0:02 Welcome to 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. This bi-weekly series powered by the Force for Health Network is streamed live to Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn at eight a.m. Pacific time and eleven a.m.
0:34 Eastern time, then shared afterwards at advance the dream dot com. We welcome your comments from any platform you are watching from to join our discussion and encourage you to get engaged and to join our community for free. Now let's meet our hosts, Dr. Robert Giglio and Lucy Howell from the Force for Health Network, alongside our strategic partner and National Community Director for Advance the Dream, Mr. Joshua Williams. We hope you enjoy the show. Hello, hello, hello, everybody. My name is Lucy Howell, and welcome to another edition of Advance the Dream, our biweekly interactive chat where we get to talk about heroes, highlights, and issues in the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King to inspire people to get engaged and continue to fight towards equality and justice.
1:30 Equity for everybody. We do it in an intergenerational and a multicultural fashion so that we can perhaps Make him happy and proud. We're joined here with Dr. Robert Gillio, based out of State College, Pennsylvania. And I am here in Tucson, Arizona. And we've got Josh Williams, who is our strategic partner and national community director for this program, based out of Gadsden, Florida. It is October, twenty six, two thousand twenty four. And we are a couple of weeks out of what is about to be a crazy election.
2:12 I'm almost I'm so looking forward to just not hearing. OK, so but we probably named this segment and episode Dentistry. diversity and democracy because we will be joined here in a bit with it's October is National Dental Hygiene Month. And so we are very fortunate to have a national board of director with United Health and Solstice. Dental here, based in Tucson, actually. So I always brag when national folks are coming out of Tucson. Dr. Butch Diggs will be joining us in our second segment. And then we will be joined by Stephen L. Jones, who is running this national program for the Alpha Phi Alphas from a grant they received called Boatless People's Homeless People.
3:06 So it's all about making sure that we are getting out and exercising our right and our duty to vote. But this first segment is basically just going around the table. We like to call it Executive Chat. We are live on Facebook and YouTube and LinkedIn. So if you feel like you want to participate, join in and comment. And if we feel it's worthy, we'll bring it onto the show and talk about it. you know those are my kind of opening statements and I want to keep things short from my perspective because we've got some great guests going on I pass the baton to you rob what's on top of mind right now what would you like to kind of bring up here in this segment of executive chat I'd like to set the stage a little bit about what's coming in the show and one of the things is I want you to look carefully at me I am the grand son of a suffragette my ninety nine year old mother who just voted, reminds me that it is my responsibility and obligation to vote.
4:04 She doesn't care who I vote for, although she does share her opinion. But I want to go on record as saying I resent the way our elections are funded. Here in Pennsylvania, five hundred million dollars, that's half a billion dollars on TV ads, have been spent thus far in this election. I don't think white billionaires Black billionaires, black or white celebrities should be funding millions and millions of dollars of influence in the PACs. I long for the days when Walter Cronkite simply interviewed someone and gave the other candidate equal time.
4:43 We've screwed up in America and we need to go back to the primary sources and not look at the ads, but listen to the candidates as best we can at live events where it's streamed live events and make our own interpretations. Please vote. Please vote your heart and your mind, and think about how we can change how we try to influence the vote going forward. I agree a thousand percent. Josh? My sentiments are exactly, Doc, the same from the standpoint of this vote thing is a big thing that's happening now all across the country.
5:25 First, we were filled with the challenge of people not being able to vote. Then we were filled with the challenge of people not wanting to vote. Now we're into the challenge of people trying to buy votes. And it's just like we need to go back to the square root piece and start over from scratch and see exactly can we do something. Because you're right, half a million dollars on TV ads, and we got some people that don't even have appropriate equipment for schools. Yeah, or dental care. As a physician, I'm going to make one other point here that bothers me, and I hope our expert speaks to it.
6:05 But I have seen personally increased cardiovascular risk from poor dental hygiene. Diabetes complications can worsen blood sugar control, make management more difficult. Respiratory infections, you're aspirating certain germs that make for worse pneumonias. Preterm babies, low birth weight. We've done programs before on these issues. These are all disparate issues. And then, of course, the obvious mental health and self-esteem impact on life. But dental, I just, where half a billion dollars could go for dental care in my state, and it's not necessarily just a black problem or disparity problem or homeless problem.
6:48 Rural America, there's an absence of high-quality dental professionals. And so it's your own responsibility to optimize your own personal dental care. Dentistry, good teeth is a force for health. Voting is a force for health. And I'm going to go on mute now because I can't wait to hear what the rest of you guys have to say. Yeah, exactly. You know, I think October to me is always, it's breast cancer awareness month. My mom passed away from breast cancer. And so I was out and about, you know, one of the things that I really encourage folks to be, especially if you're practicing this whole force for health vibe, you know, and this concept of healthier citizenship is getting out in the community.
7:36 And so I was able to attend a Bag It for Cancer event here. And it's a wonderful organization that prints material and hands it to patients. And so as we look at disparities, as we look at the divide, as we look at barriers to care, this whole concept of digital divide and digital literacy and digital connection still really holds true also. So that's kind of what I'm bringing to the table also. We strive to really hit the spots of gaps, those gaps, when we're trying to educate folks to be more proactive with their health.
8:21 And so it's just kind of a reminder of just get out in the community, get involved, and understand that not everybody has access to a phone. Not everybody has access to the knowledge that it takes to use that phone correctly and just to be more empathetic so that as we continue to have these conversations, you know, we can all understand that not everybody has access to the same things. That's what we call equity. Right. So I almost feel like I don't think that I'm going to get any slack from you guys.
8:54 I feel like I want to get started early and let's jump in and bring Dr. Diggs in. So let me go ahead and introduce our first guest. guest, Dr. Diggs. We will talk about why dental health and diversity matters. He is a dentist here. He's also a father, happens to be. I mean, this is such a small world. His son went to school, high school with my daughter, happens to be very good friends. And then I saw Dr. Diggs at a recent health fair that was hosted by the National Pan-Hellenic counseled the Divine Nine folks get together and did a health fair at the historic Dunbar.
9:36 And like, hey, I know you. Aren't you Haley's mom? Great. And so then he introduced me to all the wonderful things that he is actually involved in. I said, I have to work with you and we have to have you on the show. So without further ado, we've got Dr. Diggs is what we are going to call him. This is Dr. Butch Diggs, but we're going to call him Dr. Diggs. Welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Great. You know, there's two things that I'd like to talk to you about in this fashion.
10:05 So the first part is really, you know, Ty, please help us, Ty. tooth care and dental care into overall health. And some of the things that Rob mentioned earlier. And then the second thing I wanna go ahead and focus is on your project with the diversity and dentistry mentorships, which I think is super important too. We're trying to build and develop and support a more multicultural healthcare workforce. And you have a sliver of that in the dentistry space. So tell us a little bit about why your dental health matters.
10:43 Um it's uh really the first time that we um I was part of dental school actually we were some of the first healthcare practitioners to diagnose and see the oral symptoms of aids um it is a legion's called kaposi sarcoma uh which uh prevalently showed up in patients that had the um hiv um we can see that that's number one number two um If you look at most systemic diseases, as the other doctor brilliantly alluded to, are due to a phenomenon called periodontal disease. Periodontal disease basically affects about ninety five percent of the population.
11:29 And you would say, OK, everyone's got it, but they do not. Basically, what it is, is it's the ones that are in the probably thirty to forty percentile. that have what we call moderate to advanced periodontal disease. And that affects your blood, your liver, your kidneys, your digestive system. And a lot of times, particularly with disparity in the healthcare community, those individuals are not diagnosed. They don't have access. So they can go for years and years with periodontal disease until it actually does what I call it, it just progresses to the point where it affects their overall health.
12:13 Some of the first symptoms, of course, are bleeding of the gums, changes fall over to the breath, difficulty when trying to eat food, generalized pain in the mouth. And a lot of people just dismiss it and go, well, I can't afford the dental care, so I'm just going to keep going as long as I'm able to function. By the time it gets to the critical stage, it is passed on. to other organs in the body. And it really, one way that you can kind of exacerbate the condition is through smoking and alcohol consumption, because both of those do a very detrimental thing to your gums.
12:53 And that prevents the oxygen from being in the gums that would normally fight off infections. So your gums become more susceptible to bacteria, to diseases. Without the oxygen, they get weakened. I mean, basically, it's like weakening your whole immune system. And now you're more susceptible to other diseases. So if a couple of that would say like a poor diet, it's just basically a perfect storm and the disease will just progress. A lot of the people that we do see with periodontal disease do tend to have some respiratory problems, do tend to have some heart problems.
13:33 There is a condition called bacterial endocarditis, which can be exacerbated by having periodontal disease. It also tends to show up and affect people who are diabetic. You have to be very careful. If you're a diabetic, you don't really have a proper immune system to fight off gum disease. The bacteria that sometimes live in your mouth, the oral flora, as we call it, are healthy. and help you, but after a certain point, they then become your enemy. Streptococcus mutans is one of the main ones.
14:06 We can live with it, but we can't have an overabundance of it. So it does affect your whole body system. So dentistry is more than just the mouth. I mean, we're the first to see some of the manifestations of other diseases, but At that point, I've had several patients I've had to refer to medical specialists. You have some symptoms that look like you have this, you have that. Oral cancers, smoking. You really, really have to watch that. I know there's a big thing now, particularly when you go to clubs and you see people, oh, we have a cigar lounge, we have this and that.
14:45 Right then and there, you're setting yourself up for what we call a squamous cell carcinoma in your mouth. You know, lip, oral and lip cancer. You know, and if you don't have access to proper health care, you're looking for problems that we have seen patients that have had it progress to the point that they've had to have portions of their mouth removed, such as the jawbone, lip, the tongue, or whatever. And they no longer can talk. I mean, you know, even in vocal cords or whatnot. So you just have to watch out for that.
15:18 You know, you have a national perspective serving on the board of directors of United Solstice Dental. What are some of the... From a regular standpoint, it's just like you've got health insurance, and then you've got this funky thing over here, dental, which never seems to be good enough to want to be proactive to go do things. It's always expensive out of pocket. I've got an eight-year-old dad, and the dollars associated to dental care are just... to me so high um what are some of the things I'm assuming you guys recognize that as an industry and profession and somebody who cares about you know the disparities and making sure access is there what are some of the what are your what's your feedback on why dentistry is so costly Cost of materials, cost of running the practice.
16:17 It tends to, you know, people say, well, you know, there's different kinds of dentistry for different types of communities. You know, it doesn't cost as much to run, say, a dental practice, you know, in an underserved community as it does in a fluent community. And to be honest, it costs the same because the supplies cost the same because the lab companies that you send your work to be processed to cost the same. So there really is no difference. So if you have someone who's serving an underserved community, but their insurance isn't good, but you still have to operate as though you were running it in, say, a middle-class community.
16:54 And I think the other part is, too, what patients should really, really watch out for is the type of health plan that they take. Because often they sell it to you, well, it's very little out-of-pocket expense. And that's true. But Even though you have an out-of-pocket expense that's low, it may not cover for the services that most people would really need. For instance, we used to have a real problem at a county hospital trying to get elderly patients that needed, say, dentures. They wouldn't cover for it.
17:25 And that was an essential dental device that they needed in order to properly eat food. But their health plans did not cover for it. So then that's a bigger out-of-pocket expense for them. The other part is, too, for some procedures, and you have to really read the fine print, there are some procedures that the insurance says they will cover for. But if you look at it towards what we call a UCR, which is usual customary and reasonable fees, it doesn't, your out-of-pocket expense is about the same.
18:02 Doc, I got a question for you on that piece right there at that point. You know, some time ago when I was a little younger, we had the opportunity of the Tooth Bust to come by the school. And they would bring us toothpaste, toothbrushes, floss, and all that good stuff. Now all of that is pretty much disappeared or dissipated. How do we go about, especially in an impoverished area, such as the country outlining area, which is already hard enough to try to get people to go to a medical doctor. How do we get them to kind of appreciate what you just said?
18:40 Because what you just stated could really scare a person to death about what could actually happen on the oral side. It's no joke. Yeah. And some of that I didn't even know. But how could we get maybe corporations to share in with us to actually begin to look at the possibility of maybe doing some of that? As we strive for Advance the Dream, we're looking at different ways in which we could get out into the community and kind of promote these different health sessions that we're actually doing from the medical side, to the dental side, to the welfare side, everything.
19:19 But how do we go about trying to get, I guess, people in your profession, number one, dentists, who have access to this stuff, but how can we pull them together to create an advanced dream dental care group that would actually provide small communities especially youth, the appropriate information necessary to keep their health as it relates to the dental aspect up and live. Two ways, actually, there are two main ways. One is basically for the general population, and that would be certain community organizations can get together and have what we call health fairs.
20:04 Health fairs are a wonderful way for the community to meet practitioners, have breakout sessions, and basically talk about medical or dental concerns within the community, question and answer sessions, kind of tongue in cheek. have food there. Food brings a lot of people to a lot of places real fast. You have to kind of hit on their way with bring them in and then work on giving them or disseminating the information that they need to do. A health fair is a great way to do it. Make sure, though, that you do promote it heavily in advance because a lot of times for the community, they'll hear it.
20:47 And then they'll dismiss it. But, you know, just like, you know, if you look at some certain law firms that advertise a lot on TV, they don't just do one advertisement. They do at least fifty or sixty a day. And the next thing you know, it's in the back of your head. You know, you're going like, oh, I was an accident. Oh, yeah, I remember those guys on TV. That's how it works. Yeah. You know, guilt breeds merchandising, I guess. Yeah. You're right. So, yeah, that would be one way. The other way is something that we're doing right now, which is called diversity that I know Lucy wanted to get to.
21:18 Oh, perfect. Perfect segue. Yeah. Diversity in Dentistry Mentorship Program. We just had yesterday, actually, up at A.T. Still University in Phoenix, there were at least twenty dentists, you know, from underrepresented communities of various ethnicities and underrepresented groups where we invited students junior high, high school from literally all over the state. to come to the dental school where we talked to them about basic dental care. We talked to them about careers in dentistry. And here's an interesting thing.
21:54 To start it off, the moderator asked how many of those kids, and they were basically Black, Latino, Native American, Malaysian, Pan-Asian, you name it. And they asked them to please raise their hand if they have or had seen a dentist that looked like them. Two percent. Two percent out of out of ninety students had ever done that. And once they got finished, they were quite unlikely asked for a survey back. At least seventy percent of them said they wanted to go on to a career in dentistry to go back to serve their communities, that they never knew that anything like.
22:34 What we were presenting existed. Yeah. And it worked. Basically, I'm going to give credit where credit is due. This is due to the vision of Dr. Lila Hyshaw, who is a pediatric dentist in this community. And she came to me with the idea of, you know, I'd like to kind of take this on more than just a local scale. I'd like to do it statewide. They recently received a grant from Delta Dental of one hundred and sixty thousand dollars to do these all across the country at various dental schools. And that was just within the last two months.
23:05 Myself, I've been mentoring dental pre-dental students from the University of Arizona. I have them come. I have them shadow my office to date since nineteen ninety. I'm going to say in nineteen eighty nine ninety one, we've gotten fifty students accepted into dental school. So. That's good there. That's good to know. I'm showing some of the photos. I do want to go into that a little bit deeper. I wanted to just remind everybody that... Let me just stop that screen really fast. Let me remind everybody that over at the Force for Health, we do have some great content around healthy teeth.
23:56 Quite frankly, there is a Viva badge, ear, nose, and throat. And this is the type of content over there that, can earn a badge right and go actually literally see the interconnectivity of the systems by watching food go down and why things can happen over there but um so that's over at the force for help but what I also wanted to do for you uh dr diggs is to present this Let me pull this up because I was just so impressed when I saw this. And I think it's worth actually just watching this video.
24:36 It's about ninety seconds. And I think this really sets the stage for what it is that you're trying to do and what you just said. So let me go ahead and play this. Thank you. You know, I just get goosebumps when I see efforts like that, you know, because that is exactly what Advance the Dream is all about, is professionals and mentors coming together and addressing the gaps and building bridges for the young people. Because I truly believe that you can't be what you can't see, right? And so until they even see that being a dentist is possible for them, And that often takes just one person to reach out and say, hey, did you know the fact that you're having, I know Rob's over there just almost gushing because I know him so well.
26:35 It's right up his speed. Rob, you want to react to that? I think you need four people. You need four efforts. You know, at Rush Medical College and at Mayo Clinic, we've done this with the local inner city community with high school kids going to med school. And then with Mayo Clinic, with Native Americans trying to recruit for their diversity program. One is, yeah, can someone who looks like me really, they've made it, but it's almost a tease, a slap in the face, a kick in the gut, if you don't then support them with a pathway to professional program, showing them how they do that.
27:13 Do they take those SAT tests? Do they apply for those scholarships? Are there people like Dr. Diggs or Dr. Williams, Josh Williams, who will mentor them along the way. So three, you need the mentor support. So academically, they don't flunk out after getting in. They need the financial support from scholarships. They need to be introduced to the concept. And then they need a professional school that doesn't treat them like second-class citizens, like, oh, you're one of those that got in because your skin's different.
27:49 It's got to be on merit. And it's gotta be high quality education with respect from all your peers. So that when you graduate, um, you, you know, you're, you're as good as anyone else and they know it too, because they're gonna be referring their endodontal patients or their cavity patients or whatever to you. I think there's the high end part, Dr. Diggs of becoming a dentist and just Lucy responding to something you're talking about costs. We're talking about eight years of training and approximately two to three hundred thousand dollars worth of tuition while you are making no income.
28:26 OK, so a dentist is getting paid on the same level as a a highly skilled doctor, even a surgeon. Some of them, it can be a great living. Anyone who's watching this thinking about dentistry, you can make more than I did as a pulmonologist. You can make a good deal of money, but. You're doing a great deal of good while you're doing it. And it's a wonderful feeling when you have that money, you can give back what you want. There are careers in dentistry also from a diversity standpoint that are more achievable.
28:59 My foster daughter became a dental assistant after coming back from Kuwait and Afghanistan and didn't have a job in America that required carrying a gun. And she became a dental assistant with some GI bill money. But that got her a job. that made her at fifteen or eighteen dollars an hour that kept her happy for about a year. But she it was an entry level where she could then aspire maybe to dental hygiene or aspire to maybe going back for a bachelor's degree and then dental school. So there's entry level jobs.
29:32 So a pathway to dentistry, Josh, an advanced dream dental core is supplying people into the pathway at the dental assistants, dental hygienists, dentists. endodontic and oral surgeons are all part of what you're using our force for health, three, six, the anatomy and Viva to help teach a little bit. I agree. There were in my class, there were at least out of the seven, eight, eight students that we had at least ten were former dental hygienists. They did quite well in the curriculum and some of them even started as assistants.
30:14 I think that's to both of you guys. I think that's one of our biggest misnormals that we have in the small communities is the fact that when you start talking about these high-skilled technology positions, coming from this area, they feel like, well, people in this area have not been trained. appropriately with all of the equipment necessary to get those jobs but what they don't look at is those jobs that you're talking about the uh dental assistant dental hygienist you know you're looking at even with technology you're talking about you know they may not be a quote-unquote uh a microbiologist but they may get something else or a researcher micro research so it's those smaller things that we need to put into our people psyche so that they can understand that it's all about the top thing.
31:01 You got so many other positions that's up under there that people could qualify for. There's great livings that can be made. One of the things I've run into is in Appalachia up here in Pennsylvania, I was involved with a population health program for a couple of years. We couldn't get that. There aren't enough dentists for anybody. So it wasn't a matter of black or white. Rural communities, you need a certain population to support a dentist. There's not enough dentists being trained and being recruited.
31:32 So as I approached families and talked about certain of these careers, I ran into something that really bewildered me. And I think it's an important cultural thing for parts of the audience we're trying to address. And that is people that like had a chainsaw and a pickup truck making a living or working in a coal mine, the parents would say to the kids, what the hell is wrong with you? You think you're better than me? You're going to go be a Dr. Diggs. Well, stick it to you. You're no better than me being this highfalutin dentist.
32:03 You're going to come work in the mine or you're going to pick up my pickup truck when I'm no longer able to do it and hire a couple of guys with chainsaws and be a lumberjack or whatever the career was. I'm giving an example, but it was the parents and grandparents that were perpetuating a, we can't do it attitude. When people like Josh Williams are saying, uh, You just got to be willing. You do matter. You can do it. How do you address that? You know, as you empower the child, we really need to get a message also and engage the family multi generations.
32:39 I'm going to step in here and play time clock a little bit. You know, I think one of the things that we can really look at in our own backyard is our, you know, here in Pima County, we call it the Pima County JTED, right? The Joint Technical Educational District. And so my challenge to everybody who is listening to this is go look at the status um of your high school um cte in pennsylvania I know they call it career technical education so let's go look at a snapshot of you know what is the diversity and the numbers like in the uh in the jteds and the cte worlds and see because that could be a place to impact and amplify to get folks um on a certain dental pathway.
33:32 You know, I'll give final words to you, Dr. Diggs. Again, it's National Dental Hygiene Month and, you know, it's diversity and democracy. How would you like to go ahead and give final words of wisdom for us? If I may, I just need like a couple of minutes for those who are watching that think, as the doctor alluded to, that it can't be done. I saw a beautiful example myself while I was in school. There was a young guy in our class and I asked him for a story. He stood about six foot ten. His story was he came from a family, you know, basically raised by his mother.
34:11 And when he got into college, he was like one of the coming out of high school. He's one of the top basketball players in the Bay Area. You know, the only person better than him, I think, was a guy who plays for the Bulls, Bill Cartwright. He decided to take the scholarship that they were going to offer him because he had decent grades. He went to Harvard to play basketball. During his second year, he broke his hip. When he broke his hip, the school came to him and said, look, since you broke your hip, you can't play anymore.
34:40 We're going to take your scholarship away unless you enroll as a regular student and meet the academic requirements. So he did. His sophomore year, he enrolled, and he became a chemistry major. He graduated from Harvard, summa cum laude. He came to our dental school as a region scholar, which means that's like some of the top academic qualifications in the country. Graduated from our class, number three. And currently I'm proud to say that he is now the director of the Department of Restorative Dentistry at University of California, San Francisco.
35:16 Great. There's your story. I mean, you just get goosebumps on that. And, you know, so much owed and honor and gratitude to your generation. When I say your generation, meaning kind of our generation, our fifty and seventy year olds and eighty year olds that are still working and reaching down and pulling up because that is what it's going to take. Thank you so much for joining us, Dr. Diggs. I hope to have multiple conversations with you. You are free to stay backstage and participate. And if you are still backstage, I'll pull you back up towards the end when we're done with Stephen Jones' session on voting.
35:57 But thank you very much. It was wonderful to have you. And I forgot to even mention the whole musician aspect of you. He is a well-renowned jazz musician. He actually opened for Eric Benet. So I love when music is part of a life for balance as well. The tie between science and music is just so incredible. So just wanted to throw that little part of your person out there. We'll talk about that more later. Maybe we can go ahead and have a session on steam, which is, you know, your arts and music performance, but thank you for joining us.
36:32 Okay. Pleasure. Great. Take care. Okay, everybody. So let's go ahead and meet our next guest who is patiently waiting backstage. We have Stephen L. Jones, who is really, you know, of course, democracy matters. And of course, vote, vote, vote, vote, vote. He actually is running a program for, he's a national chair of the Alpha Phi Alpha program called a voteless people is a hopeless people. And so they received a grant and he is actively doing his thing. and making things happen across the country.
37:08 So welcome, Stephen Jones, to the show. It is wonderful to see you. Well, thank you very much for the opportunity to talk to your audience. We have a number of slides that we'd like to review with you. First, on behalf of our general president, Brother Dr. Willis Lanzer, I want to thank you for the opportunity. A little bit about our fraternity. A Boatless People is a Hopeless People was started in as we saw the need for uh to address voting I'm sorry okay go ahead and to address the needs of voting in our communities so we take a look at the next slide so you hear the phrase known to hell freezes over in one of our founders came up with this phrase we'll find the ice And that's what we've been fighting ever since in terms of the right to vote.
37:59 As I mentioned earlier about the suffragettes, women's right to vote. Well, that came a number of years prior to black folks having the right to vote. So it's important to understand it's always been a struggle and continues to be a struggle for voting rights for minorities, black and brown people. And we must keep up the fight. Next slide, please. It's important as we think about the election cycle that, yes, we have the presidential election. One of the concerns we have is that once you elect someone, you're stuck with them for that term.
38:29 So whoever we elect in this presidential election, look at four years. One of the things we also want to consider in the state of Florida and other states, you have Senate races and House races and also gubernatorial elections. And you have down ballot elections, which could be your mayor, local officials. So we take a look from our community perspective is a long game. We look at the election cycle and that one of our phrases, every voter, every election. So it's important to be engaged. Next slide, please.
39:01 There are a number of issues. What was the midterm of the prior election? Depending on what country you're in, climate change could be important to you. I live in Denver, Colorado. Drought's important. If you live in the West, it could be fire. In the Florida area, it could be hurricanes. So when you take a look at these economic impacts, climate deniers, that's something you want to consider. Where do they stand on that issue? Women's rights to choose. Where do they stand on that issue? Criminal reform.
39:29 A number of issues. Once again, as a non-partisan group, we stress basically being aware of the candidates, being aware of the issues, and do not vote against your self-interest. Next slide, please. One of the topics that have been discussed this election cycle is the. Twenty twenty five initiative, which was something that was put together by the Heritage Foundation. I would ask people to take a look at that. The first three bullets are the view of what they think is important from the Heritage Foundation in terms of what makes this so important.
40:03 The bottom link is a third party view of what's really in that proposal. It's three hundred some odd pages. It's a long document, but you may want to be in the highlights to understand what may be the impact of that in addition to climate change and other issues impacting this election cycle. Next slide, please. You know, recently there's been a big discussion in terms of who votes in America. What I want to do with these next few slides is kind of show you that basically historically women do vote more than men.
40:36 However, it's not a great divide. So you can see from the percentages in two thousand eight, President Barack Obama's election, you can see there's almost seven percent black voter turnout amongst women, slightly lower for black men. As you can see across the board, except in the Asian community, it's pretty even there. Next slide, please. in the next election cycle you still see about seventy percent voter turnout for women uh black men slightly lower but once again nothing really major so black men do vote contrary to all the hoopla about black men not voting next slide please so you can still see in uh twenty eighteen slightly less participation historically in america depending upon the election cycle forty to sixty percent is voter turnout which I think is is really um poor because that means forty percent of people aren't voting aren't participating in their right to vote hopefully we'll see after this election cycle that number
41:38 To go up next slide please next slide please and so you can see during the last midterm election how the voter participation rate dropped so once again that's why we stress every voter every election to make sure voter participation because It's up to you to make the change you want to see. And voting is a way that you can do that. Next slide, please. If you have a smartphone, if you can pull out your smartphone, you can take a look at this QR code and scan it. And what this will do, it will allow you to check your voter registration status in all fifty states.
42:20 This QR code goes to the National Association of Secretary of States. So you can actually verify your voter registration status. One of the things we found over the last few years is voter suppression in terms of restricting your right to vote. It's really ramped up this election cycle in a number of states. So this is one way to verify before you go to the polls if you're registered to vote. Also on this QR code, if you're not registered, depend upon your state, such as in Colorado, we have seven-day voter registration.
42:48 So you can actually vote the day of election. But this is a good way to see that you're still registered to vote and to verify your voter registration status. Next slide, please. On September, it was National Voter Registration Day and our fraternity and using that QR code, We actually had almost fifteen thousand fifteen hundred people verify their status that day. So you can see the trend line. We encourage our membership and we also share this business card initiative that we call it with the other D nine and others so they can share this with their organizations so they can also verify their voter registration status as well.
43:26 Next slide, please. For our fraternity, we did offer microgrants. These were funded within the fraternity. This was not an outside funding. It was funding that we have within the fraternity. There were over one in sixteen chapters that received grants. They went from five hundred to two thousand dollars. In the state of Florida, these were the chapters that were awarded grants. We were awarded about over three thousand dollars. of florida may not be a swing state but to me every state is a swing state and voter turnout is key in every state so we encourage people to vote next slide please so I just want to kind of wrap up this we want to engage our collegiate alumni brothers also our communities to make sure they're engaged depending upon your state you may be passionate voter registration deadline those states we have same day voter registration if that's available to you if you haven't registered you can do it that day We encourage people to use
44:22 The resources we have within our fraternity. There's other third party organizations that they can engage with for voter turnout. Now it's really a ground game of turnout, turnout, turnout. So make sure you have a plan to vote. Take your friends with you to the polls. If it's early balloting, make sure you get your ballot turned in. We encourage people to use the drop-off boxes if available, because issues with the post-off may delay your vote being processed. So if possible, turn them in at a ballot box at approved location.
44:53 The other thing we want to stress is it's going to get really wild these next few days in terms of rumors of this candidate is this, this candidate is that. So make sure you're getting sources of information that is valid and uniform. Don't get caught up in the hype. and misinformation. The other thing we want to stress and finalize this, to be an informed voter. Understand the candidates, understand the issues, and once again, do not vote against your self-interest. If someone is proposing that, hey, you know, let's not give people water while they stand in line to vote, that person may not be in your interest.
45:34 So just be aware of people, what their issues are, and what they may impact to you. So that's a high overview of what we're doing at Alpha Alpha Eternity. The other D-Nine organizations, we're all doing the same thing to engage our communities. And we want to make sure that your vote is counted. Your vote does matter. Do not think your vote doesn't matter because it does. Elections are won by small percentages. We had a meeting last week with our international community because one of the things one party tried to do is to stop the overseas vote.
46:03 They could not do that because by statute, if you're a U.S. citizen overseas, you have the right to vote. So be informed, be engaged, and let's get out the vote. Thank you. So I have a couple, just two quick questions from my point. And I feel like such, you never know what you don't know until you know you don't know it. So like, I'm just going to ask this question. If you are not registered to vote on October, twenty six of two thousand twenty four, are you telling me that you still have time to register to vote?
46:35 It depends upon your state. Okay. That wasn't that bad of a question. Got it. It depends. Like I said, in Colorado, certain states have same day voter registration. So you can go to the poll on election day and it's called a provisional ballot where you can register to vote. And actually it's counted as part of the last batch of votes. Also, if you do a provisional ballot, what may occur, case in point, I relocated from Virginia to Colorado. I got here about a week before the primary. I used that QR code.
47:09 I registered. I got my ballot. I voted in the primary. A few days later, they called me in to verify the information. So I took it to the county recorders, verified my information, and it worked. So depending upon your state, you may have the opportunity for same-day voting. So my other question. Three other family members all received their early ballots in the mail a couple days ago. I did not. But I'm also a traditional on-the-day voter, right? But I was just curious, is that something I need to go hunt down?
47:46 Or why would a registered voter not receive a early ballot mail-in? Very good question. It really boils down to the state. Each state has separate laws on how to conduct their elections. And so it depends upon your state. Some states, for instance, in Colorado, it's pretty much a mail-in state. So once you're registered to vote, you receive the ballot in the mail. You have the option to do same day voting. If you want to go to the polling place, that's an option. Other states are more restrictive.
48:17 They pretty much want you to. They do have early voting. Like in the case of Florida, there's early voting. It's dependent upon the location where you can do it. It's not across the state. The other issue that people need to be aware of is that given the hurricanes in North Carolina and Florida, those election processes may be disrupted. So you need to be aware of where you can actually cast your ballot or where you need to mail it to. It's a state by state basis. One of the reasons why we use that flow code, because it goes to all fifty states.
48:49 Right. Whereas in certain states, you can go to your individual secretary of state to get your specific individual requirements for voter registration. Case in point, in certain states, if you're a convicted felon, if you've served your time, you paid your fines and you registered, you can register to vote. Other states are not that flexible. So once again, it's a state by state call. You need to be aware of your state statutes when it comes to voting. And I know that you are obviously working within the Alphas.
49:17 And I feel like if you are Divine Nine in that space, you already have an elevated sense of, you know, service and you're in that space. But let's just talk about the youth in general, the eighteen to twenty four year olds. Right. I think that, yeah, it's president, president, president, but really recognizing the fact that you better know who your county administrators are. You better know who your mayors are. You better know who your governor and your state legislatures are because things like choice may be a state-ran issue.
49:49 You know, things like COVID policies may be a county-ran issue. So I'm always like saying, yes, the president's up there, but let me tell you, there's lots of things that affect your life more so that is decided by your state legislature or even your county administrators. Or even your school board, Lucy. Correct. Even your school board can can make a child's experience horrible and skew their education. So if it comes down to really being an involved citizen locally and really it's a responsibility, it's a little bit of work.
50:30 I hate what I'm seeing right now, and that is everything is in my advertisements. It's one after the other and it's repetitive. But everything is tied to the president stuff. And even then, our senatorial race is saying, this senator always sided with this Harris campaign. So therefore, his policies, his views are these. And at least half of my ads that I'm seeing are not approved by any candidates. They're from these damn PACs that are massive. And I'd be curious, sir, in your opinion on the idea of these political action committees.
51:09 And should the approach be to have a divine nine political action committee that has half a billion dollars to spend in each state? Or should it be to eliminate the ability for billionaires to freaking buy elections? Well, to answer your question, a number of the fraternities do have their individual PACs. People need to understand that political action committees are separate from a five will see three, a nonprofit such as we are. The whole issue is that once the Supreme Court elected to treat corporations as citizens, that opened the floodgates, which brings me to another point.
51:47 This election. We really want to make sure you have the voter turnout. So whoever wins, the margins are so great. You cannot say the election was stolen. Good point. Because one of the things we do not want to see is a contested election going to Supreme Court, such as we had in two thousand with the hanging chads out of Florida or even historically speaking in eighteen seventy six when the presidential election in Florida was won. contested the election, but the aftermath of the eighteen seventy-sixth election, if you look at historically speaking, that began the onslaught of Jim Crow.
52:28 So people need to understand the importance of elections, that turn off the vote's going to be great, and that quote-unquote, for the brighter America, we're going to need people to participate and claim America. You know, again, I feel like this is another topic that we could talk for hours on. We're coming up on the hour at eight fifty five. We wanted to just say the last couple of minutes to put a pledge out there. You know, I called it on your mark. Meaning, come on, you guys, get on your mark and let's go ahead and start by taking a pledge, getting engaged.
53:09 For us here at the Force for Health, we have a opportunity for people to connect in a private social media fashion. So we don't have ads coming in here. You can literally connect with the community for free. And if you'd like, you know, there is a whole community called Advance the Dream. That's what we're trying to do here is not only a broadcast show, but a platform for which people can join and come in. And if folks want to upgrade into certain programs. premier features, custom and personalized health risk assessment, wellness platform, be able to compete, three sixty anatomy and really kind of learn about your body.
54:02 That's what we're trying to do with this mixed platform of media here. And so we encourage you to go to advance the dream dot com and and play in the reality health games with us as we practice healthier citizenship together. So closing out, let's go around the corner. Let's go around the horn here equally. And let's go, Josh. Well, let's start with our special guests. Closing thoughts as we lean into the next two weeks here. Well, I think, um, number one, thank you once again, on behalf of the attorney for this opportunity, I enjoyed the information that was shared on the healthcare and dentistry.
54:41 I heard about, uh, dental health, probably about mm, mm, the importance of it. So a healthy person, a healthy body, a healthy country, all of it goes together. I think America. is a better place. I think we have people that want to pull in the same way to make a better America. I think it's possible, but we all have to want it. We have to be committed to it. And I think programs such as yours, where we're talking about the health of the body, social political issues, we're going to make a difference.
55:11 And people just need to be woke up, made aware, and become engaged and participate. Thank you. Dr. Rob, I continued to be impressed with something I wasn't involved in. My college experience, the fraternity experience was a good place to get, learn how to drink, learn a little bit about partying and maybe football and sports support. And then it vaporized. I've watched with envy and pride that I know about the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity and how it mentors the students into college, through college, but it's really become a piece of our society through the life of the member, supporting each other into adulthood and supporting the communities, including participating like this.
56:04 So thank you, Alpha members that may be watching for what you do. But on my part, all I can do is I'm going to brush and floss, but I'm going to be there and I'm going to vote. I promise. And I'm bringing my ninety three year old mother in law with me. So thank you. Thank you. And before we get to you, Dr. Josh, I'm going to bring on Dr. Diggs because I see him backstage still waiting patiently. So, you know, I don't know if you were able to hear that last segment with, you know, voting. And how would you like to go ahead and add in closing thoughts as we close out today's show?
56:45 I think they've all put it eloquently and it takes every last one of us to, you know, to make this happen. You know, when people say the powers and the people, they weren't kidding. I'll just put it at that. Yeah, exactly. Josh. Thank you, Lucy. To Brother Jones, I really appreciate you taking out the time. I got a few questions from the brothers, but I'll pass that on to you a little later. We were very blessed to have the opportunity for the fraternity to lend some micro grants to help out New Orleans, Florida and Texas.
57:30 I was able to help some of those chapters in all three of those areas to to be able to get approved for those grants. And we are all of them are very pleased and proud of what we were able to accomplish. Also, so that everyone would know that next week we are planning on having some college brothers on to actually talk about the importance of getting out that vote. And we're just pleased. Dr. Rob, like I said, we'll get you a membership application. Make sure that we send it on. But we are trying to just, like I stated, just trying to do everything that we possibly can to enhance Dr. King's dream as we go to advance his dream into the future.
58:18 Thanks a lot. And I dig, right on, right on. I appreciate that dental piece too. I'll follow up with that because like I said, I'm in an area where I think that we need to do a little bit more of that in this country land area. Are you both members of Alpha Phi Alpha? Yes, sir. I just wanted to let you know, I mean, because Lucy alluded, you know, people I've worked with. I had the distinct pleasure for about four or five years. He was my college roommate, and we also played together in quite a few jazz bands.
58:49 We still stay in touch to this day, but he's a member of your fraternity, and he's quite prominent in the jazz world. His name is Gerald Albright. Oh, no, yeah. I had an opportunity to meet him. Baddest cat I've ever played with. In fact, Brother Albright, he lives just outside of Denver. I know him. I got him on my speed dial. I mean, it's such a small world. And quite frankly, for those that don't know, Dr. Martin Luther King was in the Alpha by Alpha. And the reason why we're so excited about building this legacy channel and community alongside Josh, Joshua Williams, is Joshua Williams was a young pup, a brand new Alpha, who got some wings put around him.
59:33 By the actives and the alum who was the group that actually went and did the steps to create the memorial on the mall. And so there is this tie to people that are still living and leading who walked alongside Dr. Martin Luther King. So it's not just Rob and I coming in from the side and thinking we could pick up this legacy. It is trying to empower Josh And everybody and everyone on his team, the people that he's brought to the table have been incredible. And we all have one thing in common in that there is this fear that this transfer of knowledge and this appreciation might not reach the youngins and not realize that there's still this kind of fight and this servitude, the sacrificial servitude that still needs to take place.
1:00:23 And I know that that's very common in how you present and coach and teach and lead. So those are my final takeaways here. So thank you all for joining us. Our season one, we kicked this off on a weekly format. We then went ahead and said, let's go ahead and do it monthly. But then monthly was like too much time. in between. Right. So now we were like thinking about reformatting it to a biweekly. And that's why we went ahead and we will launch this biweekly. But we may have to go ahead and do a show next week because our next biweekly wouldn't be until after the elections.
1:01:03 Josh, so if you've got this hungry group of young guys wanting to come in and share their voice, maybe we will go ahead. They are already scheduled. Okay, well, I guess we're going to weekly then, okay? At least for this one. At least for this one, yeah. Brother Jones, that's the RV group. They will be on next week. We confirmed with them. They're sending videos and all that good stuff. So it's going to be a nice show. We got some college brothers calling in to participate with that. So we'd definitely love to invite you back.
1:01:35 I'll be there. All right. OK, wonderful. Well, thanks for showing up, everybody. Stay tuned. Follow us. We we will go ahead and be here next week to accommodate that. And for now, advance the dream. Take a pledge. You know, if you see something, say something and vote, brush and vote. How's that? Take care, everybody.
Transcript is auto-generated from the broadcast captions and lightly cleaned; timestamps jump to the moment on YouTube.
Advance the Dream · Episode Recap ·