Conversations with Dominic Carter
Conversations with Dominic Carter
Race in America - Ice Cube & President Trump
Two Black Men discuss the highly polarizing issue of "Race" in America. The Guest for this episode is Dr. Darrin Porcher, a prominent speaker around the country and the world. Dr. Porcher also appears frequently on all the national TV Networks. Dr. Porcher and our host Dominic take on in detail, the controversy entertainer Ice Cube finds himself in, for trying to help Black America, but doing so by working with the Trump Administration.
0:03. Announcer: We all know and love him. Our host, Dominic Carter has moderated debates with Hillary Clinton, billionaire Michael Bloomberg, and even interviewed Nelson Mandela. Here's our host political commentator, Dominic Carter.
:0:20. Host Dominic Carter. Good Day. A candid conversation on race in America, and other topics... with a prominent African American, Dr. Darren Porcher. Entertainer Ice Cube is taking some heat for working with the Trump administration on his plan for black America. He is Ice Cube in his own words. Let's Go!!!
0:42. Entertainer Ice Cube. What do we get in the first hundred days? That's what we're trying to figure out. What do we actually get that we that they could give us overnight, like that? 42% of black businesses closing. None of that money. where's where's our fucking Bell out? Where's the bail out? Not the PPP loan that they that they didn't give us? Where's the bail out? I don't want to hear about deficit. Democrats don't seem like they got a plan. Republicans don't seem like they got a plan for us.
1:20. Host Dominic Carter. And joining us right now, Dr. Darren posher, thank you for taking time to be with us.
1:26 Dr. Darrin Porcher. As always, it's a pleasure. I Dominic, you're someone I have an immense respect for. And I'm fortunate to be sitting directly across from you. So we can speak to some real issues in connection with what's plaguing our society. Real issues.
1:39. Host Dominic Carter. I'm glad that you said that. Now, generally for my career, 30 year career in journalism, race is a topic that I didn't enjoy discussing. As a prominent black man on television. I always felt like I was in a no win situation. If I said x, crowd y disagreed If I said why crowd y, crowd x disagreed It was a no win. But today, I'm gladly doing it..... discussing race with you because you're someone that I have enormous respect for. We are two Bronx, guys.
2:17. Dr. Darrin Porcher. Thank you.
2:19. Host Dominic Carter. You too, and you earned your PhD and we all know earning a PhD is not easy. You earned it from I believe Fordham University.
2:28. Dr. Darrin Porcher. Yes, sir.
2:29. Host Dominic Carter. Okay. Ice Cube, the highly successful Ice Cube rapper, turned actor, numerous movies. He's been outspoken, as you know, about racial injustice and white supremacy throughout his career. But now, some activists are accusing Ice Cube of working with the, quote, dark side, because his Contract with America, black America, a 13 part plan, the Trump administration spoke to him and incorporated some of it. Now, what's your general reaction before we get into specifics of ice cube working with the Trump administration?
3:14. Dr. Darrin Porcher. Well, I understand it from the perspective of he presented an agenda to the Democrats and the Trump administration, but Democrats felt as if this was something they want to revisit after the election, however, the Trump administration was willing to execute on the strategy immediately. So as a result of one component, meaning the Republicans willing to address the situation, or I should say, were open... welcoming with Ice Cub was looking to introduce.... He therefore moved forward and executed on what he felt was best based on his business agenda. Now Ice Cube in no way shape, or form is a person that you can deny his blackness, so to speak, or his cultural perspective. So no one in any way, shape or form can ever speak to look, he is folding like a chair to the sentiment of just getting a check.
4:09. Host Dominic Carter. Let's be honest, he was he's not Tommy, that's a charge some throw at people like you, me or him?
4:17. Dr. Darrin Porcher. Absolutely Not . He's mainly what he's looking to do is he's working on a project that needs to be done now. And in no way shape or form is this being devalued because the Trump administration is green lighting the project, and it's just so unfortunate because I'm speaking as an African American male, that many times we get siloed into different positions, whereas it creates somewhat of an inability for us to have lateral movement. If I move to the left, I will have issues with people to the far left. If I move to the right, then I'll have the same situation. So it goes back to you. It's undeniable in his success, and a pleasure. form that he stood for moving forward. He has a phenomenal three on three Basketball League.
5:05. Host Dominic Carter. That's right. That is prospering employing all of those former NBA players, predominantly African American.
5:13. Dr. Darrin Porcher. That are now out of work that had no other economic incentive to move forward outside of bouncing a basketball, they just weren't doing anything. And when we look at the the meteoric rise, and athletes that, upon retirement, go into bankruptcy, this was a silver bullet, to lead them to a level of credibility from a socio economic perspective. But we look at him being a director, he's done some phenomenal work such as barbershop, there's been a multitude, or a large body of work that he's presented, that's made him a successful person. And it goes back to if you look at who has been employed as a result of his works, it's been the African American community and look by Lodge. The thing with the Trump administration, you can call it what you may, one of the things that I saw recently was the United Negro College Fund, was going through a situation a deficit, so to speak. And they they visited the Trump administration for some cash, so to speak some grants. Traditionally, what's happened in the past was the historically black colleges, the HBCUs, would visit with whoever the President was in office, and they gave them a stipend that lasted for a year, they would have to revisit it The following year, etc. Trump immediately gave them a large piece of cash that lasted them for a decade, it was no longer come in and revisit us one year come back the next year, the same holds true, you look at the Trump administration, and you can call it what you will. But and I don't know him personally. But when you look at the body of work that's produced been produced over the course of years, whether it's him managing or being a component in the management of Mike Tyson, or the USFL different arenas of business here in New York City area, it's something that has focused on moving the goalposts forward and not moving it back. Now, there are a lot of things that I have an issue with in connection with the Trump administration. But I've never seen a politician that has been seated as an incumbent where I was okay with any and everything that they did, you have to pick and choose for what works best for you. And it goes back to what ice cubes position in gaining an acceptance or a partnership with the Trump administration is something that was a good fit for ice cube. Ultimately, ice cube is hiring African Americans, Latinos, and minorities to incorporate them into his business structure. So that being said, I'm totally okay with it. And those same people that have taken shots that I skew have those same people that were not willing to hire him when the situation was presented to them.
7:58. Host Dominic Carter. That Dr. Darrin Porsche.... Ice Cube, as you just laid out the full argument of what it is, because it really is about empowerment!
8:09. Dr. Darrin Porsche. And so ice cube, defended his stance, saying that he will, quote, advise anyone on the planet who has the power to help black Americans closed the enormous wealth gap.
8:28. Host Dominic Carter. The press secretary for President Trump, Katrina Pierson, tweeted and referenced Ice Cube about Trump's it's called Platinum plan. She said quote, leaders gonna lead haters gonna hate. Thank you for leading. Now, I still went on to say that's important that I point this out as we are discussing race in America here. Every side I'm quoting Ice Cube. Every side is the dark side for us referencing African Americans here in America. They've all done the same until something changes for us. They all lie and they all cheat referring to Democrats, Republicans and independents, I guess. But we can't afford to not negotiate with whoever is in power, or our condition in this country will never change. Our justice is by partisan. Now, that sounds perfectly logical to me. Is it logical to you?
9:35. Dr. Darren Porcher. It is, when we look at our overall alignment with the Democratic Party. We haven't really seen a substantive game. We need to as African Americans put up position ourselves in a place where as we are accorded when I say we accorded meaning, not just for our votes because I can't tell you for years on in. My parents were democrats and they voted for the Democratic Party policies, but in no way shape or form, were they a recipient of change for the better, we go back to the 1994 crime bill that was enacted by President Clinton that incarcerated more African Americans in any other point in time. I'm not telling you that you need to be diametrically opposed to the Democratic Party, or the republican party for that matter. But understand that the pendulum should be on both sides. And you need to select on what best fits or what best suits the socio economic empowerment that we have been striving for. for years on end, we've been promised a lot and given a lot of nothing. So when I look at ice cubes ability to sit down and assess the Trump's that the the Trump administration's willingness to negotiate or come to a plausible understanding of this is something that we're willing to do. I was happy to see that, especially after Ice Cube received the statement from the Democratic Party was, look, we'll deal with this after the election. We've been dealing with a lot of things after the election, incumbency comes into play. And then once again, we'll still put on the back burner.
11:08. Host Dominic Carter. And after the election, you and I both know, again to African Americans from the Bronx, the Boogie Down Bronx Bx, we know what after the election means it's not after the election, you know, I don't need you anymore.
11:24. Dr. Darrin Porcher. When I'm quoting your voter ship, I totally wholeheartedly need you. And then I go back to something years ago, I saw you, when you when Nelson Mandela was alive, you did an interview with Nelson Mandela. And Nelson Mandela was a person that a lot of people said, Well, how can you take aid from Fidel Castro? In the wake? It was Fidel contra Castro and Moammar Gaddafi, how would you be willing to accept aid, and Nelson Mandela's specifically stated, nobody else was given me anything, I need to go to a source that's willing to support my cause. So if I strike people off the list, and these people are not willing to help me, but when I turn to nations, such as the United States of America, or Great Britain, for example, and then not providing me the necessary entities to assist in the plight of my people, I have to go with what works for me. And so I really commend you on that on that interview with Milton with Nelson Mandela years ago. Thank you. And you know, you had another interview with Mike Bloomberg, for example, and that the interview with Mike Bloomberg was really resonating with me in that how his philanthropy was willing to bifurcate in different directions. It wasn't monolithic. On the point of Look, I'm only going to deal with this population in this population alone. No, it was far more universal in that. And as a result, it made him more influential in a significant presence in politics. And I really commend the fact that you were able to extract that information in an interview and get it to the masses. And now I know about it. So when you speak to what's happening, what I excuse a seat is no different. I see this as a person that is a representative of the African American community that's trying to do what's best in the plight of the African American community. That doesn't mean that ice cube was the saver in no way shape, or form should look to ice cube is being a saver, but just understand that this is, this is a person that's looking to invest in agenda that subsequently hires African Americans and Latinos that we don't see in a lot of facets of Hollywood.
13:35. Dominic Carter. And I would like to say this, Dr. Porsche, Darren posher, and defense of ice cube. Ice Cube is independently wealthy. He does not a millionaire, right? He doesn't need these headaches. Absolutely. He is looking out for his community. Absolutely. He does, however, have African American children. And so these are children who have to interact with law enforcement and so on, and all the other social economic issues as it relates to communities of color. In the midst of this controversy, prominent some prominent African Americans and activists have spoken out against ice cube, arguing that President Trump has never done anything to address racism or eradicate racial inequity, and is using Ice Cube the entertainer for his own image?
14:32. Dr. Darrin Porcher. You know, I totally disagree with that. When you look at the people that are employed by ice cube, and when you look at the production that he puts out, or the movies like barbershop, etc. These are movies or productions that are a reflection of the African American community. So you may look to it from the perspective of he's totally focused on himself Which is completely false. Because there's a tremendous tapestry of people that are a part of the industry that he represents. When I say the industry that he represents. I don't know what the production company that he stands for. I don't know what their title does, but it goes back to the three on three basketball, the production in a direction a lot of these films in the philanthropy that happens. This is something that is far more universal than just that one person.
15:29. Host Dominic Carter. We are talking with Dr. Darren Porsche, who earned his PhD from Fordham University in the Bronx. Here we are Dr. Porsche. As I said earlier, we're sitting here together two African American men from this community and we both have fond memories of Fordham University, etc. I didn't attend Fordham. I went upstate New York to SUNY Cortland, and then went to grad school at Syracuse University. But I'm familiar with Fordham because Fordham University was in the background from the community where I grew up at at 184th Street and Webster Avenue. And Priests Fordham University would often have summer camps and the Jesuits priests would come to the community and for poor kids like me, that had absolutely nothing, you know, government cheese and someone they would Yeah, I still remember those days. They would invite us to summer programs, of course, because they know we couldn't afford it. And it was free of charge at Fordham University. I will never forget that it's part of my foundation. I will always remember Fordham University. Because I graduated from Theodore Roosevelt High School in the Bronx, New York, right across the street from the Rose Hill campus. Rose Hill right?
16:46 Dr. Darrin Porcher. Yes,
16:46. Host Dominic Carter. Rose Hill is in the Bronx, right and across the street. So I say all that to say that you I mean, you have enormous educational credentials. You are a national speaker, you recently did an event in Idaho, you have traveled the world. And so I say all of that to raise this umbrella point. When I say race in America, race in America, what comes to your heart, what comes to your mind?
17:20 Dr. Darrin Porcher. Race in America is very interesting, I think is fraught, is multifaceted and is geographically geographical. within the United States, we have 320 7 million people that live in the United States, however, you have a dynamic that changes from state to state. And I give you an example, Michael Jackson when he was alive, you know, he spoke to how he saw race in America for which was very different from when he was a teenager, in comparison to when he was an older adult. And this goes back to an interview. I actually heard you interview Michael Jackson years ago. And he spoke to the dynamic of racism and how it impacts people on a geographical level. The cities when I say the cities, meaning the largest cities such as Chicago, New York City, Houston, Miami, there's a very different plate of racism or racial interactions or relationships in those places, in comparison to a place like one of the backwater towns in Mississippi, very different dynamic. And it goes back to we look at where Martin Luther King stood in connection with race relations in America. In comparison to Elijah Muhammad, who was the founder of the Nation of Islam with he liked it or not. These were people that were deemed as leaders of the African American community years ago, but he had a very, they had a diametrically different messaging. And just before Malcolm X passed, he spoke to the the plights of back then we refer to as the Negro, so to speak, but we, we use, I'll use the term African Americans, it's very different from a socio economic perspective, and a social perspective, a social economic, that's, of course, that's you making money, you being seated in a position that can allow you to acquire the money that's necessary for you to survive. on a social level, the social level of African Americans is very important, because you have in the right social connections can put you in a position of power, so to speak, a position of power and a position of influence. We see very few of those positions that have come to fruition for the African American community. And that should be far more than when we look at fortune 500 companies and things to that effect, but we see a greater plight in some I want to say the civil service employment, civil service, you have a lot more African Americans or, you know, minorities that are acquiring positions in these in these types of organizations, but that's somewhat limited, that social piece is key. Because now we want to be in a position where we can go from being the CEO of Citigroup, and then go to JP Morgan Chase things that are in that is not that social piece is something that's not really happened in the way it should. And so it goes back to the plight in these Largest cities, is different than the plate and the smallest cities in the Midwest and the South. I've spoken to many African Americans in places in the south, that felt as if they were comfortable in a position where they were making $30,000 a year, and nobody bothered them. And their routine wasn't disrupted. But then you speak to an African American who lives in a place like New York City, and that same African American can make $200,000 a year and say to themselves, look, I'm in a rut, I can do far better. And this can be someone that's highly educated, highly skilled, but the glass ceiling is keep them keep in the back. So so so to a degree, is it in the eyes of the beholder? And I guess I'm asking you directly, in your opinion, is there a race problem in America, there is a race problem in America. And we haven't effectively provided a solution or apply the solution. We had an African American president four years ago, and they will do a lot of hopes of mending the fences, and putting African Americans in a different position. There were no changes there. It's been one of these things with and I'm just speaking from an individual or a monolithic perspective, I feel that my rise in society is not what it should be considered. And I have a doctorate degree. I worked in the NYPD for 20 years, I was an officer in the military. But at the same token, I feel like I'm in a mid level position. Whereas I think that I should be in a far more affluent position. Now, you have other people that will disagree with that narrative. But when we look at it from a quantitative perspective, the quantitative statistics clearly show that the African American experience has not had the rise of the Caucasian experience with far less experience. Now, in no way shape or form. Am I race baiting? And am I saying that look, the deck is stacked against me. But just based on the statistics, we haven't had the meteoric rise that we should, and I give you an example, an African American person loses a job for let's say, whatever the case may be, let's say it's a social indiscretion. that individual is going to be far less able to regain a position of power in comparison to if it was a Caucasian person that was caught in the same dynamic, okay, look, no harm, no foul, we'll put you in the opponent in a penalty box for three years. And then you can rise in a couple of years. And a lot of that is based on the social piece, when I say the social piece, who you know, who has the ability to pull you back up? racism is it's not the old school error of calling you the end word and tying you to a stake and hanging you and whipping you based on looking at a white person the wrong way. Things are more surreptitious, now than they were in the past. But I just think that us as a society, there are many things that we could do better that we're not doing better. And one of the keys to this is having this conversation on race. And that conversation on race doesn't mean I scream at you and say because you're white, you are the enemy. That's not the way we have the discourse is merely availing people look this, these are the opportunities that we have missed as an African American community, and we just want a shot. And that doesn't necessarily mean that you're bowing, you're folding like a chair, and you just won't accept anything. But it should be a plausible discourse between people that are of the African American community, and people that are in a Caucasian community of affluence. So we can have that information exchange in a way that sound and we need to revisit this. It's not like okay, we have one of these panels, these one is Blue Ribbon panels in January, and we say, yeah, we're going to change rate, we've got to change race relations, and we propose a 10 point plan, and then it never happens again, we need to revisit this. It needs to be a sustainment piece attached to us. What so let's say hypothetically, we have the conversation with this panel in January. Let's revisit it in June. Has it been any upward mobility in connection with the African Americans in the entertainment industry, whenever I turn the television on, I don't see as many people that I like to see that look the way that I do when we look at At the economic perspective, so a person that's at the head of JP Morgan Chase, Citi group, I'm just not seeing a lot of people that look very similar to myself. And I think that I'm a very qualified person to do a lot of things. But society has not been presenting those opportunities. And it goes back to the social piece of who you connected with. And you can clearly see that the deck is stacked against you as a minority. But at the same token, I think the more plausible, plausible strategy is for so you can have an ongoing continuous discourse, not just the blue ribbon panel that meets once. And that's the end of it.
25:38 Host Dominic Carter Dr. Porcher, I'm running out of time, and I'm wrapping up here. I would be remiss if I didn't put this out there. When we discuss race in America, what role do we play as African Americans?
25:51. Dr. Darren Porcher. One of the things is, as an African American, when you climb the ladder up, when you when you climb the ladder of success, success, and you get to that roof, don't pull the ladder up, which you will say, Well, I'm here and nobody else should be here. And I should be the only one. You know, there's an each one teach one strategy in that you need to extend your arm to your fellow man, I'm a firm person, I'm a firm proponent of competency plays a germane role in his but I'm also a firm proponent. And people can be taught certain rules in society. So if a person may not be as competent, if you can come in from a perspective of mentorship as an African American, I think that's what we need to do more of. And unfortunately, our co our culture as African Americans has been the recipient of a miscarriage of not helping our fellow man.
26:41 Host Dominic Carter. Man, it has been an absolute pleasure chatting with you. Thank you so much. Dr. Darren Porcher...Thank You.
26:48 Dr. Darrin Porcher. Well, I mean, it's the it's an honor for me, you're a person that's interviewed Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Nelson Mandela, Michael Jackson, Michael Bloomberg, the list goes on. And so I'm just very humbled to have the ability to sit down across from you and engage in a discourse of this nature, because this is a substantive point that is impacting on our society.
27:12 Announcer Close. Join us next time for conversations with Dominic Carter reached out to Dominic on Twitter at @Dominictvradio. Dominic looks forward to hearing from you. Thank you for joining us.