0:03 Welcome to season three of Advance the Dream, our interactive community chat where we celebrate legacy makers and family heroes who are actively advancing the dream in the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. We talk about health challenges, highlights, and heroes in an intergenerational and multicultural fashion to help his legacy of hope, duty, and equality live on through this bi-weekly series powered by the Force for Health Network. We stream live to Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn at eight a.m.
0:34 Pacific time and eleven a.m. Eastern time on the first and third Saturdays of the month then shared afterwards at advance the dream comm part of the force for health network we welcome your comments from any platform you are watching from to join our discussion and encourage you to connect with us by downloading our app and joining our community for Now let's meet our hosts, Dr. Robert Gileo and Lucy Howell from the Force for Health Network, alongside our strategic partner and national community director for the dream, Mr. Joshua Williams.
1:10 We hope you enjoy the show. okay welcome aboard everybody it is two thousand twenty five we are actually leaning into our third season of advance the dream it's february first and we've got a lot to talk about okay my name is lucy howell I'm the co-founder and co-host of advance the dream this interactive chat if you are on facebook or linkedin or youtube feel free to add comments we will monitor them and we will bring those worthy enough into the show and maybe talk about it I'm joined here by my partners in crime we've got dr robert gilio out in state college pennsylvania who is also our co-founder in the force for health network and acts as a chief medical officer and we've got our ride or die Mr. Joshua Williams, based out of sometimes the Florida Panhandle and sometimes New Orleans, but he is our national director for Advance the Dream, which is really a weekly interactive chat.
2:20 Well, we're We're actually transitioning to a bi-weekly. So on the first and third Saturdays of the month, you can join us and then you can watch the recordings, maybe when you're on a treadmill or maybe when you're out on a walk or just kind of get engaged. It really is meant to talk about heroes, highlights, and legacy makers so that we can keep this stride going. Today, our... topic is DEI in twenty twenty five to be or not to be. So I'm very excited to kind of have this roundtable conversation with some folks.
2:57 We'll be joined later by with Telly Medina, who is a businessman and a lobbyist, kind of even focusing and targeting and specializing in bipartisan governmental strategy. So it'll be interesting to kind of bring him on. And then towards the end, we will be taking a Dr. Robb, Three Sixty Human Explorer Tour because it is Heart Month. And so that'll be interesting to take a look inside the heart. So let me go ahead and take everything off and bring us all back. So Rob and Josh, I've got some opening conversations here, and I wanted to just bring up an image.
3:45 But before we do, I want to pass the baton for a welcoming statement from you both. Rob. It's a tough week. I can't get the lighting to work well, so I look good. Maybe I look better in the dark lighting, but it's kind of a shadow. has been actually the last days, frankly, since inauguration. And it's not made better by having a couple of plane crashes occur this last week as well. Two weeks ago, three weeks ago, it was a fire in Los Angeles. The point I'm making is, as we talked about DEI later in this call, I just want to put it out there where no matter what color, gender, or creed you are, disaster doesn't know.
4:41 So when a hurricane hits Josh's home in New Orleans or Lucy's childhood neighborhood in Los Angeles, it doesn't know if you're black or white or brown. It just destroys things. And we need to be a compassionate nation for the major, major disasters, but also the micro disasters, those little things about hiring and firing and kindness and respect. So I'm feeling for all the people that had a major catastrophe happen to them this week. But I'm also feeling, frankly, a huge loss, a sense of grief over what's happening with our executive orders.
5:32 And how it's affected people, not just people of color that are affected by DEI, but everyone that works at agencies and is served by them. Later, I'll tell you about my own family with some communications it got from the government this week and how it was handled. But ordinary everyday kindness has to be what common sense is in America. And that has to find its way to policies, kindness and fairness and compassion. I don't know. I'm rambling. One of those weeks, Lucy, where shit happened. It happened in North Carolina after the hurricane.
6:23 Oh, you guys all forgot about that, didn't you? So did all the fundraising. All the fundraising efforts right now. are going to Los Angeles neighborhoods where there's a great need. But then the plane crash and soon you forget about Los Angeles. And before you know it, any one of millions of people that lost their job this week or this next couple months, let's not forget them and do the little things on a daily basis that help make their lives better. I think that this platform is designed to host some uncomfortable conversations.
7:06 And I hope we get into that with our various perspectives. It's not meant to be political in any way, shape or form. It's meant to share perspectives and to have a platform for civil discourse as we kind of talk and walk through some of these things that are happening and how even our own family members are reacting to them. right josh what's your opening line here and then I'm going to throw up an image that I want us all to react to well uh just piggybacking on what dr rob just stated about uh you know we're talking about dei it seems to be the the catchphrase of all now and it's amazing why we're talking about dei and pretty much right after martin luther king's birthday pretty much right at the beginning of black history month out of all of the stuff that's happened in the last week or two, I don't know where DEI comes from as it relates to a topic of discussion.
8:04 You know, we had a plane that crashed, nobody's discussing about why that plane crashed. Somebody is saying that it crashed because of the education of the folks that's driving it. But once again, most people have been driving a plane for ten, fifteen, twenty years. And this is the time that it crashed. So is it a malfunction in the equipment or is it just a fact that someone is trying to shift or maybe steer a conversation in a different area to keep the truth from actually being exposed? So I am, while I'm pondered from the standpoint of why so much effort is being channeled to a topic that really hadn't surfaced or been even looked at as a possible reason for the cause.
8:59 And I just think we're concentrating and we put a lot of energy into certain things in certain areas that are really not called for that amount of energy. You got people out of California who had lost their homes You got another crash that took place in the East or Midwest. One of them, was it Detroit over Detroit? And that information is not being brought out yet. So, you know, it's a lot of things like Doc just said about caring and understanding and being positive that we really need to continue to push because this is a time in which we really need to express our kindness, our force for kindness.
9:41 And our force for just love. Lucy. I think that that's the perfect segue for me to throw up an image. Now, every year, or at least the last five years, I start off my year with a celebration of my Tucson beyond community. When Gabby Giffords was shot back in two thousand eleven, it was terrible. But the way that our community responded, we celebrate with kindness. We get outside, we're kind of strangers. And then a week later is MLK Day, his birthday, right? And the holiday happened to be on the twentieth.
10:19 His actual birthday is the fifteenth, celebrated that. But I was sick and I could not go to my community MLK Day and it made me just feel so bad. But what did I do? I sat on the couch and I watched the whole inauguration take place, right? And so like I had these very interesting feelings And this is just kind of what came out of my creative mind in terms of, you know, you got this energy behind the White House dome, right? You got Jimmy Carter's half staff flag flying in the background. You've got new leadership coming in, right?
10:59 Who claims that he just wants merit and equal things, right? Some could interpret his words differently. Like I said, we're all gonna come here with different perspectives. I'm a little bit more forgiving than others. And then we've got Dr. Martin Luther King Day in the same deal. And here we are trying to advance the dream. And I just wrote out, is it even still possible? Is it even possible? Like with the... The differences of opinions, it's very difficult, I've found, even within my own family, to have just regular conversations, to talk through some of these differences without getting in a big fight.
11:42 So I'm glad that Telly joined us in the back so he can kind of hear part of this and we'll segue him in. But I just wanted to go around the table really quickly and see how you guys react to this conversation. Can we be stronger together? This day was just so interesting with all the things going on. Josh, how do you react to this? Well, it's like you said, Lisa, some people interpret it differently. Some people have a stronger view on it than others because of some of the things in which they have encountered through this process.
12:18 You know, it's almost like when you talk about everything that went on with people, especially black and brown people during the civil rights movement and trying to get that bill passed, it's like we're trying to go backwards on it now. What was so wrong with that that we got to put this much attention and concentration into actually talking about that whole process over again? It's been since nineteen sixty four and nineteen sixty five. Since that actually took place and we've been living fine, but now there is a big push and a problem with it because of what?
12:59 I mean, I do think that there have been extra emphasis on DEI starting at the Obama administration. And I do think that the intention was good and meaningful and well. But I do think then, like anything good, too much of anything is bad. I just think that some people ran with things to make the other side. I don't know. That's just kind of what my thought is. Rob, how do you react to this? I see a lot of things that are happening that happened. Forty to seventy, eighty years ago, you know, I see.
13:48 Dramatic shifts in various basic values and efforts that are being changed in such a rapid pace that it's hard for the regular news or alternative news to keep up, let alone a lack of leadership to mount a counter proposal or counter movement about this. I'm looking for leadership. Who can I give my campaign money to or should we be giving campaign money to anybody, especially as corporations? I'm going to throw it out there that the corporate influence in our campaigns and I'm talking both sides.
14:38 We changed the law in a Supreme Court ruling and it was either two thousand ten or two thousand twelve. We made it possible for corporations or individuals to donate unlimited amounts of money to something called PACs or political action committees that are not controlled by the candidate, but are controlled by a leadership board that then can make massive donations. And I don't know about you, but I do okay financially, but I don't have a hundred or a thousand dollars, let alone a million or a hundred million to donate to some local congressional campaign to say, if you don't vote the way we do, we're going to donate to your competitor and get you out of office and flood the airwaves.
15:29 I think we need action for both sides. If we want a stable America, we the people need to find a way to change political donations. Because it is human nature, with that amount of money, anyone, probably including me, could be bought out on almost any issue if the stakes were high enough and it was going to affect my family in certain ways. I think the, I'm going to be introducing Telly here in a second, but I'm going to leave, transition this conversation and kind of like my volleyball, I'm going to set this baby up for you guys to respond to.
16:14 You know, I have a dream, had the words of his desire for us all to be judged on the content of our character, not the color of our skin. I had a very interesting exchange with my chat GPT virtual assistant. And it's just interesting how the perspectives, you know, comparing contrast and what would MLK Jr. say to Donald Trump these days. And I thought that it was very interesting, the likenesses. that came out. But on that note, let's go ahead and bring in somebody that actually does this on a real basis.
16:51 Telly Medina, he is the president of Medina Consulting. And I noticed in his bio that there is a expertise and specialty in bipartisan government strategies. So happy to welcome Telly to the stage. Telly, it's nice to meet you. And I'll take this off. And, you know, how I saw you kind of watching, right, the last couple. Dare I bring that poster up? I mean, I'd love to get your thoughts on what, you know, we're here talking about EEI in twenty five and what it means. And then also, how do we continue to advance the dream?
17:33 Is it possible? So, you know, share some of your thoughts with regards to that. um good morning absolutely good morning thank you for having me I hope you all are well uh and and thank you to my brother josh for making the intro in order to to have a conversation about something that seems to be um dramatically important in light of um an announcement that DEI had something remotely to do with a plane crash, where we hadn't had a crash in about fifteen years. And now we know that that was, for lack of a better word, it's an asinine way in order to describe something, let alone when people have died.
18:22 So to those families, we, you know, grateful to god for those people's contribution here on earth and we will pray for um for their hearts and their minds uh going forward um I think as a person who has been a part of some civil rights policy I would like to say on the advancement of issues for people for working-class people not just black but black and white um dei and for my friends who are in the space and we struggle with the conversations I would always ask um is it tied to a revenue generation is it tied to a revenue generation what companies should be doing this because it's the right thing to do okay cool and when they stop feeling that way about it what are we going to do well the ties change There's a new presidency.
19:18 There's a change. We're over Elton Sterling, whatever those things may be. Is it tied to a revenue stream? And so the thing that I would say is I believe that DEI should advance, and I'm grateful to God for all the work that's happened and for all the people that participated in it. The difficulty as a person who comes from a workforce development background is my friends that had some of those jobs that were very important, what are they going to do now? And you're talking about hundreds of people.
19:49 I mean, at least I can name five to ten people that I know that have very prominent positions and now are struggling to find another position within that corporation, that organization, that company, and to make a determination on what that change is going to be. Do they need to do something different? And so the thing that I would say to those individuals is, I hope that we in our corporations, within our companies and our organizations, that we will always be working on these issues. And whether, Coach Lucy, it's called the DEI anymore, you can call it, you know, child of God, as far as I'm concerned.
20:30 It doesn't really matter to me but that that there's someone who's advancing the policy to make sure that African Americans move forward that women move forward that transgender whether those people move for Because under this big old thing called America and it's three hundred and thirty million people that live here eight point two billion plus people around the world that people are treated fairly and so however that has to happen and And whatever policies we take, whatever name that it needs to be given, I'm open to that.
21:03 And so some people feel uncomfortable with my explanation that I've been in business and policy for a long time. I know what happens when the pendulum swings. And this feels like one of those things. And so that there won't be retribution. Just keep being a good person. keep advancing policy that's going to benefit every working class person the people who are participating I know that's not as hard when it's not expressed and it's not counted uh and maybe the explanation doesn't even add up but I'm a lobbyist by trade and so uh good lobbying often the times is when everybody didn't get all of what they wanted now that seems to be piss poor if coach lucy was advocating for the right thing and I was advocating for the wrong thing and I won But that's the way that things happen sometimes in that building in Baton Rouge and in Washington, D.C.
21:55 And what I can't do is get my mind off the ball because I'm so peed off that something got turned around. And so... Let me put on a devil's advocate position for you guys. I'm curious to get now. You're not going to meet a stronger woman's rights advocate than me. We have another club called My Girl Power, all about getting gender disparities evened out in the leadership roles in public, private, nonprofit sector, but mostly private and nonprofit, I mean, public sector. But even me as a girl power advocate, I'm not quite sure I want women on the front line.
22:34 Okay, so like when the DOD Hedge, what's his name? I can't even say, Hedgesmith or? Yeah, Hedgesmith, yes. So when he makes a statement like, I don't want women on the front line, it sounds very, you know, like he's a jerk, like he is, you know, misogynistic and everything. But under the layer, I'm not mad at that comment. Mm-hmm. No disrespect to all the women in the military. The Women in the Military Memorial is one of my gems, and I love it. But I just wanted to throw that out to you guys as an example of a DEI policy that has allowed maybe a weaker physical body to be front-lined.
23:19 How would you guys respond to that? I'll probably get some slack from my women folk there, but I'm just curious. I don't want to speak. I'm ready to speak to it, but I'll let Dr. Rob and Josh go first. Well, I'll jump in and thank you, Terry, Ateli. My honorary daughter, Corinne, weighed ninety eight pounds, technically one hundred and one on the day she weighed in. But she had literally an eighty pound pack of gear. Picture this now. It's almost her weight. It's eighty to ninety percent of her weight.
23:55 Eighty percent of her weight. If she was in full gear carrying all the gear required. And she did two tours and her tours involved not being on the front line, but being in the postal service thinking she was safe. I didn't realize until she came home that she was on a Blackhawk helicopter going from installation, installation all over hostile territory, getting shot at to make sure people got the appropriate supplies, including the mail and other things that were shipped to various regions around Afghanistan.
24:32 And Kuwait. Bottom line is someone who's physically too weak to be able to operate the equipment to lift a comrade and carry them on their shoulders out of harm's way really does make them at more risk, as well as the guy or the gal who's got their six, so to speak, who's surrounding them, who's looking behind them, six o'clock, twelve o'clock. So Lucy on the front line, I want my daughter on the front line just knowing she couldn't pick up a forty pound sack of stuff to help in the garden last summer, let alone an eighty pound pack, except with intense concentration.
25:24 She would have gotten killed on the front lines. And I think it's merit and size based, I think should be everywhere. I am not. That same daughter, Lucy, just got a memo that was five paragraphs long because she copied me on it. Basically giving her six days to either quit her current job or move to Portland, Oregon from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. So she sold her house and is moving. And that's a government job? She has a government job. You know, she wants to keep her. She's in the civilian side of or the stateside part of what she's doing and actually works for the National Park Service or the Forestry Service.
26:12 But she had quit her job of three years and now moved to Portland with six days notice or lose her job. I don't care if you call that DEI or I just simply call it incompetent management to send that memo. She got the exact same memo, word for word, that my brother-in-law at the top of a federal, let's just call it a safety agency, one of the top guys, keeping us safe on airplanes. And the same letter that another son-in-law got, who's one of the top guys keeping us safe from drugs. Very confusing, very confusing incompetence.
26:52 It's not just It's a level of management ignorance of how to manage a company or a major corporation when you are putting people in charge that haven't managed multimillion dollar corporations and payrolls. It's just easier to say, get rid of the program. I do think that, though, that's two separate issues. I don't think that the shrinking of government is a DEI issue. I think we're looking at two parallel things here. Yes. And so we need to make that distinction and then tell you. If this is the DEI call, I tell you when you're cutting back on government, it affects certain populations more than others, I think, as well.
27:37 So it is a subtle, I think, uh, poor people, racist type of activity. When you, when you eliminate jobs, the, the, the, the percent of jobs across all agencies, um, a certain number of the last hired are the first fired with the last administration. There was a lot of hiring with DEI and it's a way of firing people for economic reasons without saying DEI was why they were fired. The leadership, I'm so frustrated. I can't stand it, Lucy. I know. Let's go back to Telly, our featured guest here. Let's do that.
28:13 Our commander in chief should be calming the situation, not flaming it when there's flames in Los Angeles, when there are flames in the Potomac, and use that for the audience to shift the conversation to the foe side. Telly, your thoughts? That's a tough one. I think that less than two-thirds of the world's population, Lucy, are women. If that is the case, and you have more women than men, you should, if you're looking at numbers, should probably want women to be able to to fight on the front line because you need the bodies.
29:10 But therein lies the problem. uh aren't we in fifty fifty yeah in this country let's just look at this country right yeah and so we we looked at it looked at this country and looked at the folks who are now looking at numbers of signing up for military you might say some of the numbers are fifty fifty but here's the most important part lucy just said in the pit of her stomach she doesn't feel comfortable knowing that a woman got her head shot off on the front line but if it was a man and and listen I'll also tell you Lucy that I have a daughter and I have two sons.
29:47 And if all of them got drafted, If one of them had to go to the front line. You would send your daughter. I wouldn't send my daughter. I would send the two boys. And it isn't because I think that, and now listen, she's a formidable girl at both. All of them are decent size athletes and she probably would have enough strength in order to carry the bag, but she's also my girl. And so I think that maybe there's, it's not an issue of toughness. But also an issue of, oh, my God, I wouldn't have thought that my daughter would be in this situation, whether it be or whatever else it would be.
30:27 I think that a country feels more comfortable with knowing that in Vietnam, for example, and even in other wars that. Women went into the workforce and all to work the jobs while a great deal of men were across seas. And because we saw it that way, I don't know if we can unsee that. And that's what we are used to the military complex, as we say, military industrial complex being. And so I think related to what we were talking about earlier, it's a bit asinine to come and say that. DI hire has something to do with not having enough air traffic controllers and all of the things that I don't believe that we even have all the information yet.
31:11 But all of the information that will come out over the next few weeks to make a determination. I will say I think that internally at times for people of color particularly. that whether before there was DEI, that you were very conscientious of being able to ensure that if it's your motivation is to be able to help women or your motivation is to be able to help men or black boys or whoever, you put them in position. But the world has changed. I'll give you a quick story. I know of a guy who's a million dollar earner at a law firm here, and he would take particular care.
31:50 His wife knew this particular care to young ladies were graduating law school that came into his firm in order to advance them well as the me too movement started to push losing his wife and among the company started to talk back and say well you need to pull some of that back you're not going to be able to help those young ladies as you wanted to and there was somewhat of an investigation of this guy wasn't bad but what we found out was they only had one kid It was a daughter. And when she was at Three Island Law School about to graduate, Josh, she died of cancer.
32:23 And so as his memory to her was to help as many young ladies who were becoming attorneys as the kind of credence to his daughter. That kind of was a lost in translation moment when you got to, you know, having a Me Too movement. That isn't to say that what was going on, you know, with this guy, his intentions seemed to be pure and they were good and he was doing the right thing. But sometimes life and history, we're looking at things from the past, you can get caught up. And so I think that right now, I guess to Dr. Rob's point, where are we going to be at with common decency?
33:02 And common decency of of what is supposed to be appropriate for man behavior what men are supposed to be uh I'm still teaching my boys that you have to open doors and you have to walk on the outside of the street uh where your mom or sister because if the car comes you should be the one to get hit uh you need to be respectful to law enforcement speak when spoken to the adults These are the things that I was taught. So I don't know loosely how to be untaught those things. And I still find that those things need to be well.
33:34 You don't disrespect women. You don't talk to them crazy. And last but not least, your job is to be even killed. And so the thing that I find that in business, even in talking to children and even with everybody is. Everybody seems to be so high or so low and where we maintain in a discipline to just be even keeled to get through something and, you know, conquer this one thing and get to the next. And so that's what I see as being the difference across the board. You know, you said something earlier.
34:08 I just want to correct. It's not that I don't want women on the front line because I don't want women's heads to be shot off. I just think that there's a physicality requirement that if we're all going to be true and factual about it, is real. And I also think that just because what's happening in the government because of what our president's doing DEI-wise doesn't mean that it is going to rally in along the corporate's Now, some of them have, some of them are doubling down and it does go back to what the core of what we're trying to do with the Force for Health and with Advance a Dream is understanding how to be more empathetic Healthy global citizen, right?
34:51 And hopefully we don't need those rails open. But, you know, Rob and I participated in a project with Ohio Medicaid just a few years ago. And it was an implicit bias training for Medicaid service providers for pregnant mamas because it is still a very, very real thing. Thank you. That you see brown skin and there's an implicit bias to either mistreat, ignore, or not value lives. And you have to... We did this timeline. It's like... Four hundred years since slavery and then two thousand twenty four.
35:33 And you got to move the timeline more than half of the years to even get to the civil rights space. Right. And then everything's like kind of clumped up in the last fifty years. And so, you know, fair skinned people, if you are in hiring positions, just please know that there is, you know, that's that's my hope. And it might be like altruistic. that without these strong guidelines of DEI, that we have a different generation of hiring people, but my husband's African-American and he takes a very, very different stance to it.
36:08 So I don't know, that's just kind of sort of, we proved that women are still going and men, you know, fathers and mothers were still going through three hospital systems throughout the state of Ohio, feeling like they weren't cared for or valued. And that's just an example of why we still do need this highlight on implicit bias. I will give you one little point and then I'll let it go. I ran the statewide program for Medicaid redetermination for the state of Louisiana. So that outreach in order to talk to minorities in some of the hardest to reach communities across the state of Louisiana.
36:51 And in some places we have eight medical regions or eight regions under the auspices of Louisiana Department of Health. And once, Coach Lucy, we were walking in New Orleans East, in New Orleans. And we were walking with our fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha, as volunteers in order to be able to get out and have a conversation. And one of our brothers is a brother, Dr. Joe Ricks, who's a business professor at Xavier. And Joe had signed up for trial, so he had already been testing, using, taking the vaccination and whatnot.
37:22 And I'm not saying that it was perfect. A lot of people had different vantage points on it. And so we walked up to one guy's house, and this guy wouldn't have known me for Adam and that I was running the program, and it was me and Dr. Rich, Josh. And we're knocking on this one older black man, maybe about sixty-five, sixty, somewhere sixty-five, sixty, knocked on his door. Just said, how you doing, sir? with Alpha Phi Alpha and what coming here, you know, not only exactly fraternity, but Medicaid redetermination on health.
37:51 The guy cursed us out so bad. I said, I can't believe that you will be coming here. And y'all are black men. You're here. You're trying to listen to people and trying to kill us. said trying to kill you he said yeah he said man you just can't trust anybody you just can't trust anybody and and it's sad that uh the people sent you and I said you mean white people like when you say people who exactly talking about he said yeah of course and I said but you really don't have an exact person right no but I just know and I said well you know the lady who's doing the formula that came with the vaccination.
38:30 Did you know it was black and it was like multiple women and blah, blah, blah? He said, no, I didn't know that. And I pulled it up on the phone and I showed it to him. He said, well, I know that I'm going to have to take the vaccine at some point. I said, well, brother, I took it. My wife took it. My three children are taking it. I asked my sister to take it, my brother, my nephew. So I went through all the people in the family. And I said, do you think that if the government or somebody was doing it, that I would have asked, you know, Dr. Rob and Josh and me all to take it?
38:59 He said, well, I know he was sixty four years old. He said, no, I'm going to have to take it by next year. And I said, why is that? He said, because if I don't take it when I turn sixty five, you're not going to give me my benefits. I said, damn. He really meant what he was saying. He wasn't joking. This was a very difficult conversation. They were confrontational. And I just said, sir, I understand your position. Thank you. And we're going to move on to the next house. I got to talk to more people.
39:32 Obviously, I'm not going to change your mind. And it was then, this is a few years ago, that for purposes of public discourse, I said, damn, is it really that bad that you can't really even have a conversation at the door, interface the back and forth? And I do really well at that. to be able to talk about why you're going to take the vaccination or not. And this guy who clearly smoked cigarettes, so he probably wasn't as concerned about himself to be sixty-five, sixty-four years old and still smoking.
39:59 And I said, well, this makes public discourse and what we're trying to do to advance the dream. that much more difficult because we've become so cynical that we can't have civil discourse that if you're Republican, Democrat, Black, white, old, young, whoever, straight, gay, that we can't even have a conversation about a commonality, about what we need to do in order to help one another when it came to public health. And as hard as that conversation was, it also wasn't honest about where we see ourselves in That's what, we're still too generationally close to the pain, you know?
40:38 He's not in his seventies and eighties that may have like felt the pain right there, right? But sixty-five is still like, what are you talking about? They like did experiments on my dad or, you know, Josh, you've been so quiet and we're going to be transitioning out here to heart health here, but please speak up on this. I mean, so much of this has to do with the fact that the legacy makers, people that march with King are still around your Alpha, you know, as alumni, the ones we're still here touching the sixties.
41:11 We've talked about this. We talked about this, Lucy, a couple of a couple of times. And like Kelly just stated, that is happening in so many different homes. And it's the lack of information and knowledge that's really hurting us more than anything. And that's why we have to continue to push, even if we're with the fraternity, even if we're with different social organizations, we have to continue to try and educate people. And that is one of the things that we do with the kids. And this is the reason why we do it, because when they get to that age, Telly, you know, and I got Telly Jr.
41:49 Telly Jr. has been on this show before as well. His son. That's the one. That's right. Exactly. I love I love that. And we have to continue to push to remote and educate them in a way in which they will not part from it. You know, our opinions on the civil rights movement, I think, you know, it's really a no brainer to me. I wouldn't be here sitting up here talking on this computer to a white man from Northern Pennsylvania or a white woman that's married to a black man in uh in arizona I'm going to claim my filipino another black man if it had not been for what dr king put forth and tried to do and that's the piece that I'm always thankful of because we wouldn't have these opportunities you know I I know what you're saying about uh I did I didn't come in on the on on the lady part being on the front line But when Dr. King made his speech, he said he believed that he lived here in a place where all men are created equally.
42:57 Not saying that we want them on the line, but they ought to at least be in a position where they can be considered for that position. Now, that's what I agree with. Considered and cherished. Some women are stronger than men and they could probably do that. So I wouldn't want to slight them or cut them. But I think that when we look at this and we're talking about all men being created equally and having those opportunities equally, I don't have a problem with a lady, a lady captain flying a plane.
43:32 If she knows what she's doing, whether she black, white in any, it doesn't make me any difference. Right. She knows what she's doing. I could have partnered with anyone. from New Orleans. I reject the statement that you would be on this call, this would exist if it wasn't for King. Before King, my mother was raising me with an open mind, but was talking about things like half of my Jewish heritage, the other half Italian Catholic, but My father, after World War II, the Italian, changed his name from Gileo to Gillis so he could get a job because there was a great deal of prejudice.
44:16 My mother hid her Judaism background until she was in her eighties, even from her children. What I'm saying though is King was a tremendous leader and created a movement. There's great people of all colors, all races, all nationalities. that believe in the same things King did. And we have to honor and be around those people. And you're one of them, Josh. You're not here because you're some token black guy. You're the guy that attracted this brain trust of people to look at what you've done after Katrina immediately, but then it continues with what you do in schools, after schools and churches.
44:59 You're inspiring the other way around. You're not here because of a DEI thing. You're here because of merit. And I want to increase my level of skill by being around you, by being around Lucy, and maybe being around Telly. I don't know him well enough, but boy, am I impressed. Not because he's some Black guy that got his, all the three of you are not here because of meritocracy of policy. You're here because you've got the skills and the competence. And that's, there's two differences, Lucy, with that.
45:33 Yeah. There's differences between the hiring and is the doctor you're seeing quality, is the pilot you're seeing quality, is different than assuming that the discrimination type of things that are happening by those of any color that are in that position. And I think that, you know, Telly, when he was talking about the sixty five year old, like I said, that's not old. It's older than me, but maybe younger than Rob. Right. The this multi generational, intergenerational weaving of knowledge transfer, the celebration of life and heroes and telling stories and making sure that our young folks know that there is a we haven't reached the summit yet, right?
46:25 There are still work to do, call it sacrificial service, sacrificial duty is kind of what I've heard some of your alpha brothers come on here and say. So just to kind of carry that through, again, we need this type of platform and opportunity to have these types of discussions without like yelling at each other, without calling you a Trump, you're a Trumpier, you know, like just because you think differently, right? Like, I'm really, I've been an independent, always have been, right? So I want to be in the middle, trying to connect and facilitate conversations like this.
46:59 And I'll have to have my husband on maybe the next episode, and we can have a very interesting, challenging time to do that. But I want to go ahead and transition into, you know, a disparity that is real for African-American and Hispanic and brown skin, which is the... heart disease and stroke circulatory type of related areas. February is heart month. And so, Tally, you are more than welcome to stay on board. Stay on until the end if you have to leave. Can you stay on for the next ten minutes so you can watch this or you have to go?
47:39 I have to make sure that my kids don't run in here. No worries. I'll take you off the stage. But if you want to come back for final words, you know, I'll bring you back up on the stage. So thank you so much for having this conversation with us. We have to keep saying and we're going to keep doing it. So we will be calling on you again. We invite you to join our executive council and advance the dream so we can kind of connect these thought leaders. And we really appreciate it. Thank you very much.
48:07 Okay, take care. Okay, Rob, you are on. So, you know, we've got this really cool platform and function over at the Force for Health with over two thousand models of interactive, you know, human anatomy stuff. And I really it's fascinating how much I feel like we do not know our own bodies, right? The inside. And really, I love that we're starting with heart because that is the machine that pushes life through the form of blood. So I hand it over to you. I'm Dr. Rob. I'm going to share my screen, but first let me point out that the knowledge is everything.
48:48 And what's happening now in these last decade or so, including leadership from the current administration, is to make resources online available to anyone, whatever school they're at. It's something to advance the dream We have to advance health literacy knowledge. And so let's talk about the heart. And if you don't mind Lucy, I'm going to attempt to share my screen. Um, are you playing a video? I am not. I'm trying to remove that. Go ahead. My bad. Fine. I'm going to try and share my screen. I'm clicking on mine.
49:25 Um, and, uh, I'm going to, I'm going to tap here to share entire screen and it won't let me share it. Um, I'm going to click on one screen only. All right. Can you see my screen now with a beating heart and breathing body on it? Yep. So I'm at a place called theforceforhealth.com, a free resource for the entire world. But if you want to play reality health games, get really good about your body for a couple pennies a day, you can have fun owning your body and competing like crazy. We have a thousand models, I've clicked on blood, heart and lung to bring up that there's a hundred and twenty eight models.
50:14 And why do we care so much about it? This thing is called your heart. It beats. And are you seeing a beating heart right now, everybody? Not yet. We're still seeing your menu, your course list. I don't know how to change. I don't share this tab instead. OK. Okay, so this is a normal heartbeat. And this is a model that kids can utilize and play with and learn and label and stop and hide and do surgery and learn how to pronounce and do surgeries and take a look at the actual function of a given heart.
51:00 This is a heart with a normal heartbeat, lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub is the sound. the valves, and the blood make. It's made by the circulatory system having its own neural system. It's like a brain, the SA node, and the spinal cord bundle of his going through the body. And as that happens, it helps the body. If you can see electrical signals going through the conductive system. So there's normal heart. Then there's illnesses of the conducting system. If the heart muscle gets injured or stretched, they can lead to something called atrial fibrillation where the heart beats with just a little bit different cadence.
51:43 The top of the heart is fibrillating, vibrating, very inefficient. It's just kind of dripping blood into the lower part of the heart to pump to the body. And sometimes clots can form in those areas. So atrial fibrillation is an issue and it has complications such as stroke. If I, I'm going to, I'm going to bear with me here, guys. I'm going to try and share the next one. Share this tab instead. Are you now seeing a heart that has a bluish pattern going on with it? Correct, Lucy? Correct. All right.
52:25 Thank you. When the blood comes from your body, it's full of stuff. carbon dioxide the smoke from combustion is if you're in a fireplace and you're burning wood instead of and you make smoke and ash instead of that you're burning calories in your muscles is making carbon dioxide if you're drinking alcohol if you have diabetes it's making acetone ketone things that evaporate so as it comes into your heart it goes in the left atrium excuse me the right atrium and right ventricle it goes out to the lungs where it gets purified and then comes back in from the lungs, kind of full of oxygen, the redness, eventually into the left ventricle and out the rest of the heart.
53:16 Can you now see one that says coronary stenting? Yes. Okay. Well, if that blood is going to the rest of the heart, how is the heart muscle itself nourished? For these things, these things that are call them and make it full screen, I'm sorry, that are called coronary arteries. These are the arteries that actually serve the heart muscle. Like when you look at your hands or your arms on your skin, you can see arteries and veins. On the heart, they're like this. And when things go bad, when things go bad, they get kind of ugly and they get narrowed internally.
53:55 And so there's plaque that over time, when you eat too much cholesterol, plaque occurs in an area inside the artery and if that plaque were to rupture it can cause a blockage like where these blood cells aren't moving quickly and a stent can be placed in such a way it's a it's a plastic device with a metal cage in it with a balloon and you see things are narrowed if one were to blow up the balloon It stretches that blood vessel to the side. Sorry for the sound effects. Then the balloon is deflated, and that little cage is left behind.
54:41 And now it's holding open this area. Now, if the stent stays in place, that's great. If the stent starts to clot on it, it can be a sudden heart attack. If everything downstream, the blood vessel that it serves, the area it serves, would die. So that's an important thing. So I'm trying to talk and click buttons at the same time. With the ruptured plaque in an artery, here's a really nice picture of that that I like. I just wanted to share that with you. See how the plaque kind of ruptures, and then it makes it so narrow that normal blood clotting occurs.
55:23 If you have sickle cell, It's not because it's a DEI discrimination against you. You're much more likely to have this happen even as a child. The cells are more likely to clot. So that's why African-American, if you have sickle cell, you got to keep oxygenated. You have to keep well hydrated. You have to keep that blood moving. High blood pressure is yet another problem that can occur. that over time with too much plaque, these blood vessel walls start to get thicker muscles and the blood has to squeeze through.
56:03 And if you narrow the hose, you need a higher pressure to get it through. If you have a higher pressure to get it through, that blood comes out the aorta, this vessel right here, and it has to go through this valve. And as you put this valve through a ton of pressure, it gets ugly. it may not open fully, it gets plaques on it. If you use drugs, these plaques get infected and cause septic strokes. If you are just a normal aging person with untreated high blood pressure, you get clots just on that and just below it.
56:41 And then sometimes you're more risk for a stroke. Blacks versus white, Mississippi Delta, You're dying ten to fifteen years earlier than the same exact white neighbor, even ones that are eating the same diet. Smoking affects plaque formation. High-fat, high-salt diet affects plaque formation. And over time, over time, if you have too much blood pressure or you scar the walls, your body makes... huge amounts of tissue that just are laying there and are floppy and don't contribute and eventually start to fail and the blood backs up to the right side of the heart and affects the lungs.
57:36 So I should be seeing, I should be on screen now with the three of you. What I'm trying to say is there is implicit bias when you go to the hospital And no matter what kind of patient you are, right now, I'm an old white guy that everyone assumes hates Blacks people, hates DEI. I mean, it's interesting to be on the other side of it, but I'm just an old Northern white guy to some people and other people. I'm just like their grandfather and I'll get the best care or I'll get maybe a little bit less, but all of us have to advocate for ourselves with healthy decisions.
58:20 First off, to reduce the risk of early heart disease, to reach out to our older elders that are in their forties, fifties, sixties, seventies, maybe the Alpha Alpha alumni would be someone to think about, Josh. But then thirdly, when in the hospital, ask the questions, show me the picture, doctor. What is wrong with me? What is the procedure I'm going to have? What are the medications I'm taking and why? So it's important to break the cycle of heart disease disparities. A person needs to be knowledgeable, needs to be an advocate for themselves, needs to find the facilities with the best outcomes.
59:04 Thank you. I think that that's awesome. And I'm so excited to announce the launch of one of our new specialty health clubs at the Force for Health that will be coached and led by none other than Dr. Rob himself. It's actually called Dr. Rob's Human Explorer Club. Think of it like a Facebook group that is interdisciplinary. interjected with actually courses and learn it challenges every week. And so there's going to be a big focus on heart and circulatory and blood this month. Rob is a retired pulmonologist, Mayo trained, and so you're in good hands there.
59:49 But again, that is actually part of our free basic membership, theforceforhealth.com. So if you'd like to go ahead and Download the app. You can QR code that right there and get started with us. Josh, do you have, as I was bringing this last deal up, you've got lots of Challenges coming up with the advanced dream, a fifty four mile virtual. So as of maybe five o'clock today, we will start our two thousand twenty five virtual Selma March badge. I know I earned my fifty four mile badge for two thousand twenty four.
1:00:34 I think Rob did, too. Not sure if you did, Josh, but it just it's a fun way if you are an ambassador member, which was the dollar per week type of deal, forty nine dollars per year. And then half of it actually goes and supports, you know, scholarships for advanced dream programs. So if you are an ambassador, you there is a virtual Selma March on our wellness app. And it just when you track your cardio, it will see how long it will take you to go fifty four miles. Right. Also, if you're an ambassador level member, you have access to a personalized health risk assessment so you can invest five minutes and go ahead and actually get a report on your biological risk age versus your I mean, your biological age versus your behavioral risk.
1:01:29 Age and then offer suggestions on what to do to improve that and even have, you know, PDF reports walk into and show your doctor, right? So I love how we are working towards this concept of like the certified and prepared patient here with Dr. Rob as well. But that was, you know, a great start right to two thousand twenty five. I think that I again want to focus on having the uncomfortable conversations because I really do think that us citizens need that practice space to be with people of different mindsets so that we can lean in towards a union as opposed to deflect and oppose.
1:02:16 Those are some of my closing thoughts. I'll go to you, Josh. I agree wholeheartedly, Lucy. I think those conversations should be had. It's definitely a plus that the community could hear some of those different conversations so that they can make a conscious decision on everything that they're hearing out there because it's bad when you just hear one side. The whole thing. So, you know, the good thing about it that we have a platform that allow them to see different views, to hear different views coming from different people of ethnic groups and backgrounds.
1:02:55 So, you know, we just have to continue to provide that information so that our community, so that people that live near us will have the tools necessary to understand and comprehend where we are in life and actually what is going on. And I love that you do matter. I love that we've been working with you for as long as we have, and we've taken this initiative to just take it to the masses in this intergenerational fashion. Because when it comes down to it, when you look at the surface of like, oh, what do you mean NIH funding?
1:03:33 Like he's cutting all the funding, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? It's so easy to just react and be mad and scared, right? But I remind myself when I published magazines and tried to get public health information out throughout the years. And Dr. Carmona was my mentee. Like I loved him. He is who I respond and respect. And he said something to me at the very beginning. And he said, Lucy, we need to figure out a way. We do not need to spend any more money on figuring out how to get vaccines.
1:04:07 American citizens healthier. We need to figure out how to help them make the healthier decision the easy one. And it's probably going to be through some type of incentives program. But if you look at ten different doctors and they're all studying in different silos based on these grants on stroke, let's go ahead and look at what prevents that. perhaps put some funding on the accountability of the individual, because eighty percent of chronic conditions are preventable. Isn't that right, Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Rob?
1:04:47 Preventable or delayable, we're all going to die. Maybe when we're somewhere in our eighties to early hundreds, if we're lucky. But our life expectancy has dropped, all of us, statistically since COVID, and we've not caught up yet. But if we talk about, Lucy, the meritocracy and things, be as smart as you can about your own body, your own health, your own health care system, your own neighborhood, how to access food and assistance. Be an advocate for yourself and don't necessarily just believe one source.
1:05:28 I feel so bad for that gentleman who, in his world, that was his truth. And those people at his door really were trying to injure him, harm him, or influence him to do something very dangerous for the benefit of big pharma. It's a shame that he really believed that. The forceforhealth.com platform, it's my dream that it becomes the place for logical, evidence-based information to be shared. And for it to be a community for those that are suffering through a variety of different things, advocating for themselves, being the best patient they can possibly be, can help overcome and delay, as Lucy says, delay that heart attack till you're in a hundred and five and you just crump as opposed to getting it at fifty five and being a burden to your family for the next twenty years and then die.
1:06:29 Too much early disease, especially in the African-American and primarily African-American male population. It's just an absolute disaster that can be addressed to some extent with the behavior of the individual person while we are simultaneously trying to address issues in how healthcare is paid for and provided in this country. It's not perfect at all. On my watch, we have seen it go from a, honorable profession to a bunch of small, it's not a healthcare system. It is a series of sick care businesses.
1:07:11 And we have to help by being better patients to help take care of ourselves while this gets worked out. And the chaos is opportunity. The opportunity is underneath that skin, all one thousand of those anatomic models, they're all the same because we're all the same. Once we get one millimeter below the skin. Think about that. If I'm in a surgery, I don't know if the person's black or white. It's just get over it. You racist folks out there are all the same. At least the same hardware. Now let's get our software working out.
1:07:54 I'm sorry. Those are my thoughts. Be kind and get health literate. and get off your butt and walk. And do that Selma march and take someone with you, advance your cardiac status, advance your social status, advance your knowledge, and relax with that walk as you learn about King and what you could do to advance the dream. First thing you can do, get health order and stay healthier. That's right. And, you know, I love our logo because I'll leave you with this. You know, it's about your own health and then the health of your family.
1:08:30 Because within those two first circles, there is so much interesting information to know. So I challenge you to look around your immediate family and ask them about their health history. Ask them if their parents had heart disease, stroke, colon cancer, prostate cancer, because really those first two circles of family and self are the most important place that we would like you and encourage you all to be confident in. I mean, let's do it. Know your blood, move your blood, give your blood, and know your family history.
1:09:13 So how we're going to structure this moving forward is this is going to be a biweekly broadcast. And the first of the month will kind of be this roundtable in general relevant issues and health awareness. But the third week, our second broadcast of the month, will be focused on education and pathways. Okay. OK, so join us for higher ed leaders and all different types of intergenerational perspectives on the state of the union of education and what we can do to make sure that it's equitable and equal for all.
1:09:49 OK, so thank you. We will see you on whatever date that is. I should have looked it up on the third Saturday of fourteen days from today. So I guess that would be February fifteenth, right? February fifteenth. And until then, advance the dream be a force for health and move learn serve and earn take care see you later guys
Transcript is auto-generated from the broadcast captions and lightly cleaned; timestamps jump to the moment on YouTube.
Advance the Dream · Episode Recap ·