Breaking Boundaries: Overcoming Hidden Limitations in Fostering Community

:: 00:01

Oh, that's random podcast. The show with a spin on everyday real life random topics that will have you like, what with that guy? Your guy, the one and only Nerdy.

:: 00:34

Welcome back to oh, that's random podcast. I am your host, that guy, Nerdy Gee. You heard the man. I am your host, the one and only Nerdy Gee. Welcome back.

:: 00:43

If this is your first time joining the show, welcome. I'm Nerdy Gee, but just call me Nerdy. Listen, I'm an author, right? Author of a book. A wonderful book called this May Not Be for you.

:: 00:55

If you haven't gotten it, go pick it up. It's on Amazon, all that good old stuff. Returning listeners, you know, the Nerdy merch is always there. Nerdy's Nerdy's Umbrella Umbrella, everywhere, on all streaming platforms and social media, too. Instagram.

:: 01:11

Nerdy's umbrella. TikTok Nerdy's umbrella. Facebook Nerdy's umbrella. Snapchat Nerdy's Umbrella. I'm all over the place, but clearly Nerdy's Umbrella.

:: 01:22

So I've been listening to some of y'all out there, and y'all say that the color of my shirt determines the mood, that I'm gonna give it up. Well, guess what, ladies and gentlemen, if I'm blue, that means it's cool. So it is what it is. But no, today I'm actually going to give it up. And I'm talking to us, whoever us is.

:: 01:48

You know who us is. And I'm going to talk directly to communities because I don't want to say I have an issue, but I want to hold everybody accountable, just like I hold myself accountable. I'm going to hold you guys accountable, too. All right? Got to hold us accountable because we can't keep doing this.

:: 02:08

We can't keep doing this. There are a lot of distractions there are a lot of distractions when it comes to community and how we should go about it and how we should carry ourselves, govern ourselves accordingly. There are some things where we say as people, but do we really mean it when we thinking village community mentality? I don't think so. Here's why.

:: 02:44

Society already, whether we know it or not, society has softly put us in a position to where we self separate without even realizing it. I'm going to say that again. I'm going to let it sink in. I'm going to let it sink in. But I'm going to say this one more time.

:: 03:05

Society has already put us in a position to self separate without us even knowing. And we do it every single day without knowing. But it's just who we are because we're people. We're people of habit, and we do what we know. We do what is most comfortable to us.

:: 03:30

That's that Nerdy. What you talking about? Glad you asked. Okay, dive into this. Get into this.

:: 03:41

Get all in there. Okay, I'm going to get all in now, and I'm going to try to focus this on one thing. And like I say, it's about the community. It's about village mentality that we allegedly have. We have it to a certain extent.

:: 03:59

Some people say in one sentence, I'm ready to help and empower anybody who is willing to be helped and is ready to level up in the next stage of their life. I'm ready to empower the next person that is willing to help themselves to be ready for the next stage in their life. I'm saying that, but that comes with an asterisk. It comes with an asterisk with everybody. Don't know why.

:: 04:35

Let me simplify it for you. If you pick and choose, that's why. That's an asterisk. If you niche it down, say, I'm ready to help any young black entrepreneur male. I'm ready to empower them and help them get to the next level.

:: 04:56

I just cut out everybody else. I got this one specific group that I'm focused on. I just separated without realizing that I just separated. Diversity my arse. Okay.

:: 05:10

Diversity my arse. We look at that and we say, well, no, that ain't us separating. I mean, yeah, I'm focusing on this group of people. Not saying that I won't be able to help this other group of people, but this is the group of people I'm helping because that other group already has help. Oh, okay.

:: 05:35

But if we all in the same village and we have this community mentality, whether that person's skin color is different, it don't matter. If that person grew up in our community and we're taking care of the people in our community, meaning the people who were raised in the same environment that we were raised in, then we help them too, and vice versa. But I'm going to go keep it going, right? Because I don't think you're feeling me. I'm have to drive this one home.

:: 06:09

You all know I don't like to beat a dead horse, but today I'm going to have to drive this one home, and I'm have to put it in where you can feel it, because I feel it. I see it every day. I don't have to call everybody out every time I see it because that's not my job. That ain't Nerdy job. It ain't what I do.

:: 06:26

I don't need to do that. Why? I don't need to do that because it ain't who I am. That's not my part in the village. I'm doing my part in the village.

:: 06:34

That's all that matters. As long as I know that I'm doing my part, I'm doing my part. But remember, whenever you choose to say I'm doing something and you exclude or you niche it down and say, I'm only focused on this group, you're already separated. You already put yourself in a box alone with a certain group of people. So when you say, I'm ready to help any and everyone but you niche it down to one specific group, that first statement comes with an asterisk.

:: 07:09

Simple point blank, don't worry about it. I got you. We're going to keep it rolling. Could have used an example that's a little touchy to everybody that has children. Everybody we know.

:: 07:23

Parents, put your thinking caps on and let's go on this roller coaster ride. Here's the example. You ready? The kid, your kid goes to school. There's another kid that goes to school, let's call him little Johnny.

:: 07:37

Little Johnny and little Timmy. Little Timmy belongs to you. Little Johnny belongs to, I don't know, we gonna say somebody named random Shaquita. Okay, Shaquita. And you know, we don't really know what's going on in their background, but we know that Shaquita and lil Johnny is at this private school.

:: 07:56

We know our son, little Timmy is at this same exact private school. But let's say little Johnny has some behavioral issues. But we don't want our little Timmy hanging around there because we don't want our little Timmy to know a bad influence on him. We don't want that for our children. So what we do, we make our child, little Timmy aware.

:: 08:18

Like, yo, Johnny got some things going on you can't hang out with. Why? Why, ladies and gentlemen? Why can't our little Timmy hang out with little Johnny just because Johnny has some behavioral issues? If we're about community, why can't we go find out what's going on?

:: 08:42

Maybe little Timmy and little Johnny is going to be the next, I don't know, dodge brothers. Maybe they chemistry that they have may, I don't know, come up with the cure for cancer, AIDS, or whatever the case may be, which we already know somebody got the cure for AIDS, but that's neither here nor there. But whatever it is that they set their eyes on, their sights on, we don't know. But if we're community, the community is not only for children. That's one I know the saying is it takes a village to raise a child.

:: 09:18

But what happens when that child grows up? Does the village abandon that child once that child grows up? Or does that village continues to nurture that child that has grown to an adult? And hopefully with all of the lessons that they have learned and been taught throughout the community, that they become an upstanding citizen of the community and then are able to teach back those lessons that they've learned from the community? Or do we just leave them out there on their own and be like, yo, I see you when I see you.

:: 09:53

Why won't we go and talk to little Johnny's mama or father to see what's going on? I'm gonna let that marinate. Why wouldn't you go and talk to little Johnny's mother or father while that's marinating? Don't worry about it. Don't take too long because guess what?

:: 10:12

Nerdy Geeot you. I know the blue shirt says I'm supposed to be cool, but I got you. Sit back, relax, I got you. Let me tell you why you're not going to go talk to little Johnny's parents. Simple.

:: 10:26

You don't want anybody really coming talking to you about little Timmy hands down. We want community. We want village. But we really don't want that today. I want some of you new age parents around younger parents.

:: 10:43

I want y'all to think about this. Could your neighbor who, you know, kick it with, play dominoes with, y'all have a good time, y'all share? Could that parent discipline your child verbally?

:: 10:56

Not physically. Verbally. No, they can't. I'm answering the questions for you because you're thinking and you're going to try to come up with some BS answer. I'm not going to allow you to BS.

:: 11:08

Yourself today. No, ladies and gentlemen, you cannot BS yourself today. You don't want anybody telling you to raise how to raise your children. And that's why you don't approach other people, because you're like, yo, I know I wouldn't want nobody coming to say anything to me about how to raise my children. So the best thing for us to do instead of us trying to see what's wrong with little Johnny, the best thing for us to do is just tell little Timmy, don't hang out with Little Johnny because he ain't our kind of people or that's not what we're about.

:: 11:43

Look what you just did. You just created separation once again without even knowing it. That's how that works, ladies and gentlemen. You showing your child already how to separate themselves from people who have a behavioral issue. And we don't even know the reason behind the behavior issue.

:: 12:04

We as parents won't even take the forward step to say, you know what? We're so progressive today that we won't even go talk to the other parent. Now I know growing up, right, everybody, mama, you better go get your behind in that house. You know the street lights is on. Let me go.

:: 12:26

Call Christy. The mamas, they had the numbers. The fathers was like, hey, you better get we gone. Irk that's community. They're not abusing us.

:: 12:39

Because I could tell you this right now that I can remember or recall. I don't never remember getting whooped by another neighbor or anything. What I do remember is being brought to my from one of my neighbors, being brought to my father, being brought to my mother and saying, hey, Nerdy did x, Y and z. Okay, cool. When I got in the house, the belt came out and I got it simple.

:: 13:12

That's not hard. Hey, I saw your son doing this. This is what he did. Okay, cool. Appreciate you.

:: 13:20

I'm going to take care of it. Don't worry about it. Guess what? I went back outside when I seen that person. Hey, Ms.

:: 13:26

Davis. How you doing? Everything's cool? I'm not mad at Ms. Davis.

:: 13:29

Ms. Davis was doing what community does. They were holding us accountable at a young age. So that when we got to this age, that accountability ain't bad. So now that you guys won't even go and talk to little Johnny's parent to find or parents, now, understand this.

:: 13:48

We already in the private school. I don't care what Little Johnny mother name is, chandrika Konkika or whatever. When you see the parent and you realize, nah, you're judging. You're judging off of physical features. You're judging by the way she's dressed, judging by the way he or she is dressed, whether it's the father or the mother, you take a look at them and you go, you know what?

:: 14:16

Maybe I was going to go and talk to them, but now that I see them, nah, what's the reason you judging them? You're judging them based off of what, the way that they're dressed. You're judging them based off of the way that they look. What are you judging them off? What made you say, here's Little Johnny's parents now I'm not going to go talk to Little Johnny's parents.

:: 14:37

What made you stop? What made you stop? Whatever it was, the core is separation. You can't have a village community mentality and say, I'm only going to help a certain group in the community. You can't say, I got this community village mentality and only apply it when you want to.

:: 15:03

I don't see it. You can't empower a certain group of people and not empower the other group of people. You're separating. You're creating separation to its core. If I were to go talk to Little Johnny's parents or parent, depending on whatever the situation is, and they come to find out, oh, well, yo, we had a change in the household and we've been kind of monitoring him at home.

:: 15:29

At home he's been kind of like chill, but I guess he's acting out when he's at school. And we haven't communicated with the teachers about this or the teachers are saying that from what they're seeing that it's fine. But if another parent is seeing this, then why not bring this awareness to that parent so they can correct Little Johnny's behavior? And then little Timmy and little Johnny can still hang out. Because now what you're going to do is you're going to create something where, hey, I saw my mom, my dad go to Johnny's parents, have a conversation.

:: 16:06

Okay, that's some little friendship stuff. Okay, y'all building, y'all building relationships. Because now I was cool with little Johnny at first. Now my mom and my pops is talking to them. Now maybe we can have a sleepover or something.

:: 16:21

But you're showing them how to build their relationship. Even if they don't know what the conversation was, it's fine, but they got to see. And then all of a sudden, of course we're not going to see it on top. But if Little Johnny's behavior changes and Little Johnny is the person now that Little Timmy can hang around, it benefits the village. Simple.

:: 16:47

But this whole village community with an asterisk mentality, we got to fix it. We got to fix it. And sometimes it's even about our environment, where we come from. Yeah, we stayed in the projects growing up, but now if I'm in a nice little neighborhood, little wealthy, little wealthy neighborhood kids go to private school. Everything's fine.

:: 17:15

Now, I do act a little different in our community. We get slapped with the face, the phrase my bad. We get slapped with the phrase, man, you changed. And I say, darn right you did, too. You understand what I'm saying?

:: 17:29

We always think that. We always want to say that the other person has changed. We both changed. Our views are different. And I'm not saying that we can't have different views because us having different views and being able to have communication and being able to talk to one another, it makes the world go round.

:: 17:48

Not women, not men, but the communication of us having different point of views makes the world go round, makes the world interesting, makes the world exciting to want to be in and learn and to engage and say, okay, hey, I never thought about it like that. If everybody was the same, the world would be boring, and it'd be like on some step of wives type stuff. We ain't there. We ain't for that. We don't want to be stephanie wives.

:: 18:14

X, y and z, none of that. That ain't what we about. All the husbands ain't getting up, and the wives are walking us out so that we can go get in our cars. We got our little briefcase and we all waving, see you this afternoon, honey, or this evening, whatever the heck. That's not real life.

:: 18:32

In some areas of america, that is real life. But not here, not today. I don't know if they are. Y'all let me know. Other than that, it is what it is.

:: 18:42

But today, people change. We change. But just because you change doesn't I know. Everybody say, oh, don't forget where you came from. It's not about forgetting where I came from.

:: 18:52

It's about remembering who I am at the core, at all times. It's about remembering who you are because some people would give anyone the shirt off their backs. But through experience that may have changed, some people will stop whatever they're doing to go help any person that they possibly can. Is that you? Probably not, maybe.

:: 19:20

So it's up to you, you know that. You know which person will do that for you in your life. Understand? Everybody in the village community does not have the same role. We all don't have the same role.

:: 19:35

And because we all don't have the same role, this is why the community mentality comes with an asterisk, because some people will some way, somehow make their role specific to a certain group of people, which is why we have that asterisk. I only mess with the blues, I only mess with the reds or I only mess with the greens or I only mess with the yellows beans, peas, and all that good old stuff. Whoever they mess with, it's separation. So now, even in the community or village have created separation. And if you don't think that the children aren't going to subconsciously program that in their heads, you got to be mistaken.

:: 20:25

You're mistaken. It's there. It's programmed to us, we're creatures of habit. We do what we always do, and that's what we know to do, and that's what we've seen, what feels comfortable and what feels right. It's challenging to fight those feelings of wanting to be different.

:: 20:51

It's challenging because when you want to do better, it's going to come with some challenges. And when it comes with those challenges, are you going to be strong enough or are you just going to go back to doing what you already know what to do, which is be comfortable and say, you know what? I'm cool. I'm cool this way. I don't want to push the bar too much.

:: 21:12

Why? Because my life is comfortable. I got AC. I got a roof over my head. When it's raining, I'm dry.

:: 21:18

You understand what I'm saying? It's okay. But is it, though? Some people don't understand that we are programmed to separate in some form of fashion. If you take a look at yourself and break it down, you'll see it.

:: 21:35

I'm not preaching to the choir, ladies and gentlemen. I'm just telling you what I know. This conversation is going to continue. Y'all know me. It's going to continue.

:: 21:47

But this so called community village mentality with the asterisk, we got to fix it. You can't help some and not all. You can't say, I'm building my community and I'm building my village, but I keep people on the outside. I understand that some people aren't there yet in their growth, but sometimes it's no different than giving a person a second chance or heck, giving them a first chance. When you say, I want this job, but you don't have no experience in it, somebody's going to take a chance on you and give you a chance.

:: 22:22

You never bagged groceries before, but your first job, guess what? Somebody took a chance on you and say, you know what? I see this kid bag a grocery. Never worked on the cash register before in my life. Guess what?

:: 22:33

Hire a cashier. Oh, my God. Somebody took a chance. So in the village, understand, one, what your role is in the Village. Two, be open to everybody that's in the village.

:: 22:49

Do not separate. Do not don't separate. It's easy for us to separate because we want to identify and be with people that are like us, like minded, like us. We want everybody to be already where we are at, and that's not reality. We're not going to run into a group of people who were all on the same level as us.

:: 23:17

We possibly can go to a conference. And you would think that we all got the same idea. We all came here. We own some entrepreneur. We own some less empower.

:: 23:28

We own this. But take, for example, all the connections I made out at podcast movement, the amount of people that I reached out to and the amount of people that reached back out to me for collaborations, not only on some things that I got coming up, some things that they have coming up, but that percentage was small. Everybody that has a similar thought process as you, not necessarily on the same level as you, not necessarily is going to embrace the community village mindset with an asterisk. They just probably did this for whatever reason to get you out their face. They didn't want to be rude, but they have no intentions.

:: 24:17

They don't see you to fit in their mold or fit in their community or they don't see you as any value. So when you start looking at people as, are they valuable or they're invaluable, then there lies another issue. But that's another story, another conversation, another topic for another day. Once again, you guys already know I'm not going to be the dead horse. So you already know what I'm about to do.

:: 24:43

We about to listen to some music and then we about to get right back into this and I'm going to go ahead and cut us out for the day. So sorry, YouTube, y'all already know y'all not getting this music. So with that being said, let's go.

:: 25:22

Ever since it's been a long a long time coming but I know a change gonna come oh, yes, it will it's been too hard living but I'm afraid to die I don't know what's up there it's been a long time coming but I know a change gonna come oh, yes, it will I go to the movie and I go down sound somebody keep telling me don't hang around it's been a long time coming but I know a change gonna come. Oh, yes, it will.

:: 26:49

Then I go to my brother and I say, brother, help me, please.

:: 27:06

But he winds up knocking me back down on my knees.

:: 27:21

There been times that I thought I couldn't. Last for long.

:: 27:31

But now I think I'm able to carry on. It's been a long time coming, but I know change don't come. Oh, yes, it will.

:: 28:01

All right, ladies and gentlemen, we are back. Yeah. Change is going to come, man. Change is going to come. And in some form and fashion, we're going to make it work.

:: 28:10

We going to make it work. We the people. It's us. When I say community, it's us. It's us as a whole.

:: 28:17

It's not us. I'm not just talking about one specific community, the village. The village is us. The human village. We have to make this work.

:: 28:24

We have to figure it out. We going to make it work. But ladies and gentlemen, that's what it is. Remember, this is a safe place. This is a place where I take the ordinary and I explore the extraordinary in the ordinary once again.

:: 28:35

I tell you that, guys, that's what we do here on Odess random podcast. That's why I'm Nerdy. This is Nerdy's Umbrella. This is Odess random podcast. Once again.

:: 28:43

Listen, thank you. If you made it to this far in the episode, I appreciate you. Thank you. Keep coming back. Listen, be sure to go get the book.

:: 28:51

This may not be for you. I got a sequel that I'm writing right now. You may not be fit for this. And then always go pick up some of this Nerdy merchandise. And you can always get this@nerdiesmbrella.com.

:: 29:02

Check the links in the description. Go right to it. I got all kinds of fashion things and moving forward and all that good old stuff, right? Ladies and gentlemen, this has been the show. It's been wonderful.

:: 29:12

I'm glad that I can deliver this to you. We're going to have conversations about this topic in the future. If you want to talk with Yo, Facebook, TikTok, wherever, let's have the conversation. When I post the clips of this go talk, let's have this give a reasonable dialogue. I'm not here to tell you how to do things.

:: 29:33

I'm here just so that we can have the conversation and have an open mind to new possibilities and things that we may not have thought about before. Who knows? You might teach me something and I might teach you something. Until next time, this is your guy, the one and only, your host, always, Nerdy Gee. I'm out.