of how we all think a lot of people see us as representations of our race and i'll never forget in college you know whenever i was in my race courses whenever anything regarding black people got brought up i was like one of maybe two people in a certain class and all the eyeballs would go to me as the one representative for black people is that fair no is that how some people see it of course but there's nothing i can do i represent myself i don't represent anybody else and that is true for everybody so we should stop looking at everything as a collective and individualize certain things especially when it comes to you know identity and who you are because we're all different they had justin in there as the represent representative for the black delegation like it was a chappelle show skit yes it's true it's true but it is what it is you guys know how i i represent i represent this podcast well and i represent myself well at least i try to but that's always the hope so i hope you guys you know learned something from this episode i thought it was interesting to talk about just so we have it on the table and just so people can understand a little bit about how the black community views itself in the eyes of other people look forward and not look back and you know stop judging i guess everybody's different if you want to wear a bonnet wear a bonnet if you want to wear pajamas wear pajamas do you and don't worry about what other people think but at the same time with what monique said i will say that it's good that somebody feels they feel it in their heart to want better for black people in general and i think that it starts with how you represent yourself so you know let's think about that too yeah i mean it could be good intentions just you could be off the mark and that happens sometimes you know she was speaking from her heart of what you know an issue she felt she could speak on and help people improve if there needed to be improvement in that area right their message could be coming from the right place but it could just be the wrong message i agree i agree obviously i don't agree with monique on everything but i really do like monique and if i'm ever in the position to write a role for her or something i will do it because i think that she's very talented and one day actually for some secret project that i'm working on i will discuss it but one day i'm going to talk about you know martyrs and pop culture whether that be colin kaepernick or monique and how people ridiculed them whenever they were making their statement but when we look towards the future did they have a point are we gonna look at colin kaepernick and say hey you know the nfl did him dirty now he represents the fight for civil rights off the field like how are we going to look at these people in the future even though they might have been maligned in the present very interesting stuff to explore no i think that's a very interesting topic to explore exploring martyrdom that's that's interesting and we can get into that on future episodes very true very true so much to explore on this show you never know what you're going to get week in and week out but we love doing it but um i hope you guys like this episode it's always something new different takes different opinions i appreciate you and we have not mentioned the secret fans yet i always try and mention them at least once per episode if you're new to the show a secret fan is somebody that introduces themselves so for example they'll be like hi my name is jessica and then they just leave it at that but what they should say is hi i'm jessica have you heard of this podcast have you i really love it it's really great you should listen to it that's an example of somebody who's not a secret fan somebody who's not afraid to share the show tell somebody about the show share it on your story i will keep saying if you have not shared the show on your instagram story you are a secret fan if you listen in secret and never tell any of your friends about you are a secret fan um what are you hiding the show for let us grow expand our reach come on come on don't be a secret fan because also another definition for secret fans are people that might dislike me or dante in real life but they listen to the show in the hopes that we'll talk about them on an episode we probably never will continue to listen and i hope you enjoy the show i think that's the best way to end this episode to be honest with you so thank you guys for listening please write in an anonymous question for us to answer on a future episode please like share subscribe tell your friends to tell their friends about it leave us a review we haven't gotten a new review in a while um so leave us a review but as always thanks for listening for justin i'm dante we're polaropsis we'll catch you on the next one see