Welcome to Ja Dot M, a production of I Heart Radio. What's up Everybody? How y'all doing? Welcome to Jay Dot Elda Packheash. It is a pleasure to be here to day with my sister friends AGR great and dance love. That's me. That's right in my home. Girl. Lie, Yes, ain't clear what you said? You see? I say that it's giving North. It's giving North. It's slightly like country to you know what I'm saying. It's like Philly and country mixed together, because that's where I'm living at likes I get home. As I get home, you know, it's where y'all going at you every where you go, everywhere. It's no secret we we we beautiful brown people. We gotta we got a whole dialect going on where an entire way right on DC all day, all day. Yeah. I used to have a cousin, a cousin who dated a guy from Cali, and he was like, why people from d c sing everything they say and We're like, no, we don't. He was like, yes, y'all do. He said, how y'all doing? What where's it going? What's going? And I just want to give a shout out to my girlfriend, a shocky coleman, the whole. She's a doctorate and she's she's a whole principal at a at a at a school. And when I first heard her speak, she's from d C. And she was like, I remember why y'all always going over the air. And I was like, see the funny things that what d C people will do is not drop their accent for real feeling a long time. Don't get it twisted as soon as I crossed the city limits. It's a rap. It's an absolute rap to our pleasure, to our pleasure. Oh look, we're gonna get it to a little perfection right now. My mother says perfect. Oh that's just perfect. Yeah. My stubmother used to say crown for crayon, crown crown, and my mother says stomach. We love it. And my my friend Scott Parker, his mom says thumbach too. I figured it might be from the same place my grandmama said, if it's too old, it's at no matter what it's always so, it's a root, it's it's it's what death, what it is? It a book? Rut is the only one that does that. I don't think there are any other words. I don't know if it's any other words. With that, I'm gonna follow these rules as we are absolutely fascinating when it comes to how we speak, in the ways that we speak. And it's true, there's there's music pretty much in everything. Um, no matter where you come from, there's a song and how we speak. Yeah yeah, yes, yes, yeah yeah yeah age great dance. So we have somebody really special here, would you be kind enough to entro dudes, I most certainly would like to introduce this person, this lovely being. Um, y'all know, I'll be on the internet, this is this is if you'll right, it's okay, and one day I'm on the social media's and this lovely person uh these son Michew uh pops up on my on my fee talking this good talk. Okay. So before we get talking to him, I just I'm gonna read a little bit about him, so y'all understand. So when y'all do, you're good googling, because this is what we do on this show, we do a good receipt exactly. So here we go. I'm gonna read this. I'm gonna let you know I'm reading because I'm not this good. I'm I'm reading to make sure y'all get the info right, all right. Son Michel has cultivated a strong following online, which is true. I'm one of his followers via social media, with frequent viral content ranging from pop culture commentary, allegorical anecdotes, and entertainment to serious discussions, advocacy and philanthropy via crowdfunding. He uses this count content to promote intellect, ethics, enlightenment, and education, the ladder of which led him in two thousand seventeen to becoming the first and only Gala language instructor at Harvard University. And this role, he teaches a curriculum based on extensive search and his own personal GALAGICI knowledge and experience. So I'm gonna stop there because y'all need to understand. I know some of y'all need this, you know, high high level receipts Harvard until recently that this man taught it Harvard. All I know is that he speaks to absolute taruse, and so I would love to introduce the Jay dai Il family who is listening to Mr Son Michelle. Come on, I'm very glad to be here. I appreciate the energy of the Bible. I'm really happy that, Um, you know you you found me through through through the work. Um, any time I get love from all line is great because everybody everybody don't love you all love, so how can we not what we do? Know? You get a little bit of pushback from the wrights, Oh yeah, oh yeah, but I'm gonna I'm gonna be really honest about that. I expected and and just some degree thrive on it. Like they haven't figured out how to deal with the creators who don't mind um as the the old saying the smell of napalm in the morning, like I'm here for and so um, what they want you to do is is to like back off and block them, And but that's not how the internet works. That's not how social media works. Engagement is engagement. So the algorithm doesn't know that you're you're calling me out my name or whatever your problem is. All the algorithm knows that you keep coming to my videos, watching them and commenting, and so they've ironically been boosting the very content that they're trying to stop me from making. But it's not working out that way. Would anybody want to stop your content? Am I missing? You know what it is? And I just did UM. I just did electric on campus last night actually talking a little bit about this um. One of the first things that colonialists do, the first thing that imperialist will do when they take over place a conqueror people is get rid of the link. Like you would have to ask yourself, like what would be what's so important about getting rid of the language? Like if you go to a voe, you can get rid of their native language. Everywhere you go, you try to strict the people of their language because there's power and language. There's power in and there's lineage and language that's heritage and language you can tell so much like you were just saying before we started recording, that you can tell from certain words. I can tell where you're from, what part of Taling you're from. If you say hello, maybe you're from Oakland. If you say not, I mean or depending on it the word is born, like maybe from Northeast. You know, I can kind of tell basically where you are. And when you take away those things and replace it with the language of the oppressor, you will never ever be able to articulate your humanity to its fullest extent in the language of your oppressor. And they know that, and so when someone pops up who's saying, hey, there's not only nothing wrong with the way that we speak and getting into our dialects and our creoles, but there's everything right about it, and making ourselves more adjacent to the truth of who we are as opposed to what we were forced to be. Don't like it, but they've got to deal with it because to some degree, h, I know, maybe it's a little massacrest in me. I don't mind them being upset at all. It doesn't bother me at all. Yeah, you always seem to giggle a little right before you do like a clap back. You always seem, you know, like at the beginning of the clap back from where I think it's Jada kiss and he's like, I don't want to sound mad, I feel wonderful, Like you're like that at the beginning of your clap back. It's like, I want to make sure y'all realize I'm not pissed. In fact, absolutely, they will think about it. Somebody who's teaching language, like language and why is a person who's teaching language and die like getting death threats? What is that about? Like? Why why are you in comments and in the comments, um, the one in the video that I just did because I got a hundred and fifty thousand, past hundred thousand followers on YouTube, which, thanks in part to them, you helped to drive Eachi a hundred in the followers on YouTube. So congratulations, congratulate yourself and played yourself. But they at the same time will say I'm hunting you, and when I find you, I'm gonna finish. First of all, do you really want to find me? So if I'm anti racism, anti misogyny, pro children, protecting children, building community, philanthropy, um, knowledge yourself in regards as language and culture, like, it's like, stop me when you get to the part when I get to the part that warrants you want to kill But here we are, here, we are more real talk after the break. It's truly sounds like that corny saying knowledge is power, and if if it sounds like people can see that to be true and you're deeply powerful and the things that just saying the people and empowering people, that's powerful. But let me let you in on something though. Do you know what some of the the most volatile okay they're there are three most volatile topics that I'm guaranteed to get hate from and from surprising sources. Okay um. One of the ones that I did recently, I never turned off the comments in my posts. Never do. I let them let the engagement rack up and they can just do whatever they want to in the comments, like have at it. One of the ones that I did turn the comments off was a post. The literal title of the post is Lizzo is beautiful. That's the title of the post, is Lizzo is beautiful. There were people who was stumbling over themselves to get into that post to say some of the most violent and ugly things about big, beautiful black equipment. And they weren't all wait. In fact, I would give it a fifty split between the racists and black men who came in there to say it wasn't enough. They were singling out Lizzo. They then started attacking people in the comments and see, I can't have that, Like you can said that you want to about me, I'm here for But when it gets to the point where someone responds and says, you know, hey, I really appreciate this this perspective because I've been on the other side of you know, these types of critiques from black men. So it's just really reassuring to hear something positive or a change, you know, coming from a brother. You think that that would be you know, pretty straightforward exchange. There's nothing there, there's nothing controversial, and the argument and then here swoops in some buzzes they got something to say about it and criticizes her. I want to know, what do you think about that? Like, where do you think that derives from? You know, that self hatred and or what I'm gonna there's well put it to you this way. The reason that I cut straight to that, I'll be honest about why I cut straight to that, because because I, I uh, the responsibility in regard to black men and how we treat treat black women. Um and and I was not born of a virgin Mary. Okay, so people will always well, you know, maybe maybe I'm from a different type of background. I'm you know, some reason, some angle as to why I might think this way and and and it's just unrealistic. Note that's not the way it was. Okay. I started leaving home when I was a kid who was considered one point in atwards, you know, kid left home again when I was a teenager, did all the things that teenagers do to to survive and and get through all of the mistakes at all that I did all of it. Been there, done that, and at the end of the day, I'm sitting here today planning my return trip home to a family that's one member shut because her boyfriend shot and killed her and himself and left a seven month old child on a road that I grew up on. Dirt, brother, I grew up on and walk past every day. My blood. But that's not it. When I tell a friend of mine about it, he's his men, you're not. I don't believe this. My boy was just telling me about his niece with a dude who shot her and left five kids behind. So imagine imagine that I'm telling my friend about something that grim and he's like, right back, catch it, bro, My niece, my friend's niece too. They're not alone. Ze dudes think it's cute to say these little things online, um, these little end cells or whatever they whether they you know, I don't. I don't do the whole where you're not getting women, So you just because getting women ain't the standard of whether or not you can be a good person. So I don't even bother with that clap back. Whether you live in your mama's basement or not or whatever. I'm not getting into the to the classes part about how much money you've got. That doesn't bother. Okay, it's just about finding your center and me walking around. Oh we long going about the business of You're just doing what I have to do and trying to figure out how to formulate the words to give condolence for something like that face to face. And but they think it's is they think it's cute, You think it is funny to make these little degrading remarks. And I'm not even really sure what you what you have, what you think you have to prove. But I've been there, so you're not gonna tell me. Will Black women did me this way? Bro? Black women in my lifetime on Earth have many times when I ever since I was a little boy to a grown man, many times you know, on the receiving end of negative energy and abusive behavior with black women given end receiving since I was a little boy. So you're not gonna tell me that that gives you license to be a terrible human being. So so now I do not have sympathy for these people when they come to me to spill in my lap, to to externalize that venom, you know, in my face, to make themselves feel better, because there's another way. I know there's another way. And so when I'm trying to show you another way and the only way, only way that you can find to feel better about yourself to make someone else feel less, stand We'll see we can't have that, we can have it, and so I take those lessons. I have gotten threats from, you know, brothers. I've gotten threats from racists. I've been called um names because I advocate for children and whenever corporate punishment comes up, everybody lose them. But I've heard it all that. You know what, It's a beautiful, beautiful task to take on and I and I love it. And I hope that's in a minority of the feedback that you receive. I'm hoping. I know sometimes those voices can be the loudest. Even to the video about this. I hate the reference to my own work, but I even did the video. But the good cop, there are too many good cops who you didn't hit the person in the head with the baton. Maybe you didn't pull the trigger. But you didn't do anything when the other person was doing it. And even if you disagreed, you told the lie, you kept your mouth shot, kept up the blue wall aside it. There's lots of ways that people who are not directly complicit contribute to the thing being perpetuated, and they feel like they are off the hook because they didn't do it, you see what I'm saying. And so there was recently a situation where um, I was in the parking like coming out of the grocery shore with a place where I normally shop, and someone who works there was in the parking lot just just eating her lunch and on a break, and a guy comes and taps on the window. He's like, you know, pretty girl, like you shouldn't be eating alone, you know. And she's just like, oh my god, like I just want to eat my lunch and you know, not be bothered. She she waves them off, not interested, taps again and like come on now, you're trying to have some lunch and to be friendly from the conversation or whatever. You know, when I say, take you have a real lunchen, and she's like not interested. And so I rolled down my window over across from my road down and said, hey, I'll take the lunch. I like lunch. I take the lunch. And he was like no, no, no, Bro, like no, no, no, no, no, no, like almost like no, I don't roll like that, Like no. If I said, she's having from the conversation, I like, from the conversation and lunch, let's do it. Na, Bro not interested And in that moment he walks away. But but she was not interested too. But you felt like it was all good. But it's just from the conversation. How can begin the conversation. We haven't feeling I like lunch. I do like lunch. And if he had said, yeah, we'd have gone to lunch, I mean Dutch at the very least, but we're going to lunch. I love the fact that you bring up this point that you know, when you're bringing up and calling out anti blackness and at the same time giving people tools and telling people, hey, I'm legitimizing all the black experience here from the way that we speak to the way that we do things, and specifically and particularly around protecting black women. And we all know that whole protect black women thing has been going pretty rampant throughout the internet in the last you know, a few years, and that you're actually doing this what it looks like to actually protect black women. But that the pushback that you tend to get or can get at times, and I won't speak to what tends to happen more or less, but that to see that you're getting certain kind of pushback and that's coming from black men is an important kind of thing to to make note of and and and when as you talk about something like corporal punishment, where I'm sure plenty black mothers jumped into those comments too and had lots to say about that as well. So I think it's it's a cool thing for us to legitimize ourselves, but to also pay attention to the ways in which we can kind of be our own. Um, I don't want to say any me but adversary, you know what I'm saying. So that's powerful. That also applies to language, because I know very many people my normal I've seen something like this when I talk m that's the way that my normal ax when I talking to my family them, that's what that's where it's sound like. No, there's a whole bunch of people back home will say, oh, how you. Why are you? How are you going Jill podcast or Sound Beach you like that, man, you're gonna be too bads. Yeah, yeah. We don't come out here speaking ghetto. Don't go out there talking ghetto or whatever. Jill starts out the whole podcast speaking in a way then looks down upon in a lot of ways when we when we in a in a business meeting, You're not gonna come into business meet like hey, hi, YAsO am you know. And and the truth of the matter is that if she wanted to, she should be able to. And that in that moment, that that is a that is a legitimate pushback. That's a legitimate revolutionary act to own to to use your chosen language, no more than it would be she walked into a room and decided to speak Spanish. It's a freedom. And see, that's that's the thing. When you when you've gone through um, all of it ties together, all of it ties together in regards of linguistic you know, truthfulness, and there's you know, there's evening linguisticism, which is, you know, essentially racism manifested by way of language. So people will profile your tone and profile your accident, profile you know the way that you used. But my point to to all of it was what we end up with is where you um, you know, uh encapsulated it just now is what we end up when we're dealing with anti whiteness and white supremacy and we start talking in terms of pro ourselves, like I approach it from a pro pro self perspective as opposed to just defining myself by being against some other thing. But what you end up with is the more you circle back around and deal with your stuff internally, you start to root out some of the internalized anti anti blackness. You start to root many of the things that people who had accents or have accents who've lost them because they were literally beaten at home to not use them because their families saw it as a liability, not an asset. And so some of them were literally, you know, disciplined in order to clean up their addiction at home. And now when we sat around and we talked to them and everybody started talking like this, they feel like they have imposter syndrome because they've lost their acts. And it's it's a sad thing to see someone, do you know. It's just as Gulla gtuse you but they feetle fake when they use the accident we grew abusing. We're gonna take a quick break and then we'll be right back. Before we even get into this because on some let's act on like on some real dummy stuff. Not calling people dummies, but like a lot of people don't even understand the importance or what gachy and gula means to language into culture. So um, can you kind of break that down in a way that folks understand. Probably the most easier form of making it makes sense is if people think in terms of languages and dialects, like, say, for example, English itself is a language that is originally a Germanic language. Okay, but the English vocabulary is like one third French. There's there's in Latin, and there are other languages. What's left of the Germanic languages are like maybe of the original vocabulary from the Germanic language and so, but yet it's still able to maintain its status as a as a Germanic language because of the basic grammar and its structure things like that. That's that's why it's able to maintain its identity as a Germanic language. Now, African Americans did not choose to forfeit our native languages that obviously it wasn't a w And we did not learn English in a classroom, No no, and none our answers have Rosetta Stone, No no instructors or anything. That we learned English by adopting the language, the culture, that everything that was needed to survive. Okay, So in doing that, we were picking up language from people who were not themselves, you know, scholars, we're talking about the lower wrung European Scots Irish and so and remember that detail, the lower wrung sort of indentured Scot's Irish people, Okay, because that's gonna be very important about in about two minutes. And so we're taking in the consideration the circumstances of how we're learning the language and why we're learning the language, and also that all of us didn't speak the same original languages. So we're learning not only how to speak with the other, uh, the oppressors, we're also learning to speak to one another. And that's something that we that's almost never talked about, is that we are learning not only to speak to the oppressive, but we also have to learn to speak to one another in a language that is neither one of us, and so to be able to for our ancestors to be able to do that, to be able to learn a new language, under Durest, learn a language to speak with one another under Durest, maintain enough of our africanness. And I'll use that as a broad term um African nous in loanwords and structure in the language to today still maintain many of the more African basic structure and how we modify verbs, verb, tense um in a sentence um like say, for example, we've all heard somebody say, well, I'm gonna tell you what, or I'm gonna go to the store, or I'm gonna beat in a minute. And the before the verb is very consistent because at denotes the present. It takes the place of the suffix I n g that denotes that there's a present action or near future action that is in progress. I am going to the store. I'm gonna go to the store. You're doing that right now now. If I'm going to the store much later, I would probably say I could go to the store. I could go to it now that gut is your future. I could go to the store is idea as and I frequently go. That's your continuous Okay, I go to the store is add as in pass that God never had to change in any of those sentences, because the verse days in this base infinitive form that is consistent. Those are rules that happened consistently throughout the language. And so when you start looking at where else do these these rules and these things happen, and you look into our mother tongues, then you start to find them. You start to find words like hunnah it's also pronounced as uno in different parts of the diaspora. That same word una exists for father exists in different parts of the diaspora. You know, these these consistencies happened throughout a diasport. And yet even though we're maintaining very much of the African sort of fundamentals of the language, we're still relegated to it being a dialect of English and stripped of the African identity and made it seem as though it's just basically a broken version of an English thing. Meanwhile, meanwhile, these same people are picking up language from us, They're picking up words from us. Gouba is the Galaguchi word for peanut. Georgia is the goober state g o o b e r, but ours is g u b a. We do not use the hard e r in more words than one. We don't use the hardy are because because because our language is non rhotic, and non rhodic is essentially when you dropped the hard are for more of an a like sound. So google but and goober are the same thing word for peanut. Georgia is a peanut state. Georgia is also a a state that is in m bordering the Gulaguchi Cultural Heritage Corridor. So to make it seem like it's a coincidence that the language seems to follow us wherever we are and these people end up speaking our language and using phrases that we use, it's only ever credited in one direction. They literally believe that we learn language from one another. But it was only Africans learning language from English and not English learning any language from African But how does that stand to reason? You see what I'm saying, It's still everything else, but the language. I doubt it getting to the Scott's Irish like. There are things now, like the word acts that is known as something that people look down on for black people. If we say and let me ask you a question, you know, and acts? Okay, well, there's a couple of things about that. You also will find acts in Europe, you'll find acts in Ireland. You still find acts in different parts of Scotland. Do you'll find acts in Chaucer and Shakespeare. And going back to the Greek word oxyen and oskian, those two words oscan and oxyen are literally the same thing, from same words, and it means essentially to request, and that is abbreviated from oxyen to acts. And so when people correct ox with ask, not only is that to certain degree incorrect, but it also is ironic in a sense that word is not even the original word that you were trying to say. Them word that you're trying to say isn't even the original word for that, and so we but I'll tell you how it happened. How it happened is the word asked was more widely publicized in print, particularly in the Bible, and at the time only people of status could either read or own books. And therefore the word that was more widely spread out or widely distributed was in books. And so people who did read, the people who did have status, and people who did have education, they read a s K. And so when they repeated that word, they said a s K. The people who did not have those things were still saying a K S. And so then they're like, hmmm, I happened to notice broke people saying the ks. And and so the social correlation between lack of money, lack of education, lack of status, and also associating those things with black people turned into who was at the lowest rung of society, who was the brokers, who was the least educated, Who was the one that you know that were the poorest in all of those aspects that lacks status black people? And so we basically got acts pinned on us, even though we got it from Europeans and who still use it today. Do you see him saying, I'm side Wait a minute, this is the point this I gotta stop you because this is the point where we all get up in run around the room. This is the part where we get up and we run, we yeah into a corner and we shout for a few minutes. Run I gets said a little bit Jill too, though, because you know what those sons I get sad. I was just saying the age of Jill, I was like a class like yours. Knowledge like this should be fundamental in every school that has a lack of every school, not even black or brown, because I feel like the immigrants and everybody else who comes here don't understand this, don't get like you need to get all of this, like this is the country that this is the country that you live in. And I'm just sad because I'm like, man, if people had this information, that empowerment, that you would feel like the you wouldn't question yourself. So more. Let's also talk about how we wield the grammar police, how the grammar police wield this power on that. Yeah, we do this to one another, you and I, but but but there's something about it, even not knowing the details that feel wrong, there's something about it because even if we can even pull up respectability of all types like you will see on the socials, don't you remember a time when we used to do this and we used to do that, And these were times when it was acceptable to jack up little black kids and make them wear certain clothes and make them say certain words, and make them act a certain way when they are in the presence of white folks. But we didn't. They don't know that, they don't know, they don't know. There was training for that, you know, there was training for artists. You had to go through media training to learn how to speak you know, um, there was a certain etiquette that you had to carry, you know, thinking back to like the Supremes, what we're seeing today is is far different from what you know they were portraying now in the house, they were a whole of the people. And I don't you know, I can't say, you know, like when we think of artists like Whitney Houston, you know, holding yourself in you know, for so long, and the bawd tends to break you feel me, Yeah, for sure. Yeah, we're looking we're looking at a lot of evidence of what happens when you have to consistently suppress the self in language and behavior, in and and everything. When you talked about how there's a borrowing from us that happens, and then it immediately becomes like American culture when you know, you know, we don't get credit, like we just don't get credit. Said once the singer Time said how he was talking about how if he sang um saying if he's saying the same song will be considered gospel and relegated to a specific type of on or a time of day. It would just be seen differently. And but if a non black singer, a white singer sings and then it's spiritual, it's a different kind of vibe, Like they get to experiment with it in a way that sometimes and I don't know if this is true, and you certainly would be in a more um informed perspective to speak on it, but sometimes it seems like with black artists, black intellectuals, black public figures, we have to manage our blackness. Like it's not even just like walk out the door and just be black. You have to figure out how black and each situation do we really want to be. And I'm just wondering, like I just don't see that being an issue for our white counterparts. I don't see it being something that they have to say, like how white can I be? Right now? Unless you're racist? And that's a whole different conversation, but you know, they are doing the whole how black can I be? You know, what's it called black fishing or something like that. There's always quite a lot of that, but they're is um like Nat King Cole. You know, he was considered quite eloquent. Maya Angelou was considered quite eloquent. Um Felicia Rashod is considered quite eloquent. There was something for me about uh, specifically, I loved the the addiction. Addiction was exciting to me. I wanted that for myself. When I read James Baldwin, he was very eloquent and very awful, but also exceptionally black asks, you know, which was was incredible. But then you have Zorneil Hurston, and you've got Tony Morrison and Jay California Cooper, who could who could sit themselves in the belly of a community and sound like the people, and when you read it, you heard, you heard, and you could smell and taste you know, um, the community. Is there something wrong with with people who enjoyed action? You know, it's funny you should ask that because two things tied together, something that you just said, and also a minute ago we were talking about the wise and the course in more schools. Ironically, my Angelo, along with Jesse Jackson, a few of the community leaders, when there was an initiative in the nineteen eighties to have what they then but they then called ebonics, but having black speech and Black English integrated into the curriculum in order to help black children better understand other subjects but mostly English, like using it as a bridge. And it was the community who not only shut it down but demonized it to the point where people became embarrassed and ashamed of just the term. You know, when they needed better pr Son, the pr on a bonics was it was. It was. It wasn't like, it wasn't like your linguists. It wasn't like this is the history. That's likely because and this is just the facts, and in certain certain spaces, the fact that Son is a teacher as an instructor at Harvard, the fact that he's associated with a p w Y and this is something he's teaching in that space, will legitimize it in ways that it wouldn't have been legitimized before. Saying that, you don't think people like that were involved in any bonics. Many of the issues with the Bonic's controversy was most of the criticism wasn't coming linguists. It was more activists, people who yeah, it wasn't it wasn't There wasn't a thing they're cohesive, you know, coming together, people sitting down. But again Jessie jactly called the trash. He said that the black speeches trash. He literally used the term trash for the way to speak. And these are the people who were seen as mostly of the articulate people. They absolutely associated black speech with, um, you know, being with the negativity. There was a Sesame Street character that they tried to integrate Sentame Street and integrate some of the black speech, and and again we got it shut down. And this has happened multiple times where the respectable folk in our community shut down efforts to incorporate our manner of speech as an outreach for children in schools. And so people would ask me sometimes not so you know, uh as in a gotcha type of way. There was so why are you at Harvard and not insert black university here Harvard Coble Right. I'm just gonna say I had the privilege of of teaching one class at Harvard, and I felt like I was at the hardwarts of education. You supposed to, That's what they pay for, they were. You would feel like that it's bound into nice. Well, I mean, and the thing is, I rolled out the invitation. I said that while I am teaching at Harvard. I would be more than happy to workshops are late to you know if at of school and some people took me and taking me up on it. I mean, if if you want me to give you any kind of insights on teaching the language, any anything, Holt so have no wait no no no wait no no no sign. Nobody, no school or institution has reached out to you. Right now, We're gonna call it out more North Carolina A and T Florida A and M and school y'all at and not just college colleges with school systems. I'm like the school system. And well what Harvard whatever that at? Oh no, no, no, no, here's here's the surprisingly. Harvard is a program called Project Teach. In that program, there's an outreach for Cambridge area schools. And so what I would end up teaching, say seventh seventh graders UM in Cambridge area schools, and that would be UM school for students who speak English is a second language UM students from public schools. So I do that in Cambridge, in Cambridge and so speaking, collaborating with other programs. I have worked with other schools Princeton, Listen, come on, I'm going to get mad. I'm getting mad. More conversation after the break. Can I ask a question? Here's I have a question? I have a question? Alright, So one on the good people's social media's. You know, a lot of times we have situations where and I've seen this on Twitter with black folks getting upset sometimes with us explaining how to interpret certain black expressions or or or ways of saying things. Feeling as if we're giving away these trade secrets, this moment where we where we can kind of secretly talk to each other. So how do you feel about the gate keeping of our language? I want to imagine this, okay, um, one of the most common influences that people point to as an exceptional sort of thing that can help you improve as the singers, like having a church background. That's what we in our community is always having a church background. Okay, Jill. When you're doing your concerts, do you count how many white people are in the audience, possibly learning the runs that you're singing. Yeah, when when you're singing your vocals, Yeah, they're they're listening to you sing your vocals. They're listening to the bass players played bass. They're listening to the drummers play the drums, they're listening to the teacher's teach, they're they're they're in their omnipresent. We live in a white power structure and they're just going to be white people everywhere and watching and observing. And you have to figure out how do I give my gift or share this gift with my community to the broadest in the broadest manner possible and not expose it to anyone else When the most expansive way for me to do that is in person in public. On the internet, there's just no way to get around that. And and as of now, if you look at who's going viral in these social media posts, when you just know when the drum major Okay goes viral for doing doing the dance that all black, every black drum drum agent their mama know how to do, they're white. You know, when somebody covers there will be people who will cover a black artist's song and the cover does better than the original because a white person covered it. There are more. It used to be unique to be like the blue eyed soul singer like that used to be like a thing um you know that people thought was unique. But now how many people can you count now or not black, whether be they Korean or white or some who can do these runs? Who can who hold these notes because they're watching us perform our craft. They're watching and learning, playing and replay play, replay, play, replay and practicing in the mirror being us when they grow up. And so there's no way that we can really circumvent them completely from the process. But what I do try to add is you can't really fake culture like you can't really you need cultural context for a thing to make sense. And I'll give you an example right now. A term that is a trendy sort of so called internet um slang term is cat. If somebody said that's cap, no cap is cap okay. The term cap has been first of all, being used since the turn of last century in the black community as high hat. So if somebody has if you're wearing a top hat or a high hat and you tip your high hat, that's for sophisticated people. That's what the people who are, you know, well healed. So if someone who wasn't from that background thought that you were being pretentious or thought that you were, you know, friend high had, there's a little high had negrow here like you know, you know, being trying to high and so from high hat it became high cap, and from high cap it was abbreviated to cat. And so these these people are now saying that something is a general term and in general internet speaks like it belongs to everyone that's actually been in our family since mama's. Mama was saying, and the same thing if I say, um, like if we if we saw something that looked good or we wanted to compliment something, Um, if I see your your sneakers, and sometimes man im sneak is hard, bro sneak is hard. They were saying that back in cab Calawais days, like even in cab Calawas book Isms in his dictionary, hard is used in cab calaways Days the same manner, not the these are are grandmother's great grandmother's times using words that have been in our community. We've been saying key, we've been saying that, We've been saying hit, we've been saying dig, we've been using cat. Oh God, they've whiting the hell out of bro. I was like, bro, it's not our words have been so h immersed into popular language that it ain't in the slang them like. People don't even look at it. It's sla it's so normalized. So it puts us in a precarious, you know, situation because they're gonna hear this conversation right now when this gets published. We're trying to figure it out. But you're so right. There's no safe space. Every every everyone, everybody going here right. I have just one of my videos has eleven million views, and you have to ask yourself, Wait a minute, if just one video gets eleven millions, and that doesn't include like all the other videos, what would you do if you could tell a eleven million people something like if if there was a thing that you could say and eleven million people were guaranteed to hear, and what would it be? But people don't know what's gonna go viral in advance. So to me, I try to if if you if you stay ready, you gotta get ready. I try to make sure that when I opened my mouth and say something in front of that camera and put it out into the world, that I'm okay with whatever it is going viral or whatever it is going where everything to go. I'm comfortable pressing play in any room anywhere that thing is is found because you never know where it's gonna land. And I just can't. I can't be the one women do? Women do? I've felt similar ways. Had to ask you because I think we always find ourselves in these moments were like, oh gosh, they will steal, they will twist, turn, dilute and in all of the above, and there's always an inner conversation that's just not just how black am I going to be because of my full of internalized anti blackness? But how black am I gonna be? Am I going to allow you to have access to me? The one thing I feel like I can keep, Well, if you think about it this way, and in a sense you will. You you carry yourself in a way that if somebody did copy you or they try to, you know, do what you do, it will be obviously that's what they're doing, yea. And so you look silly trying to do me like everybody self may you're doing. You're just trying to do so on so you're righten off this person that person like you. They know what you're doing when you're doing it. And to me, like we set the bar of excellence at a place where um, it's one of those you can get with this, if you can get with that, you know, type of situations, and there's something something you can't do anything about, Like you can't do anything about them having the raw numbers. They just simply make up so much of the population that they decide to buy something mediocre. That's not an indictment of your product. Your product is excellent. But you know what they didn't They wasn't here for the spice. Every everybody can't do spipe for some people salting pepper and spicy, and they're not They're not here for what you're doing. And that's okay because Frankie Beverly and May's are legends and our community. That's right. Her brothers are legends to us. So there's plenty of people who are royalty to us that ain't got a cross suit as far. And and so I go line. Now when I when I see you know, like Beyonce, you know, cover like one of you know, Frankie Beverly Mays like song, I was like, oh man, please don't let them. Don't let them they're let them fight out of them. Don't let him find out about babies, Like, oh man, they're they're going into the catalog. Now a lot of grand children. Let them get fed. I get the feeling. But but the thing is, I think that at some point in time we pretty much have to like gatekeeping is not meant to keep us out, like when it gets to the point where we're cutting off our nose despite their face, taking the wrong team. And so don't come in to a black educators post and be like, nah, brother, you're giving away that secret. Don't say that. Let don't do that. Don't do that, because they already made Uncle Rebus, they already put out Disney already had Tom and Jerry already has Thomas. You we get brought, you know, they already got the stereotypical black maid. They already have the stereotypical black slave. Speak there. That cat, that horse has to go on a long time ago. So we're not stopping them from hearing us speak when they're part of the reason we speak this way. Mm hmm. So think about that. Like Creoles, especially particularly Creoles such as as Jamaican paths you know him and Creole English in a Beijian Creole Gola. These are languages that came about by way of that were born of colonialists, that were born of struggle and were merged with languages of the oppressor and holding onto the identity of our ancestors, and so they're not secrets their languages. That came about because we had to be able to communicate with the oppressor, but we also stratified the languages to keep a little something for ourselves. And so I'll teach up to a limit and the rest of it is reserved for what's in the room. If we're having this exact same conversation in the same room offline, it might be a little bit more cold. Okay, this is you know, to hear it, Yeah, to make sure to normalize it, but still honor. We need the information. Something has to be sacred, am Yeah, you know your yeah. Yeah, We're going to stop being ourselves because we don't want anybody to copy us. Right. Well, there's a thing that's naturally I don't I don't know very many people who are wanted to present the same in every single situation. So like, naturally speaking, I might say so even even with my siblings, I might say something to one siblom that I wouldn't really say to another. Like we've got different styles of conversations personality type and so sometimes um, somebody asked me the other day you said, well, well, if this is where you actually normally saw it, how come you, um colt switch? You know why white you? The way that there was phrase was essentially like you count down to the white man. But what you know, but what they haven't taken into consideration is to me, my my language is into like it's it's a it's a personal thing. It's an intimate thing. But I am and I was. I remember I was being. I was in in l A And there was a group of brothers that we're all talking and somebody let one of the words slip, and I were you from none of us? Moment? You gotta be from Charles you even you from Charleston, the low country. You gotta be from somebody easy And you know I had a life for West. Actually West actually is right next to um in Charleston County, Anther. Yeah, like brown from touchdown. He said, you tucked down. So we started talking. Then as soon as we start talking, this brother turned out to be Nigerian. This one here turned out to be all of us. We're standing, we're using our I don't know, business accent and and we all just got into our dialect, got into our languages. Once it was it was clear what was up. But I've even even had that happen in situations where there are people that I know we're from the same background, and it's just different comfort levels, whether you're angry, whether you're you're in a good mood. Like differently, we speak differently at different times. It's not selling out to use all of who you are, speak with all the people are. If you want to reach with an audience, um, there's a there's sometimes when you might sing like like there's a national anthem. Everybody got the own version of the Messian animal. Maybe you just want to sing straight straight through and and not do you know for Sunday. Yeah, I mean, maybe you don't want to a revival like maybe that, maybe that ain't the mursion you're going for. You just want to think it streak down the line, and you should be able to do that. And so that's what I want to do. Is my goal isn't to get you to be blacker. My goal is to help you be as comfortable as possible being your authentic self. Whatever you feel that is, whatever however you want to express yourself because you were you. At the end of the day, I'm not as married to the to the concept of race as an identity as many people would think I am, because white supremacist created and so to here's the cruel irony is that in to some extent, even pride in the concept of blackness as an identity to some degree as affirming to the people who created race as an identity in the first place for purpose of putting us on the bottom run of a fake socio economic assist And so to some ex in because you stripped our identity, our original I didn't need away from us and left us with this thing. In return, we've had to get through all sorts of struggles and and and work our way scratch away from the bottom. And that was with us all along. That was a part of the thing that was with us all along. And so we're trauma bonding with an identity, but that was never meant to be our own, you see what I'm saying. And so now that that separation is very, very very difficult to do, because then we have to ask ourselves with what am I if not that? And in school, right, I don't know that Wait a minute, I need to do some care on my edges. Thank you very much. Let me go and get some full back. I have some I need to have ointments. And it has been a pleasure to hear you're you're thinking out loud. It is a pleasure, thank you, to carry yourself in an extremely powerful way. And we commend you absolutely for for sharing what you know, for caring about what you know, and um lifting others as you go. It's a beautiful thing. Thank you so much for being here with us at Jay dot Ill and UM. We'd love to talk to you again. Fascinating. Absolutely love to return anytime. You're fascinating, sir, Thank you, thank you. This has been Jay dot Ill the podcast such a pleasure, always, such a pleasuredice to have conversations that spark conversation. The gumbo is good, my friends, The gumbo is good. How do you eat an elephant? One by it? Kind? Hey, listeners, it's Amber the producer here. How amazing it's son. I could literally listen to him all day and I'm pretty sure we're going to have him on for many, many more conversations in the meantime. Check out all of his incredible content on social media. YouTube, and his website. I link all those elements down below. There is so much power and language, and if you take anything from this conversation, I hope that you remember not to let anyone invalidate your culture or the way that you and yours communicate with each other. Hi, if you have comments on something he said in this episode called eight six six, Hey Jill, if you want to add to this conversation, that's eight six six four nine five four five five. Don't forget to tell us your name and the episode you're referring to. You might just hear your message on a future episode. Thank you for listening to Jill Scott Presents Jay dot Ill. The podcast j dot Ill is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.