00:00Hey, I'm Dana Blair, host of Essence Live, and joining me right now via Skype are the mom and son
00:04in that viral video where the son tells his mom he's not voting on election day. Please welcome
00:09Kenny and Chi Chi Akwara. Hi, how are you? We're good. Hi, thank you. We've all seen the video of
00:16you having a spirited conversation with your son about voting. You even went as far as telling him
00:20to take a picture of his ballot. Chi Chi, you are very serious and passionate about your son,
00:25not only voting, but voting specifically for Clinton. Why is that?
00:30Because I love my candidate so much. I really want her to win. I cannot afford not to have
00:39Hillary Clinton in the White House. She is very well experienced. She knows her stuff. She knows
00:48what to do to make this country great again. And Kenny, you are ready with your phone. Did you
00:55have a feeling your mom would react the way that she did? See, the thing is, recently, my mom has
01:02been feeling very passionate about things. And I kind of knew, I kind of knew if I told her that I
01:08wasn't going to vote, or if I wasn't going to vote for Hillary Clinton, that I'd get some type of reaction
01:14from her. Because, you know, my mom is very passionate about things she believes in. So even though I knew
01:19I'd get a reaction from her, I really didn't think that the video would become that funny,
01:23because I deal with that every day. So it's normal for me. So when other people were telling me that
01:27your mom's extremely funny, and she's very passionate, I was like, wow, it's nice seeing things from other
01:32people's perspective. Kenny's like, welcome to my world. Chi Chi, did you know you were being recorded,
01:38or is that something Kenny showed you later on? I had no clue. In fact, when the video had around
01:485,000 retweets, she kept blowing my phone up to delete the video. And we kept her calm for a little
01:57bit so we could keep the video up. And then when her friends from Nigeria started texting her, telling
02:02her that she was an internet sensation and that everyone loved her, she just said, okay, you can keep
02:07the video I can run. I had no clue that he was recording me, and this is the first time he's
02:12pulled this kind of prank on me. Kenny, now in the video, it seemed like you were going to say
02:18you were considering voting for third-party candidate Gary Johnson. Are you?
02:23No. In fact, I already voted. And I did not vote for the third-party candidate. I voted for Hillary
02:33Clinton because, one, I didn't want my car seized and my phone seized. But two, it was also a prank.
02:40From the start, from the jump, I was going to vote for Hillary Clinton. And I believe that Hillary
02:44Clinton is the candidate that the U.S. needs in this election. And I was always going to vote for
02:50Hillary Clinton. But I knew I'd get some type of reaction from my mom by telling her I wasn't.
02:55Now, some voters feel that voting for Hillary is like voting for the lesser of two evils, if you
03:00will. Chi Chi, what do you say to this? I don't believe that. I don't believe that. We all make
03:06mistakes. You know, she made a mistake with the email problem. But that is not, that doesn't make
03:15her lesser of any evil. That doesn't make her any evil because of that. You know, the actual
03:21problem candidate is Trump. And that is the person that has so much baggage to go around.
03:29You know, so Hillary, I am all for her all the way. All the Nigerian women I've called upon
03:36and they are responding very, very positively. Everybody's talking to their family to get
03:42everyone out there to vote for Hillary. And I'm truly positive she's going to win. She
03:50will win. Fingers crossed. Chi Chi, I'm sure a lot of people want to know, what were you
03:55eating in the video? Can you believe my son? I had a plum. I had a plum. You know, I had
04:06gotten ready to leave for work and I was just about to drive off and I washed a plum and I
04:12was, you know, munching up my plum on my way to get into my car before I remembered that
04:20I have to, you know, get him to go vote because I don't want any stories at all.
04:25Thank you so much to both of you, Chi Chi and Kitty, for joining us. Remember, you can get
04:30all the facts you need about voting and election day by visiting essence.com slash news.
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