00:00Last week, David Banner stopped by Essence Live to talk about his new single, Marry Me.
00:10But of course, that's not all we discussed.
00:12Banner's remarks sparked an intense social conversation on our Facebook page with over 200 comments.
00:17Let's check a couple out.
00:18Anna Hutchinson commented,
00:19It's time we realize that we ourselves are the problem.
00:22Stop hating each other and try to build each other up.
00:25Whites look at us the way they do because of the things we do to each other.
00:28Dolores Stribling said,
00:30You want us to take personal responsibility?
00:33Then give us the same opportunity you receive.
00:35We will take personal responsibility when our education is the same,
00:37our housing is the same, our employment is the same.
00:40It is easy for someone to say take responsibility when the opportunity is there for you.
00:44All right, so let's take a look at what David had to say.
00:47White supremacy only respects two things.
00:51That's a loss of life and a loss of finances.
00:54I was about to say money. You said finance, yes.
00:56Until black people threaten one of those two things,
01:00they will forever continue to do what they do.
01:03So instead of blaming an external source, blame yourself.
01:07Because until we blame ourselves, we will never change the things that are going on with our women,
01:14with our own lives, and with our communities.
01:17We are the problem.
01:18All right, what do you have to say? Slay the shade, guys.
01:20That was a heavy hitter.
01:22We have a shade.
01:23Look, we all got tied.
01:24We all was like, that was a heavy.
01:25And you're on a slishé.
01:26That was heavy.
01:27That's what I am.
01:28I'm on a this and a that.
01:29You're on a slishé?
01:29Slishé.
01:30Okay, well, Cole, you seem to have your mind made up.
01:31So why is it a shade?
01:32Because I understand where he's coming from.
01:34His comments was very intense,
01:35and there was some truth to it.
01:37But I think that he's forgetting about, no, the racism didn't come from us.
01:42I mean, we started with not the full hand.
01:46Like, we were dealt a bad card as a race.
01:48You know, we didn't get everything.
01:49So the comment that that young lady said is she's true.
01:52It's right.
01:52Delores was on it.
01:53Yeah, we didn't have the same opportunities.
01:55We didn't have the same education.
01:56I grew up in Texas.
01:57I didn't have the same school that the kids in the nice neighborhood had.
02:00I didn't have the same books.
02:01I learned about Texas history.
02:03I didn't learn about black history or anything like that.
02:06So, yeah, we do perpetuate a bad thing in reality and in music.
02:11But, again, you got to take it further back than where he's taking it.
02:14Yeah, I'm in the present, but come on.
02:16Like, you know.
02:17All right.
02:18Gia, you're a slishé?
02:19I'm slishé because I agree with what he's saying
02:24because we do have the opportunity to change it.
02:27Right now, anything that you need to know is on Google.
02:30Like, you can learn anything that you need to know.
02:33You can Google it.
02:33It's a moment away.
02:36But I look at stories like my dad grew up in the projects of Rhode Island,
02:39and he's now, like, one of the top execs at AP.
02:41You don't have to, your situation, your environment doesn't have to tell your story
02:46for the rest of your life.
02:46So when I hear those opportunities, my dad used to get beat up for carrying books home,
02:50and he made it out because he knew he wanted something more.
02:53Raise your children.
02:54It does start with us.
02:55It does start within our communities.
02:57We have to raise our children.
02:58We have to let them know that this isn't just the environment that you grew up with.
03:01And we have to make sure that they're not watching Love and Hip Hop on Monday nights.
03:06They should be watching Disney or something.
03:08Like, why does your 8-year-old child know who T.R. Marie is?
03:10That is a valid point.
03:11Like, just do, we do need to do the work.
03:14We're blaming everyone, and I do, I don't like the word blame.
03:16I think we should improve.
03:17Improve.
03:18Yeah, I don't like the word blame.
03:19Blame, right.
03:20I'm a slushé because I liked his beard.
03:24That gray little goatee.
03:26That was cute.
03:27David the lost about 55.
03:28Yeah, now, now.
03:29Oh, he said, oh, yeah.
03:31I'm like, David, I agree with everything you say.
03:34You tell him.
03:36That's bae.
03:36That's all we're in there.
03:37That's blue.
03:38When we're at home.
03:39Look at that beard.
03:39Look at that beard.
03:39Look at that, look at that.
03:40Hi, yeah, you did it.
03:42Okay.
03:43But this is the real deal is that I also taught school in Compton.
03:48But where I send my son to school, it's a private school, or it's in Sherman Oaks, this
03:53other area, and they have everything.
03:56He can go swimming.
03:57He can do this.
03:57And I look at how I was raised.
03:59You know, I was in Cleveland Public School, and then I moved over to Shaker.
04:02And let me tell you something.
04:03It is a difference.
04:04When I tell you, the books that the kids I had to teach with in Compton, no computers.
04:08So there is a difference.
04:10And I think about slavery.
04:13We talk about we came over to this country, and it's not like we have a cultural, like,
04:18everyone else.
04:18We're talking about the Chinese, the Jews.
04:21They have a deep history.
04:24We are, what, 400 years African Americans.
04:27We can't sit there and talk about, yeah, I'm from the tribe of Uber and Uber.
04:30How about that?
04:31You don't know.
04:31I mean, what?
04:34I can't talk.
04:35There's no Native Tom.
04:36I put a little DNA on you.
04:37It's okay, girl.
04:37Put it.
04:38It's okay.
04:38But that's what I'm saying.
04:38There's no Native Tom.
04:40There's no culture in me.
04:41I can't talk about, oh, and I learned how to weave this basket, because we're from the,
04:45we don't have that.
04:46So it is, it's about us now trying to form that.
04:49But that, that's a lot.
04:51You want us just to change.
04:52It is a lot of work.
04:54It's a lot of work.
04:54So I won't say, blame us, but we do have to work and go back to the village situation.
04:59And you say, black lives matter.
05:00We also have to say, black lives matter to us.
05:02So when my brother's out there killing each other, you out there marching against the police.
05:06What about when you did the drive-by?
05:08Black lives matter to us, too.
05:10So you have to always, when you say take responsibility or blame, we have to just go back to the way
05:16we used to be in the 60s, when we was all fighting for the same thing.
05:21Even our black families were together, because we were all fighting for the same thing.
05:26Now, Kim, as a mother...
05:27But David, everything you said was brilliant.
05:30Oh, David, she's like...
05:32No, but Kim, you mentioned, you know, you're raising a son.
05:34And with everything that's happening in society right now, have you had to start to...
05:39I know he's young, but have you had to start to have some sort of conversation, or have
05:42you start to formulate in your mind what that conversation will look like on how to carry
05:47himself, if you will, as a black man and maybe possible situations he may encounter as
05:50a young black man?
05:52Yes, I'm hoping that by the time another 10 years, things are better.
05:56But as my father raised my brothers, first of all, we start with just our own protection.
06:01My son should not know right now, he's four years old, and he came home and he said,
06:06Mommy, my skin hurts.
06:08What?
06:09That's because a little white girl told him his skin was ugly.
06:11So I had to go up to the school.
06:13Of course you did.
06:14And holler at him, say, I need to talk to those parents.
06:16But you're dealing with another child who learned from somewhere.
06:20So I have to first...
06:21Now, why am I teaching my four-year-old about color?
06:25So we start there.
06:27And we talk about bullying.
06:28So it even goes, it's not even a black, white thing or a police thing.
06:32It's just human.
06:33It's a human thing.
06:35So once we start with bullying, and then I'm going to have to explain to him, because
06:38my little brother got chased by the police.
06:40My mama looks white.
06:41She's not.
06:42I know y'all say that on the internet.
06:43She is.
06:43The police ran through the door, and my mother answered the door, and thought,
06:47it's a white woman.
06:47We lived in this certain kind of neighborhood.
06:49And he's like, there's a black, there's a Negro child, because you know, it was back
06:52in 1902.
06:54But there was a Negro child running through your yard, and we just wanted to warn you,
06:57and you've been running, and we almost got him.
06:59Well, my black daddy came up behind her, and all of us, we was like, what's happening?
07:03What's happening?
07:03Who's happening?
07:04Who's happening?
07:05Who's happening?
07:05Who's happening?
07:05Who is he?
07:06Who is the Negro child?
07:08You mean this one?
07:09My mom's like, you mean this?
07:10Oh, yeah, he lives here.
07:11He lives here.
07:12So we went through that all the time, but my brother could have been shot, because
07:15he was so young, he didn't know, hold it, hold.
07:17He didn't know none of that, what they say.
07:19So I think it's just, it is what it is.
07:22And just teaching, first of all, we all are supposed to obey the law.
07:27The law is here for our protection.
07:29Right.
07:30So if someone says, hey, hold it, then you hold it.
07:33Now, some of these crazy police, I think, really, okay, I'm not going to get deep with
07:37this, but how we change the police is in the training at the cadet level.
07:42Right, from the ground up.
07:43We've got to wait until the good old boys get on out, but you've got to start a different
07:46training.
07:47Just like I look back at Sean LaVert in prison.
07:50He died because they didn't give him his medicine.
07:52Right.
07:52Because the people are trying to be the police, so it's a whole, we've got a whole lot of
07:55work.
07:55It's a deeper conversation.
07:56It's a deeper conversation.
07:57So with my son, I will have the conversation, but I'm going to have some, I've got to have
08:00some brothers around my son.
08:01Some black men to talk to my son.
08:03I'm a woman.
08:04It's a different, it's a different type of role.
08:06They talk, they got a whole different conversation.
08:08You ever sit back and listen to me and talk?
08:10Oh.
08:10Oh.
08:11It sounds like Spanish, don't it?
08:12Yes, it does.
08:13I go to the barbershop every week.
08:15Trust me.
08:15Yeah.
08:15I know.
08:16You ain't.
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