Tillamptillotum.com The podcast about pop culture, black history, and spirituality. It's about to be a great part. Dr. Till, can't take it away.
Tillamptillotum. Hey guys, it's your girl Till. Thank you for joining me for another edition of Tillamptillotum. The podcast where I share all my music about black history, black culture, and black spirituality.
Today I want to talk about self-love and self-validation. That's the big idea, but I also want to talk about Bill Cassidy, the concepts of in-bank and menthol, the Buffalo Massacre, Elvert. I can't say the word, the Texas town, terrorism. And I want to talk a little bit about patient reparations, Juneteenth, and Memorial Day, all that kind of stuff.
Let's just know Friday and shall we? So I want to get to self-love and self-validation. I'm going to try to tell some stories. In the meantime, I'm giving my ideas about some pop culture events and guide us there.
But I want to say this. When we truly begin to love ourselves, individually and as a people, it will become less important to us if other people value us. Let me do the news and then we'll come back to that. Did y'all see the representative from Louisiana?
Bill Cassidy, his name is Bill Cassidy, of course he's Republican. They were having a conversation about maternal health rates in the state. And he said, when you correct for race, then our numbers are pretty normal. Now, for those of us who have some training and statistics, statistical analysis, inferential stats, whatever, then we know the typical way of talking about that is to control for something, not to correct for it.
For example, let me take some research I just found out. When you control for socioeconomic status and test scores, HBCUs actually do a better job at retaining and graduating students than do their PWI counterparts. When you control for those things, not when you quote unquote correct for those things. My man made a 40-in-slip.
OK? One third of your states are black women. You're not quote unquote correcting for them. They're making up the bulk of your population.
You don't correct for that. Just say there's structural racism embedded in the health care system that prevents these women from having a healthy delivery. Just say that, but you don't correct for race. Like, y'all, we are seeing in our lifetimes a more explicit racism.
Like, for a while, since like the 60s, 70s, racism kind of put on a veil. It put on its mask, and it became more structurally embedded and less mean. Now, there were some of us constantly pointing our finger at race, but other people couldn't hear us because it was veiled behind structures, policies, so on and so forth. Well, now the language, the rhetoric, is explicit again, and some of us are having a hard time just dealing with it.
He tried to back talk it and back walk it and say that's not really what he meant. Don't you say correct for race? And even if you have said control for race, why would you control for race? That's probably your state population.
What do you mean? So we have that going on. We also have this enlancio-mento happening. Now, because I haven't recorded it in a few weeks, this is probably a little old, but let me just say it now, have y'all seen the pictures of the Ukrainian refugees being welcomed into the US as compared to refugees from other areas, highly-melinated areas, and asking the question, what's the difference here?
What's the difference here? This is why the study of history and culture is so important, because in most Western countries, there is a history of what is called enlancio-mento. It is setting immigration policies in place to increase the white population numbers. Okay, look at the refugees that are being turned away, and look at who's being welcomed in.
Okay, that's enlancio-mento, as well-documented, it's been a practice since forever. You can look at Brazil, Argentina, these places where it was explicitly discussed. We know that's the case, and we know that that's been the case in the United States. We don't have to wonder what's happening.
The history bears it up. But you know why you might not be familiar with that history? Because we don't pay attention to black scholars. And that scholarship, that history, is primarily created by people with a certain kind of political ideology who are brown.
Now I'm coming back to that, because the six-starred validation part, I promise I'm bringing you back around. But if you want to know more about the, what's going on with immigration in these Ukrainian refugees, I want you to Google enlancio-mento. Sometimes you'll see it with the L, the whiteening enlancio-mento, and Portuguese you tend to see it with the R enlancio-mento. But just Google it, see what it is.
You don't have to believe me. It is also linked to what happened in Buffalo. All right, so in Buffalo, you got this white boy traveling to shoot up a black grocery store. Kill people indiscriminately.
Well, I guess it was indiscriminately because you let the white man go, all right? So you're killing folk. And before the mental health excuse, which we knew was all coming, was applied, we started talking about Great Replacement Theory. And Anu was caught in a blew it up, this idea of Great Replacement Theory.
Once again, black study scholars been telling us to shit the years. Okay, Dr. Francis Crestwells, and here's a book, if you haven't already, I want you to go get the ISIS papers by Dr. Francis Crestwells, and I'll put a link in the description of this podcast.
Okay, read the book. Wellzing argues that at the root of white supremacy is a need to confront the fear of genetic annihilation. We are afraid that we will be reproduced out of existence. We're afraid that we will be turned into a minority group because we know what happens to minority groups, right?
That that is what operates underneath white supremacy. And now all of a sudden, we got a new name for it, Great Replacement Theory, because Johnny Gross weren't reading your own stuff, okay? You see, the lack of internal appreciation? Maybe you wait for somebody to give it another name.
Dr. Francis Crestwells has been pretty much ruined her career by writing that book. Let me say this about the so-called Great Replacement Theory. Y'all, I want you to see how illogical white supremacy can be.
Now, they will tell you there is no structural racism, there is no racism, so on and so forth, okay? But if you are afraid to be turned into a minority group, you are telling us you know that there is something to be feared about being a minority group in this country. Do you hear what I'm saying? You can't believe that you are naturally superior and also believe that you will be replaced.
Those two things are counterintuitive. You see the fallacy within white supremacy. It's a fallacy at its core. That's why if you spend some type of reflection and you're not seeking external validation because you feel isolated and alone, it shouldn't make sense to you.
It shouldn't make sense to you, all right? I am also bothered by, it was somebody on Twitter, I can't remember his name and I'm glad I can't because I want to send you there to give him the looks, okay? But there was a white journalist on Twitter, white male journalist on Twitter who was trying to say that the Buffalo Shooters thing was he had a toothache and he had been having these dental issues and had a hard time receiving healthcare to treat the toothache and because of that, he was easily persuaded to be an anti-semite in these online forums. Yeah, can we say go go get your arm?
Cause you reach in, you reach in, you reach in, you reach in, what does O'Con's razor say? The simplest thing is probably the truest thing, right? So I'm supposed to believe because he had a toothache, he blames Jewish doctors and because he blames Jewish doctors, he goes shoot up a black grocery store with the N word on his gun. I don't know, that doesn't even make sense.
I don't understand how you felt the need to tweak that foolishness and reveal your own biases. Listen y'all, when you understand that the root of this terrorism is anti-human violence, anti-black violence, anti-lactin-X violence, anti-tai violence, you don't have to go go get your arm. You don't have to reach for another explanation. The explanation is pure, it's right there, it's anti-black violence that's sending someone into tops.
Anti-black violence, it's not a toothache. That might be as common as a toothache. Maybe that's what you're trying to say. But it's simply anti-black violence.
So you can't be radicalized unless there is something there for that seed to grow into. Ain't that biblical? That soil gotta be fertile for the seed? Ain't that biblical?
Y'all tell me, I don't know. Send me an email to Dr. Tippett, tell him to talk to that comment if I'm wrong on that. But I thought it was biblical with a story about the, what you're so, you're so, you're so, you're, you're, what you're so, yeah, that it's gotta be fertile soil.
You can't be radicalized unless there's something there. And it ain't a toothache that has to be there. Stop letting them play in our face with this foolishness. What they don't want to do and why they have to go go gadget arm is because they don't want to admit there's a system in place that supports anti-black violence.
That's why your representative can say, when you correct for race, because he understands the system. And let me show you a little bit more of the system. So a couple of weeks ago, in the New York Times, there was this article about how Haiti has been paying, well, had been paying reparations to France for hundreds of years after the Haitian Revolution. And the article, which got passed editors, the article basically alluded to the fact that nobody knew this.
Y'all, I went to predominantly high school, white high schools and I knew this since like senior year. What you mean nobody knew this? Everybody black, I don't know it. What do you mean nobody knew this?
See, okay, let me tell you something. Let me tell you something. And then I'm gonna get into this validation piece. No, I'm going to the Juneteenth ice cream thing.
Then we get into the validation piece. But I want to say this, white people learn us, but they don't want us to learn us. They learn our behaviors. They don't necessarily know our history and they don't want us to know our history.
And we ignore all of it. There's a problem there. I'm gonna get back to it. Let's talk about Juneteenth ice cream.
And today is Memorial Day, right? I'm uploading this podcast on Memorial Day 2022. Let's talk about what happens when you, all right. Let me just say.
So great value ice cream. By now you've seen the picture, Walmart's brand, Great Value Ice Cream, was coming out with a Juneteenth flavor at what was gonna be a red velvet and cheesecake. And they had trademarked, had put in an application to trademark Juneteenth. And baby, we were up at Orange, why would we?
We had a time, we had a time, we had a time with that. We were up at Orange so much so that they abandoned the trademark application and the idea has been put on ice pun intended, okay? The exploitation of Juneteenth was painfully obvious in such a way that we were angry, a rightful anger, the right to choose as angry as Audrey Lord would say. And our anger got what we wanted.
So when people say you got to be angry, I want you to see how anger worked. Okay, anyway, we were rightfully upset. But I blame every Negro on that congressional black caucus that petition I have it recognized as a federal holiday anyway, because that was seeking external validation for some shit we could validate on our own. Do you understand what I mean to you?
When you individually or as a people seek someone else's approval, an attaboy, a pat on the back, what you're doing is giving them power over the situation. Juneteenth been a holiday since we've been free. Why do we need the US government? Who we were getting free from?
Why do we need them to validate our holiday? It had been practiced, it has traditions, it has a whole ass flag, right? It has foodstuffs that didn't need to be trademarked because they belonged to the people. So why pray to you Negroes in a suit?
Did we have to petition the US government to recognize the holiday? We didn't need them to. The descendants of the people that held us, you need them to say, okay, it's okay? You need a day off, we could say, listen, you need a day off?
With the food price we didn't cook it out anyway. So we didn't mean that y'all. Stop asking, stop seeking external validation. Why are you asking them to give you permission to celebrate something that already belongs to you?
And we not gonna act like this is just what holidays, we do it with almost everything, our music. And let's pay attention to what happens, right? Today is Memorial Day. Until the last few years, you didn't even know that it was a black holiday.
Until the last few years, you really didn't know that. That Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, was celebrated May 1st and Charleston. Now you still got some white historians trying to say that wasn't the first, but they got it, at least it was one of the first. It was a black holiday.
White people don't really get down like we do. To honor the dead who fight for liberation, that don't sound like you. So now we know that it was a black holiday appropriated to the point where you can sell it back to the people. There are white houses in my neighborhood right now where Herschel Walker for Senate signs.
So we know what kind of people they are. But American flags wrapped around a yard for Memorial Day. And you know they don't know what this holiday is about, because they took it from us because you think Juneteenth can't possibly go in that same direction. You already saw it, Walmart, Great Value, Ice Cream, Dollar Tree with the Juneteenth Place in Crop.
You see it already one year, it's been one year. And they already trying to commercialize and trade by your tradition. Why? Because somebody wanted some external validation.
You see how that's dangerous? You see what happens? What happened to country music? You created country music, not even commissioned it don't belong to you.
You still got white country western fans trying to tell you, it ain't your stuff and you b- The banjo, you brought here. Do you know that? You brought the banjo here. You don't even know that because you're so busy seeking external.
You probably know more about Mozart than you do about banjo. Do you understand what I'm saying? Yeah, so let me say what I wanted to say about external validation. We knew are giving someone else the power to say, yes, this is legitimate, yes, this is good, yes, this is valuable, yes, you are legitimate, yes, you are good, yes, you are valuable.
You're putting all your power in their hands. That's individually and as a people. Now let me say what I wanted to say about Black Studies. At my earliest academic training is purely Afrocentric African-centered Blackness.
Okay, I started my undergrad degree at FAM. Anybody who went to Humphreys era of FAMU in the 90s will tell you we were very pro-Black, very Afrocentric, okay? And then I graduated from another HBCU Fort Valley State University, very Black, very country. And I had the privilege of being schooled and mentored by NYU Leemuch in the African World Studies Institute.
So I had a very Black Studies lean to me early in my academic career. So much so that when I went to Florida International University for my master's degree in African-New World Studies, I got to shock my life. Because here I was encountering Black folk, studying Black issues from a predominantly Western perspective. And I was floored.
I was sitting in class and y'all critiquing a saunty and I said nothing about structuralized racism. What the hell, what, what? And that's when I began to realize when I started paying attention to the politics of citation, I started to realize no, they are being validated by an academy who does not validate African-centered, Afro-centric thought. Some of you have heard me say this before.
When I was relatively new to Instagram, there was an account, a social media account. And I don't even remember the name of it, so good. Because I don't want to give them no bad press. Because I think the center of what they were trying to do was good.
But it was Black grad students or grad students that something about Black graduate students, right? And one of the moderators, one of the administrators, whatever she was, was sharing a list of resources she was reading for her comps. And her comps had something to do with Black folk, right? So I commented as a scholar who wants to help other Black scholars, I said something about you need more Black studies scholars on this list.
And very nastily her response was, you must not know who these people are. Okay, yeah, you got Black folk on this list. You're citing Black people? They are not Black studies scholars, not everybody Black studies from a Black center.
But you have academics, right? Because they want to play the politics of higher ed. They want to be validated by our ones who are bastions of white supremacy, some of them. Most of them, probably all of them, that will thumb their nose and roll their eyes when you are pushing them to understand things from their own cultural perspective and their own cultural ends.
Let me tell y'all something. It is my dream to have books published through Africa World Press, Third World Press. You know why? Because the people who are my academic heroes, that's where they stuff comes out.
Now, I'm R1 trained to someone from an R1 to some of my old professors. They would try to talk me down off their ledge. Don't do that. Don't give them that.
That's too important to go there. That sounds a lot like what people were telling me when I chose to go to an HBCU. Don't do that. You're too smart for that.
You're limiting yourself for that. Thank God I didn't listen. See, we lose something when we are chasing somebody else's stuff. You don't have an opportunity to build your own shit because you're too busy working on somebody else's farm.
Do you understand what I'm saying to you? And this is what the Tony Morrison quote is becoming more popular, praise God give thanks. That racism is a distraction. Not only is it a distraction, it keeps you from doing your stuff from listening to your people.
Francis Cresswell's told us about the fear of genetic annihilation and you didn't recognize it until somebody white in a newspaper called it Great Replacement Theory. How many years behind are we because we are distracted by their epistemology? So yeah, that's all I really wanted to say today. It is Memorial Day.
Today is the day where we honor those who fight for our freedoms, who've lost their lives fighting for our freedoms. And despite pop culture wanting to take you to modern US military. And I give thanks for those, those people who lost their lives fighting for this country because a whole lot of them look like me. I also can't forget the freedom fighters who were never in the military in that way.
Fred Hampton, John Brown, we owe them thanks and gratitude to. So y'all go ahead, put some meat on the ground, sit down at the space, table, slap some bones, and make today everything that you need. Tell them to touch. Hey y'all, hey, it's your girl, Ted.
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