Showdown
Showdown Episode 115 7-31-24
(gentle guitar music) - Welcome to Showdown. I'm Mark Kason, and it is Wednesday. And that's July 31st. So this is the last day of July. And that means that things are really flying when it comes to certainly things having to do with school. And I have an education specialist that is right on my screen here. And there he is. Brian McKinney, how are you? - I'm good, how are you doing? - I am doing great. And you certainly are a specialist in education. You teach sort of, but not in the classroom, but at the black rep, you work with students. - Absolutely. - Okay, and that's from all over St. Louis, right? - Absolutely, yeah. We teach workshops, classes and residencies in the Metro St. Louis area and just outside of that. We teach anything that teachers need really. We do a lot of improv classes. That's really popular. Recently, we've been doing a lot of creative writing classes, as well as intro to acting, intro to theater history and audition techniques, so. - Yeah, no, that's all very exciting. And I just wanted to establish that, you're an educator of sorts, which saw my, and I teach government at high school college all over the place. But here's the thing. The black rep is an extraordinary place. I know I don't have to tell you, talk to us about the black rep. Give us a little history because it's outstanding. - Absolutely. So the black rep was born out of a need. There were students, theater majors at Washington University in St. Louis, who weren't being given opportunities on campus. And so they were graduating with theater degrees and nothing to show for it. So they decided to start producing their own work. And that was the Phoenix Theater Troop, which eventually became the black rep. And it went on from there to be really a community pillar. They started doing not only theater performances, but dance performances and bringing in national groups and really becoming known on the national level. And we've been going, this is our 47th year. We just finished our 47th year. Actually, we're going into season 48. - Right. And of course, you're led by Ron Himes. - You're the director of Ron Himes, yeah. - Ron Himes, I mean, you talk about how the black rep has become an established pillar in the community. Well, Ron Himes is really a pillar in the St. Louis community, isn't he? Talk about Ron, I've known Ron for over 30 years. And he was introduced to me by my former radio partner, Onion Horton. And I'll tell you, Ron is a terrific guy. Talk about him. - Yeah, actually, he's also an educator, producer, actor, director, you know, all the titles. He's been with the company since his inception. He's the founder and producing director. And he, like I said, wears all the hats. He right now is at the International Black Theater Festival performing in a world premiere production for the North Carolina Black Repertory Company down there. And yeah, I met Ron when he was doing a workshop with the English department, I think, at my alma mater. And I had no idea what the black rep was, what it was about. But as soon as I did, I was like, I gotta figure out how to get involved here. - Sure, and where did you go to school? - I went to school at Western Illinois University. - Okay, okay, and so here you got started through Ron, which, listen, so many people have gotten started in so many different ways. - Yeah. - Working with Ron. - And when he was there doing that workshop, he had one of his fellows with him and mentioned he had a fellowship program. And so I looked into it and applied and I've been here since. So I started as a fellow and moved into an executive assistant position under Ron. And now I'm the director of education and community programs here at the black rep. - Right, and how long have you been there? - This is, I'm going into my eighth year. - Okay, and when you reach out, like for example, I met you over the summer, just a couple of weeks ago at Washington University. Talk to me about how that came about. Some of the faculty at Washington University, so Ron is the Henry E. Hampton artist in residence at WashU. And that's a joint appointment with the theater department in the African-American studies department. And some of his colleagues in African-American studies reached out to see if someone could come and speak about the black rep and give some black theater history to you all on campus. And it was during our summer performing arts program, but I was like, yeah, I can definitely do that. And so I came and gave our usual spiel and presentation and gave a little bit of history about the company. And yeah, it was really great. And I was able to connect with educators in the city. So that was cool too. - Yeah, no doubt about it. And actually that AFAS program, which is the initials for the African-American studies or black studies at WashU, is an extraordinary program. And this year we had again, maybe 11, 12 teachers that met with everybody at WashU and you and some other people that also came in from other areas as well. And like from your experience that day in meeting with the people there, what do you think about what black studies does at WashU? - I can't speak directly to, you know, it's impact a whole lot. But one of the professors there that day spoke about how he brought his class to see one of our productions, Wedding Band, - Oh, right. - over at the Griffiths Theater. And he spoke about the impact it had. I was able to coordinate having the director of their production come and speak to his class. And from talking with him and the director, it was truly amazing, an amazing experience for the students to see the art that can come out of black history and black theater history. They really enjoyed it. And, you know, the students came and spoke about how great they thought the production was. You know, I would just be standing in the lobby and they would make a point to come over to me and say, this was great. This was an amazing production. Thank you so much. - Yeah. And there's no question that everything from the black wrap is. It's a phenomenal place and it's not just for black people to go see. I mean, it's productions that are interesting for everybody within the St. Louis community. And often there are many more groups of people there than certainly just black people coming to see it. But it is an extraordinary opportunity to showcase black arts. - Yeah, absolutely. We have some of the most diverse audiences in St. Louis. And that's something we're very proud of. - Yeah, no, absolutely. And talk to me about some of the things that you have produced and what's coming up in the next session. - So we just finished season 47 with August Wilson's King Hadley II. And, you know, this past season was amazing. We did five performances from January through July. We opened with the world premiere of Hold On, which is based on the movie Selma. Then we had a one man production of Fly that was really, really powerful, written and directed by Joseph L. Edwards. And then we had Wedding Van, which we just spoke about over at the Burgess Theater at Koka, which was a really powerful production that many, many people in the community were able to connect with. And then we had the musical Timbug II, which is very seldom done, which starred Earth a Kit. And that was a great production. It featured dancers from Africa Lolo and many new people to the Black Rep Stage, which was great. And then we closed with King Hadley II by August Wilson. And we were the third company in the nation to complete the American Century cycle by August Wilson. And I believe we'll be the first to complete it twice 'cause now we're going through in chronological order. And so King Hadley II was his 1980s production and now we'll be doing radio golf next season. - So let's back up a little bit on August Wilson because obviously he is unbelievably important in Black Theater. And I happen to have been born in Pittsburgh. - Oh, really? - Yeah, so obviously there's an August Wilson connection there. But talk about it a little bit. And I was only there till I was nine years old, but August Wilson really presents all kinds of interesting important things that include Pittsburgh, but naturally, it reaches out way beyond that. It's much more. - Absolutely. If you read or watch the plays, you'll sort of notice how well he captures Black life in the US. He makes references to Chicago and St. Louis and all these different areas. But they all take place in Pittsburgh where he was from and they really capture Black life in the US. Like I said, they span the different decades. So there's a play for each decade and it really captures Black life in each of those decades and the struggles and the hopes and dreams that African Americans go through for each of those times. So they're really, they're really, really important to American theater and theater in general. - Yeah, I think very, very important, you're right. The theater in general and naturally, this is a guy who is just the giant of Black theater. - Yeah. - He really is. And I suspect, and I think probably even more than suspect that in white communities around the country, I will guess that people don't really know the name August Wilson, but they should because he's just an incredibly important voice that everybody from all walks of life in America ought to be able to connect with and understand. It's just, it's valuable theater, it's valuable literature. Unfortunately, it's everything that this country is trying to knock down in 2024, who would have believed that we'd end up here, but I know that certainly the Black Rep is thriving in the midst of all of this. And so talk to me a little bit about how you feel that the Black Rep plays a role in revealing some important things about Blackness to America. - Yeah. So, like I said, we were born out of a need for these Black students. So a lot of our plays focus on African-American life, usually, what I usually say is we do plays from the African diaspora or from the African-American perspective. - Okay. - So you'll get African-American and African diaspora playwrights, as well as classic plays put in the African-American perspective. So a couple of seasons ago, we did a production of "Death of a Salesman," which featured a Black-Loman family. And that really took that production and gave it a completely new perspective for that production of "Black Life" during that time. And it's, yeah. And it shows like that that really show how, show how important the work we do is and how diverse it is. - And shows how Black life connects directly to all American life. - Exactly, exactly, exactly. And so, you know, that's, you know, why I've been here as long as I've been here, it's really important work. And I always tell people, you know, where I'm from there, we don't have a Black rip. And so I didn't have the opportunity to be exposed to not only, you know, Black art, Black plays and musicals a whole lot, but also being able to see, you know, a lot of Black artists on the stage. And so that community aspect is really what's so important to me and why I think the Black rip is so important. - What do you see in terms of your relationship building with young people that comes out directly from the work that you're doing? - A lot of the times it's in our touring company. We have a touring company that takes TYA or Theater for Young Audience shows out into community schools and to schools and community centers like libraries. And we get to directly see the impact that has on students because after each performance, there's a Q&A post-show discussion where students can ask us questions, you know, they can ask us anything like why we became actors or anything about the show. And we really get to see the impact it has on the students and how much they enjoy, you know, seeing African-American performers or learning about African-American history. That and our, you know, our matinees where we bring bus students into the theater and they get to see a fully realized professional production by the Black rip. And, you know, like I said, with the TYA shows, they get to not only see the professionally, professional production, but they also get to interact with professional actors and get that bit of Black history that they might not have gotten in school or that teachers don't have time to teach them. They get to, you know, experience all of that and learn a bit about that. You know, we give study guides and stuff to the teachers to assist them that the students can review to prep them for the show. And it really like brings forth those, you know, those questions and that creativity and imagination that the students can, that can be cultivated in the students. - Do any students or have they over time been incorporated into any of the productions? - Absolutely. We've had, so we have a summer performing arts program where it's a summer camp where students take classes and acting, music, dance, creative writing and we've had students from that program or our Saturday classes audition and be put on the main stage. So shows where, you know, there are student actors like FinCes that featured one of our summer performing arts students. - Another August Wilson, like, yeah, okay. - Yeah, the show we did this past season wedding band featured two young girls. One of them was one of our summer performing arts students. And so, yeah, we do, you know, give opportunities when we can, when the playwright puts a young person in the cast. - Sure. - We definitely go for it. - Sure. So starting with this new season that's coming on very quickly, what will people be able to see who decide to go to see a play at the Black Rep? - Yeah, so we've got another five show season coming up for season 48. We have a musical, "Blues in the Night," which opens our season in September. And it features a lot of "Blues" numbers from like, "Bessie Smith," Duke Ellington, John Mercer, and many more set in Chicago. And then we have a comedy set in January that's "Chicken and Biscuits" by Douglas Lyons. And then we have two world premieres, one that features an all-male cast by Mel Da Beatty called "Coconut Cake." And that's a rolling world premiere with Black theaters around the nation. And then "The Wash," which features an all-female cast, which is a national new playword network, world and world premiere. And that is by "Collegia Smith." And that is about "The Wash" a women's strike in Atlanta, which many believe spurred the labor rights movement. And then we end our season with "Radio Golf," August Wilson, and it's just like tonight's play. - Right. So can people buy like a subscription to the entire season? - Absolutely. So how does that work? - Talk about. - Yeah, so season subscriptions are on sale now. You can go online, theblackrib.org or give us a call at the box office. And those are discounted tickets. If they come with many perks, you get to know about special events sooner, discounts to some special events. And you also get the option of picking your seat first because single tickets don't go on sale until a month before the production. So you get the option of picking the best seats and you also have the option of moving your seats whenever you'd like. It's a different day or a different seat. If you want to, many, many parts will be coming a season subscriber, so. - And which venues do you use for most of the productions? - Most of our productions are done at the Edison Theater on campus at Washington University. - Yep. - We have one production at the Hoshner Studio Theater, which is in the same building as the Edison. And that's coconut cake. And then one production at the Burgess Theater at Coca. And that's right off the Delmar Loop. - Sure. So all in all, you know, the black rep is, I mean, as you said, you know, a pillar of the community, but it's also real education for people who, you know, are walking around every day and hearing everybody talk about maybe black issues and debates and politics over what is okay to have taught in the classroom and all of this junk. And here you've got this really fabulous opportunity for people to connect with real culture and real ideas about how people live and certainly the history of all the different literary connections that are importantly number one black, but more even than that, but are also American. - Absolutely, absolutely. That's what I love about, you know, August Wilson's American Century cycle. Some people mistakenly call it the African-American Century cycle or the black Century cycle, but it is the American Century cycle. And I think he named it that for a reason. - No, I'm sure of that. And let me say that, you know, I hope that you can remember when you have a chance to tell Ron that we had a chance to have this conversation because I look forward to doing this with Ron as well, which we've had some great conversations over the years. And when you do that, ask him about Onion Horton because I'm sure he'll tell you a lot. - I will, I will be short too. - Okay, very good. So Ron McKinley, I appreciate your time here tonight. And I look forward to more connections with the black rep and young people and just all the good things that we can do through art, literature and play productions, certainly in St. Louis and you all are the best. - Thank you so much, Mark. I appreciate you having me on. - Okay, Brian, have a great day. - Thanks, you too, man. - Okay. Okay, so Brian McKinley, he's in charge of education at the black rep, works with young people all over St. Louis and really connects everybody to lots of things that are extremely important. And, you know, I had set this up over a week ago for Brian to come on here. But it's really an excellent day to have this conversation because as many of you may know, this has certainly been a big day for blackness in America with Donald Trump acting just as insane as he always does and creating huge problems which are, you know, predominantly problems that he has dumped onto the black community as a result of his bad behavior. And in this case, it was the National Association of Black Journalists where he spoke today and, you know, I'm trying to be careful in talking about this, not to simply say all the things that everybody else is saying today. All of this happened this afternoon, maybe two, three hours ago. So it's all brand new. This is, you know, not something that has been percolating for days. It was something that was announced, at least this morning is when I heard it. And then I turned it on and watched what was happening and if you go to your television set tonight and, you know, turn it on or you go to your computer and you dig into, you know, a streaming example of what happened at that black journalist event, you will understand what is really going on in the country right now because it's pretty amazing in sort of a really bad way. But the first thing just to, you know, lead you to where all of this came from and where it went is that Donald, you know, walks onto the stage and he's got three women there, black women at this journalism event who are there to ask him questions about policy, about running for the presidency, about his facing Kamala Harris, you know, all of this. And this is something that some people have said today. They said, you know, Donald could have walked in there and he could have said to himself, you know, I have an opportunity, I can connect with some people who I really never connect with because although he claims these, the best president for black people since Abraham Lincoln, that's nonsense, everybody knows it, but here's the thing, instead of walking in there to try to figure out how he might encourage some people to take another look at him, he walked in and immediately started berating everybody. First of all, he said that the black journalist group as a whole was pathetic, that what they presented him with was horrible because they had had a couple of microphone problems and let me say this, and we've talked about this on the show here before, and that is that if you've ever done anything in broadcast, you know that there are problems from time to time with equipment and that's everywhere. I mean, you can go to NBC and, you know, you get frames that freeze and people aren't able to connect and you get a lot of noise in the background and sometimes you even have people's dogs barking, I mean, look, it's broadcast, it's live and things happen, but to walk in and to start telling the people that they're worthless and that what they're doing is horrible and that you don't even know why you're there. Why, for what reason, what would be the purpose of all of that and, you know, I always talk about Mary Trump, his relative who, I guess it's Nice, who says that he's a psychopath, a sociopath and that he's totally psychologically unbalanced, but now there's another one out here, another family member, I think that's interesting that his family members think he's the worst person on the planet and this is Fred Trump, I guess it's the third or junior, but I think it's the third. And anyway, another one of his great relatives who has just written a book about how totally psychologically unbalanced Donald is and the problems that he has caused throughout the entire family and it's, you know, I haven't read it yet, but it's pretty interesting because as with everything that he touches, you know, we always say that when Donald touches something, it dies and this is essentially what Donald has done to his own family and there are more than a couple of people out here who like to tell those stories because they just can't believe what this guy has done, but okay, so he walks into this group of black journalists and of course he says how the whole black journalism group is terrible because they have equipment that he can't hear properly out of his headphones or whatever, so or he had an ear piece in, whatever it was, he couldn't hear and so he started attacking these black women and after attacking the black women in general, then he got down to attacking them in a very specific way so he didn't just talk bad about the black journalist group but he had to include the fact that the whole bunch of them, according to Donald, were rude, disgraceful, hostile and nasty. I guess he wasn't going in there to look for the black vote, was he? Where does he come up with these things? How does this all jump into his head? Because honestly, it was just a terrible example of the problems that this guy has and you know, forget the political part of it, in other words, sure, I'm gonna come out here and say that he acted terribly, that's fine, you know, I'm against this guy, he causes nothing but trouble for the country and I think this is a great example of the trouble that he causes. But to do this, you know, at a time when he is completely under attack, both from black people and from women's groups because of what's going on almost every day with JD Vance and then again, in discussing all of this at the end of the program, which by the way, it was supposed to be an hour and a half hour through, Donald walked out, he shut it off and left. What's that about? You know, I thought he was gonna do that in the debate but I guess he decided not to do it in the debate because he realized that Joe Biden was imploding at the time and so he allowed that to go on and that was a wise decision on his part in a way, in a way because now, and he did this right at the journalism production today, now he's complaining that Joe Biden is out of the race and in fact, listen to what he's saying, he's saying that when a fight, when a professional fight takes place, you know, Muhammad Ali against Frazier, okay? So the Ali Frazier fights going on and so Donald says, have you ever heard of in the middle of the fight, they tell Frazier, okay, you're out, we're gonna bring in someone else to fight against Muhammad Ali and of course, this is a ridiculous analogy. I mean, it doesn't make any sense whatsoever. This is a struggle for the presidency of the United States and clearly Joe Biden was not up to the job and so he agreed to back out because he realized that his ability was gonna be limited to take on Donald Trump. So he left and he did it in a way which everybody agrees. I mean, everybody that's not in a straight jacket agrees was really an honorable thing to do because he's concerned about the country, he's concerned about the presidency and he realized that he wasn't able to carry this forward. So he's turning it over to his vice president and that's where this is going and it all sounds, you know, very sensible and what he doesn't like, which is interesting, is that as I've said several days now, that the Kamala Harris is on fire with enthusiasm across this country and I'm not talking about just what she's doing, I'm talking about what people are doing. People are inspired by her. And again, you could say, well, it's not merited. Somebody could make that argument and that would be fair but the problem is it doesn't stop what the people are feeling. The people are inspired and they believe that what she's doing is really an amazing thing for the country. Of course, it's a change from what Joe Biden did and I'll tell you this, here's what's really interesting. Yesterday, JD Vance started this discussion, at least from the standpoint of what I heard but I think he said it first and that is that they feel that they were sucker punched. They say that they were sucker punched by the Democratic Party because they didn't know what was coming, that is Trump and Vance didn't know what was coming and it was all dropped on them and we should all now feel sorry for them because as usual, Donald sees himself as a victim. He has been victimized and he was going on and on for all this time on how Joe Biden was just a horrible man, his family's involved in crime and no Biden should ever be near the White House. So now the Democratic Party replaces Joe Biden with Kamala and suddenly Trump and his genius, they're sitting here looking at everybody and claiming to be a victim. They were victimized because now what are they going to do? They were planning to go up against a weak candidate named Joe Biden and suddenly the countries on fire with support for Kamala Harris and they feel that they've been mistreated. Just the way Donald Trump felt he was mistreated when he walked in to talk to the journalists today. He was mistreated, they were rude, they were nasty, no they weren't, they just asked him questions. They just asked him some questions about the campaign and he didn't like any of it and then he was asked about did he think that Kamala is truly a DEI hire for the Democratic Party and Trump says, I don't know what's that? What is DEI? You're going to have to tell me. And of course the lady told him and but it wasn't enough for him. He wanted more explanation. She said, look, I told you what the question is, answer the question or don't. You know, it's hard for regular decent people to even know what to do around this man because he's obviously got a serious problem. And you know, as much as people may not realize this, nobody wants to take somebody who's psychologically unbalanced and say bad things to them and make them look stupid and mock them. Nobody wants to do that. I mean, these journalists just wanted their questions answered, that's all. And these questions weren't that difficult. They were really straightforward, no, no problem questions. Like, what do you think of January 6th? Okay, just answer the question. This lunatic went on and on about, well, for example, this was one of the best ones I heard, telling everybody that the demonstrators were brought into the Capitol by the police. So it's not their fault. It's the fault of the police because the police let them in. Well, first of all, the police didn't let them in. I know they say it, but you know what? If you watch any of the video and you see these people smashing glass, climbing over each other, screaming hysterically. I mean, if you think that was something that was created by the police, well, that's just ridiculous. It was obviously hysteria, extremely violent and most of these people, many of them, have already gone to jail. They've been convicted, they have pled guilty. And then there's another, that's another point of all of this, the journalists said to Donald, these people were convicted. And Donald said, yeah, look at the system that convicted them. What are you talking about? The system is the United States of America's judicial system. That's who put these people in jail. This wasn't Russia, this wasn't Victor Orban in Hungary. This was a trial every time by jury and the juries found these people guilty, except for the cases where people just said, I'm guilty. They walked in and they said, I plead guilty and I'm hoping that the court will give me some consideration for my remorse. Not many said that, but some. And the point is, if you're coming in and confessing, well, then the court has to decide what they're going to do with you. And they do things that are within the range of what the legal system provides. I mean, all of this is so easy. What are we even talking about? Why do you even have to go through this? And the reason you do is because Donald is saying things that are absolutely insane. They are, but I'm not through. We'll come back to that in a minute. First thing we're going to do is we're going to head off to wenties for dinner. Now, wenties is on Chesterfield Airport Road. That's 18,000 Chesterfield Airport Road in the valley. And I can tell you right now, their food is fabulous. They've got wings. They've got hamburgers, cheeseburgers, patty melts, pizza, salad. Talked last night about the great iced tea that they've got. But also they've got baby-backed ribs and onion rings, which I love. And they just got great atmosphere, lots of terrific people. It's just a great place to go and eat. It really is. It's an enjoyable dinner with outstanding food. And it's at wenties at 18,000 Chesterfield Airport Road. And don't forget, it's just not one wenties. There's another one. And that one's out in defiance. And if you get yourself out to 29, 99, South Highway 94, you can enjoy the same great food at wenties. Same great atmosphere. It's just a perfect place to go to eat. That's wenties in defiance, Chesterfield Valley, created by Ben and his wife, check them out. Now, when it comes to jewelry, 4506 Hampton is jewels on Hampton, and they've got cases and cases and cases filled with jewelry, really great pieces. I mean, anybody that likes jewelry, you go in there, you look around, it's just a great place just to look. And then you can decide if you wanna buy something, but you can look and enjoy just seeing all these great pieces that have been collected at jewels on Hampton. And the way this happens partially is that they buy and sell jewelry, they buy and sell coins. I mean, they have a great business. I say they, of course, that's Al and his son, AJ. And they're really great people. And you go there and you talk to them and you look at the jewelry and you talk about all the opportunities to design jewelry, maybe you're a designer. You can go in and talk about that, or certainly they are. They are professionals and they'll help you with anything you need. And when it's all said and done, they'll even fix your watch. I'm telling you, it's a great place. It's jewels on Hampton, 4506 Hampton, check them out. But when you're through with them, don't forget about the St. Louis Suit Company in Clayton, which is just right down the road. And I can tell you, the St. Louis Suit Company in Clayton has been there for 29 great years. They have suits. They have ties, which all, very nice ties. I've been wearing some new ties lately. They're all $5, and I've got more ties than anybody you'll ever come across, because I just keep buying them at the St. Louis Suit Company, 'cause I like them. Sometimes I give them waste and I do all kinds of things. But, in addition to the ties, they've got great suits, great shirts, shoes, overcoats. And you could say to me, what are you doing with an overcoat on July 31st when it's 90 degrees out? And the answer is, better to buy it now at the prices you can get today than to go in there in about three months when you're freezing and you wanna deal. No, the deal is today. And that's at the St. Louis Suit Company in Clayton. It's on the corner of Central and Forsyth in Clayton. And I wanna remind you, if you're getting married or you know somebody else who is, they are the best when it comes to wedding attire. That is the St. Louis Suit Company. Again, 29 years in Clayton, go see them. Okay. So Donald lost his mind today and was so dismissive of black people that you sort of wonder what did he think he was going to accomplish? Now, if he was just trying to show white Americans, you know, white Christian nationalists, you know, these people who are basically, you know, neo-Nazis, if he was just trying to show them how tough he could be with three black women, well, first of all, those people have already been sold on this stupidity and it's just, it's hard to even imagine why they would wanna keep it going because they've already got their group. You would think they would wanna reach out to some other people and have a chance to get elected. So instead, what does he do? First, he insults the heck out of these women. Then he goes crazy against Kamala Harris. Let's start with that Kamala Harris failed her bar examination. So, you know, I looked it up because, I mean, I knew this, this answer, but I looked it up because I, I mean, I assumed that she did fail it or he wouldn't be saying it or if he did, that'd be really even crazier than he is. But here's the thing, 50% of the people in the United States that take the bar exam fail the first time, half. Then they come back and take it again and then they are okay. And that's what happened with her. She came back after she failed the first time and she passed the bar. And by the way, the bar she took was in California, which is considered to be the hardest exam in the country, but don't even worry about it. She came back, took it a second time, she passed it, and then look at her career. Her career has been incredible. She's been a prosecutor. She's been an attorney general. She's been a United States senator. Now, if you think that she sounds stupid, well, go ahead, try that one out, Donald. But the reality is, the country is on fire with enthusiasm for whatever it is she's doing. So if you think, Donald, that you're getting somewhere with this, trust me, you're going nowhere except for the ash heap of history, which is where I always say and have said over eight years plus that that's where Donald's going. Now, that's a good place for him 'cause Joe McCarthy's resting there too. So get the two of them together and they can all hang out and think about how, what it's like to be anti-black. I mean, really, and listen to this one, here's one. I love this anti-blackness because it's so crude and it's so ineffective. I understand that there's maybe 35% of the country that are anti-black, and so you can play to them, but you won't get elected with them, and they're not the ones who are showing up like the group of 10,000 that were at the event for Kamala Harris last night, and that was 10,000 that made it inside the venue because everybody else was kept outside because they couldn't fit anybody else in. And of course, the place was rocking because everybody is really excited about her candidacy. Now, you can say that it was unfair to trick Donald Trump by bringing somebody who was more well-spoken, younger, more enthusiastic. I mean, don't get me wrong. Joe Biden can't help it. He's 82 years old and everybody doesn't age the same way. I've talked about this many times. I mean, you got Stephen Breyer out here who retired from the Supreme Court at 83, and I saw him in an interview the other day at 85, and he was fabulous, not a problem. John Paul Stevens retired from the Court at 91, and then went on to write for all the top magazines all over the country for eight more years until he was 99, and then he dropped dead. Had a great life, and every minute of his life, he kept on going. He wasn't retiring from the world. This man was engaged, but he was also genetically fortunate because he was able to come across in a way that sounded good in speeches, and his writing was extraordinary. He was a Supreme Court justice that probably could have gone all the way to 99. In others, as well, we know Thurgood Marshall, 91, and so on, and this is why I strongly believe in the importance of keeping people on the court for a lifetime because, you know, these justices, they really invest themselves in a belief in America. They care about the country. They care about the court system. They're not there for themselves. Oh, I'm sorry, except for Clarence Thomas. Now, Clarence Thomas, who took 2.5 million in gifts from right-wing weirdos, okay, we understand that, but, you know, the rest of these people, they took some money, every other justice together only took $250,000 between them all, and there's a whole lot of people involved in that, but that's over a 20-year period, but here's the thing. We're gonna have ethics reform, and we should. We ought to have standards and make sure that everybody follows these standards. We didn't have to do it in the past because we didn't have these criminals in the past, but now they've shown up in our system, and they've really done a lot to devalue our court system, and we need to fix it. Not just make everybody liberal and not make sure that every result is a progressive one, because that's not realistic. You know, it's gonna go against you sometimes no matter which side you're on, but there's no question that we need a court that people can rely on and that people can look at and feel that this is something that we should honor because these are not just politicians and robes. These are people who have studied the law and they come to the court in a way to try to make sure that our system is fair. Now, that contrasts with this horrible situation that we're dealing with in America today, but let me come back to the black part. You know, Donald is saying, first of all, the Kamala isn't even black. So that's number one. He says, she's Indian. I mean, this is all today. He said, you know, for years she was Indian and suddenly she says she's black. This lady went to Howard University, which is a famous black university. This lady's a member of AKA, which is, you know, this highly respected black sorority. And they're not just in a group. They don't just sign up. They work for life with the people that are in the group in order to serve the country. I mean, there's all of this going on with Kamala and that's all great, I love it. But let me take you to something else because I'm not black and I'm not in any of those groups. I'll tell you what I am. I'm Jewish. And guess what? Donald says the Kamala Harris hates Israel and hates Jews. Now, that's what he said again today. But here's the problem. Not only she married to a Jewish guy and not only does she have Jewish children, which by the way, you know, that's one of the problems with that other weird guy, JD Vance, and that's, I love this. This is the word that's being spread all over the country that these people are weird and they are. And here's the deal. She, and this isn't surprising either. This is very common. She, as a non-Jewish person, is leading the family in the way that they go about observing Jewishness. This is very common. You know, people marry Jews, they're non-Jews. They marry Jews, a lot of times women. And then they get into these families and they embrace the family. And this is what Kamala has done. And then this guy, who needs to be in a straight jacket, shows up and starts talking about how she hates Jews and she's just a horrible person. And then, you know, he calls her a bum. And then, you know, his buddy, John Kennedy, calls her a ding dong. And look, this isn't getting us anywhere. Or maybe it is. Maybe it's just getting us where we should be, which is getting rid of Donald Trump. Because the country is not going to buy this. It's not funny. We've seen this one before. This movie is old and boring. And if you see what they did today at that Black Journalism Conference, I can tell you right now, it is the same old Donald Trump movie and it is both boring and ridiculous and I just don't know how we even got this person here because you would think that just generally people around the country would look at this and say, now this isn't for me. Now, the other side is about 60% of the country has come to that conclusion. Maybe it's 70. You know, we're going to see. But, you know, Donald says that he's going to get 25% of the Black vote. Trust me, I've said all along, he would be lucky to just hold on to 5%. And if he keeps doing this, he won't get that much. You know, there was so much today that he said that was so good. I mean, we're running out of time, but, you know, I just, I hate to miss out on some of these things. Here's one, one of my favorites. The Kamala Harris and other progressives want their kids to be born and then aborted after they're born. In other words, murdered. Well, of course, that's murder and we don't allow murder. Democrats don't kill their children after they're born. I mean, I don't care what you think about abortion. You can think anything you want. But Democrats don't kill their children after they're born. They just don't do it. It's just a, it's commonly said by these people, but it's stupid. And then Black jobs. Well, I've talked about that before and we'll get into that again. And by the way, talked about inflation, crazy things. And I've run out of time on that. We'll do that tomorrow. I've got a great chart for you on it because all these people who get bent out of shape over what I say about inflation, I think you better look at the chart. But anyway, we'll deal with all that tomorrow and let's just remember St. Louis suit company, Wenties and Jules on Hampton. That's why we're here. I'm Mark Case and this is Showdown.