Foreign you talked about college you went to Texas A M Texas A M HBCU no no not actually HBCU uh pwi uh and but here’s what’s interesting about that so Jack Jake but Jack Case High School was in Third Ward which is not even arguably it
Is uh the most it’s it’s the richest most blackest uh culturally significant black community in Houston in Texas one I mean it if you if you’ve got Harlem in New York if you’ve got Compton in Los Angeles you got third ward in Houston we call it Third Ward Texas the track so
That’s why I went to high school when Dad grew up there uh and both her parents went to Yates high school as well uh because it was one of the only high schools that black students could actually go to uh uh back in the day and was interesting man it’s so so right
Across the street from here to Texas Southern University HBCU right behind Yates is University of Houston okay so you know so I had a lot of people over the years uh man why do you go to HBCU TSU across the street preview down the street well here’s what’s crazy
Texas Southern has the school Communications University of Houston has a School of Communications prayer if you have the journalism program tissue improve your hbcus ufh isn’t I came out of high school as the number one student the teachers voted me the top student there if that was a if you
Use a sports classification I came out of high school as a five star that’s how good I was in Communications neither one recruited me dude we were across the street my my former television instructor Mary Waits left after my junior year to go teach at TSU TSU never recruited me
Preview used to I remember Diana phallus who used to be a TV anchor in Houston she’s a professor PV they will often come to our campus never recruiting me and so listen my my brother was in college I was in college my sister followed us man I’m telling you right
Now if I thinking back I guarantee you my parents never sent the three of us combined a thousand dollars while we were in college do they handle money so my brother had an academic scholarship at Texas A M it was like eight thousand dollars I had a t i got a ten thousand
Dollar one I got one I got I got my I got my sister hooked up uh and so that was a deal and so I remember going to Tom join the cruise and we were um recording and so Tom Joyner he goes uh hey I bet you really
Regret uh not going to HBC I said oh absolutely not I said absolutely not I said I enjoyed my four years at Texas A M if I had to do it again I’d do it all over again and he he was like sort of stunned and I
Said I said I’m first of all I said what the hell y’all talking about I said my parents I said why why would I voluntarily incur debt hell no I follow the money so we follow the money so I don’t I mean I saw people I don’t get caught up in
All that silliness of you didn’t go to HBCU uh first of all I don’t believe that you’re less than if you went to HBCU I don’t believe that you’re less black if you went to a pwi my deal is go to school I don’t care where you go but
You make a financial decision you’ve got too many black folks walking around in debt because of college anyway so and I had a as a brother I was talking to he was on the Board of Trustees of HBCU and he was real but he went to a pwi he was
Real cognizant he was like well you know I don’t really want to push too hard because you know I I didn’t go to HBCU I said is the HBC you’re getting your damn money I said well then you can offer your damn opinion I said what the hell you scared
Of man I ain’t got no I got no problem wearing my Texas A M gear uh I don’t care what they think I wear my Texas A M Gear 2 hpcu I don’t care that’s where I went to college I’m I’m not offended by
It is it perfect no do I kick their ass on some stuff absolutely but I don’t care so I tell folk I want in fact first of all you gotta remember the only two there are 230 000 students to go to the nation’s 107 HPC use 20 of 230 are
Non-black they’re 1.5 million black students who go to pwis so they’re five times more black students to go to non non-hbcus hbcus I don’t my deal is I support all of them I want you getting an education you make the right decision for you for me hey it was following the
Money if T issue a preview would have recruited me and put some money on the table that would have been a different conversation but they did okay I know I know you’re an alpha uh life member life member so and never let no no dude hit me
That’s the dumbest [ __ ] I’ve heard in my life hazing is so stupid to me you know okay we can go down we can go down this road and and I want to move the interview forward but you you are always in support of the divine nine always
But you don’t believe in the hates hell no hating is stupid first of all what year did you go over first and foreign we did a road trip and it was a it was a brother from Prairie View uh and before you say what you’re about to say you know your brothers are
Listening I don’t do [ __ ] take the first time I said it and in fact I when I play at Spring 89 we cross April 27 1989. and what happened was we at our convention that summer and we go to the convention hazing wasn’t issue and so I was gonna speak on
The floor and I had some brothers from my chapter but like yo you know rolling you know man you know don’t go hard because they they know how I feel about hazing and they didn’t want me to talk about how our chapter did not Haze and I said
Wait a minute why the hell are we not going to share how we do it the right way and y’all scared I said I’ll give a [ __ ] what nobody else think we doing this [ __ ] the right way the concept the concept of pledging is to break someone down
But then build them back up but the breaking down is not to break you physically is to break you down as an individual but to establish what a Brotherhood concept is like which is why you have your line so I never forget some cats again they want to be I’m not
I don’t need to hit nobody I said this is the deal I said you want to paddle the behind when I want to pledge the mind so me as some brothers who were online the line was disjointed it didn’t have any Unity now some other places could be like yo
We need to whoop their ass that’s stupid somebody can easily take an ass whooping but why am I going to beat another person why am I gonna beat somebody um you know for some because of some letters so I observe the whole line
And I said I think it was like 13 to 14 brother said do me a favor I need you to put all of your line folders in the middle of the table and they put all their folders in and then I said now grab your folder and
Each one of them went and grabbed their individual line folder I said it is abundantly clear your line has absolutely no Brotherhood of unity whatsoever whole room was like what I said first of all all of your line folders are supposed to be so uniform you cannot distinguish between one folder and the
Other so the fact that you could go grab your individual folder means that your photos are disorganized disheveled you don’t have any Unity because I said you could identify you as an individual which means that you’re not a line you’re an individual you don’t have any Brotherhood because it’s just you
I said if you want to get yourself together y’all need to establish a real concept of Brotherhood and it starts with making sure your folders are not all individually um uh distinguished I said which means they’re shoddy and unorganized then I walked out the whole room was silent brothers were
Like how in the hell where the hell did that come from because I was thinking through I needed then I use that as example to walk them through that’s how you that’s how you break somebody down beating somebody is dumb so what has it led to it’s led to death
You can’t come back from death it’s led to massive lawsuits it’s led to divine nine spending millions of dollars on settlements because some fool decided to hit somebody and made somebody run and somebody died from exhaustion that is stupid a mother or father does not send their child to college to return
Home in a body bag that is not what the process is supposed to be about because in fact no great Alpha became a great Alpha because of where they pledged no great Alpha became a great Alpha because of where they went to college they became a great Alpha because of
What they did after college so why am I going to sit here and physically mentally emotionally harm somebody and break them to the point where they hate what they want it to join that to me is idiotic and so I remember we were did a road trip and it
Was a brother from Prairie View he was like yeah you yo you soft ass brothers from Powell from Texas A M y’all ain’t [ __ ] this is pretty weird whoop your ass I said what’s your I said what’s your chapter graduation rate he goes excuse me I said what’s your chapter graduation rate
I said in the history of our chapter only one brother is not graduated I said and he had can’t do anything without chapter I said so please tell me what weapon somebody ass has to do with your graduation rate I said I literally said [ __ ] you I said we do it right
I said the point is to graduate the point is to go do great things after graduation you clearly ain’t figured out what you’re supposed to be doing as an alpha and I walked off I mean y’all y’all The Neighbors y’all didn’t cross pledge they crossed
No no no no no no no no we but again though when I played we had chapter standards so when if you if you went to somebody else’s campus you had to abide by the chapter rules in fact we had a run-in this is hilarious man it was like
A Sunday morning it’s like eight o’clock in the morning we’re in the library and we tired as hell we walking through and and we and so we go by this table and this guy goes thanks man we turn around and we don’t know who this dude is
We’re like we don’t know who that was dude is he was like he ain’t got no Alpha paraphernalia nothing he said uh I remember yeah that’s how you address a big brother we were like who are you like we literally had no idea who this was so dude start
Going off so man so we he’s like I want to talk to all y’all you’re like oh the hell this dude is so we go into the room man he’s going off he cussing he’s like this he’s like I’m at Prairie View I’m at the I’m coming to the library to do
His research or whatever and we like dude we don’t like literally we had no idea who this dude was and so man he just kept going and I just got tired of this [ __ ] bro and so I literally stood up I ain’t I stood up I said you know
What here’s what I’m gonna do I’m gonna drop line whoop your ass and come back and get back online get it get out of here ask my lbs I got I got four I got three living lbs as John Williams Freddie Riggs or Paul Stafford is that
What I said I’m I’ma fact check you on that one bro go ahead record you’re talking about spring 89 right now in the world I stood up and I said I’m a drop line whoop your ass and come back and get online and so we had a we had a
Phrase we had a phrase uh at the Big Brother’s used web which equal like if stuff got crazy equalize everything so what like Spaceman uh you know uh you know big brother so they all stepped in us out of the room I was like man I said
I ain’t taking this [ __ ] because one I wasn’t I wasn’t gonna let some again we don’t know who you are you’re not from our University so you could just be anybody so you ain’t just gonna talk to us like you crazy and we don’t know who the hell
You are that’s exactly what I said you can ask Paul you can ask John Williams who’s number two Freddie Rex who’s number four and pause that was number five our number one Kevin Phillip Roberts uh died 10 years after we pledged uh on the plane crash
He was the first black drum major at Texas A M history Uh Kevin died you can ask them three that’s exactly what I said to homeboy and so that was the deal fight we were just and again here’s the thing I need people to understand and this is where I this is
Where I stand I don’t care you’re still dealing with young men you’re not dealing with children I don’t unders like I don’t understand people who plays grad chapter and they letting somebody whoop their ass ain’t gonna be no listen if my daddy found out that I let some dudes my age
Whoop my ass over some letters he would whoop my ass and I that wasn’t gonna happen so when I was told people people like oh man you skated you ain’t take wood hell no I’m not letting somebody beat me for some letters yo but I’m gonna tell
You something though Roland did you you okay we’re we’re now in 2023 this is and and I do want to move this interview forward but this is commonplace your train of thought spring 1989 that was not your train of thought was not the way it was done it wasn’t for us
It was let me tell you something because see here’s the deal am I hey maybe you say my line was different doc we were accomplished walking into the Frat my number one was the first black drum major in Texas A M history cork debts number two was the president of a
National Association of black black accountants chapter I’m running and about to get elected to the national board of the National Association of black journalists number four is the starting point guard on the basketball team number five is the vice president of student government Association that was a [ __ ] when we pledged
So in our mentality but again and some will say oh cause you went to a pwi but again we understood what the players process was supposed to be see that’s the problem what has happened is we have allowed people to to take this thing to take these organizations and strip them of what
They’re supposed to be vert Alpha Jewel vertner Woodson Tandy was speaking against hazing in the 1930s so what is happening is we have let people let it become the standard oh you ain’t real unless you didn’t get your ass whooped you ain’t real or you skated no that’s stupid it’s insanity and what
It is done is it is created there are people man who refuse to come back because they got beat the people who refuse to even be involved because of how they got treated that ain’t how you’re supposed to do this thing no you we are to be creating
Molding shaping building young men to become great men you don’t do that by making somebody run 20 miles just what what or you you or you to exhaustion or making you drink in ridiculous amounts of water you damn they’re getting waterboarded it’s just I mean that’s that’s just how nonsense that’s not how
I want to deal with this if I’m able to change this I can make you a great man whooping your ass don’t make you a great man well said well said and again that that train of thought was way ahead of its time and I just and then and if you told
Me you don’t get your ass whooped you ain’t pledging you keep your letters
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