Guests: Robert Muhammad and Sheldon Lamey
In Nonviolent Austin Radio Hour with Stacy Fraser. To close, we leave you with Tras la Toromenta, a fitting final yester to this tribute. With a long career reach across decades from his teenage years with Fania to major collaborations with Estella Cruz, Ruben Blades, David Bryan, and the Fania All Star. Ending, he feels right, not in silence but in music and in the company of the great collaborator of these later years.
Speaker 2:K o o p h d one h d three Hornsby. Greetings, y'all. You are tuned in to Nonviolent Austin Radio Hour here on Co op Community Radio ninety one point seven FM HD one HD three Hornsby. I am the co manifestor of this show. My name is Stacy Fraser.
Speaker 2:My pronouns are she and they. And I am joined as always with my comrades in Love and Justice, brother Robert Tyrone Lily, brother Jim Crosby. And we're gonna actually kick off this show today with some poetry from brother Jim Crosby in lieu of a musical intro.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I I wanted to let y'all know that my good friend and Nonviolent Austin's great friend, John d Graham, passed away on Friday morning and wanted to share with you one of his wonderful songs, one of my favorites, just in poetry form. It's called Faithless. You can give away some things that you never will get back. One piece at a time, and you never will get it back.
Speaker 3:The story of your life written page by page. Careful what you write. You gotta read it all someday. You need a strong heart. You need a true heart.
Speaker 3:You need a heart like that in a world like this so you don't get faithless. In the shiny eye of wonder, in the living heart of love, in the deep blue dark down under, tell me, what were you thinking of? You need a strong heart. You need a true heart. You need a heart like that in a world like this.
Speaker 3:The things we find, the things we lose, the things we get to keep are very few and far between, so far between. You need a strong heart. You need a true heart. You need a heart like that in a world like this so you don't get faithless. Faithless.
Speaker 3:I am not faithless. It's hard if you know that song. If you've listened to it as many times as I have, not to sing it as you read the words, but you wouldn't want me to sing it. But, I do hope listen to the show first, but I do hope you'll go to YouTube or whatever you listen on and listen to Faithless by John D Graham.
Speaker 2:Rest in musical power, John D. And, since we're rolling with, those who have transitioned to the spirit world, I want to pay homage for a moment to our teacher, doctor Bernard Lafayette junior, who was the founder of the Selma Center for Nonviolent Truth and Reconciliation. And he was the architect of the voting rights movement in Selma, Alabama. Doc, in 1960, co founded the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and at Shaw University. And on the morning of doctor King's assassination, King gave Lafayette a final charge, and that was to institutionalize and internationalize nonviolence.
Speaker 2:So doctor Lafayette Doc spent the rest of his life fulfilling that directive, and he developed the Kingian Nonviolence Conflict Reconciliation curriculum. And I am walking in living testament to Doc's work, to Doctor King's work, and many ancestors before that. So rest in power, Doc. We we carry on in your legacy.
Speaker 4:Rest in power, my brother.
Speaker 2:Alright, y'all. Well, we have a guest today. Brother Rob, would you like to do the honors of teeing up today's show and our conversation?
Speaker 4:Absolutely. But before I I launch right into our guest, I wanna, my own self, share words of commemoration for doctor Lafayette. I had the good fortune to meet him prior to his death. I captured a bunch of clips and statements that he made. And this was quite a privilege for me, as a person of African American descent who feels very connected to that long legacy of striving for justice.
Speaker 4:Watching him and being close to him made when I walked away from Selma, thanks to the Nonviolent Austin and the benevolence of all the folk that generously gave to our trip that allowed, I think, nine of us to travel from Austin to Selma, Alabama and Montgomery where we stayed in a beautiful Airbnb and had nine days at the feet of history, I felt like history had come out of
Speaker 5:the
Speaker 4:pages and walked into my life and allowed me to hug it and hug me back. And so, I will cherish that because I've only read about these iconic leaders in textbooks and books, watch them on film. But in this instance, I was there to listen to a man who wasn't just on the sidelines. He was in the midst of the work designing the plan that would be carried out to create history, and to produce a opportunity for many of us in this country to participate in the electoral process. Something that I am still, as a person formerly incarcerated, prevented from doing because I'm on parole.
Speaker 4:So I just wanna honor doctor Lafayette and the Selma Center for Kenyan Nonviolence and just is justice and reconciliation?
Speaker 3:Truth and reconciliation.
Speaker 4:Truth and reconciliation.
Speaker 2:Nonviolence, truth and reconciliation.
Speaker 4:Nonviolence, truth and reconciliation. All of those words, words that I cherish and value, and that's why I'm a part of this collective. And, again, I wanna tip my hat, so you can't see me, I'm tipping my hat, to Stacey and to Jim for their leadership and facilitating a wonderful opportunity that I was blessed to be a part of. So I shall be posting more photos. I have not done my due diligence in honoring them, I wanted to make sure I said these words, which will go on after this show to live in perpetuity.
Speaker 4:Mhmm. Mhmm. Okay. So, in just a short minute, we're gonna transition. We have a guest today, two guests in fact.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:We have one just walking through the door. Just walking You're the right, in time as Ron Chisholm says, the facilitator. You're not moving on time, you are in time. Alright. So welcome guests.
Speaker 2:And doc, let Doc. Wow brother Rob that was a Freudian slip. Brother Rob thank you for just taking a leap of faith to say yes to that wild adventure.
Speaker 4:It was a leap of faith because we did I didn't know how it was gonna happen.
Speaker 2:I remember.
Speaker 4:Nine days away from work and nine days away from the grind of life, but my wife was able to accompany me that eased a little bit of the burden. So I'm gonna cherish those memories. And I'm looking forward to going back to get so what we didn't say to you all, that was we went there for the purpose of obtaining our level one Kenya nonviolence training, which is the grounding for this show. And so, you know, there's a basis, a reason why we're in this room. Not only today are we gonna have this conversation with two distinguished gentlemen, leaders in our community, and we'll introduce them in a moment, but we're here also to represent the work of nonviolence.
Speaker 4:And so we are part of this collective of folk all over the world who believe there's a value in learning the spirit and the principles of what doctor King left us as a legacy. And so we're just thankful for the opportunity that we got to be a part of that training.
Speaker 2:And thank you for before we tee up intros to our guests, thank you for reminding me to ground us in the will and skill of Kingian nonviolence, is the bedrock of the show. Nonviolence is for the courageous. Help me out here, y'all.
Speaker 3:Working toward beloved community.
Speaker 2:Working towards beloved community. Mhmm. Accepting suffering without retaliation for the good of the cause and the sake of the goal.
Speaker 3:Yes. Attacking forces of evil not the person's doing the evil.
Speaker 4:That is correct. Mhmm. Mhmm.
Speaker 3:And always moving toward justice. Moral arc of the universe.
Speaker 2:We're bending the arc right now.
Speaker 4:And I think one of the ways that we bend that arc towards justice is that we engage with people in our community around important subject matter that, in this instance, I think really ties into your show too, Stacey, which is rooted in anti racism, which this show is also rooted in anti racism. And so today we have two wonderful guests. Again, my name is Robert t Lilly, but I also go by brother Rob. And I'm proud to have in my company today two gentlemen, minister Robert Muhammad, both a community leader and a speaker, which we'll be hearing him speak shortly. And mister Sheldon Lamey from the Black Men Male Summit Organizing Committee.
Speaker 4:I guess the chair, I would assume the chair of that committee. And they're here today to talk about this summit, but a little bit more than the summit. We're gonna talk about some of the ideas that the summit is founded in. So I just wanna open up the floor to any one of you gentlemen who would prefer to introduce yourselves and go into a little bit about what this summit entails.
Speaker 6:Well, thank you all once again for having us to be here today. We appreciate Coop ninety one point seven and Nonviolent Radio, also nonviolent radio for having us today. My name is Sheldon, Sheldon Lamey. I am native Austinite, and I graduated from Travis High School. So to go to what we're to talk about, our annual black male summit that we do every every year.
Speaker 6:And what's it basically about is trying to build our community and try to help our community come together and do things that can help prevent nonviolence and also educate our youth about education, mental health, entrepreneurship, and trying to talk about criminal justice reform too as well.
Speaker 5:And thank you all for having us on this great platform, you know, being a native Austinite as well myself who's familiar with Co op Radio. And we're just honored to have the opportunity to be here on this great platform. And again, as Sheldon said that we have been I think this is we are over ten years now
Speaker 6:Yeah. Ten years strong.
Speaker 5:Hosting the Black Male Summit. And some people quite often ask the question, being in a metropolitan area that is comprised of the many different demographics as Austin, Texas is, why would we single out black males to have this kind of summit? And, you know, we always answer it by saying that, you know, this summit is designed to deal with the unique challenges that black men and black males face, not only just in the world, in the society, but particularly here in central in the Central Texas area. And so this is just another opportunity to bring attention to these unique challenges and to galvanize the community to kinda present some some resources and some answers. So here we are once again with another opportunity to help our young people in particular, but all men in general to as you all know that here in the city of Austin that, you know, a few years back was the height of gentrification.
Speaker 5:And there are no longer any traditional black communities of old that you can go to and say, here, this is where the black community is. But you can find us spread out in, you know, Eastern Travis County and Maynard and Hutto and Del Valley and, you know, Pflugerville and those areas. But we as we have been and I call it a displacement because when you look at the statistics, think doctor Tang was one of the ones who years ago cited the the data and the research as to the migration in of black the the black community from East Austin into the the further Northeastern areas of Travis County. But, you know, this is designed to reestablish culture, reestablish community, and to firmly plant the flag of our community somewhere where if if you visit us from the far recesses of Alaska, can if they ask where's the cultural community as it relates to the African American or black community, we can say it's right over here.
Speaker 4:I appreciate that answer. Thank you very much. First of all, I should have started in the name of peace, which is what I always start with peace and blessings. And I'll greet you in the greeting of the Muslims. Assalamu alaikum.
Speaker 5:Yes,
Speaker 4:sir. We wanna make sure that we honor you correctly. Yes. Because I know that some of what you're doing is grounded in ancient principles as well.
Speaker 5:Oh, absolutely.
Speaker 4:You know, one thing about this country that I have lamented as a black man myself, it is the historical myths that have been created to surround the identity of black males.
Speaker 6:Right.
Speaker 4:And so if you would, yes, she wants you to make sure you speak directly into It the makes your voice project much better. Okay. Alright. Mhmm. So, you know, I'm thinking about black male single, obsolete, and dangerous, Hakim Adobooty.
Speaker 4:I'm thinking about Community of Self by Naeem Akbar.
Speaker 6:Mhmm.
Speaker 4:I'm thinking about, you know, books that I read when I was incarcerated that I was never exposed to when I was in the free. And rightfully, my father should have been the one that passed these books to me. And I don't wanna cast any disparagement upon my father. I had him until he was 90 years of age. He was born in 1925.
Speaker 4:And I'm very privileged to have had a father who who had such a long legacy in this society. But he was a very quiet man. He was introverted. And so I didn't get from him the kind of leadership that I desired as a young man, which was I needed somebody to instruct me. And so I have a son.
Speaker 4:He's 14 years old. He's a bonus son. He's a son through marriage. He'll be with me in accompanying me to this particular summit. I don't think I registered yet.
Speaker 4:Gotta make sure I do that today. Yeah. Make sure
Speaker 6:you do that because I'm
Speaker 4:registered today.
Speaker 6:Seats are going pretty fast.
Speaker 4:Okay. We'll get on top of that today. But that said, some of the myths that I've come across in my readings are that black men are absent from the home. Some of the myths I've come across are that black men are deadbeat dads. Some of the myths I've come across are that black men are not involved in the daily routines of their child's lives.
Speaker 4:And the research doesn't support that.
Speaker 6:That's right. No, it doesn't.
Speaker 4:Yeah. I'm gonna just open the floor and just allow you to speak into whatever comes to mind as you as you've heard that opening statement.
Speaker 2:But before you do that, I just want to give you listener appreciation for tuning in to koop.org streaming live 91.7 here Austin, and you are listening to Nonviolent Austin Radio Hour.
Speaker 4:Thank you. Thank you. We have to remember to give a 100 to the station because without the station, we wouldn't have this station. Well,
Speaker 6:to go back what you were saying about the statistics and everything, well, the statistics are, like, Black fathers are active in their child's lives and it's just that we got these negative stereotypes that have been put out there for the last thirty, forty years about we're absent and we're not taking care of our kids, not taking care of our responsibilities. So it's very important that we, as men, black men, we got to change the narrative. We gotta make sure that we're in the forefront letting people know that we are here and that we are present. Actually, the statistics actually say that black fathers are in a louse more than any other demographic there is, And just that the negative stereotypes that been out there is saying the complete opposite. So we are here for the Black Male Summit is here to change that narrative that we're trying to do next week.
Speaker 6:And I'll let brother Robert go ahead and explain some more about statistics too as well.
Speaker 5:Well, you know, I just wanted to say that's and I and I and I appreciate the term that you you used, myth. Because the studies show recent studies, in in fact, I just googled it real quick. CBS News says that there's a study that shows that black dads are more involved in their children's lives than any other groups. Mhmm. So, where did this myth come from?
Speaker 5:That doesn't mean it was not necessarily true at a certain point in time, But when you look at and I tell people all the time at my age, I'm 52 years old. I was born in 1973 and I lived my adolescent years particularly in the eighties during the explosion of the crack crack epidemic. What followed the crack epidemic was addiction, violence
Speaker 6:Mass incarceration.
Speaker 5:But also mass incarceration. And Spooky. In in the in form of the crime bill.
Speaker 6:Mhmm.
Speaker 5:Right? And so, this is after people were classified as in, you know, we can get political, but there was a
Speaker 4:We we are very brazen here.
Speaker 5:The family Your existence is The Clinton family, Particularly Hillary Clinton was one that echoed talking about black males, young black males as the super predator.
Speaker 4:Yes sir.
Speaker 5:And the crime bill was shaped and fashioned to deal with the super predator. And the crime pill helped helped to decimate the homes and the communities that we grew up in. And so we have unique challenges that allowed us to be stripped from the homes. And so, though we are not necessarily in the homes by way of marriage, these statistics show that black men are in fact involved in their children's lives. And even if the father is not around, there is mentorship through family members, through grandparents, and and the like, you know, in these young men's lives.
Speaker 5:The problem is is there's a there's a story in the bible when when Moses is leading the children of Israel out of the clutches of pharaoh and they come to the promised land and he sends spies over to look at the promised land and it was left to Joshua and Caleb. So, there's this young generation described of as the Joshua generations who classified as fearless. So now we see our young people in our communities that don't exhibit the same type of fear that we saw during the civil rights movement and those types of things. But what our forebearers had, they had guidance. The children in our community right now though they exhibit fearlessness, they don't necessarily have the requisite guidance that's needed to propel a community like ours into the future, to become productive.
Speaker 5:And so the black male summit is designed to address the needs of certain subject matter like as Sheldon mentioned, the health disparities, entrepreneurship, mentorship, and and and anything that we education. Education is extremely important
Speaker 6:Mhmm.
Speaker 5:But proper education. And so, I don't even know if I was answering a question at this point. No. I just wanted to make a point
Speaker 4:Mhmm.
Speaker 5:That we are present. And I happened to serve as the chief executive officer of a local charter school called Texas Empowerment Academy. And I see black men all the time dropping off and picking up their children. In fact, we just had a couple of months ago a daddy daughter dance and we had over 150 men there with their daughters. We also had a donuts with dads day where we had over 200 men there, you know, having breakfast and and donuts with their children.
Speaker 5:So, this idea that black men are not present in their children's lives is a myth and it is in some shape form or fashion is an outright lie.
Speaker 2:Well and also it you just illustrated in that story many examples of structural violence which is what we're talking about when we're talking about nonviolence on this show is those structural acts of harm Right. Perpetuate a myth of this magnitude Right. That's a lie.
Speaker 4:Well, I think, you know, historically, I brought up I used the term mythology because when I was incarcerated, I didn't have a historical reference for my life. I was existing, but I had no conceptualization of what the past entailed. And because I didn't know the past, I didn't understand what was happening in the present. And because I didn't understand what was happening in the present, I was aimless. Mhmm.
Speaker 4:And whomever caught my imagination, which ultimately became my older peers, it was through them that I began to form my identity. Unfortunately, most of these young men, unlike myself, I had my father, Most of these young men had no fathers in their homes. And so now I'm being shaped. My identity is being shaped. My most precious concepts of self are being shaped by men who are rudderless.
Speaker 4:Young men who are rudderless. And so when I heard the idea of this summit, and I was being offered this opportunity by brother Sheldon to be a part of it, and he was asking to be a part of this show, immediately I knew that I wanted to to wanted to take action on that. And interestingly enough, you know, where do I wanna go with this? So, Sheldon, you and I met somewhere in particular. Tell tell the listeners where we meet, where we met, generally speaking, without breaking anyone's, confidence or anything like that.
Speaker 4:Oh. Mhmm.
Speaker 6:Go back where we met it.
Speaker 4:Okay. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Speaker 6:We met a few months ago at the mental health workshop provided by the Man and Me organization.
Speaker 4:Mhmm.
Speaker 6:They do a monthly mental health workshop for men. And I met Robert there and we got got a close connection. We started talking about different stuff and everything and we know we just had a breaking of bread and everything. We came together and said a thing. I told him about the summit and he he he agreed to what we are the principles and the goals that we're trying to accomplish with the summit.
Speaker 6:And I appreciate, again, for allowing us to be on this this program and everything. So like we we trying to we trying to do some things like, you know, entrepreneurship is very important in our community because we tryna build up the economics because like, black owned businesses probably make up like, in this country probably like less than what, 3% of the country? Statistic wise, I think it is. Three three or 5% whatever. And
Speaker 4:Woefully inadequate in other Woefully
Speaker 6:inadequate and that's done by design too as well. And so we're trying to have some types of ways we can mentor our young youth on how to become self employed and not have to worry about punching a time clock for somebody else.
Speaker 4:So give an idea pardon me. Give us an idea of what the day would look like at the summit. What are the hours? And we'll get into the specifics of the full scope of the day, but tell us what the day is gonna look like. Do you have any special guests coming out?
Speaker 4:I know you've already indicated there's gonna be a certain number of categories you'll be touching on. Give us a sense of that.
Speaker 6:Well, the summer's gonna start promptly at 1PM on next Saturday the eleventh at Texas Empowerment Academy. And basically, we're have different presenters. You know, we have one one one topic on education, another one on manhood, another one on entrepreneurship, and also another one on conflict resolution and everything. Then we're gonna have a actual panel of guest speakers that gonna actually take questions from the audience and everything to talk about what's what's affecting us here locally here in Austin. Mhmm.
Speaker 6:What type of solutions that we can come up as a collective and try to use that as a as a springboard to make something happen, you know. So and also we're gonna have different organizations that's gonna be out there, you know. Have some somebody talking about mental health and all that kind of stuff. We have representative for like nonprofit Wednesdays talking about different services and stuff like mentorship programs and stuff like like the Man and Me.
Speaker 4:Resources.
Speaker 6:Yeah. Different we're have wonderful resources for the community to come out and get that information that they need and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 4:Thank you, Sheldon. I So appreciate going back to what brother Muhammad was saying a moment ago minister Muhammad was saying a moment ago, Is it alright if I address you at that manner?
Speaker 6:Brother is fine.
Speaker 4:Brother is fine. Yes sir. So brother Muhammad was saying that there was a historical attack on the black community through the legal system to create this this devoid as more men were being targeted and removed from the community that left this gaping hole open. In what ways is this conference designed to be an antithesis to that? You mentioned criminal justice earlier.
Speaker 4:Is there a way you're gonna be speaking into that particular issue and how so?
Speaker 5:I would say absolutely. You know, the idea is to change the mindset of the individuals that attend in hopes to change the mindset of the community and ultimately the society as a whole. You know, it reminds me of, there was this Asian scientist named Masuda Imoto who did this experiment called the message in water. Right? He took water from one source.
Speaker 5:He put it in different receptacles, and he wrote words on labels and and taped them on these different receptacles with the same waters the water that came from the same water source. Some words were negative, some words were positive. He froze the the water, took out the water, and put it under a microscope and the the the water from the same water source that had positive affirmations on it like I love you, the crystals were in sync, they were clear. But the ones that had negative, affirmations on them like I hate you or I wanna kill you. The water was dingy.
Speaker 5:The crystals were not in sync. And so, when you think about these myths and these concepts and you think about the fact that the the the human body is mostly made up of water and the brain sits on water, what happens to children and what happens to individuals in a society that's full of information, not necessarily truth but information that is consistently being fed myths and falsehoods and not being properly educated about who they are, whose they are, and what they can accomplish, you get this dichotomy of what we see in our community from generation to generation, decade to decade. And so, it it in a nutshell is it is designed to change the mindset of the individuals that attend so they can change the trajectory of the individuals that attended so it can change the trajectory of our community. So, you know, when you're talking about entrepreneurship or entrepreneur exploit, you you we have tons of examples of of things that we have done as a community out of necessity. Coming up out of chattel slavery and the Jim Crow era and we had to come off of the plantations and set up our own communities.
Speaker 2:Tulsa.
Speaker 5:You hear about Tulsa, Oklahoma. You hear about Rosewood. You hear about right here in the Central Texas area, Clarksville and Weeksville. Some of the the the most prosperous freedmen towns that were recorded with no governmental assistance, no governmental support, but it was out of necessity. So right now, when you wanna talk about entrepreneurship, when you look at the the communities that are doing the best financially, the money that they extract from the American economy tends to stay in their community longer.
Speaker 5:And right now, the Asian community at is at the top of the pyramid as it relates to money staying in the community longer. But and and there's I think it said anywhere from thirty to sixty days before $1 leaves. But in the black community, six hours. That means if I get paid Repeat that. Six hours Is?
Speaker 5:The the dollar stays in our community six hours.
Speaker 6:Mhmm.
Speaker 5:So that means if I get paid tomorrow on Friday and I do a eight hour shift, my money is already gone before I can get off and take advantage of my sweat equity. Whereas, you know, so so it talks about the importance of entrepreneurship and providing services and goods and and at least trying to empower our communities economically. But we of course, before we do any of that, we have to change the mindset. So but because out of necessity we had to build for ourself, you saw communities come up like Rosewood. Communities come up like Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the Black Wall Street and and and Clarksville.
Speaker 5:And so, if left alone to become productive for self, any human being that is guided or right can become successful. Right? That's the idea. And so if we get rid of these myths and we infuse, our people with truth, particularly truth about self, truth about accessibility and opportunity, then, you know, every politician that runs talks about getting rid of violence. They talk about economics.
Speaker 5:They talk about all of these things. But you never really hear them talk about developing, human potential.
Speaker 2:Speaking of developing human potential, we're gonna pause for some community announcements because there is no self without community. We'll be right back. Alright.
Speaker 5:Business member support for coop comes from collected letters. To learn how your business can support coop, go to coop.org/support.
Speaker 7:Donating a car, truck, or other vehicle that you don't need anymore to co op is an easy way to help us continue to bring you the programming you love, and it's a great way to declutter. We'll arrange to have it picked up, get top dollar for it, and invest those funds to bring you more of the radio you count on. Learn more at koop.org.
Speaker 2:You're listening to ninety one point seven FM co op community radio streaming online all over this precious, precious planet at koop.org. I am the host of Nonviolent Austin Radio Hour, Stacey Fraser, along with my cohost brother Robert Tyrone Lilly, brother Jim Crosby, we have two fantastic guests today with a very important summit coming up this weekend.
Speaker 4:Called the Black Male Summit hosted by who's the host of this particular event? Who we did we announce that?
Speaker 5:It is myself
Speaker 4:Okay.
Speaker 5:Robert Muhammad and Mhmm. And mister Sheldon Lamey.
Speaker 4:Alright. We got the we got the the two pillars in the house. Sir. And
Speaker 5:wanted to add along with the founder of the Black Male Summit who is a a native Houstonite that goes by the name of Derek Muhammad.
Speaker 4:Okay. Wonderful. Thank you so much for sharing that.
Speaker 2:And this is your tenth year or this is eleven? I think it's eleven.
Speaker 4:Alright. Thank you so So this has become not just a summit but an institution in our community. And this will be my first opportunity. I think last year I knew I had heard about it last year and wanted to come out, but my schedule just didn't permit it. But this year, I made sure to clear away everything from my schedule and also sit down with my son.
Speaker 4:I came home one day after being at the men's mental health meeting. And I said, son, I'd like to talk with you. You know, my son's 14 years old. I said, I I have something on my mind I wanna invite you to. He said, what is it?
Speaker 4:He goes, mister Robert. So I said, it's gonna be a summit. It's called the Black Male Summit. I'd love for you to be my guest. You know what he did?
Speaker 4:He smiled.
Speaker 6:Mhmm.
Speaker 4:He smiled. He said, sure. I told him we're gonna go to K and G. We're gonna go buy us a nice sport coat and some slacks because he probably needs it. He's a growing boy.
Speaker 4:He grows fast. And we're gonna get dressed up. I said, want and this is what I told him I wanted to do. I said, we wanted to go out there because I said, I think it's important for you to be able to learn how to navigate spaces with other black men because I don't think that's something you're getting a lot of access to in the current environment where you reside. And so, that's important for me because I want him to have a sense of who he is.
Speaker 4:Something that I it took me many years to grapple with. Who am I? And when I was smiling a moment ago while you were talking because I was thinking back to some time I was in the federal prison system, Right around the time you're talking about, it was nineteen ninety two, ninety three, ninety four. I was at I was at Oklahoma City transfer Facility. And a gentleman, a member of the nation of Islam, approached me, tall brother, Beautiful brother.
Speaker 4:He came up to me and asked me a question. He said, brother, why do you wear your pants that way? Now, at that time, you know, I was young. I was invested in the gang culture. And when he approached me, you may think, well that's a simple question, right?
Speaker 4:I didn't have an answer. In fact, I thought he was poking fun at me. And I wanted but he was so he was muscular, was big, he was well put together. So I wasn't about to stud up on him. So I had to think about the question because I wasn't prepared to have a tussle with him.
Speaker 4:So I went back and I I began to contemplate, why do I wear my pants this way? And what what I'm trying to describe for the listening audience, I wore my pants below my buttocks. Right? They call it sagging in the black community and the street culture. And that was a part of my identity that I had been formed into leading up to that period in my life.
Speaker 4:And so, he came to me and asked me a single question. Why do you wear your pants that way? He didn't curse me. He didn't tell me I was wrong. He didn't judge me.
Speaker 4:He asked me a question. I went to myself, I pondered that question. And I thought I ran through a litany of possibilities as to why I was doing what I was doing. And I could only land on one conclusion. I did it because everyone else around me did it.
Speaker 4:Mhmm. And I went back to him and I told him my answer. And he became one of my first, I guess you would use the word mentor.
Speaker 5:Mentor. Yes sir.
Speaker 4:He became a teacher for me. And through him, he introduced me to J. A. Rogers. He taught me to I was already a reader, but, you know, I had lost that because I dove so deep into the streets.
Speaker 4:But through this young man, a man in prison, I began to find my way back to some form of human dignity that was, as you mentioned a moment ago, it changed the trajectory of my life. And so as a father today, you know, I I watch my son, he comes home and he's he gets on the video game. I I have to balance how much I try to instruct him and how much I try to love him and support him in finding his own way. It's not easy today. But I appreciate having a space that I'm gonna find me some brothers to confer with, because I'm looking for some other fathers who are bonus dads in their household.
Speaker 4:I don't like the word step, some because that has a negative connotation. We're no longer grieving at our household. Right? We've healed from the past, but we're trying to form this new family out of various strands. And, I'm not gonna sit here and tell you that I have all the answers.
Speaker 4:And so, I'm going to this conference, number one because I want him to have proximity to other young black men. But I also wanna have proximity to other men that I can begin to learn from as I began to learn when I was incarcerated from this young brother whose name I regrettably don't even remember. But I'll never forget him because with that one question, he changed the destiny of my life.
Speaker 5:Well, you know, it's okay because when we read the scripture it's okay because when we read scripture, we don't see first and last names. We see function. So, may be somebody named Peter or somebody may named, Simon or or, you know, whatever the name is is more important to function and, you know, the purpose. And so, you know, a summit like this is extremely important to the development of our community. And we hope for everyone to come out April 11 at 1PM at 5800 East Palmer Lane.
Speaker 5:We can go to blackmail summitatx.eventbrite.com and RSVP. And, come out, share, learn, participate, and edify yourself so that we can, as a community, you know, come up come up out of the dark shadows of existence together.
Speaker 2:I'm craving, Sheldon, you to bring your voice in into the room right now. So what is your driving what are your driving reasons for continuing to engage in the summit and to to co lead, which is a big effort?
Speaker 6:Well, one of my driving forces is because I love helping people. You know, just that, you know, I I see there's a need, especially in the Austin area, about the direction of how our young men are going. And I wanna make sure that we are leading them in the right direction because think this is this summer is very important because they can actually see great examples. You know what I'm saying? Like, where I was talking about being a bonus father.
Speaker 6:It's you know, sometimes people have a negative negative image of being a stepfather and everything but there's nothing wrong with that because even he's I I commend him for taking the responsibility of leading another man's family because when he's not there or or he's not there the way he's supposed to be. But like we need more male role models in the community and the summit gonna actually have that there. And my passion is just to help people and make sure that that we are doing what we were supposed to do as men and because God has put a very high calling on us to be leaders in our community. And I think that all the negative stereotypes that's out there, like, from people watching on TV, video, online, social media, all that kind of stuff, it's very bad. You know, a lot of you men don't know a lot of you young boys don't know how to be men because they have they are raised by single mothers and everything so that's another thing.
Speaker 6:All you single mothers, you know, please bring your bring your boys out. You can drop them off or even you can probably attend the summit too or you may learn something. But, you know, just come out and support this effort because we're trying to make a difference this community, especially the Austin community. And because even though we're very low in population here, that doesn't mean that we can't make a change, we can't do things in this community just because without that many of us because we can definitely it only take a few to do a lot. A few good things.
Speaker 4:Thank you. Thank you. I wanna thank you Stacy for welcoming Sheldon back in. I wanna make sure that Jim, if he has any thoughts percolating. Jim has been a teacher, was a teacher for twenty seven years, still is a teacher for twenty seven years.
Speaker 4:Pryor was a formal teacher. And so I know his mind is sitting here turning. He's a man of age and so he's seen a world change over the course of his many years. What what think what thoughts are populating in your head as you hear this conversation? Anything that comes to mind that you wanna present to our our guest today?
Speaker 3:Yeah. I was doing a little prep this morning and, as you all know, that usually involves books. And I have a book that I need to return to Stacy that she she and brother Rob are much more familiar with than I am. The revolution will not be funded beyond the nonprofit industrial complex. And there's one chapter in it that I was looking through this morning to prepare to visit with y'all called social service or social change.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:And it's got a very pointed question in it. I'll change the you to we. Is the primary goal of the work we do to help people get ahead or to help them get together? And it occurred to me, you know, is that a false tension, false dichotomy, or is that a helpful distinction? You know, get ahead or get together?
Speaker 3:So if y'all wanna tackle that, I'd love to hear what your thoughts about that.
Speaker 4:That's an excellent question. I'm gonna I'm gonna yield to my guests, but I would love to to clean up at the end.
Speaker 5:Well, you know, when I when I think about that question, there's a combination, and the answer is embedded in a combination. You know, the work that we do is to get people together so that people can get ahead. And so, we've tried In our community, we've tried everything except unity. Right? We've tried boycotting.
Speaker 5:We've tried praying in, sitting in, laying in. Right? Mhmm. And just to look at us financially, we extract I think it's up to maybe $1,300,000,000,000 a year out of the American economy, but we only keep maybe a nickel of it in the community, six hours. Right?
Speaker 5:But if we do it in a unified way together, we can stretch that money. We can stretch the financial opportunities. And so but and I I, you know, I see other communities who don't have the same that's why I always say the unique challenges that we face.
Speaker 4:Mhmm.
Speaker 5:And there are people that can get together in a room, whether it's the white community, the Asian community, the the immigrant population, the Latino community, whatever. And they can disagree with 99 things. Just put a subject on the table, disagree with how to attack it, how to deal with it. But on that 100 thing, they can agree on that one thing and they'll be willing because of the the agreement of the whole on that one thing to work together as a whole united to move the community ahead. But black people in particular, because of our experience, because of the orientation of mind that needs to change, we can agree with 99 things and come to that 100 thing and disagree with that one thing and that one thing will become the catalyst that we would agree not to work together because of that one thing.
Speaker 5:And so, the great example that brother, Rob gave was the guy asking him about his pants. Why do you wear your pants like that? And a lot of the people in our generation and older complain about young folks in this with the whole sagging culture. Right? But there's a saying that I've often heard the the the founder of the Black Male Summit say that if we want the pants of the young men and women to be raised, we need to raise their mindset.
Speaker 5:And if we raise their mindset, the pants will follow. So again, my work and my position in the community is always about dealing with the development of human beings and humanity and we can do more in a unified way than we can in a separated way to forge a way for the generations coming after us. You know, talk a long time to make one point but you get the gist of what I'm
Speaker 4:It was a good the point was valid. I think, you know, there was nothing to to criticize about that. Brother Sheldon, do you wanna take a stab at that question? I wanted to offer you the floor. I think it was a a legit legitimate question.
Speaker 4:If no thoughts are coming to your mind, definitely have something I'd like to share about it.
Speaker 6:Well, I think brother Robert asked that question pretty good. You know, just that we are here to advance the community and everything. And so I'll I'll say that, yeah, I agree totally what you just was talking about right there.
Speaker 2:We are sitting here around the radio table here at Nonviolent Austin Radio Hour here on Co op Community Radio ninety one point seven FM k o o p dot org. We are wrapping winding down here to our last quarter of this beautiful conversation. And brother Rob, how about this, Jim Crosby always posing beautiful questions for reflection.
Speaker 4:That was a great question. It makes me want to go back and read the book again. I've read parts of it but not the entirety of it. But I'll tell you how I'm gonna answer. First of all, you couldn't have answered in any better in my humble opinion.
Speaker 4:So I'm not gonna say anything that's gonna be quite distinct from what you just shared. But I'll tell you something I learned when I was incarcerated. And a lot of my points of reference are imprisonment because that was there that I became I came face to face with my truth. It was it was there that I came face to face with my my at that time, my my deplorable state of mind that had to be changed. Right?
Speaker 4:Prior to that, I was oblivious. I had nothing. I questioned nothing. So there was no need to change anything. But now I came face to face with the reality of a hundred and twenty month federal sentence.
Speaker 4:I was the target of federal policies. I was like, why am I a federal issue at 21 years of age for twenty seven point forty two grams of crack cocaine? And then I heard about this program under the Bush administration called the weed and seed program. So, symbolically, they were calling me a weed that they were gonna pull up, but they were gonna plant seeds in my community, seeds that I never saw get planted in my community. But I saw many so called weeds get removed.
Speaker 4:And although I say that my mentality was problematic, the reality was I needed support. I didn't need punishment.
Speaker 5:Right.
Speaker 4:So, in prison, I had a running argument with a gentleman inside. I think it does connect to this conversation. The gentleman came to me and he was very adamant about, you knew right from wrong. You should have just followed what your parents said. You're in prison because you didn't listen.
Speaker 4:And I remember wrestling with that. Because he was so forceful, and at that time I wasn't a critical thinker, and so he stumped me. And then I went to school. I started going to school at the time I took a class on sociology, and I learned something that I believe connects to Jim's question. The question was, again, are we coming are we are we is the work we're doing designed to bring people together or to move them forward?
Speaker 4:Okay. I don't like like my brother Muhammad, I don't believe that we can go forward alone. If we do, we'll be no different than what this society has perpetuated in many of us, which is a hyper individualistic attitude that I don't believe serves any human family, and definitely doesn't serve the black community. And so I learned that there were two types of problems. One problem was called a social problem, and the other one was called a personal problem.
Speaker 4:And when I learned that distinction, I realized you can't apply to a personal problem. You can't apply to a social problem personal solutions. You have to have social solutions. So the things that I was dealing with, I wasn't a Black man isolated from all Black men that was incarcerated. All over the country, there were policies that were rounding us up, putting us in prison.
Speaker 4:So in order for this to change, we had to learn what was happening to us and respond to it appropriately, and produce the results hopefully that we wanted to produce. It's not an overnight solution, just because people band together doesn't mean things will immediately change. But these problems didn't happen instantaneously. It takes time for them to change. And so I believe that as it's already been said, we come together because without coming together, I don't I do not personally believe I can get ahead.
Speaker 2:I have a question about you mentioned conflict reconciliation being part of the the agenda for the summit next week. And, you know, when folks come together, conflict happens. And as my tradition taught me, conflict can be generative. Conflict doesn't mean combat. Conflict means an opening to which you can actually continue to come together Oh.
Speaker 2:In a world that's trying to divide everybody.
Speaker 6:Right. You can turn you can turn conflict into growth.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So so talk about for a minute what how you're building in that into the the program.
Speaker 6:Well, basically, we're gonna talk about conflict resolution. We're talk about de escalation and all that kind of stuff, communication skills. You gotta learn how to be able to talk to people and everything while offending people. And we're have somebody there that's actually gonna be on the panel to talk about conflict resolution and all that kind of stuff. He's very he got a expertise in handling that kind of stuff.
Speaker 6:Brother brother Sharon Sharon Pat Patton, he's gonna be there on the men's empowerment panel. He's be talking about conflict resolution and all that kind of stuff. And also, we got some other brothers that are gonna be there talking about it too as well.
Speaker 5:You know, in our community, you know, when a when a people are in survival mode, a lot of conflict can come up and a lot of conflict can happen. We just have to have the mindset to resolve it and the tools, you know, to help us to resolve them in a civilized way that would benefit the community. I've been involved in conflict mediation since 2015. We went to the twentieth anniversary of the Million Man March, and minister Farrakhan encouraged us to go back home and get between the guns and the violence. Right?
Speaker 5:And so we developed a conflict resolution program on the national level. But I've done an extensive amount of work in Central Texas and particularly the Killeen, Texas area. And and when I can tell you that, I mean, you know, I've stopped young men who have attempted to harm one another, who has have shot at one another, who've harmed one another and brought them to the table in tears and apologized and reconciled, over 100 mediation cases I have under my belt. And so it's very important for us to to to learn this that skill set. I wanted to say this this one other thing, and it deals with conflict as well.
Speaker 5:We have to be very careful with being judgmental of the younger generation. Right? Because conflict happens when there's a different understanding and perspective. Right? So, what what is true Truth has principles.
Speaker 5:Right? But, in a different time period, in a different environment, it may take a different shape. And in other words, if you and I are having a discussion and there's a number six drawn on this table, it's a six to me but it's a nine to you. And we may go back and forth and I may be telling you, no it's a six. And you may be saying, no it's a nine.
Speaker 5:I'm looking at it. But it depends on where you're standing, where I'm standing. It depends on our development. It depends on our perception. It depends on all of those types of things.
Speaker 5:And so, I always want the the older generation be careful on how we judge the younger generation because they are now living in a world that did not exist when we were their age. And so our social experiments happened at Highland Mall and at the park. And their social experience is happening On Instagram. With a headset Online. With a keyboard and those types of things.
Speaker 5:Yeah. And so while truth has principles, we gotta learn how to apply them in this particular time period in which we're we're living.
Speaker 2:I think you just invited empathy into the room.
Speaker 6:Absolutely. Right.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Yeah. I know our time is is swiftly dwindling. I would be remiss if I didn't honor one more quick story that I feel important to share for my past. So when I was at this federal prison after that brother asked me that question, I joined on with those brothers and, you know, we would on the weekends, we'd create these little tickets.
Speaker 4:And we'd invite people to the auditorium to come listen to minister Farrakhan speak. And there was a particular time that he was on touring the country. And and and I'm bringing this up because, you know, in the middle of this, I didn't understand how connected I was to the history that was happening in our country around the nation. But there was a speech he was giving. It was called Stop the Killing Tour.
Speaker 4:And I was 21 years old, 22 years old at the time. A gang member had used firearms, had seen other young black males as my enemy for wearing a different color coming from a different side of the neighborhood, had participated in wanton violence, all in the name of my neighborhood. A neighborhood that I paid no rent in, paid no I had no property tax that I was paying. I owned nothing, But yet I was willing to kill and die for this property. So I listened to that speech.
Speaker 4:I recently listened to it a couple of weeks ago. And I remember him telling us, we have to learn to see the divinity in each other. And that was revolutionary for me. Because up until that time, all I saw when I looked at another black male was the thing that I had been taught to see. And that thing that I had been taught to see was a thing to be feared.
Speaker 4:Mhmm. I didn't wanna see myself as a black man, even though I may have used a language that indicated that, but I had no conceptualization of myself as a black man. And that was something that was woefully, I think, at the root of a lot of a lot of my continued problems. And so I just wanna again, you can't see me, audience, but I'm tipping my hat to these two gentlemen for setting a table for those of us that are out here. So I accepted the invitation years ago to participate in this life transforming experience, and now today they have an invitation for all of us.
Speaker 2:And let me speaking of life life transforming experiences, our sister Jill Henderson, who is along with her husband Phil, cofounders of Bakari Foundation, they have, on April 18, it the eighth annual Legacy event, a secret garden soiree. And, the purpose is to raise support for a mission that gets to the root causes of violence through healing, prevention, and restorative care for families impacted by trauma. And what makes this work that Jill and Phil are doing and Bakari Foundation so powerful is its deep commitment to creating spaces where black men can feel safe enough to be vulnerable, heal, and grow through week long all inclusive retreats in Costa Rica, aligning perfectly with the vile conversations the show champions around healing strength and nonviolence. So, Bakari Foundation, that's the b a k a r I, baccarifoundation.org if you wanna know more about that event. So let's, let's wrap it off again with one more time how folks can find you, when, where, and that website again to to engage in the summit.
Speaker 6:Well, you can register for the summit at blackmailsummit@x.eventbrite.com. That's blackmailsummit@x.eventbrite.com. It's gonna be next Saturday, the eleventh at 1PM at Texas Empowerment Academy. That's 58 East Parma Lane here in Austin, Texas. This summit is for fathers, mentors, young men, community community leaders, pastors, educators, entrepreneurs, or anybody who cares about the future of black men and boys.
Speaker 6:So all are welcome to attend this summit that we have next Saturday at eleven.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Lamey and brother Robert. I've got two brother Robs in the room
Speaker 5:right Two brother Robs. Yeah.
Speaker 6:And you got
Speaker 2:Brother Robert Muhammad.
Speaker 5:You're confusing.
Speaker 2:Any any last thing you wanna speak on your heart and besides my gratitude for you for being here?
Speaker 5:Just wanted to thank you all for allowing us the opportunity to be on your great platform. We're so gracious and we're so honored to have an opportunity to share.
Speaker 2:Peace. Thank you. And, brother Jim?
Speaker 3:Can we take it out with
Speaker 2:Just silent participant in oh, actually, brother Rob, do you have any parting words today?
Speaker 4:Real quick announcement. So tomorrow, 700 Lavaca between one and three. Reentry roundtable is hosting a system simulation. It is a methodology by which we will bring people closer to the awareness of what it's like for folk to exit jails and prisons and access services and resources and face barriers in the midst of that. One to three.
Speaker 4:Look on the reentry roundtable platform to find more details.
Speaker 2:Okay. Well, we got ten seconds for the gym.
Speaker 3:As we fade down my new favorite love song by John d Graham. She's as pretty as a butterfly wing a butterfly wing butterfly wing. She's as pretty as a butterfly wing. She's as pretty as that. I ain't talking about what I deserve.
Speaker 3:What I deserve. What I deserve. I ain't talking about what I deserve. I ain't talking about that.
Speaker 2:Up next is Democracy Now. Thank y'all.
Speaker 8:The dark end of the street is a trip back to the heyday of nineteen sixties southern soul music. The kind made in places like Memphis, Nashville, Muscle Shoals. Every Tuesday at eleven, we play soul, spread joy, and spotlight these who had, well, just a little more to give, only on KOOP ninety one point seven.