Vanadium #23

*Intro*

Jules: You’re listening to the cool black nerd podcast presented by say what radio welcome everybody to episode number 23 of the cool black nerd podcast. This is vanadium.

Justice: That’s a mouthful.

Jules: I’m your host Jules. I’m here with everybody’s favorite co-host. Justice. How are you doing today?

Justice: You know what? It’s one of those good days. We got some extraordinary things happening here in Texas, certain parts, actually some Southern parts. It’s actually really freaking snowing and I’m not talking about like the, Oh, we hit the ground and go away. I’m talking about snow, snow.

Jules: That’s good. Congratulations to you and everybody else experiencing the snow where I am. We just have very cold rain.

Justice: Keep looking out for it. It might actually happen.

Jules: I don’t know. It’s kind of hot now. Like now…

Justice: I think it’s just the temperatures drop a little bit more. So. But yeah, just keep a look out for it.

Jules: All right. Well, we’ll see what happens. So, uh, ladies and gentlemen, this is our first episode of 2021.

And just like we did last year, I think it’ll probably be good to, to recap the things that have gone on a little bit off top. You definitely, can not fail to mention, um, I’m gonna just call it what it is. The domestic terrorism that we saw at the Capitol this week…

Justice: it was feeling like. When 911 happened for me, I just couldn’t stop watching TV.

Also, when Columbine happened, I was just completely glued going, like, is this real life?

Jules: Yeah, I don’t, it was very difficult to watch. It was very surreal to see that that was happening. And then, you know, in the days following to see that the images that we saw were one, it was, it was already bad enough where it just looked like the writers just.

Sashayed or waltzed into the Capitol to see some of the other images where it really got violent and they did do a lot of damage to the building itself. And I seen some of the police officers, uh, well, the ones who weren’t actively helping to see some of the things that they.

Justice: … yeah, there’s some footage just coming out now when they were showing that they were trying their best to like push them out. And one of the officers being pinned between a door riot shields and the people and just, I mean, he’s covered in blood. His blood is coming from his mouth and stuff. He’s just screaming. And I could just feel the pain in his voice, it was like bloodcurdling as he was just screaming, help me and these people they’re just steady pushing.

Jules: Back the blue indeed. But anyway, moving on to the things that happened in 2020.

Justice: It’s amazing going back through and kind of looking at things that happened in 2020. And since, you know, the pandemic just took over everything, I almost kind of forgot. Some of this stuff actually happened like Brexit. I was like, Fuck. That was this year, it feels like it was happening, you know, years before that, but it basically kind of kicked off in 2019 into 2020.

Jules: Brexit seems like it happened so long ago. Like Brexit is like, I don’t even know.

Justice: And, and I believe if I’m not mistaken that they’ve kind of done everything. It like, it’s a done deal now because they’re having experiences at the border where, since they’re no longer part of the EU that at the borders, when things are trying, you know, they’re trying to get things or whatnot.

You’re expecting a lot of trouble.

Jules: Yeah. I was going to say that I have seen that recently that they’re experiencing a lot of trouble, uh, with imports and exports and things. Just moving around Europe as a result of this, that apparently they didn’t think about. I don’t know. Hopefully. Hopefully that gets worked out, I guess.

I don’t know. I really don’t know what to say about that.

Justice: One of the things that had actually happened and I completely forgot it and it was just in the book. It was in earlier in the year. And I remember everyone going, like, how is this possible? But those Australian fires going on for like months, I completely had forgotten about that.

You even remember that?

Jules: Yeah, I agree. I don’t, I don’t even remember after your wildfires. I, you know, I apologize for, you know, people that lost property and life and everything, but I don’t, I don’t even remember that. That’s incredible. All right. So. Let’s go through some of this and shout out to Mariah, helping us out with this list.

Justice: Yes. Mariah come through in the clutch always.

Jules: All right. So obviously COVID happened, right? Like that happened. Everybody knows that happened. The vaccine is here. You need to stay safe. That’s all I can really tell you. Make your own choices. Just make smart decisions, please. Okay. I’m trying to go. I’m trying to look through this list and like avoid some of the, some of the bad, the bad things.

Justice: Yeah. Some of the bad, okay. This is, this is a little bit more lighthearted when it comes to some of the things that happened in 2020. It’s not actually on the list, but it’s just, I had written down some things previously for myself, but hell Meghan Markle and, um, her husband, I can’t remember his name, but he was the Prince and, uh, was, is it, is it Harry is a pre-talk, but they quit the Royal family. They was just like, fuck it. We out, you don’t like my wife. Uh, I will say that that was something again, that had happened earlier in the year, but I still think that was really, really cool that he just kind of was like you guys, and my family’s known you all your life, but this is my wife.

Y’all don’t support her deuces.

Jules: Yeah, that makes sense. I understand. Was he the one that he’s not the one who was in line to be the King though? I don’t think so. I don’t know. I don’t think so. All right. You know, I feel like, what did he really give up then? But whatever, but…

Justice: Well, that’s the thing. Like they gave up one, the titles and things like that, but everything that comes along with it, like the, the link to the money, the security money, this is what is said.

I’m not sure if that actually happened, but that’s what say it, so yeah.

Jules: No it is dope though. They standing up for his wife. That’s dope. Yeah. No, this is a good one. Tiger King was in 2020 Joe Exotic.

Justice: I know that they’ve moved it for, um, financial reasons and things like that, but yeah, the parks supposedly still.

Jules: Yeah. Yeah. That’s crazy. Carol Baskins still out there.

Justice: She was on Dancing with the stars in 2020, after all this, I was just like, really, dude.

Jules: It may have worked out with some of them, I guess it’s still so crazy, man, that whole story. And, you know, I don’t know if this is sad or not, but as I was watching the show, when he was running for governor of Oklahoma, I really had to like go and look up who is the governor of Oklahoma? Cause I feel like this man won. So a shout out to whoever he is, the governor of Oklahoma. I really thought she lost their race, but congratulations, man.

Justice: Him running for president that video. Oh it’s “I am gay. I do owe a bunch of money to some bitch down there and Florida.”

Jules: Hey, I can respect that. You put it out there all. Let me tell you, we say my opponents will have nothing to say. I already told you that was an eight mile moment right there. That was a true eight miles. Oh my goodness. Tiger King, man. I heard he was trying to get pardoned. I mean, you broke the law, uh, who knows? I mean, crazier things have happened in the last couple of weeks, so why not?

Yeah. Why not? Pardon the Tiger King. Yeah. Oh man. Here’s another one, the Pentagon released UFO footage. Uh, that’s true. That’s a true thing.

Justice: So slipped under the radar.

Jules: I remember that happening, but I… I don’t know what else was going on when they did it, but Mariah has a note in here that she can’t get over how no one cared about it.

I don’t think anybody. I think a lot of people missed it. Like I remember seeing it for like two seconds and then I don’t know what happened. Yep. They may immediately be like, you know what, obviously it’s aliens somewhere. So they’re not messing with me. It’s a pandemic. All kinds of stuff is happening.

I’m not worried about these UFO’s right now.

Justice: Context to this, it was actually footage that had leaked a while ago, but no one had ever said anything about it. So it is a pilot in a fighter jet, if I’m not mistaken. And there is this entity that I don’t even know what the hell it is that just comes into the screen.

And it’s just weird. And his conversation with control about what he’s seeing is hilarious and frightening at the same time. And the, the way that it’s moving on the screen, like that is just, you know, it freaks you out a little bit, but for the last few years that it’s been out, people have just been like, Oh, well, you know, either somebody made that up or it’s not really real, of course, a lot of conspiracy theorists were like, yeah, that’s the real thing.

But when the Pentagon finally came out, yep. It’s real. It is. Yeah.

Jules: Yep. I remember that. Yeah. They basically just came out with like, yes, this is a real video. No, we don’t know what that is. And there’s other videos of stuff. Flying and we don’t know.

Justice: So next question.

Jules: And to be fair, I mean, there’s a number of things that it could be that is not necessarily aliens.

Like, you know, there are other countries in the world who knows what they’re testing and flying around in the skies. So the, at the time, Hey, you know what, it’s called an unidentified flying object. Cause we don’t know what the hell it is. So do what you will with it. I feel like everything else on this list.

Justice: Okay. Let me pull one from mine. Murder Hornets never had heard of that in my life. Had seen some crazy people mess with them on YouTube, but to sit there and be like, okay, well, yeah, we got murder Hornets here in the U S and then to actually see how big they are and what they are. These flying puppies coming at you with a stinger?

How?

Jules: Yeah, I don’t know. You know, we, we in Texas, I feel like all you could do is shoot them things. I don’t know, Raid ain’t gonna work on that. Like I hope they got ’em all I do. I remember seeing something where they had started like getting rid of the, uh, I don’t even know if you call it a colony as big as some things where they lived in a wasp city, I think.

But they started, you know, tracking them down and killing the Queens and stuff, trying to prevent them from spreading. I haven’t heard anything about murder Hornets since then, but I mean, I, you know, with stuff like that, I don’t know how you really get rid of all of them. I don’t know that you can, but hopefully. Hopefully they did. And whoever. And where did they come from? Like who, who just has murder Hornets as part of their everyday living arrangement? You go outside, you’re just like, Oh, they’ll murder horn it over there. I feel sorry for them, whoever that is. Is that Australia?

Justice: I think it was Africa they came from, but I’m not sure don’t quote me on that. Another thing that happened in 2020. And again, it’s something that we weren’t even thinking about at the time. It was just, Hey, they, you can put it out, put it out. Sonic, the hedgehog came out and it was a good movie when we saw that trailer in 2019, that was the stuff at nightmares, but they were able to get it changed.

And the movie came out and I was like, this is, this is a good look. It’s a good little movie. Like for real,

Jules: It really was a good movie. And I’m gonna say this too. I feel like if they could fix Sonic the hedgehog in six months, I bet. A no excuse for these trash ass movies coming out now, uh, I noticed the movie wasn’t in 2020, but the damn Will Smith.

Gemini. I’m looking at you. They fixed Sonic in six months.

Justice: … but in their defense, clearly the Sonic movie was good. It was just, the CGI was bad. Cause it looks like they just talk. When, I mean for Gemini man, was that actually a good movie, but bad CGI? Or was it just a bad movie and bad?

Jules: Okay. Fine. Okay. It was a bad movie and bad CGI and yeah, Sonic. It was just a good movie with a bad looking Sonic and they fixed Sonic. Yeah. But they fixed it in six months. Gemini man, we, I was looking like PlayStation two graphics.

Justice: But it was supposed to be, you know, industry leading and stuff like that. So, Oh, we got Quibi. And then we lost Quibi. You know, I had quit before a little bit.

Jules: I enjoyed the time that I had it. Yeah, it was actually all right. They had some good shows. A lot of those Kevin Hart produced shows were on there. I was about to say wild and out, but that’s not what I’m talking about. The prank show. Punked, parked was on there. That was it. It was actually kind of funny.

And then it has some good little interest in like, the idea was good. Right. But I think what heard it is that it was mobile devices only. Like you couldn’t get it on TV and you know, with the pandemic, everybody was at home. Like I’m not going to sit and watch my phone when I could watch my TV. So why can’t I get this on the TV?

And I think that was the problem wasn’t on the TV. No, you couldn’t. You couldn’t watch it on it on a TV.

Justice: I thought I saw something, maybe it was later on that they put it in, but that was probably too late.

Jules: That was even nice to hear that that was one of the things like they, they were like, we should have done it earlier and you should have done it earlier or something that I hadn’t really planned.

You know? I mean, not that you could plan for a pandemic, but. The way it rolled out, it rolled out as this is a mobile thing. Like we want people to be able to watch a 10 minute show while they’re riding the subway to and from work or in the back of the room or whatever. And you know, that use case just wasn’t happening.

So it never really took off.

Justice: I find it real interesting about that. And maybe we can do a show on that on like the viability of this bite-sized content, because Tik TOK is definitely a thing. The reels is on Instagram and IGTV and all the rest of that. The stories and whatnot is definitely a thing. So it’s still necessarily happening.

People are doing it on their phones. I wonder why quibi just wasn’t something that would work.

Jules: Uh, we, yeah, we probably do need to do a show on that, but my quick comment is because I think tik-tok and reels are shorter than what Quibi would have got. You know what I mean? Like tick tock, it will say like a minute, minute and a half, you know, and I know, I realize you can have content that’s longer, but for the most part, it’s a minute, minute and a half where Quibi everything was 10 minutes.

Justice: Yeah. Cause I know. And I’ve noticed that I like, I love watching a lot of the YouTube videos, especially when they do like in-depth discussions and almost kind of like documentaries necessarily on certain things. But I will say for myself, when they get to that, like 20 plus minute mark, I’m looking at those videos, like why.

Wow. And when they get to like 50 minutes or over an hour, and like, I’m not, not even trying to look at it. Yeah.

Jules: Once you see like that hour long, you’re like, can I just, is this on Netflix? Like weird. Why am I not on YouTube?

Justice: So I, I guess I just answered my own question because even on YouTube, you got me for 17 minutes. I’m not going to lie. After that I’m kind of like, no, I don’t want to watch it.

Jules: Yeah. I think we started talking about that mobile experience. I think it’s just the idea of, you know, it’s almost like it doesn’t even have to be that you’re actually watching it on the phone just because it’s on YouTube. You have an expectation for how long it is or just because it’s on Tik TOK or reels.

There’s an expectation that this is only going to take like two minutes and I’m, and I’m done with it. Yeah. It may be for Quibi that just didn’t work out because you didn’t have those situations where you had a little bit more of an extended amount of time to just be looking at your phone or a tablet.

Justice: Yeah. That was a very interesting. Oh, I don’t know if you remember this, but we started getting a lot of messages, not messages, but we were seeing a lot of things where people were getting these mystery seeds that were coming from China. And it happened in like all 50 States. And the department of agriculture was like, please don’t plant the seeds and people still did it.

Jules: Yeah. I mean, the good news is they didn’t turn out to be anything crazy.

Justice: Yeah. But it was still just, it was weird.

Jules: What they think it was is that there’s an, apparently this happens with other products too, but like a company that sells stuff on Amazon will just randomly send out products and be like, leave us a review.

At least that’s what they think. That’s what it was. I hope that’s what it was. But the ones that, like you say, the ones that got planted turned out to really just be normal plants that were okay to be in the U S I’ll never forget, like seeing people and they will look like little black seeds and things like that.

And that’s what kind of freaked me out is that these people just saw they’re like, Oh, I don’t think it’s bad. One lady put one in her mouth on TV. I’m like…

Jules: Oh, you don’t know about all that, man. Yeah. Yeah, I’m not going to lie. I probably would’ve planted one, but I don’t know about putting it in my mouth.

Justice: She was just like, I don’t think it’s bad. Oh. Another thing. And again, it’s kind of just got swept into the rug after it was such a big uproar when Shakira and Jennifer Lopez did the super bowl because their number was too sexy. You know her on the pole dancing and stuff like that. And Shakira moving her hips, like people just flooded the I’m not here for it.

Jules: I don’t want to hear any of that. Y’all okay with that man had his nipples out a year before, so whatever. Yeah, they, yeah, they close on.

Justice: Yeah, that happened 2020. And what was another one in that seen. Oh, the toilet paper shortage. The 2020 still don’t understand what the hell that was.

Jules: Yeah. I don’t get that either.

Like why do we do that? America? Like a flood or a hurricane natural disaster come and you go out and buy toilet paper. I got it. I don’t understand. And now everybody just, you got eight months supply of toilet paper in your house. You can’t even. Like once you don’t do it, you can’t fit nothing else. So your pantry what’d you go and do with it?

I mean, we bought the, tell me, I’ll go find out if toilet paper got an expiration date and as much toilet papers you got, ain’t doing nothing with it. Ain’t enough poops in the world for you to use all the toilet paper in your house.

Justice: Here’s a couple of like nice things that happen. Drive in movie theaters became a thing.

And for us, you know, our generation and even like the younger generation, um, being able to share that with my son was amazing, which never would have been something that we would have necessarily been able to do because there aren’t a lot of drive-ins prior to 2020, I think we have one here in the Houston area, but it’s, it’s rare.

Um, that I think that they show like one movie a month at that time prior to that. So you would see in other places where I know there’s one, I want to say it’s Hockley, Texas, but I may be wrong. So don’t quote me on that, but they would do the jaws. Kind of like drive-in thing? No, it’s, I’m sorry. It’s not in Hockley.

It’s outside of Austin on the Lake. They will show the movie jaws and you could like be sitting in the water as you’re watching it within the light, which is kind of cool. So that was something that you could do before, but now it’s, it’s, it’s just like a mainstream thing. Even Walmart’s doing drive in movie theaters, hail, they’ve been driving concerts.

That’s been, I think that’s something that’s been really cool to happen. In a 2020.

Jules: Yeah. It’s definitely been interesting to see how different business this is. Our adapting in a, you have some that aren’t adapting and not doing so well. Like AMC movie theater, like movie theaters, man. I kind of feel for him, like on one hand, I understand what’s happening.

And I know that, uh, AMC is trying, you know, you can rent out a movie theater for like a hundred dollars, you know, it doesn’t really seem like it’s that bad. The entire theater is yours. Mean you can watch movies, play games, like really do whatever. But I think that’s pretty cool, but I just. I don’t know if that’s enough to save it.

Justice: Well, I mean, again, it’s something that’s cool. We were able to do it for Grady’s birthday and actually play switch on it. So that was really freaking cool. Don’t think you would have been able to do that any other time without spending thousands of yeah.

Well, Tik TOK blowing up was another thing. Cause people were just trying to do things to keep from being bored, that they got a lot of people, some notoriety that they probably wouldn’t have had any other way. A lot of people got back out to, you know, biking, working out outside doing a lot of camping, hiking, things like that.

Zoom parties. Yeah. Denai started the whole club quarantine. Yep. Yeah. Yeah.

Jules: I’d like to give a lot, everybody a shout out because it does, you know, people start, you know, growing plants, like really just trying to find some things to do for themselves. Somehow, you know, some people are getting healthier, other people and learning new skills.

Justice: Yeah. Yeah. That’s a real big thing because in the beginning I will say I got flooded. With requests that people have, uh, asking me to help them in, how do I launch a podcast? How I do a podcast? It was, it was a little overwhelming in the beginning. Also people became a lot more in tune with being present with their kids.

So you have a lot of people who were working from home and didn’t really know how to juggle, turning off working from home. Honestly, they’d still be doing other stuff, but their kids are actually in the other room learning or whatnot. Once the kids were done, they’d come, you know, wanting to be with their parents or whatever.

They eventually had to kind of start setting boundaries and rules that, Hey, when my kids are done with school, I gotta be off this meeting. And a lot of people were saying like previously, I wouldn’t have done that. It wasn’t until I was done with my work that I would be done with the day to go pick them up, or I try to put them in aftercare school or something like that.

But now I’m taking more time to spend more time with families and things like that. And coming up with games to do so, some people were really overwhelmed. Other people were able to come up with ways to get over it and not necessarily succumb to it. Other people actually took up mental health initiatives.

They took the chance to speak to a provider of counselor and things like that, which is something that a lot of people don’t think would have, would have done before, but they were more cognizant of their mental state. And how that affected their lives.

Jules: So, yeah, I agree. I think, uh, you know, kind of speaking to that as well, I think a lot of companies are changing the way that they do business and some of the expectations that they have for their employees as a result of this, I know a lot of companies are saying, Hey, maybe we don’t need everybody to go to the office every day.

Maybe employees do need more time to spend with families. Like maybe it’s okay to say, you know, we don’t work every other Friday and that’s just. They just, it just is what it is. Or maybe it’s okay to say, you know what the entire company is just off for two weeks, in addition to whatever PTO you have. Um, and we see that it didn’t really hurt business and everybody was probably a little bit more productive.

So I think we’re going to see a lot of changes that way. I’m happy that, you know, as some of the good things that have come out in 2020.

Justice: It was, it was really. A lot of stuff that was devastating a lot, a lot, a lot, but to see some of the stuff that was on the flip side of it to bring awareness, for instance, to things like Juneteenth, things like the people of color experience.

Let me say that. And the black experience within living in the United States, more people are aware like, Oh wow, the stress and the. Just kind of like, like everyday living that a lot of them go through to one, make other people feel comfortable when they are uncomfortable, but they do it to be a part of society to be a contributing person of society and things like that.

And. Their contributions have helped so much. So you have other people being more aware and showing appreciation for that. A lot of companies doing that as well, wanting to be more diverse in their management and, um, things like that. And even coworkers, like when Juneteenth came up and I actually took Juneteenth off, I remember coworker was saying like, I’ve heard of that, but what is it?

And she said, I’d never, would’ve asked this before, because I would’ve felt bad. But if I won’t say anything, I won’t know anything. Okay.

Jules: Makes sense. Sounds good. But you know what, that’s actually, you remember having, uh, like a group chat with some of the people that are, I guess I’m closer than normal, closer to let’s say than I am with some other coworkers where they were also just kind of asking me, you know, like, what are some of the things that, that your family does for Juneteenth?

Like, because you know, for them it’s just not even a, a holiday. So they were kind of surprised to learn, you know, that a lot of people, or a lot of families in Texas will have. Like a family reunion around that same time. Um, and it just becomes like part of a larger celebration of just family and, you know, so it, it, it was just, yeah, it was cool to be able to, to explain that to them and get them to understand, you know, what that holiday means to a lot of people, a holiday that, that, you know, they probably never even heard of.

Justice: And also, I will say for my part, it was, and again, kind of goes with, um, people of color experience in opening up about that, because I will say that prior to this time, I may not have been as open and talking about some stuff or even things like Juneteenth. That’ll just be like, it’s a black holiday.

Don’t worry about it. You know, not necessarily because I didn’t want them to know. It was just, I knew that. Or I felt that the, the inquiry into it really wasn’t heartfelt or it really wasn’t genuine. So I wouldn’t offer up as in as much information and I was doing the holiday and that tradition a disservice by not actually spreading the knowledge that I knew about it.

So, yeah. Yep. So it was a lot of learning that happened in, um, 2020. And I will say that some teachers have to get like recognition. Cause I know a lot of parents were like, this is hard and I don’t think they believed that in the beginning. I know we say healthcare workers and the essential people are heroes.

And they do a lot of stuff, but I don’t really think that people understood what as a society, what the pivotal role of a teacher plays. You know, a lot of us saw either screenshots or conversations between teachers where parents were just like, I don’t know what else to do. And they’re just like, this is what we deal with every day.

Like, I can help you, but you still need, the onus is on you to get the child up and do this and this and that. I think a new respect for teachers is getting out there. What was that?

Jules: I was just about to say, so you’re right. Some of those messages that you see where the parents are just like, teacher, you need to be doing this, this, this, and this.

It’s like, well, I can’t come to your house and wake your child up and give them food and put clothes on and get them in front of the computer. Like, I literally can’t do that. So we have to work together. Yeah.

Justice: Yeah. It’s things like that shows that we can come together and do a lot of stuff as a people, as a country, hell even the world.

Because a lot of the things that we were seeing in the beginning when the pandemic was locking down over the other half of the world, we were seeing how people were outside singing together or playing games, you know, buildings apart, but still doing what they could to be together. So. It, it is out there.

It’s just whether or not, you know, that’s being taken advantage of and wanting to be, you know, integrated into society as a whole. So do we want to end on net because I don’t want to do we really want to go into the bad stuff?

Jules: I think, I think we have to go into it just because it happened. Okay. So, I mean, you know, The reason I say, I think we need to discuss it because a lot of what we just talked about obviously was born from the bad things happening.

So you have, you know, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and the others who unfortunately lost their lives in 2020. And a lot of the things that we just talked about, you know, minorities being able to open up to their coworkers and people in their community about their experience, without those things happening, you don’t have that.

You don’t have this greater recognition for the country that you know what things are not what we thought they were for everyone. Yeah. You have people. I think taking a look at what it feels like to not be themselves, like being, being more aware of someone else’s experience. And being able to, you know, just take the time to listen and try to understand.

And I think honestly, a lot of it, you know, came out of the black lives matter movement and just a lot of the discussions that were had. So it was, it was definitely like a great awakening. Uh, obviously there’s a whole lot more work to do. Uh, and even with the events this week at the Capitol, you can see that there’s still a huge difference.

Justice: And, you know, I think that was even more of a wake up call for some people, I think just to see the difference in the way that situation was handled versus the response that the black lives matters. Protesters got also in Washington DC. Yeah, I think again, as I was saying, you know, putting the positive, spin on all of that, it’s a opening for us to be able to learn.

And we’re, there needs to be some healing on both sides because what happened on Wednesday clearly is some frustrated, pissed off people. I get that none of that is going to. That don’t mean you got to act a fucking fool. I’m sorry. I don’t know how else to say that everything that is born out of their frustration is just coming from not getting your way.

Whereas the people who were protesting for peacefully for the most part during the summer and things like that was just to be seen, to be heard, to be understood that the color of my skin is causing an issue for you all of the time. And I’m just trying to exist. So. There needs to be healing on both sides, because right now it’s just everybody yelling at everybody and that’s not going to help.

And as I said, there, There clearly are avenues that we can get together and talk and come to some sort of awareness. But if, no, if we have where, you know, shit like that is that what’s happening at the Capitol is going on. It’s no, it’s not gonna, it’s not going to have a … and they’re going to be people that we can’t get through to on both sides.

But there needs to be at least a common ground and we agree to disagree type thing. At least.

Jules: I’m going to even say this. Like I wouldn’t even necessarily, I wouldn’t put it when we started talking about both sides. Like to me, this. I wouldn’t even put it that way, because I don’t know that I don’t know that those two things like black lives matter and what we saw in the Capitol on Wednesday, I don’t know that they are related to each other in that way.

I’m not saying that you know, that there’s not any relationship between the two, but I don’t think that that should have like, that kind of dichotomy, like either black lives matter or you trying to storm the Capitol. Like, I don’t think that is. It’s not like that. Like, that’s what I, if hopefully people understand that I gotta, I don’t think that there’s like that.

Man. I wish I could think of a better way to say it right now.

Justice: Hard to explain what’s what’s necessarily going on without being very negative. And one side is just, Oh, I’m frustrated and pissed off because of what somebody told me. The other one is I’m frustrated. I’m pissed off because I’m gonna just say it.

Me, my breathing and existence is a threat to you and you would rather see me dead than they actually work with me. That’s a totally, totally different dichotomy. I know. That’s very, very, how should I say this? Um, that’s breaking it down to the simplest form because it’s a more complex nuanced issue for both, but that’s, that’s, that’s what it is in its simplest form.

Jules: Yeah. Uh, okay. So I guess what I mean to say is it’s sorta like that. So when you’re talking about the black lives matter movement or, or movements for social justice that we saw, um, in large part, what you seen is the protest is the saying, I deserve the right to exist the same way. Anyone else, exactly what we are seeing from the people who storm the Capitol was I’m upset that the person that I wanted to be president lost and you won’t let me make them win. So I’m going to storm the Capitol and try to overthrow the government. Yeah, I guess that’s what I mean, like let’s, let’s not put those two things on the same, on the same level. Yeah. I guess.

Justice: It’s uh, you know, let’s move on because if I keep going into today necessarily, uh, and, uh, and it’s just mainly because it’s been a hundred times. Yeah.

Jules: So let’s move on this way. Well, the election happened as a result of the election. We do have America’s first female vice president. She’s also the first black vice president and the first Asian American vice president. So, you know, that’s pretty dope. Oh, yeah, that’s true. We had the highest voter turnout.

One thing, like I say, I always support is people going to vote and people making a decision. You know, like I said, when I’m talking about voting, I’m not talking about, Oh, I only want you to vote for a certain person. I really just want you to make an informed choice, whatever that choice is is on you. But I think everybody needs to vote.

Everybody needs to have their voice heard because even if the person that you want it to win does not win. What I think you’ll find for the most part is if the person who did win, realizes like, Hey, Yeah, I won but 48% of the people, wanted the other person when maybe I needed to listen to some of the stuff that they have to say, you know what I mean?

Cause it’s not going to take much for me to lose next time. Yep. So that’s how I feel about it. Hopefully everybody feels that way. And like I said, always inform yourselves and especially homeowners, like, come on now, homeowners, what are you doing? If you out here not voting and you just vote and Willy nilly, you really need to find out who these people are.

Like, who are your council members? What are they talking about? Cause a lot of your local elections don’t even really have to do with, you know, political party. Like it, it could really just be what are these people supporting and not supporting? And how is that going to affect me? Like in Texas, we always are complaining about property taxes or trying to figure out what, where these property taxes go, you know, the president and, and your, your Senator don’t decide that.

That’s your, your little council member and these mayors of these towns are figuring out what, what happens with that stuff. So those are the people that you really need to be paying attention.

Justice: That’s another thing that we can actually do a show on because I don’t believe that a lot of people are really educated on how the elections go, how their votes count and how the hierarchy of the people that you put in place for these politics, you know, affects you.

I remember watching, uh, one of the recent videos regarding the fight at the Capitol, the person explained there was just like, well, no president that has been elected has ever actually affected me directly. And it was just like, wow. Okay. He was like, the only thing that is actually affected me is what my local government is done.

And I was like, well, you know, he’s right.

Jules: That’s kind of what I’m saying. Like that’s, that’s pretty fair to say. Yeah. And I will always advocate for that and continue to do so. The elections, you definitely need to be paying attention to are your local elections. And, you know, of course everything is going to filter up through that.

But yeah, the things that are going to affect you the most is not. The president is not, the senators is not your Congress person is your mayor is your council member. Is your school board. It’s your local board of education is the railroad commissioner, whatever they do, wherever you live. Cause they bed might, like I said, some of these things, they will have a title like that.

Ain’t got nothing to do with railroads, but they show are taxing. You. To pay for something that you have no idea about. So, you know, those are the things you have to look into. Yeah. Yep.

Justice: One of the other things, which I cannot believe again, still happen just in general, but it did happen in 2020 was, um, Kobe Bryant’s passing and, uh, passed enough him and his daughter.

Jules: That one that was really, really sad to me. And I, you know, I’m not me personally. I’m not one of those people who really, um, You know, has a strong, emotional response to the death of celebrities. You know, I’m not saying that it has to be like against people that do, but Kobe Bryant, um, that one was a little bit more for me, I think more so because it was also the loss of his daughter and just, it really just empathizing with their family to lose a father and a daughter, like all at once.

That’s definitely tough. Chadwick Boseman. That one was tough for me that be talked about on the show. That one was actually really tough for me just because, I mean, the roles play, especially black Panther. I think, you know, just seeing the effect that that movie had on kids, especially, you know, especially black kids to feel like they could see themselves in that way.

I think that really, that really affected me and the reason I think it is because for so many people, he is Black Panther. Like, you know, Sure. You know, he had all these other, you know, really, really good movies that I know about, you know, there may be adults know about, but for kids, like, you know, to me, like a kid would see him in black Panther and then go watch like that James Brown movie and be like black Panther is James Brown.

Like it’s not old. Chadwick Boseman is playing another role. Like he literally became that black superhero. So that one, that one was. That was a rough one.

Justice: Yeah. I’ll never forget. Like I’ve always loved superheroes and comics and things like that. And I remember I used to post on Instagram, like just random facts.

And I was just saying that, you know, in the comic universe, like he’s considered to be the richest of the mall. Cause he’s sitting on the vibranium, which is the most rare material within there, even though. Tony stark has this. He’s a billionaire blah, blah, blah, blah. And Batman has that. He’s a billionaire or whatever, but it’s considered that he may necessarily be a trillionaire in that universe.

And I remember posting that fact and somebody going, what is a Black Panther? It was 2013, I think it was, Oh, wow. Then, then a little bit later, people going back to that fact, you know, and of course given their comments and like, yeah, black Panther, this, you know, that’s so cool, blah, blah, blah. And I’m like, wow, just to see.

And you were saying it was about kids, but for me it was just to see people being able to be exposed to that character in general was just so much for me. Like it was just so much joy. Just being able to see all of the ideas, the iconography, the visualization of this character and everything that kind of.

Culminated from it. Cause it started, uh, kind of like a snowball effect of black characters within the comics, after it. And a lot of people being exposed to it. And then after that, just people in general became more interested in reading graphic novels. So yeah, I was, I was all about black Panther. Loved every single thing of it.

Jules: Yep. I’m with it. So, uh, I feel like maybe that’s where we can wrap it. Yeah. You know, 2020, we had a lot of, a lot of bad things happened, but I think that it was also a year of personal growth for a lot of people growth for the country. A lot of things got exposed. I think I told you guys before, one of my friends who was a pastor was saying that 2020 is going to be the year where everybody will see more clearly.

Like literally 2020 vision. Everybody’s going to see what’s what’s going on around them socially, personally, whatever. And I think, you know, that that’s a, uh, Turned out to be pretty accurate, I think. Yep. So that being said, everybody let’s go ahead and call this one, an episode, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for listening to the cool black nerd podcast.

Again, check us out on social media. Always go check out. Saywharadio.com. There are several podcasts in our network that I think everybody would enjoy and love and just have a great time listening to always.

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