Latest / The Steve Harvey Morning Show / Erika Alexander, Actress & Whitney Dow, a Director, wants to show you the money for slavery descendants, Hosts of "Reparations: The Big Payback" Podcast

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Erika Alexander, Actress & Whitney Dow, a Director, wants to show you the money for slavery descendants, Hosts of "Reparations: The Big Payback" Podcast · The Steve Harvey Morning Show

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Speaker 1: two cares they've fallen that celebritative. Definitely entrepreneurs, but they're
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Speaker 1: also decision makers because they changed our views. My next years.
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Speaker 1: Erica Alexander and Whitney Dow, They've teamed up for a
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Speaker 1: new podcast that explores the full picture of reparations with
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Speaker 1: arguments both for and against restitution for Black American descendants
1:17
Speaker 1: of enslaved people. That's that's the stage for our conversation
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Speaker 1: that's been discussed reparations. Eric Alexander has beloved for iconic
1:24
Speaker 1: acting roses, living single get out series like Black Lightning,
1:28
Speaker 1: She Wears Me the Hats. Now known as an actress
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Speaker 1: but the trail blazing activist, entrepreneur, creator, producer, and director. Basically,
1:35
Speaker 1: she's an all around boss. Okay, Whitney Dow, He's in
1:37
Speaker 1: the winning filmmaker and educator. He's been producing and directing
1:41
Speaker 1: films focused on race and identity for almost two decades
1:44
Speaker 1: and as partner of a Two Tone Productions. Directing credits
1:47
Speaker 1: include one, I'm very Familiar with Two Towns of Jasper,
1:51
Speaker 1: I sit where I want the legacy of Brown versus
1:53
Speaker 1: Board of Education, Unfinished Country, and when the Drama is beating.
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Speaker 1: His producer credits include freedom, some banished, how white you
2:01
Speaker 1: drove blacks out of town in America? Please welcome. I've
2:04
Speaker 1: set the tone. He's the general. Please work in the
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Speaker 1: money making conversation to host the reparations the big payback Erica,
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Speaker 1: Alexander and Whitney down. Thank you. That's that's We're glad
2:16
Speaker 1: to be here, and congratulations on everything you're doing in
2:19
Speaker 1: all the success and also highlighting our work and others
2:23
Speaker 1: like us. We appreciate it. Well. First of all, thank
2:26
Speaker 1: you for coming on the show. And I wanted such
2:28
Speaker 1: as tone of who we're talking about because in the
2:30
Speaker 1: past and Whitney's on his own video as well as
2:32
Speaker 1: audio as well because the show plays back on television
2:35
Speaker 1: as well as own podcasts, and the reason I wanted
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Speaker 1: to bring you on the show because I'm about Whitney's
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Speaker 1: age and through life. I've heard this reparation tone being
2:44
Speaker 1: thrown out there, and usually it's some person who looks
2:47
Speaker 1: kind of dishoveled on the street in New York City
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Speaker 1: holding a cardboard sign is crooked, but somehow he's fouled
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Speaker 1: the marker and he says, you owe me, and he's misspelled.
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Speaker 1: Reparations Now I'm looking at Hilige, gifted actress, a highly
3:02
Speaker 1: talented producer and creator, and Whitney and Okay, this is
3:07
Speaker 1: not what I grew up on. This is not my
3:09
Speaker 1: mom's TV. Okay, you know that is so funny. Yeah,
3:14
Speaker 1: you know what I was going to say, Whitney, that
3:16
Speaker 1: we were going to go out to talk to people,
3:18
Speaker 1: and I'm just gonna say, we'll put the reparations on
3:22
Speaker 1: the cardboard and they'll come to us. You're exactly right.
3:26
Speaker 1: That is something that's been in it's sort of a
3:28
Speaker 1: marginalized community. And Whitney can speak to that very well
3:31
Speaker 1: because he's been working inside of race and talking about
3:34
Speaker 1: these things for a while. Go ahead, you know, it's
3:37
Speaker 1: it's really incredible. I think we're you know, Erica, we're
3:39
Speaker 1: talking about this earlier today, about this moment that we're
3:42
Speaker 1: in that where, you know, the last year, we're listening
3:45
Speaker 1: to the major the major presidential camp candidates talking about
3:50
Speaker 1: reparations on the debate stage without fear, but actually because
3:53
Speaker 1: they knew it was something that Americans wanted to hear about.
3:55
Speaker 1: Thank you for bringing up my age, Sean to appreciate that.
3:58
Speaker 1: You know that Erica is the little younger than we are.
4:02
Speaker 1: Know know a lot you can tell just by looking
4:05
Speaker 1: at between so the But but to think about when
4:10
Speaker 1: I was coming up on, when you were coming up, Um,
4:13
Speaker 1: this wasn't even remotely a conversation that we thought could
4:17
Speaker 1: be have. And now we're in this moment when it
4:21
Speaker 1: feels Look, I don't have a crystal ball, I don't
4:24
Speaker 1: open possible, but it feels real. HR forty feels like
4:27
Speaker 1: it has the possibility of finally passing and there can
4:30
Speaker 1: be an actual discussion about reparations in this country. Reparations
4:35
Speaker 1: What does that mean? When from a black perspective might
4:38
Speaker 1: ask both of your questions. I'm gonna ask you first, Erica,
4:40
Speaker 1: from a black perspective, what does reparations mean? Because it
4:43
Speaker 1: seems because there's a lot of people could stand in
4:45
Speaker 1: Lafe for that, starting with the American Indians, also more
4:49
Speaker 1: recently the Japanese during the World War Two when they
4:52
Speaker 1: were putting in and camps or the fear that they
4:55
Speaker 1: will cause some type of injury or inside spies in America. So,
5:00
Speaker 1: but the Blacks were enslaver, they were brought over here
5:02
Speaker 1: against their will. And so now we're only talking about
5:06
Speaker 1: you know, descendants of enslaved people. So now you're not
5:10
Speaker 1: including all black people. So how did that decision come about? Nothing?
5:13
Speaker 1: Blue out? Why why am I not getting my check? Now?
5:17
Speaker 1: You know, I'm just saying, well, you know, reparations is
5:19
Speaker 1: actually we have risk of He actually read um, uh
5:24
Speaker 1: the definition of reparations on the episode two. Compensation. That's
5:29
Speaker 1: what it is for war damages paid by a defeated state.
5:32
Speaker 1: That's a very sort of that's what it is in
5:35
Speaker 1: the dictionary. Um. But if you've made something wrong, you're
5:40
Speaker 1: making amends for that wrong. And that's what reparations is.
5:44
Speaker 1: Pay money are some sort of something that helps those
5:49
Speaker 1: that you have wrong. That's reparations. Why aren't you getting them? Um?
5:54
Speaker 1: It's because Black people weren't in a position to advocate
5:57
Speaker 1: for themselves after slavery. There was a brief period during
6:02
Speaker 1: reconstruction where they disgusted and everybody knows about forty eight
6:06
Speaker 1: years of the Mule and about you know, uh Sherman's
6:10
Speaker 1: bill that they asked him to put forward. Um. But
6:13
Speaker 1: then what happened is that racism settled back in Jim Crow.
6:17
Speaker 1: All these things happened, Reconstruction stopped, and that's why you
6:21
Speaker 1: didn't get it. And then by the time the civil
6:22
Speaker 1: rights at Civil Rights UM period comes up, people are
6:25
Speaker 1: starting to talk about um, uh, the rights that we
6:29
Speaker 1: have or don't have. Then uh, it wasn't the time
6:33
Speaker 1: maybe to bring that up when you're trying to just survive.
6:37
Speaker 1: But people did bring it up during the Civil Rights
6:39
Speaker 1: UM period, and they brought it up all during it.
6:41
Speaker 1: And we'll talk about the types of people Calli House
6:45
Speaker 1: and others. Um Whitney loves that story of Cali House
6:48
Speaker 1: and Queen Mother more people like that who kept trying
6:51
Speaker 1: to get reparations, pensions, in other ways to um to
6:54
Speaker 1: help blacks, but we didn't have any power. More importantly,
6:57
Speaker 1: the people in power did not care and or want
7:01
Speaker 1: to do it because they saw as us still as
7:04
Speaker 1: being subhuman and we'd have to just make out on
7:06
Speaker 1: our own. So now that we have power, we're trying
7:09
Speaker 1: to say, don't ask why we didn't get it. Thin
7:12
Speaker 1: asked why. Now that we have power, how can we
7:16
Speaker 1: get it to help the descendants of American slaves? Now, okay, cool,
7:21
Speaker 1: Now that's always coming from you, and that's to be expected.
7:24
Speaker 1: You're a woman of color, a person of color. You
7:26
Speaker 1: you were that angry generation. You You've you've been disenfranchised,
7:30
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, Like you said, but now
7:32
Speaker 1: now I witn't Okay, you're white guy right now? Well
7:36
Speaker 1: what what what's your problem? What's what's your what's your problem?
7:38
Speaker 1: We're talking with this black young lady over here. Boy reparations. Okay,
7:41
Speaker 1: you really hurt? Not calls? Sir? Okay, can you be quiet.
7:45
Speaker 1: I know you've made a lot of movies that have
7:47
Speaker 1: really been equal when alleans for injustice, uh and keeping
7:52
Speaker 1: it writing parallel to the course of righteousness or black
7:55
Speaker 1: and brown people. But why are you Whitney getting involved
7:59
Speaker 1: with Erica? Well, you know it's funny, you know that
8:01
Speaker 1: with all the work that I've done, and I've never
8:04
Speaker 1: had a couple of sort of moments in those lives
8:06
Speaker 1: where I always kind of felt, I think, like a
8:08
Speaker 1: lot of white people, I think that you know, race
8:13
Speaker 1: and racism or the structures of the racist structures of
8:16
Speaker 1: our country. I was kind of like thought of thought
8:18
Speaker 1: of outside myself, something that someone who I believed that
8:24
Speaker 1: I wanted to. I believe in social justice, I believe
8:26
Speaker 1: in equality. I had to work on these things. And
8:28
Speaker 1: the moment the big switch for me, as you know,
8:30
Speaker 1: that's all embedded in me, and I need to be
8:33
Speaker 1: working for all the roads that I was following down
8:37
Speaker 1: led back to myself is that I needed to take action.
8:41
Speaker 1: I needed to recognize my part in the paradigm and
8:44
Speaker 1: say I could shift it so that I really believe
8:47
Speaker 1: that this is gonna sound weird in the context of
8:49
Speaker 1: this show, but but white people are suffering from the
8:53
Speaker 1: fact that this injury has never been repaired. And I
8:56
Speaker 1: really feel that we cannot be full citizens of this
8:59
Speaker 1: country and in some ways even fully moral humans until
9:03
Speaker 1: we make restitution if we try and repair the damage
9:07
Speaker 1: of slavery. And I think that part of that is
9:10
Speaker 1: not even whether we can do it effectively, but we
9:14
Speaker 1: have to make the attempt. We have we have to
9:17
Speaker 1: make the attempt. And you know what we're talking about
9:19
Speaker 1: earlier about what it is, and one of the things
9:21
Speaker 1: that's you know, I I often joke with Erica about that,
9:24
Speaker 1: I'm what I'm relieved about is that, you know, when
9:27
Speaker 1: you talked earlier about who gets it and who doesn't
9:29
Speaker 1: get it, being a white person, I know I don't
9:32
Speaker 1: have standing to make that decision. The weigh in with
9:35
Speaker 1: an opinion on that. I have the easy job. I
9:37
Speaker 1: just have to advocate for it. Now you guys have
9:40
Speaker 1: to figure out how it gets done and gets absolutely
9:43
Speaker 1: I agree, you know, I look at this. I remember
9:46
Speaker 1: when Steve Harvard and I was doing Lab radio in
9:49
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, Son point three to beat and every time
9:51
Speaker 1: this guy will come back, and he had this little
9:54
Speaker 1: book and it was a dirty book. So he was
9:56
Speaker 1: with pictures that the pages were bent, and he would
10:00
Speaker 1: he will make his claim to me because he wanted
10:02
Speaker 1: to get on the morning show. He always you gotta
10:04
Speaker 1: let me speak to that. I gotta tell the truth.
10:05
Speaker 1: I gotta let people know and every every access, Sir,
10:08
Speaker 1: I can't work facts. What are you backing this up on?
10:11
Speaker 1: What facts are you basing your claim for reparation? Because
10:14
Speaker 1: he definitely did not look like you, Erica, And he
10:17
Speaker 1: definitely did not look like you quit me, okay? Nor
10:19
Speaker 1: did he have the credits or the background will allow
10:22
Speaker 1: me to actually at least you gotta can talk because
10:26
Speaker 1: you have one one up. You have the credits, allowed
10:28
Speaker 1: to have a real legitimate voice. So I want to
10:31
Speaker 1: hear your side of the story, which is a blessing
10:34
Speaker 1: because if you don't have that, then you can shoot
10:37
Speaker 1: to the side like I did him All those years
10:39
Speaker 1: he kept coming to me trying to get on the
10:42
Speaker 1: Steve Harvey Morning Show. Now you're on my show, money
10:45
Speaker 1: Making Conversation popular platform. Now? Is that being a blessing
10:49
Speaker 1: for you, Erica? To be able to come on shows,
10:52
Speaker 1: to do national articles, to have a podcast, to finally
10:55
Speaker 1: get this story out. It has been a blessing. It's
10:59
Speaker 1: also a burden anybody that's in this type of work.
11:01
Speaker 1: You get exhausted by it. Talking about these issues is
11:05
Speaker 1: difficult because it brings up all sorts of conversations in
11:08
Speaker 1: your life or you know, challenges or disappointments you might
11:12
Speaker 1: have had and sort of thinking why. But it is
11:15
Speaker 1: a blessing because it's part of what I gets. Somebody
11:18
Speaker 1: passed me beaton a long time ago, people like Harriet Tubman.
11:21
Speaker 1: If she can go through those swamps and go back
11:24
Speaker 1: and forth and back and forth, I can do this,
11:26
Speaker 1: I can do a podcast, I can do whatever I
11:29
Speaker 1: need to do in order to help people move forward.
11:32
Speaker 1: And and so it's it's it's um. It is a blessing.
11:36
Speaker 1: It's also blessing to be on the show like yours,
11:39
Speaker 1: to be discussing this because that means that it is UM,
11:42
Speaker 1: not only the zeitgeist, but it's it's happening among people
11:46
Speaker 1: who can help make the difference and bring it forward
11:48
Speaker 1: and then push it beyond UM any one platform. And
11:51
Speaker 1: that's important because people have been trying to have this
11:53
Speaker 1: conversation for a long time. We're not the first, we
11:56
Speaker 1: won't be the last. You have Frederick Douglas, you have
11:58
Speaker 1: two boys Garby, all these people again, James Foreman, we
12:01
Speaker 1: actually talk about him on our show and how he
12:04
Speaker 1: interrupted these church service at Riverside and he demanded five
12:09
Speaker 1: hundred million dollars in reparations because he said that the
12:12
Speaker 1: UM the churches were complicit in slavery and oppression and
12:16
Speaker 1: he wanted to hold them accountable. And UM, you have
12:20
Speaker 1: groups like in Cobra and John Kanyers in Congress and
12:24
Speaker 1: what he's doing there. And of course Sheila Jacksonline now
12:26
Speaker 1: with HR forty and all the women, Robin Ruth Simmons,
12:29
Speaker 1: we cannot forget her, and we'll talk more about her.
12:32
Speaker 1: What she's done in Evanston, Illinois by passing the first
12:35
Speaker 1: reparations bill in history. We are following her with a
12:38
Speaker 1: documentary that we are both making Whitney and I and Um.
12:42
Speaker 1: That's why we're having it. The fact that we're here
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Speaker 1: You know it isn't when this questions directed to you
14:46
Speaker 1: because you hear to work council culture and they work
14:48
Speaker 1: council culture. You know, kind of started with the removal
14:51
Speaker 1: of the Confederate statues, and and I I attested my
14:55
Speaker 1: miners and sociology by degree, it's in mathematics. And when
14:58
Speaker 1: I took sociology really allowed me to understand what I
15:01
Speaker 1: didn't know about my black history. I didn't really know
15:04
Speaker 1: the values that I brought to the table. Because if
15:06
Speaker 1: you go to a typical UH public school or even
15:09
Speaker 1: private school, this is what happens to black people. This
15:11
Speaker 1: is a black history that's told to us. We came
15:14
Speaker 1: over to America, we were enslaved, we were freed. Okay.
15:18
Speaker 1: Then suddenly it skips all the way to brown versus
15:21
Speaker 1: the Board of Education. Then it goes to the civil
15:24
Speaker 1: right marches, then it goes to I have a dream speech,
15:27
Speaker 1: then it goes to goes to UH to mar Luther
15:31
Speaker 1: King's asassination, and it kind of stops. This is those
15:35
Speaker 1: are accomplishments that you kind of read in history. And
15:39
Speaker 1: so when you say council culture, Blacks have always had
15:43
Speaker 1: a council culture when it comes to being educated and
15:46
Speaker 1: the education being fair to the masses. And so when
15:49
Speaker 1: I get not angry, I just get annoyed that you
15:53
Speaker 1: used the people use the word council culture and Unfortunately,
15:56
Speaker 1: it's coming from a majority of the white community that
15:58
Speaker 1: that we're council culture. Can you expound on that, because
16:01
Speaker 1: I think that's what makes a perfect parent for you
16:03
Speaker 1: guys on this podcast, because I can have this diverse
16:06
Speaker 1: conversation with both of you guys. Well, I think that
16:09
Speaker 1: you know, it's interesting, I think that white people also
16:11
Speaker 1: have a cancel culture in the history as well, because
16:13
Speaker 1: it's different. We've canceled out all we we worked really
16:16
Speaker 1: hard to cancel that all the bad things, the things
16:18
Speaker 1: that that don't line up with have this sort of
16:20
Speaker 1: this idea of American exceptionalism and how we sort of
16:23
Speaker 1: see always sort of been told told ourselves as white
16:26
Speaker 1: people that were sort of this you know, white Americans
16:29
Speaker 1: are you know, we're inherently good people that this thing.
16:32
Speaker 1: And I think that the parts that were left out
16:34
Speaker 1: of are the you know, the idea of of this
16:37
Speaker 1: idea of bootstrap against sort of the loan cowboy against
16:41
Speaker 1: the you know, riding out on the range with the
16:44
Speaker 1: lone cowboys. Now that stupid. A piece of the stories
16:47
Speaker 1: left out is that before him rode an army that
16:50
Speaker 1: slaughtered the native of the American So we could act
16:53
Speaker 1: out that independent act on his on his own. So
16:56
Speaker 1: I think that we're that the idea is like, I
16:58
Speaker 1: think you're exactly right there. What we're trying to do
17:01
Speaker 1: is take those pieces that are missing them, add them
17:04
Speaker 1: the story. And I just want to get back to
17:05
Speaker 1: something you said about Eric and been doing together. I
17:07
Speaker 1: think so much of the time these stories are told separately,
17:11
Speaker 1: the stories of Black America. There's Black History Month or
17:14
Speaker 1: there's this words and you know, I hate Black History Month.
17:18
Speaker 1: It should be History Month because your story and my
17:21
Speaker 1: story are the same story. They're they're inherently intertwined. By
17:24
Speaker 1: taking them apart and trying to say they're different, we
17:27
Speaker 1: you you inherently diminished them. And to understand either one,
17:31
Speaker 1: you have to understand them both as how they're rolling together.
17:35
Speaker 1: You know, when I when I listened to your talk,
17:36
Speaker 1: and I'm from Houston, Texas, born in native of Texas, Okay,
17:40
Speaker 1: and the project that you were involved and called Two
17:43
Speaker 1: Towns of Jasper, and it is very emotional for me
17:46
Speaker 1: because it involves the black man being brutalized, murdered and
17:51
Speaker 1: humiliated by the way he was killed, being drugged behind
17:55
Speaker 1: the truck. You was involved in that and they had
17:57
Speaker 1: a major impact in your life and probably led you
18:00
Speaker 1: down the path that you're going in right now. Talk
18:03
Speaker 1: about coming into that project and well, it was important
18:06
Speaker 1: to do a project like that. They had nothing to
18:08
Speaker 1: do with you, nothing to do with you, wasn't a
18:10
Speaker 1: relative of yours, but you felt a need to do
18:13
Speaker 1: a project. It was called two Towns of Jasper. Well
18:16
Speaker 1: that so I said, that was a major stepping off point.
18:18
Speaker 1: And you know, look at this, this is called money
18:21
Speaker 1: making conversations. And I'm making confession on here when I
18:24
Speaker 1: went down to do that, So I was I wanted
18:27
Speaker 1: to make a film. And I literally saw the press
18:32
Speaker 1: conference with Billy Rowells, the sheriff of Jasper Tectas, and
18:34
Speaker 1: he had that big ten gallon hat and he had
18:36
Speaker 1: like a car, two tone car hard Jack at the
18:39
Speaker 1: highway still like wranglers. I was like, that guy is
18:43
Speaker 1: a movie star. I want to go down there. So
18:45
Speaker 1: I go down there, and it was and the other things.
18:48
Speaker 1: So he said that that, oh yeah, we're having we're
18:51
Speaker 1: having uh, we're having there's a big clan rally here
18:53
Speaker 1: in support of the white community. I was like got
18:56
Speaker 1: into my head. I was like, wait a minute, this
18:57
Speaker 1: black man was just dragged to death in Texas and
19:00
Speaker 1: the clans coming to rally and support of white community.
19:04
Speaker 1: So I flew down there and the New Black Panther
19:07
Speaker 1: Party was all for They're having these counter demonstrations, and um,
19:12
Speaker 1: what happened is that I had actually gone down there
19:14
Speaker 1: because I thought, oh, if I want to make you
19:16
Speaker 1: want to make any advertising, I need to uh make
19:19
Speaker 1: a movie. That was given. I take it in. But
19:21
Speaker 1: what happened, and I think we we're talking a little
19:23
Speaker 1: bit this about this before the show started. I went down.
19:27
Speaker 1: I drove down tough Peak Road where they dragged James
19:29
Speaker 1: word body. They changed into a truck, three white men
19:32
Speaker 1: and we're driving down and they had saved spray painted
19:36
Speaker 1: circles where they had found all his different body parts
19:39
Speaker 1: on it. And we're driving and it went on and
19:42
Speaker 1: it went on, and it went on, and it went
19:45
Speaker 1: on for a mile. After mile three miles, we get
19:48
Speaker 1: to the small black church. At the end, you could
19:50
Speaker 1: see the imprint of his body where they laid because
19:54
Speaker 1: he he had been so he had been so you know,
19:56
Speaker 1: braided by the road. And that moment, that space like
20:01
Speaker 1: shook me so profoundly to my core. I really just
20:06
Speaker 1: it was like one of those moments where my my,
20:09
Speaker 1: my world just opened up and I and I just
20:12
Speaker 1: felt at that moment, if I can make something that
20:15
Speaker 1: slightly communicates what I'm feeling here and the horror that
20:20
Speaker 1: I'm feeling and also the recognition I'm feeling of being
20:25
Speaker 1: in a white American standing in that spot, I will
20:28
Speaker 1: have created something with value. And that was the beginning
20:31
Speaker 1: of the journey. Eric American your projects and absolutely, you
20:37
Speaker 1: know when you walk in the room, you know somebody's
20:39
Speaker 1: gonna let you know that. That's the beauty of being
20:41
Speaker 1: a person of color. You know, we can't run from
20:44
Speaker 1: you know, we we can't run from our skin tone.
20:47
Speaker 1: We walk in the room. I don't care if we
20:48
Speaker 1: have several degrees. I don't give a billionaires as a
20:51
Speaker 1: black rich person. That's a smart black person that just
20:54
Speaker 1: walked in the room. Now you're doing a podcast by Reparations. Now,
20:59
Speaker 1: how did this I'm together that you united and felt
21:02
Speaker 1: that Barce could be better served by partner with with me.
21:05
Speaker 1: How did you guys come together? Um, we came together
21:09
Speaker 1: because joy Read introduced us. Actually, joy Read knew that
21:13
Speaker 1: we were both interested in doing something with the reparations,
21:17
Speaker 1: UH you know something project and UM. He of course
21:22
Speaker 1: has his uh life and his credits and all the
21:26
Speaker 1: work that he's done. And I had just recently UM
21:30
Speaker 1: produced UM with Color Farm Media my partner Ben are
21:33
Speaker 1: Non that John Lewis could trouble documentary and UM, she said,
21:39
Speaker 1: you guys should get together, and that's how it happened.
21:42
Speaker 1: We got together in the calfway, we started cafe. We
21:44
Speaker 1: started talking about um our work. He's sort of explained
21:49
Speaker 1: to me some of his hesitation or the things that
21:52
Speaker 1: he would be UM most concerned about going forward. I
21:56
Speaker 1: didn't have those concerns because I've been working and collaborating
21:59
Speaker 1: with so many different people my entire life that I've
22:02
Speaker 1: had to be flexible and sort of you know, be
22:05
Speaker 1: a chameleon, those types of things. But I totally got
22:08
Speaker 1: He wanted to make sure that we would be a
22:10
Speaker 1: good fit, and I did too. I didn't want this
22:13
Speaker 1: to fail because we we felt to meet in what
22:16
Speaker 1: our goals were, and we were aligned. We have similar
22:19
Speaker 1: missions in life. We have um really interesting sense of humor,
22:25
Speaker 1: and we could laugh things off and move forward, but
22:27
Speaker 1: we also were very serious about the work. So that's
22:30
Speaker 1: how what happened. We decided to do it, and we
22:32
Speaker 1: got going on it. Then the pandemic hit and UM,
22:37
Speaker 1: by that time we had been asked whether we wanted
22:39
Speaker 1: to do a podcast about it, and um, and those
22:42
Speaker 1: things sort of halted. And I had already gone on
22:45
Speaker 1: the Breakfast Club to talk about the Reparations documentary, and
22:49
Speaker 1: Charlemagne the God asked me, yo, queen. He gave me
22:51
Speaker 1: a call, what's going on with that? Are you doing
22:53
Speaker 1: a podcast? Because he had just gotten a deal to
22:56
Speaker 1: do his podcast network, The Black Effect, and I said, well,
22:59
Speaker 1: you know it's available, you're interested? And he goes yes,
23:02
Speaker 1: And next thing you know, here we are. Because of
23:05
Speaker 1: his resources and the power that he had in that space. UM,
23:08
Speaker 1: we were making this podcast and we called it the
23:11
Speaker 1: Big Payback. This is a great story. Now within that story,
23:17
Speaker 1: she said, there was some reservations. What were your reservations
23:21
Speaker 1: with you? You know, I'm a good listen to that.
23:27
Speaker 1: I'll so, you know, Joy called and said, yo, you
23:31
Speaker 1: gotta meet Eric and her and her partner Ben, And
23:33
Speaker 1: I said, okay, And you know, look, I'll just be
23:35
Speaker 1: really honest here in the show. I'll say, look, you know,
23:39
Speaker 1: some movie star actors some beautiful movie star actors. I need.
23:43
Speaker 1: I need that in my life. I said, you know,
23:45
Speaker 1: I said so when she came down, and I said, Erica,
23:48
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know if it's gonna work. You know,
23:50
Speaker 1: you're this big star. I'm just the filmmaker of the thing.
23:53
Speaker 1: And I said, don't you know, I don't know if
23:55
Speaker 1: this is gonna be a good fit. She just looked
23:57
Speaker 1: at me and she said with me, you think that
24:02
Speaker 1: I survived in Hollywood for thirty years out knowing how
24:05
Speaker 1: to handle white guys like you. And I was like, okay,
24:08
Speaker 1: that's something I can work with. There was like no
24:10
Speaker 1: bull there. It was just like straight up and that
24:13
Speaker 1: was sort of the beginning of this journey. I love it.
24:16
Speaker 1: And that's that's true that she has been a blessing.
24:19
Speaker 1: I'm just talking about Erica as a p because I've
24:21
Speaker 1: been in Hollywood's N eighty two while doing sitcom. So
24:24
Speaker 1: I've been blessed to watch her career evolved and grow
24:27
Speaker 1: and diverse roles that she's taking upon herself. Now, the
24:31
Speaker 1: interesting thing about my life is that when you when
24:33
Speaker 1: you bring up names I know, like Sheila Jackson Lee,
24:36
Speaker 1: you know she's out of Houston bear for me with
24:38
Speaker 1: her work and it's HR forty bill in Congress? What
24:41
Speaker 1: is the end game for you guys with this reparation?
24:44
Speaker 1: Is the big payback? Are you guys gonna go to
24:46
Speaker 1: Congress one day and sit down and and talk to
24:48
Speaker 1: Congress and tell them why your podcast is relevant? And
24:51
Speaker 1: why then they're gonna look at you, Mr white guy?
24:53
Speaker 1: You know? Why is he I got that movie style
24:56
Speaker 1: over here because she's liberal Hollywood? Why that white guy
24:59
Speaker 1: sitting with her? So? How are you guys? What's the
25:01
Speaker 1: end game? Erica? What's going on? Go ahead with me?
25:05
Speaker 1: Isn't that one? Yeah? Look, I got I got the
25:11
Speaker 1: hate mail to prove it. People ask me that, you know,
25:13
Speaker 1: my people ask me the same thing sometimes, and you
25:15
Speaker 1: always joke. I said, I'm here to say white people,
25:18
Speaker 1: So you know, and I think that that one of
25:20
Speaker 1: the things is that I mean, we're we're working on
25:23
Speaker 1: two tracks because we've actually been embedded in Sheila Jackson
25:25
Speaker 1: Leave's office for you know, I think almost two years
25:28
Speaker 1: now tracking HR forty and uh and filming that that
25:32
Speaker 1: whole process. But look, the endgame is to help get
25:38
Speaker 1: HR forty pass to bring that and the thing that's so,
25:41
Speaker 1: and you know this, you know this well with Seana
25:43
Speaker 1: that the HR forty is just a bill to talk
25:46
Speaker 1: about it. It's not a bill that's promising anything. It's
25:50
Speaker 1: a bill to establish commission to talk about the possibility
25:53
Speaker 1: of retors and make recommendations. And so that seems to
25:58
Speaker 1: me just like there are minimum, the bare minimum that
26:03
Speaker 1: we should be doing as Americans. And one of the
26:05
Speaker 1: things that I often talk about is we both believe
26:08
Speaker 1: that this division, this division that was that was called
26:11
Speaker 1: original sin of slavery, is at the root. It's sort
26:14
Speaker 1: of like you know, it's at the root of so
26:17
Speaker 1: many of our problems that are dividing us. And when
26:19
Speaker 1: you talk about how we sort of see ourselves and
26:21
Speaker 1: the way you're talking about storytelling earlier, I think that
26:24
Speaker 1: one of the big things that we have to get
26:26
Speaker 1: over is white people have to real wait. Americans have
26:29
Speaker 1: to reimagine their story in this ethic of America. And
26:34
Speaker 1: I think that HR forty and had a conversation we
26:37
Speaker 1: can address those things head on can be a beginning
26:40
Speaker 1: for that. I want to change just a little bit
26:43
Speaker 1: subject about it, because you brought up your special Erica
26:45
Speaker 1: that you I should say specially the do community with
26:47
Speaker 1: John Lewis good trouble. I saw it, and I was
26:52
Speaker 1: disappointed in myself that I didn't know the main I
26:56
Speaker 1: didn't know his story. I didn't know, you know, because
26:59
Speaker 1: the last two years we've been able to see a playoff,
27:01
Speaker 1: especially when he was announced he had cancer and through
27:04
Speaker 1: through this pandemic, and then of course he died. But
27:07
Speaker 1: what was your biggest takeaway from Because I didn't know.
27:09
Speaker 1: I really didn't know. He was like our modern day
27:11
Speaker 1: version of Dr Martin Luther King. He was living in
27:14
Speaker 1: breathing version of Dr Martin Luther King. And we didn't
27:17
Speaker 1: really I think um appreciate that, especially in Black America,
27:21
Speaker 1: definitely in not white America. And so why do you
27:24
Speaker 1: think he was so because he was so humble first
27:26
Speaker 1: of all, but he really didn't didn't climb out. He
27:30
Speaker 1: never ran for senity, he never tried to run for
27:32
Speaker 1: the office of Vice president, would never recommended that or
27:35
Speaker 1: never tried to run for presidency. Talk about that special
27:39
Speaker 1: and I just wanted to bring that out of just
27:41
Speaker 1: just my whole thing, and bringing you guys on was
27:43
Speaker 1: to give you guys a voice, to lay down the
27:45
Speaker 1: background that you guys have the right and the expertise
27:48
Speaker 1: and the cachet to talk about reparations on your podcast
27:51
Speaker 1: in this discussion of the big payback. But just give
27:54
Speaker 1: us a little feedback on your role in your experience
27:56
Speaker 1: of just the final months and years of John Lewis. Uh.
28:03
Speaker 1: John Lewis is about destiny. Um. He is a wonderful
28:08
Speaker 1: example of the true American dream. And that whole good
28:12
Speaker 1: trouble thing, which is what you know is the name
28:15
Speaker 1: of the film and his moniker and his motto. It's
28:19
Speaker 1: basically just saying, if you see something that's not right,
28:23
Speaker 1: not fair, not just do something, say something, get into trouble,
28:28
Speaker 1: good trouble. It's asking us all to go beyond what's comfortable.
28:32
Speaker 1: He then, he's not asking us to stand on the
28:34
Speaker 1: bridge and get our brains beat out. He's not asking
28:37
Speaker 1: us to to do those types of things that you know,
28:40
Speaker 1: people in the struggle who might be more um trained
28:44
Speaker 1: in non violence and what and what he did. He's
28:47
Speaker 1: just saying, do more, you know, take it upon yourself
28:51
Speaker 1: to get yourself and and and and reposition the argument,
28:55
Speaker 1: the conversation, and and and take it upon yourself to
28:58
Speaker 1: do it. He committed his to a fight for civil
29:01
Speaker 1: rights and justice for all, justice for all, and he
29:04
Speaker 1: did it. We know how he did it without malice,
29:07
Speaker 1: with courage, just of his convictions, his abiding love of
29:11
Speaker 1: the beloved community. He talks a lot about that, the
29:13
Speaker 1: beloved community. UM. Martin Luther King talked a lot about it.
29:17
Speaker 1: That certainly the philosophy of nonviolence UM peaceful protests. We
29:22
Speaker 1: see Black Lives Matter out there doing their things in
29:24
Speaker 1: the street. He was Black Lives Matters with Snick and
29:28
Speaker 1: what he did. And so I think that if you
29:30
Speaker 1: think about the boy from Troy, which was what Martin
29:32
Speaker 1: Luther King called him, he was sort of just stepped
29:36
Speaker 1: into his destiny and he did it in the most
29:40
Speaker 1: violent and one of the most violent racial storms in
29:44
Speaker 1: America after slavery, actually the most. And we think about
29:48
Speaker 1: George Floyd and all the things that are happening now,
29:50
Speaker 1: they were just getting assassinated and killed left and right.
29:52
Speaker 1: You didn't do that lightly. You knew what you were
29:55
Speaker 1: going on to do. But he was an American icon
29:57
Speaker 1: and he became an American icon because he stood and
30:00
Speaker 1: he kept going forward and he got arrested and he
30:02
Speaker 1: didn't just do overnight. He was there often for several
30:05
Speaker 1: weeks before they could get him out and he went back.
30:09
Speaker 1: You know, Jesse Jackson actually taught me a little bit
30:11
Speaker 1: about how brave John Lewis was. He said that Rosa
30:15
Speaker 1: Parks said that they said John Lewis did the hard time,
30:19
Speaker 1: like they were impressed with John Lewis. Um. So again,
30:24
Speaker 1: I think that the world didn't know about him because
30:26
Speaker 1: he stood next to a really bright star, Martin Luther King,
30:29
Speaker 1: and we were always talking about Margareth the King and
30:31
Speaker 1: all those big stars, Malcolm X and those things. But
30:34
Speaker 1: now the cameras shifting boom, and we're starting to see
30:37
Speaker 1: that there were other people, and we're starting to see
30:39
Speaker 1: why he showed up on that bridge and talk about
30:42
Speaker 1: the murder that happened there, or must these things happen
30:45
Speaker 1: with murders? Is something horribly tragic happens and he showed
30:49
Speaker 1: up to support the people in the town. But that's
30:53
Speaker 1: why why, because it's time has come and John Lewis
30:56
Speaker 1: deserves it. He got into good trouble. He's a freedom writer.
30:59
Speaker 1: He is that boy from Way and telling that story
31:01
Speaker 1: was an honor and the privilege. But I didn't know
31:04
Speaker 1: how much. I didn't know until I got into it.
31:06
Speaker 1: And thank you John Porter for being the director to
31:10
Speaker 1: uh put her own credibility out there. And she had
31:13
Speaker 1: to build that credibility by um directing Bobby Kennedy for
31:17
Speaker 1: President Gideon's Army. She didn't just show up. And then
31:20
Speaker 1: they gave her the opportunity to do good Trouble and
31:23
Speaker 1: again we partner to bring it forward. The reason I
31:25
Speaker 1: brought that up was that you guys are doing good Trouble,
31:28
Speaker 1: and I wanted you to hear yourself talk and realized
31:31
Speaker 1: that this reparation is about extending yourself beyond the normal
31:36
Speaker 1: cause because both of you guys are taking risks because
31:38
Speaker 1: people can everybody's not acting positively out there, but you.
31:42
Speaker 1: But you, what you just said is why I wanted
31:45
Speaker 1: you to hear. And I was so forwidded to hear
31:47
Speaker 1: that you guys are doing good Trouble and that's a
31:50
Speaker 1: very good thing. And I wanted to bring you on
31:51
Speaker 1: the show and kind of put a little twist on
31:53
Speaker 1: the end and let you know that you've worked in
31:56
Speaker 1: the project that it led you this blessed course of development.
32:00
Speaker 1: Podcast is Charlemagne and God give you a platform to
32:02
Speaker 1: talk about reparation is the big payback. Thank you for
32:06
Speaker 1: coming on my show, and thank you for allowing me
32:07
Speaker 1: to uh to speak and to share your story with
32:11
Speaker 1: my viewers and my listeners. Eric Alexander, movie star, as
32:14
Speaker 1: she said, movies star written. All the works that you've done,
32:20
Speaker 1: and the work that you've done as executive producer and
32:22
Speaker 1: producing shows, and you know you've been in the trenches
32:25
Speaker 1: and you and also teaching us about money and all
32:27
Speaker 1: that other stuff. Thank you, brother, Thank you. I appreciate
32:30
Speaker 1: you for coming on Money Making Conversation. Thank you so much.
32:33
Speaker 1: If we need more Money Make Conversation interviews, please go
32:35
Speaker 1: to Money Making Conversation dot com. I'm with Sean McDonald.
32:38
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