 People were talking about how come there were so many, or not so many, but there were some men in the restaurant and nobody jumped in, nobody said anything. You know, and then it kind of segues into hashtag protect black women, which I touched on in two of my previous case studies. We've seen situations where brothers, especially like in high school and stuff, they'll even instigate the fight. Especially like if it's between two girls, instead of trying to break it apart, they'll instigate the fight. That is absolute cowardice. If you see two women about to fight, absolutely, divide it. Two men about to fight, divide it, keep the peace. The only man I see in this clip is old, so maybe he's scared for his health, I don't know. But again, you have to consider the environment, Chicago, he's probably not in practice breaking up stuff, because he might lose his life. There's no reverence for elders in those type of environments. Second thing is masculine women, some people have talked about, okay, what happened? What did she say? What led to the brother being so irate, so much so that he said that he would put hands on her and he actually did. How and why was a 14 year old boy put in the situation to have to kill a man in protection of his mother? Protect black women. It's a hashtag obviously, but it's something that comes up a lot, especially in discourse. A lot of people don't think black men in particular do a good enough job hashtag protecting black women. Black women talk about not feeling safe around black men. Whether we are the aggressors or whether we are pedestrians as they are being assaulted or whatever the case may be, which is ironic because one of the clips that's doing its rounds on Instagram from the channel is a clip of a young lady saying how she was at a hookah lounge and a friend of hers walked in and the first thing he looked at her and said was, are you good? And she talked about how she instantly felt safe, she instantly felt protected. So I'm trying to fight against that narrative that black men don't protect black women because it's just not true. There are black men currently in jail and in the ground behind protecting black women. And sometimes behind protecting black women who did not deserve their protection if we're being completely honest. We all know people in general, but maybe women in particular who like to put themselves and sometimes include the men in their lives in avoidable situations that sometimes lead to very, very drastic outcomes. Travis Rudolph, the girl that he was dating is a great example of that. She talked about, or she texted her brother and his friends to go over there and shoot a shit up and unfortunately their shit got shot up. But you know, we have countless examples of this. I remember Erica Lachey on Instagram, she was talking about how her brother in, who was or is in prison was telling her about a friend of his that's in prison serving some time, some serious time because that man's sister reported to him that her boyfriend was beating on her. And that man assaulted the boyfriend and ended up serving, I think 10, 20 years currently in prisons, currently in prison and the sister gets back with the boyfriend. And we see examples of this. I'm sure brothers who are watching or brothers who might watch this afterwards have or have heard examples of this. So when we simplify the whole protect black women thing to just simply, if you're a man and you're around a woman in danger you should abandon and throw caution to the wind and just jump in between her and that danger. I don't think they're considering how nuanced that is. And the reality is, as a man, as men, we can only truly protect things and people under our jurisdiction. That's kind of how protection works, right? You have to submit yourself to that things authority to then be rewarded with its protection. Whether we're talking about government, whether we're talking about individuals, it's a symbiotic relationship, you know? Protection also includes, hey, get behind me. And if you're not willing to listen to get behind me I can't protect you from whatever's in front of you. And unfortunately what we see around a lot of this conversation around protect black women, it's protect black women despite our arrogance. Protect black women despite our unwillingness to listen. Protect black women despite our disregard for your safety. Protect black women despite our consideration of, you know, levels of escalation, right? Like when you talk about violence, they're levels of escalation. There are a lot of things that happen that could have been squashed, right? They, lives could have been saved, but because one or both parties weren't willing to put their pride aside, weren't willing to walk away, maybe somebody says, that's what I thought. And now are you ready to throw your life away in the life of your unborn children or born children away just because you are defending that deep seated insecurity? And unfortunately, I think we don't have a good enough conversation around the ways that our women can better protect us, right? And part of that is picking battles. And that's why one of the words of caution that I give men is if you know you have a woman in your life who is reckless with their mouth, if you know you have a woman in your life who don't listen to shit, who you can't tell me shit, you might wanna distance yourself from that woman because she might put you in a situation that you can't come out of, right? And again, I'm not saying that's what happened in this situation because even though we have the clip of the dude punching her in the face repeatedly, we don't have any context as to what happened or what the altercation was. If she was truly just there and this crazy ass dude started punching me for no reason or if there was more to it, they know each other prior to this interaction. But again, that is not to say that she deserved that assault. We can only speculate as to what happened, what words were exchanged in that store, what words or what disposition that she may or may not have had that inspired the other men in there to say, you know what, that's her. But yeah, like I said, I'm not a fan of random black men just protecting random black women. I think you have to assess the situation. If she is a woman who's truly in need of protection in context, absolutely. If that's a risk that you're willing to take, as a man, we deserve some level of autonomy as to who we decide to protect, right? Protection is a privilege. Nobody's owed your protection. Nobody's owed your life other than maybe your children or your woman or your family, but random people on the street, you never know. I've heard stories of brothers jumping into protect the woman who's getting beat up by her boyfriend and then the boyfriend and the woman jump on a dude, you know? So you gotta be careful, brothers. I know sometimes we operate in this fairy tale world that nobility will always be rewarded, shivery will always be rewarded, but the reality is some people crazy. And furthermore, some people like that shit. Some people like that Bonnie and Clyde shit. And if you are the sucker who gets in between of Bonnie and Clyde when they're bickering, you might lose your life. So be careful and have some level of discernment with evaluating situations. But again, we don't know what they were arguing about. I can only assume it was she, he was being belligerent, she was being belligerent. For whatever reason, the modern world has convinced women that they are capable of matching men physically. So there's no sense of, you know, the quorum when it comes to, like I've seen five foot two women talk to six foot five dudes like they could whoop their ass. And in this current world that we operate in is kind of okay. And unfortunately, sometimes you run into a dude with reckless abandon who's like, you act like a man, I'm gonna treat you like a man. And again, that's not to say it's right. Like I said, I have a daughter. I would not stand for anybody putting their hands on her. However, I'm gonna teach her, you need to operate a move through the world like a woman. You do not need to operate a move through the world like a man, because somebody might take you up on that. And, you know, to empathize with her a little bit, clearly she's living in Chicago. Seems like she's living in a questionable part of Chicago. And, you know, one of the consequences of what white supremacy has done to our communities, it's forced us to become warriors. Right, I talk about that even with Nigeria, like the average person who's living in a certain environment, you have to become a bit more raw and a bit more gritty. Like we talk about New York women. And over time, you get lost in that. And that becomes your persona. You know, you lose sight of your softness. You lose sight of the fact that, oh, I don't have the same bone density or muscle mass as this grown ass man, because I've had to move in my masculine for so long that my masculine allows me to assume that I can match this man physically. And usually I never have to be checked. But when you run into some dumb ass, crazy ass dudes like this brother who lost his life, that might be the case. During the case study I was doing about the Apple Vision Pro, I talked about escapism. I talked about, you know, unfortunately, when your material world sucks, you're gonna escape to a fantasy world. You know, typically men do that by escaping to video games. Women do that by escaping to novels and movies. And in novels and movies, protection looks like Game of Thrones. And riding in there and, you know, when my man pull up, he's shooting shit up and he gonna throw this dude over there. He gonna punch this dude through the wall and it's like, that's not how life works. That's not how it happens. There's a reason why trained fighters are usually the last to fight. There's a reason why trained shooters are usually the last to shoot because those people understand that the way that you think it's gonna play out in your head is absolutely not how it plays out at all. The gun might jam. You might throw your shoulder out of socket. So all those years of boxing or jujitsu is like null and void. Your knee might pop. So de-escalation is literally the best thing. So some months ago I did a, probably a year now, did a stream with Dr. T. S. L. Johnson about son husbands and husband sons. So for those of you guys who don't know, a son husband is a son who, for multiple reasons, has had to assume the emotional, physical sometimes, financial sometimes, responsibility of his mother's husband. Typically it's a boy who's growing up with a single mother. So he's her boyfriend, he's her world, he's her husband for all intents and purposes. And like Dr. T. S. L. Johnson, sometimes that even bleeds over into a sexual relationship between mother and son. That's not the norm. That's the exception. But at the very least there is an emotional burden that the boy has to bear simply for being born to a woman who needed that space filled. And part of the responsibility of a man is protection. So again, my only, I guess advice to women from this is you are not a man, you will never be a man. And however well you think you can fight, however well you think you can stand up to a man and put your fingers in his face and all that rah-rah stuff, at some point there might be a man who does not have the self control, the decorum, the respect for women to tolerate that and walk away. So ladies, please do not play man games because you will not win. And sometimes they'll have to escalate to the point where your son, you know, thankfully he's not gonna serve prison time but he's got a body on his conscience. That boy might not be able to sleep for the rest of his life. I've heard multiple versions that, you know, he came in with her, she told him to go back to the car. I've heard versions where he never came in with her but she texted him to, you know, come in with the gun. I've heard versions where she didn't say anything. He was in the car and he saw what was happening or heard what was happening. He came out, you know, on his own. But either way, boys, especially not a 14 year old boy, should not be put in situations where they have to defend their mother's honor. I'm reminded of John Morant. Obviously we know what's been happening with the guns but prior to that there was a situation, I think at a foot locker or a foot action where his mom had got into an argument with a cashier. And she calls Ja to pull up to the store and Ja does Ja and threatens the guy in the whole nine. Unfortunately we see some examples where women weaponize the men in their lives despite the potential cost to those men. In John Morant's situation, his mom's petty argument with the store clerk could have cost him his career or maybe his life. In this scenario, again, we don't know all the details but perhaps this lady could have walked away. Perhaps this lady could have de-escalated as opposed to assuming a masculine posture. And again, we're taking into account how she's been socialized to assume that posture. And I think Kevin Sam was even alluded to women from certain cities being off limits. Like we talk about New York women being masculine or some people have said Philadelphia, like Philly women are masculine. Chicago, we obviously know what's going on in Chicago. And there are consequences for the type of disposition that could create in the women there. We already know what happens to the men. So I give her the benefit of the doubt in that regard but generally I think the main message should be we need to minimize these situations from even getting to this point. There is, for whatever reason, this sense of... And I've seen this come from some women, even when they're talking about the men that they want romantically. It's almost like a human pit bull. It's kind of the archetype that's praised. You know, there's this overt protector. This shoot first, ask questions later type of personality type without consideration for how, like I said, how that could affect him or what that could mean for his future. And it doesn't seem to be the minute of thought to consider is this situation currently even worth this? Is it worth calling my brother? Is it that deep? Is this just gonna be an ego thing to me or is my life in danger? Because the reality of how men are wired is we are responding to that. We're responding like the police. We're responding in a way that we want to protect. This is in our DNA, we wanna save. And if we need to immobilize or eliminate the threat, we will. Some people talk about them following him outside and continuing to shoot even after he ran, which is questionable, but I suspect if he is being raised by a belligerent and emotional mother, there's a chance, unfortunately, the stats kind of support this, that he might grow into a belligerent and emotional man. And, you know, typically belligerent and emotional women, they just talk and throw drinks. Belligerent and emotional men are what comprises our prison system, especially black men. I think somebody said that the number one indicator of a man's likelihood to end up in prison is whether or not he was raised by a single mother. And again, I'm not blaming the women for this wholeheartedly, but a lot of the sentiment that we see come out of the female delegation that men are inconsequential, we don't need men, I can do bad all by myself. The data and the results that we see, paint a clear picture that that's not true. Men are absolutely vital. And not just when it comes to how we contribute from a protection and provision standpoint, but just our energy, our presence, it's absolutely vital. And especially when it comes to raising boys. I know that Dr. Umar Johnson clip has been doing its rounds about, you know, him saying that it's entirely black men's fault of where our community is. And, you know, I think I talked about it during one of the interviews, how we are, we are careful in our consideration of the societal and the historical context that play into why our women are the way that they are. Just like, you know, I've given her the better for the doubt, you know. This happened, so this happened, and that's why women are like this. But when it comes to what made boys and men the way that they are, it's like we just throw all that out. And it's like we're just supposed to own it wholesale. And not only is that not fair, it's not accurate. And I think, you know, I think it perpetuates this sense of black men don't want any better without acknowledging all the leaps that black men have historically made for our community. And I'm not just talking about the Martin Luther Kings and the Malcolm X's and the names that we know. I'm talking about the black men who helped Harriet Tubman. But if you notice, white supremacy, even on the liberal side, and yes, white liberalism is still white supremacy, is a bit more comfortable with audacious black women than it is with audacious black men. So, you know, I say all that to say, it's important that we own our narratives and it's important that things like this happening is, you know, we use it as an opportunity to reflect on black masculinity, black femininity. Neither of the two people in this clip should have behaved the way that they did. And that 14 year old boy should not have been put in an environment where he had to, well he has to now live with the death on his conscience. And whatever additional PTSD that he has grown up in Chicago. I recognize what Umar was doing. I think, you know, when you're having a conversation with men, you're gonna focus on internal locus of control, right? Like, what is it that we can do? And you're gonna assume responsibility, which is something I've been guilty of as well. Even in college, right? When we were talking about men with men, I assumed that the women were blameless in that conversation. However, my issue with Umar sometimes, it does seem like he's pandering because some of the outs that he was trying to give women intellectually should rightfully be given to men as well. Just like, hey, we gotta understand the systems that created these women, those same systems created the men. And I know sometimes it becomes a chicken or the egg thing, but you have to tell the whole truth. The biggest thing for me though is he didn't let those brothers talk. And I think that's why sometimes black intellectuals or intellectualism is unapproachable because some intellectuals take this like chief posture. So people who might not have read the same books or watched the same documentaries or had the same level of education, they don't think that they can interact with that level of intellectual discourse. So they just back away and stick to the simple stuff. So I think it's the responsibility of the intellectual, ah, can't talk, intellectuals among us to help bring people into dialogue instead of just dunking on them every chance they get.