Who Gets A Pass And Who Pays The Price

Jamie Foxx can turn a single sentence into a whole person, and the opening stretch is a masterclass in how comedy, voice work, and storytelling collide. We bounce through his sharpest celebrity impressions and the behind-the-scenes moments that make them hit harder: nights out with Mike Tyson, reading lines like Tom Cruise, meeting Denzel Washington, and navigating high-voltage movie sets with Leonardo DiCaprio and Samuel L. Jackson. It’s funny, but it’s also a reminder that performance is a kind of truth telling when the details are precise.

Then we pivot into something heavier: the public reaction to Lindsey Graham’s death and what it reveals about U.S. politics, selective memory, and moral accountability. We wrestle with the praise offered by Tim Scott and Cory Booker, and Cornell West joins to challenge the idea that one helpful act can erase a long record of harm. The conversation hits keywords that matter for anyone tracking political hypocrisy and power: criminal justice reform, rhetoric versus policy, Washington incentives, and the way “acceptable” talk can normalize lies until people stop hearing themselves.

From there, the episode widens to a warning about brand loyalty to any nation or empire, and closes with a surprisingly practical mental health segment on self-talk. We dig into learned helplessness, negativity bias, and the inner narrative that can limit your relationships, work, and wellbeing. If the voice in your head keeps saying “this will never work,” what would change if you finally questioned it?

Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review if it helps you think differently. What’s the one storyline you hear around politics or about yourself that you’re ready to challenge?

Transcript

Jamie Foxx’s Impression Masterclass

SPEAKER_06 0:47

I'll grab your hand if you play me. Hey, you get your hands off me. That America is not a place where all things are possible.

SPEAKER_13 0:57

Tonight is your end. We have all seen great celebrity impressions, but Jamie Foxx is in a league of his own.

SPEAKER_07 1:05

That's a great people on both sides. Excuse me. Excuse me. Slatters. Slat of great people on both sides. I know Harry. He's a great person. He couldn't vote for me at the time. Yeah, he can vote for me once he gets out. I love Snoopdale, Double Cheek, great person. I love I love excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Fake news.

SPEAKER_13 1:33

Whether he is impersonating actors or presidents, he makes every voice feel effortless. This next clip is even funnier when Jamie Foxx explains what it was like going to clubs with Mike Tyson and how Mike acted when he tried to flirt with girls. He sees some girls and get, how are you doing?

SPEAKER_06 2:04

You like BMWs? Do you like you like BMW? You like cards? Do you like BMWs? And crazy. He'd take the girls out and go get a BMW. I mean, he was that crazy. You know what I'm saying? Just come on, come on, let's look at the BMW. And we'd open up the BMW dealership. I'll say, all right, Tom Cruise. I was like, oh, Tom Cruise, so I thought to read. But as I'm reading, I'm loud. Show me the money. You know what I mean? Right? That's all I'm saying. And so Tom's good. And then wait, Tom Cruise reads his line, but it was like this.

SPEAKER_13 2:44

Jamie Foxx is fearless when it comes to impressions. He even impersonated Leonardo DiCaprio in front of some of the biggest names in Hollywood. And we were watching it, and Leo was like, I said, Leo, you think he got it? He's got it. Just keep watching. Some shit is going on. One of Jamie Foxx's funniest impressions is the story of meeting Denzel Washington for the first time, which somehow ended with a karate lesson.

SPEAKER_06 3:10

And when Denzel walked out, I said, Hell no, I got to get on the other side of the street. And you know how black people are, when we get excited, we march. Am I right? Black people march. I'm like, Denzel. But Denzel does know that karate stuff. Because as I got close to him, he just reached up and did a move and hit me right in mid through. He said, Hold on, hold on. All right, okay, all right, all right. All right, all right, okay. There's too many white people. I'm gonna too many white people. It was more of us, I say. See, when it's when it's on the line, look at it. Get out. Get out. First of all, you were wrong about that. I was not wrong about that, people. You were wrong about the Dallas Cowboys. I'm never wrong about the wrong one. Watch me Neil.

SPEAKER_13 4:11

I will Neil. I'm not afraid he's a sellout. But Jamie was not done with Denzel just yet. Years later, when they met again, Jamie explained the one line he always uses when he imitates Denzel, which led to both of them demonstrating it together.

SPEAKER_06 4:28

You got everything else. We always talk about there were certain things that you would say in movies that became like your your calling card. You get your fing hands off me. Oh really? Every every I'm a comic, so every every time you do you get your fingers. That's right. Save with me.

unknown 4:44

No.

SPEAKER_05 4:45

I'll I'll grab your hand if you play me.

SPEAKER_07 4:48

Hey, you get your fing hands off me.

SPEAKER_06 4:54

I cried last year. You did when when LeBron won the championship.

SPEAKER_19 5:02

Yeah. I cried I cried with joy. Wow.

SPEAKER_13 5:19

This next clip is even funnier when Jamie randomly meets boxing legend Floyd Mayweather, and of course, he couldn't resist doing an impression of him too.

SPEAKER_06 5:50

Would you take a picture? And he said, get away from me. You don't want me to take a picture. You want to put me back in jail? And it really got serious, and everybody was like, whoa. Get away from me. You want to put me in jail? And the security guard's like, yo, Mike, Mike, Mike, hold on, Mike. Mike. And even Stevie Wonder was like, what is. Stevie's like, I was like, I was like, Stevie, sit down. You don't want to catch a right or something. You're just gonna don't worry about it, Stevie.

SPEAKER_13 6:22

During a movie set with Samuel L. Jackson and Leonardo DiCaprio, Jamie Foxx explained how Leo struggled to say the N-word. And the way Jamie tells the story makes it even funnier.

SPEAKER_06 6:40

I said, oh, these colours. Here was the thing, though. The subject matter, the N-word specifically, Leo had a hard time saying the N-word. We're doing a read, and Leo said, and then he was like, hey man, hey, guys, cut, I, I, I, I, I, I just can't do this. This is this is not me. This is Samuel Jackson. Say that it's just another Tuesday. On the scene. A precipito machine. You ready to dance for me? Wait, wait, wait, get me in the middle of the time. Uh, you're not gonna dance for me just a little bit. Come on, man, I'm sorry on Eleanor. That definitely was not the black side of you, I guess.

SPEAKER_13 7:33

He once explained how working with Al Pacino helped him on the road to winning an Oscar. But of course, Jamie could not tell the story without doing an Al Pacino impression along the way.

SPEAKER_06 7:47

And then it happened. He said, and you do what you're freaking told, and a little bit of your juiciness flew off of his mouth and landed on my lip. And I'm like, damn, hold on. What do I do with this juiciness on my mouth? I got Alpuccino almost in my mouth. Let me clear that up too. But anyway, I tasted it. I brought it in and I took that juiciness inside of me. I took that DNA, and the next thing you know, I want to ask. He comes to the crib and Snoop happens to be there. And I said, Snoop, there he is right there. Shake him up. And you know, Snoop, you know, you know, Snoop walked over to my daughter's boyfriend and just said, Hey, what's up? What's up, guys? You know? Look here, you know, we we we we we we her uncles, you know what I'm saying? So act accordingly, huh? You know.

SPEAKER_13 8:51

But these next impressions are even more spot on and somehow even funnier. Jamie Foxx has a way of turning every story into a performance, blessing us with hilarious impressions along the way.

SPEAKER_06 9:03

No. The first day of rehearsal. I'm reading my lines like, can I talk you for a second? Close the door. Uh-oh. Uh what the f is that? I knew I was gonna have this problem. Uh listen, all of this you have to be a fing slave, okay? He's a slave. He's not cool, he's a f slave. Right. He doesn't know how to read. You come in with your fing Louis bag and your fing Range Rover and your fing jazz. I'm so f not Jim Brown. He's a f slave, and then and then he becomes a hero.

SPEAKER_09 9:48

A lot of great people. Not your great people, but I love London. London falling down. Yeah, well, I just gotta tell you that you better bet your bad.

SPEAKER_08 10:01

Great facts in the world of this.

SPEAKER_19 10:03

Great guy. Do you have the do you have the yellow? I keep the virus.

SPEAKER_08 10:24

I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it.

SPEAKER_05 13:13

I never have to wonder why Doc Jose's um his walk-home song, this one, I told you. Mountain Faces. Uh, not going to West Georges, top of the second hour every Monday and Thursday. You know where we're going already. We're talking about Lindsey Graham, uh, about uh his proximity to Lindsey Graham and appearing together on a particular program one night. So, Doc tells the story.

SPEAKER_04 13:36

Well, it was in a uh magnificent black church in January of 2008. This is when I had already put in seven months support Brother Barack Obama, uh, beginning in Iowa. And uh uh Brother Barack was going to give a speech that day in front of the state capital. We were working with NAACP trying to get bring that Confederacy flag down. And they asked me to give a uh a speech in the church, and I

Lindsey Graham’s Death Sparks Debate

SPEAKER_04 14:09

walk into church, the place is packed, and I look up and there's Brother Lindsay Graham up there. I said, ooh, Senator Graham in a black church one of the juvenile poke in the beautiful chocolate church now, brother. So I stepped to the lecture and gave my regular speech about the vision uh about in order to become an adult, you gotta learn to let go of that childhood you didn't get.

SPEAKER_16 14:33

Like you can't pick up adulthood if you're still holding on to whatever it was you missed as a kid, falling through the cracks of what your parents missed as a kid. And I focus on this fault. Because I feel like growing into healing is growing into loss and losing them. It's interesting because when I look back on my childhood, I have two memories: memories of what happened and the memories of what should have happened, and that keeps me from focusing on what's happening now. Every decision I'm making is kind of somehow win whatever I lost when I was a kid. So now I live in this joy because I adopted this mindset of this complete boy fixing whatever wasn't right. How much easier would it be to just accept the part that was missed? Instead of putting my adult development on the home, wait around for it. Childhood is not a progress part, it's not task-oriented, it ends with age. Whatever it was, it's what it was supposed to be. It's not a new responsibility. Something gotta go back and complete, it's it's done. You gotta move away from that thought. Because only then can you pick up who you're supposed to be as an adult.

SPEAKER_05 15:38

That story about his time on stage with Lindsey Graham. We'll get to that. Uh, I'm gonna start here. So, Doctor, brace for facts. I'm telling you right now, brace for effects about to play a Corey Booker clip on Lindsay Graham. Um, so just brace yourself. Before I do that, how are you there, sir?

SPEAKER_04 15:54

Well, I'm holding on. We had a good time last night with those present children at the Intercity Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles, Brother Charles Dickinson III with Mark Ridley Thomas and others. We had a grand time. Dr. Chew was there with us. We had a time, brother.

SPEAKER_05 16:10

Oh, we had a wonderful time last night, and I was saying earlier that uh Harry Lennox joins us in our third and final hour today. He is doing uh some uh some audio, uh, an audio project with regard to Lincoln's portrait, which these young people uh performed yesterday. So funny again how these dots connect on this particular program. Um, so let me just let me just do this first, uh, so I can frame this uh these 45 minutes for Dr. West appropriately later in this hour. Uh, we'll talk to uh South Carolina House rep Jermaine Johnson, who is the Democratic nominee for governor in the state of South Carolina, get his tape on Lindsey Graham's legacy and what his death means for South Carolinians. We started today's program uh in conversation with uh the Democratic nominee for the Senate seat uh that Lindsey Graham once held, Dr. Annie Andrews. So we're tapping into all the right voices in South Carolina on this day, uh, and I'm pleased uh that they chose this uh platform uh to express themselves. Now, uh I'm gonna brace myself. I know Dr. West is gonna brace himself. You brace yourself. Uh we already played Tim Scott, uh the black senator Republican from South Carolina, the junior senator from that state, calling uh Lindsey Graham a statesman. A statesman? Okay. That's Tim Scott. He's the other black male senator out of New Jersey, Corey Booker.

SPEAKER_02 17:29

So I go up to Lindsay Graham and I'm a brand new senator, determined to do something about mass incarceration, and I hear through Dick Ovin and others that he's the guy to work with. And I say, Mr. Graham, sir, I'd like to work with you on criminal justice reform. He seems almost amused by what I said. He goes, Corey, do you understand I'm in a primary right now? And I'm running against a guy who is crazy. I can't even so much as talk to you right now. Get out of here, man. Come back to me after my primary. And I laughed and came back to him after the primary. And through his word, he rolled up his sleeves and we went to work. And thanks to him and Dick Gogan and some other Senate heroes, our bill became the first step act after years, two presidents, two congresses, it became the law. One of my favorite moments in that negotiation was at the last minute, I'm trying to force one more thing into that bill. Uh, this has to do with children being put in solitary confinement. And I am going at it with this White House official who says, No, hard no. And we're almost yelling at each other. And then he says, I'm gonna get Lindsey Graham on the phone, and he will tell you. Until he gets the White House operator to connect Lindsay Graham onto the phone. And Lindsay Graham listens for maybe a hot second and then interrupts the guy and says, Are you kidding me? We need Gold Booker to get this build done. We can't do it without him. Give him what he wants. And it was in the building. It's now part of the law of the land. One of the White House negotiators during that first negotiation told me that Lindsey Graham was like an unguided missile. That guy, he never knew which way he was gonna go, whether he would come back and hit you. But when he was alive, when he would be in the right place at the right time, man, he could get things done that other people couldn't, and bring a lot of light and impossibilities to the efforts. I am stunned at Lindsey Graham's death, but I pray that he is reunited with his friend, John McCain, that they both are experiencing God's love, grace, mercy, and forgiveness. My prayers are with his family and all those who loved and cherished him. I will miss my perhaps most unexpected friend in the Senate, and someone with whom I got some good things.

SPEAKER_05 19:52

So Tim's got to call him a statesman. And Corey calls him a Senate hero. All I can say is a broken clock is right twice a day. That don't make you a senate hero. It don't make you a statesman. And you hope he's experiencing God's word. Jesus. Okay. I'm glad Dr. West is here. I'm gonna stop talking. Go forward. Just let Doc take it from here. You'll listen to Times. So uh the only thing that Corey Booker didn't do was to pour a little libation on the Senate floor for the fall of the homie. So it's what Corey didn't do. Dr. West, I can't tell you, man. Uh, let's deal with Corey Booker first, and then we'll get to your story later. We got time about the night you were on stage with Lindsay Grant, what he said to you. But how are you hearing the words coming out of Corey Booker's mouth?

unknown 20:57

Well, I must say though, brother, I thought Keith Boykin just laid out the truth.

SPEAKER_04 21:02

They quote that you had at your first hour, and being honest about how Brother Graham chose to be a gangster.

unknown 21:12

He chose to be a liar. And to hear Brother Tim Scotty and Brother Cora Booker come along and talk about how the gangster and liar is actually a statesman and a truth teller. Uh, in part because he actually tried to cut back on children.

SPEAKER_04 21:33

Not being taken solidary confinement, that's mainly black children we're talking about. Solidaric confinement is legally defined as torture. So when you come out against the torture of children, that's what you on the game. We were born at night, but not last night. Come on now. Uh now, of course, we know that uh uh we've got loved ones that both things are not born the same in 1955. But the choices that we make when you choose to be a gangster, when you choose to be a liar, when you choose to be a knave. And there's no doubt that Brother Lindsay Graham chose to be a gangster. He chose to be a liar, he chose to be a knave, and bragged about. Upset with power, upset with proximity to power, supporting what do you think one of the level Palestine? That means genocide, that means killing Palestinians want to live that racism at its deepest level. It reminds us of the kind of language and politics against black people in South Carolina. South Carolina, along with Mississippi, have always been the truth. I heard the similar kind of language coming out of uh with our congressman. Yes. And why? Because to be a member of Congress is more and more to be admitted into the gangsters club, to be admitted into the liar's club. So you have your own little narrow context where you can't see what morality looks like in the broader sense. The child poverty rate in South Carolina is 20%. Black child poverty rate is over 30-some percent. They talk about how he's been on the cutting edge for social justice. And I'll tell you what he said, what I heard when I was in 2008 when we come back a little later. Don't for say anything in order to hide and conceal a suffering that allows them to gain access to a gangster club and therefore pat each other on the back and allow for the gangster activity, the indifference, the contempt of poor people, working people, black people to go on, and we're supposed to somehow act as if this is stateship.

SPEAKER_05 24:19

Please care about it. Let me get philosophical for a second. Dr. West is degreed in philosophy. That's what he is. He is a philosopher, so he he's the appropriate person, the appropriate person, Tabs, uh, to ask this question. What what is that? What is that thing about us that in moments like these, uh Some of us do the most when we know these persons have lived lives of contempt for black people. We lean in and try to get them a pass into heaven. What is that about the human condition that allows certain people to try to lean in in that way? To just do too much, Doc.

SPEAKER_04 25:06

Well, I think part of it is the other thing you inhabit a context where mendacity and lies that hide criminality and crimes are integral to that context. You don't even hear yourself any longer. You aren't automatic.

unknown 25:27

You just say things that you think are acceptable in your context.

SPEAKER_03 25:33

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SPEAKER_04 26:14

And that's exactly what it is to become a politician these days in America. Wasn't it Lindsay Graham himself? God bless his soul. Who said Trump was what? He's a race paider. He's a genopoe. He's a bigot. America will become great only when Trump goes to hell. That's what Lindsay Graham said. Everybody knew he didn't mean it because in a few weeks later, he's supporting Trump uncritically, telling folks Trump is the closest thing to God. And now you hear Trump, and now we're told that Graham was a statesman. I guess next thing you know that Donald Trump was one of the greatest statesmen of all time. This is a smiling face. It's not people say anything and think they can get away with it. That's what gangster talking, gangster activity is all about. It's survival of the flickers. Say anything and get away with it, as long as you somehow don't have to pay a call.

SPEAKER_05 27:20

I'm glad you went there because I wanted to go there. Let me circle back then to this comment that you just shared. Uh, if you have not heard or read all the strange and bizarre things that Lindsey Graham said, he did at one point, um, after uh dissing Donald Trump uh say publicly that Toronto, that Donald Trump is right next to God. That's where he viewed Donald Trump on the right hand of God. How do we process that kind of language, Doctor? That kind of formation, formulation.

SPEAKER_18 27:53

So before we get into uh Dr. West's uh next reply, I want to offer a different answer to the Tavis' question of how we get here. I agree with in part uh what Dr. West has said, and I will say the part that I agree with is the mendacity and uh gangster proclivity uh gangster proclivities. Yes um that is all too normal in the age of Washington DC. But I will say this is nothing new. The there were gangsters in DC from the very beginning, the cowboy culture, the outlaw, and a lot of people. It is in the American

How Political Lies Become Normal

SPEAKER_18 28:51

intellect to view themselves as if they were rugged, individualist rebels bucking the system, and that is ingrained deeply in the American roots. We can never forget that this country was founded by people who were terrorists in the eyes of the queen, in the eyes of the king. We were a British colony, and we decided to become terrorists and rebel against the British uh monarch who, for all intent purposes, if you were to just call a spade a spade, were also against us terrorists because they were all colonizers. And America is a deeply deeply colonizing culture because we are a settler colonial society. America's greatest greatest tragedy was the destroying of the native population. And then the second great tragedy was the stealing of many populations from around the world, uh known as the Triangle Tree, also uh called majority of the layman's terms, I should say, slavery. The very foundation of America comes in a certain type of barbarism, and there is no way in hell you can make an apple fall but so far away from the tree. Our foundation was bloody, violent, built on lies, built on broken promises, built on half-truths, built on promises made and promises never kept. And that will always be the legacy of America is one group of people constantly convincing another group of people that it's raining when it's not wet, and they should dance when there's no music, and that is seen more clearly when you get into Washington DC because you know in all the polls always show the most untrusted people in the world are lawyers and politicians. Look up the resume for most people who are in the Congress and in the Senate in Washington, DC. They hold both titles. They are lawyers first who then became politicians. Lawyers, by the very nature of how law works, do not necessarily argue what is true. They argue points. There are lawyers who have to like a defense attorney has to take an oath that they don't defend clients that they know are guilty. They can't, but we know that that happens every single day. For example, we know O.J. Simpson killed Nicole Brown Simpson. He walked around free for his entire life, and there were just jokes made about him being able to do a murder. People forgot to overlook the fact that because he was a celebrity, that he killed an innocent human being made in the image of the Omega Day, the image of the living God. If we will excuse murder for one man, you better believe we will excuse murder for an entire nation. You better believe we will excuse any and all things while pretending as if we are the moral police for the entire world. But um, as I like to say personally, I don't dance if I don't like the music, I don't scratch, if I don't itch, I don't laugh if it's not funny, and I don't carry an umbrella if it's not raining outside.

SPEAKER_04 34:00

It's a spiritual sickness, brother. That's that's what it is, it's just a spiritual sickness. Anybody who thinks that Brother Donald Trump has a special place near the divinity, near the deity, near God, because he's so moral and spiritual and such a force for good, is spiritually sick. There's just no other language for it.

SPEAKER_05 34:28

He um, as I said, I I had the time, and maybe we'll do some of this tomorrow, but um uh you can just run the list of all the things as Trom Thurman said that apparently Cory Booker is unaware of. Uh Tim Scott is unaware of. Uh, but literally just a few years ago, he uh in a public uh uh appearance uh referred to the good old days of segregation. The good old days of segregation, this is just a couple years ago. So, again, for Corey knows to be leaning in on this bipartisan nature of his, you know, states. I mean, uh uh when he was making comments like this, like literally months ago, days ago, years ago, it's hard to it's hard to understand what Corey was thinking, you know, what Tim Scott was thinking. Uh in making comments like these, uh, again, you want to be respectful of uh the loss of life, as Dr. West said so eloquently moments ago, but uh somebody's gotta tell the truth about this. And we can't you can't you can't you can't live a life of hell on earth and then you want to pass to heaven. It it it don't work that way. Um I digress on that for now. I told you a moments, I told you earlier in the day's program that uh in this half hour get Doctor shared his own story uh about uh uh his proximity into Lindsay Graham and appearing together on a particular program one night. So, Doc, tell the story.

SPEAKER_04 35:53

Well, it was in a uh magnificent black church in January of 2008. This is when I had already put in seven months support Brother Barack Obama uh beginning in Iowa. And uh uh Brother Barack was going to give a speech that day in front of the state capital. We were working with NAACP trying to get bring that Confederacy flag down. And they asked me to give a uh a speech in the church, and I walk in the church. The place is back, and I look up and then Lindsay Graham up there. I said, ooh, Senator Graham in the black church, and he was one of the few vanilla folk in the beautiful chocolate church now, brother. So I stepped to the lecture and gave my regular speech about the vision and legacy of white supremacy,

Confronting Power With Loving Truth

SPEAKER_04 36:46

the crucial role of Benjamin Elijah Mays and Mary McClellason and Richard Smalls and James Brown, all coming out of South Carolina, that rich history of trying to affirm the dignity and humanity and creativity of black people, and that if we don't come to terms with it, that the American Democratic experiment had a chance of unraveling, it would ring down the curtain. Race was the most explosive issue in the history of the country. Talked about black child poverty, talked about child poverty, talked about the labor movement and so forth and so on. Then they handed it over to Lindsey Graham. That brother got up there, and Professor West has spoken truth, and I think it's something we all need to take seriously, and the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. has to stay alive, and we appreciate the role Professor West is playing in this dot dot dot.

unknown 37:42

But then he sits next to me, and I look over to the brother.

SPEAKER_04 37:46

I say, you know, I appreciate those words, but your actions and policies undercut every word I say it. And he turned red as a beat. And I said, So in other words, you just say it anything in front of these black folks, and black folk gave him a strong ovation, you know. So it's it's it's just it was just typical. Saying anything, and it's true, not just for Lindsay. It's true for most of these politicians, the both parties. They'll just say anything, man. Anything to win, anything to stay in power, anything to get on television, anything for publicity, anything to keep their donors and benefactors and the money flowing because the love of money sits at the center of the whole project, given the predatory capitalist backdrop that we find ourselves. And he kind of looked at me and smiled, and I didn't say it in a vicious way, but I just let him know there's there's at least one black person. I know I was in no way the only one, but there's one black man in here that knows you lying, Lindsay.

SPEAKER_05 38:53

Tell me, tell, tell me where where the the fortitude, the courage comes from in a moment like that. Because we've all had moments like this. I'm asking this question not just for the audience, uh, but for for for myself as well. When you find yourself in a moment like that, um, where the moment calls for it, demands, frankly, that you lean into lovingly telling this person the truth, so many of us would have bypassed that opportunity. Particularly to your point, because the black church in that space, that chocolate church in that moment, you know, hearing stuff out of Lindsay's mouth they probably never heard before, or at least in that moment celebrating the truth that that eked out that day. He did, you know, affirm some truths that day based on what you had said, the frame that you had set. Uh, but he sits down and you could have just smiled at him and said, Thank you for those kind words and moved on. But in that moment, you chose to lean in lovingly to telling Lindsay a truth that people don't often say face to face to United States senators. For all of us listening right now, who have found ourselves in that moment and will find ourselves in moments like these in the months and years to come where you need to lean in and lovingly, respectfully, tell somebody the truth. Your advice is what?

SPEAKER_04 40:19

Well, for me, it has to do with the fact that uh you say it in the name of Jesus, you say it in the name of the King James, and you say it in the name of the new salons and others who have been the North stars for the freedom movement. But you say it to a garbage man, you say it to a plumber, you say it to the sister who runs the beauty salon, and you say it to senitors, you say it to presidents, and we had emperors, you say it to empress, you say it to jazz musicians, you say it to anybody, because in the end we are all human beings made in the image and likeness of a living and a loving God who have a sanctity, who have choices that we make, and we when we choose mendacity, when we choose criminality, we should raise our voices and be critical of that. Why? Because we ourselves of sinners, we are sales too often in the choosing mendacity and criminality, and we ought to be criticized for ourselves too. And that's true for anybody. It could be for black folk, it could be in the name of Palestinian suffering and this support of genocide, even when it comes to Iran. You know, now he was one of the few voices who, when he talked about invading Iran, he said we need to talk about the executions and the persecutions and the subjugations of the Iranians. Now, I agree that Iranians and their persecutions and their subjugations need to be highlighted. There's no doubt about that. But he was doing that simply as a talking point on behalf of Israel, on behalf of Nathan Yahoo. Yep. Um, when we come forward. Because he pulled back so quickly on it, which meant in the end it was just words without serious, deep moral commitment and spiritual orientation. Just words to be said so that ended up just imperial talking points rather than serious concern about the suffering of precious Iranians in this case. So it could be Palestinians, it could be black folk, it could be working people, it could be indigenous people, whoever it is.

SPEAKER_05 42:29

Just words, just smiling faces. Uh Dr. West uh stays with us. Uh, when we come forward, we'll go more expressly into a conversation about Lindsay's view, which we've been celebrated by some, that U.S. might make right with a hawk. No question about it. You cannot be a hawk and a statesman, Tim Scott, at the same time. We'll talk about might as right. We've got Cornell West when we come forward on Tabit 20. Uh, I have had no luck lately. Wait, lady look?

SPEAKER_15 43:05

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SPEAKER_14 43:30

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SPEAKER_00 44:06

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SPEAKER_05 44:32

You are indeed uh with South Carolina House Rep Jermaine Johnson, who is the Democratic nominee for governor in Department of State. Uh Representative Johnson, good to have you back on this program. How are you, Doc? I'm feeling pretty good. Appreciate y'all for having me back on here. No, it's a blessing to have you back on the program. Um, I saw your statement uh about the passing of Senator Lindsey Graham, uh, and uh I expected that, of course, uh from you and other leaders in the state. Uh at the same time, it is true that Lindsey Graham had a very, very complicated relationship with black voters. How would you describe that?

SPEAKER_21 45:06

Yeah, uh, you know, the thing that we have here in South Carolina is twofold, right? So we we know what Lindsay Graham's words were. We we know the types of things that he stood for, we know the people who he stood against. I mean, the this is the same uh individual that came home and said he was gonna tell mothers and fathers to become the will send their children to war, right? So we we understand

South Carolina Politics After Graham

SPEAKER_21 45:27

that part, but as as a uh as an individual, a human here, he somebody loved him, somebody cared about him, somebody is mourning his loss, and is just paying their respect to the people who felt comfortable with him and that type of thing. But I mean, we have to just tell the truth.

SPEAKER_05 45:43

You know, and that's the type of statement that I want to do is just tell the truth. Yep. Uh, and what is the truth of his long-standing relationship or lack thereof, I should say. He was there for a lot of years. Uh, I read your I saw your statement. I I mean I saw uh I read the one earlier from James Clyburn. Um, and I understand again, you know, everybody's on this tightrope as it were, but uh tell me more about that relationship that did not exist between between um uh Lindsey Graham and black South Rainbow.

unknown 46:10

Well, you know, he's never coming to my community.

SPEAKER_21 46:15

I mean, I've never I've never been in my district or doing anything in my areas uh out there. And uh, I mean our policies and and politics uh obviously may uh differ bigly, right? And I think that's something that needs to be acknowledged. You know, his politics didn't align with mine. Um didn't align with people who are working class uh citizens here in South Carolina.

SPEAKER_05 47:43

And the black man is running for governor on Flamma, people in Black Land, who's running for the police, but the Lindsay Graham wants to know. Um, so it seems to me that this moment potentially, under the word potentially, represents a new door, potentially a new chapter in South Carolina. Otherwise, South Carolina is ready for them, or for one. When these older folk with these roles uh go for news calls off the floor, it does give you, a principal of me, an opportunity to ride a new chapter. In South Carolina. Are they ready for that in South Carolina? That's the question.

SPEAKER_18 48:25

So, yeah, at any rate, uh, you got a digist of that. And um I try to support individual media, so I want you to check out the Tavasmilo show to hear the remainder of the show. There's a lot of show left to hear what uh the gentleman running for governor had to say. And now we're gonna get into uh uh my analysis on this, which I think is pretty um pretty uh cut and dry. Right back on the Daryl McLean show. So pretty cut and dry analysis here. If you worship the Empire, you're gonna do things that are imperialistic and that will make you at odds at odds with the kingdom of God. There are several clips going around where there are even people who say, What about Gaza? And he names

Brand Loyalty To Empire Is Dangerous

SPEAKER_18 49:25

the countries that we flattened that we now believe were immoral. This is why I think it's very dangerous for anybody to have brand loyalty to a country. Say that again. This is why I think it is dangerous for anybody to have brand loyalty for a country. You should do what is right for the sake of doing what is right. You should not do what is right for the sake of the empire, because the empire is not moral or immoral. The empire is amoral, and it will do what it needs to do to gain the influence around the world, to get access, if not complete, control of all resources, to practice homogeny, and that is not the kingdom work, it is man work. And um it is gonna be very difficult for a lot of people when they die. They God asked, Why did you do this, this, this, and this? Because on their lips they're gonna have the Monroe Doctrine. And that's not gonna get you into the curly gates. Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven. And that's what I think about this type of situation. You can be a patriot and be a warmonger, you can be a patriot and be a fascist, you can be a patriot uh uh uh a patriot and be one of the worst people to walk the face of the earth if your country that you are holding patriotism to is a rabid machine that worships the altar of the god of death, like we do in the United States of America. We literally have somebody who has changed, even though not legally yet, the Department of Defense and Department of War, because he worships the God of Death, not the Prince of Peace. And Lindsey Graham like him or do not like him for his kindness, for his gentle spirit, for his statesmanship, his being better than the worst of the worst. He was a mouthpiece for the military-industrial complex. He was a mouthpiece for every war. And that is going to be a very hard thing for him as he now faces a whole all holy and the all-righteous wrath of God. This is why I say I'm a man without an island. I have no loyalty to any earthly kingdom, nor any earthly powers. I am a man of the people, and I am a man who follows the great chapter of Matthew 23. What you have done to the least of these, you have done also to me. What you have done to the least of these, you do also escape the stuff that happened in the past?

SPEAKER_01 53:22

Am I ever going to uh get rid of the negativity? That little voice started to already come up, but then you just said that you can take steps to have some control over this. So there is good news here. We're not just like at the whim of this, right?

SPEAKER_17 53:40

No, if we pay attention to it, then we can have control over it. Like so many things in life, if we if we don't pay attention, we're not able to exert control. And and here's the place for curiosity about what do I think of myself? When I'm sitting quietly, what's running along in my mind? What's my self-talk like? Do I have conclusions about myself that may be, in some cases, or in many cases, unfair? So things that haven't gone well in the past, am I running that forward? Oh, if the last three relationships didn't go well, there's a person running forward that,

The Inner Voice That Shapes Your Life

SPEAKER_17 54:16

oh, they'll never go well, or I'm not a person who's ever gonna have that, right? These are the things that we can get into our minds that start impacting us very, very deeply that we can change if we go and look at it. So if a person says, wow, there's there's such negativity running in my head that I'm never gonna find someone, I'm never gonna find someone. And here I am trying to find someone and trying to date and to find a good partner. And I'm doing this, but all the time what's running along in me is, oh, this will never work. And you know, maybe that links to a really bad experience a couple of years ago that is emotionally very powerful, and maybe I can acknowledge that and say it's emotionally powerful, but it's not determining anything. In fact, I don't want that running along in my head. How about I can be a good partner to someone or I can find a better job, right? How about things that more accurately reflect me as opposed to things that can automatically be going on in our minds that are quite negative that we're we're unaware of? So the key here is paying attention, it's curiosity and interest in ourselves and how we think of ourselves and our place in the world around us and our ability to navigate in the world around us and looking at perhaps some of what may be negative, because negative things are stronger. They're more what's called salience, right? We have a salience bias, which means our brains pay more attention to the negative, which is part of a survival instinct that we want to remember negative things because those memories may help us survive in the future, but then we start to weigh more heavily negative things across the board, and we can go and look at that and and decide what is really my opinion, what do I really think, as opposed to something that is a reflex inside of me that may have a great deal of influence on my decisions and and the outcomes of you know my strivings in the world.

SPEAKER_01 56:09

Well, what was interesting about what you just said is you said this kind of question what do I really think? What that little voice is saying to you, is that I think some of us are so used to hearing that negative voice that we don't realize that we could get to a point where we could think something different, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_17 56:33

Right. Right. You know, it's a way people talk about learned helplessness, and this has been a uh a topic for a long, long, long time. And a a lot of learned helplessness is often really that we're not paying attention to something. The number of times that in the role of a therapist, I've been talking to someone, or even in my own therapy, I've been on the other side of it where where either I'm inquisitive about the person, or in this case my own, they're inquisitive about me and what's going on inside of me and asking questions, and then realizing, oh, like I have this conception that is going over and over again in my head, and I'm not even aware of it. I've never actually put words to it, right? Just going on inside of my mind, that's very, very different than putting words to that. So so after a number of traumas, which I write about to some degree in the in the in the book, um, you know, I started to have a feeling that I'm just cursed and think things won't really go well. Or if they go well in one way, they won't go well in another, right? That creativity was making me, for example, my mood was lower. I felt much less hopeful, I felt more beleaguered, there was more anger and frustration in me. And by putting words to that and then challenging that, do I really think that's true? Do I think that people are cursed? I don't think that anyone else is. I don't think anyone else is cursed, right? But but I am. Maybe now I should go revisit that, right? And this is the curiosity. If we start thinking about ourselves, we can we can change, really, we can change everything because we can have so much greater control over what's going on inside of us, and it can match up with what we really and truly believe instead of running along inside of us in a negative way, and we haven't even put words to it or decided if we actually believe it or not.

SPEAKER_01 58:24

The stories in your book were so helpful because it allows, or at least it allowed me to see myself in your So this isn't a metaphor.

SPEAKER_17 58:37

They're going through, they go to the grocery store, they do all sorts of things in a normal way, but they believe that they are dead, that they have perished, but their body is still moving along in the world around them. And it's quite rare, but it's it's certainly not unheard of. And the gentleman that I took care of was sure that he was dead. And they thought it was fun to stethoscope up and listen to the heart of a dead man, or that I would come and spend time with him, and that it was just the same as if he were in the morgue, but that part of it hadn't happened yet. And and when you look at the history of a person like that, this was a person who was very affable. You know, he was had a good sense of humor, and it was kind of fun to be around, but he had been around no people for so long. He had lived in loneliness and isolation without any real human connection. And the the dialogue in in his mind had gone from say bad to worse to almost unimaginable, to, well, uh I'll be okay even though I don't have anyone in my life. I'll I don't have any friends, I don't have a uh partner, but uh I'll find one to I won't find one to that's not for you, to you don't get to have any people in your life. And this was running along over and over for many, many years of loneliness and isolation that got to the point of feeling so little human connection that the man was sure that he'd actually died already. It's a strong, strong example, but it shows where the dialogue that we're having with ourselves and what we're telling ourselves can can do to us over time. So if it can make us believe that we're dead, what impact can it have on a person who says, I'll never get a better job, I'll never find a partner, I'll never have a better relationship with my kids. If we're if we can make ourselves believe that we're dead from the distress that's going on, we can do almost anything to ourselves that limits our horizons, limits our health and our happiness.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:53

What I'm processing right now is the connection between the little voice and the kind of story that you keep telling to yourself, and how that then becomes the actions that you take or not. And so as you started to tell that story about a person who was lonely, and there's a lot of loneliness in the world right now, and the story, if you were paying attention, started to shift from I'm lonely to I'm not going to to I'm always gonna be like this. And if you are telling yourself that you're never gonna find friends, you're not gonna feel motivated to leave the house. You're you're truly convincing yourself. And in a more pedestrian kind of example that we can all relate to is if you've ever fallen off the wagon with your own health and you start to feel like, oh my gosh, I'm never gonna get back in shape again, or I don't have the willpower to eat healthy. All of that, that little voice is instrumental in you not taking the actions that would change that situation. Is that why this is so imperative that we pay attention to? One of the reasons.

SPEAKER_17 1:02:10

Yes. Yes. I believe in 25 years of doing what I do for livings, taking care of people and being a psychiatrist, being a therapist, I have seen over and over and over again that what we're telling ourselves in here is far more deterministic than any external factor. So someone who wants to go back to the gym and wants to be in better shape, wants to lose weight again, or whatever it is that that person's trying to achieve, um, we could say, well, they they should carve out the time for it, or they should what what gyms are close and they should make that a priority, and how can they change your scheduling? And we can look at that in so many ways, but if what's running over and over inside is, oh, you'll never succeed, or you'll you'll get in shape, but then you'll lose it again, and you'll just feel worse about yourself. It's so much more deterministic than the external factors, often without us being aware of the tremendous impact of what is going on inside of us. And this is where, you know, we often carry along, I'll imagine sometimes, a person who could be living life so much better. They have everything inside of them, they have everything they need for life to be so much better. But I'll imagine it's almost as if they're dragging around the weights of the past, and they're they're taking them from the past and projecting them into the future. And we can all do this. And one might argue to some extent, all of us, or at least the vast majority of us, do this to some extent, but we often do this to an extent that is actually deterministic about what happens next in our lives. And this is where repetition makes such a difference that often if something doesn't go right, you know, we try again, but we try again in the same way. So people will come in just to take the relationship example. And this happens a lot, and would happen a lot when I saw, I was seeing a lot of new patients all the time for many, many years. And people would come in and say, Oh, you you can't, I know you can't help me. I I know I'm only here because someone thought I should go, or because I'm just desperate, but I know you can't help me. And then they would tell me about repetition. There's no way I'm gonna have a good job. My last four jobs, and then they'll tell me about the last four jobs. So I'll never have a have a good relationship. Let me tell you about my last five relationships, right? And they're they're not, the jobs, the relationships are not different. And those they're the same. It's the same thing that has happened multiple times. And I found myself saying to someone who'll tell me they'll never have a good relationship, and I cannot help them because the last seven have been so bad. And then sometimes I'll say, if you can tell me how they're they've been bad in seven different ways, then I might have to agree with you. But that's not what you're gonna tell me. You're gonna tell me something that's seven variations of the same thing, but the same story. And that can provide us with so much help. If you realize I haven't done something that's failed seven times, I've done one thing that hasn't gone the way I wanted it to. Now, the fact that I've done it multiple times just tells me, hey, I need to look at that. How can I do that differently? And now we can open up a world of change because we can learn from the past. The past is good information, right? But but it no longer seems as if it's fake that's that's projecting into our future. And this is the benefit of exploration, whether it's in therapy or it's reflecting about ourselves. It's much better done if we're writing or we're talking with someone of, hey, what's going on inside of me? And how do I understand that, but understand it so I can use it to my advantage, right? So that it's not then controlling me and making foregone conclusions to my next 15 decisions.

SPEAKER_18 1:06:03

We come up with certain narratives, and then we torment ourselves with our own imagination. I'll say that one more time. We come up with certain narratives and then we torment ourselves with our own imagination. This is uh something that I had discovered over the past few years, and I find it to be very true. What we say about ourselves is a constant struggle. Because what we say, we uh believe, and when we when we believe, we start to manifest. So be careful, be very, very, very careful with the narratives that we tell ourselves. Thank you for tuning in, and I will see you on the next episode.

SPEAKER_10 1:07:01

Your love is deeper than the sea, stronger than the change only from the cross to eternity. That's how.