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DMX's Family EXPLODES, Karmelo Anthony Verdict & Family Drama
2 Playsin 5 hours
DMX finally got his street in Yonkers, and instead of a celebration, it turned into a live family feud between his ex-wife, his kids, and his fiancée, the mic literally got cut off. That kicks off a bigger question Bruce has been sitting on for weeks: who really gets to own somebody's legacy once they're gone.
From there, the show pivots to the Karmelo Anthony verdict, and Bruce does something most people online refused to do this time. He separates the facts of what happened under that tent from everything America turned it into afterward, while being honest about his own bias as a Black man watching an all-Black-absent jury hand down a 35-year sentence.
Then his sister Jay pulls up for Sibling Happy Hour to settle a real argument that's got nothing to do with their own family, but everything to do with parents, boundaries, and who actually gets a say in your house when you're not home. Family runs through the whole episode, just in three completely different forms.
#KarmeloAnthony #DMX #UnsolicitedPerspectives #BlackPodcast #CriminalJustice #RacialBias #TrueCrime #FamilyDrama #SiblingHappyHour #JuryBias #YonkersNY #HipHopLegacy #BlackCulture
Chapters:
00:00:00 "DMX's Legacy Battle, Karmelo Anthony's Verdict, & a Family Feud 🔥⚖️👀"
00:00:47 "DMX's Legacy Fight, Karmelo Anthony's Verdict, and Family Beef 🔥⚖️👀"
00:02:04 "DMX's Blended Family Fights Over His Legacy and Street Name 😤👀💬"
00:05:27 "Yonkers Honors DMX as Son Xavier Disrupts the Whole Ceremony 😳🔥👀"
00:08:23 "Desiree, Tashera and the Walkout That Stopped the Ceremony Cold 😬💔👀"
00:10:23 "Who Really Owns Somebody's Legacy After They Are Gone Forever 🤔💭👀"
00:13:46 "Wanting to Be Correct Instead of Right on Karmelo Anthony's Case 🧠💬👀"
00:16:12 "The Facts of the Case: Did Karmelo Know Anyone Inside That Tent 🤔📋👀"
00:18:01 "Why Texas Automatically Tries 17 Year Olds as Adults in Court ⚖️📋😳"
00:20:43 "The Verdict Breakdown: Guilty Charge and a 35 Year Sentence ⚖️😤👀"
00:25:47 "No Black Jurors on the Panel and the Denied Batson Challenge 😤⚖️👀"
00:28:57 "Media and Politicians Pour Gas on a Manufactured Culture War 🔥📺😤"
00:32:05 "The Data Behind Racial Gaps in Sentencing and Media Coverage 📊😤👀"
00:37:54 "Two Families Destroyed: Stripping the Case Down to the Truth 💔😢👀"
00:39:39 "Bruce's Own Bias: Holding Two Truths as a Black Man in America 🧠💭👀"
00:43:04 "The Uncomfortable Truth Is That We Don't Know What Happened 😬🤔👀"
00:47:24 "Jay Joins the Show to Break Down a Messy Family Parking Story 😤💬👀"
00:49:34 "Here's Where Things Change: The Bathroom Key Request Escalates 🔑😳👀"
00:51:25 "Jay's Honest Verdict and Why It Hits Different for Bruce Too 💯🧠👀"
00:58:13 "Forcing a Choice: Why You Risk Losing Both Parents for Good 😬💔👀"
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Unsolicited Perspectives'
00:00:00
Speaker
family squabbles, and culture worlds taking over the real conversation. We gonna get into it Let's get it!
Legacy and DMX's Street Naming
00:00:18
Speaker
Welcome. First of all, welcome. This is Unsolicited Perspectives. i am your host, Bruce Anthony, here to lead the conversation in important events and topics that are shaping today's society. Join the conversation and follow us wherever you get your audio podcasts. Subscribe to our YouTube channel for our video podcasts, YouTube exclusive content, and our YouTube membership.
00:00:37
Speaker
rate review like comment share share your friends share with your family hell even share with your enemies on today's episode i'm going to be talking about family then i'm going to be talking about the carmelo anthony situation then my sister is going to be joining the show to talk about an interesting family situation not dealing with ours but that's enough of the intro let's get to the show
00:01:08
Speaker
You know, I've talked on this show and my sister have talked on this show about legacy and everybody has this idea. Not everybody. Let me rephrase that. Not everybody, but a lot of people like to think they can frame their legacy after their, after their demise, after their home going.
00:01:27
Speaker
A lot of people are like, well, my kids are my legacy. Okay. The things I've done on my legacy, or you can try to name monuments after yourself. But the truth is, you don't get to determine your legacy. And the people coming after you determine what your legacy was.
Family Dispute Over DMX's Legacy
00:01:44
Speaker
True or false, no matter what you might think it is, the the people after you pass get to determine what your legacy is.
00:01:56
Speaker
What am I talking about? DMX finally got his street in Yonkers named after him. been, it's a really, truly great thing. If anybody knows anything about DMX, legendary rapper, legendary entertainer, legendary, not movie star, but he was definitely in movies and starred in movies. Exit Wounds is a prime example. He was starring alongside Jet li along with other movies. Charismatic individual.
00:02:22
Speaker
When he passed, it was a sad day. Flawed individual, of course, charismatic. Well, he had kind of a blended family. He had at least two baby mamas at least, right? So he had an ex-wife and he had a, his fiance when he died, he also had a child with her.
00:02:43
Speaker
Now they're dedicating this street to DMX, Earl Simmons. And his family was there. This blended family was there. Now I said at the top family, right?
00:02:56
Speaker
Now, we're going to be dealing with it in the second and a third segment as well. Not the second segment. Well, the second segment. Yeah, it all deals with it the whole show deals with family. But this first segment is specifically about DMX's family and this idea of legacy. So for all those people out there, men and women, who believe that their children are their legacy, let me tell you how much control you have over it. So what should have been a celebration of one of hip-hop's most beloved figures became a public dispute between DMX's oldest children, his ex-wife, and a woman he who he shared his final years with.
00:03:33
Speaker
And there is this uncomfortable question that we have to ask ourselves. Who really owns someone's legacy after they're gone? It's a tough conversation to have. I often have a conversation with my parents talking about my grandparents.
00:03:49
Speaker
They were their parents. They were my grandparents. Different relationship, right? They will tell me stories and I'm like, oh, man. Grandma and granddad, grandmas and granddads weren't as great of a people as I thought they were, but everybody is flawed, right?
00:04:08
Speaker
Everybody's flawed. I'm flawed. But that doesn't tarnish
00:04:14
Speaker
image of them. So we would all come at the legacies a little bit different. To me, every single one of my grandparents is just absolutely perfect angels. they Like, you can't tell me anything bad about not a one of them. I loved all of them with all of my heart. I feel like I had the greatest grandparents and the most loving grandparents. But once again, they were my parents.
00:04:34
Speaker
Right? So who controls that legacy? i guess their legacy is all of what we remember them by. and And that's really what the the answer to this question is. My grandparents didn't have any control over what their legacy was going to be or how they were going to be remembered, nor did they have any control over how long they were going to be remembered.
00:04:56
Speaker
If I have kids one day, they'll never meet my grandparents, what would be their great-grandparents. Their memories... die essentially with the grandchildren. If you're lucky enough and your grandparents make it to great grandparents, then maybe the great grandchildren, but eventually it's this mythical figure that you hear stories about that you have no connection to. That's eventually what happens. So nobody has control over one, what their legacy is, and two, how long they'll be remembered.
Blended Families and Legacy Challenges
00:05:31
Speaker
But DMX is getting the street named after him. So it was officially honored in Yonkers, New York, with the street dedication at the corner of School Street and Brooks Street. The intersection was renamed Earl DMX Simmons Way. The tribute was approved by the Yonkers City Council ahead and held near the neighborhood where DMX grew up. People in attendance were Yonkers City officials, the founders of the Rough Riders, family members, fans, and community leaders.
00:05:57
Speaker
However, the ceremony was supposed to be a celebration of of the most influential rappers ever to come out of New York. Instead, it became something else. Near the end of the ceremony, DMX's eldest son, Xavier Simmons, grabbed a microphone and stopped the program.
00:06:12
Speaker
Xavier argued there was, quote, absolutely no way the event should end without hearing from what he called DMX's original entire family.
00:06:24
Speaker
He then brought his mother, Tashira Simmons, and several siblings onto the stage. The moment immediately shifted their attention away from the street dedication and toward the ongoing tensions within the DMX family.
00:06:38
Speaker
Now, who is Tashira? who would Xavier brought up on ah on the stage. For people who don't know, this was DMX's wife for years. She was there before the fame, before the platinum records, before the movies, before the Rough Rider empire became a cultural movement. When people think of DMX's rise, Teixeira was were present for most of most of that journey. So when Xavier and Teixeira felt overlooked during the ceremony celebration of DMX's life, they clearly saw it as more than a scheduling issue. They saw it as an attempt to erase their place in history. Now here becomes the problem with a blended family.
00:07:12
Speaker
Right. And I know a lot of people that have blended families. And and what do I mean by blended families? You have ah a mother and a father. They have children. mother and father don't work out. They split. The mother and father go on to new relationships and have more children.
00:07:27
Speaker
Right. Or maybe it's just one of the one of the parents goes on to have more children, get married and have more children with somebody else. That man or a woman, that mother or father feels like that's all of their family. But there is immediate family. Those siblings may or may not get along. They're half siblings. Sometimes they're step siblings. Sometimes sometimes they're a combination of both. It can become a very complicated issue, especially if the divorce was contentious.
00:07:59
Speaker
I don't know if the divorce between DMX and his first wife was contentious. I don't know. But there could be some resentment held by what x Xavier called his original family, which is crazy, by the way, his original family after they got a rise, right? After DMX rose to fame and got money, like they was there from the bottom. And then, you know, DMX rose to the top and got rich.
00:08:26
Speaker
Who is Desiree Lindstrom? So, detention centered around Desiree, the mother of DMX's youngest child and a woman who shared the later years of his life. Xavier publicly accused her of a sideline DMX's children and to share her during the ceremony. According to reports, he directly criticized her from the s stage. The microphone had to eventually be cut off. The mayor proceeded with their official unveiling, and Desiree reportedly left before participating in the sign revealed. At that point, the celebration had become about a ah family dispute playing out in front of cameras and fans.
00:09:00
Speaker
And so it's crazy because they're all family. They're family. They're a blended family. And at least the the siblings are are related by blood through Earl Simmons, a.k.a. DMX.
00:09:16
Speaker
And this is supposed to be honoring him. you My personal opinion is you should move past whatever petty grievances you have to celebrate the person that you all loved.
00:09:29
Speaker
However, I'm not directly affected by this. So I can take emotion out of it. Some people can take emotion out of it. And I get that. You got to always take emotion out of everything. you You feel the way you feel and you have a right to feel the way you feel.
00:09:45
Speaker
It's your reactions, your response to those feelings that dictates what who you are as a person. And, you know, look, I don't know the ins and outs of what's going on in this family, but it must clearly remain important that you're honoring your father, your ex-husband, youre you're the fiancé, those children from the fiancé honoring their father.
00:10:17
Speaker
But this is where the story gets interesting because this isn't really about the street sign. It's about legacy. When somebody becomes larger than life, who gets to tell their story?
00:10:30
Speaker
The first wife, the children, the fiance, the estate, the fans, the city honoring them. Everybody believes they have a claim and everybody usually has a piece of the truth.
00:10:44
Speaker
But we've seen this countless times after major celebrities die. Families fight, friends fall out, business partners disagree. People begin arguing over money, recognition, credit, ownership of narrative. Because once a person is gone, they can no longer speak for themselves.
00:11:01
Speaker
every Everybody starts speaking on their behalf. And that's when things get really messy. But here's the part people often miss. There are two things can be true at the same time, which is a theme in this show.
00:11:16
Speaker
Teixeira can be the foundational part of DMX's story, and Desiree can also be an important part of DMX's story. One doesn't erase the other. One relationship happened during one chapter, the other happened during another chapter. Trying to pretend either chapter didn't exist is just trying to rewrite history.
00:11:34
Speaker
People love talking about legacy as if it's something simple. You work hard, become successful, and people remember you. But that's not really how it works. Legacy isn't just what you accomplish. It's the people you leave behind. It's the relationships you built. It's the wounds you never healed. It's the conversations that never got finished.
00:11:54
Speaker
And here's the uncomfortable part people don't like to talk about. When somebody dies, the fight isn't usually over money first, it's over significance. Everybody wants to know where they fit in the story.
00:12:05
Speaker
Everyone wants acknowledgement. that their contribution mattered. Everybody wants confirmation that they weren't just a footnote in someone else's life. That's what made this moment really sad.
00:12:18
Speaker
ah street named after DMX should have been about Earl Simmons. Instead, it became about the people left behind trying to define what Earl Simmons meant to them. And maybe that's the final lesson.
00:12:30
Speaker
No matter how famous you become, your legacy doesn't belong to you forever. Eventually it belongs to the people who survive you. And if those relationships aren't settled while you're alive, the arguments tend to continue long after you're gone.
Cultural Sensitivity and Contentious Topics
00:12:53
Speaker
You know, i debated whether or not personally and private and you guys heard it or saw it if you've been keeping up with the show. i did it on the show as well. Whether I was going to talk about this subject or not, because like most things that is injected with culture wars, it becomes a hot topic.
00:13:17
Speaker
And I feel like when people get emotional, they can't be reasoned with. and And not to say that I'm excluded from that. So I wanted to take a step back if I was gonna talk about this and give a little time to let the air breathe before i attempted to give my thoughts on everything that happened.
00:13:41
Speaker
And here's the the overall thesis of this entire segment. Two things can be true at the same time.
00:13:52
Speaker
Now, some people are going to be pissed off at, well, I'm going to real honest. There's not a lot of people that's going to like this segment because it's very nuanced.
00:14:03
Speaker
People like you to have to be on one side and defend it with piss and vigor to the bitter end. But how I live my life is I want to be correct, not right.
00:14:19
Speaker
And I've explained the difference. Some people still don't get it. I don't want to win an argument. That's never my purpose. If my purpose is just to win an argument, then I'm not opening myself up to learning.
00:14:36
Speaker
And if you're not opening yourself up to learning, there's no possible way that you can open yourself up to understanding. And i want to understand things.
00:14:48
Speaker
That is the the main thing that drives me in life. And I wasn't able to identify it until I got into my 40s.
00:14:59
Speaker
I just want to understand. You know, I've gotten into a lot of arguments with my father growing up, questioning, asking, why. just want to understand.
00:15:12
Speaker
And so it's not about me being right. It's about me being correct. And by me sacrificing the overwhelming need to be right, I can gain son some understanding and hopefully on the back end be correct.
00:15:27
Speaker
Now, what I have to say, is this correct? I think it is. Because I've really sat and thought about this. I've talked to people. I've heard their point of views from from all sides.
00:15:40
Speaker
and really, really sat with myself to come up with some form of understanding of the situation.
00:15:54
Speaker
But there's two separate situations. What do I mean by that? Okay, let's focus. specifically and clearly on what the absolute facts are, not biases, not opinions, what the absolute facts are.
Carmelo Anthony's Case: Legal and Racial Narratives
00:16:15
Speaker
Before anybody could talk about race, there were a bunch of different witnesses for both the prosecution and defense of this case.
00:16:26
Speaker
They actually went on record. Now, could those witnesses have biases? Of course. And the main point of all of this ah is that we're getting the information secondhand. But you you want to have some belief in the criminal justice system.
00:16:45
Speaker
I'll get into more in-depth analysts on that in a second. But here's what's clear. Because there's been some discrepancies.
00:16:56
Speaker
Did Carmelo Anthony... know anybody in the tent? Yes, he did. He knew Eddie Perra, who was a memorial student, and they knew each other. They had hung out.
00:17:12
Speaker
Perra says that they weren't really friends, and okay, maybe they weren't. But they had hung out three times within the last three weeks before he went to the tent to go visit them. There's been witnesses that said Eddie called Carmelo over to say, hey, man, what's up?
00:17:30
Speaker
There some witnesses that said Carmelo just came in.
00:17:34
Speaker
We do know Carmelo was definitely an intent. We do know that he definitely stabbed Metcalf. He never denied that. What is in dispute, and once again, this is opinion, and for this part of the segment, we are focusing on facts, was
00:17:53
Speaker
the altercation. Okay? But we're not going to get into that. We're going to get into the fact of you know, people saying, well, he was 17 years old. Why was he tried as an adult? And the state of Texas.
00:18:06
Speaker
They try you as an adult at 17. It's like not up for discussion. and didn't even go to the juvenile court. You are automatically charged as an adult in Texas. It's one of the the few states that still do something like that. You can't fight in the war. You can't buy cigarettes, but they could charge you as an adult. And sure enough, that would make sense because that's Texas, right?
00:18:26
Speaker
Texas is always doing their own thing. But to be clear, Carmelo did know a person in a tent that he was visiting. Another fact of the case, people love to ask, why was he in the tent? It wasn't his school. Well, his school, his team didn't have a tent.
00:18:47
Speaker
And it was raining. So he went to that tent. It wasn't as if He had a tent and he was just going around to all the other people's tents. and that His school didn't have a tent.
00:19:00
Speaker
So that's another fact of the case. And witnesses, whether this is fact or opinion or not, I don't know, but witnesses have said that during this meet, you know, there was different people from different schools going in all different types of tents.
00:19:17
Speaker
Okay. So, but let's focus on the fact that he was visiting a friend that wasn't it wasn't like he didn't know anybody in the tent, okay?
00:19:28
Speaker
Even though Eddie Perra said, like yeah yeah we like, we know each other, but we ain't really friends like that. And that may very well be the truth and the case.
00:19:39
Speaker
You know, perception, reality, maybe Carmelo thought they were friends. maybe Look, there's a lot of people out there in the world that think I'm their friend, and I'm not. I'm friendly with them, but I'm not their friend. So...
00:19:52
Speaker
I'm not going to combat that.
00:19:56
Speaker
The defense brought up reasonable doubt in the case. And it was, the reasonable doubt was, is that Carmelo felt surrounded.
00:20:08
Speaker
He felt threatened and he attacked. I wasn't there. I don't know if that's how he felt, but that's the defense's argument.
00:20:22
Speaker
There are several witness testimonies that say that Metcalfe touched him, that Metcalfe grabbed him. What we do know for sure is that there was definitely a physical altercation.
00:20:39
Speaker
Carmelo just didn't go into his bag with a knife for no reason and stabbed Metcalfe. We also know that it wasn't premeditated. We know that he did not set out that day to go kill somebody.
00:20:54
Speaker
We know that. So these are just the facts of the case. Carmelo never denied that he stabbed him, said, I, it's not alleged I did it.
00:21:06
Speaker
These are some other facts of the case. The jury deliberated for about three hours and they rejected both the self-defense and the lesser manslaughter charged and returned a unanimous guilty verdict.
00:21:23
Speaker
Now, the verdict carried 99 years. and Like I said, the jury rejected the defense sudden passion argument. which would have capped it at a lowering of the sentencing.
00:21:37
Speaker
So they landed at 35 years with the possibility of parole roughly after 17 years.
00:21:45
Speaker
The prosecutor has gotten criticism from both sides. Some saying that the the sentence was too long. Some saying that it wasn't long enough. The jury came out with 35 years with the choice of up to years.
00:22:04
Speaker
Okay, those are the facts of the case. That's what happened. Young man visiting an acquaintance in a tent.
00:22:15
Speaker
The people of that school was like, you ain't supposed to be here, ride out. He was like, I'm not riding out nowhere. I'm chilling, I'm just, I'm hanging out. They're like, you need to get out of here. This is like, make me.
00:22:29
Speaker
Whether they made him or not, he felt threatened. and decided to grab the knife and stab somebody. Metcalf, the young man Metcalf, and ended it ended up in Metcalf losing his life.
00:22:46
Speaker
It is a situation that are that's two young men, I've been a young man, with bravado
00:23:00
Speaker
Neither one wanting to back down, which typically in my day would end up in fisticuffs. Every now and then it would end up in maybe some knife player or gunshots. But those were typically in situations where people were scared and reacting.
00:23:19
Speaker
Most people don't want to go there, right? That's not how they want to respond to situations. But the male ego is a monster.
00:23:31
Speaker
So that's the facts of the case. That's what actually happened. People are arguing whether he should have been in the tent or not. I don't know. Some people are saying, hey, it was not uncommon for different schools to go in other tents.
00:23:46
Speaker
Some people are saying, he shouldn't have been in the school's tent that wasn't his school. I don't know. What I do know is There was an altercation that ended in the loss of life.
00:23:58
Speaker
That's not really the story, though. It should be the focus. That should be the focus. But that's not where the story went after that.
00:24:11
Speaker
And the reason why I've been hesitant to talk about it is because What is a simple matter of something that happens every day in life?
00:24:22
Speaker
Two people having an altercation
00:24:26
Speaker
that unfortunately ends in a loss of life. This is not me being hyperbolic. This happens every day.
00:24:40
Speaker
This situation that happened...
00:24:44
Speaker
this tragic situation that happened turned into something far bigger than what it should have been.
00:24:56
Speaker
The focus should have been on two families, lost family members, one to death, one to imprisonment in adulthood for something that was stupid.
00:25:09
Speaker
That's That should be the theme of this situation. It should be a learning experience to young folks. Don't be dumb.
00:25:22
Speaker
But instead, it was the adults who were dumb. What do I mean? Nobody in that tent was on trial for being black or white But a lot of people outside damn i'm sure made sure that this case couldn't stay alive without focusing on the fact that there's young Black man and a young White man.
00:25:47
Speaker
And to be fair, there is some racial aspects outside of Carmelo being Black and Metcalfe being White.
00:26:01
Speaker
There are some other racial components. One of the biggest ones is there were no black people on this 12-person jury. They had a pick of 500 people.
00:26:14
Speaker
Prosecutors struck the last three black jurors. And a Baston challenge from the defense was denied after prosecutors argued the strikes were for race-neutral reasons. The Baston challenge is the challenge that you are striking down jurors because of racial makeup Right.
00:26:34
Speaker
And their reasoning, the prosecutor's reasoning was striking down because they said that they were educators. And the defense's comeback was one of the white jurors was an educator, was an esthetician teaching adults, but still an educator. And based on the fact that they were educators and that was the basis of their argument that this juror shouldn't have been allowed in. But some reason these three black jurors were disqualified. So there were it was not an all white jury.
00:27:03
Speaker
but there were no black people on this jury. And it is, you know, Collin County is majority white, but it's like 35% black.
00:27:15
Speaker
So there were definitely, there's definitely a a racial component to the fact that there was nobody that was black on that jury. And most people would say,
00:27:26
Speaker
Most people who aren't black would say, well what's the difference? You know, every, people don't see color. That's bullshit. Okay. People that say that they don't see race are lying to themselves. What they're trying to say is, I don't see race as an indicator of my actions or interactions with a person.
00:27:44
Speaker
And while they want that to be true, I have learned in my almost 46 years of life that that is not the case.
00:27:57
Speaker
People see color. That's just what it is. It doesn't have to be a negative or a positive thing. I'm a black man. Notice what I said. Black man. Black comes first.
00:28:10
Speaker
It comes first. And anybody describing me would describe me as a black man. And he's just like, oh, he's a guy. and He's about 6'4", 240. we're like, what? Like, what is his nationality? Oh, he's black. Why didn't you just say that at top?
00:28:24
Speaker
Or, you know, I don't see race. Bullshit. You saw it. You know, he's a black man. It's okay to say that. So the idea that people don't see race and don't interject themselves based on their racial makeup and the decisions that they make and the interactions that they have life, especially in this country, is all a crock of shit.
00:28:45
Speaker
Don't say that. You're lying to yourself. And anybody that says, no, that's not true, you're lying to yourself. Ask those people around you because it seems like you're not being a good judge of character on your own.
00:28:57
Speaker
How else were there adults acting like jerks? Well, you had the media, right? What should have also been a focus on two teenage boys getting into an altercation that tragically resulted in a loss of life.
00:29:16
Speaker
That should have been the focus. But it couldn't be Fox. It couldn't be News Mac. It couldn't be any of these conservative news networks. without trying to interject culture wars.
00:29:28
Speaker
I saw something similar recently because Obama just opened up his presidential library, and they're calling Obama the most divisive president that we've ever seen.
00:29:39
Speaker
And in one way, they are absolutely right. He is the most divisive president that we've ever seen. Why? Because he's Black. and you didn't want him there in the first place. Nothing that he actually did was divisive. You want to know who is the most divisive?
00:29:54
Speaker
The person currently in office. You want to know what else is also divisive? The media tent and the representation of what they do and how they're framing it. Fox, the correspondent reported shockingly racially charged comments outside the courthouse.
00:30:10
Speaker
including a supporter calling the verdict a legal lynching. Now, a person would probably say that because there were no Black people on the jury. I'm going to get more into that later. But you see what they're saying, right?
00:30:23
Speaker
right there You see the picture that they're painting. Black people or people that are supporting Carmelo, who happens to be Black, are saying this is a legal lynching.
00:30:36
Speaker
Further inciting people because a young white man was killed and at the same time show a side by side of Jeff Metcalfe's statement saying that this was never about race or politics.
00:30:50
Speaker
It wasn't. The media and the outside people made this about race or politics. I agree with Jeff Metcalfe about this. It wasn't. Then you had Jasmine Crockett, who was called a race-baiting thug by ah a Republican representative because she said that she believed Carmelo Anthony's self-defense claim.
00:31:16
Speaker
I always thought it was innocent until proven guilty. So if a young person... a woman, elderly person, disabled person, anybody says they acted in self-defense, you give them the benefit of a doubt until it's proven wrong.
00:31:34
Speaker
There's nothing that's race baiting about that, except for the fact that somebody is defending a black person. Let's also examine how race played a part in this. Let's continue on with this conversation because it wasn't just a jury.
00:31:52
Speaker
It wasn't just the media. It's the historical pattern that this taps into, right? What do I mean about this? Okay. A study found black male offenders received sentences averaging 19.1% longer than white male offenders for the same crime And separate research found Black and Latino youth are more likely to have prosecutors request they be tried as a adults with no factor other than race, including offensive offensive severity, escaping, explaining the gap.
00:32:25
Speaker
Right?
00:32:28
Speaker
What does that mean? It means Black and brown kids are disproportionately charged and sentenced harder than their white kind counterparts. This is historical and present data.
00:32:47
Speaker
This is clear. So when people see the 35-year sentence, they're going to look to that. They're going to look to that and say, here's another example of a young black man being found guilty and sentenced. And the sentencing is too harsh.
00:33:05
Speaker
You had the same thing happen when the 1994 crime bill came. And yes, there were a ah lot of black people and in the Congressional Black Caucus who wanted that crime bill, who did not see that there was going to be a disparity between Black prisoners and white prisoners and how much time that they got.
00:33:29
Speaker
An Equal Justice Initiative-backed analysts of media coverage across 10 criminal cases found mugshots were used 45% of the cases involving Black defendants.
00:33:40
Speaker
versus just 8% for white defendants. And white crime victims were nearly four times more likely than black victims to be shown in photos with friends and family.
00:33:54
Speaker
A University of Maryland sociology study on celebrity domestic violence coverage found black men were framed as criminals roughly three times more often than white males in equivalent stories.
00:34:08
Speaker
And articles were two and a half times more likely to offer an excuse, whether it be anger, addiction for white offenders as opposed to black defenders.
00:34:20
Speaker
And then let's talk about TV and film, right? The black man as a threat or villain archetype has a long documented history going all the way back to a birth of a nation where the literal plot was built around the fear of black men as predators.
00:34:41
Speaker
Though decades of crime drama casting patterns with black characters dis support disproportionately appearing as suspects, gang members, or muscle rather than victims, professionals, or leads.
00:34:54
Speaker
Academic research on local TV crime coverage has specifically studied how repeated images of black suspects in police cu custody reinforce existing stereotypes and promote racial fears in a community.
00:35:09
Speaker
Whether or not that's the producer's intent, it does happen. So let's examine that. There is a really funny and true SNL skit with a news group, two black newscasters, two white newscasters, and they're reading crime reports.
00:35:32
Speaker
And each race is excited when it's not their race that's being represented. Black people do that collectively. All the time. We look at ourselves as one big group because we're presented in this country as one big group. When one person does something, other people look at that particular group and judge the entire group.
00:36:02
Speaker
It happens. It happens in almost every group. But black people historically have been looked at that way.
00:36:12
Speaker
When I say all of this stuff, when I'm presenting all of this stuff, I'm not minimizing the life that was lost for Metcalf.
00:36:25
Speaker
I'm not. I'm just explaining to you why you may have a lot of black people defending Carmelo and upset about the sentencing.
00:36:41
Speaker
That's all I'm saying. But let me bring this back to, once again, the facts. If we strip away the cable hits and the GOP versus Crockett and the GoFundMes and the
Recognizing Personal Bias in Sensitive Discussions
00:36:58
Speaker
vitriol that we see on social media, it goes back to just one picture.
00:37:05
Speaker
Two kids, one dead, one in prison for the rest of their adult lives. over something that happened under a minute. This shouldn't be a culture war.
00:37:19
Speaker
This should be, what can we do to help these kids? That should be the story. But outside influencers, adults, with hidden agendas, make it a culture war thing.
00:37:35
Speaker
And like I said, It's not like there isn't some real evidence that this did deserve to be examined as a racial thing. Because I could go back to the juror. I could go back to the media coverage. I can go back to representatives not knowing what happened, commenting on the case, openly saying, I haven't been following the case, but openly saying that on Fox News.
00:38:08
Speaker
But this is clear.
00:38:12
Speaker
Two families were destroyed. That it can't be undone. Metcalfe lost his life. That can't be undone. Carmelo is in jail for at least 17 years.
00:38:26
Speaker
The young man is only 19 years old right now. He was 17 years old when it happened. 17 years at least before he can reach parole.
00:38:37
Speaker
That's where this lies. All this other stuff, where was he bullied? what What happened in that tent? We don't know. All we have is witness testimony and we're getting it secondhand.
00:38:51
Speaker
And we don't know if the witnesses have biases for the defense or prosecution. We don't know. The story isn't about him and Carmelo being black and Metcalf being white.
00:39:05
Speaker
Not truly. The story is about two young men who lost their lives
00:39:15
Speaker
in an instant over something that didn't need to be.
00:39:24
Speaker
That's really what it's about. But it's also about something else. You know, the older I get, the more i realize that sometimes the hardest thing to do is to hold two truths in your head at the same time.
00:39:42
Speaker
On the one hand, there are legitimate questions here. The all-white jury, the best in challenge, the long-documented history of black defendants being treated differently by the criminal justice system.
00:39:54
Speaker
Those conversations aren't made up. They aren't conspiracy theories. They are backed by decades of data, court cases, and lived experiences. But, on the other hand, we can't let history become a shortcut that allows us to stop looking at the facts in front of us.
00:40:13
Speaker
And before I go any further, I think it's only fair that I acknowledge my own bias. Because I have one. As a black man, and once upon a time, as a young black man, there's a part of me that naturally wants to take Carmelo's side.
00:40:28
Speaker
I've been in situations where I felt threatened. I've been in situations where I felt outnumbered. I've been in situations where I felt like I had to stand up for myself because nobody else was going to do it.
00:40:39
Speaker
I lived in Lynchburg, Virginia. I went to high school there. I got into a fight with a white kid who called me the N-word. So when I hear people say, why didn't he just leave?
00:40:50
Speaker
It's a part of me that immediately understands why somebody might say, nobody's going to tell me where I can and can't be. And that reaction doesn't come from nowhere. From black Americans, there's a long history in this country of being told exactly where we could go, where we couldn't go, where we could sit, where we couldn't sit,
00:41:11
Speaker
what schools we can attend, what neighborhoods we can live in, and what doors we were allowed to walk through. Those days are gone. But the memory of them isn't.
00:41:24
Speaker
That experience gets passed down. And unless you've lived with that history, unless you've experienced that constant dehumanization that black people have faced in this country, it can be difficult to understand why some of us instinctively react the way we do.
00:41:39
Speaker
But if I'm going to ask everybody else to examine their biases, i have to examine mine too. Because the truth is my personal experience doesn't change the facts.
00:41:51
Speaker
My empathy for Carmelo doesn't change the facts. My understanding of why he may have felt threatened doesn't change the facts. And that's where this gets real difficult.
00:42:03
Speaker
Because I look at that jury selection and I immediately think, I've seen this movie before. I've read too many history books. I've seen too many photographs. I've heard too many stories that ended with these words.
00:42:17
Speaker
Found guilty by an all-white jury. Now, to be fair, this jury wasn't all white, but it was 100% absent of Black people. And when I see that, i ask myself a question.
00:42:31
Speaker
How is that a jury of your peers? Now, whether that affected the outcome or not is a separate conversation. But when people see Black folks rushing to defend Carmelo, there's reasoning behind it.
00:42:44
Speaker
Right or wrong, there is a reason. You can try to understand that reason, or you can ignore it, but pretending it doesn't exist won't make it disappear.
00:42:56
Speaker
At the same time, another truth remains. This young man did not deserve to die. Nothing happened under that tent that should have resulted in a loss of life.
00:43:08
Speaker
That's what I mean when I say it's hard to hold two truths at the same time. Both things can be true. I can understand why some black and immediate Americans immediately identify with Carmelo.
00:43:20
Speaker
And I can believe that a teenager lost his life unnecessarily. Both of those things can exist together. But here's the uncomfortable part people don't want to talk about.
00:43:31
Speaker
What I know for sure is that we actually don't know what happened. We weren't there. Every single one of us is learning about it secondhand. The witnesses were there.
00:43:43
Speaker
The people under that tent were there. We weren't. And that's important because somewhere along the way, America stopped talking about what happened under that tent and started talking about everything else.
00:43:54
Speaker
We started talking about politics. We started talking about race. We started talking about Democrats and Republicans. We started talking about culture wars. We started talking about what this case means instead of what this case is.
00:44:10
Speaker
And that's where things get dangerous. Because what happened between these two men probably had very little to do with race. But what happened afterward The national conversation, the political arguments, the assumptions, the narrative, the sides people immediately picked, that was absolutely racial.
00:44:29
Speaker
That's a story I know all too well. It's a story woven throughout the history of this country. It's a story that exists in the present. And unfortunately, it's probably story that's going to exist in the future because race in America is rarely just about the event itself.
00:44:47
Speaker
It's about the baggage we all bring to the event. Black people bring generations of experiences with discrimination, exclusion, and unequal treatment under the law.
00:44:59
Speaker
White people bring their own experiences, assumptions, fears, and beliefs. And before long, everybody is arguing about the history they carry instead of the facts sitting right in front of them.
00:45:11
Speaker
The tragedy is that a young man is dead. The tragedy is another young man will spend a large portion of his life behind bars. The tragedy is two families are living a nightmare that can never be undone.
00:45:27
Speaker
Everything else came later. And maybe the most honest thing any of us could do is admit that we're all bringing our own experiences, our own fears, our own politics, and our own biases into this conversation.
00:45:41
Speaker
I know I am. The difference is whether we're willing to acknowledge it. Because once we stop doing that, we no longer search for the truth. We just recruit facts to join our side.
00:45:54
Speaker
And that's how real people become symbols. That's how tragedies become political props. That's how complicated human beings get reduced to hashtags and talking points.
00:46:06
Speaker
And that's how we end up learning absolutely nothing from the things that should teach us the most.
Family Boundaries and Personal Space
00:46:22
Speaker
All right, ladies and gentlemen, I wanted to welcome my sister to the show for this third segment because I wanted to tell my sister this story. It's a family story, not our family story. I swear to y'all, this not has has nothing to do with us. If it did, I wouldn't have to tell my sister because she would already know it. Right. This was something that somebody said to me, and I told them directly, this is going on the show because this is...
00:46:45
Speaker
yeah I know what I think about this situation. Okay. Okay. I was curious to hear what you think. And I'm curious to hear what the audience thinks, because I could just be living in my own world and not being able to see everything.
00:47:01
Speaker
So ok the theme on this show already has been family. Whether we talk about DMX's family, you know, causing a tiff at his naming of his of his street. So now we're going to get into another family story.
00:47:16
Speaker
So this is what I was told earlier today. Somebody I know doesn't have a good relationship with one of their parents. Okay. It is has not been worked on.
00:47:29
Speaker
They have worked on the issues themselves in therapy. Okay. And I said, hey, that's a fantastic start. And sometimes your parents are who your parents are, and they ain't going to change. So you just have to deal with the past and and live on with the past. But it's just one of their parents. The other parent, they absolutely adore.
00:47:50
Speaker
so Are their parents still together? Parents are still together. Okay. So the parents are still together. Okay. And i told them, I was like, look, you know you're on the outside on this one, right?
00:48:03
Speaker
Because the the parent that you do like, they they know that you don't like the other parent. Oh, they've been vocal about that. They've been vocal about the issues that they've always had, right? Okay. And I was like, you're in the outs because a parent is always going to choose their partner over their child because that was a choice. I mean, it's all a choice, but that's supposed to be the first bond. So this person is going on vacation for the 4th of July. And the parents had asked earlier if they could park their car
00:48:39
Speaker
at this person's house, their child's house, so that they could go see the fireworks. Because where the fireworks are, it's closer to to that person's house than their house. ok and And the person was like, yeah, sure, no problem. You park at my building all all the time. This was before that they were leaving.
00:48:57
Speaker
Okay. The person decides to go on vacation and tells... their one parent that they're good with, hey, I'm not going to be around, but you can still park at my place. It's no big deal. Okay.
00:49:11
Speaker
They assumed that when they told one parent, the parent would tell the other parent. Okay. And the other parent that they're not really cool with was like, I didn't know anything about this.
00:49:27
Speaker
What does this change materially at all? Here's where things change. Okay. Okay. So the parents were like, okay, well, can we still park at at your place?
00:49:43
Speaker
This person was like, yes, of course. but They were like, well, what if what if you're not going to be there? What if we need to go to the bathroom or something like that to get into your place? are you going leave us the keys or something?
00:49:58
Speaker
The person said, oh, I'm not allowing you in my place. There are bathrooms in the lobby of my building. You can use the bathrooms. This is right before Father's Day, right? Okay.
00:50:13
Speaker
So the parents cancel Father's Day plans. Parents said, don't even send a gift. don't eat Don't worry about it. The person got upset, like, what the hell is y'all problem? you know Y'all are rearranging what I had planned this weekend for Father's Day, all because I won't let y'all use my place.
00:50:43
Speaker
Now, this is the story.
00:50:47
Speaker
I have my opinions. Basically, the story is, That this person does not want their family in their place when they are not there. Doesn't mind if they are there.
00:51:00
Speaker
They can come over. it They come over all the time. School's not a problem. Yeah. but When they are not there. Yeah. They don't want their family anywhere near their place. So I present to you. not anywhere near. They can still park.
00:51:15
Speaker
like Which was your original thing in the first place? you Why do you... Okay, go ahead and ask. you I present to you. Go ahead. I present to you this, and I'm curious to hear your perspective because i they asked me, you're like, what do you think?
00:51:30
Speaker
And I told them what I thought. And they were just like, oh, I didn't expect that. And so I'm curious. You say what you think, and then I'll tell you what I said.
00:51:41
Speaker
And, you know, we'll go from there. The other person's well with them, they're right. I don't want you in my, I don't want nobody in my place. I'm not there. ah Yeah, I get it. First of all,
00:51:54
Speaker
The whole thing about being upset that I'm not going to be there in the first place lets me know y'all was planning on accessing my apartment like that or or my space, my home, whatever. Like that, that lets me know because i already said, hey, I'm not going to be there, but y'all are still free to park.
00:52:14
Speaker
So nothing has materially changed. You are still, your plans to park are still your plans. Like right nothing has changed. it's just you will not have access to my place because I'm not going to be there.
00:52:32
Speaker
Right. Will you want to leave us a key? Absolutely not. Do you have a key now? They do not. Okay. Well, then why would I leave you one?
00:52:44
Speaker
You didn't have one in the first place. So that don't even make sense. You wanted a place to park. I'm providing you that. Why? What if we have to go to the bathroom? There's a million different, you can throw a rock and hit a toilet. Like, I don't understand. That's not in that's something you make up because they wanted access to your place for some reason.
00:53:09
Speaker
And that's such a made up thing. What if we have to use the bathroom?
00:53:15
Speaker
Please. that we if If this is in the DMV, there's plenty of porta-potties when you go on the mall to watch fireworks or wherever they decided to go to watch fireworks. There's plenty of porta-potties. You're probably going get something to eat. You could go in the restaurant. And yes, my building also has bathrooms in the lobby. Like, not like I would be questioning, why would you need to to go to the bathroom?
00:53:40
Speaker
What? Go to the bathroom in the lobby. Huh. Okay. No. All right. No. the it's It's their place.
00:53:50
Speaker
Yes. And if they don't want anyone in their place when they're not home, they're well within their right to say, I don't think that's unreasonable.
00:54:03
Speaker
So this is what I told them. I said, oh you're wrong. I was like, yes, you have every right to not want somebody in your place.
00:54:15
Speaker
I get that. That's your right. This is family, though. Like, like no if your parents its who are... yeah So I immediately put myself in it. And was like, there's no way in hell that I would ever say, hey, mom, dad, go use the public bathroom. You can't use my bathroom.
00:54:34
Speaker
They are not there. But then I had to realize my relationship with my parents is is different. I wouldn't have any problem with them. be They have been in my house without me being here. like Everybody has been in your house without you being there, okay? Everybody has. Your house is an open-door policy.
00:54:54
Speaker
So i come into with that issue. with that with that aspect. So it is difficult for me to take myself out of that, even though I get on people all the time. It's not about you take yourself out of it and look at the full picture. It's still tough to me, no matter how my relationship is with one parent, not both of them, it's just one parent, that I wouldn't allow them access to my place because it's convenient for them, especially when I'm going to be gone.
00:55:22
Speaker
Where the person was adamant. It was like, i don't want I don't want anybody in my place without me being there. And I was like, no okay, all right. i Like, i I get it. but Yeah. No. i don't But I didn't get it. no I get it, but I didn't get it.
00:55:36
Speaker
you You have to take yourself out of it. Like, me, personally, this is a non-issue. Because... my parents can get into my home. like vanity they They got the door code. So it's not, this is a non-issue, but this isn't, he wasn't, ah he or she wasn't asking me well, when I, do they're asking if you were me, what would you do?
00:56:07
Speaker
And so if I'm them, i have a parent that I am not close to, And I don't want.
00:56:20
Speaker
I'm not going say one can go up and the other can't. I got to say now across the board, and nobody can. And then also, if the way I feel about my home is that if I don't want people in my home, if I'm not there, I think that's reasonable.
00:56:34
Speaker
Yeah, i don't think that's unreasonable at all. I think the borderline and the borderline, the the the. the What is that when you get to the point, the default line or whatever? What is it that I'm thinking of?
00:56:47
Speaker
Like the starting point. Okay, let's just go with starting point. Starting point works. The starting point in all of this is this person don't want nobody in their house when they're not there, no matter who they are. It might be God. right hey They might not allow God in the house ah when they're not there, right? So understanding that they want that type of privacy.
00:57:12
Speaker
i kind of got it. I called them out on the fact that I was like, but your partner has access to your place and and you don't think nothing of it. But they corrected me and they were like, nope, they don't have access to my place like that. And if I'm out of town,
00:57:31
Speaker
They can't just just be staying at my place. I said, OK, you like that across the board. I get it. And then I had to go back and I had to be like, look, I wouldn't do it.
00:57:42
Speaker
I would handle it differently. But I understand why you are. i get it. That's just not how I would do things. So if you're asking me if you're right or wrong, I don't think you're right or wrong. I think you're teetering that line.
00:57:57
Speaker
but i do But I did say, eventually, one or two things is gonna have to happen in this relationship. Because what you're forcing the the parent that you're good with is you're forcing them to choose. So yeah if you don't get right with the one parent, you can lose them both.
00:58:16
Speaker
and And they were like, well, I don't understand that. And I was like, because you're second in this dynamic, you're not the first choice. The first choice is the person they spend their life with.
00:58:27
Speaker
Yes. Yes. The person I've chose to spend my life with. When you have children, you making a choice to raise them and then let them go off into the world. Right. That is not, but you're not choosing to spend your life with your children. Now, some of y'all don't understand that.
00:58:43
Speaker
Some of them don't. It won't cut the cord. got to cut And I'm looking at mothers with sons. is she okay okay Not cutting the cord. okay yeah Look, some of these mothers with sons, like, I know our mother, whenever she lets y'all live y'all lives, like, but some of these mothers with sons, it's like, okay, cut the cord.
00:59:06
Speaker
But, like, like Yeah, bes that's her partner i she or his partner. i don't Actually, I don't know which parent, but that's their partner.
00:59:17
Speaker
So they're not going to go anywhere their partner's not welcome. Mm-hmm. yeah Even for their child. So, yes, you do have to figure out a way to navigate this situation if you want both of your parents in your life. But setting in a boundary about your home that you pay the bills for, and that that's not unreasonable at all. I don't think you should.
00:59:43
Speaker
see Not the asshole. Like, you're just not. like Okay. All right. You're just not. Yeah, when you didn't do anything wrong. but When do I tell this person again? I see this person, I think I see this person later on this week. I'm going to tell them. I'm going be like, hey, they look, my sister my sister defended you. Because I was crushing them. but I was crushing them. But I will tell you, it's tough when it is your parents be to to set boundaries that are applicable to everyone and letting your parents know that you are included in everyone.
01:00:22
Speaker
Sometimes ah parents can feel like they have special exemptions. and Like sometimes maybe, but not in this instance. This is a boundary I have with everyone.
01:00:36
Speaker
No one is exempt from this boundary. Wow. I don't know if you heard that. Yeah, heard that. What was that, Ronnie? Yeah, no Roscoe snoring like he just worked a double shift. Yeah.
01:00:49
Speaker
but look He's literally done nothing
Conclusion and Audience Engagement
01:00:54
Speaker
all day. On that note, look, we gonna wrap up this episode because Rascal was saying, hey, that's the end of that. Look, I want to thank my sister for coming on, joining the show.
01:01:05
Speaker
For the person that told me the story that I know is listening, know is watching, they had your back. I don't know when you're going to see or listen to this. They had your, my sister had your back. I crushed you and I...
01:01:18
Speaker
semi-apologize. But on that note, I want to thank you for listening. I want to thank you for watching.
01:01:30
Speaker
And until next time, as always, I'll holler.
01:01:38
Speaker
That was a hell of a show. Thank you for rocking with us here on unsolicited perspectives with Bruce Anthony. Now, before you go, don't forget to follow, subscribe, like, comment, and share our podcast wherever you're listening or watching it to it. Pass it along to your friends. If you enjoy it, that means the people that you rock will will enjoy it also. So share the wealth, share the knowledge, share the noise.
01:02:01
Speaker
And for all those people that say, well, I don't have a YouTube. If you have a Gmail account, you have a YouTube. Subscribe to our YouTube channel where you can actually watch our video podcast and YouTube exclusive content.
01:02:12
Speaker
But the real party is on our Patreon page. After Hours Uncensored and Talking Straight-ish. After Hours Uncensored is another show with my sister. And once again, the key word there is uncensored. Those who exclusively on our Patreon page, jump onto to our website at unsolicitperspective.com.
01:02:28
Speaker
dot com for all things us that's where you can get all of our audio video our blogs and even buy our merch and if you really feel generous and want to help us out you can donate on our donations paid donations go strictly to improving our software and hardware so we can keep giving you guys good content that you can clearly listened to and that you can clearly see. So any donation would be appreciated. Most importantly, I want to say thank you.
01:02:55
Speaker
Thank you. Thank you for listening and watching and supporting us. And I'll catch you next time. Audi 5000. Peace.