Empowering Youth vs. Online Predators in Cleveland's 95.9 FM WOVU

00:00:02 all right for elev he know we [Music] [Music] this [Music] hey what’s up Cleveland what’s up what’s up welcome to strategic moves radio I’m your host Ken D and we’re broadcasting right here on wovu 95.9 FM this is a place where we bring art culture politics business where we all bring it all together we interact and I want to make your next move a strategic move so this program gives me an opportunity to do that I’ve been doing I’ve been working in the um political realm and government and governmental relations

00:01:38 and community relations in our state and in around this community for over 20 years had the privilege of meeting some Fascinating People in our city and across the nation and this show gives me an opportunity to bring in bring them in to talk a little bit and tackle some of the issues that matter and Empower you to be a part of the conversation so if it’s something you think you might be interested in when I need you to do is just go ahead and you can call in at 26271 0959 that’s 26271 0959 that’s the call-in number and

00:02:10 you also if you’re following us on Facebook or YouTube you can leave a comment there any question that you would like to do at that time and we’ll be able to answer those questions for you at that time and we’ll be able to put it on but before we get started today I want to give a big shout out to my co-host and producer of this program kind of helps me put all the these things together he’s the producer of our podcast have a podcast that comes on on a weekly basis as well uh shout out to DJ TR what’s happening Brother hey

00:02:40 what’s going on how you doing today all every day is a holiday brother every day is a holiday it’s a cold holiday out there that’s why it’s a holiday most holidays there’s a lot of holidays in cold weather so this is going to be one of them so what’s happening in your world well before we get rolling on my show we definitely want to uh say send our heartfelt wishes and prayers out to the people in La you know going through the um Southern California LA area going through the wildfires and I know

00:03:13 Cleveland has probably got a lot of relatives I I have a cousin out there and I gotta give him a call even though he’s in like San Bernardino I don’t know how close but you know the Wildfire is just spreading crazy so I just wanted to shout out before we get started you know let’s keep La our prayers yeah that was one of our topics we was going to talk about today was the California wildfires I had looked at the news this morning coming in and they said that there was some winds that are going to be coming

00:03:46 in that’s going to make the fires even more um a problem today so you know our prayers go out to everybody out there I really hope they kind of figure out what’s going on it’s it’s really wild what’s happening when we follow the story you know uh um everyone is pointing the fingers now of what started it and who did it and why the government didn’t do certain things in order to get things going so it’s going to be a trip over the next few years because it’s all it’s well well well billions of dollars

00:04:14 of Destruction that happened out there and on top of that the people out there are wasn’t eligible for insurance so if you lived out there and you bought a house out there and this kind of thing so there’s people who really lost everything out there insurance compan would not ensure those properties so it’s going to be really really interesting to see how the new Administration deals with that and they’re fighting over it right now as we speak yeah that’s uh that’s terrible because uh I mean you get a house you

00:04:46 would think you automatically you almost have to get insurance most you know most of the time when go get a mortgage one of the first things you do is get an insurance policy on your house to replace or cover Dage so I don’t know how these insurance companies get out of you know not paying or not assuring notur properties you can’t make nobody do anything so it’s their money their investment they don’t want to they they feel that is such a risk I guess yeah you gotta get insurance just like anywhere else like it’s a

00:05:23 risk and in California in certain areas they wasn’t insuring you you bought a house the government should step in there like I’m get a house out here and I can’t get insurance don’t buy the house I mean that’s the easy that’s the easy I want to get to the hard answer let’s get to we St here but our prayers do go out to everybody out there in California and we will keep you posted on anything I know there’s people all over the world that’s even you know I even saw article um a thing today um the

00:05:57 fellas in Ukraine the president of Ukraine actually wanted to send people over to help with the fires in La so they’re in the middle of a fight and they want to stop their fight to come over and help us with this fight so that’s really huge so they’re getting a lot of support from a lot of various different places that’s pretty know so also in rumor rumor ha that rum talk about our boy miles Garrett is planning on leaving and I just saw that today and we’re not a sport show or anything so we’re not GNA dive deep into that I just

00:06:28 want to bring that to everybody’s you get a chance look at there there was article I don’t know if he’s going to go or not but I did see something he may going to the New England Patriots um as one story says we don’t know how deep is you know how deep that goes How Deep The Rabbit Hole goes right now but New England Patriots was just as bad as us they were three and 14 the only good thing that and optimism I would say is they just hired a new coach first year coach Gerard Mayo was a new the Patriot

00:07:01 got fired and then HED Mike who was I think a eighty year player with New England Patriots or played a pretty long time one three with new so he is now the new coach former Tennesse tight coach uh coach six seasons over there and had a pretty decent record had a winning record over there so and our Cavs still doing their D thing still doing what they do best yeah the Cavs last three games the big game Cavs versus Thunder they won that game 129 to 122 and that was the battle really for Supremacy in the NBA the Cavs was the

00:07:46 best record and oklah Oklahoma City Thunder was the second best record and we prevailed then the very next day we beat the raptures um the Toronto Raptures one 32126 but our 12 game streak winning streak ended on Sunday with the Pacers and we lost that one 93 one away 93 but we play the Pacers again today so is that here or I think that’s away because the one Sunday was here so we played them in Indiana today excellent excellent and last in this little news thing we want to go through I saw another article I thought was

00:08:29 interesting one was in the signal uh senior assistant um initiative Koga County in partnership with Cleveland Housing Network uh Cleveland Housing Network Partners is offering eligible seniors up to 10,000 and $10,000 in assistance for property taxes so these are these are things that can go to you if you delinquent with your property taxes or you need um help with um paying your taxes or you fell behind if you a senior in kyoga County you and you have to be here’s the catch you have to be 70 years old or older you are eligible for

00:09:06 $10,000 so I wish they would lower that I know a whole lot of people love benefit from that but if you’re St in Koga County and you need some help in paying your taxes and you know they everybody’s taxes and property value assessments went up this year and that was a big and it affected a lot of people in our town so this may be something so if you need some help please go to k you can go up to the County um look them up and get that information online or you can go to Cleveland Housing Network and ask them

00:09:36 about the program for Senor so that you can get some help and um assistance if you need help in getting the taxes bought up so we got coming up on our show today we got a few people and it’s going to be a fun uh really big show today we got a few people G to be dropping in and calling in and talking with us today later on in the show we’re going to be joined by Dr Heather Burton um she’s a Dei expert to discuss the roadback diversity incentives across Corporate America and government programs we also want to have on our

00:10:07 show today Mr Mrs Jo van I hope I pronounced it right she don’t tell me if I did it wrong joov van founder of get um get our babies to college 101 and we also have a gentleman coming on also Tim Woods the founder of the James Foundation for justice to give us an update on what’s been going on with his things so we want everybody to sit back again this is a call-in show so if you’re interested in calling in you got something that’s on your mind we call it what’s on your mind Tuesday where you get an opportunity to call in and be a

00:10:40 part of the conversation if that’s something you want to do just give us a call you can give us a call once we get ready to do that and that call number is 26271 959 and we’ll be right back [Music] [Music] hey welcome back to the street strategic o radio show I’m your host Ken D this is a place where we bring art culture politics business all together and we do it every Tuesday right here on the wovu 95 .9 FM and right here in their studios here K right here on Kinsman slow it down a little bit okay

00:11:38 all right all right so joining us today is one of none other than jovon Smith a Powerhouse and education educational advocacy and empowerment jovon is the founder of Jovan is the found founder of get our babies to college 101 and a th000 ties two programs that are transforming Liv of our youth our young people in Cleveland she’s an author a speaker and a true change maker in our community Javon to our show hi thanks for having me and it’s Joan there it is I knew I was messing that up I I was messing that up the

00:12:15 whole time that’s her and I’m sorry about that how you doing today I’m good how are you oh excellent hey before we get started in the show W you give us a little background uh about I know what you’re from Cleveland give us what area you’re from and what kind of inspire you to get into what you’re doing and tell everybody what you’re doing um so I’m from the Huff neighborhood grew up there went to school there raised my children there um and the reason that I started my work was because I was becoming an

00:12:49 advocate for not only myself but other children so I started getting our babies to college 101 because I didn’t feel like the parents were being included in the college prep process I kind of felt like we were kind of left out when we are key players in that process and so um as my daughter decided she wanted to go to school I just felt that you know me being able to do research and help her in that way could also help other families and so that’s kind of what started me with getting our babies to

00:13:18 college 101 oh and and what talk a little bit about the uh ties as well you have a program called a thousand ties yes it is so a thousand ties came about after I watched my son teach himself how to tie tie on YouTube and so it kind of um made me feel that you know as a single mom I know I’m not the only single mom that has been in that position and so um it just made me look at all of the different skills that our young men don’t have and so I wanted to create an opportunity for them to get those soft

00:13:53 skills that are kind of being lost in Generations that are really basic that can build confidence and create opportunity for them and where where do you have these classes at and where do you teach them at So currently we are in three different school districts and so we have our mentoring program which runs in the middle schools and then we have our life skills programs which run in the non-traditional high schools so Invictus Frederick Douglas we’re at all of their campuses and so the students

00:14:22 are getting life skill credits for learning things from Kitchen safety to how to change a tire to First a CPR to Entrepreneurship Academy to even learning how to fill out an envelope and write in cursive so and we also have a community based mentoring program that’s open to young men all over Northeast Ohio and that program is free and that’s for ages 8 to 12 and then 13 to 17 really okay that sounds really good I wanted to ask you when you talk about your kids and getting ready get them prepared for college how how difficult

00:14:55 is that and what were some of the challenges you saw and trying to put that together and some of the things you faced in order to go through the steps I I went through it four times I had four kids who all went through college and had to go through and it was different it seemed like for every last one of them and by the time I got down to the last one we really feel sorry for her because she really kind of put herself in school every child is different and what every child needs is different and then

00:15:23 the lack of access to resources and information was like the biggest thing for me um that’s kind of why I started what I do because I didn’t feel like the information was being fed to us and my daughter has dyslexia she had a IEP and she was actually told that she wasn’t gonna go to college she was going into the workforce and so that kind of really motivated her to want to go to college and so as a parent when your child tells you this is what I want to do it’s like okay how do we figure this out and so I

00:15:52 think the lack of access to resources um the lack of information that’s fed to Public Schools the um we even had CU she played Sports so I was reaching out to Scouts and so we would even get oh we don’t Scout in Cleveland and so they would say you know the the kids from Cleveland would come but academically they couldn’t hold up so they wouldn’t Scout them so that became a huge barrier a I see give me some of the biggest Transformations You’ seen with some of the young men I’m a stickler for these young men I really

00:16:23 like working with them and I really think that’s where we need to invest more time in them so give me a couple of good stories or give me a couple of transformational ideas you seen happen from the results of your program well um one young man he actually is a mentor now he um was in our program and we helped him get scholarships to college and he decided that he wanted to be a model and so um he got resources together we worked with him on being able to advocate for himself and you can go see him in Times Square he’s traveled

00:16:55 the world like he’s a nationally known model Route 21 like all over the place and so he comes back and he speaks to my children a lot and he was able to build that confidence and and be able to go in those rooms and stand up strong and look people in the eye and and be able to tell them like this is what I want to do and be able to use his words without coming off as aggressive or you know they look at our young black men as oh everything you say you know you’re you don’t know what you’re talking about or you’re being

00:17:22 aggressive and so he learned how to be able to use his words to get in those rooms and now he’s a a famous model that’s great that’s great you know I want to uh uh commend you on doing that and working with your son and coming up with a program like that that is really good we going to get ready to wrap up before I go though I want to ask you a couple more questions because we we’re going to have you on our podcast we brought you on today just to give the audience a little bit of idea of what you are all about and we’re going to go

00:17:51 into real detail and spend some time and really do that and you can catch us on our YouTube channel where she’ll be sitting back and we’re going to talk to her more about her background and more what she does but before she go I want you to tell everybody about your books before you get out of here so we can mention your books and let people know how they can get the books and tell them what the books are all about so I have seven published books um one of them is awardwinning um Grandma had ice cream

00:18:16 has won two Awards and I’m actually this is you’re the first to hear it it will be released in Spanish I’m actually making an announcement tomorrow so it teaches numbers and colors using scoops of ice cream okay um my books are all feature characters of color in real life situations and they are for all ages but Grandma hades’s ice cream is kind of like the big one that everybody seems to love so it is being released in Spanish this week excellent where can they get that book at they can get all of my

00:18:46 books on Amazon Walmart target.com Barnes & Noble and on my website joans smith.com J1 jm.com excellent and again I’mma let you close us out with a few words before we go just give us a last closing message on how they can reach out to you how they can meet you and anything you want to tell the people that’s listening that they can remember you by well they can follow us on all social medias at 1000 ties ties and we have our annual event February 8th is for the family come out is free we’re going to have all types of

00:19:19 workshops for the children for the moms the dads free yoga February 8th registration is open and the event is free and where it’s going to be at it’s going to be at Warrenville high high school and it’s open to anybody in Northeast Ohio and we’ll have stuff for the siblings the little babies so if you can’t find a babysitter bring the baby we’ll have something for them too that’s excellent that’s excellent you don’t want to miss it and you don’t want to miss it on our podcast we’re going to keep you guys a um a breast of when

00:19:45 that’s going to happen Jan I want to thank you again for coming on our program I look forward to talking to you in person and we’ll see you soon and we’ll be right back Jan thank you very much for coming on thanks for having for you oh it was great thank you for everything and we’ll talk to you very soon okay sounds good thank you okay bye bye Tim how you doing sir how you doing I’m good how about yourself oh I’m doing great man we gonna be ready to bring you on Sir all right you feeling good today oh hey you know I

00:20:24 feel good every day until something bad happens I know that’s right this message is spored by the Cleveland office of minority w59 the social determinance of are factors such as education level healthare access and economic stability and impact your health these factors may not be understood by some inss people understand clearly and use them to discriminate against you the CLE office of help you understand these and how they may adversely impact your health call us today at 26664 4925 or online at Cleveland

00:21:05 health.org we are here [Music] [Music] [Music] El [Music] w. 95.9 all right all right it’s welcome back welcome back welcome back welcome back Cleveland you’re tuned in to strategic moves with Kendal radio show on wovu 95.9 FM where we’re going to dive into stories and issues that truly matter to our community and today we’re going to tackle one of the toughest and most heartbreaking topics I ever covered on our podcast uh what we’re going to talk a little bit about today is called online sextortion and uh the gentleman

00:22:40 who’s going to be joining us today for that discussion is none other than Mr Tim Woods I had Tim and his wife on our program um early on when we first got going and we talked about uh what was going on in his situation and Tim is going to come on and share with us uh what’s going on or with Foundation um some of the new things that’s updating everybody on what’s been happening new with the U as it relates to sextortion and uh give everybody some hopefully some really good news and some encouraging stuff Tim how you doing

00:23:13 today sir how’s your Mentor today man oh man it’s it’s good I can’t complain this time how about yourself oh man everything on my end is pretty good man I was really glad to hear that you guys can uh you were able to come on how’s how’s the wife doing oh man she’s great you know nice and bubbly as usual smiling excellent excellent excellent well I’m glad to hear that man everything you guys been going through and getting through man is really tough so I’m really glad to hear that everything is going well uh before we

00:23:42 get started Tim if you don’t mind can you give everybody just a little background about the foundation and and what happened with James and your situation so that we could get the audience some idea of the background and what took place yeah so in late November uh 2022 our son committed suicide because he was a victim of online crime calleda extortion and you know my wife and I we didn’t like it of course because we lost our only child he was our baby and we took it upon oursel to start telling

00:24:15 other people hey this is what’s going on you know we didn’t want to be quiet and just sit there and let whatever happened to us put us in the dark place and we’ve been going around uh educating people informing them what’s going on we talk in schools we talk the politicians forensic nurses you know we’re in conferences we’ve been traveling across the whole United States we’ve been as far as California as far south as Texas and as far east as uh Boston and we we just feel like it’s it’s our job now you

00:24:45 know our our kid is gone and we don’t want anybody else to have to suffer through what we suffered through so we try to touch as many people as we can and we’ve doing this we’ve been official since January 13th of 2023 excellent excellent and you spoke about um James was targeted can you give us a little more detail about when you said he was targeted how they target him and took him through that process and how that went yeah so he was contacted by someone on Instagram Direct messaging it was someone he didn’t know but he talked to

00:25:16 him anyway like a lot of us do we you know say hi to people and people speak back same thing happened to him and eventually so after they were talking for a period of time eventually they did decided to be sexual about their conversation they uh got nuded on video with each other exposing themselves and the person on the other end with James decided to take screenshots and use them to Blackmail them during that blackmail it was just you know 19 and a half hours of constant text messages mental torture

00:25:49 you know they they kept him up all night he was you know in a really bad place because of it and after time ran out he decided he didn’t want to be here anymore so you know and what’s really um amazing about the story when we talked about it was that James went on that day as if nothing was going on to you guys correct he he was dealing with all of this on the inside um I I remember talking um with um your wife and she said that they went to the um college fair over at Warrenville high school that yes it was it was a HBCU college

00:26:24 fair at Warrenville high school on November 19th Saturday morning and you know they get all the HBCU there it’s a beautiful event they go there get to go and talk to all the different recruits they get to see what the school has to offer and it’s it’s a beautiful event I I I really support it and I think that more people should know about it yeah and that whole time while they were there he was dealing with that they were calling him bugging him trying to get him to send money and all the necessary

00:26:54 things that was taking place and it was just really shameful on how the things that they took him through and and just we’re going to move on a little bit on that but and what was the amount of money that they were seeking uh well they lied to him at first and said $6,000 they knew he didn’t have $66,000 but when you tell somebody hey you got to pay uh $133,000 to get a brand new car and then somebody else says well we could give you that same car for 4,000 you’re gonna take that smaller price that’s exactly what

00:27:24 they did with him they asked for 6,000 and then they said well you give us 300 bucks you’ll be done with us so they pretty much settled on $300 that is so wild that is why so James tell me a little bit about the struggles afterwards after this happened and you knew it tell us take people through some of the struggles that you went through and trying to get help and trying to get to the people who actually did this well of course you know we contacted law enforcement the Streetsboro police here where we live

00:27:57 they came out they did their investigation and after they did what they did everything got passed on the homeland security and it turns out the people that targeted our son and attacked them they’re overseas in a place called the Ivory Coast of course local law enforcement can’t get to them so that’s a government issue and the government even came back and told us that they can’t get to them either because there’s no extradition treaty with that country so we hit a brick wall on that but as far as us

00:28:28 moving forward still we’re we’re still trying to help other people you know stop what’s going on with them we’ve helped capture uh multiple pedophiles we got one that’s on the run right now still being tracked by police we Inspire children and Empower them to speak up say hey this is what’s happening to me can you help me so let let’s talk about the foundation now you got the foundation up I know James was a very big track star track athlete and that so tell everybody about the foundation and what you guys doing there

00:28:59 so you know James he he was a track athlete and we made sure that our foundation that we started we used him as our logo so when you look at our logo it’s a picture of him running over a hurdle and you know it’s a beautiful picture and we just take that and we say hey this is our son you know we make sure that everybody sees him not us and we say this is our son this is what happened to him and then we just go through and we tell everybody this is how to avoid it this is how to get out of it if it does happen because you

00:29:33 can’t 100% stop anything right so we try to help people on both sides of the coin this and what’s some of the suggestions you would give to parents what are I guess I would ask you this what would be some of the telltale signs that you would probably think that maybe you ought to say something to your kid or check up on what they’re doing what would you looking back now what would you say would be some of those signs James so as far as signs sometimes signs depending on who’s being attacked is very hard to notice you know

00:30:03 with guys things just happen so quickly so it might not be enough time for you to see the signs with girls things move a whole lot slower yeah I hate to say it this way but you know guys and girls are so different girls you got to butter them up and you know build up that trust with guys we pretty much don’t have our defenses up so it’s easier for the Predators to come in and get what they want so you try to look for you know changes in Behavior sleep patterns you know people getting rid of certain

00:30:33 things that they have that’s their possessions uh change in appearance like cutting hair or maybe bruises on the body it’s all these uh different things that we could Overlook as normal but if it’s prolonged for a period of time or if it’s too many of these things it that’s a sign that says hey I need to sit down and talk to this person you know like an alcoholic you you see hey they’re drinking a beer but over time you notice hey you know they drink a lot of beers and this is how it’s affecting

00:31:03 them you sit that person down and talk to them same thing with children something’s going on sit them down talk to them try to you know say hey I’m here for you let them know that you’re that person that they want to talk to you’re supposed to be as a parent their number one line of defense and you hope that the parent you know is that person that’s willing to help you cuz you know sometimes that parent isn’t the person that can help you but we also encourage children talk to your aunts your uncles

00:31:31 your grandparents your teachers your bus driver your coaches you know there’s tons of adults out there that have information that can uh be useful to you just here here’s a hard one for you James how can parents create a safe space for their children and their kids um to come forward without fear so I I this is one of the things that I tell parents when we talk to them parents kids look at you as a superhero you know a kid’s whole life the parent never tells them hey this is the dumb stuff that I did when I was a kid they always

00:32:04 had to hear those stories from their parents uh grandparents or from their aunts and uncles the parent never tells that story so when you don’t tell that story you create this wall in front of you and your child making it to where your child can’t come to you because they don’t want to disappoint you you have to break that down so that they look at you as more of a human versus a superhero let them know hey I did stuff too here’s some of the dumb stuff I did this is how I had to get out of it this

00:32:33 is who I asked for help you know we we got to do those things so that our kids are more willing to open up to us because like I said if they look at us a certain way we’re going to be one of the last people that they go to they talk to their friends all the time but not their parents when should the family um involve law enforcement and uh and and and how can we be assured that these authorities are actually taking these cases serious you know some people feel like you know it’s already we have this

00:33:06 thing with the police and everything else and FBI and those kind of people so when should you know you you really should get the law enforcement involved in what’s going on and and and since you done been through it I guess a good question are you know and are they really taking them serious and and so let’s see what’s your what say you about that James well I’mma say I can’t speak for all law enforcement officials but I know that here where we live our uh Streetsboro police they were fantastic I

00:33:37 called them I said hey this is what happened they came out immediately they did their investigation and of course things went faster for me in my particular case because there was a death involved people who are still alive they might get a different result a slower process of moving but the police are still there to help and if they’re not helping you know keep going say hey this is what’s going on give them all the information eventually something will click or somebody will come by and say Hey you know this case

00:34:10 sounds like another case I was working and they’ll see that it’s a bigger problem than what they started at because we have known people to contact law enforcement and not get anywhere that’s been a big problem in a lot of cases it is but there’s still people you can contact netm the National Center of missing and exploited children you know they help everybody 17 and under they turn down no one they’ll listen to everything you got to say they take that information and they disperse it so if you can’t get law enforcement

00:34:42 to help you contact NE me and they’ll help do the same thing all right listeners let’s really um James outside of that I mean Tim outside of that is there any other steps you think they ought to take in going through this process you saying you said that was one calling that is there any other outlets that you want to shout out real quick well local law enforcement is always uh number one in my opinion contact them because they’ll try to help you and they’ll get the people that’s you know involved in

00:35:12 torture uh nme that’s another resource you can use also there’s 988 you know it’s the suicide hotline because a lot of times people do think about harming themsel and we don’t want that at all so between those three those are the three main ones that I would point someone toward but even still you know everybody has a a best friend that they could talk to you know talk to them and maybe the best friend might have an idea that could help you out better than what you could come up with on your own because

00:35:42 you know two heads are better than one but the main thing is always talk to someone don’t just hold it inside don’t keep it to yourself and let it feser it’s law enforcement really equipped to be able to deal with a lot of these cases that’s going on um out here Tim yes and no so all police departments aren’t the same they’re not equal but some of them have more information than others and I found that they all don’t share information with each other so some uh you might be um you know in one area East Cleveland and the the police

00:36:18 come out to your house do the investigation and then you know you hear nothing back from them where else you could be on the west side of Cleveland get a different uh police station they come out do the same investigation and get further than the other side did you know it’s it’s just one of those things where where you live might affect how much help you get or what type of help you get all right James we gonna uh get ready to round out of here before we go though I want to give everybody there

00:36:46 are some good news from this some of your hard work that you have been out there working on and in the last few days there was a new law that was passed in the state of Ohio the Brandon law Braiden law yes and it was recently um passed in Ohio making sextortion a felony uh W you give everybody some more details and all the things that took place and how that all came about so the mother of that young man is someone that we uh personally know she was locked out of her son’s phone after he had passed

00:37:20 for 10 months the Apple did they refused to open the phone for her they said it’s a violation of his Amendment right and they would not do it it took her 10 months to find out why her baby is no longer here and when she found out she went on a tear she started you know saying this is what’s going on this ain’t right she was pushing politicians and she was one of the main reasons why that law got passed so that law is in place to help people so if you know like with James if we couldn’t get into his

00:37:53 phone ini initially we contact the police they get in touch with whever they have to the whatever phone carrier that phone carrier within 30 days has to have that phone opened so that we can know exactly what is on it because you know it it’s our right to know what happens to our kids that’s correct and for people to say we don’t have the right to monitor our children there’s something wrong with that so bradden’s law pretty much you know Sid steps that excellent and that’s that’s in place right now that is in place right now uh

00:38:27 the governor signed it last week Wednesday and it was a beautiful thing so excellent excellent I saw you guys on the news and everything that’s when I was like oh I gotta call them back up I just saw him on the news so we gonna get ready to let you get up out of here Tim but before you go I want you to just tell everybody how they can reach out and meet U get information on the foundation and if they want to get involved how they can do that well we have a website that you can go to it’s uh www.s do it for jamesf foundation.org

00:38:59 you can get on there you can see all the things we do we’re out in the community we uh we we post a lot of different stuff we go to a lot of different places we speak at a lot of different events we have a Instagram and Facebook do it for James Foundation you can get on there you can follow us we we do posts We Do videos we like to let everyone know what it is that we’re doing and every year for our son’s birthday around that time his birthday was July 23rd we have a walk run that we’ve been doing for the

00:39:31 past two years this is going to be our third year doing it this year it’ll be July 19th we invite everybody to come out it’s a beautiful time it’s a uh $35 registration fee you can walk you can run it’s a 5K and then after that walking run is done we have different people out there like the FBI iak we have mental health uh officials we have a lot of things out there to give kids firsthand information on what going on the truths MythBusters all that different stuff and we also have games that they could play it it’s it’s just a

00:40:04 nice beautiful day to help you know everybody feel better about a bad situation to get more information to make the world safer for tomorrow it’s it’s a good thing we invite everybody to come out hey Tim Tim thanks for coming on our program excuse me everybody thanks for coming on our program did a a wonderful job as always in educating everybody on what they need to know know as it relates to sex tortion please let your wife and everyone know I said hello and keep up the good work that you guys

00:40:33 are doing we’re going to always promote what you doing and try to keep the word out there as much as we can again Tim thanks for coming on our program and we’ll be talking to you soon and we’ll be right back everybody for what’s on your mind Tuesday right back thanks Tim I appreciate it brother hey no problem anytime man I thank you for having me to you so [Music] there you go how you doing I’m good how are you doing great turn the music down in my set no just turn the music down up on thing that’s the cart turn the cart

00:41:22 down yeah turn the cart down don’t worry about it there you go all right there you go right we gonna get you going we’re gonna get me going get you going yeah I was like Ken trying to trip me up asking me questions about this dbe how that ain’t my expertise that’s not your area let me find your spot real quick here introducing right oh this is right here now we not gonna do that I skipped that whole section on the job stuff so I got you together e for [Music] [Music] hey and we’re back again welcome to

00:43:49 strategic moves with Kendal radio show I’m your host kenal the place where we bring art culture politics and business all together we do it every Tuesday right here on the wovu 95.9 FM radio station today we’re going to dive into the growing trend of corporate America and public programming scaling back their diversity equity and inclusion initiative Walmart meta and even though Ohio Department of Transportation has made headlines recently for scaling back and halting programs aimed to ensuring

00:44:23 equity and inclusion but what does that mean for the for the Community for blackowned businesses and for other Bader flight excuse me what does that mean for blackowned businesses we’re gonna have that discussion right now with none other G to help us unpack that discussion right now we have joining us Dr Heather Burton a Trailblazer at Dei and always uh willing to K on the phone and talk with us a little bit about Dei here in Cleveland she’s one of my experts and she’s a contributor she came on and

00:44:56 talked to us on our YouTube channel and our podcast and she’s going to come on today and kind of we GNA just talk a little bit about that and the lines are open if you want to Chang in on the conversation about Dei and what’s going on you can do that or all you have to do is call in to 26271 959 call in at 27 26271 0959 to get into the conversation so Dr Burton thanks for coming how you doing today I’m doing well how are you oh everything is everything as they say right I’m trying to stay warm that’s it right now

00:45:32 that’s it that’s it that’s the best part about this so Dr Burton we had a conversation and you were on there before and we were talking about um the fact that um all of these companies are now starting to turn back and roll back uh it looks like meta has uh adjoined the thing where they’re saying that they’re not goingon to even fat check no more they just like we’re just going to do what we need to do and on top of us not factchecking we gonna throw Dei out the board out the window with it as well

00:45:59 what’s your thoughts on everything and all these companies and as African-Americans who are fought so hard to be in that space how do you see us working through that now so so so Ken that is a loaded question was a lot there’s a lot in that one question and I think you know as as we as we think about Dei and I always start with questions around Dei with starting with first we’ve got to look at what the acronym stands for and the acronym stands for diversity equity and inclusion and so when we begin to break

00:46:34 down the words that’s what helps us to understand the purpose of diversity equity and inclusion now when we think about this from a historical perspective is that there has always been push back this is not anything new policy laws have always hindered those that are marginalized underrepresented minorities underrepresented groups minorities whatever but when we talk about the black community specifically when we talk about black folks we can think about the thousands of laws and policies that were put in place historically that

00:47:11 have kept black people um back kept them down kept them oppressed kept them in in in in marginalized situations and so when we think about that this push in 2020 late 2024 2025 is no different it is no different because we’ve taken the we’ve taken the acronym and I use the acronym because that’s what has become the buzzword to push back is the acronym of Dei because the reality is if we really think about diversity equity and inclusion and so here’s the thing if we take diversity equity and inclusion

00:47:47 and we think about diversity and diversity being representation we would look beyond for those people who just want to fight against race that’s ultimate thing and that’s what we pushing back on and so if we look at the political climate you know we talk about that but if we look at the political climate this whole Maga make America great again um and going back to Reagan with his whole concepts with America being great again also is that if we think about that and and and we and we want to or let me say this when

00:48:17 we think about that that we know the push back is based on race but however if we really think about diversity what folks don’t realize is that they’re messing with every element of anybody’s social identity and so when you attack diversity you’re attacking representation as it relates to Able Body folks you’re attacking representation as it relates to agism as it relates to sexism as it relates to genderism and so it’s all of these other aspects of diversity that folks don’t realize will be affected because you

00:48:48 want to attack the black folks well there’s another loaded question oh come on K with the loaded question today no is they attacking black folks or are they attacking everything else that you talked about they’re attacking all of us but I think but they’re attacking all of us but if we look at what the policy really puts into place it hurts us more than any other community and it hurts us more because here’s the other thing is that assumptions can be made about black people based on physical appearance and

00:49:20 so compared to other social identities other disabilities they aren’t visible to the eye but when we talk about race race is visible to the eye and so in that visibility it causes that push back to happen because if I can make assumptions about you based on seeing you then I can do the things that I’m doing as it relates to Dei do you think the African-American Community gave it gave up on affirmative action too easy and settled for Dei and as a result of it now we have nothing and what I mean by that is at one point affirmative

00:50:01 action was the thing that African-Americans pushed for to get some kind of equality and to some degree there were a a movement in the country that felt that that was necessary from White America and from everyone else then we got to a point where other people we mentioned not to and this is no slight against anybody else just really talking about black folks who joined in the pot and put us in a pot that said we should join this de um diversity equity and inclusion and as a result of that we totally lost

00:50:41 affirmative action and and what’s your thoughts on that do you think there’s any truth to that well I think first it’s important to understand that those who benefited from affirmative action and majority was still not us and so we talk about the aspect of affirmative action white women benefited more so from affirmative action than we did and even we explain that you I can’t you talking about my loaded question I can’t let you leave that out there so even when we talk about affirmative action because here’s the

00:51:11 other thing is that when we talk about affirmative action affirmative action was put in place and so what I where I really want to go to is with affirmative action is talking about how demographics are classified and so if we think about forms that people fill out when we’re talking about affirmative action policies is it said says that discrimination will not happen and so you’re filling out these forms that provide demographics for companies to provide demographics for things that you may doing so you’re looking at race

00:51:36 gender veteran status and so in looking at those forms and we’re specifically talking about hiring a moving folks ahead it wasn’t black people that benefited from those affirmative action hiring forms it was white women who still benefited it goes back and we can even go back to when we when we look at the suffrage movement when we look at the Voting Rights move and we think about all of this is that I think and this Ken I told you it’s a loaded question because it’s taking me another Direction too but when we think

00:52:05 about this and we think about this aspect of who actually benefits from certain policies that are put in place I want to go back to the introduction of diversity equity and inclusion which is one of those introductions that happen because of a legal case and I think it was baky versus California and so we think about the introduction of diversity equity and inclusion I always say diversity was that sugarcoated word it’s a soft word and even when we Define it and I defin this earlier when we talk about

00:52:36 representation it includes every element of diversity well guess what happens when we add in every element of diversity then the thing that causes the most tense race we can dilute it because now we can focus on other aspects so that’s what killed us with diversity but it just didn’t kill us with diversity it’s been killing us all along we can go back and and I think um now as I tell my students this might be a Dr burtonis but we can go back and we think about we think about history and we think about

00:53:11 even the debate within the community when we’re talking about black folks is that we go back to a theoretical space or a philosophical space and this debate as to do we integrate do we practice separatism do we practice accommodation do we practice assimilation and so in all of that we now are trying to figure out how do I get Equity how do I get fairness how do I get Justice because I’m still trying to figure out my place within society and so we go from okay here’s minority Affairs for most places that’ll help us

00:53:49 and especially within my space when we’re talking about you know education but here’s minority Affairs this will help us then we go to the melting pot because what happened with the Melting Pot can everybody said we need to all be together we need to come together and then we move to diversity and so we always end up at the bottom because other social identities other folks come in and redirect the conversation in terms of moving ahead and that you know I hate to say this but it goes back to the formation of the the

00:54:25 country MH and especially when we’re talking about American context but even when we talk about globally of what happens when we’re talking about black folks is that especially within American society there’s always something that’s put in place to make us have to or make um others put us in a certain category and andity Equity inclusion I’ll let you go to the next question I I was going to say Do you believe it’s going to continue you see it getting worse before it gets any better yeah and if we look at history we can

00:54:59 see there’s always regress when there’s progress and so if we look back and we look at the pattern is that there is progress then there’s regress so we go from the uh We Go From Slavery to reconstruction reconstruction progress and then who got mad we got the formation of the KKK and so now the Freeman’s view world is destroyed so then we go into Jim Crow Jim Crow removing the Civil Rights and people say oh let’s integrate let’s integrate because integration is going to bring about this and so we move forward but

00:55:31 now we’ve got to have the Civil Rights Act of 64 we’ve got to have the Voting Rights Act we’ve got to have the housing Rights Act and so all of this but then we still regress again we move forward with affirmative action but then we regress because there’s unfairness with this this this this person in this case and then we move forward now with diversity Equity inclusion and then we get somebody in office now and some other folks around the community say oh no y’all moving too far y’all getting

00:55:59 too much so now we destroy that and if we can think about what happened with the Freeman’s Bureau they’re moving forward and when we talk about reconstruction we talk about everything we look at Black Wall Street right you know we develop but nope y’all got too much we about to burn this down we about te all this down and that’s but and that I’m not gonna go into that we not do because I keep telling every time we we always start off talking about diversity and eoy but Dr Burton is going to like

00:56:26 she’s a contributor I’m gonna have her come back on our program because she has a whole lot to offer us and a whole lot in that minor hers that she wants to get out and let us hear about and we really looking forward to it Dr we’re coming to the end of our program and I want to really thank you for coming on you got something you want to say to end it as it relates to Dei and what we should look out for anything before we go yeah I I think I would like to end especially talking with Dei and diversity equity

00:56:52 and inclusion is that we’ve got to do the work but we’ve also got to understand the work and understand the impact of the work and so I challenge anyone that’s engaged in the work or anyone that’s interested in uh diversity equity and inclusion to really think about the words is that when we’re talking about diversity equity and inclusion we’re talking about creating Equitable spaces creating fairness where marginalized communities specifically black people have the same e opportunity because if I I look at

00:57:24 hiring and I do a lot with hiring but if we look at hiring is making sure that they have the same access to get into the pool if we look at businesses if we look at contracts that they have the same opportunity to get into the pool and so this is where we go wrong with really understanding what diversity equity and inclusion is is that one we’ve got to have the representation two we’ve got to create Equitable spaces and three we’ve got to create inclusive spaces and so if we really think about that it will change our mindset because

00:57:58 it’s intentional uh it’s intentional to be anti- Dei and it’s intentional to be Pro diversity equity and inclusion and if you are human then you gonna focus on being pro diversity equity and inclusion and we really appreciate you coming on our program you do well as always thanks again if anybody wants to know more about Dr Burton please follow us on our Facebook page and our Instagram page you’ll see more information about her and what she’s doing at the school I want to thank everybody for coming on our program Tim

00:58:31 Woods for being on Javon Smith for being on and awesome Dr Burton for coming on our program today this talk to me Tuesday we’ll be back next week right here on this channel at 12 o’clock noon we’ll talk to you then and we’ll see you then peace thanks again doctor you did great did great great job today I thought we would we didn’t even a chance to get to the one question I want talk about is it a political or economic move oh can you hear me nowal oh no you did great well thank you can you hear me oh thank you for

00:59:11 coming on again yeah I had to wait till my computer is trying to catch up I had to disconnect it from all that so we caught up now okay okay yeah so no you did an awesome job thanks again like I said we get on there we just like to talk and you you you felt in and did very well and we’ll keep it going I want to talk to you about reparations and a few other things that’s going to be coming up so as it come I’m shoot you over an email if you can get on and say oh I got some time if not then just let

00:59:37 me know you’ll do the next one but we gonna just keep that going okay I want to come back to your question or we need to do another one asked this question about is it a political move or economic move or both I was trying to get to that one I was trying to get to that one and I like this caller question that caller one question um is di just about fairness right right right and and I was trying to get us there but it yeah we was just going going but we gonna get better as we start doing more of these programs so

01:00:09 just Sayang in there with us doctor all right of course of course all right thanate thank you bye bye byee all right better this week oh much better okay uh uh uh uh you was more nervous last week you was more week mm this week you was more nervous and this week you wasn’t includ in on our spots because you care less about our spots you didn’t and if you played them you played them after you was doing something so he was running simultaneously at the same time and and that’s something that you you got to

01:00:48 really care about our spots you have to you have to come in as a producer and say what spots am I running m so you don’t think we ain’t play enough of them that’s what you’re trying no you didn’t play them we play Spot do we yeah we play play I’m G say it like this you play them you got other stuff going and by the time you remember that’s our spot you got to come out of somewhere else and the spot starting in the middle if you take the program you’ll hear it believe me I’m so I I know tell me what you mean because I’m

01:01:19 trying to understand what you mean so so let’s say okay it’s time for the spot okay your your music okay which is awesome okay that’s why I wish at the end it says let me back up let me start this way MH okay it should always be a now K or back to K you should always have a segue that bring you back even though your music is at the end of the music yeah your music is good okay it it lets me know who I’m listening to that’s that’s the good part but when you go there your music should go down and that’s when our spot come

01:02:02 on but if he’s focused on the music and he’s playing the spot at the same time the stop the spot start in the middle when we hear it in the audience because there’s two things going on at one time oh you say he was playing them at the same time and and and and your music supersedes the we didn’t know he was he didn’t know he was doing but that’s what he just that’s just again okay that’s a produc that’s not this is not a beat up no I I just wanted to understand so we want to do it again this is nowhere near

01:02:30 a beat up this um and he had his at the beginning when you have your microphone on and your head set right here you got a feedback that’s that Echo when y’all did you hear that yeah that’s where that was coming from I couldn’t figure out that’s the echo all right okay and and and and so you got to have them on if you gon to have them on or turn them down cuz if you got them up against that uhhuh that picks it up okay see if you if you if you do you know like most DJs I don’t use they got one and one one one and one

01:03:06 out cu that’s how they roll right well it picks it up um I got it oh so if you take one off one ear then it if if if if if your headset is up too loud that’s why I try to show you to turn the knob up and down the last knob the very last knob because if you don’t turn it uh down it’s going to be loud and it’s going to come through and then you got two voices when you was talking to the first lady that’s when y’all ran in and got it you got two voices going on simultaneously that means your mic needs

01:03:43 to go off the only other way that happens is when you’re recording in here and you’re using your um your your library from here and this is up it it will cause another Echo it will cause another Echo um so I think you should consider relaxing and when you going from one segment to another segment you got to have something that put me back in the Kow you know like when y’all did y’ feedback on the the Browns whatever going on with Miles Garrett amazing man that’s just amazing I don’t what we doing in Cleveland um I just broke my

01:04:41 heart I saw that like like like what the heck are you kidding me my heart man broke my heart that’s it they that broke my heart he said he want but the way y’all had y conversation dialogue is great your K di music is great I need I’m looking for that fight that was in in here last week and you did good when the lady but she was just in down here and he was trying to get her up and and yeah cuz this cuz when he came in he turned it all the way up yeah but but see there’s another if you hit this right here and I

01:05:15 thought that I ain’t want to mess with it you hit that you see where it says game yeah you see right there it say gang right yeah you hit that and you can go gang left you can go gang right Okay g left G right but the only reason right is up right right right but the but you go back to neutral now the reason you don’t do that is because you have the privilege