In this excerpt from a Breakfast Club interview, rapper‑activist Killer Mike delivers a forceful critique of parents who pull their children out of public schools for private institutions. He argues that, as taxpayers, they benefit from and should support public schools—especially those named after Black leaders like Frederick Douglass High School—and that opting for private schools reflects a lack of initiative and responsibility. He calls out listeners who complain about a lack of greatness, insisting that greatness must be pursued, not expected. The exchange also includes a brief retort from the co‑host and a dismissive comment from Killer Mike toward “light‑skin” listeners, underscoring the heated and personal tone of the debate.
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him. You understand what I'm saying? I don't have no problems with you loving your children, but my children go to public school because I pay taxes in public schools, and they named for Black people. And either you gonna choose to be excellent and you want to do better, or you're gonna sit your chump ass down and you're gonna keep being the same shit over and over. But you can't complain and say that greatness wasn't given to you. If you walk in a school named for Frederick Douglass High School and you do not have the initiative— you do not have the initiative as a parent or the student to walk up and step up to that greatness, but you would do it at St. Pius? You would do it at St. Michael? Man, you a chump. That's why I'm not talking about you.
See, so you can sit here and say the chump shit all day long.
I'm not talking about you. I tell you, light skin, don't get in your feelings.
Hey guys, welcome back to the channel. So I just wanted to play that little portion of the Killer Mike and DJ Envy interviews, party, Breakfast Club. Um, and, um, I had been, um, uh, talking about Killer Mike in a video not very long ago. It happened he was on the Joe Rogan Show and cryptocurrency came up, and, uh, the conversation came up between Joe Rogan and Killer Mike. If you don't know who Killer Mike is, Killer Mike is a rapper and activist uh, very, very smart, um, and intelligent person. Uh, he was, uh, with Bernie Sanders a great deal during the event of Bernie Sanders, um, a campaign. Um, and, uh, you know, basically this, this entire conversation is about public school versus private school. And, uh, I, you know, I, I think it gets, you know, pretty animated in the gentlemen. They, they get a bit, uh, uh fired up about it. And I, I just, I wanted to comment on it because education is so very important, right? Uh, you know, it's going to control, uh, and have a great impact on, uh, how you see the entire world, right? Uh, what your, uh, social and economic set of circumstances is going to be like. And the great thing about education is that education education is one of the cheapest things that you can fix, is one, is one of the, um, the most effective things that can be fixed. Um, you know, for instance, it's probably costs, uh, 4 times more per year to, uh, imprison people than to give them a great education, right? And so what I, what I'm finding in this debate is, or where a little confusion came in it for me, was that I was trying to figure out, was it really about a debate versus a public school versus private school, or was it more so about, uh, talent? Talented people, smart, educated people being taken out of their environment, uh, into another demographic, another community, right? Another group. And Uh, uh, and not being able to maybe keep those talents there, keep that level of education there. Because I say all of that because, uh, I have a family member who, uh, actually, uh, sent some of my relatives to this private school. It was an academy started by an African American doctor. And, uh, they, they did seemingly do much better at this academy than at private school, right? Uh, or sorry, public school. So it was a private school, right? But the difference was that the private school itself, it was still in the community, right? And so I, to me, it just seems like this is less about public school versus private school. And more about, uh, or at least in this particular segment or part of the segment of the interview, it, it, it just seemed like, uh, it was more about that. Uh, so that's, I guess that's my question with it. Uh, you know, what do you feel that the prop, the more so the problem was about, uh, you know, uh, private, private school like, say, people in, in a said community, they go to a private school outside that community? Or was it more about just the educational structure within public school versus private school? Now, they, they do touch on that. They do touch on that, uh, private schools, uh, have, you know, less students in them. They have, uh, more resources, right? Teachers are paid more, so maybe they care more, ideally, although I don't think that's necessarily true. And then you have public schools with magnet programs and very, very good education in public schools that are similar to private schools on many levels, right? But it just seems it was more, they got more heated about, I think, that idea of the extraction, right, out of that, out of that, out of that community. And, uh, you know, Killer Mike, I hadn't been paying a whole lot of attention to him up until recently when he got into that conversation with Joe Rogan on cryptocurrency. But I, I really started to admire a lot of, uh, what Killer Mike, you know, had to say, uh, about certain, uh, uh, sets of circumstances. And, you know, but I didn't really like that it did seem to me that he attacked DJ Envy in certain ways. And see, the problem with that is that, uh, communication breaks down once you insult someone or you attack someone intentionally or unintentionally. Uh, intentionally, conversation starts to break down, the debates break down, and very important topics that are being raised, uh, you know, they get, they get lost in translation, right? Because now the focus is gone. It's personal now. And so things, when, when people are talking about passionate, uh, uh, you know, things that are very important like this, they're very passionate about this, especially their children, the future of their children and their communities. And so I understand that, you know, people can get a little bit hot under the collar sometimes and kind of lose focus there. But, you know, when top is this important, you know, we really need to try to stay on focus, keep the conversation going. And, uh, you know, so I think that was a slip up on Killer Mike's part. You know, DJ Envy comes out to me as that type of person who he wants to give his children, you know, everything he didn't have. You know, he's on— he's kind of on that thing, like many parents, right? And, and he's trying to, to his best of his ability to do that. Now, uh, I think the confusion is that, uh, you know, he's drawing that line where, you know, this private school over here is going to do a better job because, you know, maybe it's in a, uh, it's not an African-American area, right? And I don't know, I don't know the situation with, um, DJ Envy in the school really, but the way this conversation is going, the way he mentions these private schools that are in another location over there somewhere over yonder. Uh, it just, you know, comes off to me like, uh, that is where a lot of the, the, the problems came in, in the interview. You know, although the public school versus private school by itself is, um, you know, is a, is a very, uh, uh, conflicting argument, right? Even with the teachers, right? Sometimes I imagine public school teachers might get offended or get upset that some people might feel that the level of education they provide is inadequate, right? But again, you know, I would— the question I'm trying to pose, I'm trying to understand through the interview is, uh, is it just a matter of public school versus private school? You know, if, if we're talking about, um, certain— like, uh, Killer Mike spoke a lot about, uh, areas in Atlanta that just has this great, these great educational centers, right? Um, and, uh, Atlanta is a great cultural mecca. It has, you know, all these, this great heritage, right? And so I just felt like that's what Killer Mike was trying to hold on to in the interview. That's what he was trying to convey to DJ Envy. So, but then again, didn't it— does that make it that it's a problem between private and public school, or is it more so like It's a problem with private schools out of a given area, right? Of a particular culture of people that wants to hold on to their talent and grow their communities, right? And grow value in that community. And I understand that argument as well. But, uh, with that said, I just kind of want to underline what it felt like to me in the conversation, that it was more about, uh, that than private school versus public school. But interesting interview. I don't watch a lot of Breakfast Club. I seldomly get to watch it. Uh, because, um, you know, I'm more like Joe Rogan type podcast because it's just such a large, um, variety of people. Uh, but The Breakfast Club does have great interviews that come through here, and when it does, I like to tune into them and watch them. They've had some great interviews with some great figures, uh, throughout the course of, of this show. And, uh, so I, I, I, I think this is a very important one, a very important issue. I like that. Love to hear you guys' thoughts on it. Uh, guys, if you all like content like this, don't forget to like, subscribe, and until next time, take care.
