Cancel Culture, Identity & The Truth We're Afraid to Speak

Tim · 0:00:00
Hey Tim, what was your favorite part of the episode? My favorite part was when Will coined the phrase or the words backlash culture. Perfect. Reggie, what was your favorite part of the episode?

Reggie · 0:00:12
My favorite part was Tim making a stance to be willing to be canceled. I really appreciated that.

Tim · 0:00:21
Mary?

Mary · 0:00:22
I loved hearing Tim and Reggie's coming out stories.

Tim · 0:00:24
Nice. Good timing there, Will.

Will · 0:00:28
Uh, I liked that they put me on the spot right away because it made my brain go bzzz. Stressful.

Mary · 0:00:33
You know what it's about, Will.

Reggie · 0:00:35
You've been here.

Tim · 0:00:35
And my favorite part were the discussions. I don't want to say juxtaposition of ideas, but almost the, well, what if this? And then, well, what about that? I really enjoyed that aspect of it.

Reggie · 0:00:49
Nice.

Mary · 0:00:49
Thanks for doing this.

Reggie · 0:00:51
Yeah, thanks for being here.

Mary · 0:00:52
4, 3, 2, 1.

Reggie · 0:00:56
4, 3, 2, 1. 4, 3, 2, 1.

Will · 0:00:57
4, 3, 2, 1.

Mary · 0:00:58
3, 2, 1.

Tim · 0:00:59
3, 2, 1.

Mary · 0:00:59
3, 2, 1.

Will · 0:01:00
3, 2, 1.

Mary · 0:01:00
2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1.

Will · 0:01:04
Okay.

Reggie · 0:01:05
And there you guys got to see our crazy ritual.

Mary · 0:01:08
Are they going to see the crazy ritual?

Reggie · 0:01:10
Maybe.

Mary · 0:01:11
Yeah, they are.

Tim · 0:01:11
That's why age is so good.

Reggie · 0:01:12
Let's do it. I think we should. I think we should have—

Mary · 0:01:15
Tim's butt the whole time.

Reggie · 0:01:16
You know what?

Tim · 0:01:17
That's not bad.

Mary · 0:01:18
Give the people what they came for.

Reggie · 0:01:21
Checking. I think we should definitely leave it in.

Tim · 0:01:23
I didn't mean to make it all about my butt.

Reggie · 0:01:25
Well, you notice this seat is empty.

Mary · 0:01:28
Checking.

Reggie · 0:01:28
You probably already saw our secret special guest today.

Will · 0:01:32
Let me know if it continues.

Reggie · 0:01:33
He's rolling in right now.

Tim · 0:01:34
We welcome to the stage—

Reggie · 0:01:36
With—

Mary · 0:01:37
Woo!

Reggie · 0:01:38
We are so— so you guys have been hearing all the off-camera laughter and exclamations. It's all been this special guy here has been keeping our video and audio in check. And sadly, he's going to be leaving us. Soon. And we thought, how appropriate for us to have him on the show so you can see him in the flesh, because we love him and we know he will add really awesome commentary. I'm your host today. This is AGE, as you all know, the show where we talk about fun things, exciting things, by pulling a random topic out of a trash can. Who would have thought?

Tim · 0:02:21
Who would have thought?

Reggie · 0:02:23
And here's my crew. This is Tim Scroggs.

Mary · 0:02:27
Should we do the thing where we do voices?

Will · 0:02:28
Yeah.

Reggie · 0:02:29
Oh yeah.

Tim · 0:02:29
I'm Tim Scroggs.

Reggie · 0:02:31
I'm Reggie Tidwell.

Will · 0:02:32
Will Canady.

Mary · 0:02:33
And I'm Mary Greene.

Tim · 0:02:34
It's great to be here.

Mary · 0:02:35
You can tell by my voice.

Reggie · 0:02:36
For those of you that aren't watching on YouTube.

Tim · 0:02:37
The girl voice. Yeah.

Reggie · 0:02:40
For those of you that aren't watching on YouTube, you now know who our voices are. And I'm gonna go ahead and dig right in 'cause I'm excited.

Mary · 0:02:47
I added one yesterday that I didn't get approval for before I added, but it came recommended from a friend.

Tim · 0:02:53
Does it relate to Will? Because this is a magic trash can.

Reggie · 0:02:55
You know, I can see Will doing it. Do you want to do the honors?

Mary · 0:02:58
Let's do it.

Reggie · 0:02:58
Yeah. Let's do it.

Will · 0:03:00
Which I think is appropriate.

Tim · 0:03:01
You pulled it. Now let him show it.

Mary · 0:03:03
I'm having like a worlds collide moment. It feels so right with Will right here.

Tim · 0:03:07
It does.

Mary · 0:03:09
All right. What are the feelings that arise within you?

Tim · 0:03:13
Oh, cancel culture.

Reggie · 0:03:16
Dang.

Tim · 0:03:18
Okay, this is gonna be a hot one.

Reggie · 0:03:19
This is gonna be a hot one.

Tim · 0:03:21
Woo.

Will · 0:03:21
Cool.

Mary · 0:03:22
Where does it take you, Will?

Will · 0:03:25
All right. I was engaging with this topic recently, actually.

Mary · 0:03:30
Did you get canceled?

Will · 0:03:31
I did not get canceled.

Mary · 0:03:32
Did you get canceled by some of these?

Tim · 0:03:34
Is this why you're moving away?

Will · 0:03:35
This is why I'm all in front of a camera.

Reggie · 0:03:37
This is why he's leading Asheville.

Tim · 0:03:39
He got canceled. He got Asheville canceled.

Will · 0:03:41
This is the rebrand. Will, fresh start away from the baggage. No, I— okay, so 2 things recently. One was I, you know, I've been doing this thing where I'm on TikTok and I don't really like posting myself on social media very frequently, but I have been doing it because I feel like TikTok is good for me. It's almost like exposure therapy to get in front of a camera and just express myself.

Tim · 0:04:06
Okay.

Will · 0:04:07
But I made this TikTok recently because this band that I used to be a big fan of was— there's some pretty gnarly allegations against the singer. And then he— they disappeared for like a full decade and they've just announced a comeback tour.

Reggie · 0:04:20
Oh, man.

Will · 0:04:20
And I was like, oh, hey, let's maybe not do this, guys. Like, this is bad. Like, you know, I'm sure he— it sounds like I know some people that know the guy in a kind of professional context. Loosely, it sounds like he's made a change. In the same context, I'm like, you don't necessarily deserve your platform back, you know? And I fully— it was like kicking a hornet's nest. So comments full of all kinds of stuff.

Tim · 0:04:41
All their fans came after you?

Reggie · 0:04:42
Yes.

Will · 0:04:43
Yeah, yeah. Oh, wow. Wow.

Mary · 0:04:46
I don't know what kind of following they have in Asheville. Like, did it feel local or did it feel like the internet broadly?

Will · 0:04:52
No, it was the internet.

Tim · 0:04:53
Are we allowed to say who this band is?

Will · 0:04:54
Brand New is the band.

Mary · 0:04:55
He's already out there.

Reggie · 0:04:57
Oh, I know that band.

Will · 0:04:58
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's interesting.

Tim · 0:05:01
It's like cancel culture and meta cancel culture. Like, he was canceled originally, right? Then he comes back and then you're like, why isn't he still canceled? And then they try and like put you down. Yeah. They're like, no, you don't deserve to say these things.

Will · 0:05:12
Yeah. So that's just a personal experience. But I do think— or not, not a personal experience. It's a recent— That's the first thing that top of mind.

Mary · 0:05:19
It happened to you.

Reggie · 0:05:20
Yeah.

Mary · 0:05:20
You were there.

Will · 0:05:21
You were there.

Mary · 0:05:22
You're allowed to claim it.

Will · 0:05:22
It's definitely a nuanced topic.

Mary · 0:05:24
Yeah. Did you feel when people were commenting?

Tim · 0:05:26
Yeah, mixed feelings.

Mary · 0:05:27
What happened inside your body?

Will · 0:05:30
I kind of liked it.

Mary · 0:05:32
Attention, right?

Will · 0:05:37
Yeah, it's—

Mary · 0:05:37
Well, it like boosts your count, right? People are engaging.

Will · 0:05:40
Exactly.

Tim · 0:05:41
Whoa.

Mary · 0:05:41
He went viral.

Reggie · 0:05:42
Oh, that's awesome.

Mary · 0:05:43
Teach us your ways. Maybe that's kind of insightful though. if you're the one calling somebody out, yeah, that's a stance, you know? At least you're saying something online.

Reggie · 0:05:56
I'm not opposed to calling people out, especially when they're doing awful things.

Mary · 0:06:02
When I think of cancel culture, I get really like floaty in the abyss. Like, what is this world I'm living in? Because I can never tell what's real and what's not. And it always feels like there's one side will make the case for like, these horrible things happened and we shouldn't support this person. I'm like, oh my gosh, if those horrible things happened, of course we shouldn't support that person.

Reggie · 0:06:24
Right.

Mary · 0:06:24
And then somebody else tells you a different story. They're like, oh no, actually somebody misunderstood and it wasn't real and they were just trying to get their money. It was a fake lawsuit. And then I'm like, well, I really did like that artist. And like, I want more of the work that they did. And in fact, their personality didn't bother me at all. I kind of enjoyed it. But am I part of the problem if I So I feel really conflicted when I hear about cancel culture.

Reggie · 0:06:49
I think it's the same for me. I feel like there's a— man, I'm, I am straddling the fence because I think sometimes we hear bits of information to your point, and we are like instantly choosing a side. Oh my God, this guy did something horrible. And then you find out there's more to the story. And you're like, wait, actually, I don't know that I feel so bad about that. But then there's also those times where somebody definitely did something and there is no way to like talk around it.

Mary · 0:07:20
Yes, sir.

Reggie · 0:07:20
And they should definitely be exposed and canceled. One situation I think comes to mind was we had a local restaurant during the pandemic and I noticed in one of the popular Facebook, local Facebook groups that people were slandering this particular, they were saying things about this particular restaurant and I did the branding for it. So I was like tuned in, I'm like, Oh, what's going on? And—

Mary · 0:07:47
What are they doing with my branding?

Reggie · 0:07:48
I was like, that doesn't sound like—

Mary · 0:07:49
I gave it power for good and not for evil.

Reggie · 0:07:52
I was like, I don't think that sounds like them. So I called the owner and I was like, hey, did you know they're saying this about your restaurant on Facebook? Like, here's the thing they're saying. He's like, oh no, that's not what happened. This is what happened. I was like, well, dude, you need to make a statement because they are trying to cancel you.

Tim · 0:08:13
Get in the PR team.

Reggie · 0:08:13
It is going viral.

Mary · 0:08:14
Get 'em out there.

Reggie · 0:08:15
And so he did. He got ahead of it. And it immediately smoldered the whole fire. But I was like, that was a situation that could have gone really bad had he not gotten on top of it.

Tim · 0:08:30
What about you? I feel like that is just a landmine topic. Like, I don't know what I can say. My first reaction is the first—

Reggie · 0:08:38
originally, I don't want to get canceled.

Will · 0:08:41
Ironic. We were never like on that.

Reggie · 0:08:45
We already survived the obesity episode.

Mary · 0:08:45
Oh my God.

Tim · 0:08:46
We did.

Reggie · 0:08:46
We survived the obesity episode.

Tim · 0:08:48
I just feel like there's so much bullshit wrapped up in everything that happens in this world. I feel like originally things start pure in that something happens like the— was it the Weinstein?

Reggie · 0:08:58
Oh yeah. Harvey Weinstein.

Tim · 0:09:00
Harvey Weinstein brothers. And the MeToo movement. Right. And they were— and Cosby. And there's like these men who were part of a bygone era.

Mary · 0:09:08
I went to the MeToo movement too. Like, it feels wrapped up in the same thing.

Tim · 0:09:12
Yeah, because they got canceled because of what they did.

Reggie · 0:09:15
They do horrible things, they should get canceled.

Tim · 0:09:16
Right. I feel like there's a place where that person should get punished for doing these horrible things and shouldn't— we shouldn't, like, promote and support and pay for their lives of evil.

Mary · 0:09:28
Yeah.

Tim · 0:09:29
But then I think these people were always doing things.

Mary · 0:09:32
It's—

Tim · 0:09:33
but it shows the power of what social media has brought to us and like the ability to change course and rewrite the future is because I'm sure the Founding Fathers had something worth canceling. I'm sure that every other popular figure throughout history— this is what I tell my kids, don't do anything on the screen because you go through a stupid phase of your life. Not that Bill Cosby was going through a phase. We know that there was some definite—

Will · 0:09:56
Absolutely.

Tim · 0:09:56
Habitual gross stuff happening. But it's like there's this power for now, and I think it's been weaponized in some ways, but I think originally it started with, we all agree this is wrong, right? And we don't want to support it. That's kind of a beautiful thing when people come together and they decide, like, we all support good and we don't want this bad person doing bad. That's amazing. But then when the powers that be can cancel anyone based on a few posts, fake posts, it feels like Red Scare. Yeah. Like, it's literally— it becomes— yeah, it becomes a weapon of control.

Reggie · 0:10:31
Yeah.

Tim · 0:10:32
Because now you can't say what you feel or think. 'Cause you're gonna get canceled, you're gonna get fired from your job. So it's like this, it becomes an oppression when really it was trying to be a liberation.

Mary · 0:10:41
It's like you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't.

Tim · 0:10:44
Exactly.

Mary · 0:10:44
It also, I was just, I went there too. I was like, this feels like the believe women thing. And I'm completely on that train. But maybe for me, it's a little different when you personally are telling a story about someone that personally harmed you. Harmed you.

Will · 0:11:01
Right.

Tim · 0:11:01
Yeah.

Mary · 0:11:02
Versus I watched this thing happen as a third party and I'm watchdog. it, I don't know, that gets kind of weird. It's hard to believe that source.

Will · 0:11:10
Consequences on a personal level versus professional? I guess, right?

Tim · 0:11:16
Or public. Right, public shame.

Mary · 0:11:18
Yeah, and I think it's easier to tell a lie about somebody else's story than it is to tell a lie about your own story.

Tim · 0:11:25
And I think it's hard to know what's real in this world.

Mary · 0:11:27
That's exactly how I feel.

Tim · 0:11:29
Because there's all the stuff about Michael Jackson, and then they started revealing conversations he had protecting kids with Epstein.

Reggie · 0:11:40
Oh, wow.

Tim · 0:11:42
So they revealed conversations he had. Is that fake?

Will · 0:11:45
And so I don't know. I just— I think Michael Jackson, I've got opinions about that situation.

Mary · 0:11:49
He comes out with a movie like he was canceled for a long time.

Tim · 0:11:53
I wasn't allowed to listen to him. And then all of a sudden he comes out with a movie and my kids love him. They're like, could he really have been this evil? And so I don't know.

Reggie · 0:12:00
Who knows? The question, did they actually—

Tim · 0:12:03
did they bury him? Did they bury him? Because he Right, because Epstein was the most powerful public figure. If he said anything about Epstein, which Michael Jackson was a very powerful public figure—

Reggie · 0:12:12
We already know that they will fight tooth and nail to protect these.

Tim · 0:12:14
They will bury you. And that's how they held their hand and their power, was they bribed everyone that they had control over. They filmed them doing bad things, and then they held that over their head for the rest of their career. So I'm like, Michael Jackson is one of these people where who knows really what was happening? I know the kids came out, but the kids could have been paid. You know, like, there's no way to know truly what really happened.

Reggie · 0:12:36
There was one kid who actually had described a birthmark or something on a place on him where no one would ever see it, but that could have been leaked. That could have been something that they— somebody told them.

Tim · 0:12:48
There's just so much manipulation. How do you know when it's right to cancel them? If that was you personally though, like he's saying, that is real. But then how do you know that person wasn't paid to say it happened to them personally?

Mary · 0:12:58
Well, now you're going on personal integrity, and so then it makes it even weirder for you to look at some rando online that you don't know from Adam to be like, yeah, they're definitely— I agree and I believe. But if you're talking about somebody who's committed these atrocities on the scale of someone like Epstein, and never mind, we would have for a while, I think we did, believed somebody as mega super rich and influential as Michael Jackson was untouchable. That's an ironic, weird choice of words. But I mean to say that he's so removed from everyday life.

Reggie · 0:13:33
You got an album coming out.

Mary · 0:13:34
Come back, boys, come back. But he's so removed from everyday life that it's like it doesn't even matter what he does because he's so rich and famous that he can get away with anything. And for a time that was the case. And now posthumously we're debating it and somebody stands to make money off of that.

Reggie · 0:13:49
Oh yeah, absolutely.

Mary · 0:13:50
Biopic or whatever. But people like Jeffrey Epstein or R. Kelly— Oh, well, well, what I was saying, like, there's tiers of this, right?

Will · 0:14:00
Right.

Mary · 0:14:00
There's— there— and there's like Michael Jackson, R. Kelly, public figures with a lot to lose, but also like a lot of social standing, so to speak. And then you've got the Epsteins and the Trumps and the people who are business tycoons who are even further insulated. Even if and when I want to cancel them, I can't just stop buying their music.

Reggie · 0:14:22
Wait, Trump has music?

Mary · 0:14:24
I mean, I wish.

Tim · 0:14:25
I would stop buying it. Stop buying his country music.

Reggie · 0:14:27
I would probably not have started buying it.

Will · 0:14:30
I think at a certain point, at what point does it stop being cancel culture, you know? Yeah.

Mary · 0:14:34
At what point is it justice?

Reggie · 0:14:35
Louis C.K., that's cancel culture. Oh yeah, yeah.

Will · 0:14:38
He did a sex crime.

Tim · 0:14:39
He got annihilated.

Reggie · 0:14:40
Yeah, he did get annihilated. Yeah.

Will · 0:14:42
You know, that's fine. That was technically legal, but shitty.

Reggie · 0:14:46
Yeah.

Will · 0:14:47
Right, right. So he deserves to lose his career and be blacklisted, although that's a separate conversation because he's back for the third time.

Reggie · 0:14:53
But that was my other question. Do they, do they deserve a path back?

Tim · 0:14:58
I don't know.

Mary · 0:14:59
Well, you're on one side of history.

Reggie · 0:15:01
You said these guys don't— they don't deserve a path back. But is there a path back? I think there could be.

Will · 0:15:07
I don't know. People keep giving Louis C.K. money to do stuff, you know, and he comes out there and like for a while after he got canceled, that was kind of his whole shtick was— and there are so many white male comedians who've done this.

Tim · 0:15:18
Oh, I'm canceled.

Mary · 0:15:19
There's just so many white male comedians.

Will · 0:15:20
You canceled me.

Reggie · 0:15:21
I'm gonna stand in front of a crowd with a mic talking about how I can't even talk out loud. I'm gonna capitalize on my—

Will · 0:15:25
My voice has been silenced. You know what I mean?

Tim · 0:15:27
And that's like a power play.

Will · 0:15:29
Yeah.

Reggie · 0:15:29
There was a reel I saw recently, and it was a guy who was in a deposition, and the judge was like firing things at him. Like, she, she was— the way she was talking to him was like trying to like get a sense of control around what he was saying or whatever. And he slipped up and said, Honey, and he kind of like—

Mary · 0:16:00
It's like calling your teacher mom.

Reggie · 0:16:02
Yeah, he took a step back. Exactly. He took a step back. He's like, I'm so sorry. I don't know why I said that. And he continued on and he said again, sorry. She's like, yeah, you should be whatever. And I think people were coming after him with the torches. But I was like, this guy obviously was in a situation very familiar and he thought he was talking to his wife. My comment is actually going viral because I think people agree this guy just got slick. Probably was in the same kind of scenario with his like, no, honey, I'm sorry.

Mary · 0:16:32
You know how many times I've been yelled at, called Dudley on accident? It's like repeating patterns that you're in with someone else and your brain just goes to the place.

Reggie · 0:16:42
But should that guy get canceled? No, I don't think he should get canceled. I think he made an obvious mistake and he apologized immediately. And he was also dumbfounded by the fact that he even said it. It wasn't like he was trying to call her honey, like, you know, like, look here, honey. It wasn't like that at all.

Will · 0:17:00
It was just a guy, right?

Reggie · 0:17:01
It's just a guy.

Will · 0:17:02
Can you be canceled without some kind of notoriety in the first place?

Reggie · 0:17:06
Or without a platform?

Will · 0:17:07
Like, if he's just some guy, you call the judge—

Tim · 0:17:09
You can't cancel a guy who got nothing to cancel.

Reggie · 0:17:10
I mean, I don't, I don't actually know who he was. I know he was in a— possibly a high-profile workplace.

Mary · 0:17:16
We have no idea who he is. It's super easy for us to comment on his life, but somebody does.

Tim · 0:17:20
Yeah.

Mary · 0:17:21
Somebody in his circle saw that video and probably saw your comment and like has, has been in it. And I wonder what the backlash is on someone's personal life, especially when they don't have the money or the status to override it, to combat it, to combat it, or to come back, or a platform to say, hey guys, I—

Reggie · 0:17:38
this is my—

Mary · 0:17:39
Yeah, nobody's listening when you try to correct the narrative.

Tim · 0:17:41
Yeah, because you're just that viral moment.

Mary · 0:17:42
Yeah, you're our entertainment.

Tim · 0:17:44
I mean, there are those stories of those people who would make a comment and then they turn their phone off because they were going on a flight. And by the time they land, they've lost their job and they've lost their friend group and they've lost all their notoriety because they made one comment. These are like these famous stories right at the height of the cancel culture.

Reggie · 0:17:59
Oh my God, there are some people I just want them to be canceled. Like Jake Lang. This guy is just—

Mary · 0:18:07
For some of these people, I want to hear the story of what you think they've done, because I'm not in every one of these circles.

Reggie · 0:18:13
Well, Jake Lang right now is organizing a thing that's happening in City Hall in Minneapolis called—

Mary · 0:18:19
Also, by the way, if you get canceled for telling this story, I'm so sorry.

Reggie · 0:18:22
It's fine.

Tim · 0:18:23
It's fine.

Reggie · 0:18:24
It's called NIP. G-T-E-R March.

Mary · 0:18:27
No.

Reggie · 0:18:28
Yes. And it's, it's actually happening. No, I'm dead serious.

Mary · 0:18:32
What?

Reggie · 0:18:32
I actually did all the research. I did all the research this morning. Well, he's the J6er that got pardoned, and he now has like a following of far-right people. And he has been using his platform every step of the way to like promote this far-right ideology.

Will · 0:18:51
Yes.

Reggie · 0:18:52
Essentially. And so he's having this thing called in March, and Shiloh Hendrix, the woman who called the baby the N-word, the autistic 6-year-old who was rummaging through her diaper bag. She called him the N-word and then got canceled and then went and raised $750,000. I remember that. She's one of the speakers at this thing. And I'm like, this has to be made up. And I did the research. It is happening. And there's gonna be law enforcement there to protect their free speech. I'm like, why are people like this?

Tim · 0:19:24
That deserves canceling.

Reggie · 0:19:25
That deserves canceling.

Tim · 0:19:27
I mean, he's doing it.

Reggie · 0:19:28
All he's telling me is I sure as shit don't want to go to Minneapolis with my brown, beautiful brown skin. It's not a place where I'm going to feel safe. Certainly not with my family.

Tim · 0:19:38
So here's what I feel like is happening with these type of movements. It happens with the Black Lives Matter movement as well, is people become numb to it and then they start to ignore it. And then it starts to become this fad, this has-been fad, and it's not powerful anymore. And it's sad. I don't know what it is. It's right.

Reggie · 0:19:55
Right. It's like over time.

Tim · 0:19:57
Yeah. Like the cancel culture was so hot and everyone was getting canceled for the smallest things. And now it's, it's been a powering power move. Like, yeah, they tried to cancel me. You can't cancel this.

Reggie · 0:20:07
It also wonders if it weakens things. Like, for instance, the MeToo movement was a very necessary movement. Like women have been absolutely on the wrong side of Hollywood for decades, and now finally they were getting justice. And now because of— now because the way the whole thing, like you said, people have become numb to it. And so it makes me wonder if we've just reverted back to them not being able to have a voice.

Mary · 0:20:34
Right.

Tim · 0:20:34
It's like some of us are Me Too and they'll joke about it. And that's what every movement gets into, this— how do you make a movement? Because there have been movements that stayed, right? There have been movements that stayed. Is it social media? Because we make a mockery of everything. Everything's sarcastic on social media.

Will · 0:20:49
Yeah.

Tim · 0:20:49
And when you make something sarcastic, you start to put it out of reality.

Reggie · 0:20:53
Yeah.

Tim · 0:20:53
And all of a sudden it's a joke. Now we can mess around. Oh, I was just kidding about that. Or I was just making a random comment. It's, it's like removed us from consequence of our— and this is weird because I think the consequences are also, at the same time I'm saying this, over the top for things that some people want to say about the way they feel or what's happened to them. But it's almost as if we've— now you can say whatever you want. Like, Trump's a great example. He's done whatever he wants. Elon Musk says whatever he wants. There is— and there's really nothing that they can do that makes people believe that they're bad people or that they deserve to be—

Reggie · 0:21:27
Elon Musk just became the first trillionaire.

Will · 0:21:28
I feel like it's almost created this backlash culture, especially—

Tim · 0:21:31
Backlash culture, that's exactly what it is.

Will · 0:21:33
Like the political right, they're like, well, fuck you, we're just gonna We're back.

Mary · 0:21:38
So cancel culture begets backlash culture.

Will · 0:21:40
I would say cancel culture begets backlash culture. Yeah, that's a good way to put it because I feel like there was such a strong reaction to it, especially because, you know what, never mind. I'm not going to say that.

Tim · 0:21:52
Ooh. Trend lately.

Will · 0:21:54
I think that was a half-baked take.

Reggie · 0:21:56
I am not going to get canceled.

Will · 0:21:57
I think that was a half-baked concept.

Tim · 0:22:00
Maybe if you put it out there, we can bake it Yeah, dude, this is the oven.

Mary · 0:22:03
Yeah, welcome to the oven.

Reggie · 0:22:05
Age is the oven of half-baked ideas. Age is the oven. I love that.

Will · 0:22:10
As we know, I think a lot of the public characters on the right, you know—

Mary · 0:22:16
That's a great way of putting it.

Will · 0:22:18
Yeah, characters.

Mary · 0:22:20
Characters. Yeah, caricatures at this point.

Will · 0:22:22
Yeah, they're like, oh, well, like, oh, this used to be okay. Or like, I used to be able to get away with this or whatever, right? And so it's created this, reactionary anti-cancel culture movement where it's almost, I'm losing my train of thought here.

Mary · 0:22:39
I think what I was hearing you say before you were so rudely interrupted by tech, I was trying, I'm always jumping ahead, by the way. I was trying to complete your thought for you.

Will · 0:22:47
No, please.

Mary · 0:22:48
But you were talking about how it almost emboldened Elon.

Tim · 0:22:51
Yes, she knew what you were gonna say.

Will · 0:22:52
Yes, for you.

Mary · 0:22:53
It's almost like begging him to go further. Like, you can't cancel me, I'll say the even crazier thing.

Reggie · 0:22:57
I'll say the even crazier thing. I think that's exactly what happened.

Will · 0:23:01
be described as reactionary.

Mary · 0:23:02
Yeah.

Tim · 0:23:02
It is.

Mary · 0:23:02
And it just fans those flames.

Will · 0:23:04
Yeah.

Tim · 0:23:04
And it actually is working.

Will · 0:23:05
Yeah.

Mary · 0:23:06
It feeds the mentality of all press is good press, right?

Will · 0:23:09
Yeah.

Mary · 0:23:09
Like the, the point is not to be right, although often that is the argument they're making in real time. I mean, it feels good in the moment to feel like you're right, to feel like you dominated a conversation or won a conversation, which is a ridiculous notion. But I think that generally the game is take up as much space and as much mindshare and attention as you possibly can, build the brand no matter what means you have to employ, and that equals more influence. It doesn't really matter what you're saying, because then you have power to manipulate people if you can just get the stage long enough.

Will · 0:23:44
It's Charlie Kirk, Candace Owens, Jake Lang.

Reggie · 0:23:46
Dick Lang.

Mary · 0:23:47
And we keep replaying those stories, right? Like, we keep resurfacing narratives about— I'm not gonna go down a whole political rabbit hole about it, but like, the certain media outlets are encouraged to bring back up and follow up on the storyline of these people. And it's like, but there are a million people, there are people out here getting shot and deported by ICE that we hear about them once and we don't hear about 'em again. And I'm like, why aren't we resurfacing those stories?

Tim · 0:24:11
'Cause they're not trending anymore.

Reggie · 0:24:13
Here's the beautiful thing that gives me hope though. As Chud the Builder just found out recently, you can't be shitty to people and double down perpetually. Eventually it catches up with you. Do you know about Chud the Builder?

Tim · 0:24:30
He's the guy— It's funny though, 'cause my son uses the word chud when he's like cutting someone down.

Mary · 0:24:34
Oh, how funny.

Tim · 0:24:34
Like he's such a chud.

Reggie · 0:24:35
Well, that's a perfect name for a guy.

Mary · 0:24:38
When you first said it, I was like, Bob the Builder?

Tim · 0:24:40
I know.

Reggie · 0:24:41
No, no. Bob the Builder. Bob the Builder is safe. He's totally safe. And there's a real Bob the Builder right here in Nashville, actually. One of my friends that owns a construction company. His name's Bob, and we call him Bob the Builder.

Mary · 0:24:56
I bet he loves that.

Reggie · 0:24:58
No, Chud the Builder was this— he actually does. I think he may even have it on his Facebook page that he's Bob the Builder.

Mary · 0:25:05
Well, it's great branding.

Reggie · 0:25:06
Yeah, it's great branding. No, Chud the Builder was the guy in Tennessee who was egging people of color on. He would yell, he would hurl the N-word at them and say all these outrageously horrific things. And then when they got mad, he'd be like, oh, look at him chimping out, chimping out, blah, blah, blah.

Tim · 0:25:24
Jesus.

Reggie · 0:25:25
And so eventually he said something on social media. He's like, this thing is gonna, you know, the finale is gonna be a dead chimp on the sidewalk and me walking outta court scot-free and all of you guys rioting in the streets. And so he foretold what he was gonna do. And then he actually shot a person of color in front of a courthouse building. And he's in jail. And then of course all the—

Tim · 0:25:51
Well, I'm glad that's still illegal.

Reggie · 0:25:53
All the Shiloh Hendrix people, all the far-right people who raise money for racists like this started raising money for him to— 'cause his bail was set at like $2 million, $1 million or something, so it was gonna be a lot for him to post bail. And so he started raising money, and the judge was like, no, you cannot raise money, you cannot use money, funds that were raised for this to get out. And so he's been on his pity party now because all roads have kept him in jail. And I'm like, well, there you go. Maybe the justice system sometimes works out and shows you that you cannot be shitty to people and just walk away scot-free.

Mary · 0:26:31
It is all coming down to justice. It is all coming down to— and this is kind of an uncomfortable place for me as someone who was raised by a cop, and that's like a really loaded thing these days. I got a lot of opinions about it.

Reggie · 0:26:45
There is great cops. I have friends that are great cops.

Mary · 0:26:47
Totally, and people, some people get into it for great reasons.

Reggie · 0:26:51
Yeah.

Mary · 0:26:52
But also it attracts a certain personality type.

Reggie · 0:26:54
It does attract a certain personality, absolutely.

Mary · 0:26:56
And so it's tough to figure that out, especially when someone's young and you're like, they're just trying to make a way in this world. But it is like watching the degradation of our basic freedoms in this country and trying to figure out where the buck actually stops, and be like, who, where is the true power where somebody can start to put their foot down? What is without corruption in our system? And it feels like the last holdout is attorneys and judges who are willing to say, and it's very intellectual, right? Like, it's not violent in the way that we're enforcing things right now. We are enforcing things in a violent way, but I say they fight with the pen rather than the sword.

Will · 0:27:40
Right, right.

Mary · 0:27:40
But it's coming down to like a battle of, It's, we're in therapy right now. Like, America's a teenager and we're angsty and we're either gonna like run off a cliff and end up in a bad place or we're gonna like work through some stuff and our daddy issues and whatever it is and come out the other side. But it feels like those battles are being won and lost in the justice system. And I do feel like there are good cops and good attorneys who have to really speak up and frankly like put their lives on the line. Like, it's a scary time to be the law.

Reggie · 0:28:13
That's exactly what they're doing. line because there's some really powerful people above them that don't want them to be making the stands.

Mary · 0:28:22
Yeah.

Reggie · 0:28:22
Or taking the stance that they're standing on.

Mary · 0:28:24
I remember even when I was in high school in like the early 2010s, I drove a car that my parents had driven before me, and we had a sticker on the car that was the Thin Blue Line, which is the cops thing.

Reggie · 0:28:38
Oh yeah, yeah, the cop thing.

Mary · 0:28:39
And there was a period of time I actually was not very politically involved at that time, And frankly, anything to do with it, I didn't want to think about or be involved in because I didn't like that I was embroiled in this thing just by virtue of where I was born, who I was born to, and all this stuff. I'm still kind of that way.

Will · 0:28:54
That conversation wasn't really happening at the time though, with the thin blue line and—

Reggie · 0:28:58
No, there was no Blue Lives Matter at the time, I don't think, right?

Mary · 0:29:01
Well, I think in 2012 it was like people were busting into cars and breaking— like there was violence being committed against cops when I was in high school. And I can't say that it was inherently wrong or bad, but I did— there were times where I was like, should I take this off my car? Not only because, like, maybe this makes you a target.

Reggie · 0:29:22
Right.

Mary · 0:29:22
Which is kind of scary.

Reggie · 0:29:24
That would be the main reason.

Mary · 0:29:25
But also, like, I mean, I talk about this with tattoos and piercings and stuff. Like, I don't want to look like a bootlicker, you know? I don't want to— I don't want people to assume That I'm on this polarized one side or the other debate. It's like, actually, I stand so much closer to the middle.

Reggie · 0:29:44
Yeah.

Mary · 0:29:45
But it's hard to have empathy for both sides, I guess. And it's not hard to have the empathy, it's hard to hold the middle, I guess, in a world that's inviting us to be so violent and dynamic to the highs and lows. Right.

Tim · 0:30:01
And I have found this point at which I know people who are racist on the public sphere, but they're not in their personal lives. And I wonder what person we're performing for the platform.

Reggie · 0:30:14
What do you mean? They're racist in the—

Mary · 0:30:15
Because I only have the opposite experience where it's like, oh, they'll bland out in the general, but if you get them behind closed doors, you're like, oh, they're super racist.

Tim · 0:30:24
Yeah, I've only ever had the opposite where I know someone that'll say things that are really strong And then if you see them— not that they're saying with their friends they're not trying to play the part, because they're still performing someone when you're with your friend group and you have to say the right things.

Mary · 0:30:40
There's a public life, but not necessarily a celebrity life.

Tim · 0:30:43
Right, but when someone actually meets someone else of that, whatever race or choice or sexuality, whatever it is, they show love in those situations. But globally, they connect with this person saying that and this person saying this on these social medias. I think we've lost track of who we are individually. Like, who am I? I'm this—

Reggie · 0:31:04
Oh, I would agree with that.

Tim · 0:31:05
I'm this like performed entity, this thing online that I align with these people and these people, and you're trying to define yourself by these paths that we're given, these people who are the loudest, and whether you follow them or you follow them, and you're going to get punished by the people you follow or cherish or love, or maybe you think you're gonna get punished by them, so you say the right thing. by their standards. But then when you're in your own life, you connect with another person, you forget what it's like to connect with another human, to know them. And so like when— so I grew up in a very Christian house, and my grandparents went to this really big Christian church. Turns out their pastor's son came out, and everyone who had known him all of a sudden realized like, oh, gay people aren't evil possessed people. Oh, that's interesting. Gordy's been my friend for so many years. But when he came out, it changed their hearts to see like, like, oh, maybe other people aren't evil. Maybe they're just humans that I can be in relationship with. And so it like broke this other— this caricature of what the public wants us to believe about these people, and it made them personally connected to that situation.

Mary · 0:32:13
There are studies that have posited— I'm not a researcher, I don't know what it takes to like truly empirically prove something— but there are studies that have posited that like The reason that gay rights took off at the speed that they did, like after Stonewall, and versus things like women's rights, which have— we've been fighting for suffrage for how long and we're still on tenuous ground, or like bodily autonomy, or Black rights, people of color. The reason it took off as quickly as it did is because you could be gay and nobody know it. And when you did come out, you already had social capital. and relationships with people. So they did have to have this moment of like, you're already someone I love.

Will · 0:32:54
That's good, yeah.

Mary · 0:32:54
And here's a part of you that I can either accept or reject. And many people did reject, and it created a lot of harm in the world. But a lot of people said, well, there's a bunch of parts of you that I love, and I just don't know this part yet, and I wanna get to know it.

Reggie · 0:33:07
So you mean you can't be Black and a woman and—

Tim · 0:33:10
Hide it.

Reggie · 0:33:11
People not know who you are.

Mary · 0:33:12
But I'm saying for a lot of people—

Tim · 0:33:13
Yeah, you have to carry it around on your face.

Mary · 0:33:16
And if you are born Black, you are in all likelihood born into a family of people who are Black, and you're in all likelihood— these days it's much less common, but you probably don't have a ton of relatives who are white. And so like your built-in network and infrastructure is othered. Like the whole community is othered.

Reggie · 0:33:35
From the get-go.

Mary · 0:33:36
Yeah. So people have to discover your humanity instead of like trying to stand ground on humanity.

Reggie · 0:33:43
I wanted to speak on something you said. I think, I think you're right. I think a lot of people— I think it's a situation of identity when people are connecting with these global ideologies that are far-right or negative or deemed negative by most sensible people. It's because they have been either in a group and this is the group they identify with and the group has this certain belief system. But then it's easy for them to sort of decompartmentalize their, or compartmentalize their lives where it's like, oh, I have this Black friend or this gay friend or whatever, and I'm very totally fine with them. But in the grand scheme of things, I, you know, I'm—

Tim · 0:34:29
My public stance.

Will · 0:34:30
Or like they're different.

Mary · 0:34:30
Right. Or like they're not the problem.

Tim · 0:34:32
Totally.

Will · 0:34:32
It's the other good ones.

Reggie · 0:34:33
Which makes me think about, so when I used to work at Office Depot years ago— You're one of the good ones as well.

Tim · 0:34:38
Oh, that is, I mean, that's, That's a poisonous thought. People will say, no, they're one of the good ones. All the rest of them are—

Reggie · 0:34:43
Perfect case in point. So when I used to work at Office Depot, there was a guy there who I used to have conversations with all the time. We joked around. We were like friends. But I later learned he was former KKK. He was like deep in the KKK. And he had a swastika actually tattooed on his ring finger.

Will · 0:35:05
Wow. Jeez.

Reggie · 0:35:06
And my Laika mom, was telling me one day kind of about his beliefs or whatever. And she was saying she had this conversation with him and she was like, well, what about Reggie? You and Reggie are friends. You love Reggie. And he's like, yeah, but Reggie's different than the rest of them.

Mary · 0:35:21
But Reggie's not like other girls.

Reggie · 0:35:23
But she was like, but she was, her point, her comeback was, well, doesn't that mean there are other people of that race that you could like as well? And it's It stumped him. He was like, it was a food for thought moment. But that was exactly the same scenario. Reggie's not like the other ones.

Tim · 0:35:42
Right. Because I know him personally. I found him to be a great man and I love him and relationally we get along. But the other ones, the ones out in the world that I don't know are the evil ones. Exactly.

Reggie · 0:35:53
But that's all propaganda. It's all the media. It's all pushing this negative narrative about women, races, gay people, whatever it is, they are pushing this, oh, they do these certain things. And then it just creates more of that divisive behavior.

Will · 0:36:10
I will say, and like, you know, I experienced some homophobia and everything, right? From people that were close to me. And that's like a, oh, we're gonna change, right? This is like ultimately gonna lead to like a change. Anybody that I have interfaced with on like a looser level, like a coworker or anything, it's like you become the exception. You're like, oh, you are the good guy. You know, it's like, this doesn't change my opinion about gay people. Yeah, yeah.

Reggie · 0:36:34
This does change my opinion about—

Will · 0:36:34
You're like— This is like a despite you being gay?

Reggie · 0:36:37
Yeah.

Mary · 0:36:38
I've let you in, but nobody else can come in.

Tim · 0:36:40
Wow. So maybe it's worse.

Will · 0:36:41
It just depends on how close you are, I guess.

Mary · 0:36:43
I will say, I was sort of surprised when you said the thing about public racist, private—

Tim · 0:36:51
Lover?

Reggie · 0:36:52
Acceptance. Private acceptance.

Mary · 0:36:54
Private lover. But I do, now that you said it again, I do think there's like, as Reggie was saying, ideology and culture that you feel like you have to buy in. It's like to live in certain places, it is only socially acceptable to be a Republican, which by the way, I'm not trying to vilify all Republicans.

Reggie · 0:37:15
No, I'm not saying all Republicans.

Mary · 0:37:18
But I'm saying if you're a Republican and you're a hardcore Republican, 'cause that's what's right, we bleed red down here, then you've gotta fall in line with the party, and even if the party starts to veer in a different way, you've either gotta be watching the party and ready to take a stand, which you need to be very individualistic and very informed, which is a lot of work, and you gotta be ready to stem the tide and get active and convince your other Republican friends, like, hey, let's pull the party back this way, or you jump on the party line and you support the crazy orange man.

Tim · 0:37:48
I have to—

Will · 0:37:49
Yeah.

Reggie · 0:37:49
Sorry, go ahead.

Tim · 0:37:50
I was just gonna say it's sometimes a means to an end. They're like, I'll support the party line. When I get enough power and capital, I'll switch my thoughts and make a change. But to get to that level, you just develop these habits and you develop these relationships. You can't go back on what you said.

Mary · 0:38:03
Well, and in some places, your— I'm gonna keep saying social capital, but I don't mean that in like a skeezy way. I mean in like the way that your life is held together by the people around you is dependent on some shared beliefs. It's the Odyssey thing. Like, we worship the same gods kind of thing holds this community together. And if you start to say, I don't believe in that one anymore, it breaks the social contract and there could be really harsh consequences. I don't know, you grew up near a military base.

Will · 0:38:30
I don't even know what that was about. Yeah, well, it was less influential than you would think in the town. No, I think there is something to the whole right and left dichotomy and talking talking about all like how people are interfacing in like large groups and like identifying with beliefs. 'Cause to a certain extent, you know, I do think that cancel culture is kind of a result of like Puritanism, you know? And even when it's done, you know, oftentimes people get canceled and it's progressive, it's a progressive effort, right? Like we cannot allow a society that allows this.

Reggie · 0:39:10
This thing.

Will · 0:39:10
This.

Reggie · 0:39:10
Right.

Will · 0:39:11
Yeah. But a lot of the times the way it's carried out, and I'm going to contradict what I said earlier, but with like no grace in anything else, it almost feels like, you know, I feel like a lot of the time, and I feel like I saw this in college 10 years ago, and I'm sure you did too, when all this was really popping off. But it almost feels like you've got a bunch of like progressives that have not unlearned that like Puritanism kind of like— Self-righteous. It's almost like rooted in like a right-wing kind of straight and narrow sort of attitude just applied to something else.

Mary · 0:39:39
Oh, we've come all the way back around, right? Like, we got so progressive that now it's conservative.

Will · 0:39:43
Right.

Mary · 0:39:44
I have sometimes a way that, as someone who went to a liberal arts school and got real, like, progressive relative to the place that I'm from, I've sometimes, as a schema in my head to help me rationalize what's happening, I think to myself, okay, liberals set the floor and conservatives set the ceiling, and we all gotta live in this room. And so it's like conservatives are always gonna be like, no, you're going too far. Or you could see it on a different dimension. You could say like distance versus staying the same. Like, oh, we don't wanna keep pushing. And growth is not always good. Like going in certain progressive directions isn't necessarily gonna be, especially at the speed that we wanna go.

Reggie · 0:40:24
Mm-hmm.

Mary · 0:40:25
I say we 'cause I'm usually in that liberal party. It's not always gonna have immediate benefit to the people living on the planet today. We get real high and mighty about like we wanna live in this utopian world and we're gonna fix all these things, but in reality if you move too fast—

Tim · 0:40:40
You'll break it.

Mary · 0:40:41
It breaks. And so people, if you really want to believe in the system, there has to be a moderated way to do this, and I can empathize with that, and yet stagnation is also death. So we have to keep moving it forward, but we have to agree on how much distance there And I think there are people who are leaping light-years ahead, and there are people who are digging their heels in and even like trying to walk backwards. And so we're just spread too far. We're not cohesive anymore.

Tim · 0:41:11
I feel like we've been taught violence is the answer, and I don't think it is.

Mary · 0:41:16
See, but hang on. But didn't you grow up hearing about Martin Luther King Jr. and about nonviolent movements?

Tim · 0:41:24
No, I grew up getting spanked by my own father.

Mary · 0:41:27
Sure.

Tim · 0:41:27
That's violence in your home.

Mary · 0:41:30
Well, it's the ultimate endpoint. Like, if we can't get through this, we're gonna get hit.

Tim · 0:41:33
I didn't know why I was getting hit.

Mary · 0:41:35
Yeah.

Tim · 0:41:35
And so we— cancel culture is just violence on another platform. You're gonna violently lash out, or you're gonna violently— like, we always try to overthrow through violence, and all it does is create really strong supporters of the side that got overthrown. It's done this throughout history. Like, you take over a country and you kill all the fathers, you're gonna have a generation of people that want to take you over.

Mary · 0:41:55
Sure.

Tim · 0:41:56
But it's so like we— and we were even talking with our potential client about violence, shame, and that type of attack doesn't change the powers.

Mary · 0:42:05
Yeah.

Tim · 0:42:06
You know, like we think it does. We had the Civil War, we overthrew. We had the war, the Revolutionary War. We have all these wars, but has anything really changed? When you change through violence, you're only breeding a revolt. Yeah.

Reggie · 0:42:18
So violence is coupled with guilt and shame. essentially, because it doesn't create a positive outcome.

Tim · 0:42:24
Right, you can't kill someone and expect their family to change.

Reggie · 0:42:28
It creates backlash.

Tim · 0:42:29
Right, so like, we're gonna impeach Trump. That only makes him stronger to his base. He doesn't just like, oh, I'm gonna go away. Like, we're like, let's put him in jail for being a rapist. No, that just makes him stronger.

Will · 0:42:42
You're almost a martyr, you know what I mean?

Tim · 0:42:43
Right, you're making a martyr. So I don't know where we start to listen to the ones who've gone before us and say that love is the answer, like Mother Teresa and Mahatma Gandhi, all these people who are like, no, that isn't the answer. Martin Luther King. Like, people will try to cancel Martin Luther King for the things he did, cheated on his wife many times, and he's supposed to be this Christian man. That's what they say about him, as if the things he did and said were not also true.

Reggie · 0:43:06
Right.

Tim · 0:43:06
But I think that we all, we all go toward violence first, even Odyssey, we are trained that the myth, he comes back after being totally beat. I don't wanna spoil it.

Mary · 0:43:19
It's built into culture that he's gonna fight. Right, right. Like there's no alternative.

Tim · 0:43:22
And we want it. I wanted that. That is the payoff. You want someone to die.

Mary · 0:43:26
I wanted everyone to be like, oh shit, he's back, and go home. No, not that one snippet.

Tim · 0:43:31
I'm not gonna spoil it for everybody, but there's just a feeling.

Mary · 0:43:34
It's one of the oldest stories we have.

Reggie · 0:43:36
I know, that's what I'm saying.

Tim · 0:43:38
Well, true, but I think he changed it in ways that may not be— I don't know, whatever.

Mary · 0:43:42
I'm sure there's nuance, but most of that plot I was aware of.

Reggie · 0:43:45
No, no, Paris was watching and she was like, oh, this is gonna be great.

Tim · 0:43:50
Like, she knew what was coming. She read the book.

Mary · 0:43:51
She knew it was coming. She was like, are we gonna shoot the thing?

Reggie · 0:43:52
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tim · 0:43:53
All that to say is that I myself admit I am drawn toward violence. I want violence to happen. I feel like that's what works. Like, that's how we defeated Hitler. That's how we defeated Attila the Hun. That's how things get reordered. And my dad would say this too, and my dad thinks that God is coming back to have violence on the world.

Reggie · 0:44:12
Yeah.

Tim · 0:44:13
To kill all the evil people. But there's other scriptures in the Bible that say he's coming back to redeem the world. And so if you think about this in a different way, love is actually what changes us.

Mary · 0:44:23
Yeah.

Tim · 0:44:24
That's why we're all lovers privately. We want to connect with other people because there's a shared humanity, but the violence on the outside makes it harder The armor we wear makes us stronger, and so we keep wearing it, and we're afraid of letting that off because you're gonna get killed.

Mary · 0:44:39
Absolutely. You gotta walk without armor, unfortunately. That's a really scary thing to think about.

Tim · 0:44:44
Scary.

Mary · 0:44:44
We're all Cancer risings over here, so we don't like that. But I think you gotta walk without armor, and you have to actively work to find love with people that you think you hate, and that sucks. You have to be in rooms where you're uncomfortable. But I'm— we're having talks, Alex and I, about like starting to go to church, not because I want to.

Reggie · 0:45:06
Like, I can actually—

Mary · 0:45:08
I don't want to. But because if you can go to a house where people purport to be there to convene in the name of love, in the name of God, and you can find somewhere where they have like weird, wonky ways of doing that and get to know some of those people and connect, That feels like— that's the Jesus thing. That's the change. That's the, hey, let's— for lack of a better word, let's infiltrate. Let's teach them what real love looks like.

Tim · 0:45:35
I actually think the most powerful changemakers are the ones you've never heard of. They don't hold these powers, these places of power. Well, they're the people who healed the people who healed you. Right. And they go unnoticed, and that's what keeps it pure.

Reggie · 0:45:49
Yeah.

Tim · 0:45:50
You know, like, There's this thing we have with worshiping these powerful people and these gods. They are our new gods. Trump is part of people I know and love, he's their god. God's man.

Mary · 0:46:05
He's got a whole ideology too. It changes every 10 minutes.

Tim · 0:46:09
But still, it's like once you connect a person with that level of myth, there's not much You can't kill them and kill it. There's no violence that will undo this.

Mary · 0:46:20
That's what Will said.

Reggie · 0:46:21
This is why I think identity is so important. I feel like when you take a look at yourself and really understand who you are on a deep level and what resonates with you and what makes you feel like you, you don't need to follow some ideology of some larger You don't need to feel like you have to like feel a certain way or think a certain way to belong or to be supported. And I think that's the problem. I think a lot of people lack a core identity and it leaves them kind of flailing about until they anchor with someone that accepts them. And then once that happens, then they are all in. They are just like, they just buy and take all of the—

Mary · 0:47:09
You're like defined by your religion.

Reggie · 0:47:11
The belief system becomes their identity. Yeah, and I've never been like that.

Will · 0:47:14
Society, and they're like, what can I latch on to?

Tim · 0:47:16
Yeah, I grew up with a child.

Reggie · 0:47:17
I don't know if it's because I was the only child. I was in school, I was like such a rare— I was a nerd because I was like a computer geek. I was a varsity basketball starter, so I was a jock. I was friends with everybody, the Vietnamese students, the Hispanic students, Like, I walked through the school and I'm saying hello to everybody. And it was, it was different. I wasn't— I didn't like— I could go and sit with any group as opposed to like, I'm sitting with the goth kids because, because I'm a goth kid, you know? I was like, I was sitting with the jocks and I spent a little time with them. Like, I'm going to go spend some time with my fellow geeks. And, you know, and I wish more people could do that. I wish more people could open their parameters up to let more people in? Because I feel like, I mean, I think high school sort of cultures us that way. You know, you go through a typical high school, there's groups of the groups, you know?

Mary · 0:48:19
Well, first and foremost, were you thinking about the couple in front of the corpse flower when he said goths?

Reggie · 0:48:23
I was.

Mary · 0:48:24
'Cause I was surprised.

Will · 0:48:25
I was thinking about Reggie with like big hair and like—

Mary · 0:48:28
He's in whiteface.

Will · 0:48:30
If I have time during the edit, I will Photoshop that in.

Mary · 0:48:34
Well, I also wanna mention, you went to school in St. Louis, right? Which, you know, it's in the Midwest. It's not New York, it's not LA, but that's a melting pot. I went to high school in McDowell County, North Carolina. There's a good percentage of Hispanic people. There's a couple of Black people, and they've been segregated into a couple of neighborhoods. Not my fault, but that's how it is. I get it, man. Well, I mean, we're not helping, right? But there isn't, like, America's the melting pot, but it's starting in cities, and I think that's also part of what you're seeing even here in Asheville. By the way, Asheville is a super white city, as I'm sure everyone here can attest, relative to other metropolitan places, and we're kind of battling for our soul right now, I think, trying to figure out where we stand in the grand scheme.

Reggie · 0:49:23
Definitely more segregated than we should be, in the times.

Mary · 0:49:26
And it's because— it's just because there hasn't been— we live in the mountains, the mountains are insular. We also have old culture that like— the way that we speak in Western North Carolina, not necessarily in Asheville because it's getting diluted by new people coming in, but like we have ancient like memory of the time when people were coming here fleeing whatever was happening in their home country, the white people Well, anyway, but I'm saying that the melding has not happened everywhere in the United States, and I think a lot of the issues we're running into are just people trying to understand the true promise of the melting pot that America believes itself to be.

Tim · 0:50:09
Mm-hmm.

Mary · 0:50:10
And the consequences or the realities of that are very uncomfortable. It's like suddenly you've got 4 houseguests, and you're like, well, this was my house, But just shut up and be a gracious host. Let's all be together. Be generous. And by the way, you never owned it anyway. But I think that people are being exposed to ways of thinking that have never entered their communities before. And so it's just whiplash on some level.

Reggie · 0:50:40
I also think there are things like, for instance, in Asheville specifically, urban renewal. There are things that happen that were, I think, atrocities, that why Black communities are separate, because their houses got taken from them with a promise.

Mary · 0:50:56
Yeah.

Reggie · 0:50:56
And then the promise never came out. And now people of color who would've had some generational wealth, the homes that they had to give up are now owned by white people and have a $500,000 to $1 million price tag on them. I mean, that money should have been in the Black community. So I think a lot of it also has to do with sorting out the past in a way that we own it and we make a path to forgiveness and reciprocity and healing.

Mary · 0:51:30
That's so, but what a shitty request to make of people who have not suffered seen that sort of generosity and love on the other side of the relationship. And I don't know, it just feels like we never feel like there's enough to go around.

Tim · 0:51:50
Yeah.

Mary · 0:51:50
Why am I worried about you getting yours except that I think you might be taking it from me?

Reggie · 0:51:54
But it can't happen. Like, for instance, touching on the full circle here, Louis C.K.

Will · 0:52:00
Yeah, there's a quote by him where, you know, all this came out. I was like, oh, that sucks. There's this quote where he's like, The only reason you should be looking in your neighbor's bowl is to make sure they have enough and not to make sure they have more than you.

Reggie · 0:52:10
Oh yeah.

Will · 0:52:11
And it was in some stand-up special. That's actually really profound. But then he ended up not being a good guy.

Reggie · 0:52:15
And you're like, see, now we look bad again.

Will · 0:52:18
But yeah, I just think people are tribal, like at the core. And I think we would all be better off if we were less tribal because that, it does, it creates like insular communities. It creates the in-group and the out-group.

Tim · 0:52:31
Well, they're saying that America's too big to be unified.

Will · 0:52:34
Yeah.

Tim · 0:52:34
Well, as long as I don't split it in my life. And these kingdoms or these empires can only last so many years. There's a lot of research going into how many years that is, but America's on its way down is basically the scenario we're in because of the insular— you can't stop these tribal fights. These will destroy it.

Reggie · 0:52:53
But I feel like there are definitely gleams of hope that I see in one particular case, the church on Church Street found out, and this is someone who is not—

Mary · 0:53:04
Wow.

Reggie · 0:53:04
It's a church on Church Street. As a guy who is not a church guy or religious, I fully love this particular pastor because they found out that their church in particular did something unkind years ago, long before this current congregation there is— there were Black members of this church, and the Black members had to sit in the mezzanine. They were not allowed to be down in the general area with the white people. And so since they were up there and they couldn't hear the pastor very well, they once asked, well, hey, can we have a Black pastor up here so we can have our own service? And the pastor at the time was like, if you want your own service, then go get your own church. And there was this really nasty confrontation. And so all the Black people left and started their own church. They did the thing. And this was buried in the paperwork and, you know, for years.

Will · 0:53:59
Mm-hmm.

Reggie · 0:53:59
And this pastor and her congregation, her leadership found out about it. And instead of like continuing to bury it and cover it up, you know, they— and risk being canceled, they decided to go ahead and bring it out. and say, hey, this is a thing that happened. We are not proud of this. This is not who we are today.

Will · 0:54:20
Yeah.

Reggie · 0:54:21
We accept everybody. We, we are, we are a loving community and all are welcome. And they are actually even going against the, the church system. I don't want to name them, but the church system that they are a part of, they have a— the whole all are welcome is not, um, not embraced by their overarching church system. Sure, sure. So they have decided they're even going to break away from it if the overarching system or the powers that be don't change their rules and become the same thing. So there's hope there. I do think there are these moments where I say people are going against the grain and saying, no, we don't have to be tribal, we don't have to be the way we've been, we can make a change and we can move towards love, kindness, and See, but you notice what you just did.

Mary · 0:55:10
You reoriented around values. It's not about where you were born. It's not about who your daddy is. It's not about how much money you have. It's like you and I, all of us here in this room, by the way, thank you for being here, Ricky.

Reggie · 0:55:23
Yeah, Ricky's over there. You guys know Ricky because he was on an earlier episode. We love Ricky.

Tim · 0:55:28
The fans are here for Ricky.

Mary · 0:55:31
We know. But I know that all people in this room value love so highly. And so like whatever's between us, like we fight.

Reggie · 0:55:43
We fight. Oh yeah, we fight. But we also love each other, so it's not like a fight fight.

Mary · 0:55:49
It's like, I know, I know for sure and for certain we're gonna get back to that place because we all believe that is the most important thing. And I think for all that the internet has wrecked us, Yes. This comes back to the, like, progressing forward versus holding ground or backing up. The internet leaped us forward in a huge way, 'cause we're like, whoa, we can talk to everybody now. I can be aware of everything that's happening in the world. That's not necessarily healthy, but it's helping us reorganize around people who share our beliefs and our values.

Reggie · 0:56:20
Yeah.

Mary · 0:56:20
So I think it can— in some ways, we're creating new tribes. We're creating ideological tribes, and it's going well in some cases. and poorly in others, because we're accepting a lot of different kinds of idols in the world right now. But it's giving us an opportunity to look past the demographics that we've used up until now. And I want to believe that people are gonna— that that's the direction we're gonna go. But it does have to stay an open-door policy.

Reggie · 0:56:47
I think there's more people that align with love in the world than there are that align with hate. Hurting others. And I, I have to believe that. Yeah. Because otherwise we're all fucked, right?

Tim · 0:57:00
But are there more people willing to be canceled?

Reggie · 0:57:03
As I mean, I think there's more people willing to be canceled for the right reasons. I'm certainly willing to be canceled for the right reasons. If I'm standing up for something, how do you define—

Tim · 0:57:12
what do you define as the right reasons?

Reggie · 0:57:13
I mean, if it's not hateful, if it's not hurting someone else, then I think that's the right reason.

Tim · 0:57:18
But you're not gonna be hateful and hurt hurt someone else.

Reggie · 0:57:19
Exactly.

Tim · 0:57:20
So like when we do work with our clients and you want to say something that's on the edge, there's a narrative that we don't notice, a subconscious narrative. Are we willing to be canceled? Because that means tribulation. Like that means bad things are coming. Money may not come in. We may lose fans or clients or customers. So are you willing? It doesn't matter if you say love is your value. Like everyone I could say that. Are you willing?

Mary · 0:57:48
Even people who are behaving hatefully probably would tell themselves—

Tim · 0:57:51
All you need is love. Beatles said it, everyone believes it. It's not a questionable thing whether or not love is the most amazing thing in the world, but are you willing to be canceled because of it? That's where the real question lies, and cancel culture has created our inner center being, oh, better not say that. Oh, can I say that? I can't say that. Especially me, I'm a white man. I can't say a lot of things.

Mary · 0:58:12
You're not allowed to say anything.

Tim · 0:58:13
In fact, shut up. And I kind of sometimes—

Will · 0:58:17
You told everybody.

Tim · 0:58:18
I feel like, I feel like there were times in the Bible, like Job got canceled, like his whole life went to shit. Odyssey got canceled, his whole life went to shit. There's times where I desire the canceling so that I can reckon with my identity, so that I'm not performing anymore, so I can rip off the outer layer and the masks and who I'm hiding behind and what I'm afraid of. I mean, like, I went on record on LinkedIn saying I was a Christian, and I felt like that was gonna get me canceled. 'Cause—

Mary · 0:58:43
Oh, there's all kinds of crazy Christians out there.

Tim · 0:58:45
Well, one, because I don't agree with what all the Christians are doing in the world, especially. And then a lot of my friends or a lot of my colleagues don't know that about me 'cause I kept it under wraps for 8 years.

Mary · 0:58:56
Isn't that interesting though? There are people who are like wearing it out loud and using it for reasons that I, well, I won't posit about that, but you're like covert Christianity, like the real version.

Reggie · 0:59:09
Yeah, but you're a true Christian in the sense that you follow Jesus.

Tim · 0:59:13
It is about love, yeah.

Reggie · 0:59:15
And Jesus was about love. And I think what happens is Christianity has gotten such a bad rap because so many people are picking and choosing the things that work best for them while completely throwing away all the things that Jesus was really about. Like, we're not helping our neighbors.

Mary · 0:59:30
In their defense, totally.

Reggie · 0:59:30
We're not feeding the poor. We're not like, oh, these people are gross and dirty, let's hide. Like, that's not how Jesus was.

Mary · 0:59:38
And what you're saying is awful and people should not behave that way, but I just wanna throw one thing out in the spirit of holding the middle and not becoming polarized. What if you said to yourself, they're not doing it for themselves, they're doing it because they think that's the way to protect their children. They're doing that because they've been taught for good or for ill, I think for ill, like they really believe they are helping. They're not coming at it like a villain.

Tim · 1:00:03
You're assigning positive to it.

Mary · 1:00:04
They think that they're the hero.

Reggie · 1:00:05
I mean, I can see that.

Will · 1:00:07
The entire conservative basis.

Mary · 1:00:10
Yes, that's anybody is the hero in their own life. And they're not doing it because they're— I mean, maybe they're insane by some sociological measure.

Tim · 1:00:16
There are some that are probably literally insane.

Mary · 1:00:18
Yeah, like psychosis. But I'm saying—

Reggie · 1:00:19
But I do think you have to take into consideration, if you're saying that a whole race of people are bad and you don't wanna have anything to do with them because you're—

Tim · 1:00:28
That's wrong no matter what your motive is.

Will · 1:00:29
That's wrong.

Reggie · 1:00:30
I don't care who the fuck you are. How are you protecting your kids by doing that?

Mary · 1:00:35
Can I exercise this idea for a minute? And I wanna be super clear, these are not my beliefs.

Reggie · 1:00:39
No, I know this, I know this.

Mary · 1:00:41
But I feel like I know people who have been on this journey and maybe are waking up slower than other people are.

Reggie · 1:00:47
I think that's the thing.

Mary · 1:00:49
At what age is a child appropriately meant to differentiate from their parents' beliefs on that? 'Cause you don't get to choose whether you're born to racist parents or not.

Tim · 1:00:59
Right, that's totally true.

Mary · 1:00:59
You don't get to choose whether you're indoctrinated. You don't get to choose whether there are black people at your school or not. You don't get to choose, like, necessarily who your friends are when you're a kid. It's sort of just like a matter of where you are. So at what age is a child responsible for changing their own beliefs? And I almost wonder if it doesn't happen by the time you're like 13, you're too deep in.

Reggie · 1:01:20
Yeah.

Tim · 1:01:21
That wasn't for me. I changed way later.

Mary · 1:01:23
You were racist to begin with and you—

Tim · 1:01:25
I definitely have been aware, like, you don't realize you're racist until you you start to think like, wow, that's crazy.

Mary · 1:01:30
Sure, we all carry a bias.

Tim · 1:01:31
It's the belief underneath all that. I never outwardly was racist, like I didn't attack people or do any violence or anything.

Mary · 1:01:38
Sure, but maybe you had prejudice or biases.

Tim · 1:01:39
Yeah, but in my 20s when things started happening, in my 30s especially when Black Lives Matter, I was like, shit. And I read the How to Be an Antiracist book. I was like, oh my gosh, my whole fabric was woven in this way and I didn't know it. And so it came much later for me.

Mary · 1:01:55
It was you got exposure to racism.

Reggie · 1:01:56
That's a good term. It's an unraveling. I saw a reel recently where there was a woman who basically was responding to a quote or something that she saw about conservative Christianity and the MAGA movement and all this. And she said, yes, I voted for Trump. And then she went through and said, but I regret that. And she went through and tore down all her— she basically just—

Mary · 1:02:20
Deconstructed.

Reggie · 1:02:21
She deconstructed her whole belief system and said, These are the things that have been taught to me since I was a kid. And now I understand why they were wrong. And she just went down and systematically just tore it all down.

Mary · 1:02:34
Yeah.

Reggie · 1:02:34
And said, this is what I believe now. And she said it and posted this and it went viral. And she said it because she wanted more people to have this realization. You don't have to be locked into what your childhood belief system was. I'm sure there are things that I believed as a kid that have been crushed because I had an open mind.

Mary · 1:02:54
And you got out.

Reggie · 1:02:56
And I got out of it. But also having an open mind is key. Like having some sense of knowing that you can always be wrong and you can always— and I think one of the things I've been very fortunate, I've always had this sort of internal, I always want to evolve. I always, like, I want people to tell me if I'm wrong or if I've said something that they deem wrong, I want to have that conversation. I'm not stuck in my ways.

Tim · 1:03:23
Yeah, but you underestimate the power of going to hell if you're wrong.

Reggie · 1:03:26
I don't believe in hell, though.

Tim · 1:03:28
I know, but I grew up— millions of people grow up thinking if they're wrong, they go to hell. So it's like, I asked my dad one time if it's okay to have an open mind. Like, how open of a mind can you have and still be safe? Right. And he didn't believe that it was was possible to have an open mind and be safe because you're taught that, you know, the thief is out there trying to wreck you.

Reggie · 1:03:52
The devil.

Tim · 1:03:53
Yeah, the devil's out there, and if you're wrong, you go to eternal damnation.

Mary · 1:03:57
Well, that's when you die, but even if you're wrong in your lifetime, that will have consequences tomorrow.

Tim · 1:04:03
Right, so that's what I'm saying. You have to be willing. This is why when you're talking about the identity, none of us really understand how magnificent it would be to really know who you are. But to really know who you are, you have to be willing to be canceled.

Reggie · 1:04:16
Or disempowered.

Tim · 1:04:18
Not that you will be canceled, but to be able to strip yourself of all the things that you are willing to get on that place and just be stripped of it all.

Reggie · 1:04:26
But it also means going against your group, being canceled by your group.

Tim · 1:04:30
Right, because our roles, we don't realize how much we're identifying with our roles in life. Male, white, Asheville, father. There's all these roles I hold as my identifiers. I don't realize that those are my kind of my support structure.

Mary · 1:04:43
Totally.

Tim · 1:04:44
If I were to let go of all of that, if I were to just let it fall all apart to truly find who I was created to be, that's another— that's a different level of open-mindedness and willingness to be wrong. That's like lose— you think you're gonna lose yourself, but the thing is that— and this is in the Bible actually— you must lose yourself to find yourself. There is the path, the hero's journey of the the depths of the valley of shadow of death type of experience to find out who you are. And so the question about cancel culture to me, as I've been wrestling with this whole conversation, is, am I willing to be canceled?

Mary · 1:05:15
Mm-hmm.

Tim · 1:05:15
You know, can I speak my truth and be canceled for it so that I can learn whether or not that was truth? You know, because I could say something and be like, yeah, this is this, and someone would just come at me, and I have the ability then to receive it or to deny it, and that proves who I am inside. That proves my identity or what I'm identifying by. So we don't realize that the freedom is in the prison cell we're afraid to go into.

Reggie · 1:05:40
I'm doing it right now. I think my, you know, my whole family on my dad's side, even my mom's side, super religious. They all grew up Christians, and I just said I'm not religious. This is probably, if they're watching this, probably the first time they've actually heard me say that I'm not, you know, like I absolutely you know, believe that Jesus was a good person and all the things he did, that's part of my ideology. That's— and so in some ways I might be more of a true Christian than some of the Christians I know. But, you know, I, I think you're willing to be able to say that is the thing. And I think more people need to have the bravery to say that I don't necessarily believe all the things that I grew up believing.

Tim · 1:06:21
Right.

Mary · 1:06:22
We all gotta come out.

Reggie · 1:06:23
Yeah.

Mary · 1:06:24
And we all gotta just like be the sacrifice. Be like, hey, this is as good as I know to do right now. If anybody has a better idea, I'm open to hearing it, but I'm gonna do it and be scared.

Reggie · 1:06:36
Yeah.

Mary · 1:06:37
I'm just gonna be scared to do it anyway.

Will · 1:06:39
I mean, it's scary.

Reggie · 1:06:40
It's scary, or it's freedom, you know? I think also there's a lot of—

Tim · 1:06:44
It's freedom, I think.

Reggie · 1:06:45
Yeah, a lot of us feel shackled by the way the ideology that we've grown up with or belief system.

Mary · 1:06:53
Maybe that's it because you talk about open-mindedness and that's huge to me. I'm a big proponent of travel. See something different. See something you've never seen before. It'll teach you about yourself.

Reggie · 1:07:04
Absolutely.

Mary · 1:07:05
But not everybody has that benefit or has that encouraged in them. And it almost feels like we built this country with the concept of freedom, which was a sham to begin with. government. Like, until we figure out the race issue, there's no such thing. But we built it around this value of freedom, and I think everybody here still agrees we want that. But you can't have freedom without an open mind. You gotta— like, for you to be truly free and not persecuted, you gotta take that action that you wanna take, and then you gotta be ready to receive whatever it is you get back from the universe.

Reggie · 1:07:41
Whatever it is.

Mary · 1:07:42
respond to that and you can move with gentleness and love, or you can move with hate and backlash and fear and you can seize up. And it's like getting in a car crash. They say you're better off not to see it coming.

Will · 1:07:53
Yeah, you are.

Reggie · 1:07:54
Just relax.

Will · 1:07:55
Yeah.

Reggie · 1:07:55
Because if your body's more relaxed and you don't ridge like that, more things break when your body's rigid versus—

Mary · 1:07:59
Yeah. It's like stepping into traffic.

Reggie · 1:08:01
Yeah.

Tim · 1:08:01
I always tell my wife that when we go to the beach, you have to give yourself to the waves.

Will · 1:08:04
Yeah, you do.

Tim · 1:08:05
If you fight the waves, it will destroy you.

Mary · 1:08:08
Yeah.

Reggie · 1:08:08
It will just rip you apart.

Tim · 1:08:09
and knock you into the sand. But if you just let yourself go with it— so there's something about letting yourself go with it. And this is weird because I was always taught to fight violence against things.

Mary · 1:08:17
Hold your ground.

Reggie · 1:08:18
Hold your ground.

Tim · 1:08:19
And I think there's something about flowing with it, going with it. Yeah, it takes trust that there is someone watching out for you.

Reggie · 1:08:26
You have to surrender.

Tim · 1:08:27
Right, you have to surrender. But how scary would that be if you don't know there's someone watching out for you?

Mary · 1:08:31
Well, then what is your identity if you're like, I'm just gonna flow with it, right?

Will · 1:08:34
I'm not Well, you gotta— yeah, there's some— you gotta dig your heels in every once in a while.

Tim · 1:08:38
But even standing up, getting your head knocked into the sand, yeah, is part of the process. I mean, like, that's how I lived my 20s. I literally got my head rammed in the sand several times.

Will · 1:08:48
I was passive for so long.

Mary · 1:08:50
Really?

Will · 1:08:50
Yeah.

Mary · 1:08:51
I don't know how to do anything except to ram my head into the sand. Like, I have to ram my head into the sand 5 times and I'll be like, ah, I just thrived. That's the play.

Will · 1:09:01
Fully adrift.

Tim · 1:09:02
Wow.

Reggie · 1:09:03
One of the things you keep saying is you have to be willing to be canceled. And I think that deserves a little bit of like refinement or finesse. 'Cause I think one of the things that I think is there are a lot of bad people that are willing to be canceled and it's why they say such horrendous things. One of the posts the other day I saw from one of the news channels, You know, there were the recent string of shootings in Nashville where they finally found a suspect who they think kind of started the whole snowball of shootings. And he's a young Black kid. He's like 17 or something like that. And the comments on this news post were absolutely fucking horrendous. Oh, so bad. Just like, it's always them. And oh, I'm surprised. Christ, you know, there's all these like usual suspects and like, you know, probably didn't have a father, all these like really racist like thoughts. And those people are saying these things with no fear of being canceled because, you know, they just don't care. It's part of their belief that they bought so much into that they're willing to say it. Or maybe to your point, they might think that this is their expression of love because their community might support their ideology. So they're like, I'm saying something that they don't deem as horrendous. This is reinforcing the love of my community.

Tim · 1:10:34
And a lot of people are anonymous online.

Reggie · 1:10:35
Yeah, and that's a good point too.

Tim · 1:10:37
So they can say whatever bullshit they wanna say and not get canceled.

Reggie · 1:10:40
Yeah, because they're under a fake account.

Tim · 1:10:41
And I'm— I guess I'm saying it using it using the weapon of it to your advantage. So like, if you're gonna speak out against Trump or Republicans or whatever they're doing, if I was gonna speak out against another Christian, all of my Christian friends and family would probably cancel me.

Reggie · 1:10:58
Right. You know, like, oh, he said this thing about that other group.

Tim · 1:11:01
Like, for me to even say something about homosexual people, right, they were gonna cancel me for that, right? So like, you have to be willing to like get pushed out.

Reggie · 1:11:11
I was gonna say, that's it. You have to be willing to get pushed out of the group. And I think that's a good stance to take. You have to be willing to get pushed out of a group that you now understand has some kind of skewed beliefs.

Tim · 1:11:25
And there's a new group forming.

Mary · 1:11:26
I also think, and this, we're getting into, this is, I am undereducated to be having some of the discussions that we're having here and And it's a tough battle, but I'm saying there's a lot of discussion that I hear, and I agree with, around it is not for the people whose lives are at greatest peril in our country, the people who are being visibly profiled and harmed on purpose, it's not for them to be taking the big leap.

Tim · 1:12:00
No.

Mary · 1:12:01
I think that—

Tim · 1:12:02
Agreed.

Mary · 1:12:04
We have so much less to lose. I say we as somebody who's born into a white family in the whitest place I know. Yeah, me too. Yet I'm terrified. I am quaking to think about the people who either won't like me or will say negative things about me, and that somehow harms my prospects or my connection to my heritage or whatever the hell. Maybe my family won't love me anymore, and then who loves me? But like that versus somebody is going to take my life because of this whole different ballgame.

Reggie · 1:12:36
Oh yeah, that's a different ballgame.

Mary · 1:12:37
So I think, well, I know that this was not what you intended, but you're looking at Reggie and saying like, so you got to be ready to step out. And I'm like, people are shooting people who look like Reggie. I don't want Reggie to die.

Tim · 1:12:46
I am talking to myself. I want you all to know I'm talking to myself. You're here, but I'm talking to me.

Mary · 1:12:52
Baby, we're in the oven. Like, come on.

Reggie · 1:12:54
This is the oven. I love it.

Tim · 1:12:56
The oven of idea baking.

Mary · 1:12:58
It's so scary. And then I look at what I'm scared of and I'm like, get over it.

Will · 1:13:03
Yeah, that's bullshit.

Reggie · 1:13:04
No, that's a really good point.

Mary · 1:13:05
Like, so what? Get a tattoo and go on.

Reggie · 1:13:07
Yeah, that's a really good point.

Mary · 1:13:09
You let me down, Will. I'm gonna be real honest.

Reggie · 1:13:14
What did Will do?

Mary · 1:13:15
We had a pact that Will didn't realize he'd signed.

Tim · 1:13:18
Got some heroin in my tattoo, unaware.

Mary · 1:13:22
It's okay. And then he said he was leaving me and going to Charlotte. So now I'm double mad at him.

Reggie · 1:13:27
We're gonna miss you, Will.

Tim · 1:13:28
Yeah, we are.

Mary · 1:13:28
Do you think we should all get matching tattoos?

Reggie · 1:13:31
Yes.

Mary · 1:13:33
See, they're signing now too, and they don't even know.

Reggie · 1:13:35
I'm in.

Tim · 1:13:37
The Will tattoo.

Reggie · 1:13:37
Guys, thanks for taking a little window of time out of your day to listen to our ramblings.

Tim · 1:13:43
Big window.

Reggie · 1:13:44
Yeah, it's a big window. I hope you found something in this conversation that encourages you to continue it within your own circles. Hope there's been some food for thought here. We love it when you're here. We want you to keep listening. Feel free to leave comments below on whatever platform you're listening or watching.

Mary · 1:14:03
And we're open and receptive. We'll hear it.

Reggie · 1:14:06
Yes, we're open and receptive.

Mary · 1:14:07
We'll try to learn.

Reggie · 1:14:08
If you need to cancel any one of us, just make sure it's Tim.

Tim · 1:14:13
I asked for it. I want to be canceled.

Mary · 1:14:16
Strip me.

Reggie · 1:14:17
Strip me.

Mary · 1:14:18
Okay, Tim.

Reggie · 1:14:19
We love you guys. Thanks for being here.

Mary · 1:14:21
We'll see you soon.

Will · 1:14:22
Thank you.

Tim · 1:14:23
Bye.

Mary · 1:14:25
Whoa.

Reggie · 1:14:26
I love that.

Will · 1:14:29
Thanks for listening. This podcast was created and developed by our hosts Reggie Tidwell, Tim Scroggs, and Mary Greene. Produced by Tim Scroggs. Live production and editing by me. Will Canady. Special thanks to Dylan Garcia. Today's episode is presented lovingly by 40 Hearts, creators of enduring value.