Ep.34 - History Has a Price Tag!

Let us ask you something before we even get started.

Do you believe what the founders wrote — or what the founders did?

Welcome back to Three for the Founders — where Brotherhood meets the breakdown.

But first — we have to show some love. Shoutout to Lorelei Newman, UCLA alum, who found this podcast at what sounds like a pivotal moment in her life. She sent us a message with a question we haven't been able to shake: “How do you know when something should come to an end?" Lorelei, we don't know who or what prompted that question for you — but we're glad the show found you when it did. And shoutout to Rahim Muhammad, who heard Episode 18 — "Your bell schedule is racist" — and then did something most people won't do. He went back to Episode 1 and listened to everything. In order. That's not a fan, that's family. And as always — respect and love to the founders of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Incorporated. We don't start without acknowledging you.

2026 is the centennial of Black History Month. One hundred years ago, Dr. Carter G. Woodson — the second Black man to earn a PhD from Harvard, following only W.E.B. Du Bois — looked at American society, looked at what was being taught in schools, looked at what was being erased and distorted and flat-out lied about, and decided he was going to do something about it. He launched Negro History Week in 1926 with a mission that was radical then and — let's be honest — is still radical now: combat the exclusion of Black people from American history. Dismantle the lie that Africa was a "dark continent" with no civilization, no culture, no past worth studying. And affirm, loudly and without apology, that Black achievement didn't begin with survival — it began long before enslavement tried to end it.

A hundred years later, the question isn't whether Woodson mattered. The question is — what have we done with what he built? And what does the next hundred years look like?

That's what we're getting into today. 

We're putting a new framework on the table for what Black History Month could actually become — not a feel-good celebration, not a corporate email in February, but a genuine, structured reckoning with the full scope of Black history across its African roots, its atrocities, and its power. We're running the numbers on reparations — and when we say numbers, we mean numbers. Trillions. Per person. We're going into the Atlantic slave trade with the nuance it demands — including African participation, the construction of race as a European tool, and why collapsing an entire continent into a single story is its own form of erasure. We're talking about what made U.S. chattel slavery uniquely, deliberately, systematically cruel in ways that set it apart from slavery across human history. We're wrestling with scripture — how the same sacred text has been used to liberate and to oppress, sometimes in the same breath. And we're asking the hardest question underneath all of it:

Is history something we teach to learn — or something we curate to feel good?

Because as Howard Stevenson put it: "Until lions have their own historians, the story of the hunt will always glorify the hunter."

This is fifty-eight minutes and fifty-eight seconds. No fluff. No shortcuts. Just three founders, doing wha

Thanks for joining us. Still got questions? Other things to say? Hit us up at Three for the Founders on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, or TikTok and let us know. Til the next time...left on founders...we out! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

They also uh messed me up because they were like, Oh, you have a paper due.

SPEAKER_03 0:04

And I was like, I got a paper due. Right. I fell right back into it.

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Sorry to be breaking out on hives just hearing this story. Just hearing it, right? This is September 1989 to me.

SPEAKER_02 0:17

But it's even better than that. Right. Then they said, uh, your limit is 500 words. That's when Antonio's just warming up. You're like, have you met me?

SPEAKER_03 0:29

I wrote three paragraphs, right?

SPEAKER_02 0:31

And I was like, oh, cool. All right, I'm I'm I'm hitting the thing. It was like 310 words. I'm like, I I haven't put my name or a proper heading on it yet.

SPEAKER_03 0:40

It's only 500 words. That's when I put on it. We're brothers.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

We're happy and we're singing and we're colored. Give me a cut and print. Beautiful guys. I don't mind that.

SPEAKER_04 0:59

Welcome to Three for the Founders, where brotherhood meets the breakdown. We've been having these conversations for years, and now you are invited to join us. We'll say the things you are afraid to say and ask the questions you've always wanted to ask. Three brothers, all truth, no filters. Let's go. I have nothing to do.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

You just go drop some pot. Go ahead, go ahead. I was about to, but then I stumbled. So I'm just that's when you reach for the joint.

SPEAKER_02 1:29

We're back on here. We haven't done this in a minute, but I had the Captain T-shirt. Mama, Mama gifted me. Well, what you got? Oh, they can't cancel it. They can't cancel history. They can't cancel culture. They can't cancel us. Nice. I love that. Nice. For show, for sure. Mama gifted me something. Thank you, mama. Uh, so we we have a few things to do, uh, instructionally, correctionally, whateverly. Um, we haven't introduced ourselves in season two. Oh, is that a thing? I think it's a thing. I don't know. Should it be a thing? It should be a thing. Hey, hey, can you just say my name?

SPEAKER_00 2:09

Just I'm gonna mute myself.

SPEAKER_03 2:16

Just say just go ahead, just once.

SPEAKER_04 2:18

All right, and I'll do a Antonio Macias de Macias.

SPEAKER_03 2:23

That's my new voicemail. That's my new voice friggin' Freeman. I have LeBron James.

SPEAKER_02 2:30

Oh my god, you're crazy. Welcome to Three for the Founders. Welcome to season two. Welcome to here talking to each other and uh letting you come along. I have a couple of shout-outs. Do you all have a couple of shout-outs?

SPEAKER_00 2:45

I got one brand new. This morning, I got a message from someone that went to UCLA with us. I don't think we were all we traveled in the same circle, but Loreline Newman watched an episode out of nowhere, and for some reason she said, uh, I just chose the when things come, how do you know when something should come to an end episode? She's like, it's just it's just for some reason that was the first one I listened to, and it happened to connect with her exactly where she's at and some changes she's gone through and and all that kind of stuff. And it opened up a door of conversating with someone I hadn't spoken to in a real long time. So, Lorla, I'm glad that we met you when we needed to meet as a group of us, and happy to hear from you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 3:25

Excellent, excellent. Four is up, number one public university in uh the world. The country. I'm the land. I'm the realm. Claim the world. That's that's too parochial. I'm gonna claim, I'm gonna claim the world. All right. Uh LeBron, what you got?

SPEAKER_04 3:40

Yeah, I'm gonna do a special shout out to Dr. Carter G. Woodson, the founder of Black History Month, and my fellow, the second black man to ever get a PhD from Harvard University.

SPEAKER_02 3:53

Hey, first being Dr. W. E. B. B. Du Bois, William Edward Berger. Oh, damn.

SPEAKER_04 4:02

Oh, dang, he knew the E B all. That's a scholar right there.

SPEAKER_00 4:09

Oh, seriously. I'm still working on A. Langston Taylor, Charles, Charles Ignatius Morse.

SPEAKER_04 4:19

Leonard F. Morris, Morris, Lennon F.

SPEAKER_02 4:21

Morris. Leonard F. Morris. F. Morris, yeah. Charles I. I. Brown.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

Charles Ignatius, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:27

All right, so you got those. For those of you wondering, these are the founders of our fraternity that we were supposed to know forever. Now we do five at a sigma fraternity in Incorporated Incorporated.

unknown 4:39

All right.

SPEAKER_02 4:40

So you're shouting out Carter G. Woodson. Cool. I'm gonna shout out somebody who's still alive. Good. Um, I gotta give uh some props to uh my brother Raheem Mohammed. This brother has been uh streaming all of this. You all met him in our planning sessions. He was uh he works with me. And every time I get in the car, I'm listening to the three of us because he is nice. He started with your bell schedule is racist, season one, episode 18. And then he said, No, no, no, I gotta go all the way back. So he went all the way back to episode one, and he's been steady, like listening to all of it. So every time I see him, he's like, Yeah, I already talked to you, bro. I did talk to you today. I love it. And then he wants to tell me about how John dropped some knowledge or said something that he wasn't ready for, or LeBron came with uh a question. Um so I just wanted to shout out Raheem uh today.

SPEAKER_04 5:39

Much appreciated, much appreciated.

SPEAKER_02 5:41

When we talked to David, uh, I I dropped us into the deep end. Absolutely no life raft, nothing.

SPEAKER_03 5:49

No life raft, no no no jackets, no flotation jackets, no swim. I was like, learn, will you, bro?

SPEAKER_02 5:58

Uh and so I wanted to come back to if you could be any animal, what would you be? And what come on, you answered this in third grade, you can answer it now.

SPEAKER_00 6:09

I know, and it's I'm I'm second guessing myself because I think I have the same answer as I had in third grade.

SPEAKER_04 6:13

Well, what is that, John?

SPEAKER_00 6:15

It's a dolphin, they're just cool, man. Yes, dolphins are in the ocean, they're mammals, but they like they're they and they they're playful. What was that? That was my dolphin in turn.

SPEAKER_01 6:28

He likes it a bad bunny dolphin.

SPEAKER_00 6:30

That was seriously, yeah. They're playful, they're they're feared by sharks because they can mess a shark up. Yes, they can. Um I I think what's funny is they a lot of our interpretation of animals is if they look pleasant to us, we assume they're happy and they're like joyful, and they have this permanent semi-smile in their their mouth, their elongated mouth. Doesn't mean they're happy, it's just we think like, oh, how cute. But you also can't underestimate what's beneath. They're badass. And they're in the ocean, man. I see them quite often when I'm surfing. They're they're out and about, yeah, and they're friendly and they're fun, and they like to surf, and they're in the water. So dolphin it is. A dolphin it is.

SPEAKER_01 7:14

LeBron, if you could be any animal in the world, this world or the next, what would you be?

SPEAKER_04 7:20

The Obama's probably gonna be mad at me for this because I'm setting it. It's a too easy of a setup for my oppressors, but I would be a G O Dilla. No. If I could be a gorilla, oh man.

SPEAKER_00 7:35

Who is it the flinging the flinging dung at people that you're that you want? Is it that you can masturbate in public and people just like, cool?

SPEAKER_01 7:46

What is it about a gorilla? What is it about a G O Rilla?

SPEAKER_04 7:49

Gorilla, man, he just chills in the forest. He got all the food he wants to eat. He's the bat that thank you, Antonio. There you go. That's his posture. Uh-huh. That's just for the YouTube folks. Only everybody else. He has to demonstrate his strength in times of need. He doesn't flex and nothing. But you come around his family, he's gonna let you know I am the G O'Rilla. To me, he's the king of the jungle, not the lion. I know somebody created the lion, but when I look at things, it's the G O Rilla. Hmm. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 8:18

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_04 8:19

Just my take on things.

SPEAKER_00 8:20

I like that he's not trying to start something, but yeah. But he's gonna finish it. He'll finish it.

SPEAKER_04 8:26

He'll finish it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 8:27

And he's a vegetarian with all that muscle. Holla back. They don't eat meat.

SPEAKER_00 8:34

That's like a lot of that's a lot of vegetation. Jeez. Where does it get his protein?

SPEAKER_04 8:43

That's a good question.

SPEAKER_00 8:45

I know this is on subject, and we need to hear your answer too, Antonio. But Jane Goodall, she worked with chimpanzees, not gorillas, right? Yeah, chimpanzees. That is correct. But she talked about how you know she would win them over by just having stacks of bananas, and there was this one that she just kept giving a banana after banana after banana, and then ate like 120 bananas in a row. Just like it just kept going. Like, okay, we're doing this. I've got no limits at all. But if you think, man, take that and put gorilla.

SPEAKER_04 9:11

If Jane Goodall was studying gorillas, she'd have some light-skinned babies, I tell you that much.

SPEAKER_03 9:16

I can't. I'm done. I'm so done. So done.

SPEAKER_04 9:21

Stick with them chimpanzees, girl.

SPEAKER_03 9:24

Okay. We are 23 minutes into our recording, and LeBron has decided that he doesn't like doing the podcast anymore. And he is going to end it. Grand opening.

SPEAKER_02 9:34

Grand closing. Right.

SPEAKER_00 9:37

Here we go. Antonio, save us from ourselves. What animal? Please let it be benign.

SPEAKER_02 9:45

I uh, you know me, I'm never uh constrained by the natural world, so I'm a dragon.

SPEAKER_04 9:52

Oh, okay. I like that. Is that the right arm or the left arm? I should have thought that one coming.

SPEAKER_02 9:59

You should have. Right. So the the the left arm is a European dragon, right? It's got wings and it's got legs. The the right arm, somewhere around here, yeah, whatever, is uh an Asian dragon.

SPEAKER_00 10:14

Folks, when you can't even find your own tattoo. There's there's a problem. You might have a problem. You might have a problem.

SPEAKER_02 10:21

You might have a problem. So dragons uh live significantly longer than human beings. Uh they are uber intelligent, they are super strong. Like if they were your DD character, they have like a hundred in all the characteristics. And they can breathe fire and they can fly.

SPEAKER_04 10:42

Kind of can't beat the dragon.

SPEAKER_00 10:45

Alright, so who treated a dragon better, more respectfully and more holistically, in your opinion? The creators of Game of Thrones or the creators of Lord of the Rings?

SPEAKER_02 10:55

Lord of the Rings treated dragons as if they were large, uber intelligent creatures. Gotcha. Okay. Right. The difference between the two being like in Lord of the Rings, the dragons know why they're doing what they're doing. In Game of Thrones, the dragons just kind of, you know, fly around and burn shit.

SPEAKER_04 11:20

There you go.

SPEAKER_02 11:20

Got it. And they're used by humanity for humanity. And they're used by humanity, right?

SPEAKER_03 11:26

Got it.

SPEAKER_02 11:27

Right. All right. LeBron, in your shout-outs, you shouted out uh Dr. Carter G. Woodson, and that's where I wanted to start our conversation today because it is today, February 16th, which uh is President's Day. Yes, it is. And we will, in a later episode, talk about presidents and presidency and what that is. Um, but it is dead smack in the middle of Black History Month, which uh began in 1926. Carter G. Woodson uh started it as Negro History Week. Yes. Um and his purpose in doing that, wait, hold on, let me let me I I I Googled.

SPEAKER_04 12:10

Oh, you Googled. Oh, he Googled.

SPEAKER_02 12:12

I Googled because I wanted to get the actual language correct. And he said he wanted to combat the exclusion of African Americans from American history, fight racism, and promote the study of black achievements. And so he was dressing addressing uh educational gaps. He was saying that there's this myth out here of Africa as a dark continent, that it has no history, that it has no place in the global conversation about achievement, and that black folk were lucky to be enslaved and brought to the Americas because that gave them some civilization to aspire to. And so his refutation of that um was embodied in this creation of Negro History Week, which has grown um to Black History Month. In just a hundred years. I thought in just a hundred years, right? But it's the centennial, so 1926 to 2026. Um, and we find ourselves still fighting for that place in the historical record. We find ourselves still looking for the affirmation, not only amongst others, but amongst ourselves. And so I wanted to start our conversation here about Black History Month because uh thank you for shouting him out. But I feel that Dr. Woodson, along with other Negro scholars like W. E. B. Du Bois, um were placing black Americans into this larger tapestry of human history in order to uh give black folks something to be proud of, give black folk a knowledge of themselves. And it felt like if we weren't addressing it, like what was black history when you were in school, right? And what was black history when um he created this? This is 1926, which isn't dead in the middle of Jim Crow, it's dead in the middle of legal segregation, it's six years before the events of Sinners. Whoa. You thought I wasn't gonna be able to, but of course I was. Sew it together, baby.

SPEAKER_00 14:43

I have a little chart together episodes in which Antonio has not mentioned still zero.

SPEAKER_02 14:49

Yeah, that it would be an empty chart. Um, and so it felt like a good place to begin our conversation as we watch this regime try to create a new myth, try to create a new narrative, try to talk about um I'm gonna mess up this quote, but that's okay because it's a messed up quote. Yeah. Uh, where Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, you know, our home may be in the Western Hemisphere, but we are a child of Europe. We will always be children of Europe.

SPEAKER_04 15:23

Isn't he a child of Cuba?

SPEAKER_02 15:26

He is.

SPEAKER_04 15:27

Okay, I'm just wanting to.

SPEAKER_02 15:28

So John asked me a long time ago about, excuse me, what did I think Latinos should do? Something, and I jumped up and I said, Stop being white adjacent. Oh, that's not the question you're asking me. But Margo Rubio is trying to be white adjacent in situating this story with everything that is in him. Um, and so I wanted to start with this celebration of blackness. I wanted to start with this celebration, celebration of survival. I wanted to start with this celebration of achievement um that is a hundred years old. Like it's not as old as my grandmother. No, it's not. 103. Shout out to 103. February 1, 1923. Um, but it's old enough that we should take a moment to converse about it.

SPEAKER_04 16:20

Yeah. Man, thank you so much for that, man. And you know, I had my notes ready for this one, man. I was like, I could wait for Black History Month. Woo! So, first of all, that's why I'm wearing the Harvard alumni shirt today, and in reverence uh and respect to uh Dr. Carter G. Woodson, because he also wrote an amazing book called The Miseducation of the Negro.

SPEAKER_02 16:39

Miseducation of the Negro.

SPEAKER_04 16:41

Yes. And and quite honestly, I struggle because of that book. Because he's saying we remain colonized because the more we obtain European history, the less we know of ourselves, and the more colonized we become in the mind. Because we're acquiring someone else's knowledge that they wrote. And so we become an expert on someone else, but not an expert on ourselves. So that's the part I still kind of grapple with. But um what's interesting though is uh what I would propose uh for the next hundred years of Black History Month is that we break it into three sections, if I may. The first 10 days should be strictly about African history so we understand where we came from. So our roots, you know, those plants that float in the water, their roots are just floating with them, they're not grounded in anything. I forget the name of that kind of flower, but that's who black people are in America. We're just floating in the water. We're not really lily pads? Lily pads, thank you. Yes, like the lily pads. So the first 10 days would just be straight African history. The next 10 days, though, would be um analyzing the atrocities committed against us by whites and Europeans. So we would share all that information for 10 days. So everyone would have to hear what happened to us, where we were, and what happened to us. And then the last nine days, we would get to control the narrative for nine days. We pick what's said in newspapers, we get pick what's said on television, we tell things from our perspective, and just give us nine days to do that. And to me, that's the perfect uh Black History Month.

SPEAKER_02 18:20

Thoughts. Three is the magic number. That's what I heard you say. Yes, it is, because it's broken into three pieces, and he went to Harvard.

SPEAKER_00 18:31

Those are the two things that I heard. I think he also went with a leap year math, because was that 29 days?

SPEAKER_04 18:39

29 days, yeah, did the 10, 10, and a nine, baby. Come on now.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

Okay, okay. I like it. All right, so let's start with the middle part. You when you talk about the you know spending 10 days talking about the atrocities. Yes, and you compare that to what is actually taught in schools now in our history. Like how what where would you start? I mean, day one, you're talking about what?

SPEAKER_04 19:09

Uh day one, you cannot talk about Martin Luther King or Rosa Parks anymore, at least for 50 years. Because that's what makes it.

SPEAKER_02 19:18

From day 11 to day 20? Yeah, from day 11. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:21

Yes. Okay, well, yeah, so the atrocity, see, we think that it's the civil rights movement. We you know, we we had to drink out of different water fountains and all that. No, no, no. It's real big. So here we go. The first one is Jim Crow. Because of Jim Crow, we were denied$112 trillion of generational wealth. See, we don't quantify, we don't quantify oppression. So if it's emotional, you can't quantify. So I'm always trying to do the math on it. The GI bill alone, we were denied$2 trillion in benefits from the GI bill, which is less than 100 years old. Now, understand this mathematically, that means that each black person is owed about$2.5 million for unpaid services or retribution. Yes. Now, let me tell you how powerful that is. Because Israel's GDP is$580 billion. All it takes is every black person in California to get a check, and we would have our own state, we'd have our own media, we'd have every instead of the APAC, it'd be the black pack. We could buy all the politicians, and we ain't gotta worry about voting. Hey, black. A black black instead of APAC. Hey, black. So that is a black history moment from the Bath Man.

SPEAKER_00 20:52

No, this is uh all right.

SPEAKER_03 20:56

Man, I got I got you got questions on questions? No, I'm not questions.

SPEAKER_02 21:02

Here's the problem with being in grad school, right? I'm taking uh black history, African American history to emancipation, and I'm taking American immigration history. These are the two classes that I'm in. One of my professors from Harvard, one of my professors from the University of Maryland. And so I have been literally reading and writing about in the last 48 hours.

SPEAKER_04 21:24

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 21:26

African complicity in the Atlantic slave trade. And so when we talk about the atrocities that were visited upon, right? And I am in no way taking away from what has happened in the United States, what has happened on the North American continent, what has happened in the South American continent, what happened in the Caribbean, right? Um, but I'm also having to ingest and come to grips with what happened in the Kingdom of Congo, where they were participating in the slave trade with Portugal. They enslaved people that they defeated. In war. Then they began to wage wars to enslave. And at a certain point, that expansion comes to an end. Then they began to enslave each other.

SPEAKER_04 22:10

Is this pre-opost the Belgian dude who killed a hundred million Congolese?

SPEAKER_02 22:15

In Angola?

SPEAKER_04 22:16

Yeah. Is that pre-opost?

SPEAKER_02 22:18

Uh pre.

SPEAKER_04 22:19

Pre. Got it. Alright, got it.

SPEAKER_02 22:20

Pre. Right? Because this is during this. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that was during the 1900s?

SPEAKER_04 22:26

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 22:27

And this is late 1800s, early 1900s. Yeah. This is 1500, 1600, 1700s. Gotcha. And it was just right. I asked the question last last episode. Um, what is the price of your soul? And so I am wrestling with what is the price, excuse me, uh, or or what price did they pay when they were like, oh, cool, we could trade like people that we've captured in war. But then war ends, and so then we're trading each other. Right. Right? The Kingdom of Congo literally declined and went out of business, basically, because they got so enamored of the money they participated so much in the slave trade that they began enslaving each other.

SPEAKER_07 23:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:23

That's great. You're talking about like enslaving each other within the same region, within the same tribe, within the like within the same kingdom, right?

SPEAKER_02 23:33

They weren't black, they were Congo. Right. And so there's that piece of it, and I'm I hear you, LeBron. I I like your 10 days. I I I I like your 10, 10, and 9. I also am learning, like, that was just a piece like, oh yeah, Africans enslaved Africans and sold them for guns. Like, that's the most simplistic piece. Right.

SPEAKER_04 24:02

Now, I want to add to that real quick though, Antonio, because that's great. Because I'm in grass scuba and I had to study the same thing, and I studied in Ghana because I was like, how can Africans enslave Africans? And then in Ghana, they said, LeBron, you're looking at it all wrong. You're looking through a European lens. These are different tribes. Just like saying the Italians enslaved the Russians, enslaved the Germans. Like, we don't say, look at those European, look at those white people killing those white people. No, we say, no, Italy's and is fighting France and fighting Germany. So it's the same thing in Africa. There's different tribes, different countries, but they try to put us all in one group and make it seem like it's black-on-black crime. When like your tribe, we look the same, but your tribe is different than my tribe, different culture, different heritage, different language. So when we beef in, it's not about color. Color is a European context. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So yes, they did participate in that.

SPEAKER_00 24:58

Well, and slavery is uniquely not African. Not at all. Read your Bible, people. I mean, there's why are there instructions in the Old Testament on how to treat your slaves? Oh, could it be because there were slaves? Because what does the word slave come from? I mean, it was there were instructions. I mean, if if you're reading the Bible as a literalist, which I am not, but if you are, God is telling a very specific group of people, go take over the land of the Canaanites and enslave every man, woman, and child that you do not kill a murder. Like there were directives on making slaves. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 25:38

Tell me, so you're saying, hold on. No, no, no. We're we're it's Bible hour with Brother John.

SPEAKER_00 25:44

It always ends up. You got you got sinners, I got scriptures. Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 25:50

I love that's a bar. That was a bar. That was a bar, John.

SPEAKER_03 25:54

Welcome to the introduction of episode 33. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 25:59

I knew I wore my retro 2022. I love it, retro. That wasn't even planned.

SPEAKER_04 26:10

I said timeout because I don't I don't read that book, and I haven't read that book. So I hear a lot of people talking about it. But did you say God theoretically told some human beings to enslave other people? Yes. And they're telling me that's God saying that. And people believe that. Like God would tell human beings to enslave other human beings. I'm gonna quote you, LeBron. Yes. Make it make sense. Okay. I was just wondering why I don't read that book. Let me go back to my algebra book where stuff makes sense. I'm good.

SPEAKER_03 26:50

Judge's rendering. I need a judge's rendering.

SPEAKER_00 26:53

LeBron, I'm telling you, when when I Antonio properly several episodes ago was a little, I'd say a little crestfallen when I said out loud, like, yeah, I don't call myself Christian anymore. And you, I think you as a friend were like wrestling with this reorientation of my of the definition of who I am, if I if I may, if I may project onto you what you were expressing.

SPEAKER_03 27:14

You should project away. Like this is not where I was, but he your interpretation of it is all good. Go ahead. No, go.

SPEAKER_00 27:20

This very moment, what we're talking about right now is the is the problem that I have with, I talk about intellectual honesty a lot, especially when it comes to religious views. And when we're talking about slavery, that's the context of it. You we could talk, we can talk about homosexuality, we could talk about heaven and hell, we could talk about slavery, we could talk about law enforcement. I mean, all of these things are in the Bible, and there are so many contradictions like this one we're talking about right now, that I just can't, I can't wrap my head around being okay with. And the simple, the the simple explanation for this often is either the the hang the the well, we just don't understand God's ways are higher than our ways, and if he says it, then it must be coming from a perspective that we can't understand because we are not the Lord, which is a cop-out to me. It's basically saying, like, God can do the craziest stuff, and we just go like, well, he's God, he must know, and you know, I'll just do whatever. Like that's not enough for me.

SPEAKER_04 28:11

Got it.

SPEAKER_00 28:12

The other one is like, well, there's the old testament God who was kind of mean and and it was he was old school, he was not a gentle parent. He was he was he was the hardcore, and then he then God kind of became a Christian and got all nice, and that's when Jesus showed up, and that's when like love your enemy. And true theologians will take issue with how I just handled that. Actually, we should have Dr. Carter tackle this one for us. No doubt. So back to this, LeBron. Yes, there is slavery all up in the Bible, and there if you are to read it literally and take an old testament passage and say, I am a you know, a person of this faith in the year 2200 before common era, King David era, let's just call it King David era. Yeah, then you would be you would be taking instructions from Yahweh God to go go approach that village with all your fighting men, kill all the fighting men, take the women and children captive as your slaves. It was directed many times in the Bible. Yes. Thank you. And I guess where I'm coming from is with an American history, black history perspective, we often see slavery as an African thing. And I'm saying slavery is a human thing, it is a worldwide ever since a man picked up a club and hit someone else on the head and cut and said, you know what, we we want their resources and we're stronger than them, people have been taking people for slaves.

SPEAKER_04 29:42

Thank you. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_02 29:44

And yet, chattel slavery in the United States is more fed up than all the rest of that stuff. Amen. Why? Oh, because none of the societies that we're talking about, whether this Congo, whether it's at Elmina, whether it's Angola, whether it's Jews in the Bible, whether it's wherever you know the Slavs, what'd you say, caveman hidden over the head, whether it's Theon or the Greeks enslaved to uh the bastard of whatever. Are we in the Marvel universe now? No, Game of Thrones. Oh, sorry. Um, whether it is any of those things, the literal perpetuation in a patriarchal society of a matriarchal perpetuation of enslavement wherein owners and slavers raped their property and produced more property is unique to the United States. The level of evil, callousness, and uh uh dehumanization that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and John Adams and Alexander Hamilton participated in is unrivaled in the history of humanity. And so those second ten days, day eleven to day twenty, it's black history month, but what it really is is black American history month, and there are a lot of places where we stretch it, where we talk about you know, Kwame and Krumo. True, but we're not really talking about that. What we're talking about is black American history and the necessity to understand what it is people survived on these shores in this time.

SPEAKER_04 32:15

John, think of it. Thank you for making that clarification, Antonio. Think of days 11 through 20, John. It's like open up America's Epstein files.

SPEAKER_00 32:24

Yes, yeah, that's what it is. You were going to do that.

SPEAKER_02 32:29

You were you couldn't, you were like, when's we gonna talk about it? I guess we talk about it right now.

SPEAKER_00 32:34

No, no, I just but like somebody said, we can't do that, LeBron, because then the whole system's gonna come crashing down.

SPEAKER_02 32:42

That sorry time out. I know I okay.

SPEAKER_00 32:46

Listen, listen, listen. Um you just turn you just turned my head here, Antonio, about black history. And so we're talking about black history month in the United States. And LeBron, when you've said the first 10 days are dedicated to black history, yes, like just black history. I'm thinking in my head, African history, and I'm like, No, it was African history the first 10 days. Okay, okay, African history, and I'm like, all right, 10 days? I mean, that was for African history. That's like, how long do we study US history alone? How many years do we go through US history goddamn long?

SPEAKER_04 33:26

Okay, sorry, historian 200 years of history.

SPEAKER_00 33:30

Average American child starting from whenever, how long how many years do they put in studying American history? A country that's been around for okay, so it's three years total? Three years. Three years to study. 200th grade. Your history. Okay, fifth grade. So that's what's assigned is three years for a country that's how old?

SPEAKER_02 33:47

20, 50 years old now. No, no, don't fall for the okie doke. The Declaration of Independence was written in 1776. The United States didn't exist as a nation until 1787, and it didn't really get its shit together until 1789. Stop. It hasn't gotten its shit together, and we're in 2026. So all of this stuff that you're about to hear for 250, we're 250 years of freedom. F you Donald Trump, f you Marco Rubio, f Pam Bondi. Anyway, where the white women at?

SPEAKER_00 34:19

Sorry, you're making my point for me saying that, saying that less than 250 years, we we prescribe a minimum of three years of education uh for our children. Yes, and yet in our in our most audacious plan to create in LeBron's you know most audacious Black History Month plan, we're giving Africa 10 days. 10 days, bro. You couldn't scratch the surface of uh beneath the toenail of the Ibo tribe in Nigeria for two minutes of their history for 10 days, bro. So two of us done with this. Oh, that one's for Andrea. That was another part of it. That's for Andrea. We had to shout out Andrea again. Yeah, yeah. So, bro, that's what I'm saying. It's like we would have to identify in this plan. Are we talking about African American history in those 10 days? Or African? You're talking about African history.

SPEAKER_04 35:20

Because you got to go back to the root.

SPEAKER_02 35:22

You forgot. He went home to Ghana. I know. Yeah, he got he got all kinds of feelings right now.

SPEAKER_04 35:27

All kind of, yeah. I'm feeling some kind of way. Well, but we have it happens every year though. So, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time, baby. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, but that's how we do it though, John. It's a patient process.

SPEAKER_00 35:44

But when when we're talking about this as a as a topic, I thought, wouldn't wouldn't it be a sign of progress in America if we just got rid of Black History Month altogether?

SPEAKER_02 35:56

What are you? Morgan Freeman?

SPEAKER_00 35:59

Oh, is that did I just retake a Morgan Freeman take? Yeah, you did.

SPEAKER_02 36:02

Morgan Freeman was like, I don't want Black History Month because I want Black History to be taught all the time. That's great. That's fantastic. Oh that's a super cool idea.

SPEAKER_07 36:14

And it doesn't happen.

SPEAKER_00 36:20

And so yes, you're I'm saying, would it be a sign if we progressed in the future to a point where we didn't need it anymore, I guess is what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_02 36:28

Project 2096? Sure.

SPEAKER_00 36:32

But John started by three for the founders.

SPEAKER_04 36:35

Uh I'm gonna quote Antonio here. Say more.

SPEAKER_00 36:40

Well, meaning that up to this point, it is it is a concession. It was hard fought. I'm not, I don't want to, I don't want to diminish the efforts of Dr. Carter, say his last name again. G. Carter G. Woodson, yeah. Carter G. Woodson obviously took a huge stand, dug his heels in deep, and here we are 100 years later, and it's it's part of the fabric of our country, although it's been attacked by this current administration in so many different ways, not just this month, but leading up to it. But you know, the it has it had it would be great to for it to have served its purpose, meaning, all right, we we we got we got our we got our flag in the sand here. Boom, here it is. Now we are actually you know weaving in our history, everybody's history properly, as you just described, African history for real being taught in the schools, the atrocities that have been thrust upon African Americans for five centuries, and what was the last nine days? Plans for the future. Like if that actually was part of our curriculum and part of our culture, then the need for Black History Month would be no longer. And I guess I'm saying I'm asking a question that's a simple yes or no question. If we didn't need it anymore, wouldn't that be great? I guess.

SPEAKER_04 37:56

Well, if we didn't need if we didn't need American or European history, that would be great. Why do we I mean if if we're gonna teach history, it's a it's a everyone's gonna have those different sections of history, but I'll I'll defer to Antonio to talk about this. I'm just saying it will never go away, and progress can still be made. Like it's like we got to some point, whoo, we don't need that anymore. Just like we got a black president, whoo, racism's gone, and we saw what happened with that boomerang effect. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:28

And I'm by no means saying that we have gotten all the traction we're ever gonna get out of Black History Month by any means. No, no, no, I get it. I'm just uh but yeah, I mean, I I'm struck by even when you're talking about that fictitious 10 days of just pure African history, and I'm I'm thinking about what what we are lacking as as individual people in not understanding African history. And when he if I do want to tie it back to Marco Rubio's speech in front of the Munich Security Conference, yes, which was a a one one-dimensional, listen, man, I still don't know if that was the occasion for him to bring in true history because he was basically kowtowing to the Europeans and also trying to, you know, sort of do a little shuck and jive for them.

SPEAKER_02 39:10

We have to talk about your perspective on that. Kowtowing? I do not believe so. But that is just me.

SPEAKER_00 39:15

Go ahead, finish your no, that's all right. Um, that, you know, as he as he's telling our history, and he's talking about this, you know, this the Midwest and German and the Southern Irish and the Scottish and they're farming, and like he's in and void of any attachment to Native people, void of any attachment to African Americans, and and the and and the credit that is deserved to the economy that was built on chattel slavery, and that that being the only reason those things survived for for centuries, it it just makes me go, God man, we have been white people, we've been the beneficiary of all of this abuse, the beneficiary of history, of African history and African culture. And we we give so little credit and education and and academic validation to it being part of our fabric. It's just this aside. It's that we it's treated as an other still. That's what, and I guess that's a little bit about my question about wouldn't it be great if the Morgan Freeman vision of we don't even need this anymore? Because instead of it being an other thing, the shortest month in our calendar, but it actually being woven into the fabric of who we are, it's just not. It's not. How many people would even know that it before what what was the conference where it they decided to divide Africa up? The Europeans are like into 54 different countries. That was in wasn't that in Munich? It was in Germany or something, right?

SPEAKER_04 40:40

It wasn't Germany. Yeah. It was the oh, Sabaj just said this the other day, I forget, but it was in Germany in the late 1800s.

SPEAKER_00 40:50

Okay, Belgium, you get Congo, exactly France, you get Ivory Coast, you know, you guys, the Dutch, you get South Africa. Like I mean, it was just ridiculous, right? So uh other than that, this is the part.

SPEAKER_02 41:01

Wait, now I'm LeBron? You mean like the conference where they gave Palestine to the Jews?

SPEAKER_04 41:08

Woo! Sponsored by a black man from UCLA. There would be no Israel without a black man from UCLA, by the way.

SPEAKER_02 41:16

Why are you going Ralph Munch?

SPEAKER_04 41:18

Yes. He got the Nobel Priest Prize for doing that.

SPEAKER_02 41:22

Um that's right.

SPEAKER_04 41:24

Yeah, LeBron's the producer.

SPEAKER_02 41:26

It was a good idea.

SPEAKER_00 41:30

But the execution often where good ideas lose their power is the execution therein. Is the execution? Yeah. But no, I'm just struck by how the average American, white American child, I will say, who who isn't going going out of their way to learn African history, is just handed crumbs. Like the tiniest, tiniest little little little crumbs, little minuscule, minuscule pieces of perhaps, maybe inarguably, the richest, oldest human culture on planet Earth. And is treated as an aside, as a little thing over here that we should probably do a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 42:17

That's because that's because the United States is a child of Europe, John.

SPEAKER_00 42:23

Okay, okay, Chairman Rubio, Secretary Rubio.

SPEAKER_04 42:26

So Antonio, as the resident historian, what is what do you feel is the main purpose for teaching history? Why do we teach history?

SPEAKER_01 42:40

You want me to read you my paper? Yeah, I can read you my paper.

SPEAKER_00 42:47

Like, I like when you get them all excited, LeBron. This makes me happy.

SPEAKER_02 42:51

Well, I I'm still I'm still working on this, right? Because learning happens continuously.

SPEAKER_06 42:56

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 42:57

And so there's two pieces to it. One is you are telling the stories, right? And whose stories get told. Um, what does Howard Stevenson say? Uh the story of the hunt. Until lions have their own historians, the story of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.

SPEAKER_04 43:19

Amen.

SPEAKER_02 43:20

And so history is used in two ways. There are the historians who are trying to tell stories. And they may be telling stories based on their experience, and they may be telling stories based on what they've read. But history also creates nation states. And so the United States is quote a nation of immigrants. But that nation of immigrants moniker literally erases uh enslaved Africans who were forced to migrate. It erases native and indigenous peoples who were decimated by guns and disease. It erases Chinese immigrants who were not eligible to be citizens. And so like there's so much in what is history and why do we teach it? History is the story we tell ourselves. The question is do you tell yourself to learn something or do you tell yourself to feel good about it? And if you're trying to tell a story to feel good about it, then you're Marco Rubio, then you're Donald Trump, then you're Steven Miller. Because what you need to do is erase the places where the things that have come before you were wrong. And if you are us welcome to three for the founders then the stories that you tell yourself are for you to do better.

SPEAKER_04 45:06

And so we've had this conversation the three of us about do we believe what the founders wrote or do we believe what the founders didn't that's the tagline for three for the founders we have a new tagline in C for season two.

SPEAKER_00 45:28

Do we believe what the founders wrote or do we believe what the founders did? Right.

SPEAKER_02 45:35

Because there's the right I had to I had to do homework because I'm in grad school and the question was what document do you use? Do you use the Naturalization Act of 1790 that said the only people who are eligible eligible to be naturalized citizens are free white people of good character free meaning they weren't indentured servants or enslaved white that's pretty that was pretty self-explanatory right people meaning men and the free part also talks about the economics of it did you have some land did you have some property or were you beholden to others right and of good character means you weren't in the Epstein files. At least two people left Thomas Jefferson he's out George Washington he's out he's out maybe John Adams and so the teaching of history the importance of history the importance of knowing the story of those who came before you be they black white brown Asian Native American right is that you have the the choice once you understand to be better and be a good ancestor to leave something better than what you inherited yeah I love that definition of history I'm glad you teach it can you put that on a t-shirt that's a lot of that's an age I told you man that I they said 500 words and I was like he had to put that on his jalabra I almost my jalaba I almost wore it to to Super Bowl oh that was fire you and I showing up at the same time with that on and it was green I was like Seahawks in my blue mine's blue blue and green sit together that's the sea hole the Patriots I got to represent the white people from Boston the mass holes the mass holes okay okay so John I'm gonna ask you because I let Antonio dive into his swimming pool.

SPEAKER_04 48:16

So I'm gonna ask you to dip your toes back in.

SPEAKER_00 48:21

How do you see history how do you view the Bible in terms of his as a historical document oh I don't I don't I I see the Bible as a mostly a metaphor with attempts at history with attempts at cultural narrative keeping um yes religious doctrine those kind of things but my view on on the Bible I mean it's it's in the current state the thing that we call the Bible is I think 144 books you know that were collected over 2500 years. Take your word for it on five different continents written by 40 different authors uh you know I'm I'm sure some of these numbers are off I haven't I haven't I've been out of the game a little bit just throwing like numbers and shit like well I mean let's see though the 39 books in the Old Testament I forget maybe maybe it wasn't 140 I don't know where I got 144 as 12 times 12. But I know it's 40 different authors over 2500 different years. I think four different continents not five um and so I thus enters people's faith are like well see only God could create a document that's so cohesive and I'm like man you don't get past the first chapter and you realize it's already contradicting itself I don't see when it's like and then God said then on the fourth day God created the sun you're like wait how is how are you measuring days before this there wasn't a sun in it so I could give you a very long answer leBron but no I don't I don't see it as history I do see I see it as culture as culture keeping you know there's there were oral traditions that for years uh kept kept people's traditions together and storytelling and and that that's that's been true from all humankind and then frankly the Bible that we have now is a is a direct result of colonialism. I wouldn't say the Catholic Bible maybe when I say the Bible we have now I'm I'm talking about the one that that I inherited which wouldn't be considered the Catholic Bible be considered the Protestant Bible. And that was the Council of Nicaea I think in like 300 something AD Constantinople the basically the dude in charge of everything was like you know what we need one we need one ring to rule them all as it were we need one text over that we can and this is it we decided this is the one and got rid of some of the mystical ones and you know there's gospels from previous texts that would that would have uh made women more prominent in society that would have been more holistic in their view of their ways to God not just one way and those were all cut out because they needed something that was more singular to control the populace so uh no I don't see it as a historic document per se. It's got histor history in it in it um but I wouldn't I wouldn't it wouldn't be my first source to try to find the accuracy of dates of something happened you know right yeah how is I have a follow up yep can I can I ask can I ask my follow up would you see the Bible so LeBron uh excuse me was surprised that I asked my my students my eighth graders whether or not the Constitution was a white supremacist document or an aspirational document and could it be both and so your conversation about the Bible leads me to the same question. Would you say it's an aspirational document or it's not an or he he gave his his like no it's not historical parts of it are very aspirational other parts were ugly as hell rewind this episode to the talk talks about slavery and killing people and dashing pregnant women upon the rocks that's in the books y'all it's in the Bible like sure and he without you right and and and right so I wouldn't call that aspirational cast the first stone that's that's aspirational there there's there's story I mean the the story of the one of the most beautiful stories it's Jesus talking about you know there was a big there was a place where people came and gave their offering to the temple and there were these rich people making a big show of how much money they were giving and then you know the widow came up and she she was very very poor and she gave her what it's called a mite like it's like a penny. And he pulled people aside and said she has given more than all these people combined because out of her poverty she gave so that's beautiful that's aspirational. So there's moments of it that are aspirational. But there parts of the Bible are so ugly that I'm like I appreciate they left that in there. That's nice. We should talk about those things more um because it does show how nasty humans can be to one another too it's a human document. That it does I have to tell you guys you know what's funny this is a bit of a sidebar but yeah as as we as we have our times together like and and we learn we learn like our tendencies and and our strengths and our weaknesses I've been surprised at how much I have that Bible hour with brother John has become a thing and I laugh at it because I can't I can't extract this reality of who I am and who I've where I've come from right it's kind of like LeBron when you're when we were looking back on season one and you're like damn I am my father's son like when you look back at and I look back at me and I'm like shit I really I was really up in the Bible for a long time and it's still a paradigm for me. It's still I orient myself culturally because it's a long time. And you know what I miss teaching it because what I used to like to do was not use it as a thing to get people to do something as much as I love teaching the history. I used to love teaching the culture like here's why when he said this this is why it was so subversive and so like this overturned the the power structure when he said these things. I love teaching that kind of stuff um which is why I can't stand when I see the Bible being used to prop up Americanism or use to prop up a way of thinking about money and wealth or racism. It's just it just pisses me off because it could be used in such beautiful it's poetry. Most of that's kind of how I see a lot of the Bible is poetry. I love it. I like that interpretation. Well Antonio you're a poet you know what it's like to write something and when you write it you may have a very clear idea what it is about when you're writing it but sometimes you don't sometimes you just write from a feeling and you describe something and once you release it into the universe and it falls on other people's ears now it becomes something entirely different. Because now those people are interpreting those words in their way through their prism and their their experience. And it's kind of trippy as the creator of poetry isn't it to to learn how other people take it in.

SPEAKER_02 55:23

So that's why I asked about it being aspirational and Louis Vett would be so much better at this conversation. I can only create what is true to my experience and I can only say it as specifically as possible. And what is true is that the specificity of it is what makes it universal and the specificity of it is what makes it resonate with other people. It doesn't matter what the right the Quran is written in verse even though Muhammad peace be upon him was not um a poet the Bible is written in verses right and some of them are poetic but the aspiration of it the what is it we're supposed to be doing right and I haven't uh and maybe this is my piece uh LeBron I I'm sure has I haven't read the Torah um I haven't read the Bhagavad but it it seems to me as I listen to all of these scholars who have studied these verses that what they are saying is uh be good to one another and be of service to one another and at the end of the story that is the point and at the end of the poems that is the point whether the poems are pointing out um what someone has done wrong or what someone has done right. The point is to be of service to one another. Yes I love that I love that thank you for joining us as we talked about Black History Month and the importance of celebrating not only black American culture but the culture of humanity and what it is that we all bring to the table the importance of history in our current struggles and where we go from here.

SPEAKER_04 57:28

Appreciate you as always left on founders happy black history month people thank you for joining us still got questions other things you want to say well hit us up at 3forthefounders.com on Instagram Facebook YouTube or TikTok or send us a text through Bud Sprout. Remember to like and subscribe wherever you get your podcast and share the pod with someone you think can benefit from it or add to the conversation. Till the next time Left on Founders we out.

SPEAKER_00 58:02

Thank you for listening to the Three for the Founders podcast the views thoughts and opinions expressed are the speakers own and do not represent the views thoughts and opinions of any professional or academic institution. The material and information presented here is for general information purposes only listen at your own risk of becoming woke. That'll be great we could we could pose that to the people do you want to see us more often and not just in this three little rectangles do you want to see the three of us in the same place in the same room microphones in our face talking to each other if so donate to our Patreon go to LeBron's OnlyFans he shows pictures of his feet you can only a fan this is literally that clip is about to get posted oh my God oh my god for for ten dollars a month LeBron will call the woman of your dreams and he'll just say her name he'll just say we will save a poor white child in Ukraine just ten dollars a month. You spend that on an ice say my name say my name say my name there you go he's not gonna do it he's not gonna do it right now you just sang over his golden tones over his dulcet tones saying your full name