EP 206 Affirmative Re-Action

Yo, what's up people? I'm your host Jay Will and I would like to welcome you to inspire guys people where we balance faith and business To guide you to your purpose. This is episode 206 affirmative reaction. That's right today I'm gonna do a deep dive and kick it with you and give my reaction to the affirmative action decision by the Supreme Court We're gonna talk a lot about like, you know, how I feel about affirmative reaction reaction.

That's an image episode I can't talk affirmative action in general. Let me tell you like this. Let's just start right here Like we got an untangled the web before we even get started and I got to talk to you about my issue with politics and the road At politics plays and all of this and different agendas the Democrats versus the Republicans and no matter what side of that You're on I want you to know some today. I'm on the lower side I'm gonna always choose guys side when it comes to these very difficult and tangled conversations and all the territorial stuff That's not my vibe That's not my go today I'm so if you hear to be mad or trip on either side like I'm an independent christian man Like that's the perspective I typically come from and you know, you could be charged up on either side But I'm probably not gonna agree with you totally on anything.

I'm not here to call everybody racist I'm not here to you know be mad at everybody But I do want to intellectually and try to fairly objectively share my perspective now. Why does my perspective even matter? Why should you listen to me today people? Let me tell you like this There are a lot of topics that happen in the world today And that are charged by politics that are super controversial and polarizing and you know y'all engage in these conversations every day I try to stick to faith in business and things where I have experience expertise And so whereas I have an opinion about a lot of things like I have an opinion about a whole bunch of stuff That's happened in the world over the past few years, but this is a little different because Experience causes you to go from you know opinion to perspective and insight and so for me I have worked almost 17 years in corporate America in a fortune 100 organization and you know, I'm black You feel what I'm saying?

I am black from Detroit So I started off right out of college at the most entry level position you can have at the organization I work for And so I have a unique perspective in the 16 years almost 17 that I've been at this fortune 100 organization I have gone from entry level and I've had eight roles in 16 years So on average every two years I've taken a new role some have been promotion some have been lateral and I find myself in a senior sales manager Position and still growing my career Lord willing as we speak today So my perspective is that of someone who has been in corporate America long enough to kind of see the landscape of the world change To see things around me change people change policies change some of those things for the better some of those things for the worst But what I am here to tell you is that every coin has two sides So that's the one thing I want to start off this conversation with as we kind of untangle the web I believe a lot of people like to have these conversations from a political perspective as if like if you were Democrat Oh, you're just a hundred percent right if you were Republican. Oh, my side is just a hundred percent right So I kind of want to kill that vibe right off the top right here like that's not the perspective I'm coming from I'm coming from a perspective that tries to see both sides But I'm gonna present a unique perspective that I have not heard my perspective anywhere I've only listened to a couple people talk about this whole topic of affirmative action This is something I've thought about four years as an African-American in corporate American corporate America. I can talk people You all know I can talk as an African American in corporate America came to corporate America from the East side of Detroit fresh Out the hood baby like you know I'm saying like so I was not Somebody who grew up understanding how to grow your career how to network I didn't come from a whole bunch of money or something or like my parents didn't have these crazy connections Like I really really when you say started from the bottom I really really started from the bottom and I had to teach myself a lot of things. I'm also a crack college I can talk I'm a college graduate.

I graduated with a business marketing degree And here's what I could tell you on the funny thing about college in general Which is going to be some of my perspective is that college does not actually measure intelligence the way that we act like it does And it doesn't even prepare us for a lot of the things that we need to navigate the world after college in the first place So I walked away from a pretty good business school with a 3.3 grade point average in my major a 2.6 grade point average in my general studies As you see I increased as we got to the focus baby you feel what I'm saying But you know at the end of the day I walked away with a 3.3 in my business marketing courses and my major courses and there was still so much I did not know when I graduated college like this I don't want to I love my school much love You know I'm saying I'm not even gonna say the name after I made this thing like y'all didn't teach me nothing But at the end of the day my point is that there was still so much more to learn After college so like I want to get us off this whole idea that the whole aspect of college and academics is like It just teach you all this stuff about life now There are also different areas of study so meaning you're studying to be a pilot or a doctor That's a lot different than studying for social sciences or social sciences or even business or even literature or journalism or whatever Right, so there are certain aspects to think about as you measure intelligence or academia academics or book smart And how you measure all these things so we don't talk about a bunch of that stuff But you know what I forgot I forgot to play my intro So I'll be back in 30 seconds This is episode 206 affirmative reaction You don't want to miss the things that I'm gonna kick it on today, but please do come with an open mind if not The promise they're not inspired be inspired. I can see beyond the tears you cry Yeah, whatever people we back this is episode two I'll six out everybody in the comments I can talk cups when they gonna go on sale. Oh no, it's a tell you I got you know you're getting one I got you what up with everybody though. All right, so let's kick it man.

Um, so first things first I Want to untangle the web because this whole affirmative action topic is really tangled up in a bunch of other stuff Now here's the thing that I don't particularly enjoy about politics in today's society and culture in a way That we discuss politics because we what we do is we tangle up a bunch of topics, right? So a bunch of like very taboo or polarizing You know deep controversial topics like abortion and gender and you know affirmative action and diversity and equity and inclusion And what we do is we tangle all of these things up They all have very unique aspects to them unique aspects that need to be viewed through a specific or particular lens to properly understand them But what we do is we weave them together and then we tell people choose one choose a side based on this web that I've weaved together over the Past 40 years and made it very confusing and I've taken topics that you agree with I've taken topics that you disagree with I've provided Political figures some that you love some that you hate some that you only support because you hate the other person and like what we've done in society today Vaccines and COVID and oh you're the you're the anti-vaxxers You're the like we start labeling each other based on all of these different things that we weaved and weaved together And it's like the spider web that you are stuck in and you don't know how to get out and you don't know how to talk about it So most people are either silent or most people just agree with whatever is said on TV or whatever your side of the political Ram tells you to agree with and that is the way that we Digest and regurgitate a lot of the information around politics today And that's why I don't particularly in a lot of cases enjoy talking about things publicly that are politically triggered because to me They lack intelligence logic Objectivity they're full of bias surface level a lot of times even ignorance So the first thing I want to tell you before we start this conversation or the first part of this conversation is I want to detangle the web Right now today. I am discussing affirmative action. I'm not coming to you as a Democrat.

I'm not coming to you as a Republican I'm not coming to you as an anti this or a pro that I'm a Christian. I'm a black guy I was born and raised in Detroit I've worked in corporate America for 16 and a half years and I have a unique perspective to share because of my experience Like don't try to box me in I'm gonna be honest by the time I'm finished I'm gonna say something that you agree with or disagree with regardless of what side of your own So if you have an open mind if you're a believer just know that my intention is to Have us to think outside of the box and my overall intention is to find a way to bring us together and unite us Especially as believers in Christ and that is the goal of this show And so just understand that whereas we live in a society where some of the things I'm gonna say are gonna make you want to box me in Like you're used to boxing in people or categorize me as something and I'm telling you I'm not that flat out I'm not that on either side like if you point the finger you try to categorize what I'm saying You're gonna be wrong. So now that we've started to detangle the web Let's kick it about this affirmative action decision and topic at large So first of all, I'm not gonna try to act like I'm some legal expert and I understand every aspect of the law I haven't followed the case. I don't have time like I said I work in corporate America I work a lot of hours a day and I'm super busy and I got this podcast going on So I'm a husband I got all kind of stuff going on So I don't have time to follow every aspect, but I've lived this life, right?

So the first thing I want to do is like let's take a step back and think about this affirmative action I'm gonna be I'm gonna talk a lot about specifics to Harvard today Mostly because that's the school that was the university that was in the lawsuit But also it's one of the most prestigious universities in the country So I think if you kind of start at the top you can deconstruct and understand some of the things that's going on So we have this situation where you think about the pros and cons of affirmative action It's like how do I feel about affirmative action? Well, you have a situation where in this particular case that race is considered as you think about as you have Consider who's admitted into a college. So on my hand you could feel like hey, man That's not fair that in and of itself is discriminatory because you are now trying to feel a quota based on someone's race I feel it I get it understand why I want to surface somebody could think that but then the next thing my mind goes to is why Here's the first thing we have to ask ourselves Why was affirmative action ever necessary? That's a deep question when you think about it, right?

So if you ask the question why was affirmative action ever necessary in the first place you will hopefully come to the realistic conclusion that it is because Blacks were racially discriminated against in America now. Let me also say this. I love being an American I think it's an amazing country I don't think is the perfect country or has had the perfect history But I'm not one of those people that I want to throw the baby away with a bath water So to say figure a speech. I love being an American.

I love the freedoms that comes with it So yeah, that's me on that. I'm not anti-American I want to make that very clear But I also want to be real about the fact that this country specific to black people right has not had the greatest history No, I don't think every white person is racist I don't blame every modern-day white person for everything that has happened in history I also think there was some great white people who helped progress on the freedom for blacks in America as well, right? So there's a lot of nuance to that But the fact that a matter of it is that racism did exist does exist in America prejudice has existed for a long time But particularly in the past right I think What is John F Kennedy might have been the first one to coin the term affirmative action in relation to the way that we use it today We're race that's like a quote straight from the internet So I just want you to know that I read that somewhere earlier today But so in the 60s I believe it was this this term and this thought of affirmative action came into play the way that we think about it today And when you think about that, it's like, okay, I mean my grandmother is 80 something years old I've talked to my grandmother. I can I've talked to my parents about certain things they experienced grown up I've seen pictures I've like seen documentaries one thing I know for sure Let's get this out the gate is that there was is racism prejudice segregation in America Right Let me take a sidebar and talk to my people.

This is one of the things that is interesting to me about politics in general You get people in why I feel like politics makes us illogical you'll have people for instance that You know either side of the vaccine, right? So some people wanted you to lose your job if you didn't have a vaccine some people You know felt like you know you had to get it some people didn't want it right? So you have all these different things where at the end of the day We should have had a right to do it. We want to do it our own bodies But different people fall on different sides, right?

That happened. I heard people who were Talking about COVID say shutting down the businesses for instance closing businesses down putting this in the house They like man, that said us back 20 years our economy today when you look at the fact that Disney slash ESPN They have just let go of about 7,000 employees I think Disney is getting rid of a lot of them at ESPN some of our favorite personalities as a direct reflection of closing down those Parks during cold it right? What is my point with this when you close down those parks during COVID It wasn't just about the three months four months or a year that the parks were closed to make up the revenue to make up for lost time Will take years of setback they have had to cut people who were talented Get rid of shows like there's so much if you just follow this I'm just using Disney as an example This is public I'm not bashing Disney my point is when you look at that aspect of when you take take something and hold it back for a Particular amount of time in order to bring it back up to speed sometimes takes unprecedented measures So here's the first thing that I could tell you as it relates to affirmative action Is the fact that it was necessary in the first place because there was racial injustice there were people abusing power who weren't given Opportunities to African Americans right in America and similar to just like the COVID The pandemic the effect that it had on our economy today right now today Like I think last month was the first month in a long time that your own power in the fed did not raise the interest rates But there's expected to be another slight rate height even next month potentially or in the next on the next I think it's next month don't quote me on that But my point is that we've gone through this whole year of inflation and the economy and stocks and investments are up and down And all of this is a direct impact of the pandemic car prices have inflated because there was a chip shortage And all these things happen because of one or two years of something going wrong So I want you to think about something realistically right this ain't about playing a victim This I'm just right now unpacking the facts before I really dig into this topic because you've got to be willing to look at the facts Right so if you look at the fact that African Americans were enslaved for 400 years in this country Then spent the next hundred years, you know 90-50 90 years before the 60s came what was this slavery ended in 1870 something? I think so you take the 1960s when affirmative action was even introduced You know what was that 85 years after a slavery even ended so when you think about even just the idea of like There were 400 years of slavery and a hundred years of discrimination.

I mean Do you actually think that black people in America could recover as a whole like in how long? Because from two years of a pandemic we are still in economic disarray. We are still hurting to recover Fiscally in our economy businesses are struggling from two years of a little bit of struggle not to minimize the impact of COVID My question is 500 years That's generations of people who didn't get a job who didn't get a promotion who had to work a certain job Who had to drink dirty water who weren't allowed to go get the best educations? The first thing we just got to be real with before we even fully discuss this is why was it necessary?

So now we got net we understand at least if you agree with me that affirmative action was necessary in the first place because there was Some level of discrimination sealed steel taking place there were laws like the black codes in the Freedmen's Bureau that happened after the freedom of slavery I wanted to I think one of the myths that happened is that people think when the slaves became free Oh, well, bam. You're free cool. Go get a job. Go do what you do and that is just not the case, right?

I wish you were the case. I'm not blaming you if you listen to this you don't have to feel sorry for me I'm just actually addressing the issues of why So now if we fast forward to 2023 If we go ahead and say now today affirmative action is no longer necessary now the question is what does that actually mean? That would have to mean that a we have made a huge improvement since the 1960s as it relates to discrimination On our own I'm not talking about keeping mine because if the if the law goes away Then now you have now you are expecting that the people themselves have actually changed meaning that we are more unified that there is No racism or prejudice or people aren't looking at black people as lesser or less smart or qualified or things like that And there's this parody that hey, let's get rid of affirmative action because I know we go You might see the numbers increase because we that we have that much parity look there's a lot that can be argued about that I definitely think we are in overall better times than we were in the 1960s And there's a lot of things that would support that but at the same time. It's like okay if we take that away Where are we going?

All right, now let me keep it going from there The other thing is I would have to say an argument against affirmative action can be in this particular case if you are Bringing in black students right who are lesser qualified then I think this was sparked by Asians actually right So this isn't even necessarily a black and white thing and don't quote me on that I think this was an Asian group or an Asian community no offense if I'm wrong look You know it is what it is at this point we talking about it. So It would have to say that there's this huge discrepancy that has happened because you have let these black people in who are not qualified Based on whatever standards or someone is more qualified than them who's not being admitted Then that would begin to say that what we should see is we should see some problems with those blacks that have been administered Admissions admission. Hold on. We need to cook.

I can't talk people. I know how to talk What I'm saying is like the graduation rates of these blacks should be lower than the whites in the Asians or there should be this huge drop off Because if these people aren't qualified they really should be failing out of the school and the affirmative action program should not be working Right, so we're gonna look at some of the data and statistics right from Harvard and some other sources because my thing is I actually want to understand is that the case right? So I want to I want to look at this thing in its totality and say like yo like well Maybe like let me just be fair Maybe we like they let me in black people who ain't qualified because this is a merit meritocracy and you want the best of the best Right? That's one of the legitimate arguments out there It's like you don't want to lower your standards and then bring in this group of people who aren't necessarily qualified to be there any of you ruin the whole situation in a first place So let's look at that because I think that's fair like I do I actually think that is a fair thing to look at so let's look we're gonna take a look at a couple tabs people you feel What I'm saying hey, let me go back and see how I'm showing up here.

All right cool. That's cool All right, so let's take a look at a couple tabs. This is actually College dot Harvard dot EDU. This is Harvard's actual admissions website that we're looking at here So I just want you to understand that this is Harvard College admissions and financial aid We're not we're going right to the source baby a brief profile of the admitted class of 2026 So let's look at what this is.

I think this is interesting There were 61,221 people who applied to go to Harvard 1,984 of them actually were admitted 36 of them a whole 36 were admitted from the waiting list I think this is a little less than 4% if I'm not mistaken I think that's like 4% 10% would be 6105% would be 3500 I meant 3550 whether I say 60 100 3050. Yeah, so this is this is I mean This is less than 4% like 3.6 3.4% something like that So the first thing I actually want to address here is Let's be real about the fact that only about 4% of people get admitted to Harvard anyway Anyway, so yes, this is tough to get into which means There will undoubtedly undoubtedly undoubtedly which one is it? I don't know. Let's do the cut even though we're on a small screen There were undoubtedly be people who are qualified over qualified who will not be admitted into this university So if only three to four percent of people who are actually being admitted who actually apply or admitted Hey, I can't understand why you would be mad if you feel like there's any chance of a way that you were qualified and did not get admitted I get that all right cool, but Because they're so small of a percentage on the flip side I could say Hey there you have to live with the fact only 4% of people get in this school There's gonna be 96% of people I'm sure you're not even really applying to Harvard if you're not one of the smartest people on your block So that means yo, this is just reality.

So we have to find measures to slice through right? Okay cool Let's keep it moving a geographical back breakdown doesn't matter to me ethnicity here. We go people. This is according to Harvard So the ethnicity of the class of 2026 15.2% are African American great 27.9% are Asian American amazing right so they are 28% are Asian American I think that's amazing Hispanic or Latino 12.6% Native American 2.9% native Hawaiian 28% that leaves the 40% of students admitted administered into Harvard are Caucasian white students All right, so you have whites leading away at 40% Asian Americans at just under 30% I mean man, that's almost 70 right there You feel what I'm saying African Americans and Latinos representing respectfully 15 and 12.6% Nothing wrong here This is the majors that they're majoring in most people are going into social sciences and humanities at Harvard Which was actually quite interesting to me and the financial aid type or whatever does not actually matter So all right first things first if you look at this the fact of the matter is Asians are Asian Americans are representing 28% of the applicants You have African Americans at 15% now one of the things that I also find very interesting right now We just looking at the facts is like what is actually considered right like how are they actually?

Choosing the students who are admitted into Harvard because if you have 96% of students are not going to be admitted then you got to have a thorough process right now Here's one of the things I want you to think about as we think about how you how you choose and select anything right? I invest stocks cryptocurrencies, you know when you're investing one of the first things people tell you to do diversify your portfolio Okay, great. Why well you want to have a mixture of things some things are gonna go good when others go bad Like you want a proper mix. Okay.

Good. So diversify your portfolio in finances is that's pretty good If you are a football coach and you are bringing in a football team if you got 50 players on a football team Do you want 47 quarterbacks? I mean, let's just say the top 47 student athletes in the country were all quarterbacks And you have five picks in a draft there's no way that you would pick all quarterbacks Hey, no, you need a couple quarterbacks You need a running back you need a wide receiver You need a team because those differences somebody can catch some can run some can throw you need all of those things Some can block you need all of those different skill sets on a team You don't want a team of just all the top quarterbacks on your football team because you're going to lose because quarterbacks can't block They can't catch and they can't tackle right so quarterbacks you need other positions to be filled diversify your team Here's the other thing when you're looking at the scores if you're if you're a person that's in the sports and you're choosing You know or you picking anything like I don't know like women you watch What is it dancing with the stars or something like if a person can move their feet the fastest because they're the best saucer dancer But if the if the show is made up of salsa hip-hop tango and all of these different styles the person is just the best in one category That's not how you judge anything like okay? You spent your whole life focusing on salsa and I focused on three other things I can move my arms better than you move yours, but you are just a master of defeat okay cool My point is at the end of the day the way you measure anything in life is like okay I'm picking the best basketball player.

Okay, maybe the best score is the best player But maybe they aren't maybe Draymond Green does not score a lot of points and there's 50 people in the NBA who score more points than him But maybe he's a bass better basketball player because of other things So one of the things I want to think about this is really a beyond affirmative action is how we select and choose things in life I don't think that most times we actually have a problem with diversity You get what I'm saying specific to just the concept of diversity All right now I want to look at something else. Let's now look at we want to share we got to share our screen How to get into Harvard let's look at that all right. Let me make sure we good. Yeah, we good we good This is a this is from college transitions calm.

Let me see when did I when is this? They don't have a date. Oh no, may 17. So this is from May 17 this data again college transitions calm Where was car Harbor founded all of these things?

But this is what I wanted to look at we looked at the class of 2026. Let's look at the class of 2027 No, no, that's not what I want to look at. I want to look at how to get in Harvard How to get in Harvard well round it is not enough. Okay, here's the thing that I wanted to kind of look at Well, rounded is not enough Harvard what they do and how they rate applicants is right here They assigned a rating of one to four or one to six in some categories with one being the top rating in four areas Academic extracurricular athletics and professional.

So the way that Harvard measures how you get into their school is Academic extracurricular athletics and personal personal is a very tricky one to me and I'm gonna come back to that a little later But let's see the acceptance rate here. We are for 2027. You will see so what's the difference between 26 and 27 Asian Americans went from 27.9% to 29.9% Hispanics dropped to 11.3 African Americans were fairly flat at 15.3% Um, whereas last year or 26 was 15.2 and Native Americans were at 2% Here's the other tricky thing is this line right here amazingly One study revealed that 43% of the white students admitted into Harvard in the last six years were either legacies meaning their parents were alumni Recruited athletes. Nothing against you there children of faculty members or teens whose relatives had donated large amounts of money to the university I find that to be very very interesting So you have this idea that as it relates to Harvard the first thing is and again We're just looking at the data now because I want to look at the data fairly So if I look at the class of 2026 Asian Americans grew from 27.9% to 29.9% So they had 2% growth to their admission rate African Americans were flat That That 2% probably came it could came from the Caucasian American group not sure They didn't really say where you know where it dropped But what I want to say is alright Asian American group and this is not against Asian Americans I want to be clear there We're just looking at this data and I believe this lawsuit was kind of started with this in mind So I want to look at these numbers So do we understand what is like I want to see is there a gaping hole is there something wrong is there something that I'm missing Is there something that we're missing or not considering that's that's unfair to someone right or presenting some unfair advantage But the other thing that's really interesting to me is that for the the white students 43% of them are legacy students and when you when you think about what legacy students are again There either means your parent was either an alumni athletics does count as legacy.

So that mess Let's say if that discount at 5% I don't know they don't tell you the percentage but let's say if it was even 38% right but your parents were alumni or Someone in your family donated made huge amounts of donations to the the university those things would be considered to allow you a greater Chance over someone else remember this is a very competitive University to get into only 3.4 to 3.5% of applicants are admitted So you have people who are using anything to their advantage to get in there when something is competitive So could I be mad at a legacy student not necessarily if my mom went there my dad went there or my uncle donated five million Dollars to your athletic facility? Alright cool. There's gonna be a percentage of legacy students that get admitted. But here's the thing we're talking about affirmative action Well, if you have so let's say if you were like, hey, yeah, well black people go get your cake up And you know get some millions of dollars so you could donate and so you could become a legacy student or your kids can't here's a problem Whenever you have and this is where this is so tricky, right?

If I go back my grandmother's still alive She's in her 80s. I go talk to my grandmother She's gonna tell me a bunch of stories about being at Alabama and walking to school with no shoes on and all this stuff This lady was born with the 40s or something the late 30s to 40 So she's a very interesting loving lady, but she has some crazy stories some of the things she tells me about growing up at Alabama are unreal to me But she was born in the 40s, which means her parents were roughly born in the late teens to 20s Which means their parents would have been born in the early late 1800s to early 1900s What that means is that my grandmother's grandparents would have been fresh out of slavery and this is where this is important to me Is that when you look at the idea? We throw this term around a lot these days generational wealth you hear this term thrown out a lot Generational well, I want to build generational wealth Well, that means you have enough money for generation and generations that if if my grandmother would have had the opportunity to make millions That she would have been able to create opportunities even for me because I'm only two generations removed But she was two generations removed from slavery She was born in a time where they weren't a lot of opportunities for blacks where she couldn't go to school with white people Right, so she didn't have the opportunity my grandmother being a hard worker that she was She fled Alabama to Detroit. I'm not gonna tell her story I'll lead after her but she fled Alabama to Detroit.

She came here She worked about 35 36 years if I'm not mistaken in a in an automotive plant, right? And that is how she made a living right? She's owned her home since forever and she made a living great Not a high education not generational wealth, right? Because when you work in an automotive plant you are spending all of your time I mean that is labor and that is a lot of time that a lot of hours over time people who work in the plants know that you live in those plants, right?

Your perspective of life is gonna be a little different my grandmother's The way she preached to my father as an example was go get you a job at a plant you didn't go to college So what happens is you start seeing the like the generational impact of the difference between someone having an opportunity for education and advancement Versus someone being prevented from that just like covid just like shutting down these businesses for six months or a year Has an economic impact look we only did that for a year or some six months They were shut down imagine being shut down for hundreds of years or a generation or 20 years man You can't tell me that there's not gonna be a negative impact to a community that has been specifically held back now Let me say this because anybody who listens to this podcast. No, I'm not the victim mentality do and I'm not done yet I'm still not a victim entirely. I'm not even saying this stuff to encourage you to have a victim mentality No, I'm just being real but this should inspire and encourage you to go get yours I don't care you don't invite and roll me into a college. I don't care if you don't promote me on a job Like I'm gonna find a way that's the underlying message.

We just deal with the facts I don't want you to think that I'm about to have some big soft story. I don't think everybody's racist I think people lack perspective I think people lack experiences with people outside of their culture also think this is actually More about culture today than skin color because I don't think that a lot of people are just walking around purposely racist or something Just because of the color your skin I think what happens is people have grown up in bubbles They've grown up around only people who look think and act like them and when they see something different They judge it. I think that is pretty much what happens in the world culturally different. I don't understand you I don't get you know, I'm gonna hire, you know, my cousin's friend over here.

I'm not hiring you I'm not I'm gonna admit them into the school because they're more like me. I understand them that happens in the world people I'm not saying you're horrible because of it happens all the time but my point at the end of the day Is that there is a generational impact to these types of decisions and whether or not someone gets a job or an education does matter Frederick Douglass says something so powerful in his book I advise you whether you're black or white read up from slavery by Booker T. Washington and read Frederick Douglass autobiography But he said something so powerful when he learned how to read which was illegal for him because of the fact that he was black It was illegal for him to learn how to read. He said once he learned how to read He realized how bad slavery was or I think how he worded it was He didn't actually realize how bad slavery was until he learned how to read That tells you the power of education the power of reading and writing and literacy and learning and the power of the opportunity If you prevent a group of people specifically because of the color of their skin from Something as powerful as learning to read and write there will be a generational impact negatively That will be a heck of a lot of a storm to fight through to get out of and it will not just be simply because you are you have this skin Color so now it means you're this way.

It's no you are specifically discriminated against because of this skin color now Let me say this to my black people out there We ain't the only people that ever went through slavery. We're not the only people that has a hard life We're not like I'm not one of those people that just think like oh my god like whatever But here's what I do want to say a lot of times I hear people talk about other cultures and the things they went through I don't want to disrespect any other cultures So I'm not gonna say anything specifically but I just want to point out something there is there's a difference if I now I'm talking about me I'm not talking about you if I was born in a country overseas or another country period and I was discriminated against in my own country Maybe I fled the scene of a war you hear a lot of immigrant stories immigrants are amazing people because they are passionate because they understand The value of America in a freedom it brings they fled to America from a place that was discriminating against them The difference between them and African Americans is that the place they fled to the freedom place the best place to live the best country to live on Unfortunately is the place that did the discriminating and harm and abuse against black people So some people say hey, you know like here. Just flee. Come on man.

Let's just be real. This is still the best place But let me let me tell you this let's say you go to a restaurant I'm not gonna name a specific restaurant. Let's say you go to the premier steakhouse in the United States What's that one place? I will name it.

It's a place. I think it's called French laundry something like that I never been there probably can't afford it because I heard it costs thousands of dollars probably to even get a table French laundry, let's say this is the premier one of the premier restaurants in the US and people go there and they spend all their money But let's say you I'm talking to you you specifically regardless of everyone else's reviews everyone else's experience Let's say you go to French laundry and they put a spider on your steak Are you like hey, but it's it's French laundry though? Like so I'm gonna eat the spider and shut up No, you can go to a good place and still have a bad experience. You feel what I'm saying at the same time being a black person I don't believe in living a life to project that negative feeling or emotion or everyone else what I've strived to do in my life Is to learn from the people before me listen to the stories of my grandparents Some of my parents that is not as graphic or crazy as my grandparents story or or hard to believe It's true as they are But I've tried to take those things then look at the opportunities presented to me in today's modern time and say I am going to take advantage I'm going to work hard and I'm going to get ahead as far as I can I am not gonna settle for being less I am not gonna blame anyone if I don't want to work hard Although I do recognize and understand that the people before me may not have had the opportunities that are presented before me My parents didn't have the opportunities that were presented before me They weren't raised by people who were educated who they weren't raised by people who value these type of things But guess what I could tell you about my mom I graduated college.

I've been a corporate I graduated I came to corporate America three days before I graduated college, right? My mom last year went to my alma mater and got her degree her bachelor's degree, right? She went the past few years went to school while working full-time Later in life. She's still young but later in life and got her bachelor's degree So see where I come from that's what I come from so maybe she couldn't leave me or set me off with millions of dollars Or she couldn't go donate millions of dollars to a school so that I can get in there But my momma did it the other way around like okay my son went got his bachelor's degree from here Okay, let's do it.

Let's let's get it in and she went and got her back bachelor's degree So now me and my mom like in my office hurt She just gave me her degree her degree is gonna hang in my office next to mine same school So you can build a legacy. I don't care what I don't care what these people want to stop you from family I'm just telling you straight up you not stopping me God can stop me I honor God I say it humbly But I am not giving nobody the power over me because of some law because it is I'm telling you like this Frederick Douglas and Booker T Washington were born slaves and became advisors of presidents So what I want to say to some people is you know as rough as the affirmative action thing may be sown and so forth At the end of the day Don't allow yourself to overdo it. I think it's one of the struggles that we have in society today We get overly emotional about the you know the image or impression of something we start calling everybody is racist Everybody is this and that and then we start making ourselves victims the reason that I am not a pro victim mindset person It's because I think it makes you weaker. It actually puts you in position to need to be saved by the people that you are saying are oppressing you I'm not a victim fam.

It's not happening with me. I'm sorry like I am sorry I resonate more with the vibe of a Frederick Douglas the mindset of a Booker T Washington That's like even if I was born a slave you couldn't stop me How do you go from being born a slave to an advisor of presidents? I remember there was a story that Frederick Douglas told in his autobiography about a time that he was traveling and I'm paraphrasing this and maybe missing Details, but he was traveling with a group of white men and he was like one of the people that was he was prestigious Right. He was an advisor of president But they made him sit in the like they made him sit in like either where the luggage was or where the animals were or something on the trip Like my man was packed away like a Louis Vuitton bat.

You know I'm saying respectfully so like But he still went and advised my point man to people is look I'm not pro or I am pro affirmative action personally because I believe it's necessary because I believe again I work in corporate America. I've been here 16 years when you look at the numbers See see I think sometimes people will have opinions about things that they haven't actually seen like they haven't been close enough to it to actually look at the Data or I could tell you from being in corporate America what happens sometimes is sometimes people will willingly willfully whatever What's I don't know I can talk however you post to say it They don't look at the data because the numbers are staggering I'm gonna tell you just generally speaking one of the issues in corporate America with black people that you see today you see Black people progress through their jobs and grow their career right up into executive So a black person you'll see them kind of grow grow grow their career and right up into when that next step is executive You see a huge drop off of the number of blacks who are in leadership in executive roles now just like harvard I'm the kind of person that says well, what does the data say here's the thing I want to address right now? This is the elephant in the room to me and what I believe is part of the unique perspective How do we judge or qualify merit? If you say that something is a meritocracy and we say that hey only the best people get here right Then if if you're saying with without affirmative action or any law or a thing kind of guiding or governing you if you say hey It just is what it is.

There's a huge drop off of black people getting to the level of executive We're getting to this prestigious college or this next level then I got to be honest Here's the elephant in the room what we are saying is that black people aren't as smart? So me that's what we that's what we got to be saying if we say it's happening naturally right if there's no influence And there's just a drop off like black people you can start together with all kind of other groups You can grow grow grow but then you get to a certain point and there's like a glass ceiling like man I don't know y'all you know for whatever you know the color of your skin just maxes you out at a certain point just Organically alright, so here's what I want to think about through that because I'm the kind of person. Let's be fair But here's a problem Similar to the situation with Harvard where you have 43% of the white students are legacy students That's rough I want to say the number four blacks is around 15% for context 43% are legacy students so Just that merit so if we're saying that Hey, merit is just about the best of the best are we saying that because my mom went there or because my uncle donated two million dollars that I am the best of the best or Do you look at it and say only 4% of people get administered into the school? There are some people that are gonna have a skill set of a running back some are gonna be a quarterback some people there because remember Harvard measures four things It was athletics academics personal and extracurricular so maybe you are an athletic person They had a great extracurricular profile and this person that had 4.0 Just feels like they should get there just simply because they had a 4.0 I have another problem with this idea that grades alone makes a person smarter I do not believe that and I'm gonna tell you why remember I just told you I came in the corporate America I had a degree so that other people white black and other have degrees when they come in the corporate America Yes, a degree does get you in the door It is something to put on your resume that will make people like trust some aspect of your determination Alright, so let's say that's one check out of four things we look at But what you'll find out once you get there is that having a degree once you're there does not often differentiate you from the next person who also has a degree So when you have multiple qualified individuals, right?

You have to look at other aspects So maybe you got a 4.0 when you were in school remember I told you I only had a 3.3 in my major classes But you had a 4.0 and you feel like hey, I'm a better salesperson to him I should get promoted before him because I had a 4.0. Okay, great You want to be judged strictly off of your academic knowledge or your ability to take tests? I'm gonna tell you right now. I'm not a good test taker You can ask me stuff that I actually know and if you put it in a form of multiple choice and present answers that look almost Kind of the same but they're slightly different.

I might get those wrong today and I have closed Millions of dollars in sales and negotiations. I have walked away from various six figure deals Business and personal where people have shook my hand and said you are a worthy negotiator There are been time I've been in real estate deals where people have looked at my wife when it's done They don't tell you this was happening, but when you close and you get done. I've negotiated for vehicles I've done all type of negotiations where people have respected me shook my hand white people old people young people like I've been pulled aside Plenty of times of my life because I am a businessman Okay, so what you got a 3.9. I'm not saying so what like it doesn't matter at all It has some level of value, but if you live in a world where you think book smart is everything then you don't understand how life works Here's an example.

Just do me a favor in Google Successful people matter of fact, let's look it up got to look at other people successful people who didn't even graduate college people or sometimes they didn't even go Let's look here. It's just a quick Google search Steve Jobs. Oh my god. Oh my god Not the iPhone not the iPod not the iPad No college degree.

You're smarter than Steve jobs. Great job. Mark Zuckerberg. Hey, Zuck.

How's it good buddy? Hey, buddy introducing the Instagram threads today Mark Zuckerberg didn't graduate there were people smarter to him at school Bill Gates Oprah Winfrey. Oh Oprah doesn't have a degree She's not smart. She's not a brilliant business person.

You don't have a degree. She's she's not qualified This is a meritocracy. Remember Oprah someone told her she wouldn't last on TV. Oh my god These people don't know how to judge talent beyond a piece of paper and it says it is the easiest thing to do is look at some test Oh, you got a whatever on your ACT or SAT or whatever You got this or you're smarter than everybody.

I'm not saying it has no value I'm not saying that you might not have a great IQ or be able to be a human calculator I'm saying that there are jobs and aspects of life beyond that there are jobs where you have to be a human being Oh, hey, Brad Pitt. You didn't graduate college. Not a good actor, buddy Not a good actor. You got to graduate as look down here.

I don't even know some of these people Harrison for mr Indiana Jones. No college. No way Come on people. What is my point the point I'm making at the end of the day You feel me is like you have to learn how to measure intelligence beyond a book or a test it matters We're not done looking at Harvard statistics yet.

So stay with me here I'm building up to a unique perspective in a really good point here. My point is I've been in corporate America 16 years almost 17 I've been passed over before I've been told you know that I'm not good enough for certain things before and then I've watched people that Okay, wow, so this person for whatever reason gets an opportunity great what I'm saying is that life There is no I want y'all to understand some there is no way to make it completely fair Harvard only has a 3.8% admission rate Someone is not getting in and we can come up with every reason and blame this or blame that but the fact of the matter is there are More than one what there is more than one way so look at how you're admitted into the school And I don't necessarily think looking at race makes it a negative thing and I'm not done making my point there When I look at Frederick Douglass and Booker T Washington and I say all right This is a guy Who was a slave who was illiterate at a point in his life? Let's say we would have judged him at 18 years old and say you know what buddy You're just not as smart as the next person. It's one of the most brilliant people Do you know you look at here at tell me are you gonna tell me here?

It doesn't have a college degree. She's not smart So orca straight was she orchestrated makes her brilliant We have to learn how to see different levels of brilliant beyond a book It is proof in all the athletes like a LeBron James who never stepped foot in a college But build multi million or billion dollar businesses who are brilliant storytellers and have skill sets beyond what someone could judge them on And a test and there are countless others people black white anything else who are literally genius Like there is no book that can measure the book the genius of a Harriet Tubman You understand what I'm saying the genius to escape slavery like people like Frederick Douglass Do you understand you want to say hey? Can you leave strategy in my business organization? Can I leave strategy?

I can escape the hands of death Who are you to tell me? I can't leave strategy. Do you know how brilliant some of these drug dealers in the hood are? Some of these people are navigating and I'm talking like listen I wish people would go legal because there are some people who are out here running illegal drug organizations and crime organizations Who would be brilliant business people?

But are being told they're not because they didn't go to school what I'm telling you is this idea that We have to overly measure someone's overall intelligence by the grace they receive from a standardized standardized test It's not the only measure of intelligence in the world if that was the case someone who was born a slave would never be able to become an Advisor to presidents these are brilliant men and women have you like and so here's the reason I'm focusing on this Whenever you are not from a particular culture, you don't know how to always rank or judge them Culture not skin color. What's my point? There have been times in my life for this is just an example There have been times in my life where I have been able to tell that someone has recognized me as a threat, right? Whether it's like a woman from another culture grabbing her purse or whatever like oh because I'm like, you know This happens in life.

I'm not complaining about it, but like I'm just telling y'all like legitimately this happens Where you you could feel that oh, I'm perceived as a threat or I'm being looked at a certain way Because they're not used to being around black people and I want to tell you're a little secret here on inspire guys people I've had a lot of white friends throughout my life white people well not throughout my whole life throughout my adult life I've had people from other cultures who trust me enough to have conversations with me and they've told me they've admitted to me I'm not gonna lie to you. Yeah, I kind of was looking at black people different Not gonna lie to you when some black people move next door to me. My parents said don't hang out with those inwards I have had people in confidence tell me these things So I'm not saying because people told me it makes it the truest thing ever maybe it's anecdotal in my life experience But I just understand the realistic nature of the fact that when people are not from your culture They misjudge you and what do I mean? When there have been times where people saw me as a threat and I'm like, oh, that's interesting like in my own hood I'm the silly school kid basketball player.

Those are like class clown basketball player serious or um kind of uh, you know wise guy I guess like, you know, um Intellectual whatever people come to me for advice that's been my reputation my whole life So imagine like me being around someone who's not familiar with my culture and miss because they saw somebody on tv with the same skin color I'm like you need to spend more time around black people for your own safety because if you think I'm the threat Then it means you don't know how to identify the real threat That's just an example to say this there are times and I've seen this in corporate america Where if you don't have the exact same type of skill set that the next person that someone is used to them having They don't know how to judge your brilliance. They don't know how that's why you can see an opra and tell her You're not gonna last on tv because she doesn't look like what you've seen before and this can go either way This could go black white people black people could do this the white or whatever or any any race or ethnicity But what i'm saying at the end of the day is that this is why I believe we have to learn how to be united and integrate Especially as believers. I need to be able to talk to more white people to understand their perspective to understand how they grew up How they view things they need to be able to talk to me and understand me because at the end of the day as believers We should be and we are brothers and sisters in christ in this world. We're presenting everything to divide us Now here's a couple more things.

I want to look at in relation to this um affirmative action thing I think this one is very very interesting guys um Ivy league statistics, which one do i want to go to first let's go to this first let's go to this Ivy league statistics And this is specifically on ivycoach.com. These statistics are from 2015 on purpose What I wanted to do is I was having this conversation with say all right Sometimes when something is trendy like this news article you start getting a lot of bias articles a lot of bias information coming forth Because people are either for or against this ruling and I was really trying to get to like what is a fair way to look at the statistics How have they changed since 2015 we looked at the 2627 um statistics where as an example African-American around 15 to 15 3 percent Asian-American go from 27.9 to 29.9 percent admission rate White um emissions are around at 40 percent mark. So if we go back, you know eight years, what was it like then? Right 34,000 students apply so you have a lot more students applying now at 60 some thousand And here's the crazy thing Back then in 2015 you had 34,000 students apply to harvard 2100 students were admitted 6.2 percent were of the applicants Which is interesting because only about 1900 are um actually admitted now with 64,000 or 61,000 applicants for that 3.4 3.5 Acceptance rate they were at a 6.2 Acceptance rate, um, you know eight years ago So the first thing as far as one of the trends we've seen at harvard if you look at this data, a summinous data is factual Um, which I have no believe reason I believe it's not but if you're going off of ivcoge.com 2015 data, um Then what you've seen is this trend at harvard is that there have been almost twice as many more applicants Um over the past few years and their acceptance rate has almost chopped in half That's interesting to me So over twice as many applicants in half as many acceptance from a percentage rate Doing from a 3 point from a 6.2 to 3.4 I don't know what the reason for that is but what's my overall point?

It has become harder to get into harvard over time over the past eight years It's become significantly tougher to be accepted into a school that's already tough to be accepted into Interesting now. Let's look at the ethnic diversity right here ethnic diversity Asian americans were 17.8 Eight years ago. Okay, that's great So what that means is that the Asian american acceptance rate or population of their acceptance has gone from 17.8 In 2015 it has now increased up to 29 for the class of 2027 So they have seen an 11 12 increase rate in the percentage of Asian americans who are accepted into harvard kudos to y'all Congratulations imagine under the circumstances where there are twice as many applicants half as many Atment um accepted and you have in those conditions managed to grow 11% of the admission and acceptance rate I mean that to me is astronomical African american goes from 11.8 percent to 15.2 So, you know was that 3.4 percent increase right not bad Asian americans have grown three times as much as that right? So when i have times as much as that if you want to get technical or something latinos 12 percent so on and so forth that would have put um, i believe the white Population in at let's see 17 so let's call it 18 12 30 42 43 40 so i mean i would have put the white population at um Was that 54 55 and now they're down to did i say 40 so you've actually seen A huge steep decline in the white students administered accepted in the harvard going from 55 to 40 While you've seen this huge steep incline right so that is a 15 Difference um for the white students accepted and 12 of those percentage points have gone to Asian americans So that is the turnaround that is what you have seen Um in the past eight years as it relates to harvard admissions Great cool.

All we're doing right now is simply understanding the numbers Because to me we can see here and have all these arguments and all of these opinions that are just based on emotion and we can be divided Or we can actually just understand Like the numbers so i want to say something Right now So far i want to be honest I'm not really seeing where the threat was with african americans in particular Right there's only been a 3 percent increase in the acceptance rate for african-americans in the past eight years I'm not seeing how that still only representing 15 percent of the acceptance rate like i'm not seeing how that is like some Unprecedented like crazy negative thing right but i do want to look at one more thing before we get out of here And one of the questions i asked myself wanting to be fair Was how are the black students performing though? Because I think what would be fair is if you say hey y'all are lowering the standard and allowing students who are not qualified to attend harvard To come to this university simply because they're black and if that is the case and then these kids are getting here And they're not qualified so they're failing out and they're not becoming successful So it's actually hurting them then i'm gonna be honest I would have to consider if this is the case All right, maybe they have a point because that means you're not qualified So let's look at the numbers and i'm gonna be honest I looked at these numbers from several sources and I just chose one to share but they were all the same which within like one percentage point of each other So this is on uh, what is this jbhe.com? I forgot what that stands for because it's in the background These numbers are from 2013 graduation rates, right? So I wanted to look at again the reason I went with older data is because I didn't want anything a lot of the data now It might be triggered by by the story itself, but I did look at modern data and it's roughly the same, right?

So this this um Information was pulled together this data because there was a concern that blacks were not graduating from prestigious universities at the exact rate as whites in america Right, so the the chart that we're looking at here it kind of shows the institution So let's go with this first one with less lee college 89 Uh, 89 percent graduate rate for whites 92 graduation rate for blacks You'll see these first five schools where the blacks have a slight advantage by one to two one to three percentage points And they're really from there you go flat flat flat. Let's call anything up to three percent flat Then you go like negative four negative five percent I would say make it maybe negative five percent on average and then you do have this group of um universities on the far right bottom Um, there are about six universities where there is a significant difference between uh, the black and white um graduation rate But here's what I want to find where it's harvard on here harvard right here 98 graduation rate for whites 97 percent graduation rate for blacks flat a 1 percent difference That's significant. I can tell you that all of the data I looked at supports those numbers within a range of one to two percent So here's what I gathered from the little bit of data that we've reviewed today The graduation rate for these blacks students who may have been admitted to this university Partially because of their race along with the other factors that are looked at to join harvard They are qualified So here's where it becomes tricky You say because you went to a certain school or you had a certain SAT score that you are more qualified than me But if academics are not the sole source of qualification, how can you say that? If these black students are being admitted to this university Simply because they're white and they are graduating from harvard with a 97 Graduation rate rate then please tell me well man black people must be super smart You must be able to just choose somebody just because they black and I can go to harvard like you mean to tell me You could have just elected me like hey you black just come to harvard And so here's one of the reasons that i'm pointing this out is because that's what we make it seem like Here's what I want to tell you The reason that we need diversification is to allow individuals from different parts of the world different walks of life And as it relates to african-americans these students who may be partially attending the school to meet a quota for A friend of affirmative action number one the quota does not significantly swing the percentage rate So you're not seeing this astronaut.

It's not like you're going to harvard and everybody is black No, you went from seeing 10 black people to 15 black people You're not it's not like the black takeover. So I don't want us to make it seem like that Number one these students are not coming here in not keep like they come in here and doing the same work You're doing they keeping up with you and they graduate so maybe what you're saying to me is that a black person with a lower SAT score From a lesser school a lesser education from lesser financial background Is just magically able to keep up with the big dogs like that shouldn't be the case I'm not saying that's the case what i'm saying is that what's happening is these people are qualified to be there They are not simply getting admitted into harvard university Simply because they're black but what you're allowing is a level of diversity amongst those who are qualified And maybe this person from this community tends to skew heavier on the extracurricular side or the personal side or something else Because they're not going to skew hide on the legacy enrollment the way that you can because they don't have the generational growth and background and wealth Um, they may not have the same exact ACT score as you because maybe they didn't go to the school that prepared them for the test The way that you did but they came to your school with you got the same grades you got and graduated at the same rate Now I want to deal with the last part of this that is the most significant part to me When you allow remember remember i'm not saying this as a victim I'm not saying this to feel sorry for somebody. I am not saying this as part of some political agenda So please don't make yourself think that now because I agree with you on affirmative action that abortion or all these other things No, I take the christian route. I believe my faith is above all of this My allegiance to christ is my allegiance.

I don't have an allegiance to a political party Like and so what i'm saying is like, please don't hear what i'm saying and this is the challenge I find with being a independent thinking individual. There are going to be some topics where you're gonna. It's gonna sound like oh he's a liberal He's this then there's gonna be some times when he's a conservative because that's how we are used to categorizing people I am a christian like that's my perspective. That's where i'm coming from all this other stuff Like i'm not on that So i'm just saying that because I know how people get triggered because you hear through the lens of the world that we live in today So you will start trying to categorize me like that.

You can't box me in like you box these other people. I'm not that So what's my point? At the end of the day? There are other ways to qualify brilliance or a smart person The reason this is so important is because black people in america were specifically prevented From being able to go and get good jobs into build generational wealth And there was a setback and I don't say that as some type of a excuse or a reason to be a victim It's just a fact just like an immigrant like i'm gonna say this i want to be real with y'all Why do we celebrate when immigrants tell the stories of them escaping their country and how bad and oppressive their country was and they came to good Old great america, which I do think is great and like we champion it But if black people just say like now don't get me wrong some black people go too far It's a lot of y'all out there to be going too far like that's just facts like and i'm not on that either But what i'm saying is like i'm on the facts and why is it just so wrong if we tell our story It's like oh don't pull the race card or oh no it's like well dang it's the race card I don't know the water fountains before my time they say it whites only the dirty boys say it blacks only are colors You know i'm saying it's black people using the word color i'm not feeling that either like don't like i'm gonna say this The reason i'm not for the victim i said there's black people out there that's rich and famous And they use they platform to go out here and sing songs like they hear you tell me bro You not hear you tell me dog you and Beverly Hills with a bunch of white people and rich black people and your kids don't go to the school Our kids go to like stop trying i am not for this propaganda or using these platforms to like overly romanticize how bad it is So we can paint some picture because I believe that keeps people in oppression I'm here to call out the fact the fact that yes specifically in america blacks were held back Intentionally because of their skin color just like when the businesses closed down from kovit There's going to be a domino effect of that So the importance of affirmative action to me is when something was bad because you intentionally held it back the only way to potentially Help it get back on it in the right direction is to intentionally help it because I don't trust i'm just being honest As a person that works in corporate america today loves working in corporate america And I don't think it's just because everybody's racist I don't think people have the capability or the skill set to properly judge diverse talent Who are from different cultural areas and spaces in the world from them to just simply trust them to continue the rate uh to um Fairly give opportunities to people and the differences these opportunities are life-changing.

Let me tell y'all something This is the important part of it to me I'm from the hood like I came from the hood and it's like I had to work for everything from entry level for myself If you are going to stop me We're not considering me because my brilliance is a little different than the person who's next to me and you know y'all I went to the same school or you know you get all these little weird advantages when you are Um, like let me just be real corporate america these schools that's white culture So like when you are Even even if you white and you grew up in the hood like m&m You're not going to relate to all that stuff like that's just different culturally So it puts certain people at an advantage and it puts you at a disadvantage where you have to adapt to their culture to grow Because they don't understand you as you because when you're in a position of power or the position of the majority You don't have to adapt to the people beneath you and that is part of the advantage that um Whites and power have had in america is they don't have to adapt or learn about the people that they're leading And the problem with that is you don't have experience in my culture or you don't know how to judge brilliance in me You're going to do like they told Oprah and you're going to tell me you are not good at something that i'm brilliant at because you can't properly judge Tyler now here is the significant piece of it When I can grow in corporate america and I can get to a certain level and I can make a certain amount of money Then now I can afford to properly educate my children I can afford to live in a certain community I can afford to have money in a bank and not be checked a check to be literate financially to be I can afford I can grow and be a productive citizen to society That's what Booker T Washington was building towards when he built his school That's what Booker T Washington was talking about when he was going and giving speeches and being an advisor to president He was talking about teaching blacks and allowing blacks to learn so that they can be contributing um citizens to society but you have to allow people to do that you cannot hold someone back from growth and then blame them for not growing We're pointing the finger at them when their communities are distressed So when you don't listen when you allow one generation of of a person to grow and they earn it like you're just allowing someone the Opportunity to be in the game. That's what I always say I just want to be in the game bro And I don't want people holding me back from being in the game because they don't understand me I don't want to have to Change everything about myself like cut all my facial hair off because that's what y'all doing y'all culture like we don't do that Like I got bigger lives bro. That don't look right. My hair is course like it's gonna grow and turn back into my skin That's gonna make my skin you're gonna say that I'm not walking around with the with the naked face I'm not doing it.

What am I saying? You can do that if you want to but we have to learn how to understand different people I think that goes both ways I think that we are all at the advantage if we all have an opportunity to continue to grow It makes us all better and the biggest thing is that these percentages of black people not even high at the like In corporate america. I see I've had people say man You'll be surprised the stuff you hear that people will say you know when they nobody around as a black person I remember one time it was a this person. You know talk about this affirmative action, right?

This person had gotten an opportunity When when the you know these companies start focusing more on diverse hires, right? And I was out to dinner with these two white people who I like these were like cool white people I'm not calling them races. Nothing negative like they cool they were cool to me But they said something I never forgot it They were just kicking it about this person who got this job and they were like, yeah, you know I don't remember if it was a male or female, but they're like, yeah, you know, they got it because you know of they race because they diverse And I was like, no, this funny to me Like so we can acknowledge all the years that somebody didn't get a job because of they race And let's just say it was part of the reason they got it It's like me getting drafted to a team and you saying he got it because he a quarterback Where quarterback was the need on the team that year? Maybe next year is running back you picked the wrong year to be a running back What I'm saying is Okay, great.

If everybody wants to get rid of affirmative action cool What I'm challenging you to do is do it on your own Diversify yourself as a believer on your own because like the bible talks about all nations Let me let me just say this right this is important I want y'all to understand something and it's also concerning and why I talk about these things as a christian I know it might turn some people off, but that's not my intention if you really hear my heart The reason we have to address this I could tell you over the last few years We've lost a lot of black believers to pro-black religions, right? So what happens in christianity when black people feel that wow even as a christian and they don't like even christians don't care about me They don't care about diversity. They don't care about coming together. I don't have a space here What it does is it leads people into religions that call the black person god That's not biblical.

There's a lot of people on that more than you know And this is what I mean about diversifying yourself and understanding what's going on in the world as believer because all souls count, right? And part of the reason that black former black christians are being turned off is because Nobody wants to tell the truth when it's the black person at the disadvantage And I believe as christians we need to learn how to have these critical conversations These challenging conversations have them in a way that is up front that is open but it's also not encouraging the victim mentality I do not need you to feel sorry for me. I am not a charity case. God has opened doors by the grace of God I've been able to continue to grow my career.

I've had challenges. I've had setbacks I've had frustrations, but I've continued to fight I've put myself in uncomfortable positions last year I learned how to play golf. I went out when I'm a mentor. It took me out on the golf course last year When I tell you I could not hit the ball in the grass Was dirt by the time I was done on that court.

I was on a beautiful course I would implement Michigan. It was beautiful And I was out there so frustrated But the reason I wanted to learn how to play golf because I'm like well This is where all the business deals happen and there are people who are getting A hit up against me. I'm there getting an advantage on the corporate america because you're going to golf course for four or five hours And you're playing with higher executives and you're having discussions and they get to know you and all this and it's like I grew up Hooping man. We came to a basketball tournament, bro No, I had to grow up and say yo, you're in their culture.

This is corporate culture. I'm not selling my soul I'm not selling out. I'm a learning new game. It became fun I went to the range sometimes two to three days a week.

I was going to the range It became an outlet when I had stressful work days. I will go to the range just to hit Then I went to top golf that became my spot last year top golf I was in top golf all the time and I found myself a year later last week two weeks ago I was out of Denver Colorado Springs At a PGA course the broad more beautiful golf resort and I was like, okay I'm playing and I went from last year and I hitting the ball to this year. I'm rocking it I'm on the course. I'm networking with the people I'm in the game, bro So what am I saying?

I'm saying like I ain't no victim mentality person I don't want you to get that from me, but I am a realist and I'll say this last thing about one of my concerns About about affirmative action These type of things allow people remember I started this conversation off about there's a web and entangled web And what what I've seen happen in the world today is that people are falling on one side or the other So you got a lot of black christians a lot of black people who are christians who are voting for I'm just an example. I'm not gonna dog. Nobody. Nobody's candidates, right?

But let's just say hypothetically if this were the case, right? Let me let me take a sip of my tea before I say what I'm about to say You got to take a little sip sometimes. Well, you say something to make people mad Um, let's say here's a candidate and let's say I'm black, you know, this affirmative action thing this candidate I agree with them 100% like yeah, maybe like they awful black people right like yeah, right right right This is what happens in our community Then it's these other three things Abortion they want to kill babies, you know, they want to they want to do these other things Uh that kind of like go against my faith and my belief as a believer And now i'm a black christian And i'm saying i'm choosing the lesser of two evils because i'm so passionate about being black I'm so passionate about progressing black people that i've become blinded to everything else. So now i'm identifying with otherwise Antichrist movements and agendas To justify my blackness and progression of my people So the reason i talk about these things as an independent Is i'm trying to give the other side some insight into If y'all don't start diversifying your mindset Biblically though, there's diversity in the bible.

You don't think it's diversity in the bible Hold on fam. See now. Hold on Ooh, we I love when the bible pop up in my mind just randomly. Hold on.

I'm looking for something Ooh, we Ooh, we Ooh, where is it at? Where is it at? I'm looking for something I'm looking for something Ooh, where is it at? I want to say it's in romance Ooh, hold on y'all i love when y'all come Since the picture we about to go to the bible, let me go to one of these and let me go to the bible app real quick The bible website i'm about to share this I don't even know if i'm gonna find exactly what i'm looking for but it's so easy to find a word It's so easy to be encouraged by the word man.

Let's go to romance. Let's start in romance 14 You know what i'm saying? All right, let me go back on on i want to be in a i like the nlt New living translation All right cool cool cool. We about to share the word.

This is Yo, this is what we do on this podcast. Isn't it great? All right, let me see how this is viewing for y'all. Okay, cool.

That's that's viewing good. All right, so we in romance chapter 14, let's see Ooh, the danger of criticism. Nah, this ain't what i was looking for but let's let's try to dig into this because what we want to do now is I've given a lot of my perspective a lot of my opinion. We need Let's see what the word say.

Let's see now we read the word after having this conversation This is literally off the top of my mind. I have not prepped I don't know everything that's in this chapter I don't even know if this is the chapter i'm looking for So if it completely goes against what i said, then we're gonna elevate the word over my opinion We're gonna scrap it last 45 minutes or however long i've been talking All right, so Accept other believers who are weakened in faith and don't argue with them about what they think is right or wrong For instance, oh, Jesus one person believes it's all right to eat anything But another believer with a sensitive conscience will only eat vegetables Those who feel free to eat anything must not look down on those who don't and those who don't eat certain foods must not condemn those who do for God has accepted them Whoo. All right Here's what I want to say Man, I thank God for that We have become so argumentative in the body of Christ So maybe you were a person that's looking at me and you like man jay slipping on his he or he for affirmative action he weakened in faith Don't argue with me fam Or maybe i'm looking at you and i'm like man, they don't really see the significance or the value in having this conversation And i'm not gonna look down on you either because the bible says that we shouldn't look down on each other If one of us are we can't in faith All right, all right, so let's see All right, let's think let's see. Ooh in the same way something one day is more holy than another day while others think every day is alike You should be fully convinced that whichever day you choose is acceptable Those who worship the lord on a special day do it to honor him those who eat any kind of food Do so to honor the lord since they give thanks to the lord before eating and those who refuse to eat certain foods also Once a please god and give thanks to god man For we don't live for ourselves or die for ourselves if we live is to honor the lord if we die is to honor the lord So whether we live or die we belong to the lord Christ died and rose again for this very purpose to be lord both of the living and of the dead I love that because what it makes me think about is whether you are for affirmative action Whether you are against affirmative action like christ died for my sins And like at the end of the day this conversation and i'm having a day is to honor the lord If our goal is honoring the lord Right if that is what we are truly doing Then you good even if you disagree with me, right if you disagree with me and you're honoring god in it Like i'm not mad at you I'm not mad at you.

So why do you condemn another believer? Why do you look down on another believer? Remember we will all stand before the judgment seat of god Whoo You can't look down on me because i only got a 3.3 fam Look, it's one of the challenging things in the world is that people do tend to discriminate for various reasons You know If you look if you think you smarter than somebody because of their skin color then you wrong If you think somebody is racist just because of their skin color then you wrong like this whole this is what i'm saying about politics and stuff It doesn't remind me of the word of god And I think we've gotten so far away from the word of god as our god We've allowed these figures and these characters these politicians to be our gods to be our preachers And the problem with that is they all be one And what i've learned about politics is man when you get behind people you got to be willing to lie too Like you got to be willing to ignore them. I watch this i'm gonna say this I never openly talk about presidents and things but I have to say what I saw I'm not saying what I believe i'm just saying what I saw I saw this with my own eyes But my own eyes I saw people hate trump so much That they voted for biden And then biden got in and they saying he ain't he don't know what he doing And i'm looking like but you voted for him Like I saw you a couple years ago at the rally for my man's and like it's like Okay, then you matted him over here because he has some classified documents leak Oh, he a liar he did Yeah, my man over here leak his and you can't like that's my homies So I ain't gonna know that one.

It's just the world we live in that's interesting to me. I have no I'm just i'm just a christian guy Yes, each of us will give a personal account to god So let's not condemn each other decide instead to live in such a way that you will not cause another believer to stumble and fall Jesus Jesus Jesus Alright, let's see for the kingdom of god is not a matter of what we eat or drink but of living a life Of goodness and peace and joy in the holy spirit If you serve christ with this attitude, you will please god and others will approve of you too So then oh jesus did you have I knew the word was gonna give me something verse 19 we are roman's chapter 14 verse 19 if you listen to audio, I apologize I am sharing a screen and you should subscribe to our show on youtube at inspire god's people Check out our shorts our inspirational messages that I release almost every day verse 19 y'all roman's 14 and 19 Jesus Jesus Jesus so then Let us aim for harmony in the church and try to build each other up Don't tear apart the work of god over over this over what you eat is what it's talking about here To me you can look at that in various aspects don't tear apart the work of god because you disagree with something jesus You may verse 22 you may believe there's nothing wrong with what you're doing But keep it between yourself and god Blessed are those who don't feel guilty for doing something they have decided is right But if you have doubts about whether or not you should eat something you are sinning if you go ahead and do it For you are not following your convictions if you do anything you believe is not right You are sinning the lesser of two evils That's why I don't like that. I just don't like the concept of like if i'm doing something that doesn't feel right Why because everybody else told me to vote for this person everyone else told me to do this Everyone else told me to march for this cause everyone else told me that this was a noble cause get this don't do that It's like, man. I don't know.

I never read this chapter with this perspective of like all of these things that we're back and forth and we're arguing about um and ultimately They are separating us From the lord. Yeah, I like this dc Does uh, man. You always tell me how to say your name. I apologize sister Thank you for watching if it be possible as much as lysing you live peaceably with all men.

That's really That's really what this is about With me it is about yes I can have a perspective On affirmative action because of my life experience because of who I am and the vantage point Um that i've grown and worked 16 years through corporate america And i've seen a lot of things i've seen a lot of things that I think either people are in denial about or they wouldn't believe And have to be real with y'all. Also know i'm a smart person There have been times where I have felt that people have tried to minimize minimize my brilliance because it's different than what they're used to Like i'm a dick i'm smart in a different way. I'm not gonna pass every test bro I'm just telling you right now if you right now put a multiple choice test in me for me This is what throws me off about test in life the way I learn I like to learn the right way to do things and I like to do that But if you tell me always tell people i'm not a fast learner. I'm a great learner So I don't learn things fast.

I learned things from repetitively doing them over time Looking at them from different angles like I learned like that So if you give me a problem and say let's say we in school right now for 30 minutes and you teach me something and you teach me that um You know, uh, Abraham Lincoln's hat was red. Okay, cool But then you put it on a test now we don't need looked at this for 30 minutes Abraham Lincoln had his red cool Then you put on a test Abraham's Lincoln hat what color was Abraham's Lincoln hat? A red B pinkish red C burgundy D maroon I'm gonna look at that and be like well Shoot from what I remember I know it was something in the red family Then you got to know one of them is cardinal red or bright red. It's like yo Like I don't learn like that.

I don't learn by you trying to trick me That's not first. It's like I need time to do something experience it that I learned it that I'm a great learner I tend to learn things better than most people better than the average people but I don't learn things faster than the average person There are a lot of times in life. They're like if I'm learning something for the first time I'm looking around I'm like oh I genuinely don't know what these people so much like what you say, huh? But I don't know what you're talking about but the difference between me and the average person is I'm going to continue to Repetively do or try that thing and I'm going to learn it well and then become an expert in it a year later Then a year later.

I can reconstruct it in five different ways because I really spent time to learn it That ain't never gonna come out in a test though Like so if me and you take a test and you score better than me on the test That doesn't mean you're a better leader than me because leadership calls for empathy Right it calls for the ability to motivate or inspire others to galvanize the troops Some people are just individually great Right and so all I'm saying with this whole thing is that look man There's a reason that affirmative action was needed in the first place I bet if it was affirmative action in church, we would see more whites and black churches and blacks and white churches We'll then go to church together y'all No, I say that no one good and well If there are some diverse churches in America Few and far between in some cases a lot of cases they're just mega churches Also, I've been to a lot of churches in Michigan where the audience is mixed but the leadership is white That's something I've noticed like for real It's like we're judging the diversity of the church on the membership But the leadership doesn't reflect that and these are all things that I think we should think about Because I think if I'm black I should care about the progression of my white brothers and sisters Asian Indian whatever and if any of them are being um Abused or discriminated in any way I should care and I think vice versa that people should care about black people I do like I don't I don't think you have to put a black lives matter flag outside or go to a march or donate money to some people That you don't trust or but know or believe is doing the right thing. Um, I wouldn't do it either But that's why that's why I think the association with political agendas are sometimes negative because what you have is that all of these political agendas are hijacking Um, the oppression of blacks to really spearhead other things and you never really actually see black people benefit at the ground level Like I'm saying you're not seeing a significant bit and change in in the ground level of our culture Um, but yet we become the the marketing campaign Uh for a lot of movements and agendas who then go and actually um really make change in other communities You feel what I'm saying? So, um Look, I appreciate y'all watching if you watch this on the replay. Hopefully you got something out of this.

Hopefully, um, Maybe something challenged you. Maybe something Maybe you didn't like something or whatever but what I actually was that you received what I'd love because it was given and spoken out of love Um, even if it doesn't mean I'm right when everything I'm saying I have a specific perspective I'm open to hearing other perspectives as well. So please do comment. Let me know what y'all think if you listen to this later.

Um, thank you for Felicia does see the conference is a DC. Oh my god these I want to say is something your name is pronounced a certain way and I'm so sorry But appreciate everybody who commented who's watching this and um, I just hope that Um, my goal with this podcast is to be able to spark certain conversations like this a lot of times I stay away from some conversations not because I'm scared to have them but because I don't particularly like Um conversations where people are won't listen because they're triggered. Um, it's not enjoyable to me to discuss. Um, and it's Does say does either does say or does yeah does say Look, but please do a like comment share subscribe share this with somebody for real Um, who you think may benefit from hearing it and make sure you subscribe on youtube at inspire guys people We are approaching 600 subscribers.

I think we're at 595, you know what i'm saying So thank you for everybody that subscribing we're continuing to um continue to try to grow the show and meaning grow like we content and substance And the things we're talking about the way we're talking about them. Like I said, it is challenging sometimes I do work in corporate america Um, I do have a very busy job and I also travel And uh, so sometimes it's challenging navigating like keeping up with everything and trying to schedule interviews or things like that I am going to be on another podcast um Trinity financial group their podcast coming up soon. So I got a couple other things coming up. Um Have to get back with somebody about speaking to a group of young men Um for a nonprofit at the end of the month So I got a lot of things going on in real life and hopefully we continue to grow online much love God bless y'all man This has been an amazing amazing amazing day