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BRANDON TATUM | Melanin is Irrelevant (Ep. 425)

February 7, 2023 42m 32s Full transcript available
BRANDON TATUM | Melanin is Irrelevant (Ep. 425)
0:00 / 42m 32s
In this episode, Kyle Thompson sits down with Brandon Tatum, a former police officer and conservative commentator, to discuss the recent Tyree Nichols incident and the broader implications of policing and culture. They tackle issues of fatherlessness, accountability, and the importance of integrating black history into American history, emphasizing that melanin is irrelevant when it comes to character and responsibility.
Transcript
446 segments
0:00 [Music]
0:18 This is Undaunted Life of Man's Podcast. I'm your host Kyle Thompson. Let's get into it.
0:24 All right, guys. We've got a special guest on the podcast today. His name is Brandon Tatum,
0:28 so he's a conservative political commentator. He's also a former police officer and former
0:32 football player at the University of Arizona and the founder of the Tatum report and tatumreport.com.
0:37 He's also the co-founder of the BLEXIT movement, which is an organization that seeks to persuade
0:41 black Americans to leave the Democratic Party. He's also a published author. He wrote the book
0:45 Beaten Black and Blue being a black cop in an America under siege. And so the thing about this
0:50 interview is he and I met back at the Uncle Tom to premiere back last last year in Dallas or
0:55 something like that. He and I hit it off, had a good conversation, planned to get him on here.
0:58 It's just taken a while to kind of get it. And we're having him on around the entire time that
1:04 there's this craziness happening with Tyree Nichols and the situation happening in Memphis.
1:08 And five black police officers killed this this black man. And then that's somehow about
1:13 white supremacy and also the craziness. Well, he talks about stuff like this all the time again,
1:17 because he has a history as a police officer. He's a conservative commentator that doesn't
1:22 look at his skin as some sort of thing that he's, you know, now owed something or now that he has
1:26 to act this way or that way. And so I just opened up this conversation and did a little bit differently
1:31 than I was planning on doing it. Because we had a truncated time period. We've got the stuff happening
1:35 in the news cycle. So we do talk about the Tyree Nichols situation. We talked about policing in
1:39 general and kind of where the blame can go here. We address why people are trying to pretend like
1:44 this situation has anything at all to do with white supremacy. He flowed a little bit on his
1:48 thoughts on just manhood in general, the fatherlessness epidemic. I even asked him like, how can we
1:53 change the culture in a lot of these cohorts, specifically the black population cohort where
1:58 the men don't stick around and the women don't want them in there. They want the government to
2:01 take care of them and those types of things. He has a lot of big opinions and a lot of very,
2:05 very forceful opinions on that. Then we also talk about the separation of history. You know,
2:09 here we are in black history month and we're separating off black history as if it's not
2:12 also just a part of American history. And so we talked about a lot of things here and it really
2:17 is going to set us up and tee us up nicely for a future conversation because I didn't get to ask
2:20 him about Donald Trump or the Uncle Tom documentaries that he's done or flex it or you know, how his
2:25 conservative political opinions, you know, aligned with his Christian faith and how he came into faith
2:29 in Christ. All that is very, very interesting and stuff that he's talked about before that I know
2:33 what his answers would be at least somewhat on those. We didn't get to it and we still managed
2:37 to fill up about a half hour with some great, great content. So guys, so it's just, I'm literally
2:43 sitting here. I'm just like Gideon, how good the conversation went. And so I'm just so happy to
2:46 share it with you. I'm not going to keep him from you any longer. So guys, without further ado,
2:50 let's get into it. Brandon Tatum, welcome to Donald to life of man's podcast.
2:53 Well, thank thank you for having me. I'm glad to be here. Man, it's a long time coming. I told
2:58 everybody about how you and I met at the, the premiere for Uncle Tom too. And hopefully we'll
3:02 have a little bit of time to talk about that. But I'd be out of my mind to not start with the
3:08 situation that is literally dominating the news cycle, except at least for the next five minutes.
3:12 And that's the situation that happened in Memphis with Tyree Nichols. By now guys, this happened,
3:17 you know, a couple of weeks ago, the video has been released, has been out there for about a
3:20 week and a half. It's out there now. Let's assume that everybody's seen the video. They know,
3:24 they know what happened to this young man. They know about the charges that have been brought
3:28 against those five officers. But I want you to kind of talk about it in whatever way you want
3:32 to talk about because there's a lot of things to talk about. The fact that it was five black men
3:36 that killed another black man, but people are talking about it as if it's the product of white
3:40 supremacy. People want to talk about police brutality. There are a lot of things to talk about,
3:45 and you're a pro at this. So go, what do you want to say about it?
3:47 Yeah, I think that generally speaking, I often use this on my show about compartmentalizing,
3:55 meaning that you can walk into gum at the same time. The officers can be wrong. And then there's
4:00 also things that people should learn as citizens to not get yourself in a situation where you get
4:05 and beat the death by police officers that are ill-trained and malicious to a certain degree.
4:12 And so I think that those are all areas we should talk about. I think the failure in this
4:17 situation started from leadership at the Memphis Police Department. The police chief is diverting
4:23 all of the blame and attention to these officers when they did this under her watch.
4:28 It's ultimately her responsibility. Right. The Scorpion unit is a unit that was created.
4:33 She is the police chief. She runs the entire police department. The training or the lack thereof
4:39 of these particular officers are on her head. Right. She cannot divert and say,
4:44 this is the worst thing that I've ever seen. Well, you have the worst leadership that
4:49 anybody's ever seen. If you allow your officers to do things like this, and we all know that this
4:54 is not the first time that these guys got into a physical altercation with somebody on the street.
4:58 Sure. This seems powerful for the course for these officers, these particular officers that
5:04 were involved in this incident. So the first line of blame has got to go for the police chief.
5:08 And I think she needs to resign. The second phase of blame is that these officers, in my opinion,
5:14 based on what I saw, seems like they have no legitimate training. And it seemed like they
5:19 were rogue officers. And the things that they did under the street light was absolutely unacceptable.
5:26 Not one point at any juncture in that altercation where they legitimately trying to get this guy
5:34 under arrest or into a submissive position. I mean, they're literally just kicking and punching
5:38 them and beating them like they're in the hood somewhere. So that's unacceptable. Also,
5:42 when you get pulled over by the police officers, you just follow what they ask you to do,
5:48 and you don't die at the end of it. People, we need to be able to have that conversation too.
5:54 Cops can still go to jail and you can still be wrong as well, because all of the shootings
6:00 and police interactions that have resulted in the death of these individuals, 99% of it was people
6:08 resisting arrest. And there's ways in which you can prevent yourself from getting into a situation
6:14 where you die at the hands of a bad police officer, or you die at the hands of a good police officer
6:19 who had justification to use deadly force against you. So I mean, I wish that we would have a
6:24 real conversation about everything and not just point the blame at the hobbies.
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6:59 So, so let's dig into a few of those things. So one thing that we're seeing about this police
7:02 chief in Memphis, I can't remember her name. It doesn't really matter at this point, but she
7:05 failed upwards. She was bounced out of the Atlanta police department for basically some,
7:10 some corruption. And then she failed upward by being made police chief in Memphis.
7:14 We've seen things come out about over the last several years. Well, since George Floyd summer,
7:18 we've seen the standards for hiring for Memphis PD go down like they cut the college credit
7:24 requirement in half. You know, they were even making exceptions for people that had felonies
7:28 on their record to be a part of the police department in Memphis. So there's some failures there.
7:32 But I want to spend some time talking about compliance, complying with the police officer,
7:35 how to comport yourself around the police officer because there's this thing that goes around
7:39 that is told that, Hey, you know, black families have to have different conversations with their
7:44 sons and daughters than white families do. And every time I heard that, I remember when I was 15
7:50 and a half years old, when I had my, not my license yet, but I had my permit to learn how to drive
7:55 both of my parents separately, because they were divorced, sitting me down and saying, son,
7:58 if you ever get pulled over, this is what you do. You pull completely out of traffic. So you and
8:03 the officer are safe. You take your keys out of the ignition, you sediment, you know, you make
8:07 sure the, the, the guy can see your hands the entire time. It's yes, sir. No, sir. Yes, ma'am,
8:11 no ma'am. Like we had that conversation often. Like this is how, and hey, if they're getting,
8:16 they're getting rowdy and they're getting crazy, just go with it. Because even if you end up in
8:20 handcuffs and end up in a jail cell, you'll be alive. And later on, we can deal with all the
8:25 stuff that went down. I mean, we had that conversation. Do we're my parents just like pseudo geniuses,
8:31 or is that something that really we should just be having writ large as a society, that particular
8:35 conversation? Well, yeah, I mean, it's, it's called, just like when you're driving down the road,
8:40 there's different things that your parents will teach you about safety, you know, come to a complete
8:44 stop at the stop sign, make sure you look at the crosswalk, make sure you're driving the speed limit,
8:49 you know, making sure when you back out of a parking spot, this is what you do. This is what
8:52 you don't do. This is, you know, this is how you switch lanes, make sure you, you know, look in
8:55 the rear view mirror and look in the side mirror and make sure you give enough time to make sure it's
8:59 clear before you get over in, in another lane. Don't switch multiple lanes at one time. I mean,
9:03 all of these things are rules that are pertaining to you driving. And you driving is not excluding
9:10 interaction with police on your driver's license. When you take the driving course to get a driver's
9:15 license, they talk to you about laws pertaining to law enforcement and police. So, you know,
9:20 what they're essentially saying is not that black people need to have a unique conversation
9:25 with their children. They're saying that black people are too stupid to have common sense enough
9:31 to know that you shouldn't run from the police on a traffic stop. That's what they are saying.
9:38 They try to pass it off as, oh, we're just educating and as a black family, you need to have a
9:43 different conversation. No, you don't. They need to stop acting like black people too stupid to
9:47 have common sense because you don't need to have a conversation to say, I'm not going to fight a
9:53 police officer. I'm not going to argue with a police officer. And I'll tell you this, you don't
9:58 argue with your father, do you? So then what makes it what makes any sense that authority
10:03 is present and you begin to argue and be belligerent. And see, the problem is, and I would argue this,
10:09 is that a lot of these people don't have strong fathers. They don't have good parents. Because,
10:15 like you said, your parents separately took your side and gave you advice. I mean, if you know,
10:19 that's what any parents should do to their children in any given situation. But, you know,
10:24 black people are not uniquely experiencing something different. It's absolutely stupid.
10:29 And let me tell you how stupid this is. They want to blame our black people that have a new
10:35 conversation or white supremacy. Well, let's let's talk about this for a minute. The police chief
10:40 was black. Right. The officers involved were black. The guy who died was black. Where are the white
10:47 people? There ain't no white people even associated with this situation. The problem with training
10:53 is on a black woman who's the chief. The problem with ethics are on black men who were police officers.
10:59 None of this has anything to do with white people. But I'll just say this, because I'm a
11:05 black man and nobody going to tell me if I could say this or not, is that why can't black people
11:12 have accountability? It's literally like kryptonite to some black people that if you dare make an
11:20 observation and say, Hey, maybe it's just you. Maybe you hired the wrong people. Maybe it's your
11:26 culture. Maybe the things that you guys are doing or the problem, you know, they can't accept that.
11:33 They literally call these black officers puns or agents of white supremacy. It is asinine to me.
11:41 Well, you know, your buddy Larry Elder was called the black face of white supremacy. And so now we
11:46 have five additional faces, apparently, five additional black faces of white supremacy. And it's
11:51 just like, it's so paternalistic how you're describing and you're describing it accurately.
11:55 Like to talk to talk about a group of people, two ways. One is if they're homogenous, as if all
12:01 people with that level of melanin think act and do the same things. But secondly, the you're treating
12:07 them as if they have no agency that they can't make decisions for themselves. Because I can recall
12:12 one person that I've seen video of that was killed that was complying with police. And it was that
12:17 that young the young man, I think he was drunk. He's in a hotel hallway white kid. And you know,
12:21 they're they're yelling, you know, things Adam and he's on his knees and he's crying. He's trying to
12:25 like do what the officers say. And at one point, he falls forward and he goes to pull his pants up
12:29 and they shoot and kill him right there in the hallway. And so outside of that, I don't see a
12:33 whole lot of instances where, you know, you're just walking down the street, being black, holding
12:38 your Bible and your sandwich. And the other hand, and you know, you just get shot by racist white
12:42 police officers because I grew up in a fairly diverse and fairly rough town. And I talked to
12:47 my friends who were black and they had slightly different interactions with the police that I did.
12:52 But also I didn't roll around with knuckleheads of any color, right? And so whenever they got pulled
12:57 over or whenever they got in, they were interacting with the cops, it was yes, sir, no, sir, and they
13:01 could think in the back of their minds, this is why this guy pulled me over or this is why this
13:05 guy's giving me a hard time. But they can only control them, right? You can't control the
13:11 actions of somebody else. But you brought up a very, very important point, fatherlessness.
13:15 Okay, so since the 1960s and 70s, fatherlessness for every racial cohort in America, except for
13:22 Asians, has skyrocketed for white people went from about 3% to now it's around 30%. For Hispanics,
13:28 it was single digits. Now it's 50%. For blacks, it was like 20, 30%. Now it's 70, 75%. Now black
13:35 babies are born out of wedlock. Fathers aren't there. Fathers around in the statistics are clear.
13:39 And I know that you know that I'm I'm just preaching to the people that are listening to this,
13:42 that when dad is just around, not smart, not great, not the best motivator, not, you know,
13:48 super sensitive, just there. Teen pregnancy goes down, crime goes down, grades go up,
13:54 graduation rates go up. Talk to me a little bit about, again, I hate to use it as a homogenous
13:59 group, but the black community, maybe we can call black culture, that has put a tremendous amount
14:04 of value on Uncle Sam government, maybe caring for them and not, hey, let's keep our men in the
14:09 homes so that our babies have a shot. Well, no, I think you brought up an incredible point and
14:14 it's something that I talk about all the time. And I like to say there's no such thing as black
14:19 culture. What it is is the generic culture that a lot of black people accept and they and they
14:24 apply to because anybody living in a place where you don't value God, you don't value relationships,
14:32 you don't value marriage, you're going to be a degenerate culture. And that could be applied to
14:37 anybody that's living in that, you know, that faction of applying, you know, cultural behaviors.
14:47 But you know, I think that there is this idea that, well, I can have children without being married.
14:55 Why? Because my mother did it. My mother and father were not married. And it matriculates down
15:01 through generations of young people. I was the same way. Now I have a great father and mother.
15:06 However, marriage was not something I grew up in with my mother and father being married.
15:12 However, my father got remarried, but my mom and daddy wasn't together. And as a young man,
15:18 all I say this, unfortunately, all of the women that I dated all the way up until I went to college
15:26 that were all black, none of them had a father or their father was not in the home. And it's
15:32 unfortunate that these things happen. But when when they occur, the next generation is affected.
15:39 I remember writing in my, I think I was in high school and they wanted you to project your next
15:45 five years and you had to do like a portfolio of, you know, where you want to be in the next
15:50 five years and kind of write out each year and some of your accomplishments and things you want
15:53 to overcome. And it's funny because I wrote that I wanted to have a son. And then the next year,
16:01 I wanted to marry my baby mama. I think that that's the exact words I wrote, married my baby mama.
16:07 I mean, that is destructive thinking that may be unintentional. Because where I grew up at,
16:15 it's not weird that tomorrow and daddy ain't together. It's not weird that you got a baby mama.
16:19 That's not weird. But in reality, not where I was from, but in reality, it is weird. It is
16:26 problematic. It does damage to the children. There's there's trauma that occur in those situations
16:32 that matriculate down the children that end up resulting in children that don't perform well
16:39 in school, that don't know how to handle authority, that end up being lost, don't know who they are,
16:44 turning gay lesbian trans or whatever, because they're in a dysfunctional environment and their way of
16:51 handling trauma could come in all those different forms and fashion. So, you know, it's important
16:58 and it's important to value it. It's important for celebrities and people who young people look
17:03 up to to say, you should get married. You should be, this is how you become successful. And if you're
17:08 not married, don't have children out of wedlock. You know, these are things that can make you
17:12 successful. When I think, well, what is it the stat about like, okay, if you graduate high school,
17:17 if you get a job and you don't have kids before you get married, your odds of being poor or impoverished
17:22 in the United States of America are essentially zero. It's not zero, but it's essentially zero.
17:26 But this seems so trite even worded this way. So give me a little bit of grace as I unpack this.
17:32 How do we affect change in this particular area? Right? So when you talk about the explosion,
17:39 you three out of four, you know, black babies, you know, they're born out of wedlock and the
17:42 dads aren't there and all that. That is a cultural change. Yes. It is a change of a particular
17:48 community of people that look similar. Yes. But I feel like at the end of the day, this isn't a
17:54 government issue that this isn't even a cultural issue. I feel like this is a gospel issue. And
17:59 this gets in this is we don't have enough time to unpack this. So holy crap, I just, you know,
18:03 blew the top off of this interview. But when you have some of the things coming out of the black
18:08 church, again, sunny morning is a very segregated time for the United States of America. But whenever
18:13 you have the black part of a church advocating for abortion, advocating for nanny state stuff
18:18 from the church, when they're not really going to the word of God for the dictates of how they
18:23 are to act in their life, is it a shock that we have these downstream cultural problems
18:28 inside of that community? Again, I might be throwing things out there that are, you know,
18:32 we don't have enough time to talk about. But man, I feel like the gospel is the only answer to this.
18:36 But in the day to day, like how do we turn that around? How do we get more black fathers and
18:41 black families to stay together and be together like it was way before the civil rights movement,
18:46 when the rates of fatherless is in the black community was the lowest of any racial cohort
18:51 in the United States go? Yeah, so you mean pretty much what it is is that you made you made a point
18:56 that's the most valid point of any discussion here. And that is a problem with people in their
19:02 relationship with God, and especially communal relationship with God. I mean, as the church
19:08 used to hold people accountable to churches to do things that helped boast the relationship
19:13 between people and their relationship with God. Now, church is a business, church is a government
19:20 institution, because once they start giving you 501(c)(3) status and give you tax exemption,
19:25 they tell you what to do, and they tell you what not to do. And these churches are not going to
19:29 preach what the government don't want them to preach, because then they'll lose their status.
19:33 Then they can't fly private jets, they can't put money in their pocket, they can't expense all
19:37 of their personal expenses under the 501(c)(3) status with the church. I mean, that's what it has become.
19:43 What we need, and the Bible talks about the end days, these things will happen. So I don't know if
19:50 it's going to get any better. It's not that we can save the world, we just can save as many people
19:55 in it as we can, because the world is going to hell in the handbasket. Now, cultural change,
20:01 men who are leaders need to lead, men who are leaders should be talking about marriage,
20:08 speaking to young men about how they should participate in this thing called life,
20:12 how they should treat women, how they should value themselves, how they should dream and
20:16 visualize success. This is what our people should be talking about. This is what Black,
20:21 strong male leadership should be saying. We shouldn't be sitting here crying and talking
20:27 about the white man holding us back. That makes no legitimate sense whatsoever, especially if you
20:32 are Christian, because if you are Christian, there ain't no man that can hold back what God has for
20:37 you in your life. So for a person behind the pulpit to say something like that, that tells you
20:42 right there, they don't have a connection with God and they don't have a spiritual relationship
20:45 whatsoever. It's all carnal. And we need men to be courageous and stand up until the truth.
20:52 The reason why I don't sit and cry and complain about victimhood is because
20:57 I believe in God. I believe in my relationship with God. And I believe God has all these wonderful
21:03 things for me that if I apply myself, God can have those things or allow those things to come to
21:09 fruition. And you got to understand that I believe that God has called me to be excellent,
21:15 not as a Black man, because melanin is irrelevant, but as a man that God has called to do great things.
21:23 And how do you perform those things? Self-confidence, believing in yourself, brainwashing
21:30 yourself into all kinds of things like happiness and success and flourishing in life and building
21:37 relationships. God, let me just tell you this. In the Bible, it clearly says, knock and it shall
21:42 be open. Seek and you shall find. And then it goes on to say, what father will give their son
21:48 unsatisfactory gift? So how much more do you think God will give his children a gift that they
21:56 ask for? And the problem is, in our society, we want to walk up to the door and it just be open.
22:03 We want to just be walking lackadaisical through life with no intention and expect us to find.
22:09 It says, knock. That's an intention and God will open the door. Seek. That's an intention and God
22:14 will do the rest. This is a basic conversation that young poor people in the inner city community
22:20 should be having. We should be telling them they have hope. Teaching young people that they can be
22:25 whatever they want to be if they apply themselves. Teaching them about God. Teaching them about
22:30 those principles that you said. Don't be in a criminal justice system. Graduate school.
22:35 Don't have children out of wetlock. Get you a job and you will never be in poverty ever.
22:41 You will be successful. And instead of how much can you twerk? How big is your booty?
22:48 How many women can you smash? I mean, all of these degenerate ideas that come from this culture that
22:56 some black people adopt is the reason why we see so much, so many problems. And then I'll say this
23:03 and I'll add this. In our country promoting single mothers, that should be, you should walk
23:11 around with your head down if you are a single mother by your choice. Not because your husband
23:17 died or because you had to get out of a abusive relationship or something like that. But if you
23:22 are a woman and you say, I'm going to have sex with this guy and I'm not going to marry this guy
23:26 because I don't need him. I'm good with my baby. You should walk around and shame with your head down.
23:32 So should a man who have a baby with a woman and don't take care of his responsibilities.
23:37 You should be shamed. You should walk around with your head down. The society should shame
23:43 people like that. And we don't do that anymore. We glorify men that want to sleep with as many
23:48 women as they can. Call them high value men. We glorify things like that and it's not conducive
23:56 because what is that doing? Damaging young women and damaged young women are not marriageable.
24:02 And so then they walk around life and they die alone with a dog and doing yoga every day.
24:10 And I'm not saying it's anything wrong with yoga or a dog, but in conjunction, which you
24:14 not having a man and being a broken spirit your whole life, we created just a damaged society.
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24:46 when you subscribe at prolonlife.com/now. Right. Well, it's a godless society that you pointed
24:53 out. It's a society that says, hey, you'll get confidence when we give you stuff. But it's like,
24:57 no, no, no, you get confidence when you accomplish things. But this is why we kind of have this
25:01 moment where young men are actually desperate to be told what to do. They're desperate for shaming.
25:07 And here's an easy proof. How is Andrew Tay to thing? How is the things that he said, you know,
25:13 and not all the things, but you know, that get as many girls as possible. Get as much money as
25:16 possible. Like, you know, do your own thing, tell them women to not just do their own thing. And,
25:20 you know, they'll grow up and be old and not have families. He's saying some right things,
25:25 but they're a really ugly vessel. And the reason why is because as you pointed out,
25:29 we don't use shame anymore. Shame is a tremendous motivator. I used to be very overweight when I
25:34 was a kid. Why do I work out like a mad man now? Because I remember the shame of taking my shirt
25:38 off at the the pool party whenever I had, you know, basically little man boobs when I was a kid,
25:43 right? Shame. But like the shame of a man, we should shame these men. Well, you should,
25:49 you can't shame them to go back into the home because then it's not authentic.
25:52 Do you think I care about authentic? I talk about all the time on the show. I don't think that
25:56 Donald Trump is actually pro life in his heart. But guess what? He legislated in a pro life manner,
26:02 got three people that voted to throw away Roe v Wade onto the Supreme Court of the United States.
26:07 So by my calculation, he's the most pro life president of all time. I don't care what your
26:12 motivation is. I care if you're going to do it or not. I don't care if you're gonna, you know,
26:16 go skipping back into the home. That's not your role. The role is not to be happy while you do it.
26:21 The role is to do it. Right. Right. That, that, I love it. You said that nobody,
26:26 somebody promised you you'd be happy. Right. Happiness is a, my product,
26:29 happiness is a broad product of your hard work paying off. Right. Other than that,
26:34 you got to grind. You got to get it done. You may not feel like it. I got a kid out of wedlock.
26:38 That's why, that's why I can tell people you don't want to do that. Right. It's not good.
26:43 It's not cute. It's not cool. It's hurtful. It's harmful to you, the kids. And, and, you know,
26:50 the back and forth between me and my son's mom is just, is out of control. You know, I'm
26:54 spending $30,000 in court fighting custody for no reason with this woman. However,
27:01 I may not feel like it sometimes. It may not feel good, but I have a responsibility
27:07 to be involved in my son's life. I could walk away and be like, I don't know if it'll waste my
27:12 time. I'm married. I got another kid. I got to hold another family. And, and, and I'm very
27:16 transparent about this. Is that, I mean, I may not feel like it sometimes. I may not want to deal
27:21 with the drama, but you got to do things in life that are uncomfortable. It may not feel good,
27:26 because it's the right thing to do. Nobody said you're going to be inspired to wake up every
27:31 morning to go work out. You may not. It don't matter. You know, you know, I think about this,
27:36 brother, like, like a protein shake. You know, my wife, she said, she'll drink a protein shake
27:40 and she'll be like, Oh, it just tastes so nasty. I can't drink it. I said, baby, it has nothing to
27:43 do with taste. No, it has anything to do with. Does it work or does it not work? I don't care
27:47 what a protein shake tastes like. Is it going to do what I wanted to do? I'll, I'll get over the taste.
27:54 And that's how it is with life. It doesn't matter. It may not taste good. Life may not taste good
27:59 to you. You may have an amputated leg. You may not have everything you want in life. You may be
28:03 ugly. You may be overweight at the, at the moment. You may not be as smart as the next man. Life may
28:09 not taste like a banana pudding. It don't matter what it tastes like. You need to get out of life
28:16 what you supposed to get out of life. And, you know, and that should be the strive. But young men,
28:22 men aren't young men anymore. They want you to be a coward. They want you to be a weenie. They want
28:27 you to be soft. And, you know, women have these roles and men and women are equal. We ain't equal.
28:33 We ain't equal. Now, we have equal value, but we don't have equal roles. Men are supposed to lead.
28:40 Men are supposed to lay their life on the line for their family, for the country. That's not a
28:46 woman's responsibility. Now, they can voluntarily do it, but that is a man's responsibility. The
28:51 Bible says very clearly that a woman, the dynamic between the woman and the husband,
28:58 a woman, she'll honor her husband or whatever you want to say. But the man shall love his wife
29:03 as Christ loves the church. Christ died for the church. The ultimate sacrifice. Mary didn't die.
29:10 Go down the list. None of these other women died, even though they were important. Christ died
29:16 for the church. The man should die for his family in the country. And men have to take that responsibility.
29:24 I almost feel like every man, when you turn 18, you got to go through a boot camp or something.
29:28 You can't be a weenie sitting playing video games all day. You need to have some combat.
29:33 You need to have some fear. You need to have some courage. You need to put it on the line.
29:38 When I became a police officer and I did that, even though I played football and college and I
29:42 did all that, when I became a police officer, when I became a man, when I'm looking life and
29:47 death in the face every day, that make you a man. I'm going to be honest. And I'm not saying
29:52 people that don't serve aren't men, but the challenges that men put themselves into will make them a man.
29:59 And it can even be the challenge of going to the gym. That's a challenge, bro. Going and putting
30:04 yourself through that every day, going to challenging yourself to do better, to accomplish more,
30:08 putting yourself in positions where all the weight is on you. Don't punk on the pressure.
30:14 You want pressure. You want adversity. That's what make you a man. And nowadays they teach men to be
30:21 lay up under they women and let the woman be the breadwinner and all this old cow or stuff.
30:27 That's why men dressing like women now are they turning the women because they're so
30:31 effeminate. They've been emasculated that they feel more like a woman and they like what the
30:38 tension that women get because they don't want the brunt strength and the drama that men have
30:43 to go through the survival in this country or in the world in general. And we have a good in America.
30:48 You take, you're gonna be a man in India. Go be a man in Afghanistan. Go be a man in some of these
30:53 other and in and in Botswana. Go be a man in Ghana. I mean, I'm not saying it's all bad, but
31:00 you ain't got it like this in America. Anyway, I go forever. No, we're so fortunate, but there's
31:06 two things I want to say. Number one, banana pudding is awesome. So I'm glad that you put that out there.
31:11 Number two, resilience. That is the thing that our men and our children don't have.
31:17 It's that ability to overcome. They've been told about strength before, but guess what,
31:21 man, strength wanes over time, right? I mean, your most guys aren't as strong as they were when
31:26 they were going through two days, you know, at Arizona, you know, you know, they can't deadlift
31:31 as much. They can't squat as much. They can't run as fast, but you can be resilient physically
31:36 for your entire life, but we don't teach physical resilience. But then we certainly don't teach
31:39 mental resilience. We don't teach. We teach kids that if you have a problem, we will give you pills.
31:45 And those pills will fix that problem until a little bit down the road without those pills
31:49 create another problem. And then guess how we're going to fix that problem? We're going to give
31:52 you some more pills. And you know what, we're not going to prescribe that you spend the next six
31:58 months eating clean and working out hard. We're just going to give you some pills that'll make
32:02 you feel better. Now, they're going to change the chemical balance of your brain. But hey,
32:06 that's just a side. That's a side issue. That's a side project. So, so there's a whole lot there,
32:11 but there is one last thing that I want to ask you about before we get you out of here.
32:14 And I think it ties into what we were talking about earlier, the separation of black culture
32:19 and black people and treating them as if they are different somehow. I think also ties into
32:24 the month that we're sitting in right now, this is being released in February, black history month.
32:28 This is a month where we're supposed to close our eyes and our ears and pretend that black history
32:32 is not just American history, that there's something fundamentally different about the history of
32:38 black people in America in terms of our entire story. Because guess what? My sons are going to
32:43 know about slavery and they're going to know about the worst parts of slavery that they're not even
32:46 going to talk about in school. Why? Because that's part of our story. And that's a way that I can
32:50 teach them, son, we will never take James to not seriously. We are never going to look at people as
32:57 a separate thing. We are all made in the image of God, even though we look different and may act
33:02 different and may sound different and may do our hair differently. But talk to me a little bit about
33:06 the separation off and the breaking off of that culture, because I don't think breaking off cultures
33:11 into these supposedly homogenous groups helps us as the greater culture, which is American culture.
33:17 Yeah, I mean, you know, it's crazy to me that we even have a black history month. It's completely
33:22 stupid because and then you say, oh, you know, I think Morgan Freeman had made mention of this.
33:28 It's like, well, why would I want to reduce my history to one month? And then the funny thing is,
33:31 this is shortest month of the year. I mean, come on, give me a break. Like, if you are you an American
33:37 citizen, the question is, yes, you go abroad. You're an American citizen abroad. They don't look at
33:41 you as black, white, nothing. You're an American. And so if you're an American, then the history
33:46 that your ancestors experience is American history. And you know what I feel like what it does is it
33:51 cheapens black involvement in American history in it and it and it separates it outside of context,
33:58 because you need to understand the black experience within the context of American history, or you
34:04 don't understand the black experience whatsoever. It's valuable to talk about these great inventions
34:09 and say, this person invented this. And people would be like, what? I thought all black people were
34:14 slaves. No, they weren't. I thought all black people were, you know, whatever. No, they weren't.
34:19 There was many black people that did wonderful things all throughout the history of America.
34:24 And we don't need to isolate. We need to continue to bring that up when we talk about history. I
34:30 think it's, listen, if we are not talking about black history, when we're talking about history,
34:37 that's a problem. That's unacceptable. So we don't need a month. We need you to integrate this
34:44 history back into history as a whole. Why can't we have American history month? What we talk about,
34:49 I mean, what we talk about American history in general, and we walk through methodically
34:54 and talk about everybody that was involved. And the thing is, is that if you have specific
34:58 people that don't make the list, it's okay to talk about those people externally. It's okay to
35:03 bring up those people. We're going to read books about them. Not every black person that did something
35:07 significant in history will be spoken about. Not every white person that did something significant
35:12 in history will be spoken about. So the thing is that let's not divide ourselves by coming up
35:17 with a month. And the stupidest thing ever is that they make the shortest month of the year
35:22 black history month. It's almost like it's comical. If we weren't involved in this, and I'll make this
35:28 statement, I really hate black history month, because how is my history any different than my
35:36 wife's history? My wife is white. It's somehow in the household, we got to talk about my history
35:41 and not her history. No, me and her Americans, we share a history. And us being in a relationship
35:48 is a part of history. But anyway, I'll be there for another show.
35:53 Man, I always want to leave him wanting more. That's what I feel like we've done exactly in
35:57 this moment. But just to kind of put a bow on that, I agree with you. Because guess what? I'm
36:01 mainly Irish and Choctaw Indian. Okay, so when I look back on the history of my people's,
36:05 man, we did some awesome stuff. And we did some crazy to pray stuff. And if I were to
36:10 parse out my history and go back and look at the men and women that that, you know, eventually
36:14 came down to making me, man, I'm sure there's going to be some things that they did that I'm
36:18 not proud of. But when you look back on your history as a person or as a people group or as a country,
36:23 you have to call balls and strikes and be like, Yeah, that was really crazy. That was really
36:27 depraved. Man, thank God the gospel was working back then as it is now. Otherwise, those people
36:33 would have had absolutely no hope. And as Americans, we should be able to call balls and strikes.
36:37 We're not going to hide from our history, but we're also not going to give a partial view of it
36:42 either. But Brandon, we went everywhere in this conversation. But that's all for me. Is there
36:46 anything else you want to get off your chest? No, man. Thank you so much for having me. God
36:50 bless you, man. And I really pray that the people who are listening find value in the conversation
36:56 that we just had. Brandon Tatum, thank you for coming on Dawn to Life, a man's podcast.
37:00 My pleasure, man. God bless you. There you go, guys. I hope you enjoyed my time with Brandon Tatum.
37:05 But before we let you go, we are going to do a quick resilience boost at undaunted life.
37:08 Our mission is equipping men to push back darkness with content that forges spiritual,
37:12 mental and physical resilience. So here are the links I've got for you today. I've got a link to
37:15 Brandon's website. I've got a link to his YouTube channel, huge YouTube channel. You guys should
37:18 definitely check that out and subscribe a link to the BLEXIT Foundation website,
37:22 the Tatum report website, and also an Amazon link where you can go and buy his book.
37:27 Thank you guys for listening to this episode. Wherever you're listening to this, please subscribe,
37:30 rate and leave us a positive five star review. If you want to come speak live at your event or on
37:34 your podcast, you shoot me an email to info@undaunted.life. That's i-n-f-o @undaunted.life.
37:40 Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook and check out our website for everything else,
37:43 including how to donate to keep more content like this coming your way. Just go to www.undaunted.life.
37:48 And as always, we want to thank the band August Burns Red for allowing us to use their music for
37:52 our content. The music on this podcast is our song "Cutting the Tides," which is off their
37:55 10th anniversary re-recording of their album leveler. The links are in the description.
37:59 I'm your host Kyle Thompson. Remember, keep pushing back darkness,
38:04 keep forging spiritual, mental and physical resilience. Keep seeking the lion of Judah.
38:18 Where all you want is a side, nation, and a virtue. You will be revived.
Key quotes
2
Brandon Tatum
Melanin is irrelevant. It's about the character and the responsibility you take in your life.
Kyle Thompson
We need to integrate black history back into history as a whole.
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