This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Tonya Pinkins: Hi, my name is Tonya Pinkins, and I'm the host of the podcast You Can't SAY THAT on the Broadway Podcast Network.

[0:07] Tonya Pinkins: This fall, I have a special treat for you.

[0:11] Tonya Pinkins: In honor of my debut feature film RED PILL, Marissa Lynn Daniels Studios has been hosting weekly conversations with my fellow Broadway colleagues and co-host Sierra Renee about the red pilling of America.

[0:27] Tonya Pinkins: These conversations create a safe space for us to talk about the things that are on our mind with an election and a global pandemic.

[0:37] Tonya Pinkins: So join us for The Red Pilling of America, a spotlight series every Saturday at 5 p.m.

[0:45] Tonya Pinkins: Or on the Broadway Podcast Network, You Can't SAY THAT, BPN.fm forward slash YCST.

[0:54] Tonya Pinkins: Join the conversation.

[0:57] Tonya Pinkins: We gotta speak to live.

[1:01] Tonya Pinkins: We gotta say what's new for you.

[1:17] Tonya Pinkins: You is smart. You is important, you is dead.

[1:22] Tonya Pinkins: Tonya Pinkins' horror film RED PILL brings African American perspective to the progressive movement.

[1:30] Tonya Pinkins: We are a majority in this country.

[1:33] Tonya Pinkins: And we want to win the election.

[1:39] Tonya Pinkins: Do you know what the red pill is?

[1:41] Tonya Pinkins: A red pill is someone who infiltrates a group and then destroys them from the inside.

[1:50] Tonya Pinkins: This place is spooky.

[1:51] Tonya Pinkins: Some people like to live dangerously.

[1:54] Tonya Pinkins: Cass, why are you so jumpy tonight?

[1:57] Tonya Pinkins: You know what, guys? I'm gonna go back tomorrow.

[2:00] Tonya Pinkins: Did you hear about the creature woman that attacked a father and son hunting down here?

[2:04] Tonya Pinkins: I don't see the case.

[2:06] Tonya Pinkins: This place creeps me out.

[2:11] Tonya Pinkins: I think we should call the sheriff's office.

[2:28] Tonya Pinkins: The only people missing or dead are brown people.

[2:34] Tonya Pinkins: They're after all of us.

[2:38] Tonya Pinkins: What do we do, Amelia?

[2:40] Tonya Pinkins: We die.

[2:42] Tonya Pinkins: But we take some of them with us.

[2:47] Tonya Pinkins: Oh, I know you got some stories to tell. And look at you wearing, you're wearing the blue of the Democrats too today.

[2:54] Tonya Pinkins: Well, I had to. I had to. And yet I can see the grand there.

[3:03] Tonya Pinkins: See clearly through the red.

[3:05] Tonya Pinkins: Yes. I think you have to. I don't think you can hide in a bubble today anymore.

[3:10] Stuart K Robinson: Agreed.

[3:11] Stuart K Robinson: I jump back and forth between CNN and Fox News just to see who's saying what.

[3:16] Stuart K Robinson: And I follow Richard Spencer and David Toots and Breitbart.

[3:21] Stuart K Robinson: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[3:24] Stuart K Robinson: And I have not ever lost my joy.

[3:29] Stuart K Robinson: I have just a profound belief that everything is evolving towards higher levels of good.

[3:36] Stuart K Robinson: And no matter what it looks like, it is serving some higher good, even if I can't see it right now.

[3:42] Stuart K Robinson: So I understand this tension release that's happening for people today.

[3:47] Stuart K Robinson: I totally understand it, but it's just not my experience because I wasn't nail biting.

[3:52] Stuart K Robinson: Like there have been no surprises for me here.

[4:34] Stuart K Robinson: Yeah, and I think of it in terms of like, you know, I know in construction, I watch some of these HGTV shows, and some of the construction people say their favorite day is demolition day.

[4:34] Stuart K Robinson: They just get into tearing down the old house.

[4:34] Stuart K Robinson: That's not me. I'm the guy that likes to come in and rebuild and make it better.

[4:34] Stuart K Robinson: So I'm not really interested in tearing down the existing house or putting anybody in their place or retribution, etc.

[4:34] Stuart K Robinson: I'm interested in saying, how can we collectively, whether you agree with me or not, how can we build something better, something that works for both of us and for all of us.

[4:34] Stuart K Robinson: So yeah.

[4:36] Stuart K Robinson: And I think that we have to also remember that there's 72 days left during which demolition can be done.

[4:44] Stuart K Robinson: That might be something that the next president needs to change about the process that we have.

[4:52] Stuart K Robinson: Yeah, they may have to do some things, right? That from the day you are no longer, you know, that your presidential duties end on such and such a day, and maybe move the inauguration up or something, but that you just don't have those powers any longer after the people have spoken.

[5:12] Stuart K Robinson: Yeah.

[5:14] Stuart K Robinson: People have spoken.

[5:16] Stuart K Robinson: Well, many people have spoken.

[5:18] Stuart K Robinson: People have spoken on both sides.

[5:22] Stuart K Robinson: Yeah.

[5:23] Stuart K Robinson: Yeah.

[5:23] Stuart K Robinson: And uh, yeah.

[5:25] Stuart K Robinson: People are saying, even though we're so happy that we have Kamala and Biden and we have that new strength, it's also very eye-opening that we are still living in a country where almost 50 wasn't completely 50%, but are still wanting to go in the direction of someone that they know wants to tear apart.

[5:45] Stuart K Robinson: And that's something that I think I hope and I pray, I know it's not gonna happen overnight. But what my emotion was is I was still sad to see so many people wanting to keep him in office.

[6:03] Tonya Pinkins: That was my fear out of all of this.

[6:06] Stuart K Robinson: I hear that. I understand that.

[6:07] Stuart K Robinson: I think we're taught from a very early age to root for the team no matter what.

[6:12] Stuart K Robinson: Like in school, you know, you root for you, we're the tigers, yeah, tigers no matter what.

[6:17] Stuart K Robinson: Whether our team is any good or not, we just know that we gotta wear the colors of the school and we gotta support the team.

[6:24] Stuart K Robinson: And I think there are a lot of people who feel that way, that whether it's right or wrong, I gotta vote for the team.

[6:33] Stuart K Robinson: Plus, there are four or five essential issues that some people just can't get over.

[6:38] Stuart K Robinson: Pro-life versus pro-choice, they can't vote opposite that.

[6:43] Stuart K Robinson: Taxes for over 400,000 or under 400,000.

[6:47] Stuart K Robinson: They can't vote against that, and so on and so on and so on.

[6:52] Stuart K Robinson: So I'm gonna give a lot of those 70 million people who still made that choice the benefit of the doubt that when they experience, well, when they experience us, first of all, and when they experience a better way, they won't be so likely to always just root for the team.

[7:12] Tonya Pinkins: And I'm not going to give them the benefit of the doubt.

[7:15] Tonya Pinkins: I think on that note, I'm gonna let people like sovereignty.

[7:20] Stuart K Robinson: All right, let's get into that.

[7:23] Stuart K Robinson: Are you ready, Tonya?

[7:26] Tonya Pinkins: It's all you, okay?

[7:27] Tonya Pinkins: Okay. Um, my name is Tonya Pinkins, and we are here on Spotlight, which has been sponsored by Marissa Lynn Daniels Studios.

[7:37] Tonya Pinkins: So excited today to talk to one of my favorite people on the planet, one of the smartest, most talented people I know, Stuart K. Robinson, who is one of the partners at BBR.

[7:48] Tonya Pinkins: He also has My Gym Enterprises, he's an actor, he's an educator, he's an artist, he's a speaker, he's a polymath.

[7:57] Tonya Pinkins: There's kind of nothing that he doesn't do, and it's so rare for me to get to talk to people who are like me.

[8:03] Tonya Pinkins: So let's just dig right in.

[8:06] Tonya Pinkins: It is a day in America, it is a day in the world.

[8:11] Tonya Pinkins: Uh, there are celebrations going on all over the world.

[8:14] Tonya Pinkins: Uh, I see you've got your blue jacket on and you've got your red glasses on.

[8:19] Tonya Pinkins: What's that about, Stuart?

[8:21] Stuart K Robinson: Um, my glasses are to help me see clearly.

[8:26] Stuart K Robinson: Uh, and I never want to forget the fact that I need to look at it all.

[8:32] Stuart K Robinson: Uh, I think, you know, we were just talking before the show started about, you know, that we get taught from a very, very early age to root for our team no matter what, whether they're winning or they're losing or they're doing the right thing, etc.

[8:45] Stuart K Robinson: So go team, go team.

[8:47] Stuart K Robinson: I'm that way with the Lakers.

[8:48] Stuart K Robinson: Every year, the Lakers are gonna win the championship.

[8:50] Stuart K Robinson: Even the years where they had no chance of winning the championship.

[8:55] Stuart K Robinson: But I'm finally at an age where I'm able to appreciate the Boston Celtics.

[8:55] Stuart K Robinson: I'm able to appreciate other teams.

[9:01] Stuart K Robinson: And I think the way that I gain that appreciation is by being able to see the world through their lens just a little bit, which allows me to be empathetic.

[9:13] Stuart K Robinson: I don't have to agree with you to be empathetic toward you.

[9:17] Stuart K Robinson: I don't have to adhere to your standards.

[9:21] Stuart K Robinson: I don't even have to refute the fact that you might hate on me, but still I want to be able to see the world through your lens so that I can make a decision that is based on full truth as opposed to just home team truth.

[9:40] Tonya Pinkins: Now, Stuart is the first guest that we have ever had here.

[9:44] Tonya Pinkins: Even Marissa hasn't had this experience.

[9:47] Tonya Pinkins: He has seen a rough cut of RED PILL.

[9:50] Stuart K Robinson: Yes, I have.

[9:52] Tonya Pinkins: We're not giving any spoilers here, Stuart, but he's seen the cut.

[9:56] Tonya Pinkins: And uh so you know what I've been talking about, and you know that I've been thinking about this and beautifully steeped in how this was gonna go, because that's what I made a movie about.

[10:06] Stuart K Robinson: Yes, I get it.

[10:08] Stuart K Robinson: Um, yeah, I'm gonna try to not do any spoilers.

[10:16] Stuart K Robinson: So this won't be a spoiler.

[10:27] Stuart K Robinson: Correct.

[10:28] Stuart K Robinson: Social political horror.

[10:29] Tonya Pinkins: You know that in horror movies, you see the protagonists do things that especially in my community, we're yelling at the screen, don't go in that house.

[10:44] Tonya Pinkins: Are you crazy?

[10:46] Tonya Pinkins: Um, but I think that's a wonderful metaphor for what happens to us in our society and our nation.

[10:52] Tonya Pinkins: We see the signs, we see that there is danger lurking and there is hatred, and etc.

[11:01] Tonya Pinkins: And yet we go in anyway.

[11:03] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah, maybe it's false bravado, maybe it's that things that we haven't been taught, etc.

[11:09] Tonya Pinkins: But we go into that house anyway, and we go hide in the cemetery, you know, instead of doing what common sense tells us would happen.

[11:20] Tonya Pinkins: So that's why I never want to be surprised by because that was a lot of my life coming up.

[11:27] Tonya Pinkins: I always believed that I belonged, that I was welcomed, that I was accepted.

[11:34] Tonya Pinkins: So it always blindsided me when I experienced exclusion or racism or any kind of hatred, etc.

[11:43] Tonya Pinkins: I always was so thrown because I thought I was a member of the club.

[11:49] Stuart K Robinson: Me too, yeah.

[11:51] Stuart K Robinson: And the reason I thought I was the member of the club was mostly because of what I was never taught, what was never talked about, and you know, my family wasn't big on talking about the ills of the world.

[12:05] Tonya Pinkins: Where were they from?

[12:07] Stuart K Robinson: Uh, Western Pennsylvania.

[12:09] Tonya Pinkins: Oh, Pennsylvania?

[12:10] Stuart K Robinson: Yes, yes, and uh for those of you who are watching, um this is an off thing.

[12:19] Stuart K Robinson: Cindy, would you send my wife the link?

[12:22] Stuart K Robinson: And uh those parts of those small towns are way deeper than the deep south in some ways.

[12:33] Stuart K Robinson: Because I can almost bet that the town I grew up in is the same as it was when I left a hundred years ago.

[12:40] Stuart K Robinson: Because the guy who runs the gas station, his grandson now runs the gas station.

[12:46] Stuart K Robinson: And the person who was president of the bank, his grandson is president of the bank. You notice I say his because all of that is in place too. Um so my family, I think thought they were protecting me by not shielding you. Yeah, they were sheltering me. So in ways that made for an easier childhood, but it made for a much diff more difficult growing up because I was so surprised that um that there was so much exclusion in the world. Yeah, my family came from Louisiana and Mississippi and Arkansas, and they didn't talk about it. And I remember even asking my grandmother who came to Chicago from Mississippi about racism. She's like, I don't know anything about racism. Right, right. Yeah, and a lot of the speaking that I'm doing today, the people I'm speaking to aren't haters.

They're they're woke and they're liberal. They just don't know the experience that you and I have had. It's just not a part of their lexicon. So of course they don't think there's a problem. I was speaking this morning with a friend who owns a big corporation, and he said, you know, for years I banked on the thing of saying I hire the best candidate. I don't judge whether they're black or they're white or they're this or they're that, et cetera. I just hire the best candidate. And what I had to explain is, but your biases impact how you determine who is the best candidate. And I talk a lot about bias. There's a bias called halo bias, which means anyone that I think is beautiful or looks like me, I think it's smarter.

I think it's smarter. That's halo bias. So if you're a hiring manager and you have halo bias, which all of us do, that's why you you're drawn to people who are like you. So if you have a halo bias, you don't even know that you've taken 20 points off this candidate who looks different from you. You just assume that this other one is the best candidate because your bias has told you this one is smarter and this one is beautiful. Now, God forbid that candidate doesn't speak the way you speak. God forbid that candidate doesn't wear their hair the way you wear their hair, you wear your hair. God forbid that candidate spells her or his name differently than you would spell that name. You know, they did a survey where they sent out uh I think a hundred thousand resumes, exact same resume, but at the top of one was a kind of Anglo sounding name, and at the top of the other one was a sort of Africanized name, etc. And they found that the response to the resumes was three to one.

That just the name LaShawn puts you in the no stack. That's halo bias. Now that's not hating. That's not someone saying, I hate black people, I hate women, I hate disabled people, I hate transgender people. It's just their biases saying, but this is better. But this that looks like me and sounds like me and seems to think like me is just smarter, better candidate. So yeah, I mean, I think for me in making this film, or just even my whole life, there's a way in which I walk into rooms and I'm not the expectation of what a black person is supposed to be in America. And so there's a way in which I cease to exist because I don't match the expectation. Since I'm somehow better than is even possible for me to be, right?

I get erased. And in uh, so it's like I'll speak in rooms to something, and I I don't even try to speak if I haven't researched it or have experience or something. So I'm going to speak with a great amount of information, and they'll be like, I'll speak to it. There'll be the silence of we heard you, and then they move on. Like nobody even addresses what I spoke about. They just move on.

[17:01] Tonya Pinkins: Yes, I understand. Uh I have an interesting experience. I do a lot of voiceover work, and a lot of that work is um like ADR voice replacement when the star can't come back to fill in some lines that need to be filled in. And uh it's almost a hundred percent that if it's a blind audition, I get the job. So I've done Sean Penn and I've done uh Alec Baldwin and I've done you know, all of those people. But if they see me before I do the voice of that, they can't hear it. Because it just doesn't match the thing. And you know, there's this scientific thing that you know when a picture doesn't match what your brain is anticipating, that's when the amygdala kicks in and sends a message to the hypothalamus that there's a problem. And the hypothalamus then sends a message to the body that there's a problem and therefore sends out a stress hormone. So you actually have a physical reaction when your pictures don't match up.

[18:01] Stuart K Robinson: I'm so with you. I produced a series of plays last year in New York at the tank called Truth and Reconciliation of Women. And it was plays by and about women and the ways in which women harm one another. And the point for me about the plays was to put groups of people on stage having conversations and experiences that we don't usually see, so that people could experience both the emotion of the conflict between these people, and I required the writers to come up with a resolution so that the people also experienced resolution. Even if resolution hadn't happened, I asked my writers to imagine a resolution. If they had an experience of seeing conflict and resolution between people who look different or weren't familiar to them, we could affect the amygdala, and they would have a file in their head now for what that looked like.

[19:02] Tonya Pinkins: Right. Yeah, I do an exercise in my speaking engagements where I ask people to take an imaginary journey, and it's it's it's it's a it's an airplane flight. And I mentioned several people that they meet. And generally the response is 97% of the people, everyone in that imaginary journey was white and male. And not because they hate women or they hate black people or they don't have friends who are all of these things. Which tells us that our world, our imagination, when we have the ability to imagine anything we choose, we cast that movie with white men. Now, I'm gonna go a little deeper and say that the biggest comment I get is people telling me that, oh, our system in America is broken. Oh my god, what has happened to our broken system?

Why is this happening, etc.? And I always say, no, our system is not broken. Our system is operating exactly the way it was created, exactly the way it was designed. And you can go back through history and find law after law and Supreme Court judgment after Supreme Court judgment, etc. What has changed is us, our willingness to live inside a system like that. What has changed is our hunger to learn more about the things that we were not taught, and about the things that were prettied up for um for the benefit of our schools, etc. Or for the benefit of this illusion of what America is that is so different than the ideals on which it was founded.

[20:58] Stuart K Robinson: I want to say, go to something about getting notes on the movie. Um, what I have learned in making this movie is that very few people are able to give you a note that reflects the fact that they actually see what you are trying to make and can give you a note that will help you expand on that. Most people give you notes that reflect what they're used to, what they're comfortable with, what they don't like. And so uh there's a sense for me as a black woman making a film, I get notes that reflect the note taker not giving me the benefit of believing there is intention in what I've done. They think I've I've done something different than the way it's usually done. I must have made a mistake. And so they think they're helping me, and I have to say, no, actually, that's how I want you to feel.

That's a choice I made. Yes, you know, and if you felt differently, I would feel like I wasn't hitting my target. I want you to see the world through my eyes, not um what I've been saying is the get out of American culture, which is they say they want our voice, then they come in, they take our stories, they tell us how we can do it better. So it's really their voice with our name on it.

[22:24] Tonya Pinkins: Yes, absolutely. Uh they ransom your idea, and then they because they have the power, they change it to fit the mold of what they want. Um, there's nothing wrong with a film disturbing people. Right. I wrote a play once where generally half the audience would walk out every night, and everyone was chagrined at that. But for me, it was like, yes, that means you murdered and were disturbed and identified with the problem. I think with your film also, I think people have to uh approach it and allow themselves to see the um see some of the explicit as the metaphor and understand that it is a metaphor for something that's real. Uh and again, I'm gonna go a whole other way. I often talk, I often ask people this silly question.

If you could have any superpower in the world, what superpower would you choose? People generally say, I'd like to be able to fly, or I'd like to be able to invisible be invisible, or I'd like super strength, etc. And I always say, love that. My choice of a superpower is I would love to have the power to know the story of the person opposite me before I meet them. Because how differently would I have greeted you today if I knew that um you had just lost your grandfather? I would deal with you in a different way. How differently would I deal with you if I knew that you had just recovered from a fatal disease and were grateful to be living again? So, but more so when we talk about race, there's so much that you have been through that you can't even describe.

You can't even explain it because you know, if you're in a court of law, they'd say, Where's your evidence? And you'd say, It's not hard evidence. I just know. I just know. Uh, my wife and I went to a restaurant in Palm Springs once, and just the way the Maitre D smiled at us told us that we needed to get out of that restaurant. Now, someone else would say, What do you mean? He smiled at you. What are you talking about? You're making that up. You're experiencing it. Yeah, but until you've lived in my skin, walked in my shoes, you don't know how to recognize that look. You don't know what that look really means. And I'm not willing to wait until I'm George Floyd to get you to understand it. Woo.

And for me as an artist, the superpower I want is to be able to have you walk a mile in my shoes through my art. And so there's a scene in the movie that's an after dinner scene. And white audiences, they just they get they just get annoyed, they get antsy, they don't like it. They think, isn't the scene about these lines?

[25:28] Tonya Pinkins: And why don't you just cut to the lines? And why do you have all this awkward stuff and I'm bored? I want it over. And I'm like, yeah, that I want you to experience how I experience you most of the time. You should feel that way. That is the point for me. That if you're feeling that, you're inside of me. And so I get excited about that. I know that it's not what people think they are going to see for, uh, but it's what I want to do. I want you to be able to be inside my experience of the world, which what do we have other than our art to do that with?

[26:09] Stuart K Robinson: Yeah. You and I had just started talking about, uh, benefit of the doubt before we went on the air. And we had differences of opinion on that. I really am of the belief that there are haters in the world on both extreme sides, but I believe that the majority of the people in the world are basically moral and good people. They're just terribly impacted by biases, and they're terribly undereducated. And that walking in your shoes for a month would be the best education in the world. And to me, the second best education is me at least understanding the shoes they have walked in so that I don't take things at face value, so that I don't see them as the enemy when they're not the enemy, they're just not part of the cure.

[27:05] Tonya Pinkins: And I agree with you. I say yes, and for me, when I'm taking a note, I say, this isn't wrong, it's another way of seeing. Neither of those exists. There's just this one thing. And so your disdain is as valid as my excitement, and those polls could switch about some other issue. And really, they're just both big sensations that we have about something. And for me, the scale that something is really true is when it calls up the polarities in equal forms. Like we're hitting a truth. There's great love, there's great hate. Now we're on a truth because we've got the whole spectrum, is right there.

[28:31] Stuart K Robinson: Yeah. I hear you. And you know, a lot of times when people ask me to talk about race, I have to start with an apology and say that, you know, I don't really believe in race. I think that race was an invention of this country in order to keep the power system the way it should be. There's no other delineation based on color of skin in the world. And any scientist in their right mind will tell you there's no genetic difference. I'm looking at people on the screen here who might be exactly the same as I am, except for the color of our skin. And that doesn't change anything. Our brain process, our wants, our dreams, our hopes, our desires, our morality doesn't change simply because skin color is different. But someone convinced us all that there are races. Well, that's just a way of singling out a certain people and then finding a way to dehumanize them.

[29:28] Tonya Pinkins: So when you look at a movie, yes, you know, I'm in the entertainment business. I own a talent agency and a management company, and I write and I direct and I compose and I do all that. Um, and yes, everyone is always talking to me in terms of dollars and cents. And their perception of dollars and cents is we gotta, they tell you this is the lie. They tell you we want something new. But really, what they want is something that is the same as something that has been successful for them. How many times have I been in a room where they say, give us something new, but like Survivor? Mm-hmm. Whoa, okay. So you just want something where we vote people off the island, and it doesn't matter what it is.

That's not what I do is take your format and tell a story through your lens. I only attempt to see through your lens so that I can understand it better. And then, as you're doing with this movie, you tell it through your lens. Will it make a fortune at the box office? Maybe not, because people are used to being fed a certain diet of art. And if that diet flies in the face of what the amygdala is expecting, their bias is say, I don't like this.

[30:45] Stuart K Robinson: And what I'm clear about in the, you know, uh with this piece is because I spend so much time just listening to people, because that's my people and their stories are what interests me, is I know I'm telling a story of people who've had to listen to the um the story that you know, this is the one we have to listen to, and we have to go, oh yeah, okay, the hero's journey. Like I am, I don't believe in the hero's journey. I think the hero's journey, this Aristotelian story structure is the story structure of the oppressor. Most people are not the hero of their lives, making choices that then cause it to go that way. To me, people are heroic because when life throws something at them, they survive it and they get to the end, and that's what the heroism is.

[31:29] Tonya Pinkins: But that's a, you know, my editor is South Korean. You know, South Korea's storytelling is a whole nother thing. So, you know, as I've been telling the story and getting feedback, it's like the very lines that white people like you could cut that. That's not meaningful. For different people of color, it's like, oh my God, you're you're that's that's something from my culture. Oh, that's a person from my heritage. Oh, you're talking about important things. And it's so I'm aware as I receive the feedback that I made this movie for those people. And I know there are millions of them in the world. It yeah, white people, you you might not you might not be happy. It's not, it's not what you're used to. You're not centered, you're not the hero of the story. As I say, there are no good white people, and there's some no good white people in red pill.

[32:22] Stuart K Robinson: See, I don't I don't subscribe to that because I believe it's more complex than that. Oh, I think I think there are those who have drunk the Kool-Aid and those who haven't. And I know a lot of black people, myself for a number of years, who you couldn't have convinced that there was a problem in this nation because I was a good student and I wanted to be liked and I wanted to do. So I subscribe to all of those. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. Okay, I assumed, yes, I'm created equal. So again, skin color doesn't isn't the determining factor for me of who's gonna get what you're talking about and who's not. However, anyone who does have that skin color has experienced things that a lot of other people can't even know exist. And I think that's a key to what you're showing us.

[33:21] Tonya Pinkins: That if you don't understand it, I have skin colors, I have cultures, and it's definitely the cultural things of, you know, it isn't just color because even some of the people with the same skin color don't see the world in the same way.

[33:34] Stuart K Robinson: Oh, absolutely. I mean, I'm always talking about the fact that two Yoruba's have a greater genetic difference than any two people once you get off the continent of Africa. It's about some elite group of people wanting to put somebody on the bottom. When we got to America, this thing of melanin was the easiest way to do it. It's why the Appalachian people were so hated because there was such an inbreeding of escaped slaves and Native Americans and white people. They're like, they can fool you. You won't know what they are. They can have blonde hair and blue eyes and be black and Native American. So we don't like those appellations because they can fool.

[34:10] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah. Yeah, I'm with you. Um, I definitely agree that the founding fathers of this country had a very specific idea in mind when they talked about inalienable rights. Um, I think a lot of people today unknowingly inherited that privilege, that advantage, etc. But I have met a lot of people of all different cultures and all different types who get it, and a lot of people who don't get it.

[34:40] Stuart K Robinson: Absolutely. And to me, that's once again that place of both poles that we're gonna have equal of both those things because there is some level on which they reconcile and they're not opposites, they're just part of a spectrum of a whole. That is, I mean, I we may not be able to know that truly, as we live in this land of polarities, but there is much more than this land of polarities, and I do believe there is a space in which there is a reconciliation, that Republican and Democrat are part of some larger thing somewhere that is one thing rather than opposite things.

[35:20] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah, I don't know if we wanted to get political today in specifics. Um, we can if you like. What I find with people is that I have great hope for people who recognize that they are still students of this life, that they have much to learn, that there is growth that could happen within them. I think the current inhabitant of the White House, for all his other faults, et cetera, the biggest deficiency is that you can tell that he doesn't feel like a student of anything, that he knows he is I alone can do this. I am this is the best ever. We've done the best job ever, and those people are lying, and those people are wrong. That to me isn't as much a sign of evil as it is a sign of not realizing that you're still a student, no matter what, uh heights you achieve.

[36:23] Stuart K Robinson: And for me, I've become more of a student as an older person than I ever was as a younger person, and it's that willingness to be a student and to learn about myself and learn about others and learn about other cultures and all of that that gives me hope. So it's the people who think they know, you know, which is um 16 and 17-year-olds, and people, yeah, people like, uh, you know, because I know when I was 16, you couldn't tell me anything. I've got this you people are out of step and then there are people like, uh, the inhabitant of the white house who just believe they know it all but I believe there are millions and millions more who are capable of recognizing that they can be taught and that they can grow and I think that um coming together will come through that it will come through uh whatever your point of view your your willingness to learn and your fascination with the idea that there's more out there that you haven't learned now you have a book called start with I is that correct did I say it correctly it all begins with I.

[36:58] Stuart K Robinson: It all begins with I, and one of the later chapters in the lessons or rules is being a success magician. I'm very interested in magic and alchemy and hermeticism, so tell us what that means when you meet.