BBQ'n While Black at Lake Merritt in Oakland (Response Part 1)

And we're gonna let them know we're going live here. Starting live. All right, all right, all right. Welcome, you guys. You know, my name is DB Bedford, your emotional intelligence consultant. I'm here with my man Deacon Kenzie, you know, as promised, the, the gentleman who was at the Barbecuing While Black situation back last month. And, you know, if you've been— if you haven't been under a rock, you have probably seen this video going viral. It's the one where the, you know, the lady called the police on the fellas because they were barbecuing and she was— she had a problem with the charcoal. So that video went viral, but what we didn't do is we didn't hear much from the brothers and their perspective. So I'm fortunate that, you know, we had an opportunity to connect and they wanted to use the emotional intelligence platform to give their responses. So we're checking in with you guys today from our downtown Oakland location, and we want to take a few moments to just talk about the incident from their perspective, you know, and get an idea, you know, what was going through their head. But I'm going to start with you, D. Tell me how you even got to— Talking to me about it. How did you reach out? What made you reach out to me about the incident?

Well, like I say, um, when I talked to you earlier, it was just an incident that I wasn't really experienced in, you know what I'm saying? Like, for instance, um, you know, I'm trying to get— be able to get out there and word it and being able to express my, my, you know, my opinion on it in a more intelligent way, you know what I'm saying? Because it's a lot of people out there, you know, they got a lot to say but don't know how to express it or how to express it verbally. And, you know, I'm one of them brothers, I'm not a real big public speaker, or, you know, I'm not a real big avid, you know, you know, speaker on just certain situations and current events. And I'm just trying to get grounded and a little bit more comfortable with it because, you know, a person like me, I, I would never expect something to fall on my plate like this.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, I mean, you know, I've been hanging out with Kenzie for a minute and he's a real good inspiration because, you know, he's, he's into that. He does a lot of Public speaking, interviewing with a lot of people, and, you know, I appreciate that kind of knowledge. But, you know, knowing, you know, you through your brother and all that other stuff, um, and I, you know, I follow you on your page, so I see how you out there and you're on a consistent, you know, motivational thing. You speak to a lot of people and it's, it's what you do. So, you know, I mean, I was just trying to get it from all angles.

Yeah, for sure. And I really appreciate that, brother. Like I told you when you reached out to me, First thing I said, I thought that that was very honorable and it was humbling that— because a lot of people have reacted already.

Right.

And for you to be in the center of it and to pause and say, you know what, before I say something, let me talk to my circle and see what's the best approach, says a lot about you, which is why I'm not surprised how you handled the situation. So I want to— I'm going to come back to that in a second, but I want Kenz to go ahead and jump in and Tell us, you know, because you came a little bit after the fact. So let's get, you know, the people want to kind of hear you guys' perspective. So let's start from your perspective. Like, you know, how did you get involved? How did you become present at the day of the, you know, the situation?

So, um, me and Deacon, we had already planned, like we was already talking about doing something at the lake, um, doing a barbecue. Um, I had— he had called me earlier. I'm not gonna lie, I was asleep, you know what I'm saying? Like, he called me like 7:50 in the morning. I was like, blood, I don't get up till like 10, right?

You know, so I got up, I called him.

I said, I'm about to jump in the shower, you know, get dressed. He was like, well, hurry up. So I came, I came down to the lake. When I came down to the lake, that's when, you know what I'm saying, like, uh, I spotted, I spotted her first because, uh, the way she was like looking, she looked like it was trouble already brewing.

Mm-hmm.

Because like she was surveilling the area. So when, you know, if you know anyone, um, body— if you watch people's body language, If I have my phone like this and I got my back towards you, but I'm doing like this, I'm looking around, I'm surveying this area.

Yes, sir.

I'm canvassing, you know what I'm saying? So since I'm canvassing, I was like, okay, I'm like, that's a red flag. So then I looked and I seen him. I'm like, what's going on? And then he told me and I was like, oh, okay. And then it was just like when she saw me and him, Have the initial, you know, like, what's up, you know, conversation. It was like I watched her body language go from passive-aggressive to aggressive.

Right. Can I stop you right there for a second? Because I remember before we started, because we're talking about this through the lens of emotional intelligence, every opportunity I can to highlight a skill set, I want to do it because all of us agreed when we sat down that the, that the end game for this, right, is to share knowledge, you know, be thought leaders in this process because we all go through situations every single day. And so when it comes to emotional intelligence, there are 4 main domains when it comes to emotional intelligence: self-awareness, managing your reaction, social awareness, and relationship management. What you're speaking on is social awareness.

Mm-hmm.

So when you were walking up to the situation, your social awareness Paying attention to the energy and the vibe of the scenario you're about to step into has your spidey senses tingling.

Yeah.

You like, something is up here. I don't know what it is, but it already puts you in a mindset to be prepared to manage or deal with something.

Yeah.

And because you noticed that ahead of time, I think it helped guide you into the situation. So social awareness is very important, you guys. Social awareness is that ability to pay attention to the environment that you walk in and any conversation that you're in. It lets you know what you should embrace or stay away from. So I wanted to highlight that. Go ahead, my man.

So it was like, you know, as time went on, you know, it was just more aggressive. It was a more aggressive behavior. It was more trying to be dominant, you understand?

Verbally?

Verbally, body language, socially. And on top of that, it was just like, I was like, I went into survival mode. When I say survival mode, meaning I got to make sure that me and my mans get away.

Hmm.

We have to make sure that my dude don't go to jail. I got to make sure my dude don't get shot. I got to make sure my mans, you know what I'm saying, make it home, you know what I'm saying, to his family, as well as I need to make it home to my family.

And so why— so that's self-awareness, because now you're recognizing that this is not just my man chilling.

Yeah.

There's something else going on. So now you start having a conversation with yourself. But why not— why you didn't get— you mentioned survival mode. So why not— usually when people hear survival, they think aggression. And especially when they think of men, large men, African-American men, Why not the aggression?

What—

how were you able to go the other direction and be more patient and passive? Tell me about it.

Because you got it, you got to think about this. This is the reaction that she wanted, or the reaction that she was looking for. She already stated that we, A, we were trespassing on her property, which was Lake Merritt.

This was—

we know for years that's not her property, right?

Right.

The second thing that she stated that, you know, brought up more survivor's tactics was Wait till you see when the police get here. Now, if you know anything about Blacks and police, you know things don't end up well.

Right, right.

So therefore, if things are not going to end up well for, you know, myself as well as my man, it's like, I'm not playing that, you know what I'm saying? Like, if you was there, it would have been the same thing. I would have been like, don't say nothing to her, don't give her no kind of verbal, keep your body language, you know what I'm saying, obscure. So therefore, you know, my next phase was like, I looked at him, I said, don't worry about this, I got this. And he looked at me like, well, what are you gonna do? And I'm like, don't trip, I got this.

Now let me say this, 'cause some people are gonna be listening and think that you calculated this response. Tell us a little bit about why, what in your experience, you know, 'cause we all are a sum of our experiences, right? Everything we do comes from things we've encountered. So how do you be in that space to know, again, that I need to run a more calculated play on this? Is there anything that's happened before?

Growing up in Oakland, my godfather is a former Black Panther, James Mock, our Satchel Ned. So I've been trained, I've been groomed, you know. I'm also, you know what I'm saying, a heavy activist. in the community. Like, this ain't just, you know, a one-time thing. Like, nah, I'm really a part of this.

Yeah.

And I'm a part of Oakland. I'm a part of the history, you know. And like I said, it's not like this situation, you know what I'm saying, was just like, oh, we gotta— my spidey sense tingled, I gotta jump into action. Nah, you know what I'm saying, like I said, I want to make sure that everyone You know, was safe. That's it.

It seemed like you did a good job, my brother. Dig, you know what I mean? So Kenz walks up, he's checking out the scene, you know, um, he walks over. What's the first thing you say to him?

I told him, I'm like, when we walk over, I'm like, man, you know, this chick over here tripping. She trying to, you know, you know, call the police on us, talking about we finna get arrested, talking about we trespassing, we don't belong here. And, uh, like I said, that's when in some of the clips of the video you see me, you know, I made a comment talking about, you know, I've been here, you know, born and raised here. I went to 3 schools within walking distance of the lake, right? So how you gonna tell me I don't belong here? And, um, like, you know, people— some of the people who probably out here watching know who I am and know some of my past. It's like, I've never been the most level-headed person. I always was a—

Hothead. Hothead, basically.

That's the best point to point out. But as you grow, As you grow, your mind grows, your temper, you know, you know how to control your temper better. You know how to just, you know, calm down, relax. Like, you know, like he's— like my man Ken said before, you know, she was trying to get that stereotypical angry, aggressive black man out of us so we can make a bad situation a worse one. And, you know, that's what— and that's what's wrong with, you know, a lot of the youth out here today. They, they don't know how to control that, that temper and that anger. And the first thing it is, okay, we on they helmet. Yeah. And some situations don't call for that.

Right.

So it's time to, you know, and like you said, a lot of people have pointed out and commended us on how we handled the situation. And that's a good message that we could put out there. Look, we don't always have to approach everything with aggression and anger or violence.

Right.

Sometimes when you keep peace, you relax, it works itself out. But I wasn't going to give her that stereotypical stereotypical energy of me because that's what she was looking for.

And so, and right on for sharing that because that moves to another part of the EI domain, right? So we already hit on self-awareness and social awareness. On that particular, now we're talking about managing our reactions, right? Because like most people, if we, you know, we follow where the videos are going viral and anybody posts up, if you go to the comments, I mean, a lot of our folks is like, you know what I'm saying? Everything from, she would have ate that charcoal, to, you know, you know what I'm saying? She would have been the barbecue, right?

Right.

So they, they going hard, which we fully understand. So we got to take a moment too to talk about the feeling behind it, because some folks are going to criticize us probably for not taking the most aggressive stand. And there's a lot of reasons to feel like that, right? You know, we've been subjected to a lot of I mean, 400 years being a slave.

Mistreatment.

You coming with the Black Panther history, so yeah, I know that was all in your household. Me being a brother growing up in Oakland, growing up in Brookfield, being with the, you know what I'm saying, with the shit for years, right? I had to do the same thing over time. I didn't just wake up and be emotionally intelligent. I exercise emotional intelligence because of my experience. Because every time that I didn't, right, I'd make one decision and it'd take me years to bounce back.

Yes, sir.

So if a person doesn't understand what I mean by years, you can make a decision and then wind up on probation.

Yes.

In the penitentiary, in jail. You can get into something physically. You can catch a civil suit.

Right.

You can injure yourself where you can't bounce back. There's a lot of things over a decision in the moment.

So that's why I was asking y'all.

I knew it had to be something in the background for you to come to the space and be like, I'm gonna pick my battles, small enough to win, big enough to matter. So when we talk about managing your reaction, I'm just— we're gonna kind of Run-DMC this thing, go back and forth. I'm gonna go back to you, but how did you actually feel? Now we know you managed your reactions, but I think it's important for the audience to know how you actually felt about it.

I mean, as I wasn't really thinking, like, um, the thing that I was