Public Housing, Part II: Interview with Brad Vae

[00:00:00] Speaker A: All right, guys, welcome to another episode of the Parish Circuit special episode. Today we have Brad Vay. Brad. Jaja Vay. I don't know how to say this. Help me, Jaja. Is all good. Okay, well, thank you so much for coming. You and I interacted on Facebook because we saw you interacting with the podcast that we put out not too long ago, specifically about. I think it was in relation to public housing, some comments that Jesse Bellard had made. [00:00:26] Speaker B: Right. [00:00:27] Speaker A: So we released an episode talking about how Jesse Ballard had said that public housing is not permanent housing, and the Internet in Saint Legrand Parish broke in half, and a lot of people were upset with him about it. And we came in and said, hey, we don't think this is something to necessarily be upset about. One, two. He's right. Three, let's go farther. You know, like we were saying, hey, actually, the overwhelming amount of government assistance for medical care, health care, food, housing, all those things pile up enough to where you could say, you even go so far as saying, hey, this is a type of slavery. And when we said that, granted. I'm being intentionally provocative, and we talked about this before the episode, before we even start recording. Now, I'm being intentionally provocative because when I look around the city of Opelousas, I see my black neighbors, predominantly here in Opelousas. We've lived here for 12 years. I see my black neighbors that I would actually say are being oppressed by the state. They're being kept down through, quote, unquote, assistance. Does that. Does that make sense, guys? Brad, does that make sense? [00:01:42] Speaker B: Yeah, I would say that you're being contained. You're being held to, you know, no room for advancement when you're, you know. [00:01:52] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:01:53] Speaker B: You're being held under that. Well, you just. Anybody of any color. [00:01:56] Speaker A: Yeah. And anybody of any color. Now, I'm speaking specifically in Opelousa's context. So this is, you know, so we [00:02:01] Speaker B: make up majority of it, right? [00:02:03] Speaker A: That's right. That's right. But like you were talking about before we go to Cross Springs, Denver, demographic shift, Right. [00:02:08] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:02:09] Speaker A: And I'm not necessarily talking about. I don't know anything about Cross Springs. I'm not talking about Cross. [00:02:13] Speaker B: I just did a little real. I just did a little research, you know. [00:02:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:02:15] Speaker B: If you go to Cross Springs and you look it up, it's like 92 to 4. 94. [00:02:20] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:02:21] Speaker B: Of the population is white. That makes up the public housing. So. Yeah. [00:02:25] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:02:26] Speaker B: If he's the parish president, he's talking about all people. [00:02:29] Speaker A: Yeah. He's not. Yes. [00:02:30] Speaker B: He's talking about all people. [00:02:31] Speaker A: Yes. And what I want to do is initiate the conversation because I'm a Christian. David and I, we believe in Jesus. Part of the reason that we started this podcast was to say, hey, we want to push the truth of Christianity into every corner. And I'm willing to have the difficult conversations in order to do that. And what the Bible would tell us to do is to get to work, right? Is to say, hey, this is the right way to do this, not just stay inside of state assistance. And I've found as a pastor that people remain inside of government systems because they are incentivized to do so. Does that. Does that make sense? Like, so, for example, a man and a woman won't get married because if they get married, their benefits from the state go down. Because now they're not two individuals anymore. They're one household. Okay? They'll live together, they'll have. They'll have kids together, but they won't go into wedlock together. They're incentivized. Whereas statistically, and we talked about this in the last episode that we put out, statistically, a man and a woman, when they get married, works out better. It works out better. They make more money in the long term if they get married, stay married, and not just a little bit more money. Like a lot more money over the course of their life, and their kids are raised better, their kids turn out better, all that kind of stuff goes down. So I kind of want to have that conversation about why. Why is this happening and how do we deal with it. And then, Brad, I saw you interacting with our content, and I was like, let's get Brad on the talk. So let me ask you, you're a hustler, right? So you said you work commercial electrician work. [00:04:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:04:24] Speaker A: Okay. And then on the weekend, you've got your food truck business. And that's going well, huh? Of course, going well. Okay, I want to ask the question, as somebody who owns a business, what incentivized you to do that? Like, what. What made you take that? I mean, because that's a risk, right? Like, you're spending a bunch of money to do stuff. What got you moving in that. [00:04:47] Speaker B: I guess I just. I just wanted my own. I like space. I don't like rules. And what I mean by that is you guys say you're Christians. I'm gonna start with that first. [00:05:02] Speaker A: Okay. [00:05:03] Speaker B: I'm a very spiritual guy. [00:05:04] Speaker A: Okay. [00:05:05] Speaker B: But I'm not too biblical. Okay. [00:05:06] Speaker A: Yeah, I got you. [00:05:07] Speaker B: So regardless of if it's Bible, or not. Work is everything. So if we say that a married couple makes it better together and they accomplish more together, marriage is also so at the end of the day, work. So, you know, if we apply ourselves and we put in more work, that is one way to get about that situation. But if we sit back and we rely on government assistance and look, don't get me wrong. Don't get me wrong. Some of us need it. The ones that need it, need it. [00:05:36] Speaker A: Sure. [00:05:36] Speaker B: You know, now, if you. If you're. If you're disabled, someone that you know may have some type of mental disabilities, hey, that's what the programs are for. But if you're someone of some youth, perfect health, and, you know, and you both can go out and capable of working, this applies to you. [00:05:55] Speaker A: Yes. [00:05:56] Speaker B: You know that we want you to be productive. [00:05:58] Speaker A: Yes. [00:05:58] Speaker B: You know, and get out there and have more. I don't want none of my children. I have seven biological children. Three. That's not mine. That's bonus children. So I would say 10. [00:06:08] Speaker A: Nice. [00:06:08] Speaker B: Okay. I have. [00:06:10] Speaker A: Be fruitful and multiply. The Bible says. But. [00:06:15] Speaker B: But the thing is, we work hard to not let them see that. It's not that we don't. We have cousins, we have relatives that may still be in that situation. We don't want them to go there. Now, like I said, I have nothing against it, but why do you want to go there? [00:06:33] Speaker A: Yeah, So I think kind of what you're saying, this is an interesting conversation already because you're talking in biblical principles, okay? So when the world was created at the very beginning, God creates everything. He puts Adam and Eve, or he puts Adam in the garden, Eve comes a little bit later, and he says, hey, go. Be fruitful, multiply. Fill the earth, subdue it. Take dominion. Okay, so what he's basically saying to them in that moment is like you just said. I was saying marriage is work. He's saying to them, he's saying, hey, go work from the beginning. So in other words, work is a good thing that God has given us to do, and it's a part of our mission and our identity. And if we don't do it, what happens? Like, I think we fall apart. You know what I'm saying? Because we're made for that. We're made to go and do those things. Do you get what I'm saying? I think it's bad for us as people to have too much leisure. Does that make sense? [00:07:33] Speaker B: Yeah, it does make sense. Because when you don't work, you come under someone else's control. [00:07:39] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:07:40] Speaker B: And what I mean by that is now I can tell you how much you can make if you want to stay here. I can tell you who can live with you if you want to stay here. [00:07:50] Speaker A: Yes. Yes. [00:07:53] Speaker B: You're not allowed to put this on your wall because you're staying here. [00:07:55] Speaker A: Yes. [00:07:56] Speaker B: But if you go out and work, you're not free. You're not free. So that's the mentality. You know, Like I was. Like I was saying earlier, I was told not to come to the show because you guys are going to use big words. So from the jump, I don't know [00:08:12] Speaker A: that I've used any big words. Have I used any big words yet? I don't think I have. [00:08:16] Speaker B: I'm just gonna listen. [00:08:17] Speaker A: I'm gonna Google some so I can see if I. [00:08:18] Speaker B: So I was told not to come on this show because the podcast is going to use big words. So with that being said automatically, that is a slave mentality to me, because you're automatically thinking that these white guys are smarter than me being the black guy. [00:08:37] Speaker A: But see, I would push back hard against that because I'm. You know stuff about this particular topic that I don't know because of who you are. Like, in. In this. In the conversation that we're having right now, I need to ask you questions, and I'm going to get to those later. We talked about this a little bit before the show. Like, I want to. I want to get input from you, like, how do we help people to get out of this slavery, get out of this extraordinary poverty? Like, and that'll be a conversation that we have later. But it's interesting to me, and we could talk a little bit about this, too, how there is this intentional divide that seems to be sown placed between people in Opelousis, between white people and black people. Okay. Now, I think historically, if we go back, we can say it seems to be placed initially by white people, the divisions even just like in the parks and the way that things are lined out. But it still exists now. It still exists today. And I've been here, like I said before, I've been here for 12 years. I really want to labor to get on the other side of that massive communication breakdown. Like, massive. But I also want to do so in a distinctly biblical way. Like, I don't want to compromise any truth that the Bible says in order to do so. So what. What do you think is causing that right now in Opelousis? What do you think is causing that massive separation? The. The need for one of your friends to reach out to you and say, don't go on that show because those white people are going to trick you. Right. Which is hilarious. And in a. Everything that I'm saying right now, hilarious to me. But what do you think is causing that? Like, what's actively causing it? [00:10:23] Speaker B: Now, me personally, I think it's accountability and truth. [00:10:28] Speaker A: Okay. [00:10:29] Speaker B: We don't want to take accountability for what we actually do. I mean, when you think about the. The book, I'm gonna just use the Bible, like you said, for example. Okay. [00:10:38] Speaker A: Okay. [00:10:38] Speaker B: When you open the Bible, it's black and white. [00:10:40] Speaker A: Okay? [00:10:41] Speaker B: I cannot read the black words without the white page. [00:10:43] Speaker A: Oh, dang. [00:10:44] Speaker B: So, I mean, I'm just. I'm just being for real about it. Like, we need each other. So if we swap the pages and we make the pages black and make the words white, I mean, we can't be black on black and white on white. So we. So we have to somehow collide, you know what I'm saying? And come together. You understand what I'm saying? But the thing is, we don't lack accountability because anytime we hear something that touches like, I'm going to use the term hit dog hollow. [00:11:09] Speaker A: Okay, what does that mean? [00:11:10] Speaker B: That means that if it's something about you, like, if. So if a woman tells me men don't take care of their children, I don't defend that because you're not talking about me. [00:11:18] Speaker A: Okay. Okay. [00:11:19] Speaker B: Because I take care of mine. [00:11:20] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:11:21] Speaker B: You understand? So when. When they hear something that's true or something that might touch home with them. [00:11:27] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:11:28] Speaker B: It's the black heart. I'm just. [00:11:31] Speaker A: And they holler because they've been hit. [00:11:32] Speaker B: They've been hit. [00:11:33] Speaker A: Okay. I got it. [00:11:34] Speaker B: You know, so. So anything goes wrong, this is going to be why you ain't get the job. Oh, it was. It was a white guy hiring, you know. You know, it's no. Interesting. Is that. Is that. But the thing is, though, you have to apply yourself. You know, Applying yourself is the best thing. Look, this is. This is not scripted. This is why I want to go live. [00:11:57] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:11:58] Speaker B: So. So no one can feel. Because I. I feel I went live on my own, on my own platform myself, and I. I wanted people to see that. I didn't. I didn't get any of that. I. I don't. I don't like seeing what I see when I go through certain areas of the town. [00:12:15] Speaker A: For sure. Well, I think you want the same thing. [00:12:17] Speaker B: I know. [00:12:18] Speaker A: I think. [00:12:18] Speaker B: I don't like. I don't like seeing it Yeah, I [00:12:20] Speaker A: think we want to see people thriving. [00:12:23] Speaker B: I don't like seeing you every day. You know, maybe you have a situation where you have to come here temporary. That's understandable. [00:12:29] Speaker A: Sure. [00:12:30] Speaker B: And then, and then, and then, and then maybe, you know, you. You can't quite get it. I understand that. But from what I'm hearing, they're paying 7, 800 now in public housing in some places. Well, you can get out and do this, you know, you can get out and find you a red house somewhere else. Doing something somewhere else. I understand that, too. I understand that some people are not capable of being able to be a homeowner where when things breaks, like, I had a. How I had a tankless hot water heater, bro. 1300. You have to pay that. That I can't call someone, a maintenance man to come and fix that. Not at my expense. I. I totally understand that. But you can get to that point to where you can. So it's either you don't want to do that and you're comfortable in what you're living in, and then later you have a bunch of. You have a community of a bunch of children that, like, that's going to grow up and see that even with the housewife, they. I'm gonna kind of go left a little bit. I don't teach my sons to create housewives. The reason why I don't do that, because I don't want to have a bunch of little dumb grandchildren. And what I mean by that is I don't want a wife sitting at home not doing nothing and not. Not using her time and doing something with her time. Like just thinking, because I'm so pretty, I'm at home. It's this, you know, and she's thinking she's taking care of the house. But it might not be to my likings. You know, like, you're not doing nothing that's positive with your time. Like, you understand what I'm saying? So what I think needs to be done is people just need to apply this stuff more. They say there's no jobs. Okay, well, go where the jobs are at. And have been times where I don't travel to Baton Rouge for a job and come back to Appaloosas. [00:14:13] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:14:13] Speaker B: You know. You know, you have to make. [00:14:15] Speaker A: You got to figure it out. [00:14:16] Speaker B: You have to figure it out. [00:14:17] Speaker A: Yeah. So one thing, just quick. The one thing we've talked about a couple times is how there are incentives, and we mentioned it, this episode, just kind of stay where you're at, but you're Saying you see opportunity, you see a chance for people to take a step, take a risk. Yeah. Get out of that. [00:14:33] Speaker B: I, I do see it. I just, I just think that a lot of us, we don't have our priorities together because our parents didn't teach us that. You know, like, interesting. A lot of times we get money burns. Like we, you know, we. Some of us have gambling issues. I understand that. Some of us just have our money in the wrong places. We don't. We don't put it where it comes back. [00:14:54] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:14:54] Speaker B: Like a lot, A lot of times I have a lot of things that I have around my house that, that may seem like I'm collecting this. I'm collecting. I have multiple trailers, food trailers, all kind. My wife might look at it like, why you got this one? Got. Well, I could fall back on collateral and sell that and get that money back. While you may get your nails done and you can't get that. [00:15:14] Speaker A: Yeah, your money's doing something for you like that. Yeah. You have assets and risks. [00:15:18] Speaker B: So we don't, we don't have a plan. [00:15:20] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:15:20] Speaker B: So it goes back to when your teacher actually in school, we need to set up plans. We need to do this. And you sitting there saying, man, I need to graduate and get out of here. I don't want to hear that. But now you're thinking, today, this is the real world. We should have set up a plan. So we never had a plan. And it begins a generational curse. [00:15:36] Speaker A: So I. Oh, man, there's a lot there. I want to talk about the parent thing because you brought that up several times. You're like, I want my kids to see a certain type of living. Right. And you're making efforts to prevent them from getting sucked in. I would say to like a poverty mindset, a slave mindset, like you're trying to move them in a different direction. Is that a fair assessment? Okay, so kind of what you're also saying, and I agree, is that a lot of this responsibility falls on mom and dad. Right, of course. And if mom and dad are abdicating, okay, they're not doing their job and they're just sending their kids to the school system or. And they're, you know, checking out during the day or maybe mom and dad aren't even together anymore. Obviously that's going to create this type of a cycle that just kind of self perpetuates. It continues to go. So how do we like. So to go back to your earlier point, like whenever you start saying things to people, expecting them to take Responsibility. Their first reaction is to hit dog holler. How do we incentivize. Talk to parents, talk to kids who are getting ready to be parents, because that's happening in Opelousis a lot too, to say, hey, you've got a responsibility to these children. You've got an obligation to raise these kids, to pay attention to them. How do we break that chain? Like, have you seen that chain break? [00:17:09] Speaker B: Parents have to go the extra mile. [00:17:11] Speaker A: Okay. [00:17:11] Speaker B: Like right now, on my head right now, I'm thinking about the school system. [00:17:14] Speaker A: Okay. [00:17:15] Speaker B: So all these schools are shutting down. I'm thinking about these. This overflow of children that's going to come to this one particular school. How, how the other children are about to change from these other children coming. So now I'm thinking, hey, I might not. I might not be in a place to get my child to Westminster might not have been a place to get my child south. I'm not saying it's the best school. It's just that I don't want my own children around a certain environment of certain people at school. But when you. But when you think about it, the teachers, most of their children don't go to the school that they teach. [00:17:47] Speaker A: Right. [00:17:47] Speaker B: I mean, I'm just. I'm just being for real about it. [00:17:49] Speaker A: No, I agree. [00:17:50] Speaker B: I agree. They try to get dropped off to them at school after school if they got bus due. [00:17:54] Speaker A: Yes. [00:17:54] Speaker B: Why is your child not at the school you're teaching at? [00:17:57] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:17:58] Speaker B: Because they want better for their child, [00:18:00] Speaker A: better for their kids. Yeah. [00:18:01] Speaker B: So. So you have to go the extra mile. Don't just let your child go to a school. I'm just using school, for example, compared to housing. Don't just let your child go to a school because it's in that neighborhood. I can just walk them right there. I can just do this. It becomes a part of you being lazy. Now, I do stay in Park Vista. I do walk my child around the corner because sometimes he might want to walk, but I prefer driving. But he might just want to walk. But what I'm saying is, overall, in the city of Appaloosas, I consider Park Vista was one of the best. Now I'm looking at Park Vista like I don't know what is about to be with what's going on. Because we finna have an overflow. Yeah. JS clock finna have the same situation. [00:18:38] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:18:38] Speaker B: You know, you're gonna have a. You're gonna have a overflow of children that's going to be there. That's not like the Children that are [00:18:44] Speaker A: there now, and you don't know where they come from, I don't know where to go. And you're worried about their influence? [00:18:47] Speaker B: I'm worried about their influence on the kids, 100%, yeah. [00:18:52] Speaker A: So now what you're talking about again is another principle that we get from the Bible. So the Bible says, raise your children in the fear and admonition of the Lord. Teach and admonish. Okay? Bible makes that plain. And the Bible gives that responsibility to parents, says, hey, mom and dad, this is your job. In other words, the responsibility of education. The way that God made the world work falls squarely on the shoulders of mom and dad. And when mom and dad take that responsibility seriously, their kids do better. I'm not saying every kid grows up to be Einstein. You know, like, I have various degrees of skilled kids in my own family because they got different giftings from God. But when mom and dad throw themselves into the work, their kids turn out better because that's the way God made the world work 100% of the time. And I would say to you, Brad Jajave, I don't know. I'm trying to figure this out. It's all right. [00:19:47] Speaker B: Mess it up. [00:19:47] Speaker A: Okay. That's okay. I would say to you, like, you're 100% on the right track. And I would even say there's other options outside of Westminster and oc, like there's homeschool options for you and your family. And homeschool is actually being incentivized by the state of Louisiana for the first time. There's funding that comes with that if you elect to homeschool. I don't know exactly how it works, but there's ways to pursue it and there's. There's mechanisms that you can deploy. [00:20:13] Speaker B: But again, you gotta apply yourself as [00:20:15] Speaker A: the parent, but you gotta do it. [00:20:16] Speaker B: Are you gonna do it? [00:20:17] Speaker A: Yes. That's the question mark. And I think what we're getting at here in this conversation is you have to take responsibility for yourself and your own. That's what we're really saying. And it can be done. It can be done, and people do it. I think about one of my pastor friends who took responsibility for himself, wasn't even necessarily a Christian yet. Didn't. Wasn't even thinking about being a Christian. But he looked around his life and he said, I got to figure out something for my life. He joined the military and he shipped off. And his life took a dramatic turn for the better after that point. Like, dramatic turn. He wound up living in, like, Virginia Making way more money than I've ever made in my life. You know, like, he did very, very well for himself. And. And he grew up on the north side of Lafayette and not a great part of town. Do you get what I'm saying? But he. There was just a moment where he was like, I think I want more than this. Like, I want better than this. There's a degree in which we have to take responsibility for ourselves. The other option for that, to go back to our earlier conversation is to blame others. Right. This person is preventing me or this people or whatever it is is preventing me from getting anything done in my life. Right. And you know what? Let's just assume that that might even be true. Okay? But in reality, there's nothing you can do about it. The only thing that you can do is take responsibility for yourself. You can't control them. You can't make anything change about them. But you can say, okay, I got to work harder. I'm gonna get up at 5. I'm gonna start the hustle at 5 in the morning. If I have to get this done, then I'm gonna start at 4. I'm gonna work harder than these people. I'm gonna do more than them. Right. That's. That's kind of the place that you have to get into. You have to be able to say, I take responsibility for me, and whatever happens outside of that, I can't do. Does that make sense? [00:22:23] Speaker B: Yeah. But. But if you're just gonna give me something to stay home, I don't have to. I mean, then I. I mean, I'm not going to work as hard. I'm going to get. I'm going to get a little small side hustle just to make. I don't want to live check to check. I'm just. It's just I have too many responsibilities to live check to check. I don't want to depend on my wife. Life, you know, like, we're not a family that. My wife is. My wife has rn. She. She works. You know, we're not a family that, you know, like, oh, he's the man. He's supposed to. No, we. We do our. Our part. You know what I'm saying? So I. I don't want to be. I don't want to ask her for nothing. I don't want her to wait for me to fall off. And then we want to. We're going to help each other so we don't fall off. [00:23:04] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:23:05] Speaker B: You know, but you have to. You have to apply yourself, like, and you have to be able to adapt. Like when things. When things don't go this way or that's it. And another problem is when you wake up seeing the same thing every day. A lot of problems with these children. They don't want to change. Like, they don't want to see a change. You travel and go see this when you think you got problems. Go to a metropolitan city and see, see, see how they homeless is. Their homeless ain't like our homeless. Their teenagers is not like our teenagers. A whole different, different world. You know what I'm saying? So, like, as parents, when our children start being 15 and 16 and then we start hearing them or they got a friend from New Orleans, we get scared because we know that these children from New Orleans are way. I hate to say, but. And then maybe they're not, but that's just what we think. We think that they're more advanced than our children out here, you know, because our children don't really see nothing. Like, we don't. We don't know what a city bus is. We don't know what a subway is. We don't know, you know, what this is. And we don't know how things act around the world. But I feel like I can really go to this state, this state, this state, this country, and still communicate some kind of way. [00:24:10] Speaker A: Yes. [00:24:10] Speaker B: And most of our children can't. [00:24:11] Speaker A: Yes. I would argue that Opelousa has better opportunity in it than any of those major metros. [00:24:17] Speaker B: I would say the same. Because it's so easy to make it here. You just have to be different. [00:24:21] Speaker A: Yes. [00:24:22] Speaker B: You just have to be different. [00:24:26] Speaker A: We started a company 12 years ago that now serves people all over the world. World, literally all over the world through the Internet, just based out of Appaloosas. And when I tell, I have, you know, I have friends that live in Dallas, Fort Worth area. When I talk to them about what I pay for rent and how much my house costs and how much my cost of living is, they. They stop in their tracks and they're. They consider relocating. I had one buddy of mine who runs like a high, high level financial advising firm out of the Dallas area. And when I told him all that stuff, he said, can you send me some houses? Can you maybe look around for me a little bit? Because this might be worth it. Because his business model is a lot like our business model. We serve over the Internet people all over the world. There is a ton of potential in the city. In fact, just yesterday. I like to keep my eye on the real estate market, you know, Just kind of scroll, see what's active. There are houses for sale right now in areas that I would call good neighborhoods in Appaloosas for a hundred grand, for a hundred thousand dollars, for $80,000 that you could go and buy and pay a very low note and turn into an Airbnb, turn into an investment property, turn into like, that's, that is a cheap acquisition, an eighty thousand dollar house, something that you're going to pay probably less than $20,000 down on. And then you put your sweat equity in and you do the work. There's tons of opportunity here, but it just takes people being able to say, I'm a hustle. [00:26:00] Speaker B: You put the time in, the effort. I'm gonna go see. They don't want to do the footwork. See, that's, that's the whole thing, the footwork part. Yeah. And, and that's, that's, that's what it, that's what it all amounts to. See, when you wake up and you see, when you wake up and you see mom and dad getting up every morning, going to work, you're gonna quite naturally do it. [00:26:18] Speaker A: Now you have one, that's something to you. [00:26:20] Speaker B: You have one child that might go a different route because that'll be that small one. But you can't. Yeah. You can't go wrong knowing or you can't. You, you would not go to bed feeling bad knowing that, you know, you taught them right. And you did, you did the same with all of them. [00:26:35] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:26:35] Speaker B: If one is going to do that, out of my mom, five children, I'm the only one that ever went to jail. [00:26:44] Speaker A: You went to jail? [00:26:45] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm, I'm the only one that ever went to jail. Like, I'm an open book. Like, yeah. Because. And I think, I think children need to hear this. I don't, I don't like working for no one. You understand what I'm saying? So that's why I decided to get my own thing like this. I, I don't, I don't want you to cut me like you want to cut me. I want, I'mma cut me. You know, Like, I feel like I work harder than what you about to pay me. Like I know what I'm worth. Yeah. You understand what I'm saying? So being that I'm the, being that I'm the last one that did that. Well, I have, I have, out of all my brothers and sisters, I have two now. My oldest sister has a child that graduated college and I have other, all my other brothers and sisters had Children that graduated college. But my. I have the most children that graduated college. [00:27:28] Speaker A: Let's go. [00:27:29] Speaker B: So, you know, like, it doesn't. It's. It's what you put into yours. Like, I think. I think I thank the universe for that experience of me even going there [00:27:39] Speaker A: because it did something. [00:27:41] Speaker B: We have to lead by example. All right, I'm gonna give you this right here. When we see people go to jail and we see people get these life sentences for creating these crimes that they get, why don't God green or make you go out and do the same thing? You're not about to get no better treatment. So, like, I'm gonna learn from your mistake before I go through it. Like, I don't want to have to go through that. So it's like, yeah, we're not leading by example. But still, even though we lead by example, they don't care. [00:28:14] Speaker A: So what do you think has to happen? What do you think has to happen to change the mindset? Because I agree with you. Like, I've seen people go to jail, and they don't come out any different. Right? I've seen. And if anything, they come out worse. Like, so we. We interact pretty heavily with the refinery mission. You know, it's your old buddy Johnny Carrier, and. And we see guys come through the refinery, and they come out the other side, completely change men who are living a different way for the rest of their days. And we see guys coming through the refinery who don't, you know, they don't make it through week one. Now, one of the things that we've noticed is that that happens more often. The guys who don't make it through are the guys who get sent there by, like, the court system. Okay. The guys who volunteer to go through that program, they typically come out a little bit better. But what do you think is the switch that we should work to flip in Opelousis? Specifically, how do we attack that change? [00:29:20] Speaker B: I'm gonna go deep with that. [00:29:21] Speaker A: Okay. [00:29:21] Speaker B: How old are you? [00:29:22] Speaker A: Are you? I'm 40. [00:29:23] Speaker B: 40. [00:29:24] Speaker A: About to be 41. [00:29:25] Speaker B: Okay. [00:29:26] Speaker A: Just turned 35. [00:29:27] Speaker B: All right. Do you guys want to be in a place where the teenagers at in Appaloosa? [00:29:32] Speaker A: Yeah, probably not. [00:29:34] Speaker B: All right, Right there. [00:29:36] Speaker A: Okay. [00:29:36] Speaker B: All right. That's it. [00:29:37] Speaker A: Right there. [00:29:37] Speaker B: See, this is what I think. I think the problem is we don't want to be where they at. All right, so check this out. [00:29:45] Speaker A: Okay. [00:29:45] Speaker B: If. If I know this club is 21. Oh, this. This is a hangout spot, say, a skating ring. I'm just using that, for example. They're there, it's no more skating ring. But I'm just gonna use that. [00:29:54] Speaker A: Yeah, that thing got shut down. [00:29:55] Speaker B: That thing got shut down. But say it's a skating ring and there's number of teens there. We should want to be where they're at. [00:30:03] Speaker A: Okay. [00:30:03] Speaker B: And the reason why I'm saying that, because if they come and they say, hey, hey, Josh, what you doing over here, old school? They're gonna call me Unk. You know, okay, what you doing over here? And if you look at them and you tell them, I'm here for you, you're gonna mess their head up even though you don't know them. [00:30:19] Speaker A: Yeah. You're gonna. [00:30:19] Speaker B: You're gonna change their mindset. Because when they know that they can get into a place where you're not watching, they could do whatever they want to do. But if they feel like, hey, man, look, we got somebody always watching us, bro. We gotta act. Right? [00:30:32] Speaker A: So you're saying it in the form of, like, an accountability piece, in a formal kind of. [00:30:36] Speaker B: So, like, when they say we are letting our children out, I don't really go with that too much because I can only do what I could do with mine. Yeah, really. But if we in the places that they are at, I'm not saying looking like a petty or looking like this or looking like anything like that. What I'm saying is, if I see you here, say, hey, man, look, I'm here. I'm here for your. Why are you here? Why are you here, old school? I'm here for your protection, bro. I'm here for you because I love you, man. [00:30:58] Speaker A: See, but I think if a couple of white guys showed up and do that, they would assume we're pedophiles. [00:31:02] Speaker B: Yeah. All depends on how your mustache look. That would switch their game, because they don't have somebody telling them that, hey, I'm here for you. Like, I don't know you at all, but. And look, if you need me, man, I'm here, you know? And then they start seeing. They start seeing an overflow of adults doing that. They start feeling like, man, we being watched. We got to carry our stuff a whole lot better. You know? A guy. Look, I told a little guy the other day, I was like, man, pick up your pants. Like, you know, like, do you know what it really means? He's like, yeah, I know what it really means. I said, then why you do it? He said, because I'm telling you to kiss my. [00:31:38] Speaker A: Yes. Wow. This young man said this to you? Yeah. [00:31:44] Speaker B: Yeah. So. So I'm just saying, like, you know, so it's either, you know, I put the word out there for you, but, you know, I. I know what you're saying, young man, but I don't. I don't want you to hurt me neither, so I'mma back up off you. But at the same time, if we at the places that they're at, if we hang out, where they hang out at, which could still be a spot for us, but, you know, they just took over, you know what I'm saying? If we had the fun spots, if we here, we there, everywhere they go, and we let them know that we care for them. They're not saying we're making this a thing, but, you know, if they see that, they would do that, change them. It would be a start of something. But, like every adult, we don't want to. I didn't want to do that about two years ago neither, but. But I thought about that, and right here we all stated, right? I say that once upon a time. You're 35, I'm the oldest, right? At 43, you're 40. And you say, no, I don't want to be there. I don't want to be. I don't want to be. And a lot of adults say that. I'm not gonna. You're not gonna catch me nowhere with my child. My child going out to this club. I don't want to be there. Right? No, my child is gone. I don't want to be in the same spot with them. Maybe we should. [00:32:48] Speaker A: Yeah. So then, David, you were gonna say something. I was gonna say. It sounds like you're. Are you describing something like, what you call it mentorship, and. And what you described, even approaching somebody who you didn't necessarily know and being like, you know, confronting them about clean yourself, both. That to me is like, we might look at that differently or do it differently, but it's taking accountability for your community, for your neighbors. Is that how you would say you're taking on a degree of account or responsibility to say, this is my neighborhood, for your neighborhood, this is my town, and I want what's best for me? [00:33:22] Speaker B: Because it used to be like that. Like, I used to walk across this certain neighbor yard, he'd call my parents, hey, I don't want your son walk across my yard. [00:33:28] Speaker A: Yeah, we don't live in that anymore, dude. [00:33:30] Speaker B: Everybody's minding their business now because the parents are getting. The parents are fussing about the wrong thing. That's why the teachers don't care no more, because they're coming to school, fussing at the parents like. Like, am I. If my teachers told my parents something, that's what it was. [00:33:45] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:33:46] Speaker B: It don't matter. It don't matter if they lied on you. Yeah, that's what it was. [00:33:50] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:33:50] Speaker B: But it taught you respect though, right? It taught you not to get out of line. Because either she gonna tell the truth on you. You, or is she gonna lie on you, and you're still gonna get paddled. You can still have some type of repercussion coming along with you, but the government also took some of the power out the parents hand. You can't do certain things. You can't do this, you can't do that. So the parents are scared of the children now. But at the same time, I'm not saying we should approach them, but if they still. They're gonna look, they're gonna actually, they're gonna walk. They're gonna approach you. They're gonna ask you, what you doing there? Yeah, like, you look out of space, man. What you doing here? Yeah, hey, I'm here for you, man. Yeah, I'm here just in case anything happens to you, man. I'm here to help you. [00:34:25] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:34:25] Speaker B: You ain't gotta ask me name. [00:34:26] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:34:27] Speaker B: You know, I'm just here for you. I love you, man. [00:34:28] Speaker A: Yeah. So then what. I guess so then what we're advocating here for is an engagement, a responsibility. This is my neighborhood. These are. These are my people. So what would that. I mean, I honestly don't hate that idea. I mean, what would that. I think that would probably look like first an initiative to know who your neighbors are. Right. Because, like, if we just think about it like this, let's just. Let's deal with it in terms of proximity. Like, where do you live? Who are the people who live around you? Do you know their names? You know, I think you could probably just start right there and just say build out. Yeah. And what you're describing, some of the problems going on here. I mean, it seems like the trust that we have for each other in a community has. Has diminished. So, I mean, so starting where you are, I'm gonna have a barbecue, get to know people. [00:35:20] Speaker B: So I didn't spray it up. [00:35:21] Speaker A: I'm gonna bring Jaja over and he's gonna make jerk everything for all my neighbors. Question that we haven't asked yet is, what is, what's the best food you make? [00:35:30] Speaker B: Oh, I was gonna save it till the end, but it came every day, like roster pasta, man, you gotta get pasta. Pasta with that jerk Brisket, man. It's very good. Okay. [00:35:40] Speaker A: Okay. [00:35:40] Speaker B: But, yeah, that's. That's. That's what it is, man. Cause see, in our neighborhood, we talented. You know what? I' stuff don't look right. We go to the neighborhood. Hey, did you see this? You know, and. [00:35:50] Speaker A: And. [00:35:50] Speaker B: And that's. And that's what it is right there. Like, you know, you have to communicate, but you have to see, in my house, children have no say. So. Children bring nothing to the table in my house. [00:36:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:36:03] Speaker B: So, you know, adults is going to always. Unless you. Unless you just handed my child wrong, adults gonna always win over a child. Like, you understand what I'm saying? So that's. That's the problem right there. We are letting our children raise themselves like. Like, you know, because. Because we don't. We want them to. Oh, you know, let them have a voice. You have no voice. [00:36:26] Speaker A: You're 10. [00:36:26] Speaker B: Yeah. You understand what I'm telling you? Understand what I'm telling you and listen to me. [00:36:31] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:36:31] Speaker B: You know what I'm saying? Listen for your good. You understand? You might not understand it now, but you will. And I. And I. I appreciate my parents for that. We all. All five of us, they not. And it's not about having the same mom and dad, but we all did. And that's another issue, too. Sometimes we have different personalities in the house. When we have different. And that's another subject. [00:36:49] Speaker A: Sure. [00:36:49] Speaker B: But when you have different personalities of different children, that's a different. You handle them differently, you know? [00:36:55] Speaker A: So let me bring this look. Now, let's make this super practical, okay? This is. This is kind of where my head goes right away. Let's make this super practical. I would say, to go back to our earlier conversation, we should look around us and say, hey, what are ways that we can build relationships in our particular neighborhoods with people who live around us? I think that's a good move. I like that. But I would add this caveat to it. This is just based on what we said earlier. We would not do that and sacrifice our own kids in the process. Right. Like, and so there's. I want to recognize that there's a degree of tension here. Do you know what I'm saying? Because you hear stories all the time about pastors who go overseas, foreign missions or whatever, to go and try to lead Mongolians to Jesus and all their kids grow up and apostatize and turn into terrible people. That's a regular narrative that we hear. And I would say, based on the conversation that we're having today and Just reality that it's because they neglected their. Their primary duties before going after their secondary ones. Right. Because there's a. The. The church would use a phrase called ordo amoris, okay. And it really just means your order of affections. Who is your. Your neighbor with the most proximity. Right. And so for family, guys, it's our family, it's our kids. We would say put your house in order. Get your house in tight order, and then now, let's see what else we can do. Right? Another biblical principle to this would be, and David and I talked about this yesterday, the concept of margins. Don't run your life right up to its edge, okay? Leave margins in the field. In other words, have some time that's a little loose, that you can go help your neighbor cut his grass because he broke his leg last week, you know, or you. You can see what's going on in your neighborhood and be like, hey, that kid, we don't know him, you know, like, what's he doing? Yeah, what are we gonna figure out here? Like, there's ways for all, I think, of us to take that particular lesson, but I. I like where this conversation is going. I think what we're saying is take responsibility first for yourself, then for your family, then look around your neighborhoods. I think that's where we're going, Dave, you think that's where we're going? [00:39:25] Speaker B: I mean. [00:39:25] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, I think so. [00:39:26] Speaker B: Okay, cool. [00:39:27] Speaker A: And I think also, I mean, [00:39:32] Speaker B: I [00:39:33] Speaker A: remember growing up and all my neighbors knew who I was, and if I was somewhere where I wasn't supposed to be, somebody was going to call my mom. Now, I lived in the middle of the woods in the country, so I didn't have a lot of neighbors, but that was the way, hey, you know your boys down the street, you know, that was a normal polar life because we all knew each other. And I do think we've lost that. I do think we have. We have radically isolated from neighbors in our. In our literal proximity. And instead we are fellowshipping, you know, through the Internet or whatever, with people more in who live states away from us. And we don't. We don't have the depth of relationship that we used to have. So I like this. I like this a lot. This is helpful. I don't know. I guess barbecues, I don't know. [00:40:27] Speaker B: Throw some neighborhood barbecues. [00:40:28] Speaker A: Throw some barbecues. [00:40:30] Speaker B: I'll put it to you like this. I take my children to New Orleans for the Bayou Classic. Have you ever heard of that? Bayou Classic? [00:40:37] Speaker A: Refresh my memory. I know I'VE heard of it. [00:40:39] Speaker B: It's an event that happens in New Orle Collins West. Yes. [00:40:42] Speaker A: Southern and Grammar. Yes. Okay, so I went to Tech, like, right down. [00:40:46] Speaker B: Okay, all right. [00:40:47] Speaker A: I know, Gramlin. Okay. [00:40:48] Speaker B: So my little boy sees now, we walking down Bourbon street, and my little boy see these little children, it's night time, you know, doing their little talent or whatever. [00:40:56] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:40:56] Speaker B: And my little boy is 7 years old, and he says, why are these little children out here late like this? And it's not that it's wrong that they're out there late. Right. But it's. I mean, it's wrong to me. But he knows that he's not gonna be out here like that. So I look right at him and I say, yeah, they're out here, but that's not what you're gonna be doing. Like, when you hear. When you hit that street light about to come on, you go home, you know, so. So that's that. That's what it is. It's about the upcoming. Like, I don't care. Like, I'd be very cautious about what I let them see. You know, I'm working progress myself. I mean, we are learning how to be parents. Parents every day. You know what I'm saying? But at the same time, I'd be mindful of what I do. But you have to. You have to be able to come together as the parents. The parents is the core of it. But, you know, I can't blame it on social media. I can't blame it on music, because I grew up on the. When the rap turned, you know, and the Tupac and the mjg, the eight ball. I grew up on all that. I just listened to the beat. Like I knew the words, but it never entered me, like, you know, like. Like, you know, so. [00:42:08] Speaker A: Because a lot of people do say that. They're like, oh, it's the music. [00:42:11] Speaker B: I can't. I can't. I can't say that because now all I jam is reggae music, you know, So I can't say that now that does get into. Because it's feel good, and that's what I just really like. But at the same time, I. I love Tupac. I loved all those rappers, but it never gotten to me to where it influenced me to want to walk. Like, all the children I see walk this way. They walk a certain way, they sag, they pants a certain way. Yeah, they're gonna have a hoodie on in the summertime right now. [00:42:36] Speaker A: Isn't that interesting, though, how cultures that have absolutely nothing to do with our actual way of life in Opelousas. Influence behavior in Opelousas to act like Detroit or la. [00:42:53] Speaker B: The problem is there's not enough leadership. Every. Everybody's followers. Nobody. Nobody has their own mind. Like, I tell my little boy, I don't care what they do. I told you right. This on the street right here. [00:43:03] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:43:04] Speaker B: If they go left. [00:43:05] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:43:05] Speaker B: Stay right here. Like, I don't care what they do. [00:43:07] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:43:08] Speaker B: I'm teaching him leadership. [00:43:09] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:43:10] Speaker B: You're not gonna. Because you're gonna be getting whipped when you come back home. [00:43:12] Speaker A: I had this conversation with a young man at our church this past Sunday. Like, I. Because he goes to a school where some of the kids are starting to. To feel themselves little bit. You know, like, they're starting to. They're starting to move in a bad direction. And I told him. I was like, hey, your job is to be the immune system over there. Like, in other words, your job is to be the leader. Somebody has to stand up and say, hey, I'm not doing that. And if you do that, you'll be surprised because there's gonna be other people in the room who also don't want to act the fool. They're just not brave enough to say it out loud. If somebody would say it first, you know what I mean? Then there would be this move in a direction. But what you're saying is that doesn't exist in my policies. [00:43:54] Speaker B: Well, what I'm saying is, if I tried to sit there and say, all right, cool up. Come together. All right? And if. Say saves us two white guys, one black guy right here, and we say, you know what? We trying to do a movement. We trying to get children's minds to change and be trying to get our kids better. The first thing gonna be said about me is Uncle Tom. [00:44:17] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:44:17] Speaker B: All right. [00:44:17] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:44:18] Speaker B: They're doing it for the money. [00:44:19] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:44:19] Speaker B: And then the money. What's gonna be said about y' all is they're using me to get the black children. [00:44:25] Speaker A: Oh, really? [00:44:26] Speaker B: You see what I'm saying? [00:44:27] Speaker A: Okay. [00:44:27] Speaker B: I mean, I'm just saying what I. And I'm not saying that's what's going to be said. [00:44:30] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:44:31] Speaker B: I'm just saying that's what we hear. [00:44:32] Speaker A: That's what happens. [00:44:34] Speaker B: The time. [00:44:34] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:44:35] Speaker B: Like, you know what I'm saying? So when. When to go back to the beginning, when they pull the race card, it's always. It's always like that. That. So say, for instance, if. If I was 43, like, I am all my other brothers and sisters are successful. If they saw me working at Sonic, the minute I make them mad, they're gonna say, are you 43 year old, still working at Sonic? You know, or. Or if I was successful and I. And I. And I was making real good money, they'd be looking at me. He making all that money. He's still staying in public housing. He need to get out of here, let somebody else get that spot. All right, if y' all think that way, then think that way. You know, like, it's. It's just always. It's always just something. But before I get out there and go work hard for it, I got. I got to put it on somebody else's back. Like, it's always going, but it's going. It's going to be. If I did it by myself, like, I want to start a foundation. If I did it by myself, it's going to be. They're doing it for the money and they're not going to support it. [00:45:33] Speaker A: Yeah, I would say don't start a foundation. Just do it. Like, I think. I think that what we're on to right now is just a bunch of dudes saying, hey, we want our town to be better. And I think we've put together some ideas of how to do that. Don't. If you're listening to this podcast, I would say, and you're. And you're ready to also see this change in our city, I would say don't wait for somebody else to do it. Don't wait for somebody to organize it. Just do it. It just, you know, get your house in order, get your family in order, and then look around and meet your neighbors and throw a barbecue. Call Zsa Ja and, like, let's. Let's get some jerk chicken thrown. You know, like, figure it out, make some burgers, get to know people and then. And see what happens. I like this strategy a lot, honestly, and it's not that complicated, but it's not. It is a. It is a little bit uncomfortable for our. What I would call our antisocial age. You know, like, people who don't. We don't want to. I just. I want to get home, I want to sit down on my couch, and I don't want to. I want to scroll on my phone, and I want to see what's streaming right now. Like, I want to check out. I don't want to do anything else. It is work. Yeah. But it's not. It's not unattainable. And it's all if, you know, we're Christians we already said that before. It's all within the purview of Christianity too. Like, you love your neighbor. Okay, we'll start by knowing their name. What's their name? [00:47:07] Speaker B: It's crazy how they only gravitate to negativity, though. [00:47:12] Speaker A: What do you mean? [00:47:13] Speaker B: I'm just saying, like. Like anything on social media, like, if you see somebody doing something positive, most people pass it, but if they hear somebody screaming and yelling, yapping or something. Yeah, you know, like. [00:47:23] Speaker A: Yeah, it's basic thing. [00:47:25] Speaker B: It's. You know, it does that. And like I said, the minute you try to keep things positive, they start trying to find something negative about you. [00:47:35] Speaker A: Yes, I agree. [00:47:36] Speaker B: You know what I'm saying? So it's. It's crazy. [00:47:38] Speaker A: God's stuff. [00:47:39] Speaker B: Mm. So. So when you. When you guys made the. The. When you guys say the word slavery along with a chuckle, like I said on my live, your chucker didn't go good with that. Maybe if I were to say what you would have said, it would have sound different than somebody would have said. All right, well, again, he's on Katano. Somebody paid him to say this. How? Slave. It doesn't. Slavery, the N word. Public housing doesn't apply to people of color only. I've seen. I've seen white people in public housing in Appaloosas, but she's gonna most likely be with a black guy. I've never seen too many white couples in Appaloosas. In Appaloosas, together in public housing. Yeah, they might stay for a minute. Eventually they roll. But what I'm saying is, I guess the question is, why don't you want to roll? [00:48:36] Speaker A: Why don't you want to leave this? Why don't you want out? [00:48:39] Speaker B: Like, you know, like, I. I don't. I don't want to. I'm speaking for myself. I don't want none of my eyes there. [00:48:43] Speaker A: Yeah, I. I wonder that same thing. And I think it's. I think it's a lot of things. I think it's parents. Right. I think it's a generational curse, like you talked about before. I think it's a generational issue. I think it's parents. I think it's. I do think it's laziness. I think that's. And I'm not trying to swing at anybody right now. I'm just saying what I think. Okay? So I do think it's laziness. And I. And I do think because. And when I say laziness, it's because it is so hard. You have to Climb up a lot to get out. Because as soon as you start working an actual job, you lose lots of your stuff, gets turned off right away, and that's terrifying. Like, so all my health care is free. If I go get this job, I lose it. My housing is free. If I go get this job, I lose it. [00:49:38] Speaker B: My food. [00:49:38] Speaker A: Well, some of my food. I know the. Well, the actual food stamps is so ridiculously low right now. It's not really sustainable for people. But my food, I think it's around $700 a person or something like that. My $700 goes away if I go get this job. They have to climb a lot to get out. But what I'm saying is that it's worth every penny, it's worth every degree of effort because your life will become so much more fruitful. First off, you'll be working again, which was what you were made to do from the beginning. You were. You're designed for this. And I'm arguing from a Christian perspective here. You're designed for work and it's fulfilling and it's good. And secondly, all the statistics say that once you get the ball rolling, it only gets better over time. Once you are making money, statistically speaking, you will only make more over time. You, you will get more races, you'll get more revenue, you'll get more opportunity if you go and you work hard. That's just statistics. So go and do it. [00:50:42] Speaker B: Well, I mean, that's, that's just making a sacrifice. [00:50:45] Speaker A: It's hard. [00:50:45] Speaker B: You know, it's hard. If you're a guy that's walking and you're looking for a woman, most likely you're going to meet another woman walking. I mean, I'm just being for real about it. [00:50:55] Speaker A: If you're sitting still, because, you know, [00:50:57] Speaker B: I ask myself a lot, why, why millionaires always want love and their relationships never last? It's because they always meeting people in that circle. Because millionaires hang with millionaires, you know? You know, like, you know, it's like levels to this stuff. Right. So it's the community of homeless. It's community of. Oh, public housing. [00:51:17] Speaker A: Okay. [00:51:17] Speaker B: Right. [00:51:17] Speaker A: Okay. [00:51:18] Speaker B: It's the community. This. [00:51:19] Speaker A: So I think you're saying, so if [00:51:20] Speaker B: I meet you here. [00:51:21] Speaker A: Yes. [00:51:22] Speaker B: I'm gonna eventually meet another chick here like that. [00:51:24] Speaker A: Yes. [00:51:25] Speaker B: It's just. It's just what it is. No matter what ratio. So if, if you have to present yourself in a way to where you're going to meet certain things. So, like, if I want to do great, I'm going to surround Myself around people with greatness, you know, like, so if I don't want you to think of me as a, a crackhead or anything like that, I'm not going to. I mean, it's either if I'm hanging with them, it's either I'm selling crack or I'm a crackhead. It's just one of the other. They could very well just be my cousin and I could just be there. But what are you going to look at me as? [00:51:55] Speaker A: So, I mean, this is what I would say. You want to diversify the people that you hang around with. I would just say you should go to church. Look, I'm just gonna put it out. I'm just gonna put it out because, like, I mean, like, just let me give you a slice demographic of just what our church looks like and what I would say probably every church in this area looks like. Our church looks like we have people who are actively living on government assistance of various types of. And we also have people who are what I'd classify, very successful in their field. Like we have guys who's run, run alongside federal investigations running on a national level. They go to church with us super successful guys. We have business owners, we have dudes who just like to, you know, work on stuff in their shops. We've got plumbers. There's a broad degree of people like that, that cross section. I think that what we're talking about looking for and if you're just trying to expose yourself to other people, that's an easy community to connect to. And I think that would be a great opportunity for people. And most churches, I'll say this also are not really going to care what your background is before they let you in the door. Maybe there's some that would, I would say probably most don't. And we had a guy walk into our church this past Sunday who is literally homeless and he, you know, can't speak well, he can't communicate effectively. Something's obviously wrong with his mental capacity. He still gets to hang out because it's a church, like it's normal. So I think that would be a great option if you're, if people are looking for that, I would say pull the search engine up on your phone and look for, look for one around you. Find one to connect to. I think it would be good. [00:53:37] Speaker B: Yeah, that's what it is. You have to put yourself in a better position if you don't, if you don't apply yourself. And, and that's the thing. We're constantly, we're Just waiting for someone to give it to us. I was on Tick Tock the other day, and the guy said, man, God so good. I put applications in and I get the job. And I'm looking at him like, if you did not sign the application, you would not have gotten a job. Like, God just don't just appoint you to this job. Like, I need to say, hey, man, you didn't sign an application, but God sent me your name and your number. No, it's. You do you have to put yourself in that position? Maybe you may get the blessing, but you took the stuff. So when you don't take that stuff and you're saying, you know what, man? I could stay right here. I could pay 300amonth. I ain't never really got to cut my grass. I ain't gotta worry about this. If this breaks, I ain't gotta buy it myself, man. I gotta be a man. Look, I got my girl. We can stack. But y' all really don't stack. I really don't stack the money. Y' all waste the money. Money. You know what I'm saying? And I hear a lot of women do this, too. Like when they say, I got a man, pay all the bills, do this, he do all this. And what I do with my money, I do with my money. Y' all don't save your money neither. So the thing is, the priority is not straight. We don't take accountability, and we don't have a plan for our children, and we don't put them in the right direction to it. And we don't. We. We not good with taking corrective criticism. [00:55:01] Speaker A: Agreed. Because then we get sensitive. [00:55:02] Speaker B: Then we get sensitive, and then we start turning it on. This happened with this. You cannot change the past. What you could do is if you don't learn from it, then you lost. [00:55:11] Speaker A: Yeah. And you blame somebody else. [00:55:12] Speaker B: You have to blame somebody else. [00:55:14] Speaker A: Yeah. And this. This is the human condition. Right? This goes all the way back to the garden. Adam and Eve, too. God shows up and he says, adam or no, why did. Why'd you eat that fruit? And Adam's like, well, this woman gave me. You know, like, it's that one. You know, it's not me. It's that one over there. God's like, no, no, no, no. This. This is you. That's right. I said this to you. It's a. It's a human condition, man. I. I agree. There is a high degree of responsibility that has not been taken for. For generations. And I. And I think that the way out is to say, hey, I'm gonna. I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna build something. I'm gonna. I'm gonna work again. And I do think that there's a way that we. That all people, but especially Christians, can be that witness to their neighbor just by saying, hey, what's your name? You know, like, I'm so. And so we're having burgers on Friday. I want to hang out. You know, y' all want to come over. And it does make people uncomfortable because, like I said before, we're in the antisocial age. But I think it. It could be. Yeah, I think changing. Yeah. And I would say we are in the antisocial age, but there's opportunity for that. Not belief. I know if I threw a cookout, my neighbors would come. They would come. People. People still remember that, you know, that. That time. Yeah. I don't know that mine would, but I'm gonna work on it. [00:56:48] Speaker B: I think people are so to themselves, because what they see on the Internet, they're like, dang, the world is crazy now. Now. But it's been crazier. Like, things just wouldn't be able to be documented or recorded to be seen. We just seen it now. Like, you know, man, we'd have been back in those days, and, you know, when people just. Off with the head and, you know, like, it wasn't no laws with nothing. Like, you know, So I think. I think what we've seen, that. That part is affecting us. But, bro, we. We make up the world. Like, I know my whole street on both sides in my neighborhood, you know, I mean, I know the next block. [00:57:20] Speaker A: Block, but I know yours. [00:57:21] Speaker B: But I know. I know my blog. And if each block know they block, then it's gonna be. It's gonna be a good block. You understand what I'm saying? But, yes, when you start seeing people come in here and do this, if I can't tell your child something, hey, blah, blah, blah, and your child. Some children may curse you out, may go tell their parent. Their parent might come back and say, hey, look, that's my child. Don't talk to my child. That's the problem. You know what I'm saying? If I'm not telling your child nothing wrong, if I'm giving your child positive impact, I mean, input, and it can impact their life in a positive way. What's the problem? Y' all looking for it in sports? Y' all looking forward and stuff like that? That's. Your child may not be an athlete. Your child may not be A, you know, a LeBron or this or that. You put, you put them in sports. [00:58:04] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:58:05] Speaker B: And then they can't listen to the coach because they don't listen to you. [00:58:07] Speaker A: Sure, sure. Yeah, I think, you know. Yeah, I, I do. [00:58:12] Speaker B: So I, so I, I think the problem is, and why we don't have change because we don't have accountability. It starts with the parents. We're not taking accountability and we're not trying to take initiative. And we don't like change. [00:58:27] Speaker A: And we also don't like being told that we're wrong. [00:58:29] Speaker B: We don't like being told where we're wrong. And, and look, if you, and if you want to stay in public housing for the rest of your life, fine. That, that is perfectly fine. But we want productive taxpayers because, all right, say for instance, we didn't have public housing, what would we do? [00:58:49] Speaker A: So I would, yeah, I would, I would go. This is a whole new podcast episode. But what, what I would say. So I actually have this written down right now. The Charity to the World was originally run by the church, you know, 150 years ago, 200 years ago. And it was organized both systematically by the church as a whole, but it was also organized individually by people caring for others. But it came with certain parameter parameters. Right? Public housing is just like, there's no requirements, there's no expectations. Government assistance today, in general, I should say, there's no requirements really, except for your income level. And since the Johnson administration, which was when David was at the 40s, 50s, 60s, when the war on poverty quote unquote started, it has only gotten exponentially larger. How much tax money is spent every year on supposedly releasing people from poverty. But the amount of people impoverished only goes up and it goes up every year. And it's because there's no accountability and systems alongside of it. Like I would say it's the church's job. And the church has stopped doing it. Christians have stopped doing it. Like, part of me is like, I would love to go buy some of these hundred thousand dollar houses and rent them real cheap, have requirements on them. You know, be like, hey, there's expectations here. If you're going to do this, you're going to live here. You got to live a certain way. You can't be, you know, being wild at 4am messing up the neighborhood. Like there's a covenant. You got to participate in here if you want to participate. But I would love to do that. I think that would be a great option eventually. Now I don't have a couple hundred thousand Dollars laying around to go and start buying houses. But I think there's opportunity there for some of us. There's people probably listening to this to be able to figure these kind of things out and think through them. Well, but that's what I would say if we didn't have public housing. And I would say, and I, I hope one day we don't. I would even go that far. I would say I hope one day we don't. But it's because Christians have taken responsibility for the poor. And our nation as a whole has progressed to the point of understanding personal responsibility and their responsibility towards their families and their neighbors, to the point where we all say we fixed it. We're not looking at the state to fix it. Right. We're taking responsibility. I think that's where we're headed. Sorry I put you on a tirade. [01:01:06] Speaker B: I had a friend of mine told me what if public housing didn't look the way it looked? Like what, what if it looked like vinyl siding, houses separated, a person had a yard here, and I said, well, they'll never ever leave. Then, like that's, you know, like that exists here. Did you know that? Yeah, it does exist here. But yes, people don't look at it that way because of the way it looks. Right. So that's another way too. I think that you can wean them away, you know what I'm saying? But it takes money to do that, you know what I'm saying? And that's a whole nother thing that you're kicking up. But I also look at it as a, a way of handicapping them also, you know what I'm saying? I mean, it's, it's no real good solution that I can really think of. I just think that some people abuse certain things. I think that some people need certain assistance. Assistance systems. And I think the ones that needed the most can't get into it because of some that are occupying it, that could get out, that have potential to get out. But the mindset then wrapped, then got trapped to where, hey, look, I'm gonna let them just give me this. And I'm. And I'm. And I'm satisfied with that. I'm a person that just want more. [01:02:16] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:02:16] Speaker B: So when you have somebody that want more and want better, then you, that's all you're going to see. But when you have a large percentage that's comfortable, unfortunately, that's just what it's going to be. And look, and, and, and it's sad because, look, I don't care about surrounding cities. I care about the city. [01:02:34] Speaker A: I mean. [01:02:34] Speaker B: I mean, hold up. It's. Right. [01:02:37] Speaker A: Let me say it a different way. [01:02:38] Speaker B: I'm not gonna say I don't care about the surrounding. I'm only speaking about. Opalous is where I stay. [01:02:42] Speaker A: Yeah, but that's ordo amorous. Yeah, that's your order of affection. [01:02:45] Speaker B: Exactly. [01:02:46] Speaker A: That's. That's right. [01:02:47] Speaker B: This is where I live at. So this is what I see. I don't like seeing y' all in this. [01:02:51] Speaker A: This. [01:02:52] Speaker B: If. If I bought a certain particular girl home at a certain time. I mean, at a certain time in my life, if I was in high school, my parents probably would say, why you bought this girl home from here? Let me say the projects. My parents probably would say that, like, why you bought her here from here? This. This is why parents ask. And I'm not saying nothing is wrong with that, but this is why parents ask, who is these people? Who. Who is your mama? Who's your dad? So we want to know. Know half of your pedigree. Like, we want to know if you're halfway crazy, you know, a little bit. [01:03:22] Speaker A: You want to know what we got to worry about. [01:03:24] Speaker B: We want to know where you're from. So this is the same thing when it comes down to if I rent your house. I want to know your background. I want to. I want to know your. Your credit score. I want to know this. I want to know that. Because I don't want you coming in my house, tearing my house up. I don't. I don't want to know. I want to know if you have some type of convicted sex offender living with you coming. Any race, come and stay into my house. And I bought this into this neighborhood where these people are not doing this. [01:03:48] Speaker A: Yeah, awesome. [01:03:49] Speaker B: Now, don't get me wrong now. I come from a black community. I'm born and raised on the northern Appaloosas. I come from where there's still this out your yard. I might be still in a neighborhood where they'll steal your credit. I. I don't know. They might steal your identity. I don't know. But what I'm saying is, though, in my lifespan, when it had time, anything to do with anybody knocking me down, it was always my kind. So I'm. I'm not gonna sit here and say, oh, man, the white man does. It's some black people. I don't like myself. I'm just. I'm just not. Not. Cause you're black. Because what you've done to me. [01:04:22] Speaker A: Yeah, I understand. [01:04:23] Speaker B: You Understand what I'm saying? And if you've done something, it's like, I forgive you, but there's no crossing back. Oh, I'm not gonna let you do it twice. [01:04:29] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:04:30] Speaker B: I mean, I'm just. I'm just being for real about it. Like, I don't care if you're white, black, or right. I just come straight with the right or wrong stuff. So I just feel like the children are just. They got. They got too much control of their lives. They got too much say so and. And not being parented, and they got so much control to where they're out of control because their parents can't tell them nothing. You know, and then the parents get to the point to where they tell you don't tell them nothing. [01:04:53] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:04:53] Speaker B: And it's just a. [01:04:56] Speaker A: Yeah. I think we've got. I think we've got a strategy. I like this. I think just to be able to say, hey, here's what we're going to do. Moving forward is encouraging for me. And I think the things that we do moving forward, we say, let's put an emphasis on personal responsibility. Let's put an emphasis on getting your house in order. Get your house in order. Moms, dads, this is your house. Get it in order. And that starts with us not just looking around us and being like, what's wrong with you? Like, that starts with us, and then it moves out. And then I would also say, and then we love our neighbors. I think that. I think that this is a lesson in order of. Morris. I think this is a lesson in order of affections and us saying, hey, here's the way forward. Now, that's a lot of work. Right? It'll take some time. It'll take some time. But I do think. I do think that's the way forward. [01:05:47] Speaker B: I'm asking a question. I never did no research on this. [01:05:50] Speaker A: Go ahead. [01:05:50] Speaker B: Does public housing has a limit on time that you can stay? [01:05:53] Speaker A: I have not seen one. Now, I. I'm kind of talking out of my butt here. So I don't. I don't know for sure, but I have not seen people be put out ever. So I've been working with poor people, like, for a long time, and I have not seen an instance where they get put out because of a cap of time of them staying for X amount of days or X amount of years. I haven't seen that happen. Now, I don't. I don't know if the fine print says, like, maybe the fine print does say that. [01:06:19] Speaker B: That. [01:06:19] Speaker A: But I don't know anyone that's ever happened to. [01:06:21] Speaker B: No, no. Maybe that could be an issue. And what I mean by that is maybe the person that designed this started as a way of getting. Cuz let's say like section eight, right. How the price could be a thousand dollars, but the person only pay 100 something. All right, so maybe they looked at it like, wait, we can make money, money, money, money. We let these people in this public housing, we let them live here and we make this money, money, money. But, and, and like I say, people, we not talking down on how long you stay there. But if, you know you can't stay there forever, there's a motivator. You're gonna change something. Yeah, that, that's, that's all I'm getting at with that. [01:06:54] Speaker A: Right. Yeah. [01:06:54] Speaker B: So if you know that you can just chill there. [01:06:57] Speaker A: If you're insulated from consequences, you're not incentivized to do anything. Okay. If you haven't, if there's no, there's no bad thing that's gonna happen to you. Like this is, I think this is why the Bible says in First Corinthians, why Paul says if you don't work, you don't eat because God knows that hunger is a great motivator. You know, like that's a good motivator. I. Oh, I am hungry. Dang. I should get to work. [01:07:24] Speaker B: It'll change your mindset. [01:07:25] Speaker A: Hundred percent. [01:07:26] Speaker B: Yes. [01:07:27] Speaker A: And the same thing would apply to housing. [01:07:28] Speaker B: And that's what I think. If they, if they knew that they cannot stay there. [01:07:32] Speaker A: Yes. [01:07:32] Speaker B: For so, I mean, three, four years you should be straight. I mean, but I don't want to stay there. [01:07:38] Speaker A: That's. Yeah. [01:07:39] Speaker B: You know what I'm saying? But I'm just saying like three, four years you should be straight and you should be getting on not not having another child and say, oh, okay, I need to find me a three bedroom now and go to another one. No, we should be trying to first, we should not be trying to have more children putting ourselves deeper into this. If we here. See, it's, it's a, it's a domino effect of. [01:07:59] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:07:59] Speaker B: A lot of different things. You know what I'm saying? So, and, and it's sad to say, but a lot of us, we, we try to have more children to get more existence. [01:08:07] Speaker A: Yeah, I've read about that. [01:08:08] Speaker B: You know what I'm saying? And you know, and, and it's, and it's white and black does that. But, but it's, it's certain. It's certain. [01:08:14] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:08:15] Speaker B: It's certain calibers. Like. Like. Like us, we might call. We might call the less fortunate white person, what, trailer park trash? Oh, yeah, yeah, right, right. Or we might call them. We might say they're not. Whatever. They're not nothing or whatever. Nothing's. But every race has. That's what we call a nobody or this a day, a criminal. We all got them. [01:08:37] Speaker A: Sure. [01:08:37] Speaker B: But the thing is, though, we constantly put ourselves in debt and then we expect the government to take care of us. And that's. That's the mentality right there that keeps you right there. [01:08:46] Speaker A: Yes. [01:08:47] Speaker B: Every time you sign something more for your child, it's easier for social workers to take your child. Like, they don't understand that part. I totally understand. We talk about stuff like this all the time on Tick Tock. Well, it's. [01:08:59] Speaker A: It's a. Abdicating. I'm not going to do this. I'm just going to let these guys take care of it. It's a. I would say I would even go as far as. It's a savior complex that you have with the government. You're looking to the state to save you, to take care of you, to provide for you. Right. And. And I got to tell you, that bubble's gonna pop one day. It's. It's not sustainable. And we have an opportunity now, in my opinion, to take advantage of this amazing low cost of living in Saint Legra Parish in Appaloosa specifically, and right the ship and move in a new way. I don't know how long we have this opportunity, but we have it now. Brad, this has been great, man. I really appreciate you coming on the show. [01:09:48] Speaker B: Appreciate y'. All. [01:09:49] Speaker A: Thank you. Where can people go and find your food truck, man? [01:09:54] Speaker B: Look, y' all can holla at me. I met. Every weekend I'm at the Lafayette jockey lot, booth 712. Unless I have a festival, I always let you guys know. You can find me on Tick Tock at Jaja. You can find my Instagram @Jaja 2020, love. And on Facebook @Brad Vay. But yes, every weekend you come hollering. [01:10:10] Speaker A: I appreciate you guys. Appreciate you. Thank you guys so much. Yeah, appreciate you. Appreciate you. If I will be. Be looking for jerk chicken soon in my life. [01:10:19] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, man. I'll bring you all some. [01:10:21] Speaker A: Thank you. Appreciate you guys. Thank you all so much for listening and we'll see you next time.