The Internet Got Mad… But This Is the Real Grown Man Game

speaker-0: Welcome back to another episode of the Grown Man Game podcast. I am ⁓ one part of your host Rod and this is my guy.

speaker-1: Big Mike, what is happening?

speaker-0: We're excited to be back for another episode. ⁓ Last episode was ⁓ an interesting one. Not really the episode. I mean, the episode was interesting, but the aftermath was interesting. Thanks to ⁓ Big Mike over here.

speaker-1: Last last episode

speaker-0: Was it two episodes ago? Yeah, yeah, you're right. You're right. right. Anyway, we can get some lingering, lingering conflict on that.

speaker-1: Get into it. I got some notes.

speaker-0: But you know, that's interesting because one, or just a couple of things, and I'll let you kind of detail what happened, but a couple of things. One, ⁓ social media has led people to believe that they can say and do anything without repercussion, which is partially true, because I'm not finna fly out, and I'm not finna drive and find your IP address and find out where you live. And then two, something that I talk to my wife about all the time is like, ⁓ I think social media put everybody in the same classroom. When we was in school though, there was some people in different classrooms. was some separation. People was in different spots, like the reading groups, right? Like in elementary school, it was like three reading groups and you was in this reading group and that reading group. I feel like social media has put us all in the same reading group and you get reminded of it at least once a day. All right, so you want to tell the folks what happened? It probably, no, it probably saw in Winster.

speaker-1: And You know what, I kind of feel like most people probably didn't see it. Maybe some saw it, maybe some saw it. A good amount of people saw it, but I think the people that I'm hoping, the people that are our core audience, that are becoming partakers in the podcast, I'm hoping y'all probably just blew past it like, hmm, okay. Cause, well, but let me get to the point. Let me get to the point I'm rambling. So, you know, two episodes ago, think episode 14, we were just talking about just, you know, just men, men talking, you know? And one of the things came up, I was asking Rod, like, is it wrong for me to judge a man that keeps his phone in his back pocket? Like a woman does. Like the only people I see usually with a phone in their back pocket is a woman. And After asking him that question, know, the clip kind of went a little viral or whatnot on Instagram. And there was a lot of dudes that was just shooting at me, man. They were just shooting at me. It went from me asking Rob basically is like, you know, does that make a man soft to keep his phone in his back pocket? No, this is grown man game. Every episode and every Topic that we talk about is not going to be deep. It's not going to be life changing. It's not going to be, this is what we need to do in our neighborhoods, brother. We need to go and we need to get the women that don't have father figures in their children's we're, life's like we're about to talk about, later on here in the episode and take care of them and be big brothers and stepfathers. Every episode is not going to be that man.

speaker-0: Yeah

speaker-1: Like we said, this is grown man game. We gonna talk like how we talk. We just happen. to have this thing getting recorded. I'm just talking to my dog, I'm talking to my brother, that's what it is, this is how we talk. So, you I'm not out here trying to hurt feelings, right? I'm not out here trying to hurt feelings. So, you know what saying? I apologize to anybody's feelings that may have gotten hurt, you know I'm saying? It was just a thought. And the reason why I'm apologizing, not because of some of you corn balls that are... Look, I'm about to start again, Brian. I'm sorry, man. I'm trying to help the...

speaker-0: Look, this is like, like you said, it's just two men talking, right? It's like going to the barbershop. I know we both bald, so we ain't really been to the barbershop in a long time. Two weeks. I have fond memories of the barbershop and inside the barbershop, pretty much everything goes, right? Like anything could be said. You might get judged for this and some banters and back and forth, but like it was a quote unquote safe space to kind of...

speaker-1: It's been a while.

speaker-0: say most of what you wanted to say. Right. Of course, there'll be rebuttals and people argue back and forth about stuff, but it wasn't like it felt like in those comments, they was taking it personal. Like you had said something about them or their parents. It's really weird to see somebody on social media say something, just a sentence with no context. was like a 45 second clip. And then formulate an opinion on that person, make accusations about that person. and then just totally just go on a tangent about what's wrong with society. And it was crazy. It was crazy. But I think that's where we're at. That's where we are in society, partially because of social media and partially because we don't have those spaces anymore. If you had that space to exist in, like in a barbershop, you learn how to conduct yourself. in those situations and conversations, even if you had a really strong opinion about something, you wouldn't push that opinion to the point where it crosses a line. Right. Right? Like you could push the line, but you wouldn't cross it. Because you still have respect for the barber or old man Joe or the dude that was sweeping up or my man that was selling CDs. Everybody had a spot and a place and like, yeah, you could go at him a little bit, but you wouldn't go, you wouldn't cross the line. Like, yeah, man, I bought that DVD from you and the movie wasn't finished. Like you can, you can argue a little bit about that, but you're going to smack him. you might, you might say something, try to get an extra DVD out of them, but you learned how to conversate or converse, whatever it is, conversate. I'm going say conversate. That's Yup. Right. You, you learned how to have those interactions with other people and keep it, keep it G.

speaker-1: Right. Yeah. yet. Right. Yeah.

speaker-0: But I don't think on social media it's that way, right? Because once you start typing, there'll be like Twitter fingers back in the day. Or you just type anything.

speaker-1: anything. You can type anything.

speaker-0: No accountability, right? Because you wouldn't pull up and say that to nobody's face. You wouldn't. You just wouldn't. Maybe there's one or two people on social media who might, but they ain't the people that's commenting on grown men getting fired. I'm not trying to call nobody out or say, know, because everybody's a tough guy in their own right. But I highly doubt that if we was on the street and you heard Mike say that, you would step to him and say, like, you had a problem. I doubt it. But if you did, I mean, I guess everybody's a tough guy.

speaker-1: Hey, right. I probably just walk away, man. I'm for it. I don't got time to be

speaker-0: that serious. It wasn't even that serious in the moment. It was just a question.

speaker-1: That's what it was like. That's why I was like, it was an actual question like, am I wrong? You know what saying? I didn't want, I'm not going to put it in a way like I'm a president, you know what saying? Cause I'm not a president. We talking. So that's why I was like, am I wrong? Like I'm trying to be better because before, if a man got his, we talked about it on the podcast. If you got a Medicare and a pedicure, yeah, Medicare and a pedicure, I used to be like, boy, you saw, right? Now I'm like, oh, you know, it is what it is. Just because the family that I grew up in, like, you know, my people, come from, I'm from Cali, right? My people come from Mississippi. Mississippi is the motherland for my family in Alabama. So you're talking about people that was raised on a farm. You know what saying? So getting the pedicure, keeping the phone in your pocket, you know what I'm saying? Whatever quote unquote feminine, supposed to be feminine things are. out there, it would be looked at as, boy, you crazy, what you doing? The thing that I wanted to say was that I'm getting better at elevating and separating certain things. Like, I'm at a place where now learning more, even from this situation, like, okay, you just gotta keep going, Mike, and keep learning. If you're not learning, what are you doing? You know what saying? If you're not... having room to understand or room in your brain to get more knowledge, then you'll never be able to learn anything. You'll never be able to elevate from where you are. Certain things I'm kind of staunch on, but it's not... But anyways, it was very weird to me that the moment I was just talking about, does this make a man soft? It went from someone too soft to...

speaker-0: Be heard.

speaker-1: You just call me gay. Then it went from...

speaker-0: Yeah.

speaker-1: I'm homophobic and I'm calling people gay to I'm gay. I said, damn, I was homophobic and gay in the same clip. I'm pretty fly for that. But the only thing that made me come to this point to where I'm like, ah, man, I elevated above it and like, yeah, I'm learning from it. It wasn't the negative comments. It was an actual just regular comments that people who are secure.

speaker-0: in the same comment.

speaker-1: Right? And their manhood, securing who they are, were like, bruh, I put my stuff in my back pocket all the time. These damn phones are too big. Hardy, hard. You know what saying? It was funny. It was a light heart. And I was like, damn, you right. My bad, man. You right. That makes sense. And a buddy at my job, I just told, you you this, Rob. But a buddy at my job would always have his phone in his back pocket. I never noticed it. But he happened to see the clip and he's like, Mike. look, look, my phone's in my front pocket. I'm like, come on, man, you don't got to do that, man. I had already elevated above that thinking and like, you know what? It don't really matter where a person puts their phone. But this is a solid dude, like a good dude. So I'm like, bro, I don't want you thinking you need to. And I'm hoping he was just joking. But every time I looked up, he had his phone in his front pocket. So I don't know. I don't know. Y'all it's cool, man. It's cool. Also social media is fake so It don't matter

speaker-0: Right? You know what, talking about learning things, I learned a couple things through this process. ⁓ One, I never even thought about the fact that women put their phone in their back pocket because they don't have front pockets. I was talking to Ari about it and we're talking about the clip. She was like, yeah, I put my phone in my back pocket because a lot of women's pants don't come with front pockets. They just have that one back pocket. And I was like, ⁓ Or we have our purses, so we don't put them in the front pocket. If it's in our hand, it's just easier to in the back pocket. Never even thought about that. Then apparently I'm gonna get cancer ⁓ from one of the comments by putting it in my front pocket. I'm not gonna be able to have kids. I already got that taken care of. So yeah, it don't matter. Like, yeah, that's already a done deal. What else did I learn? Somebody said something about working out. I'm like, I don't know if I've ever lifted with a phone in any pocket, but maybe. But maybe, what are you doing? I think it was a joke, but what are you doing? You're deadlifting? I'm like, I don't know. I don't have my phone. Recording somewhere or something. But anyway, I think we spent enough time on this. We can move on. I think, like I say, it was just a small part of the whole episode, the whole 50 plus minutes. was literally 45 seconds of the podcast. And for whatever reason, it... went a little viral for people feeling uncomfortable. I think that says a lot about where we are as a society, right? Like we're supposed to be, not necessarily like stoic, like to a negative degree, but you gotta have some stoicism. can't, you gotta be unflappable a little bit. Like Jesus Christ, somebody said something about where you put your phone and it turns you into a, like you got angry enough to send a message to somebody you don't know. You got that flustered by a comment that wasn't directed at you or to you that you felt the need to publicly in the world, in the internet, right? On Donald Trump's internet, you decided to tie.

speaker-1: I will not allow that to slide.

speaker-0: You decided to type. Come on, man, we got to be better. That's some grown man game right there. Like there has to be some level of stoicism or some level of emotional discipline or some level of like self-confidence that like there's nothing. This is I told. This is the thing I told Ari, going back and forth and reading the comments because she got it. She likes to read comments. She got in the comments. I'm like, there is nothing that no man could ever say to me. that would make me soft or make me feel like I'm gay. Only one way to do it, right? There's only one way to be gay. You gotta like boys. You gotta like a man. Like that's it. That's it. putting my phone in the back pocket, putting it like somebody saying I did something that was like, come on, man. Okay, cool. That's your opinion. Keep pushing.

speaker-1: Mm-mm. You were pushing. And that's one of the, one of the, just to wrap it up, that's one of the comments that a dude said was like, and I understand that whatever what he said, but what he said was, where's the game in this? And that's the game that Rod just gave you. Be confident in yourself to know who you are.

speaker-0: That was the whole episode.

speaker-1: So that's, yeah, that's, mean, you know, the internet is the internet, you know, we put out little pieces here, there, and you know, it is what it is, but yeah, that's the whole, that's the game. You got to know who you are wherever you go. So whatever room you walk in, be who you are. You don't gotta shake it up. You don't gotta twist it up. You know, we talked about, you know, cold switching and having to do certain things to survive, right? We understand that much, but. knowing who you are, right? Because the moment you walk in, especially as a black man, black woman, black person, know, whoever you may be, minority, immigrant, certain people are looking at you like, you don't know what you're talking about. You don't know what you're doing. I remember I had a dentist that was like, I felt some type of way. Like I was getting dental work and she just refused to give me anything more than Tylenol. And I was like, mmm. I'm getting a tooth pulled, do you want to give me Tylenol? Now I'm not going to take anything more than Tylenol or ibuprofen, because I'm still working on certain issues when it comes to old black folks. ain't old, but old black folks won't take any kind of medicine, unless it comes from the herbs and this and that. But why are you not offering me real painkillers? I just got my tooth knocked out. need some Vicodin. Perky. Yeah, at least a Norco. She like,

speaker-0: And some Norco. You got a high pain tolerance. got melanin.

speaker-1: Mm-hmm. You know, that's life. When you exist in this world, you deal with what you... That's why you have to know who you are, because they will tear you down. That's how we raise our daughters. Know who you are. Mm-hmm. When you walk in the room, know who you are. You deserve to be there. That was the game from the last episode. What's cracking with this episode? What are we talking about? What's going on? We didn't even do, congratulations, brother. Last episode. Nah. What? Let's get into that, man. You good? You good with that? Yeah.

speaker-0: Yeah, let's do it.

speaker-1: Alright man, what's... Let put you on the spot man, how you messed up. I know how you don't like to congratulate yourself. I see you got the grown down, know what I'm Sweater on, what's up?

speaker-0: ⁓ man, so You know what I'm realizing? I'm going to congratulate myself on realization, but I have all these ideas. And we talked about a couple of episodes, when you have these ideas, can't stay ideas. You got to just go, right? But I'm pretty sure I got ADHD or ADD or whatever. So I have ideas, tons of them. Like stuff is always in my head and I'm like, all right, I'm cool. I'm to work this out. I'm going do this thing. And all right, cool. I like that idea. I'm going run with it. ⁓ It's like Grow Down was one of them, right? was like one of those ideas. Like, I really liked that. I'm going go and do some stuff. ⁓ But what I need to start focusing on is like really seeing things all the way through and staying consistent. Like I'll see it through to creation and then I'm a little bit consistent on it. And it's like, all right, new idea came up. Now I got to work that one through to creation, right? Okay. Yeah. And so I got to get better at just like staying on. can't say one thing because I got like four things happening right now. So staying on those four things and like really just that being the only thing that I do. But the realization of that, right, because this is obviously something that I've been doing my whole life is just like do a lot of stuff. Right. Like I do a bunch of things and I do them to a decent capacity. But I feel like there is some being left on the table. With that being said, there's one more thing that I just added to my toolbox.

speaker-1: ⁓

speaker-0: It is, so we have been talking about, we have an investment group and we've been talking about like things we want to invest in. We talked about like a publishing company, right? And Mike has a book that he has been writing. ⁓

speaker-1: called the femininity of...

speaker-0: He has a book he's been writing for a while. My wife wrote a book. His wife wants to write a book. And we was talking about it I was like, man, I got this idea for a book that I've been wanting to write, but I'm not a writer. Like, it's just not my thing. But I was like, I shoot with the AVEN, AI. If I put all my thoughts together, I can have it be my writing coach and it can give me tips, right? On how to write it. And so that's what I did. So first of all, I created like a... a bot and chat GPT, like a personal chat or whatever they call I forgot what they call it, but it's essentially just a writing coach. So put in the prompts and taught it how to be a writing coach. And then I just been taking notes. had to ask me questions and I answered the questions and all that. essentially the book is. So you remember what to expect when expecting, right? So everybody gets prepared to have kids, right? for the most part. We know we're going to have kids, we've got like 10 months of lead up. And so we kind of do what we need to do to prepare. There's a bunch of books and stuff. But this age that we're reaching right now, these tween and teenagers, it's not a whole lot out there. And definitely not a whole lot out there from a father's perspective. so as I'm starting to go through it, I was like, why don't I just write about it? like write about what we're experiencing, write about like the transitions and then also go into like the science behind it too, like brain function and adolescence and puberty and also parents that are going through andropause or paraminopause and like how all that interaction works and emotions and what you need to do, what I've done, what I was successful with, what I failed at and what I'm trying to do going forward. So I've been just kind of taking notes. At this point, the working title is built for this. ⁓ Because I feel like I'm built to be these kids father, right? And so I think that a lot of the turmoil at this age is like, I don't know if I'm ready. I don't know if I can do this. I don't know if I can handle this. Like I got all this stuff going on, but you're built for this, right? Like you have put in 10 to 12 years of hardcore work as a parent. You're built for these next, you know, six to eight years. So. I'm hoping to have it finished. I mean, it's finished, but not finished in the sense where I need to read through it, have a couple other people read through it and give me some feedback. Because I think there's a couple of things I want to change. But it's like 115, 116 pages now. So I've been really getting after it. Like I said, I had to ask me like 50 questions. And for each one, I just went in and typed all my thoughts and experience or whatever, and then have it compile it into something that makes sense.

speaker-1: Okay.

speaker-0: So I got too much stuff that I'm doing all at the same time, but I'm realizing that that's a problem and I'm just keep working through one thing at a time, not one thing at a time, four things at a time. That's my max, four things. But I'm gonna stay on those four things heavy until the wheels fall off, like four wheels on the tire, four wheels on a car.

speaker-1: I got it. It's They got it too. Throw away the mikes! ⁓

speaker-0: Throw away the mics, they don't know how to talk about tired.

speaker-1: Hey man, well congratulations brother. Appreciate it man.

speaker-0: Appreciate it. What about you, big dog? What you got going on?

speaker-1: Man, I told you man, I'm selling dope, baby. Get to this money, man. I'm selling dope and oil. What y'all got? What y'all need? No. ⁓

speaker-0: ⁓ lord.

speaker-1: It always comes back to something medical for me. So I'm gonna switch it up, but I am gonna give you a little sprinkle of medical. know, a brother's cholesterol is all the way down, way below normal, so I'm out here. You know what I'm saying? You know what saying? Just a little fiber in the morning and my doctor's looking at my numbers like, my cholesterol has dropped drastically, Mr. Todd. Like, yeah. I'm out here trying to live. Can't wait to get home to get me a nice little BLT and a butter sandwich or something. Nah. Nah, but you know, that's just a little, but this whole little like viral negative moment for a grown man game ⁓ has taught me like, you know what saying? Like I can still. ⁓ have a strong opinion and learn from other people's opinions and then I can, I'm still fluid enough to be like, and change my opinion. There's certain things that I'm grounded in, right? That's just part of me, part of who I am, part of why I am, right? But the things that are, you know, just things that I believe, I'm proud that I was able to be flexible with it and just have an understanding where people are coming from. And you know what saying? I'm feeling like that is a victory for me because as long as I'm flexible, you know, I can adjust. One, flexible being ⁓ liquid, being water, you can continue to, what's the word I'm looking for? To adapt to situations and that will have. know, longevity in my life, I have to adapt to the way that I eat. So now the cholesterol is down, blood pressure is down. So I'm gonna live longer now, God willing. You know what I'm saying? But if I was rigid in my thinking, no, I care what these doctors say, God sits on the throne, you know? God is like, hey man, I told that doctor to tell you to change your life, because I don't want you to come home yet. You got some things to do. All right, God, I got it. But.

speaker-0: Alright.

speaker-1: You know what Just not being rigid in my thinking and just being flexible. you know, there's so many things that I've been able to elevate myself on from old thought processes, which has helped me now, even with my marriage, with being a father, which would be great to have, especially, you know, as I'm entering these teenage years with my daughter and, you know, being less rigid on. Do your homework. No, get it done. No excuses to. Okay, you need to take a break? Take a break. It's fine. Everything in the world isn't gonna be based on your homework or your schoolwork, but this is gonna help you and teach you a system of learning and understanding that's gonna help you in your life. You wanna go far in life, right? All right, so just take it as a lesson. Yada, yada, yada. But just being able to adjust, man. So, yeah, man. I feel good about that. ⁓

speaker-0: I like that man, that's what's up. Thank you brother. You know, we were talking about it, I was thinking like I'm looking at the plants around the room, right? And you like there's some things that you're rooted in or whatever, like you're just kind of grounded in and ⁓ grow down. that maybe not, right? Like just looking at the plants, all of them have roots, right? But like the way they grow, right? They just kind of grow and find space, right? And it serves them at that point, but at some point it doesn't anymore and they just take a left. one of those brands or even, know, I don't as much as you can tell, prune the branches or prune the vines, right? Because they're growing in the wrong space or it's overgrown. Like there's some vines that are no longer needed. So we can be locked into our core principles and have created other things that we're aligned with as we grow. But then as we get older, we realize like, hey, maybe I don't need that thing anymore. Like it served me at a period of time. where I felt that way at a period of time, but maybe I don't feel like that anymore. So I'm gonna go ahead and cut that branch off. ⁓ And I think that that's an important idea or thought because it's good for growth. Like this tree in our front yard, I didn't do it this year. I typically every year prune it. Like prune it back and it looks terrible. Like if you see my neighbor's trees, it looks terrible for like three months. And then you can't even tell it is pruned because it just sprouts and the leaves covering it and everything.

speaker-1: X.

speaker-0: but it's good for the growth of the tree, right? The reason I didn't do it this year is because I didn't feel like it. But typically you do it every year. It keeps it the same size. It keeps it full. It's healthy, whatever, right? I'm interested to see how it's going to look this year because I didn't prune it. ⁓ My guess is it's going to be way more leaves. It's going to be more problems for me. ⁓ And because I didn't do what I need to do early on, I'm going pay for it on the back end. ⁓ And it's the same thing in our life, right? Like we have these ideas and these things that we allow to grow. And when we realized we don't need them anymore, we should probably get rid of them instead of letting them linger. Right. And so I think that's a part of our growth, both of us, is realizing what are those things that maybe I thought before ⁓ that I don't agree with anymore and letting those go. Even just how you asked, going back to the last two episodes ago when you're like, am I wrong? It's one of those, do I need this branch anymore? Is this a ⁓ flawed branch? Should I get rid of it? Not like, man, if you got your phone in your back, it wasn't that, right? But I think we don't give each other space to do it because we don't know how to do it as a whole. It just kind of happens on accident or, ⁓ you know, maybe, I mean, there's some guys or men in general that are like constantly seeking growth, It's personal development and things like that. But I would say on a large scale, we get locked into these ideas and we start saying, like you say, be you, right? And we just like, ⁓ that's me. That's all that sort of always been and all that. that, I don't know, sometimes flawed too. So it's tough to be like, be yourself because sometimes the self that you are right now is not the best version of you. ⁓ And so if you don't have any understanding of that, being yourself can be a negative. Right? Sorry. I was just thinking while you're talking.

speaker-1: Nah man. Had to get that off. That's good, that's good. Brother that's good man.

speaker-0: That might have been some grown man game if you guys are wondering where the game is

speaker-1: There it is right there y'all y'all see it? Y'all see it y'all know.

speaker-0: All right. Group chat.

speaker-1: Yeah, let's get into the group chat, man. Right.

speaker-0: You got the group chat today. Yeah, yeah. ⁓

speaker-1: So, brother Dr. Umar, what school did he go to for his degree? Yeah.

speaker-0: I don't know, man. I don't be keeping up with that stuff. Him, what's her name? Shane, Brian or whatever. She been getting fricasseed. ⁓ You know what Threads is like, remember Black Twitter? Like when Twitter was Twitter before it came X and became like MAGA heavy. Threads is like Black Twitter. Like Threads is fire if you just like to read because the comment section is hilarious. Nobody is safe. I'm glad we didn't post that on threads, bro. You would have got killed. Nobody is safe. Everybody's on the same playing field. Like you'll see celebrities commenting on the same stuff regular people are. just, it's, it's, I don't know, maybe it's just because I'm black, but it feels like, it feels like we, we created it. You know what I mean? When I'm scrolling through, obviously there's other people, but like the interactions or the threads that get the most comments, it's like.

speaker-1: No

speaker-0: Black people stuff, which I'm like, huh, that makes sense. We're the vanguard of the movement in most things. if Threads is trying to get off the ground, it would make sense that they would allow us to just go on there and splash out in the culture. ⁓

speaker-1: Because you are the second person that I've heard say that about threads. So I'm like, okay.

speaker-0: It's fire. It's fire. And it's not like you ain't got to watch a 45 second video. You ain't got to watch no video if you don't want to. you get the content right away. Like whatever it is, it's usually typically short, a few lines here and there, questions, comments, concerns, that kind of stuff. And then people get to chime in and nobody's safe. Nobody's safe. just it is the barbershop opened up to everyone. It's like the hair salon. opened up to everything. So anyway, Dr. Umar, I don't know what school he went to. I don't know what school Shane Bryant went to. ⁓ I think that's how you say her name. ⁓ But they went to school somewhere. ⁓ they got a doctorate somehow. So I'm let them run with it.

speaker-1: everybody. So. Yeah, do you think, well, I am Dr. Mike, Dr. Rod, and this is the grown man game. I very rarely, well, you know what? I only see clips of Dr. Umar, so I can't go too far into what his full message is, right?

speaker-0: Just listen to Dr. That's Dr. Scholls. and Africanism.

speaker-1: Yeah, about 92.7 % of the time I'd be like, this brother is crazy. I don't know what he's talking about. But he did say something and I'm gonna go ahead and just, we usually don't play stuff here, but we're gonna play this one. It's gonna be more work for me in the production room to get this into the podcast and make it work, but it's fine. This is what Ron wants to do. So y'all check it.

speaker-0: only woman I can look forward to my life is a masculine woman that has kids by other men.

speaker-1: I'm telling you, mistakes made by black men systemically ⁓ gave rise to the conditions that allowed her to be masculine and made her end up with a man that you consider to be less than what he should be. And I'm telling you, black men are responsible for her being masculine because we have not helped to raise them children. I guess we can stop it right there. We don't have to go fully deep into it, but. The idea, what I'm hearing, if I'm getting it right, is that there's a great wave of men online. We're talking about black men right now. there's like a, well, I don't know how many, you know what saying? Because social media is a little funny that way. The loud voices are, like you said, in threads, are usually grouped. and everyone starts talking about what this live voice just said. So it may be one of the 200 people, but it feels like it's one of every two. so there's brothers that are always talking about how the black woman is too masculine and she runs away to man because of her masculine ways. You need to let a man be a man and... you know, you're raising these boys to be too weak and feminine. And it's just the way that they are. They keep choosing these, you know, low down ghetto dudes and you know, this, that, and the third. you know the whole spiel from like the Red Pill Podcast and all these things. And what Dr. Umar seems to be saying is, bro, If a woman is masculine, quote unquote masculine, it's because she's had to survive because that man that was supposed to be there, and he's specifically talking about broken families, right? That man that should have been there to take care of that child is not there in that family. So she has to do it alone. ⁓ I don't know the new statistics. So I'm just gonna go off the older statistics, but you know. when it comes to domestic violence and things of that nature, black women are being abused 50 % of the time from another black man, right? Now that would make sense in any culture because a white woman is most likely gonna be with a white man, an Asian woman is gonna most likely be with an Asian man. So of course the numbers are gonna. Yeah, right? So that's not.

speaker-0: Reflect.

speaker-1: You know what saying? That's not, you know, me shooting shots. But what I'm saying is... How are you telling me that you are the man? I'm the man. And at the same time, you're telling me, she's like that because she did the wrong thing and didn't raise the kid right. Why is she raising the kid by herself? Well, you just don't understand, She too crazy, I can't be around her. Well, then why didn't she get a better if she was crazy? That thing was fat. everything just went out the door, you know what saying? Our weakness, man, we know what our weaknesses is for some men, a lot of men, right? But I like how he's just saying like, hey man, we need to responsibility as men and not only step up for our own families, but step up for other families that are quote unquote broken, you know what I'm saying? How do you feel about that?

speaker-0: Yeah, I don't think it's going to be received well ⁓ by men. ⁓ Just because, first of all, nobody likes to be blamed. Right. But there is some merit to what he's saying. Right. Like if you you look back, you don't have to look far. But if you look back at our generation or your ⁓ generation ahead of me, but ⁓ if you look back at. Yeah, like, you know, mass incarceration, drug.

speaker-1: Relax.

speaker-0: epidemic or whatever and stuff like that that happened in our childhood. have, you know, black men taken out of the home for whatever reason, aside from like, hey, you just had sex one night and now y'all got a kid. Y'all had really never had a relationship or you didn't have a solid relationship. Like that aside, and that's a big part of it. You had some systemic things that were happening that were removing men from the home. He's saying because of that, Women had to become the man and the woman of the household. They had to develop these quote unquote masculine traits. They had to go out and provide. They had to shield their emotions and be stoic. They had to learn how to be independent. ⁓ And so now that men are coming back around 20 years later or 30 years later, based on the sentiment that he's talking about, these women have been now conditioned to survive on their own. And so there's a feeling of like, they don't need you. They don't need you to provide that. And so you got to be coming with something else, ⁓ which is obviously off putting to somebody who wants a submissive woman or wants a woman who ⁓ just goes along with whatever I say kind of thing, right? So yeah, so I agree with him on that front because It's a reality, right? Here's the other part that he doesn't mention that I'm aware of now because of the work that I do is like, ⁓ as a father, I'm teaching my daughters to be independent, right? Like I'm teaching them to be able to take care of themselves, to, you know what I mean? Like I think every father does that, right? Every father is teaching their daughter to be, not necessarily to be a good partner, but to be able to. to take care of herself if no one is around, right? If there isn't a male presence, like I'm not trying to hurry up and marry my daughters off so they can immediately leave me and then go be with some man. Like I need them to be able to have a life of their own, to be able to function on their own. So I am teaching them independence. So again, it's my fault if they are developing masculine traits. Like I taught them how to change the oil, teach them to take the trash. Like they have all these things that they're doing that are quote unquote masculine. So when they meet a man, you know, 10, 20 years from now, he's like, man, she trying to do everything I'm supposed to do. My bad, dog. I ⁓ couldn't have known you would come along. You know what I mean? But I think the whole thing sparked because, you know, there's a woman with kids and the dude is like, so I'm supposed to just accept that she got kids and go and raise them kids. I don't know if you love her. yes. Unfortunately, like that's how it goes. That's a part of it. She's a she's still a person. She got kids, but she's still a person. So if you fall in love with her, yeah, you got to take care of them kids. But I think the most important part of what Dr. Umar was saying is the community aspect, because we already know one 50 percent of marriages, 51 percent or 49 percent, depending on the year when they do it, are going to end in divorce. That means there's going to be a separation of parents. Right. Father's going to be somewhere. And no matter how involved he wants to be, there's going to be some hurdles, some barriers, right? When you don't live in a house, it's just more difficult. Let's just say that dudes do a great job of being present and trying to co-parent, but we all know that there's some dudes that don't, right? And we can act like we don't know that, but there are. I don't know any personally, but I do know that it happens because I know people that were, you know, my friends and family where dudes just wasn't around, right? And so... As a community, right? Like we take those young men or young women under our wing, right? Like, I know your dad ain't around, but like, I'ma help you out with this. And we go hang out. And he talks, talk about like the big brother program and things like that, because there has to be something to counter the systemic removal of men by men, right? Like we have to now do something because we know that happened, regardless of how we feel about it, we know what happened. So now it's up to us. to step up in a way to give those young men guidance. Because we know when a young man doesn't have a father in his life, we know what's going to happen for the most part. Or a young woman for that matter, like a boy or a girl without a male presence, the statistics, not just my feelings, the facts say that they are statistically worse off.

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: And so because we all know that when we are presented in a situation where we have an opportunity to help a young man and help a young woman as a community, we should.

speaker-1: Yeah, we definitely should. And I think that's, I'm trying to be more solution based, you know what saying? But I think we also need to just put a focus on the problem so we know what the problem is. I think right now, instead of being like, okay, the problem is the system, the problem is we've been separated. We're saying, ⁓ well, the problem is the woman. That's the problem. And it's like, nah, that's not it, man. Like this, yes, like you said, this is a systematic situation that we're in. So we have to think long-term to counteract what the system has done before. And the reality is it's incredibly difficult. know, when things are super difficult, what did Tupac say? When things went wrong, we blame mama, right? We're still doing that. It's time for that to stop. As a grown man, it's time for that to stop and to just lace these boots up, get us in a place to where we need to take responsibility as men for our neighborhoods, for our children, for our women. We need to protect, provide. We need to be there. And provision, like I always say, isn't just a monetary thing. Provision may be, hey, young dude, you okay? What's going on with you, man? Are you sitting over here? What's going on? You know, because a lot of times, young kids don't know how to process emotions correctly. Right. If you haven't been taught that, especially if your dad's not in your life. I don't think I've ever told this story on a podcast before. But my parents got divorced when I was young, like seven years old. And but before that, so I was only seven years old when they got divorced. But before that, maybe about. Five to seven, it would just be arguments. Screaming, screaming, screaming, screaming. And I remember the way that that affected me, now in my big age, I understand, is that I didn't want to play any sports where I would be yelled at. So here I am, 6'5", 295 pounds. And well, I wasn't a super big kid, but... By the time I hit high school, like I was big, big dude. You know what saying? Big Mike for a reason. I didn't name myself Big Mike, y'all. You know what saying? I didn't, I never played football as a kid. Cause football is a sport where it's going to be yelling. It's just a normal thing. Right? My brother played, all of my friends played. I played soccer, basketball, baseball. I play everything but football. And I would get yelled at somewhat in baseball and soccer, whatever. Football was the one where it was like, move, get on, Todd, let's go. You know, that's just part of the game, right? I didn't want to be yelled at. So I never played it because I was tired of hearing yelling, right? High school, fast forward, I'm a junior, I'm walking across the campus, football coach comes to me, he's pissed off, right? So I threw shot putting discus, so I knew the football coach from that. One of the assistant coaches was actually my shot putting disc is coach shot coach Kerry. I think he's the I think he is the president. No, not president. The principal of Rancho Rancho high. ⁓ really? Yeah.

speaker-0: Kerry Kerry will bomb. He's on the board now. ⁓ He was at Rancho for a while, but I think he left Rancho and now he's on the board for the district.

speaker-1: Well, shout out to Kerry, man. He was literally my little league coach and my shot-putting disc is coach when I was a kid. He was a solid dude, solid dude. I met him in the nineties and his wife and his son. But so to get back to my point, we're, you know, we're I'm walking across the campus, the head coach, Coach Nelson, he's pissed off. He's like, Mike, I'm like, what's up, man? Do you know what I just had to do? I was like, yeah, what's going on, man? What you have to do? I had to tell a UCLA scout that you don't play football. He pointed you out and said, I want that guy. I had to tell him you don't play football. And I just looked him in the eye and said, because I don't. And I just walked away. I don't play football. But imagine maybe if I did. I don't know. But I never did because my damn parents were always.

speaker-0: Yeah

speaker-1: arguing and that affected me in that way. I had two parents, you know what saying? So imagine how some of these situations are affecting these young girls and boys that just have one, that just have, your dad's gonna come pick you up and dad don't ever come. How does that make that little boy feel? How does that make that little girl feel less? Even in high school, I'm pretty sure It was the same for you. The girls with no daddies was always like, not all of them, but they was like, what's happening? Come through. It's like,

speaker-0: My mama at work. gotta work two or three jobs so ain't nobody home after school.

speaker-1: Come on, And the cycle continues. You know what saying? But yeah, man, we gotta do something. We gotta figure it out.

speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I think the tough thing about it is it is a multifaceted problem. Yeah. There's like the immediate impact and stuff that's going on right now that you can kind of like, like he's talking about the big brother kind of thing, ⁓ which solves the problem immediately by giving those young men a father figure. But then also long term helps or women give them a father figure. Also in the long term now, because they have that you're hoping that they don't repeat the cycle. because they are learning from you how to be a man and how to respect women and all the things, right? But it's hard to just lean into one thing, right? Like just to, okay, this is the thing we're gonna do. This is the thing and it's gonna solve our problems now, solve our problems in the future. It's too many people, it's too many different things going on. Everybody's got their own opinions. So it's difficult to do something like that. I think it happens a lot of places that don't get credit for. I think there's a lot of programs that are doing stuff in the community, ⁓ but the community is so much bigger than the programs. There's too many people who aren't actively seeking the solution that may be there, right? Because they don't know it's there. And it's hard to do anything like that because we don't have, I don't know if any culture does, but I can only speak for ours. We don't have the one unifying thing that we go to. You know what mean? Like we don't talk about Chris Rock said years ago, we don't have black leaders. We don't have a black leader or a group of black leaders that are like passing down. OK, these are things that we're going to do. You know, we don't have a booklet that we can refer to like, OK, we're struggling with this. These are the people we go to. So it's hard to allow those programs that are doing the work to do the work on a grander scale because. We don't know that they exist. You know what mean? Even in his comments, right? Even in Dr. Umar, I'm sure he's probably more well versed in these types of programs and things. Maybe, right? Or at least to some degree in his area, maybe. Maybe he even has one. We don't even know. Right? Like, I know he has the Marcus Garvey, Frederick Douglass.

speaker-1: Maybe. Don't know, yeah. Booker T. Washington.

speaker-0: school that he's putting together. And I'm sure along with that, there's some kind of guide, right program where he's helping you. But we don't know. Like, he's famous. Like he's a talking head. Like we know who he is and we don't even know what programs he's running. And so it's, I don't want to say like it's a problem that's never going to be solved. ⁓ I think it can decrease. I think we can improve in some situations. I think it's going to take individual efforts, is, If you don't feel responsible, right? Like I don't feel responsible for ⁓ Sally across the street having two kids and her husband ain't around, but they do live on my street. And I know that if I don't, every once in a while I want to see the boys outside, if I don't talk to them or share some game with them, help them cut the grass or something like that, that pretty soon. they gonna have their little friends hanging out in my neighborhood. You know I'm saying? It's a slow grind, but I don't feel personally responsible, the thing I am responsible for, I do feel responsible for the community, but I feel responsible at least for my neighborhood, right? Because he getting into trouble, he start hanging out with the wrong people, and next thing you know, they hanging out his house, and they're like, hey man, why don't we go next door and rob that house?

speaker-1: I could've swore old boy had a corvette in it.

speaker-0: Yeah, like now, you know what mean? Now it's B &E at my career, because I wouldn't help Lil Man cut the grass when he was 10.

speaker-1: think that's the problem, even as a country in a whole, it's been so much of, if I'm okay, the world is okay. As long as my world is okay, I don't care about your world. I think we need to change that mentality to, if your world isn't okay, then the world's not okay. We need to figure it out. It was a trip. My mom lived alone, right? she was ⁓ in her late 60s, 70 years old, and her neighbor would always bring her trash cans in. And it may not seem like a big thing, but I think that's the kind of things that we need to do, just bite size, bite size. Because it adds up, little bite size. So if you see, I don't know, your neighbor, like you were saying, like, ⁓ it's just a single neighbor, two kids. Talk to their little boys. Talk to their little girls. Be cool. There's boundaries that you have to have, but you know. Hey, you want me to take the trash out for you? I see your lawn. You want me to go ahead and just, I can cut your lawn after I cut mine. It ain't but 15 minutes. I ain't cutting your backyard, but I can cut your front yard. Oh, thank you. Then little Johnny gets to see, wait, who's cutting that? Oh, that's the neighbor. That's. That's Rob from across the street. He's just cutting a yard. He wanted to help. ⁓ OK. OK. You learn a little something. Just a little bite. how you do it.

speaker-0: build community to little things, right? I think we kick the can a lot because we already, inside our house, we already have a thousand responsibilities. We got a thousand things to think about. And the last thing that I'm thinking about around the things that I have going on is, man, trash can is, I'm take that trash can in. You know what I mean? It's not at the top of the things, but when you're in a community and you, ⁓ you know, I know. in the case that you just brought up, she lives by herself, she's older. I know, I'll take the trash can in so she don't have to worry about it. Right? Like it's just being thoughtful of the people around you, right? Being aware of the surroundings, right? Like just doing a little things. I had to be a fireman a couple of years ago. Like just, the house across the street caught on fire and me and the gardener sprung in the act.

speaker-1: Oh yeah, I remember that.

speaker-0: I could've just stayed in the house and called 911 and be like, yeah, it's a fire across the street. But I understand if my man's house burned down, that's gonna reflect poorly on the whole community. Not only that, but I know them, right? Because we talk, I see them outside, say, what's up? The last thing I wanna do is have my man come home and his house burned down to the ground while I was inside, looking out the window. Yeah, I called 911 for you. Like, nah, dog, if you don't throw a bucket of water on the side of the house,

speaker-1: on fire my husband.

speaker-0: Like it's just like, it's just little stuff, right? And I think it starts, it starts small and it becomes big. Like I always say, crumbs make cake, right? You get enough crumbs together, you get you a slice of cake and it's just each individual person doing something small to help someone else ⁓ and not being so self-absorbed and like, it's not my fault. It's not my responsibility.

speaker-1: Yep, that part. ⁓ What was I about to say? ⁓ okay, yeah. Getting over y'all. So I was at the grocery store and I'm trying to do this more and more. ⁓ But when I see a dad by himself with just his kids, I always try to salute him. Like, hey man, I see you got your babies, man. Salute. Keep handling your business. keep handling your business. It might be uncle and nephew and niece, or it might be dad and daughter, son, whatever it is, but I try to just, I'm gonna salute you, especially when I see a brother, especially when I see a brother. And like I said, it's a bite size. I'm not changing the world, but just putting that mentality into that person's head. Like, okay, I'm doing my job, I'm handling business. Because sometimes as men, we need that.

speaker-0: Yeah.

speaker-1: We never ask for it, but we need that. Like, hey man, I see you grinding. Keep it up. Dang. Thanks, man. Especially a stranger saying that to you. Like, okay, yeah. Let me keep going and let me stay focused. You never know what people are going through. So just a little bite-sized thing. I'm not asking anybody out there to start a new revolution and this is the new YMCA and we gon' ... Nah, but know, bite-sized. There's things that we can do. Just by size. Yeah, man.

speaker-0: Yeah, you know what's funny is every time that it happens to me from time to time, it's always like uplifting, right? Especially if it's an older black dude, for whatever reason, like an old black man, be like, all right, now I see you. Man, look at me out here, man. All right. And I think it's just that affirmation that we all seek. in the fatherhood space, we talk a lot about like...

speaker-1: Bye. You

speaker-0: Every boy wants to make his father proud, whether they know their father or not. Right? Like it's just one of those things where you want to be acknowledged for whatever you've done. Right? There's kind of that and people, when I post about it, there's like 50 50, right? Like dudes like, I don't give a damn. What do you say? I don't care if you ever proud of me or whatever. Like simmer down big dog. You do care or else you be in this comment section cussing number one, number two.

speaker-1: That's just to hurt.

speaker-0: I think we all have a sense of it, male or female, a sense of needing to be affirmed. Right? Like just, you're doing a good job, man. That's it. Proud of you. High five. Like I see you out here, man. Look at them, man. They got the shoes on, they tied. it didn't have to be big stuff. Right? You just out here in the world with your kids and we need more of that. Congratulations, brother. Like, you know.

speaker-1: That's the whole reason behind that.

speaker-0: just we don't get enough of it. don't, and as men, won't ask for it. Like I'm not gonna ask you to, that's why I always feel weird about like bringing stuff up. It's like, it's uncomfortable for me to be like, hey man, notice me. Notice these things that I've done. So that's why like when it happens just randomly, I'm always like. All right, I can go on with my day. I was gonna shut it down, just go in the house and cry, but my man got me right. Just all he said was, I see you out here, brother. All right, I see me too, man. Let's do it.

speaker-1: It's hard, but I see me.

speaker-0: That's like my favorite interaction is the trying to get like you black man. Especially with the old dude, because they say they got them slick lines, man. It's my favorite, absolute favorite.

speaker-1: You're right. ⁓ It's just your world, squirrel. I'm just trying to get enough, baby. You gotta see you,

speaker-0: What? ⁓ man, I can't call it. I spoil it. Changing words up. But yeah, I think we can rap, man. I feel like we're going to ramble at this point, but I think we have some very valid points throughout the podcast. I think we talked about something that's really important. A couple of things. One, obviously we talked early on about, you know, just being yourself. But then also being aware of like just being yourself doesn't mean that you don't need improvement. It doesn't mean that you can't get better. You be who you are right now.

speaker-1: Listen

speaker-0: But also understand that who you are right now isn't who you're going to be forever. be okay with making the changes that you feel necessary. Each one teach one, right? Just find something that it is that you can do on a small scale in your community. doesn't have to be, because I know everybody's busy. You got a bunch of stuff you got to do, but it's one thing you can do. Even if it's like Mike said, you see somebody out, just give them some affirmation, show them some love. That's more than enough to move the needle forward. I'm pretty happy in my life. I don't have a whole lot of complaints. And when that happens, it takes it to the next level. You know what mean? When I get one of them interaction, I'm ⁓ man, I'm floating the rest of the day. Right? Like you're going to have to hit me with a brick to bring me back down. And so it's just little stuff like that that I think we can do now. You don't have to do these huge things. You ain't got to go out and save the whole neighborhood and rain in all. Maybe you do. Maybe that's the calling on your life. Maybe you're the guy who brings in, you know, 20, 30 kids. And now those 20, 30 kids are underneath your wing and you're doing mentoring and stuff like that. But

speaker-1: that call and

speaker-0: It might just be one. Right.

speaker-1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I just wanna just, we just wanna thank you guys for hanging with us and getting the full ⁓ message. Hopefully you got some game from this one, you know what saying? But yeah, you can catch us on the socials at grown man game pod. We got the clips up. We would love some nice positive comments or negative. Do what you do. ⁓ If you're feeling this message, if you're feeling, The things that we're talking about are topics. If you're feeling the energy that we have, if you feel like there's a need for men to hold each other accountable and to lift each other up, show us some love. You know what saying? Like we said, each one teach one and each one reach one and just, hey, hey, you're a GMG grown man game, mic and rod, rod and mic. Hey man, it's pretty good. You should check it out. ⁓ Add to the content, you know what saying? Share our stuff on social media. Give us some ratings on Apple Podcasts. That helps the podcast get out further. yeah, man, just try to implement some of the things that we're doing that we can be aligned with in each other and hold each other accountable. And if you got some congratulations that you need to be congratulated on, hit us up in the DMs. Go ahead and email us. What's their email again?

speaker-0: Grown Man Game podcast.

speaker-1: GrowMainGamePodcasts at gmo.com. Email us, hit us with some, congratulations brothers. I wanna start posting other people's congratulations brothers, just so we can just put that energy out there that, you know, we doing things out here. It's not all doom and gloom. We are in a time of craziness, but you know what? We come from strength.

speaker-0: Yeah.

speaker-1: And that's just what it's gonna be.

speaker-0: That's it. See ya. ⁓

speaker-1: Ready, Mike?