CultureRoad™ Podcast - Episode 2: Cancel Culture
In today’s episode, CultureRoad™ creator and host DeEtta Jones is joined by Evelyn Miller, partner of SMART Settlements; Monique Idlett, co-founder of Reign Ventures, a $100M investment firm, co-founder of Mosley Music, and the latest star from Undercover Billionaire Season 2; and Collette Leonard, VP and co-founder of Cannabliss, for a candid discussion on cancel culture. Visit DeEttaJones.com for more information.
This episode covers:
- [03:34] - Examples of cancel culture
- [11:19] - The validity of cancel culture
- [19:31] - The cure for cancel culture
- [24:21] - When cancel culture is justified
- [35:15] - How entrepreneurs and leaders can navigate a society inflicted by cancel culture
- [43:20] - How entrepreneurs and leaders can be models for change
Key quotes:
- “Do we want to teach them? Do we want it to be a learning moment? Or do we want it to destroy their lives?” -Collette Leonard, [06:53]
- “I think what’s scary about canceling culture is that it gets to be the opinions of people without facts.” -Monique Idlett, [07:09]
- “It’s not a court of a law; cancel culture is the court of public opinion.” -Evelyn Miller, [07:48]
- “We are actively looking for the error of people’s ways.” -DeEtta Jones, [14:31]
- “The way that cancel culture is working, it’s not a perfect system. There are definitely people that are probably going to be injured by this that don’t deserve it.” -Evelyn Miller, [18:29]
- “The opposite of [cancel culture] is love, support, education, and healing.” -Monique Idlett, [19:59]
- “So, who gets to be the judge? Who says we even have the authority to pass judgment?” -Monique Idlett, [23:05]
- “What will change a system is to figure out how to rewrite the laws and things that will have a generational impact.” -Monique Idlett, [27:38]
- “We all, every day, have to practice accountability to our own integrity.” -Monique Idlett, [40:05]
- “Hate drives revenue.” -DeEtta Jones, [41:56]
- “There’s such a lack of empathy all around.” -Collette Leonard, [54:03]
- “Through that empathy, we’re supposed to show compassion and build a community of people who don’t necessarily have the same experiences that we have. It is our obligation.” -Monique Idlett, [59:00]
This episode is brought to you by:
CultureRoad™, a live and on-demand digital learning solution powered by DeEtta Jones and Associates. CultureRoad™ is an easy-to-use subscription, delivering fresh content monthly and access to experts, to help professionals at all levels thrive in the contemporary workplace. Stay up-to-date with best practices on DEI, and acquire the necessary skills and tools to effectively lead, manage, and influence others. Get connected with this community of practice to further your professional development at cultureroad.com.
Transcript
Welcome to the culture road podcast, the place where we believe that diversity
Speaker:equity and inclusion, our lifestyle.
Speaker:I'm your host, DeEtta Jones, lover of coffee, and all things.
Speaker:Decor agency, owner, and 32 year industry veteran and executive trainer.
Speaker:Who's helped to shape workplace culture for some of the world's leading companies
Speaker:and institutions tune into this podcast for fresh perspectives on hot topics and
Speaker:current events that are shaping today's society and the contemporary workplace.
Speaker:You're tuned into episode two.
Speaker:And today we are discussing a topic that has swept through
Speaker:society for the past five years.
Speaker:Cancel culture.
Speaker:what initially started as an effort to hold those in positions of power
Speaker:to higher levels of accountability has evolved into a movement, not
Speaker:governed by standards of accountability itself, yet having much impact on
Speaker:spheres of influence, ranging from the music industry to the market place.
Speaker:Joining me in conversation today are some of the most well read
Speaker:and informed women that I know.
Speaker:Evelyn Miller, Monique Idlett and Collette Leonard, Evelyn Miller here in
Speaker:the black closest to me is partner of Smart Settlements based in Washington,
Speaker:DC, Maryland, Virginia, and Florida.
Speaker:She's also known as smart.
Speaker:Evelyn J D.
Speaker:Welcome.
Speaker:Monique Idlett is co-founder of Reign Ventures, a $100 million investment from
Speaker:co-founder of Mosley Music Group and the latest star from undercover billionaire
Speaker:season to welcome Monique and Colette.
Speaker:Leonard is vice president and co-founder of Cannabliss a DC-based
Speaker:medical cannabis dispensary.
Speaker:Welcome Collette.
Speaker:Thank you for having me.
Speaker:I'm glad you're here.
Speaker:Okay, ladies.
Speaker:Welcome.
Speaker:We said our welcomes.
Speaker:We're so happy to be here.
Speaker:We're always together.
Speaker:So it's fun to be together in this setting and to talk about.
Speaker:Kind of juicy topic.
Speaker:So I really enjoy that.
Speaker:We're going to be able to do this together.
Speaker:Um, cancel culture is something that I really love for us to approach
Speaker:from as many angles as possible.
Speaker:So just come from wherever you are coming from, and let's just explore
Speaker:it because I know that everybody has different feelings about it.
Speaker:We all have different experiences with it.
Speaker:Let's just go for it.
Speaker:So it's also one of the kind of conversations that we can have that
Speaker:doesn't just express our own opinions and experiences, but also helps us to think
Speaker:about what are some of the implications on society, the way that we're
Speaker:experiencing society and the way that it's helping to shape and inform society.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:But that said let's get into it.
Speaker:So I'll start off with this question.
Speaker:When was the first time that you heard the phrase cancel culture and what
Speaker:was the situation surrounding it?
Speaker:Who wants to start.
Speaker:I can start.
Speaker:Um, I think me too movement, that's kind of when I first became aware of
Speaker:the idea of cancel culture, um, because you were seeing so many people, um,
Speaker:kind of outed for past bad behavior, and then there was this kind of just
Speaker:social media surge against them.
Speaker:And, um, I thought it was really kind of unique and actually, um, kind of cool
Speaker:to see some people have, you know, like some retribution for some past wrongs.
Speaker:Um, and I don't know, R Kelly comes to mind too.
Speaker:Oh yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:He definitely got canceled.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker:Good answer.
Speaker:Yeah, I think, I think the me too moment is also when I first heard the term,
Speaker:um, You know, I always think about things from a perspective of who are
Speaker:we, you know, it's like, are we we've condoned this behavior and now it may
Speaker:have irritated one person personally.
Speaker:So now they're punishing the one person, right?
Speaker:You want to cancel a person versus canceling the behavior.
Speaker:So, you know, just the culture of human beings is interesting to me because
Speaker:it's like, what are we canceling?
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And are we spending that much time on terms versus changing our behaviors
Speaker:and patterns for a different outcome?
Speaker:And why, why does everyone get so excited to see one person come down?
Speaker:That's a very, that's a real interesting concept of power to me.
Speaker:And so for me, I've never really like played too much into any of the terms.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:It's actually interesting to me to see us trying to cancel
Speaker:people when we're all flawed.
Speaker:Now I know that these are like, it's been brought up with extreme behaviors.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:But the behaviors were already there.
Speaker:It was supported until there was no money coming from these individuals
Speaker:like of R Kelly or Harvey.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:They weren't profitable anymore.
Speaker:So now they were, they were targets that were allowed to happen.
Speaker:So, you know, I don't know.
Speaker:I think that we should spend more energy on the solution.
Speaker:Yeah, I'm right there with you.
Speaker:I don't, I don't remember when I first heard about it or heard that word.
Speaker:I think it was somewhere around social media or online.
Speaker:And I think that my initial reaction was like, oh, they're
Speaker:holding people accountable.
Speaker:But then when you see what happens to certain people's lives and we're
Speaker:like by destroying one person's life, is that really helping anyone?
Speaker:Is that helping society as a whole move forward?
Speaker:So what is it that the actual goal is in canceling someone?
Speaker:I mean, do we really want to cancel people or do we want to figure out
Speaker:a way to educate people out of this?
Speaker:And I think a lot of the ways I think that I first saw it was possibly meets
Speaker:you, but a lot of things around racism and like someone said something that they
Speaker:shouldn't have said, and they got away with saying that for a really long time.
Speaker:And all of a sudden now they're not, you know, they're not supposed to say
Speaker:that and they're being held accountable, but do we want to teach them, do we
Speaker:want it to be a learning moment or do we want to destroy their lives?
Speaker:And that's always been kind of where it didn't sit well with me.
Speaker:Well, I think that there's a difference between speculation and assumption.
Speaker:And then like behavior that is factual.
Speaker:I think what's scary about canceling culture is that it gets to become the
Speaker:opinions of people without facts without, with just one version or one side.
Speaker:I mean, I think about myself and it's like, what if someone
Speaker:attacked me and said, I said something, but what if I didn't?
Speaker:Right, right.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Well, am I cancel?
Speaker:Because I said I did it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I might do that layer here.
Speaker:Cause I think that I am okay with people being canceled.
Speaker:have a different opinion.
Speaker:I'm okay with it.
Speaker:You know, what is kind of different and unique about it and it's good.
Speaker:And it's also bad.
Speaker:It cuts both ways, but it's not a court of law.
Speaker:Cancel culture is, is the court of public opinion.
Speaker:And so, you know, it's not that you're being found guilty
Speaker:beyond a reasonable doubt.
Speaker:I mean, if people feel this certain kind of way about you, it is, um,
Speaker:It is like a, it's the mass opinion on social media that people want to
Speaker:now boycott you as a person or your company, or, you know, and I don't know.
Speaker:I think that maybe there's a place for that.
Speaker:Why I can it, but really here's what the do, but you'll, you'll never go
Speaker:to jail floor, you know, but maybe you should face some retribution for it.
Speaker:You know, here's the dangerous thing.
Speaker:When I even think about from a racial equity perspective, a lot of our men were
Speaker:murdered over the public opinion, right.
Speaker:The court of public opinion.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And when we, when we say that a group of people can do anything
Speaker:they . Want, because they said, so that's a government that we have
Speaker:to be concerned with because yeah.
Speaker:Maybe it's about cancel culture today.
Speaker:The past, it was about murdering black and brown boys.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Because they said, so now it's, we're canceling you and taking down all your,
Speaker:your income, any opportunity, because we said so, so what is the future of that?
Speaker:What we have to predict the behavior of the voices.
Speaker:And that's, what's scary to me is that every time there's a cycle
Speaker:of something, there's this extreme behavior that's being rewarded.
Speaker:It's like a mob mentality.
Speaker:I love the point that you brought up a lot about like, what's the point, you
Speaker:know, like I understand that the goal, or at least part of the goal of cancel
Speaker:culture was to hold people accountable.
Speaker:But is accountability really about stopping bad behavior and then
Speaker:figuring out how to make sure that people understand what preferred
Speaker:alternative behaviors are, or is it literally to just destroy and burn?
Speaker:burn it to the ground.
Speaker:I mean,
Speaker:setting an example.
Speaker:I think my fear, and I think that where, where you see it go to the opposite
Speaker:end of the spectrum, where maybe where you don't want it to end up as an
Speaker:example with like a Kyle Rittenhouse.
Speaker:And now he's been like held up as some esteemable person on
Speaker:to a certain group of people.
Speaker:When, you know, one group tried to cancel him, what he did
Speaker:was horrendous and horrific.
Speaker:Like we all understand he crossed state.
Speaker:I think people knew what his intention was, certainly wasn't to go there and like
Speaker:sing kumbaya and hold hands with people.
Speaker:So now there's a whole group of people that, you know, because
Speaker:of the backlash against him or holding him up as someone to admire.
Speaker:So . That then you'll lose the initial, uh, I guess, purpose of it.
Speaker:It was like, he's not been held accountable for murdering people.
Speaker:And on top of that, he's been held up as a martyr and . That they are
Speaker:trying to do all kinds of other things that he becomes a spokesperson for
Speaker:this, that means is making money off.
Speaker:So he was not canceled.
Speaker:It was like the complete opposite work.
Speaker:It doesn't always work sometimes the quarter it's very dangerous.
Speaker:Like it doesn't always work
Speaker:they tried to cancel Dave Chappelle and it didn't really work.
Speaker:No you're right.
Speaker:It didn't exactly work.
Speaker:There was an attempt them trying to cancel him.
Speaker:Didn't actually make.
Speaker:Yes exactly like that actually didn't make sense.
Speaker:He actually was what they were accusing him of was completely
Speaker:opposite of what his behavior was.
Speaker:His behavior was an inclusive person who makes jokes about tough conversations that
Speaker:people are all saying behind closed doors.
Speaker:So he brings it to the forefront in a very sarcastic, sometimes a
Speaker:lot of times over people's head, you know, over people's lives.
Speaker:So they actually missed the whole point.
Speaker:Anyway, I think if you watched the special and you watched his
Speaker:performance, then all of a sudden, maybe it's not what you thought, but
Speaker:like the headline says one thing.
Speaker:So I think maybe part of the conversation is like stopping to like take a
Speaker:deep breath, read about it yourself.
Speaker:Are you reading the right sources to figure out what information about it?
Speaker:Because it's very easy to cancel someone and I'm with you, Evelyn,
Speaker:there are many people who should be canceled, but canceled them.
Speaker:In my opinion is don't give them a platform to spew their lies and hatred.
Speaker:That's the type of cancellation I would like to see.
Speaker:I don't think I don't want to see someone not be able to feed their family.
Speaker:Like that's a completely different scenario.
Speaker:And then you get into like, wow, free speech.
Speaker:Like, should they be able to say what they want?
Speaker:I guess we want to be able to make sure that people have the opportunity
Speaker:for free speech, but do we give them a platform to spew things that maybe
Speaker:aren't as acceptable in society?
Speaker:And at what point have we now come where they're like, you know, just the ugly
Speaker:is coming out from under the rocks it's been hidden in or has it been hidden?
Speaker:It hasn't been and hidden.
Speaker:Ugly has been around for a long, long time.
Speaker:It's just that all of a sudden the things that we consider
Speaker:societally acceptable are this.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And so now everybody's kind of trying to figure out like it sometimes.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Sometimes people are judged for things that maybe they did not do, like in
Speaker:this situation that you described, but sometimes people are being judged for
Speaker:things that they did do, but maybe in a different context or at a different point
Speaker:in time before cancel culture existed.
Speaker:And in that time it was all right.
Speaker:Nobody made a fuss about it.
Speaker:It was 10 years ago, five years ago, 20 years ago.
Speaker:And now it's a big deal.
Speaker:Like we're in a digital media, a very, you know, The global perspective of
Speaker:opinion is everywhere within seconds.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:But how do you navigate that?
Speaker:Like how do you be accountable now for everything you've ever done and
Speaker:set up to be actually, oh my goodness.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:but then I hope we all give the grace to each other as human beings to learn
Speaker:evolve, pivot, evolve, get better.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:My gosh, I would not want to be judged for who I was even a year ago or two
Speaker:years before that the whole point of this life is to actually grow.
Speaker:And I actually think we need a little more love and acceptance versus I feel
Speaker:like we're all tolerating each other.
Speaker:And that's part of the problem, not just tolerating.
Speaker:I feel like we are actively looking for.
Speaker:The error of people's ways.
Speaker:I feel like there is like this.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It's a whole lot of energy.
Speaker:That's like, let me find where you are stepping outside of the boundaries
Speaker:that I have drawn around you and around my expectations around what
Speaker:your life is supposed to look like.
Speaker:And I just, I just feel like the world has gotten really narrow.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:And so the court of public opinion to me is sometimes people
Speaker:don't even have an opinion.
Speaker:They haven't even thought about the topic and then somebody else, they see it, they
Speaker:see this mass movement and then all of a sudden they have an opinion about it.
Speaker:It's like really?
Speaker:And they just jump on it.
Speaker:It's like a mob mentality.
Speaker:I've seen this.
Speaker:And recently with people, um, like, let's say somebody starts randomly trending.
Speaker:Like they do something kind of public and they start trending
Speaker:on Twitter or something.
Speaker:Um, people will go back and search, like everything that person has
Speaker:ever done in their entire life to see if they've ever said anything
Speaker:offensive or off color, you know?
Speaker:And I, yeah, I've seen that stuff get brought up and then it's, you know,
Speaker:then that's trending . I think that's the opportunity for a growth moment for
Speaker:that human being for that individual.
Speaker:And certainly people need to be held accountable.
Speaker:I mean, if you're talking about Harvey Weinstein, what he did was
Speaker:atrocious and he got away with it for decades and he ruined many
Speaker:women's lives based on his behavior.
Speaker:So he should be held accountable, but there are other people where I think
Speaker:it's like, you know, a housewife of Utah maybe said one thing she shouldn't have
Speaker:said, and now she's taken off the show.
Speaker:And you know, maybe that could have been a learning moment on the show.
Speaker:Hey, I shouldn't have not I've learned from this or I didn't say that.
Speaker:I mean, but because there's so many different ways you look
Speaker:at society today, culturally.
Speaker:He's in a position where he was offering people opportunities based
Speaker:on disgusting, you know, requests for them or forcing himself on them.
Speaker:She's a reality TV show, you know?
Speaker:Um, I think sometimes the mob gives you grace and sometimes they don't
Speaker:like sometimes there are these attempts to cancel, you know, the
Speaker:mob needs to stop having power.
Speaker:They don't fully work because maybe people connect to you.
Speaker:Like with Dave Chappelle, I think so many people connected with him and they
Speaker:understood where he was coming from.
Speaker:And so even though there was kind of a movement to cancel him, it
Speaker:just didn't quite work, you know?
Speaker:And he was able to address the issue and that's something positive.
Speaker:I think that comes out of it too.
Speaker:Like Joe Rogan, you know, they've been trying to cancel Joe Rogan
Speaker:and, um, you know, he came out and did like this whole apology thing.
Speaker:Like he's, he's had to deal with some of his past demons and kind of
Speaker:reconcile that and do so publicly, which I think is appropriate.
Speaker:I think it's appropriate.
Speaker:And then people can decide if they still want to be his fan or
Speaker:if they still want to support.
Speaker:But it kind of just goes on and on.
Speaker:I think the Joe Rogan example is a good one.
Speaker:Like Joe Rogan, you know, people tried to cancel them.
Speaker:Then other people said, you know what?
Speaker:I appreciate you stepping forward and trying to learn and grow and apologize.
Speaker:And people who stepped forward and said, I appreciate you handling this.
Speaker:Well also got canceled.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Like
Speaker:you're like, that's okay.
Speaker:That's okay.
Speaker:That's how societies like they did.
Speaker:This is a totally healthy thing, we'll have opinions.
Speaker:I don't think it's totally unhealthy.
Speaker:I definitely do think there are situations where, I mean, just like with any other,
Speaker:if you, if you get accused of rape, you get accused of some kind of, you know,
Speaker:uh, sexual assault or something like that.
Speaker:And you end up in a criminal trial and it wasn't you and
Speaker:you didn't do it or something.
Speaker:And that's.
Speaker:Same thing happens.
Speaker:It's more terrible.
Speaker:It's a terrible, it's a terrible, terrible situation.
Speaker:And sometimes that same thing is going to happen in a course where people are
Speaker:going to think that you are worse than you are, or they're going to miss read
Speaker:a situation, or, you know, I mean, it's, I'm not saying this is not a
Speaker:perfect system that we have that camp, the way that cancel culture is working.
Speaker:It's not a perfect system.
Speaker:Like there are definitely, um, people who are going to be injured by
Speaker:this who probably don't deserve it.
Speaker:I do think that there is, um, people are having to be more
Speaker:accountable for their actions.
Speaker:They're thinking about what they're going to say publicly, how they're going
Speaker:to behave, what those things mean to other people, you know, like they're,
Speaker:I think people are a little more aware though, of their actions and what
Speaker:they're doing on social media platforms, you know, as they probably should be.
Speaker:So I think that that's okay.
Speaker:I mean, I think that there are very like, to me cancel culture.
Speaker:I can't even put that in the same context of illegal activities.
Speaker:Right, right, right, right.
Speaker:So it's really hard for me to even put them into the same compartment.
Speaker:Some people are being canceled for things that are actually crimes, right.
Speaker:They just never were actually, you actually think that's very different,
Speaker:but here's what I think is the most important thing for me personally, is that
Speaker:we give a lot of energy to this stuff.
Speaker:And I just wish that we gave more energy to our own personal self, as an
Speaker:example, which then is contagious to our community around us then which then
Speaker:becomes contagious the entire community that has the, like the same way that
Speaker:this negative, aggressive energy of the canceling someone, the opposite of that
Speaker:is love, support, education, healing.
Speaker:And we got to get over here.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:We have to get over here because we're spending too much time on
Speaker:our differences and we're, this has been the existence of humanity.
Speaker:This is not a new thing.
Speaker:They called it something different before, but whatever, every cycle, it changes.
Speaker:Every generation, it changes.
Speaker:We still have the same problems.
Speaker:We're not getting anywhere.
Speaker:So I would like for us to be the generation and the millennials and the gen
Speaker:Z, like for, to be the actual change, to put some final touches to this, because
Speaker:we keep talking about the same problems.
Speaker:It's not new problems.
Speaker:I agree.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I actually, you know, it's so interesting.
Speaker:You and I talked about this last night, like I am in a totally
Speaker:different space from this.
Speaker:Like I've always been different from this, the work that I do, I've
Speaker:always felt like I need to be able to talk about these subjects that
Speaker:are hard, but they're, they're often.
Speaker:Um, diluted down to two binary of pieces.
Speaker:Like it's either right or wrong or good or bad or black or right.
Speaker:Or progressive or conservative.
Speaker:And I'm like, I don't even like all those boxes.
Speaker:And I feel like the world is filled with abundance.
Speaker:Why are we operating from a place of scarcity all the time
Speaker:versus commander and toxicity?
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Cause I feel like the, the, the, the smallness is where fear lives.
Speaker:It's where scarcity lives.
Speaker:It's where toxic energy lives.
Speaker:And I don't . Feel like solutions live there.
Speaker:I think if we teach children to love themselves and they love themselves,
Speaker:they don't go out and hate other people.
Speaker:You think that what is unfortunate is it, to me, it is love is such a beautiful word
Speaker:to use for this, but it's also education.
Speaker:So if you love yourself and you go out with that love and abundance into
Speaker:the world, then you're spreading that.
Speaker:But if you don't love yourself, Then you're spreading that as well.
Speaker:So if we, if we can teach children from a young age to love themselves, if we can
Speaker:find ways that children who aren't maybe grew up being raised in a loving home to
Speaker:help them feel loved and comforted, then they can go teach that to someone else.
Speaker:Because if you put little kids, I mean, you see it all the time.
Speaker:If you put little kids in a room together, they are so excited to see each other.
Speaker:They don't care what they look like.
Speaker:They don't care what their, you know, gender is.
Speaker:They don't care how they self identify.
Speaker:They don't really care what they're wearing half the time.
Speaker:They don't care what color they are.
Speaker:They certainly don't care what religion, mom and dad are.
Speaker:They're just excited to see someone they like, and they want to go give
Speaker:him a big hug, like as a world, can we just start giving each other a
Speaker:big hug . Instead of jumping on a bandwagon to attack, attack, attack.
Speaker:And again, I don't think it's about not holding people that should be
Speaker:held accountable because they should be held accountable if they've done
Speaker:something wrong and it's hard to be held accountable to a system, right.
Speaker:Created by criminals, right?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So the irony of all right, it's the irony of all these things.
Speaker:And we're sitting on stolen land.
Speaker:I mean, we didn't get here.
Speaker:It's . Really right.
Speaker:So who gets to be the judge?
Speaker:That's why I don't even usually acknowledge these types of conversations
Speaker:because it's like who, who says we, we even have the authority to pass judgment.
Speaker:I don't want anyone passing judgment on me.
Speaker:I would like people to help me and educate me on things
Speaker:because I don't know everything.
Speaker:And I don't pretend to, but what I also don't want to do is if you're judging
Speaker:someone and you're coming into a situation where you are intensely trying to
Speaker:make . Someone feel bad for their their own perspective, that's all they know.
Speaker:How far are you going to get with that?
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:When I feel judged, I back up, everybody does exactly and children do and
Speaker:adults do so it's like clearly the judgment role isn't working for us.
Speaker:And also why assume, have so many, so much pride about you are horrible.
Speaker:Like why does that feel good to people?
Speaker:To me, that's the whole enslavement mentality.
Speaker:Evelyn has another opinion.
Speaker:, wouldn't be in her courtroom.
Speaker:I am so glad I was in right here.
Speaker:Cause you're talking and you're like, and love and loved.
Speaker:And you're talking about children and Ellis, like burn them.
Speaker:sample.
Speaker:Let me give you an example of a situation where I think
Speaker:cancel culture was appropriate.
Speaker:And um, do you guys remember the Black bird watcher in New York, central park?
Speaker:A couple years ago, the guy who was watching birds in the park
Speaker:middle of the day, This white woman has her dog off the leash.
Speaker:Apparently the rule is that you must have your dog on a leash.
Speaker:He tells her to put her dog on a leash.
Speaker:She starts screaming as if he's attacking her and literally
Speaker:calls nine 11, not realizing that he's taping the whole incident.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So he never even touches her as never even close enough to touch her.
Speaker:And she's freaking out about, about him attacking her.
Speaker:So, um, from that she ends up losing her job.
Speaker:Um, she's on like every, you know, news station.
Speaker:I mean, it's like national news that she created a crime though.
Speaker:She did guess what?
Speaker:And she, and so she was convicted of a crime, but it's a very,
Speaker:like, it wasn't a big deal.
Speaker:Like it's a slap on the wrist.
Speaker:What happened to her?
Speaker:So the cancel culture with the punishment punishment.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:I would say that that is the real punishment that she got for this is that.
Speaker:Everyone canceled her.
Speaker:Nobody's going to want to hire her for five days.
Speaker:This is going to follow her for a very long time.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:You remember her?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Well, I think when she tries to, but I don't remember her name.
Speaker:I can't call up her name.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:This wouldn't but you can Google it.
Speaker:I know.
Speaker:But what I'm saying is that when people start applying to my company,
Speaker:it's not like I'm looking up to say a cross-referencing, you know, have
Speaker:you ever been canceled yesterday, but you're, if you just Googled
Speaker:her name, you know what I mean?
Speaker:If she's coming in to, for an interview with you, first thing
Speaker:there, you're going to know.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And she lost her job.
Speaker:She lost her job, she feels like that's winning.
Speaker:Like, I actually feel like it was appropriate.
Speaker:I know, but appropriate doesn't always mean winning.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Was it appropriate behavior for her to lose her job?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Maybe whatever.
Speaker:I'm sure there's a million other people at her company and all
Speaker:these other companies who just have learned to not say it out loud.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Like that's just been the history that there are other white women.
Speaker:I think twice about like crying, rape on a black man, because of that situation.
Speaker:Like you might at least think about that, that, you know, what, what
Speaker:if I get caught on tape doing that?
Speaker:Well, if we're going to cancel some culture, I'd like to cancel like the bad
Speaker:police officers who are, who break in.
Speaker:No, knock not warrants like that to me is just that's the stuff we have to cancel.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:The behaviors of things that are putting people in very dangerous or having
Speaker:them end up dead or in prison for no reason, the Black bird watcher was
Speaker:in a very dangerous position, I agree.
Speaker:I absolutely agree.
Speaker:And if it wasn't for him taping the incident, I'm sure
Speaker:he would've been arrested.
Speaker:Yes, it would been, it would've been right.
Speaker:So let's cancel the justice system that keeps rewarding the cops or their bylaws.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Let's cancel the police union, which is the largest.
Speaker:Gang?
Speaker:For profit gang, right?
Speaker:The largest for-profit union.
Speaker:They are the largest union in the world.
Speaker:Let's cancel the things that actually makes sense because canceling individual
Speaker:peoples it's not changing anything.
Speaker:What will change a system is to figure out how to rewrite the laws or rewrite things
Speaker:that can have a super generational impact.
Speaker:Do you really think, do you think she hates us even more now?
Speaker:I think she blames us for her ignorance because she does.
Speaker:And she's going to teach that to her children.
Speaker:She's going to teach, she's going to be allowed to keep saying that
Speaker:through her community, what she needs to happen is to be taught why she,
Speaker:what her behavior, why it was wrong and that she needs to be educated.
Speaker:I still need her to make money because I don't need her to hate anyone.
Speaker:The hate is why we keep getting in this situation.
Speaker:I think that there are a couple of reasons though.
Speaker:I mean, it's just like if somebody commits a crime.
Speaker:Do you just want to educate them on why they shouldn't have done that?
Speaker:Or is there a place for punishment?
Speaker:Is there a place in our prison, in a for-profit prison system?
Speaker:There's no rehabilitation.
Speaker:Street.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:But I understand what you're saying.
Speaker:Like set aside the structure of our prison system system.
Speaker:Like let's set that aside, but just crime and punishment.
Speaker:Like if you commit a crime, there are multiple reasons to punish people
Speaker:and it's not all about just like, oh, let me educate you as to why you
Speaker:shouldn't have, you know, raped that lady or Rob that store or whatever.
Speaker:Like it's not just about educating them.
Speaker:I do think there's a place for actually punishing the individual
Speaker:and then also, um, setting an example so that other people see that, oh,
Speaker:wow, I shouldn't do that because this terrible thing could happen.
Speaker:You know, I don't know that I can agree with that second part because
Speaker:hundreds of years later, we're still like, clearly the people who murdered
Speaker:us because of skin color and hate.
Speaker:Four hundred years later, they still haven't got that memo through example.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But there is, it is interesting though, because, um, fear is ridiculously
Speaker:motivating change agent, right.
Speaker:And if people are afraid to say or do something that somebody else might
Speaker:perceive as offensive or crossing the line that could have repercussions
Speaker:on, not just how they are perceived, but on their livelihoods, then
Speaker:it actually does modify behavior.
Speaker:So even so that's the same.
Speaker:Like just don't say that loud, but yeah, AF when you're after hours and
Speaker:you, and your uniform of your KKK or whatever, you know, your hate mob or
Speaker:on any one or PR, then that part is okay, just don't say it out loud and
Speaker:people say it I'd rather do I agree?
Speaker:Well, I don't know if education, I don't know if everybody shares
Speaker:the same aspiration philosphcially.
Speaker:I'm not talking about crimes, but what I'm saying is that I think that the
Speaker:society that we're living in is so fed up with trying to educate and trying to
Speaker:do this incremental improvement that they were like, you know what, you know, what
Speaker:works fear, fear works, coercion works.
Speaker:And so it's not going to get us commitment, but it's
Speaker:going to get us compliant.
Speaker:So I'm, I'm just saying I I'm I'm I actually hate cancel culture.
Speaker:Like I hate even talking about it.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:But I also feel like it's ridiculously important because.
Speaker:It's such a force in our society.
Speaker:And it's also a force that is using so much energy that I think could be
Speaker:so much more amazingly redistributed to focus on aspiration, to focus on
Speaker:where do we want to go to focus on what we want to become to focus on
Speaker:getting ourselves to a higher vibration?
Speaker:The tricky part is that not acknowledging what's happening, seems like I'm skipping
Speaker:over something like there's clearly some toxic environment that we're living in
Speaker:that is growing, but it's feeding itself.
Speaker:It's been toxic from its creation.
Speaker:I think . Here there's a thing focused on the fear and the fear divides.
Speaker:I was going to say, here's the thing.
Speaker:Think about we're all, we're all parents, right?
Speaker:Think about when your child is little, right?
Speaker:If you, if you only give them energy and respond to them through their
Speaker:negative behaviors, exactly what they continue to do throughout their whole
Speaker:life is they only do negative things to purposely get your attention.
Speaker:If you start rewarding.
Speaker:The positive behavior.
Speaker:If we start working together in unity for the positive side of the
Speaker:conversation, all of a sudden that might be the thing that becomes contagious.
Speaker:Again, I'm always going to sit on the side of solution.
Speaker:The glass is half full.
Speaker:Like I don't see where we're getting anywhere with putting all this
Speaker:energy on the problems all the time.
Speaker:I totally agree.
Speaker:I guess I'm just saying that I'm not, I agree that putting
Speaker:our energy on things like cancel culture, in my opinion is toxic.
Speaker:I also believe that there are so many people who are just fed up that I
Speaker:think that there are so many people who are fed up and they're like, you
Speaker:know what, all of this peace love, but give us a little bit more time.
Speaker:We're going to resource it a tiny little bit along the way is not working.
Speaker:And there's enough people who are like, I'm willing to throw in, throw it all in
Speaker:and say, I would rather err on the side.
Speaker:Toxic energy, then no movement and something's gotta be done
Speaker:and there needs and intervention.
Speaker:And so if holding people accountable in a way that makes burn it all down to set
Speaker:an example, actually, catalyzes action.
Speaker:I can see, I can see why people are erring on the side of it.
Speaker:I just don't think it's a long-term solution.
Speaker:I don't know where it's going to get us.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And that's the thing that I'm kind of like, all right, it's been years now that
Speaker:we've been living like this, we've got to get to a place of kind of shifting
Speaker:our energy because energy begets energy.
Speaker:It's I can go on down like this.
Speaker:It's like our culture is collapsing and you grow.
Speaker:So, you know, it's, I think that there are people in positions of
Speaker:power that know very well, how to divide people and to do that through
Speaker:fear tactics and to create the other.
Speaker:And then when you sit down in a room of people, I mean, It's media is such a huge
Speaker:factor in this and what you see on media and the images that you see over and over.
Speaker:And, you know, Monique and I were talking back in the green room and we were saying
Speaker:like, I grew up in Minnesota and in Minnesota is really very white and we
Speaker:all know what's going on in Minnesota right now, which is just horrific.
Speaker:And so it was like in the forefront of the news, but I was talking to
Speaker:one of my sisters years ago and I was saying like, as we were growing up, I'm
Speaker:like, you really, you honestly think for a . Moment, like, cause you would
Speaker:turn on the local news and it would be like this black person did this
Speaker:crime committed this crime and over and over, that's what we were being fed.
Speaker:So white Minnesotans were raised on the 5:00 PM news to be afraid of black people.
Speaker:And I said, do you really think.
Speaker:In a population that's 80% white that there aren't white people committing the
Speaker:same crimes, but they're not on the news.
Speaker:And so to see so many people, it was easy for them to sit in their suburban house
Speaker:and sit back and say, oh, well the crimes over there, the crimes on that side of
Speaker:town, the crimes among those people, those people that look like that, those
Speaker:people that are, that color opioids came.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And then all of a sudden we had a crisis.
Speaker:Now we have a crisis.
Speaker:Now it's a crisis.
Speaker:Cause everybody's got it.
Speaker:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It's interesting.
Speaker:I definitely feel like there's a huge opportunity for intervention.
Speaker:So, so I guess one of the other questions is on my mind is all
Speaker:of you are entrepreneurs, right?
Speaker:That's the other thing that I love about us is that we're all entrepreneurs.
Speaker:And so we all have positions of authority.
Speaker:We all are job creators.
Speaker:We all are visible in our work and our words and our deeds.
Speaker:How do we model, right?
Speaker:What are some of the things that knowing, the society that we're living in now,
Speaker:knowing that there's so much visibility on every single thing we say or do, knowing
Speaker:that cancel culture is alive and well, what is it that you all do to kind of
Speaker:navigate how you show up in the world?
Speaker:We at cannabis, we start every morning with a gratitude.
Speaker:Because again, I keep repeating this, but I feel like what you
Speaker:focused on is what you grow.
Speaker:So I always want to start, like, even if it mean people have a car accident
Speaker:on the way to work, or, you know, they spilled their coffee, whatever
Speaker:it is, you want to shift that.
Speaker:So they come in and it's like, we sit down at the morning meeting, we talk
Speaker:about, you know, what the specials are for the day and what we're going to do.
Speaker:And then we say one thing that we're grateful for today,
Speaker:I'm grateful to be here to be participating in this conversation.
Speaker:And I've really tried to shift the focus of the members of our
Speaker:team so that they're focusing on things that they're grateful for.
Speaker:And they've come to me and said that they, they, they'd never heard of that before.
Speaker:And this is like such a cool thing.
Speaker:And some days you can tell it's a struggle to come up with one thing you're
Speaker:grateful for, but if you do start with gratitude, it really improves your diet.
Speaker:In my opinion, I love it.
Speaker:I wake up and I make a list of everybody I'm going to cancel.
Speaker:to say for me, for knowing
Speaker:I'll tell you that there is a scary little side of her her.
Speaker:She didn't actually deems at one point, all of us probably should
Speaker:have been canceled including herself.
Speaker:no, but really what, the way that this, I think affects my workplace,
Speaker:there is something that we think about because we're very active.
Speaker:My whole company is very active on social media.
Speaker:So, um, the company does their own stuff.
Speaker:You know, I individually, you know, smart, Evelyn do my own posting and stuff.
Speaker:And so, um, we are very conscientious about what we're putting out there.
Speaker:And, you know, there are certain things that.
Speaker:I might share with close friends, but I'm actually not going to
Speaker:put on social media, you know?
Speaker:So, um, because I, I, I'm trying to be, I'm trying to be sensitive.
Speaker:I'm trying to be, you know, conscientious about that.
Speaker:So, I mean, that is how I think that's how it plays out in my workplace is
Speaker:that it is something I think about because I see people, I see what can
Speaker:happen if you post the wrong thing, you post something insensitive or you
Speaker:don't think about it and you know, yeah.
Speaker:It's not good.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I think we, I think all of us think about this every day, right?
Speaker:I think that, you know, there was a time where you could have a meeting
Speaker:or you could have a conversation or you could be in person and maybe
Speaker:something you said you regret or, oh, that wasn't good timing or whatever.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:But there was no side effect to it.
Speaker:It was left there because that's how it was.
Speaker:And that was the culture of the workplace.
Speaker:That was the culture of business.
Speaker:Now, even in an office.
Speaker:You never know when you're on camera, right?
Speaker:Even with the most simplistic form of, of someone working with you or
Speaker:for you, or at a meeting with you, they're recording, they're doing
Speaker:selfies, they're doing videos.
Speaker:And all of a sudden, you end up unbeknownst to yourself on someone's
Speaker:social media and you hear your, you know, you hear, you have
Speaker:the visual, you have the vocal.
Speaker:So I feel like we're all practicing it every single day, because especially as
Speaker:leaders I am, cause I do get concerned with, what are we going to talk about?
Speaker:This is a sound bite.
Speaker:It lives forever, right?
Speaker:It's 10 years from now, what am I going to be wanting to do from
Speaker:a, from a leader perspective, is that soundbite going to harm me?
Speaker:Is it going to context?
Speaker:Was it edited and pulled away wrong?
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And so I think about my likeness and image, I think all of us should
Speaker:think about these things because that is the only thing we actually
Speaker:do own is our own identity, right.
Speaker:And who we are.
Speaker:And we have to show up for that thing every single day.
Speaker:And when people get to manipulate it.
Speaker:Alter it or give an opinion on it.
Speaker:We do have to think about those things.
Speaker:And I think that I've always liked to stay put myself right in the
Speaker:middle of life as a student, right?
Speaker:Like the flow I'm a student.
Speaker:Then I become a teacher and share the information.
Speaker:I fall back into student share students share.
Speaker:And I feel like when we kind of sit like in that middle space, it does
Speaker:take a lot of the pressure off of us.
Speaker:We don't have to be the experts in everything.
Speaker:In fact, I say, I don't know too much of anything.
Speaker:I'm just going through life and I'm sharing as I go, I'm learning and sharing.
Speaker:I feel like when we start making it a little more simplistic, like.
Speaker:That competitive, that, that one competition that keeps putting us
Speaker:all in, we shouldn't have said that.
Speaker:Cause we've all experienced that over our competitive business nature.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:It's just what it is.
Speaker:You've always walked away from something like, oh, maybe
Speaker:I shouldn't have said that.
Speaker:Oh, I hope they don't think I meant it like that.
Speaker:I even called you last night or I was telling you like, oh, I hope DD
Speaker:didn't think I meant it like that.
Speaker:You know?
Speaker:And so I think that we all, it's just about an accountability factor.
Speaker:We all everyday have to practice accountability to our own integrity.
Speaker:Well, and the other thing is that, you know, I, I love the student and teacher
Speaker:and the flow, but I also feel like cancel culture doesn't need to exist if
Speaker:I'm humble and aware enough to pivot, to acknowledge, oh, you know what?
Speaker:And to realize, like, to recognize, you know, what, it may not have landed, right.
Speaker:Or.
Speaker:It wasn't it.
Speaker:I don't know if it did, I at least want to check and then be willing and able
Speaker:to say I apologize, you know, and, and figure out how it is that we can go
Speaker:forward and then start practicing that.
Speaker:But I feel like that to me is the true form of what we want cancel
Speaker:culture to you to evolve into.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Well, we don't need other people to constantly be batting us about the
Speaker:head in mob form about what it is that we did wrong and throwing us away,
Speaker:discarding us because all of those discarded people become toxic people.
Speaker:I, yeah, like we are creating toxic.
Speaker:People have already been toxic.
Speaker:People may have been.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I think they were already toxic.
Speaker:Like, let's think about the Joe Rogan.
Speaker:You brought up Joe Rogan, right?
Speaker:So everyone wanted to cancel him, but really what should have happened is why
Speaker:do you still have a Spotify subscription?
Speaker:That's the, you know, Spotify is the one who he has free speech, whoever
Speaker:he wants to be that's up to him.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:But Spotify is actually the . One paying him.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And then out of that cancellation came a double what he was making a Spotify offer.
Speaker:So that's the areas that we have to be careful on because oh, someone
Speaker:wanted to pay him 200 million now.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So for his, for him to hate, right.
Speaker:So now if he would have been driven by that money, he didn't accept it.
Speaker:But what if he was one of the ones who accepted it?
Speaker:So we do have, we have to be a little careful about, so we don't
Speaker:know what we're driving people to.
Speaker:When we push, Hate drives revenue.
Speaker:I mean, we know this right.
Speaker:People who do things that are hurtful or negative or bashing
Speaker:get, they get the most likes.
Speaker:They get the most views.
Speaker:They get the most . Offers.
Speaker:They're digging.
Speaker:They negotiate the best.
Speaker:Like they, they, they are rewarded for behavior that is harmful and toxic.
Speaker:And so the more we kind of feed into it and enable.
Speaker:The more we're actually setting ourselves up.
Speaker:And then on the contrary, right around the converse there's people that
Speaker:are sitting around and talking about love and higher vibrations who were
Speaker:kind of just, you know, we're just having to live in throwing away money.
Speaker:talk more about love, you know, and it's interesting because we also have to
Speaker:realize that even those of us who want to get away from something like cancel
Speaker:culture and the toxic nature of it, there's a strategic advantage to that.
Speaker:So how do we take some of that strategic thinking and use it in the service of
Speaker:some of these other ways of accomplishing what we're trying to accomplish?
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:How does, how do we bring a collective energy around people being more willing
Speaker:to be in an educational space or being more generous or being more humble or
Speaker:being more in a teacher learner flow over the course of our lives and allowing that
Speaker:to be not just accessible and available, but incentivized and rewarded, like how
Speaker:do we create a strategy to towards that
Speaker:I feel like we need to get like a critical mass of people kind
Speaker:of going in the same direction.
Speaker:You know, I've, I I've always felt like if you're having conversations
Speaker:with yourself, meaning the people that agree exactly how you are, then
Speaker:you're not really growing too much.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So for like, I remember we did an interview with the former KKK
Speaker:dragon or whatever that highest, whatever they, their titles are.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Whatever you got the org chart.
Speaker:Don't think about that.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:My point is is that he used to be that right.
Speaker:And I actually thought that was a dope opportunity for me to talk to him and
Speaker:for me to ask him tough questions, but also not from clearly, if he
Speaker:left it, he doesn't think like that.
Speaker:But how can he go back and make the people who are still currently in there?
Speaker:What can he go do to help them?
Speaker:Like we w I just don't know how we'd solve any of these issues that we have
Speaker:with each other, talking to ourselves.
Speaker:I agree.
Speaker:I think with that person, it was like, where, when, and how
Speaker:were they taught that hatred?
Speaker:Well, hate is tar.
Speaker:It's a very simplistic, hate is tough, the same way, love this.
Speaker:So, you know, but it's also really interesting because I think at the core,
Speaker:most humans are starting off from a really similar core, not all of us identical,
Speaker:but there's a really similar core of kind of needs and wants and expectations
Speaker:and hopes and fears and values that we have starting off like this little
Speaker:children innocence idea you started with.
Speaker:And then from there, you know, that idea that you were talking about the innocence
Speaker:of a child, you were like, well, wait, why can't we just get back to them?
Speaker:And I'm like, because all these years of like, You know, acculturation
Speaker:happened where we're being told no less of this and more of that.
Speaker:And we don't believe this and they are not this.
Speaker:And you know, we're being in, you know, kind of filtered constantly
Speaker:with those images, like the kind you described growing up in Minnesota.
Speaker:And so by the time a person is a fully formed human and doing things
Speaker:that might be totally dysfunctional to be able to have access to.
Speaker:How did you, how did that happen?
Speaker:And also what are the possibilities for my own toxicity?
Speaker:Like what is it that I can learn from that?
Speaker:That's the other thing I agree with you, we have to be in more space
Speaker:with people who are ideologically and even behaviorally really different
Speaker:from us if we're going to grow.
Speaker:But that's another thing that cancel culture doesn't really allow.
Speaker:It's just like, I'm just going to cut you off.
Speaker:Completely . I mean, she brought up the police earlier.
Speaker:We spend how much money funding the police every time out in the military,
Speaker:because we're taught to be afraid.
Speaker:And how much money do we spend on education?
Speaker:They constantly pull money from education and flip it to, you know,
Speaker:for-profit prisons for the police force for judges that, I mean, we just saw
Speaker:what happened in Minnesota with Kim Potter and that judge, she, Kim Potter
Speaker:took a person's life for nothing.
Speaker:And she gets two years because the judge felt sorry for the police officer.
Speaker:We canceled it.
Speaker:Yeah, that got canceled.
Speaker:This system, you can cancel things.
Speaker:So what things can you cancel?
Speaker:when you say defund them, just like Spotify, Spotify, people
Speaker:have, people are like, when they're ending their subscriptions, you
Speaker:know, you're supporting capitalism.
Speaker:You're keeping this guy on your platform that we don't agree with.
Speaker:We want to boycott him.
Speaker:I mean, it's a cultural feeling hate, right?
Speaker:I think there's a place for this.
Speaker:Well, I think, I mean, I, I honestly, I feel like you guys are being
Speaker:very pie in the sky about this.
Speaker:Like, there are some people doing some real bad things, things
Speaker:that are actually crimes, like some of this stuff is lighter.
Speaker:Like, you know, people are being racist.
Speaker:They've said racist things, they get canceled or they say offensive
Speaker:things and people try to cancel them.
Speaker:That's one thing, people are actually doing things that are criminal and
Speaker:they're not criminally prosecuted.
Speaker:But cancel culture is coming in and it's a reckoning.
Speaker:I think it's appropriate.
Speaker:I don't think that when does it become, when, when is it inappropriate?
Speaker:Because what if I didn't do something well, then it, then it's probably not.
Speaker:I think it's problematic.
Speaker:the court of public opinion gets it wrong.
Speaker:Just like if a court of law got it wrong, then it's a problem.
Speaker:It's a problem.
Speaker:You've convicted somebody getting it wrong over and over.
Speaker:And so did the court of public opinion.
Speaker:There will be
Speaker:I'm just saying that's how punishment works.
Speaker:Like it's not.
Speaker:I think the way to make changes.
Speaker:And I think that, you know, as someone who has a background in marketing,
Speaker:you look at something like I'm with you, let's tear it all down.
Speaker:Cause what we have is not working, not working to use a slogan like defund
Speaker:the police that's really bad marketing.
Speaker:I mean,
Speaker:it absolutely does, but you can't use that terminology
Speaker:when you say defund the police.
Speaker:Well, first of all, you need police officers in certain instances.
Speaker:Now should you have someone who's a mental health where they don't bother anybody?
Speaker:I mean, you know, we may have stop and frisk stop and frisk is horrendous, but
Speaker:my husband has canceled that culture.
Speaker:They have attempted to break in on more than one occasion and you know,
Speaker:who do we call if not the police?
Speaker:So there is a purpose for police in society, just not the way it's set up now.
Speaker:And I think that a hundred percent, I agree like when there's a mental
Speaker:health crisis, which is oftentimes what you see going on when someone is
Speaker:murdered, not in this situation, that just happened in Minnesota, but there
Speaker:there's, you see it, there's a mental health crisis and the cops show up,
Speaker:well, you know, nothing against police officers in this context, but they're
Speaker:not qualified to handle that situation.
Speaker:They're not educated to handle a mental health crisis.
Speaker:So what defund the police proposes is to have.
Speaker:Uh, other funds so that the appropriate people are responding
Speaker:to the appropriate crisis.
Speaker:But from a marketing perspective, it's horrible, horrible marketing, because
Speaker:people are like, what, what, what if I need the police or what happens then?
Speaker:And, you know, there's ways to pitch ideas and to educate
Speaker:that use different terminology.
Speaker:So I think that it is education, but it's how do you market that?
Speaker:We tell you something, how do you bring, if they could say they say F the police,
Speaker:that's what everybody really liked.
Speaker:The neighborhoods where this is coming from it's defined.
Speaker:The police is the polite word, right?
Speaker:you're saying from a marketing perspective, but that's why from a
Speaker:marketing perspective, culture cancel culture is, it was interesting.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:All I know is that the people who are canceling haven't even put
Speaker:a mirror in front of themselves.
Speaker:So, you know what I'm saying?
Speaker:Like, all these people are out here, raging.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Are very miserable and unhappy and unhealthy in their own
Speaker:life and are doing that.
Speaker:No, we're not talking about that.
Speaker:We're talking about the moms, right?
Speaker:We're literally talking about the people who, okay.
Speaker:You got your
Speaker:I'm like, no, I'm like maybe we should all have like a one-on-one
Speaker:with Evelyn just to make sure she's not holding us accountable.
Speaker:I'm really not think that it's appropriate on any level.
Speaker:No, I don't think I said that.
Speaker:I did not say that.
Speaker:And I think that a couple of examples that you have given have actually been like,
Speaker:oh yeah, you know, I, I can see Karen.
Speaker:Got it.
Speaker:I understand.
Speaker:But I also, I also don't see how canceling her.
Speaker:Actually it punished her.
Speaker:I just don't believe that it actually lists the restoration.
Speaker:I don't heard that.
Speaker:I don't know what's going to happen next.
Speaker:I don't know what the good is going to come up at next, other than potentially.
Speaker:And I love that you pointed it out.
Speaker:There may be other women who might, might go, Ooh, let me pause because
Speaker:I don't want to be that right.
Speaker:And so maybe there are pieces like that.
Speaker:And I think that is how acculturation works.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Culture say these are our societal norms.
Speaker:And sometimes those societal norms are born out of really painful acts.
Speaker:Like, think about how many cultures have all of these really hurtful ways of
Speaker:trying to tell people this is our culture.
Speaker:Stay inside the bounds shaming.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:I know the culture is a cultural shaming and some people should be ashamed
Speaker:of some of the things they're doing.
Speaker:Like many people should be checked.
Speaker:The whole Karen thing, this Karen epidemic is a part of cancel culture.
Speaker:I know, I think that's been pretty important and powerful.
Speaker:Like, do you know how much, how long this has been going on?
Speaker:And there hasn't been, there is no accountability or punishment for being a.
Speaker:Other than cancel culture and other, there really isn't, you know, bad,
Speaker:just like one little bad shame, shame, shame, shame, shame, badge,
Speaker:like a little Scarlet letter.
Speaker:I am a Karen.
Speaker:It is.
Speaker:Yeah, it is.
Speaker:It's interesting to see how well that works in the Scarlet letter.
Speaker:So it didn't work very well.
Speaker:That's the problem is that all of these ideas, even though I understand that's how
Speaker:culture works, and this is part of the, the personal kind of cognitive dissonance
Speaker:that I'm really wrestling with about the whole idea of culture is that I love
Speaker:the idea of culture in so far as it, it, it helps us create a sense of identity.
Speaker:This is who us is, right.
Speaker:It gives us, this is who I am.
Speaker:These are my people.
Speaker:This is what we do.
Speaker:So I love it from that perspective, but I also feel
Speaker:like, you know, tangled up in it.
Speaker:It's all these other things that are really unhealthy.
Speaker:And I feel like I just really toxic because th th tha tha in so far as
Speaker:there is an us, there also has to be.
Speaker:And so far as this is how we behave.
Speaker:There is also a, this is absolutely not okay with how we behave.
Speaker:And I feel like the binary way in which we are approaching the, our kind of
Speaker:cultural navigation is just too much for me wrestling with it all around.
Speaker:I agree.
Speaker:And I think that that's a huge, huge factor in it.
Speaker:I mean, if we, if we aren't leading with empathy, like how would
Speaker:I feel if that happened to me?
Speaker:And I'm not saying if you made a racist comment and you should be
Speaker:canceled for that, but just in general, like how would I, you know,
Speaker:how would I feel if that was me?
Speaker:How would I feel if that was my best friend, my husband, my son, my
Speaker:family, like how would, how would we feel if we were put in that position?
Speaker:And I just feel like there, there is such a lack of empathy all around, and
Speaker:I think we could all lead with kindness, lead with love, lead with an open heart.
Speaker:I love yoga and I've been practicing yoga for.
Speaker:Many many years since I was about 15, but I love that it's called practice.
Speaker:It's a practice.
Speaker:It's not something that you master and what's beautiful about that
Speaker:is something you said earlier that at some moment you are the student
Speaker:and then you become the teacher.
Speaker:And I think that that's just a beautiful way to sort of look at how
Speaker:we can evolve as a society like that.
Speaker:I'm the student now, but I could be the teacher someday.
Speaker:And just so we're always teaching someone something.
Speaker:So what do you guys want to happen when let's say the Karen comes and tells the,
Speaker:you know, the black kids on the corner that they have to remove their lemonade
Speaker:stand because they don't have a permit.
Speaker:What do you guys want to happen in that situation?
Speaker:Cause it's not a crime there's you can't call anybody for that old school.
Speaker:Like me as a mama or somebody who's a mama or somebody on that block is
Speaker:going to come up and be like, you know what, let me just talk to you
Speaker:about what you're doing right now.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:But I feel like that thing doesn't need to happen on social media
Speaker:and be blasted across the world.
Speaker:I feel like there's, I feel like even within communities that, that
Speaker:there are opportunities for us to kind of go, come on neighbor.
Speaker:That's not how we roll.
Speaker:That's not how we treat these kids.
Speaker:You know, I, I believe that we need to be comfortable in those kinds of communal
Speaker:spaces and sharing that kind of love and generosity and feedback with each other.
Speaker:But I don't believe I need to blast you on social media.
Speaker:I don't know if, if the Karen's care though, like, I don't know that that
Speaker:alone, like a one-on-one conversation is going to have the same effect.
Speaker:Cause I think part of it is recognizing that what you're doing is just completely
Speaker:socially unacceptable, you know?
Speaker:And it takes the mat, the mob to let you know that sometimes, like,
Speaker:I don't think the Karen having.
Speaker:I've seen tons of these Karen videos, you know, like, do you think we'll
Speaker:get, these Karens are transformed?
Speaker:Do you think that these Karens are literally having an epiphany?
Speaker:And they're like, oh, M G I had
Speaker:parents are saying they got me wrong.
Speaker:They got me twisted.
Speaker:They got part of the story.
Speaker:I don't know if they're having a personal transformation, but I do don't.
Speaker:I do think that they're not going to do that behavior anymore.
Speaker:That's what I do think.
Speaker:I think, I don't think that that person is going to keep doing that anymore.
Speaker:I hope they don't.
Speaker:I hope they don't either.
Speaker:I love y'all but we gotta wind up.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So listen, we have not solved right now.
Speaker:hug, hug you and give you some love.
Speaker:And then we're going to say anything that I did to offend you though.
Speaker:I want you to just tell me personally, privately, we're going to fix it.
Speaker:I'm going to apologize.
Speaker:I don't want to get it right.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:look though.
Speaker:But before we wind up, before we wind up, I want to ask everyone what is
Speaker:something that, that you just want to kind of leave with us and also,
Speaker:how is it that we can follow you?
Speaker:How can we follow you on social media or follow your work or
Speaker:learn more about your companies?
Speaker:So everyone, one thing that you can, that we can take away or that you're
Speaker:taking away, and then how we can get in touch with you or following.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:You ready?
Speaker:Evelyn, you want to go first?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Um, so I would say the one that I guess what I'd like to leave everybody with.
Speaker:Cause I've been joking a lot about this, but I think that, you know, one of the
Speaker:positive things that I do see that can come out of cancel culture is that it
Speaker:does start conversations, you know?
Speaker:So like when you get publicly blasted like that, hopefully, um, it creates a
Speaker:conversation around the topic and people do learn and evolve because of that.
Speaker:And then hopefully you don't have as many of those situations in the future.
Speaker:So that would be, that's kind of my takeaway from this, but, um,
Speaker:you can follow me on Instagram at smart Evelyn, J, D it's good.
Speaker:And buy a house from you.
Speaker:We can, we can like that's right.
Speaker:We can come to you for all of our closing needs.
Speaker:That's correct.
Speaker:Lovely.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Let me, oh man.
Speaker:You know, for me, I just, I think the best thing that we can do about
Speaker:any of these tough conversations.
Speaker:Is a start inward, right?
Speaker:Cause none of us are, we all have flaws is start that inward work and that self
Speaker:healing and then start practicing it.
Speaker:And through that practice, it starts becoming contagious.
Speaker:And I do think that we all have a responsibility, especially as
Speaker:more evolved people, you know, we've we're world traveled.
Speaker:We are very high levels.
Speaker:So we are very inclusive.
Speaker:Naturally.
Speaker:I think that we have to also put ourselves in other shoes
Speaker:and we have to have empathy.
Speaker:And through that empathy, we're supposed to show compassion.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And build a community of people who don't necessarily have the
Speaker:same experiences that we have.
Speaker:I think that is our obligation.
Speaker:That is, that is what we owe to this world.
Speaker:That is our contribution.
Speaker:Especially for those of us, like the four of us who are successful people.
Speaker:That is our job.
Speaker:I agree.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And how do we get in touch with you?
Speaker:How do we follow.
Speaker:Uh, so you can follow reign ventures, work at reign ventures, R E I G N on
Speaker:all the, of the social media platforms.
Speaker:And then my personal is Monique Idlett on, on Instagram.
Speaker:And then Monique underscore Mosley on Twitter.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:Um, I think what you said, I agree.
Speaker:I feel like.
Speaker:You know, we are very privileged.
Speaker:I'm also sitting in this room with white privilege and I think it is my obligation
Speaker:to look in the mirror and lead by example.
Speaker:And I think that it's so important that we do that every day because you're right.
Speaker:We have so many opportunities we've been so blessed.
Speaker:We're so fortunate and not everybody has that.
Speaker:So you don't know the burden, the other person's carrying.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I would like to hope that, you know, that it is just an easy lesson that you
Speaker:can teach someone that maybe it's the conversation like, you know, try to put
Speaker:yourself in their shoes, have a little bit of empathy and see how you might be able
Speaker:to share something you've learned that could help them have a teachable moment.
Speaker:Um, and I just, yeah, I mean, again, what you said earlier, it is all about.
Speaker:It is just lead with leading would love including ourselves, right?
Speaker:why don't we get in touch with you for the shop it's at shop underscore
Speaker:cannabliss and we are located in DC, but we accept medical cards from anywhere
Speaker:that has a medical program in the country.
Speaker:So we've stopped by the shop and personally on Instagram, I'm at Coco 9
Speaker:0 0 6 9 because I used to live in LA.
Speaker:Love it, love it.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:They love you so much.
Speaker:It's so much fun.
Speaker:I do this more often.
Speaker:I know.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So many topics.
Speaker:So that is a wrap for episode two of the culture road podcast.
Speaker:We invite you to visit us at cultureroad.com to learn more about our
Speaker:digital learning solution, where you get access to fresh monthly content and
Speaker:community in a live and on-demand format.
Speaker:The culture road, community of practice will fuel your ongoing professional
Speaker:development and help you to integrate equity, diversity and inclusion
Speaker:concepts into your everyday life.
Speaker:Learn more about culture road cultureroad.com.
Speaker:And thank you again.
Speaker:It's wonderful being with you.
Speaker:Thank you.
