 And especially as the ones who end up like dating white guys and marrying white guys, and then you see them when they get into these elected offices, they become judges, they become prosecutors, they become police officers, and they treat black people worse than white people treat us. They talk to us worse than white people talk to us. They love us in a way that I don't want to be loved. Derek Quarles is one of two candidates in the runoff for the Democratic nomination to represent South Carolina's 25th district in the state house. But two other candidates for that seat, Libertarian Jack Logan and Democrat Bruce Wilson, say Quarles isn't eligible to run at all. His 2004 felony conviction for grand larceny ended in June 2008, and per state law a candidate has to wait 15 years to file for office. That would be June 2023. I've been doing the Democratic party on this issue for several months, and it's only become an issue in the last couple of days since I'm in the runoff. Quarles claims he's been properly vetted by the state Democratic Party, and he's been pardoned by the state, meaning he is eligible. To my knowledge, again, every charge that was supposed to be pardoned for to make me eligible was pardoned. Again, that charge was a charge that I acquired when I was a juvenile. Tell me about how you got into the political world. What were your sensibilities prior to becoming what some people call a politician? What are they now? And kind of what is your goal? What is your mission with the work you're doing? Yep, so I got involved in politics, I guess, accidentally. What I mean by that is, I actually started out in activism, and with my adult life, I started in activism and organizing, and I got into organizing from Trayvon Martin's death in 2012. Trayvon Martin was killed. Before he was killed, I was living my life. I had no intentions of going to politics or anything of that nature. In fact, my mind was was on going into medicine to be a psychiatrist. And then when he was killed, it kind of just split everything and kind of made me have a moment to myself to say, wait a minute, I can be a doctor and be what I want to be, but there are people that are struggling and suffering, how can I help them? And so it led me on this journey of getting involved in organizing and activism. And so here we are now, years later, and I'm still doing organizing and activism, but I've taken that into a different path, and that's into politics, because in activism, that's only so much work you can do. That's only so many doors you can knock down. And if that's only so many people, that's going to tell you no. And so you get tired of hearing people say no. And so then you go on to the politics, and then that's how I got into politics. So I was watching a documentary of Frederick Douglass. And it was a documentary put together from his memoirs and his work and things like that. And there was a point in his life when Black people started making progress in the civil rights struggle. And he started asking himself, yo, how else can I be useful? This is all I've been doing, this is all I've been fighting. And I bring that up because one of the critiques of activists, of civil rights leaders, is that their entire lives are predicated on their being dysfunction. And if there is no dysfunction, they have no identity, so they're going to milk, exaggerate, push the images of dysfunction. How do you respond to that? So since I've been around, way before I've been around, there's been dysfunction. America was founded on dysfunction. And the story that we know about Christopher Columbus, I mean, that whole story is dysfunction. And until we correct that truth, that's always going to be dysfunction. I don't think we'll ever correct that truth, because it's still being taught in schools. And so I think there's plenty of issues to go around. Every single day you see Congress creating new drama that doesn't need to be created. They're reversing rules and laws and legislation that was put in place 50 plus years ago. And so I think that America wants to be a better place, but America's comfortable. And what I mean by America, I mean is the people that empower, they're comfortable. I tell that about the people that want power are comfortable and complacent, the people that are empowered, they're comfortable too, to an extent. They're comfortable until they see us basically understanding who we are as a people and walking in that authority. And so more specifically, if you talk to one on one to any politician, they're much nicer one on one. They are on the TV screens and much nicer than they are when they're on that Senate floor or the congressional floor. When they go to Congress, when they go on that floor, they're totally different people. And so one of the things I've been doing is I've been having developing relationships with congressmen, with senators, because I wanted to know that even though you go to DC and you portray the certain image like the image you give me is not the image you're given to America, so where's the disconnect? And so I think if we, if all of us took a moment to try to get to know our elected officials, that might start the process of creating that dialogue that will create the change that we want to see, so that we won't need activism activism. But until then, and I think we'll always need activists around. So that brings up an interesting question for me. I think you can make the argument that political power is more about lobbying than voting or marching. How do you reconcile the two? As somebody who does, I'm assuming both. Is there any truth to that? Am I overexaggerating? Some people downplaying it? You're all the way out on the money. So I always tell people like an organized activism is, first of all, it's two different things. And you first up another difference between organizing and activism. Organizing is you basically having the power to influence to bring people together to for a common cause to perfect change. But activism is you actually putting action behind that organizing and saying, all right, we organize because we want to see teachers have better pay. Teachers don't get better pay. So then we go into activism mode and we start knocking on doors of our elected officials, camping out in their lawns saying, hey, these teachers need better pay. And we're here to let you know that we're not leaving until we at least have this conversation. And so that's kind of like, I started organizing, went into activism and so got into the political lane. But I think they're all equally important. And I think if people have to know what role you play and how you're most effective in that role. If I had to say which one was most effective in my own personal experience, I would say activism. Because as an activist, I've been able to, you know, whether they want to not have conversations with people, opening doors, knocking down barriers, and creating different narratives to help bring about better change. And so, but I understand that again, that in politics you have more power to actually create the change than the activist does. The activists have that tool or the tool to get you to create that change. So this question, I'm going to intentionally leave it broad because I want you to take it wherever you see fit. But, you know, based on the analytics, at least 80 to 90% of the people watching this are black men, right? Is there a concerted effort, a deliberate effort to monetize black male dysfunction? Wow. Yeah, so, absolutely. You know, from the correctional system to fatherhood, to education especially, sports, anything. So I'll just go about the education because I'm an educator and that's kind of been my premise. That's kind of led me to this point. When you look at education, you look at the number of black men that matriculate and that make it even to 12th grade. It's much lower than black women. It's much lower than white males, white, than any other demographic. You look at the number of black men who go to college is even less. And you look at the number of black men who go to college, who finish that number of declines, and so on and so forth. You know, I'm very fortunate to be among the group of folks who have worked toward a PhD. And again, only 2% of the world has a PhD. But when you look at how the dysfunction around education in terms of how black men are encouraged to get trades, even from, you know, the middle school and high school that teachers tell them, you know, college isn't for everybody. You know, maybe you want to consider, you know, getting a trade. You may want to consider you're 17 now so you can quit school. Like, why are you here? I've literally talked to black men who've told me that they quit school because their teachers told them, school is not for you. Like, go ahead and drop out and do yourself a favor and go into a trade. And while trade, that's not the wrong wrong going into a trade. It's 2022. And most people want to know like, where'd you go to school at? Like, where's your educational foundation? Even if you're not working in a corporate American job, people always ask you, where'd you go to school? And if you can't say, I could be to high school, then the chance of them wanting to work with you are slim to none. And so then you look at, you know, in the judicial system, you know, this dysfunction all around the judicial system with black men, how black men are number one, how we're marginalized in that system that we go to jail at a higher rate than any other group of people were sentenced at a higher rate than any other group of people. The data says that one in three black men in their life will go to jail in that lifetime. One in three black men, one in five Hispanics, and one in 18 white men. And so you see that's a huge disparity between white, black, Hispanic and white. And it's not that we don't create the same crimes. And in fact, in my opinion, humble opinion, I think that, you know, other groups create or accredit crimes at a higher rate and do more heinous crimes. Yet they don't get the harsh penalties because of the color of their skin and because of the people who are handing out those sentences look like them. They're their cousins or their uncles, their dad plays golf with them. And so because we don't have that luxury of knowing those people, the prosecutor, the chief of police, the sheriffs, oftentimes we get sentenced and also because we can't afford the attorneys. And again, that goes back to the education because I have the jobs and the skill set to be able to have the income to afford the attorneys. And so it's, and so the dysfunction is there and it perpetuates itself in every cycle from education to the judicial, even in our healthcare system, you look at the number of black people who die because they don't simply don't have access to healthcare because they don't have the means to go to a hospital to see a doctor. You look at the number of black people that live in rural communities who don't have hospitals within a 50 mile radius. And so they sit on an illness for months and for years until that illness finally kills them. And so it's all over no matter where you look and where you live. My natural question is why? What is the, I guess, what is the business plan? What is the, the, if we can, you know, get, like you said, one out of three black men into prison, it puts money in our pockets this way. Like what, what is the, and then I want to move to, to women. But what, what is the why? I think the why is, is, is something that I've struggled with, but something that I firmly believe is that I think white America believes that when black America finally wakes up and we're waking up now, we fully walk in like our full being, I feel so, I think that they believe that we're going to reverse the tides and treat them the way that they treated us during, you know, the 1950s and 1930s and the 1840s. And I've not thought that one single black person in my life who has any plans or the intentions of treating white people any type of way, based on the way that they treated Dr. King said that too. Like it's a fear of retaliation. The fear of retaliation. Wow. Okay. And you know, I just, if anybody white is listening and you have that fear, I want to just get it out of your mind. Like that's, that's not our plan. That's not our intentions. We only want to, we only want peace. We only want to live in a place where all of us can get along, go along, work together. It's out of the king's head. And, and, and although he died, his dream still lives and the dream hasn't been fully fulfilled. And so, you know, I wake up every day, working toward achieving the dream of Dr. King and Malcolm X and the other folks who fought so hard so that we could have access and opportunities. So, you know, I'm gonna kind of put you on the spot with this one. Okay. One of the conspiracy theories, right? Is that Dr. King was not assassinated because I have a dream. He was assassinated because of the other America speech. And, and even, you know, he was slated, I think to give a speech two days after he was murdered, talking about America will go straight to hell or something like that. But he started talking about economics. Yes. Closer to the end of his life. And on top of that, you know, like when I have conversations with white people, I tell them his approval rating was in a toilet, you know, during his life. So, now there's newfound reverence for him. What wasn't there from white America when he was alive? Talk about number one, why that is and why our concept of Dr. King versus who he actually was is so different. So that's, that's a lot. So one of the things that, you know, and when I'm marching and protesting and stuff, one of the things that I've heard from white people all the time say is Dr. King wouldn't do that. Or Dr. King wouldn't like that. Or Dr. King was peaceful. Dr. King wore suits and Dr. King did A, B, and C. And as you mentioned, when Dr. King was living, they had that, they didn't have that reference for Dr. King. They didn't have that same like for Dr. King. And even when white people decided to join Dr. King, other white people would, you know, treat them like they were black people. They would, you know, spit on them. They would cuss them out. They would, you know, follow home, harass them, stalk them. And so, you know, when I don't want to hear the Dr. King thing, like, you know, because if you didn't respect the man against here, I don't want to hear it. But as you mentioned, yeah, when he started talking about economics, like that, that was basically the end of his life because America in the world, but America understands economics rules everything. Economics rules everything. And so, you know, I like to say the saying that, you know, money makes the world go round. If you don't believe it, try to go around the world without money, like you just can't do it. And so Dr. King started, when he shipped from talking about, you know, marching and rallying and started shipping, talking about the power of economics, white America was like, no, no, no, no, no, because the black people finally wake up and they start making money and they start, they won't need us anymore. And so we, America has created this sense of dependency. And that's why you have social services. That's why you have, you know, DSS. That's why you have all of these different organizations that are giving out all this money because they want black people to be so dependent upon a white man for a dollar. But if you look at the number of recipients who receive welfare in food stamps and all that, the majority is white people. But the narrative that's put out in the media and in publication, the Washington Post is that it's black people. You always see black people asking for money and asking for this and asking for that. But what the reality is is, yeah, black people are on, they, we need social services because from the beginning we've been disadvantaged. But the majority of the people that receive these services are not us. I remember when I was in high school, I had a kid in my class who was adopted and his mom, his adopted mom adopted like 13 of the kids and they were millionaires. They lived in a really huge house and you would never know that they were adopted. You would never know anything about them because they just, they, from the outside, they just appeared to be this like natural, like well put together family. But even though they were millionaires, they were receiving food stamps and I know this because I was in the store, I was in the store one day, literally in the store one day and I saw his mom swipe a food stamp card and I'm just like, and I asked him about it the next day in class and he was like, yeah, my mom has 13 of kids and she adopted it and I'm like, well, yeah, like eight of them are grown though. So five of y'all in the house, you shouldn't be having food stamps if you're a millionaire too. And the house to live in the car would be a job. And so again, it just goes back to like them knowing how to go to the system and say, I need A, B and C and getting it as a, and then black people applying and they being denied and they really need those services. And so back to Dr. King and, and, and I guess the lack of the respect for the man himself. And even with black folks like we, we take Dr. King now and you know, we'll put do racks and Dr. King, we put weed in his mouth. And and while that may seem like it's cool and to be celebrated, it's not because Dr. King was nothing about, he was nothing about, he was strictly about the business of seeing everybody do better. It wasn't just black folks. It was every single body, every single person, but especially poor people. And so if we can, if we want to under Dr. King, we do that by making sure that poor people and the least among us that they have opportunities, the same opportunities that we have. I don't know if you heard about Beesamal. Beesamal, yes. She had some words for, for, or about Dr. King. I don't know if she was talking about him specifically or she was talking about the archetype and saying that, you know, if, if, if you are known for cheating on your wife, you know, you're not a great man. I'm going to just give you the floor. What is your response to, to even the idea, what she's saying, where she's coming from? Just Yeah. So, I would just say, I mean, so people are people and that's not making excuses for people. And for people that are spiritual, Paul says in the Bible, he says that I want to do good. And when I want to do good, evil is around all around me. And so I do evil because it's, it's right at my disposal. And he says, I want, and he keeps saying, he says, I want to do good. I desire to do good, but because evil is there and it's so available to me, like I end up doing evil. And it was like, so even when I do evil, it's not me doing the evil. It's the evil that sent me that's doing it. And so I said, I just say that even though Dr. King may or may not have cheated on his life, that doesn't discredit the work that he did to make America and the world a better place. Yeah. He had some shortcomings. We all do that. We all make mistakes. We all have areas in our lives that we can do better in. But again, you cannot take the fact that he cheated on his wife. Allegedly. Allegedly. And say that because he alleged he cheated on his wife that he's not a good man or a great man. Because then you literally, there's nobody on this planet is a good person because all of us, how about they cheated it at some point in our lives or our husbands or our tests, you cheated on something at some point. And so who are we to say that? Because this man again, allegedly cheated on his wife that he wasn't a good man. And his wife stayed with him. I mean, she never left him. So like, and I don't, I've never, I've never seen a clip or article or anything where the wife said, my husband cheated on me. And so if Coretta Scott King stayed by her man and stood by her man and supported a man, then I, who am I to not support him and say that he was indeed a great man. So you mentioned something early. I thought it was interesting, but in the context of white America, it seems like, you know, you're a black man. I'm a black man. It seems like obviously in the legal system, we're more heavily scrutinized. To go to the B Simone example, it seems like in everyday life, we're heavily scrutinized by our own women. Yes. Add some context to that. What do you think is going on? I think, I don't know, man, it's, it's, because I don't want to, I don't want to put black women in a box and say that black women do this and do this and do that. But there are a lot of black women, especially, and this is not again for every black woman, but a lot of black women that are highly educated. And from, you know, from a classroom standpoint, they tend to be a little harsher on black men than any other group of people. And I don't know what that is. I don't know. And it's typically not the one, it's typically the ones that attend predominantly white institutions. And I guess it's because they are exposed to, and I get against, it's exposure, but exposed to different cultures, different realities, and they're taught, you know, in different things. And so I don't understand it though. And especially as the ones who end up like dating white guys and marrying white guys, and then you, you see them when they get into these elected offices, they become judges, they become prosecutors, they become police officers, and they treat black people worse than white people treat us. They talk to us worse than white people talk to us. They love us, you know, in a way that I don't want to be loved. And so the saying is true for the Hispanic community, like when they, when they, a lot of them, when they achieve education, when they arrive, they consider themselves to be light elites. They're saying what Asian Americans are saying with any other group of folks, when they have achieved a sense of entitlement or a sense of I've arrived, they treat us differently. And I could be a black man with just as much education, with just as much money, with just as much, you know, anything, but the mere fact that I'm a black man, I'm being judged by that and nothing else.