transcript

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Speaker 1:
[02:08] Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, and those who don't identify as either, you are watching Ratchet & Respectable. I got some new hair since the last time you saw me. Literally, I finished recording that episode. I think I finished editing Wednesday morning. Actually, no, I finished recording last week's episode Wednesday morning. Had to run to the braider, got my hair washed, conditioned, braided. It took, the whole process took seven hours. There were four women braiding my hair the entire time. It looks like a machine did it. It's so incredibly perfect. I have 11 rows going across, which they were like, you got a lot of hair lady. You don't need 11. I was like, I do. I do. Then they put this all in and as soon as it was done, actually before it was done, I was looking at the size of the braids and I was like, who all will take this out because it ain't going to be me. Last time I had braids, not even this small, a little bit bigger, it took 12 hours for me to take them out. I'm going to pay somebody, somewhere, this country or another one to take my braids out because this is a lot. But I got my hair done because one, I'd had the hair that you've been seeing for the last three months, I'd had it for three months. I got it done right before I went to Morocco because I knew I had all these season world trips coming for the next 90 days and I didn't want to be bothered with my hair. But it was way past due. My hair didn't smell like I thought it should. That's so good. At some point, like the hair is old and it just must go. Not the point, none of the point. The point is, I got my hair done because it needed to be done. But also, I was heading to Nigeria. Last episode, we talked about how I was heading there. I've been and now I'm back. Currently, I'm at Bestie's house, Ms. Davida. I'm at her house in Ghana and I'm catching a flight back to America, East America later tonight, like five hours from now, give or take. So yeah, but I wanted to make sure that I recorded this episode before I got on the plane because once I hit the ground in Maryland, I'm off and running. I am moving into my condo to Penny in less than two weeks. So I have a whole bunch to do before that happens. Currently, Penny is completely clean. The cleaners came in yesterday. The shoe moldings, they finished those yesterday. The only thing that's really left to be done is there's a hallway that needs to be tiled. Like it had bad, it's a long story. But the hallway, it's down to the white meat right now. If there's cement on the floors, we need to get the tiler in, but the tiler had to go home. He had some family issues. So we waiting on the tiler to come on back so he can tile Penny. And then once the hallway is complete, then all of like the actual infrastructure of Penny will be done. So I'm really, really excited to move in to my place. I was also really, really excited to be in Nigeria. I have been wanting to go for a really, really long time. And I said on last week's episode, the only thing that kept me from going was so many people, so many Nigerians who are from Nigeria, who live in Nigeria, were like, you do not go to Nigeria without a Nigerian. You need to go with somebody who lives there. And so I guess I said last episode, I was like, I felt like I needed somebody to go with. And I think a few people took offense to that. And I was like, you could be offended and that's fine. The truth of the matter is I take advice about how to move and where to go from people who have been there or people who live there especially. And that's the advice I've gotten for the last, I don't know, two decades essentially. So I'm glad that I took it because I wouldn't have known to go to the airport and get a protocol officer to walk me through. Apparently getting through the Lagos airport, I had a protocol officer going through and that person helped me take care of all my immigration stuff. They helped me with the bags and getting through customs and walking to the pickup for my driver, which my friend who lived there helped us find a driver. It was a very smooth process getting in only because I had a protocol officer. And even with the protocol officer, we did have some blips. You gotta have a landing card and then an exit card in order to get in and out. It's a lot. But I say all that to say, once we got through the airport, once we met up with our driver, it was great. It was great. The only thing I can really say that was kind of negative and we didn't really even have a bad experience. Everyone talks about how bad the traffic is in Lagos. It was pretty fine. We were there from Thursday till Sunday. We didn't have any major issues. I mean, regular rush hour, but nothing too crazy. I've heard people trying to go, which should be 30 minutes, and caught up in traffic for two hours. That wasn't my experience. Overall, I felt very safe. I know that's a big thing that people worry about going to Lagos. I felt fine. We stayed in a good hotel in a good part of the city. It was pretty central to everything. We were on Victoria Island. I will say that Victoria Island is apparently like the bougier part of Lagos. It was fine. They had beautiful clubs, like right on the water. There's a body of water. I don't know if it's a lake, it's not an ocean, a river. I don't know what it is. I don't know the name of it. But there's a body of water because Victoria Island, obviously it's an island, but there's a body of water. There's lots of beach clubs right on the edge, like right by the water. People coming from the beach will pull up to the private club. They come off their boat or their yacht and they pop into the private club. That was pretty dope. They go back and forth to Cocoa Beach. We didn't get a chance to go there at this time. But primarily, I think I told y'all this last episode, my purpose in going was to shop. I saw the fashions from Rx and from Legos Fashion Week last October, November, I think it's the end of October going into November, and I was floored at the fabrics. You talk about release the fabric, Nigerian fashion designers are, they're going crazy. I can't even say right now. They just landed on my radar in a really big way, and their fashion is nuts. So I went there to shop, and shop I did. I picked up a lot of stuff, and I don't even want to tell you what these prices are. There were dresses, I think in the States, they would probably be maybe 600, 800. They're going for like 200, 300, like insanity. One thing I will say about the shops is, I wouldn't say it applied to everyone, but for a lot of places that advertise online, it's like having really good fashion. They don't necessarily have a store, or they don't keep the store fully stocked. You have to order it in advance, so like pre-order, and they can make your clothes anywhere from three days to 30 days. Some people told me four weeks, and I was like, I'm only here till Sunday. What am I supposed to do with that? And they were like, you can order, we have DHL, we ship to the entire world, which is like $40 a pop. But I was like, but I'm right here. But I got the stuff that I could. I got advice because again, talk to people who live there about how to navigate their city. I knew to call ahead or message ahead to most of the shops to make sure the things that I saw advertised were available. And if they weren't available, could I order them and have them deliver it to my hotel? Which is what I did for probably like five or six of the pieces that I got. Other stuff that we went to boutiques and such and I was able to buy off the rack. But there were some things they just didn't have in my size. And if I had called ahead maybe like two weeks or 30 days, they would have made sure that they had them available for me. But the stuff that I did get, baby, baby, release the fabrics. Nigeria was a vibe. I really had a really amazing time. Like we ran not all over the city because it's sprawling. I don't think I realized like how big Legos is. I think it's a city of like 18 million, 20 million. It's a whole lot of people and it looks like it. I look forward to going back. I'm going to do my best. I've already started looking into dates and hotels because I want to go back to ArtX and I want to go back for Fashion Week and I want to go back to shop. So hopefully I'll be back six months from now with a protocol officer going in and I didn't know to go out. Leaving the Lagos airport Prior to this, the most frustrating airport I had ever been in was Port-au-Prince trying to come home from Haiti, trying to get arriving in Haiti and leaving Haiti. I thought it could not get worse than that. And I've been, because I've been running all over the world for the last four years. I've been in all sorts of airports where the airport is literally like a shack and a cleared out strip of, not even paved road, just a cleared out strip. And the plane somehow landed and took off without incident. That airport, and I'm told it's much better now than it was like two years ago. They're like, oh no, it's been major renovations. Baby, I have never wanted to flip so bad in all my life. Like it was just bong, bong, bong, bong. It was just nonstop, just, everybody was fucking incompetent. When you first walk in, they got this X-ray machine that you gotta put your bag through before you can even like go fully into the airport. Seen this before, Kenya's like that. They got bomb and terrorism issues, no complaints. But at this airport, you put your stuff through the machine and there's no one like monitoring the flow of luggage that's going through. And so they just kept pushing things through and the conveyor belt kept going and stuff was falling off of it, like including my backpack with my laptop in it, including my carry on and then like somebody just rolled it out the way. So it was like far away for me to get to. I'm trying to get like my bigger bag and my laptop bag which is on the floor. People are pushing and shoving trying to get to their luggage. People are stepping over other people's luggage, stepping over people. From there to the security line, to them like going like parsing my passport, like the man went through it. He flipped it up and down. He flipped through all the pages. He, I guess, was trying to determine if my passport was real, if I had a fake passport. Like it was the exit call. A protocol officer, it's necessary. I have no idea what it cost. My friend who was hosting picked up the tab for me. Whatever it was, I would gladly pay that man. Whatever it cost to come in and whatever it cost to get out, because that was un-good, un-good. But other than that, my experience in Nigeria was absolutely amazing. Next time I either get a protocol officer or I fly out of Abuja, which everyone was like, you need to visit Abuja. Half the stores that I was interested in going to and shopping at was like, oh, sorry, we're located over here. And I was like, wait, what? It is supposed to be lovely over there. So like, I would like to go see there too, but maybe I have to fly out of Abuja. I don't know, but I can't that. I'm happy I had a great trip. It was only four days. I thought it was just enough time. Oh, I should add this. The only thing, and if I had planned better, we would have been able to pack it in in four days. We were just like all over the place. We were just totally being spacey and very on vacation. They have, I'm not going to name a place. I'm not going to try to be, but it's maybe like 90 minutes outside of Lagos proper. It's a different state. It's on the water. It's a town where their version of maybe like what a Charleston would have been, except they were picking people up instead of dropping people off, but the slave port, they have not like the dungeons that they have in Ghana. They had more like the way it was described. It sounds like barracks. They kept the kidnapped Africans in these spaces. We were trying to go out there. We called to get more information, but we would have left too late in the day. We weren't able to do it. But they take you on a boat from several different places to show you different parts of how the slave trade or kidnapped Africans trade worked in that part of town. I'm very interested in seeing that next time I go back. Apparently, it takes like three or four hours to get through everything. I wouldn't have had time to do with this trip. But next trip, it's something I would really like to do. Apparently, they also have like chains of all sizes. Yeah, it's a lot. But I want to see it next time I go. Like I don't, I loathe going to all this stuff. Like it just makes me sick to my stomach. But I'm also really interested in the history of everything. All right. Now that we got that part of the episode out of the way, we needed to have some kind of joy because everything else that we're going to talk about this episode, is really, really sad. Sad doesn't really do it justice. It's really, really terrifying, is probably the right word. Last time we spoke, there was a breaking news story about a young woman, an influencer who was on vacation, think it was her birthday celebration, with her boyfriend. She's a black woman, 31, I think. Her boyfriend was in his 40s, I think if I recall correctly, it was like a 13 year age difference. But they had gone to Zanzibar to celebrate her birthday. And while they were on the trip, he popped the question. She said, yes, they got engaged. It should have been a very celebratory, happy time in her life. Instead, just days after her engagement, which she announced online, she was celebrating with her audience. She winds up dead. And authorities are saying that it was a suicide. They're saying that in some form or fashion, I've read different versions of it, but she hung herself, she choked herself, she cut off her air supply, essentially. Hanging to me, I think of literally hanging from something. The reports that I was reading earlier indicate that she choked herself. I've read everything from cord to her own clothing. The story to me is not adding up. Her family and friends have said that she was happy, she wasn't suicidal, this is not something, she hasn't been battling mental illness. She wouldn't kill herself. I know several people, unfortunately, who have committed suicide. The first is when I think I was headed to 10th grade, I was 14, one of my friends, I went to a really small school and there weren't that many black people and she was one of the other black girls in the school. I seen her earlier that summer, we were in a basketball program together, but maybe like a month after the last time I saw her and she was fine when I saw her, she went upstairs in her bedroom and she shot herself in the head. Same school, maybe like two months later, this guy in my class, he was new to the school, he went out in a field and he shot himself with a sawed-off shotgun shortly before homecoming. It was a Saturday when I got the call from our chaplain, she called everybody in the class individually to let us know that he was gone. We took a class trip, a school trip actually, to his funeral, his closed casket. And then more recent, two friends of mine, one I was pretty close to, and then another guy also committed suicide. So I have some unfortunately upfront experience with people who have taken their own lives. I don't know anything about this influencer. I just want to, her name, I haven't committed to memory. I just want to literally say her name, Ashlee Jenae or Ashlee Robinson. Ashlee Jenae is her influencer name. Ashlee Robinson is her name, 31 years old. I don't know her. I didn't follow her. I have no context for her. The reason I tell you about the other people is because if you had asked me if they were prone to suicide or self harm, or if they were dealing with depression, I would have a hundred percent said no. Of the four people I just mentioned, three of them I would consider very bubbly, upbeat type of people, very life of the party types of people. They're never people who I would have pegged for self harm. The fourth person, the guy that was in my grade, I'm being mindful of what I say because it's a very sensitive topic obviously. He transferred to our school that year, and his family said at his previous school that he'd been bullied really bad. And they said that he was very happy. He was treated much better at our school than he was at the previous school. And so they were very confused, upset obviously, but they were also very confused because they thought that he was okay. They thought they had taken him out of a poor situation, put him in a better situation, and they thought everything was fine. And clearly, it was not. So the idea that, oh, she was happy and she didn't seem depressed. So like she would never do something like that. They obviously know their family member, and I don't. I'm just saying that I've seen people, obviously, who were not well. 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Speaker 1:
[23:20] The manner of suicide that police are alleging how Ashlee killed herself, doesn't really line up for me. Black people choking, hanging. I was like, you told me she took some pills. You told me she shot herself. That would make more sense to me, but I was like, hanging? A black girl? An American black girl? But people do all sorts of shit. When they're depressed, that they may not normally do. I say that as somebody who's dealt with depression, situational more than like chemical imbalance, who's also had suicidal ideations, and I've talked about all of this publicly, so maybe if you're new to the podcast, you are familiar, but like this is not like new terrain for me. It does alter the way that you think, and you may think you're fine, but you just be thinking shit that just really just makes no sense. Like I used to drive around Brooklyn and like envision myself driving off the road, like driving into buildings or driving off a bridge or, and at the time, like I can say it now and recognize like, that's insane, you were clearly unwell. But at the time, I knew it was not the right thing to do, but it didn't in my head seem insane. If it was just that she was depressed, she committed suicide in a way that people find unlikely or unusual. This story, I could probably make more sense of, but then there are other details that have come out that I'm just like, huh? So one of them is she and her fiancee, obviously they're traveling together, they're on the same trip, they get engaged, it should be a happy time. At the hotel, they get into, the hotel called it a quote, quote, altercation, which could be physical, but also could be verbal. It reads to me as physical, but whatever happened between them, whether it was verbal or physical or otherwise, the hotel was so concerned that they took, that they separated them and put them into separate rooms to cool off. I'm like, just as an American who's bounced around Africa for the last couple of years and specifically has visited Zanzibar, I'm fully aware of the deference, especially in tourism, that is made for Americans, the American dollar and white Americans, white men in particular. You got to be doing some really unhinged shit for someone to come and interfere with a white man and his black girlfriend, Beyonce, whoever, arguing or even fighting for the hotel staff in Zanzibar to interfere and then to also separate you from one another. I want to know, or better yet, it's not really my business, I want her mama to know what they were arguing about that was so intense and then also that same day or the next day, her daughter winds up dead. And if the story as is stands, when the autopsy comes out, you add to an argument over what that made my daughter so upset, that she goes and hangs herself, chokes herself, suffocates herself, she kills herself. What happened? What did you argue about that was that intense? Also, that they get into this argument that is so intense and then she ends up dead and she's the type of girl who everyone was like, no, that she wasn't depressed. She was really happy. Like she would never do this. And in the manner of which she dies, that big argument, like it's just not adding up. And so the Zanzibar police are saying that it's a suicide. They brought the fiance in for questioning. The important detail. And I was reading this on People and I just want to like cite my sources because I'm not reading directly from a news article. It's New York Post and People Magazine and TMZ also are what I was, of what I've been, of what I've been gathering my information from. She apparently, Ashlee, was in a separate room. She called to the front desk and asked them, she was having a problem with her phone charger or something. And she asked them to bring her a phone charger, help her with a phone charger, something like that. And when the attendant gets to her room, like 10 minutes later, is knocking on the door, she's not answering. I guess given that there's been like a conflict before or something like that, the attendant enters the room and finds her unconscious. That's what I've been reading, right? You call down to the front desk and ask for a phone cord. Like, did you want them to come find you or did something happen to you within the 10 minutes that you've called? And if so, what? They find her unconscious, she's taken to the hospital. Obviously, the fiance, the white guy, knows what's going on, right? Her family said he didn't call them for either nine hours or 11 hours after she's been hospitalized, and then he tells them she's going to be fine. And they're like, wait, what? And then the next thing they know, it's being reported that she's dead. They said that they haven't heard from him since he called to say that she was in the hospital. Does that make sense to you? What happened to this girl? So last I read, her family had started this GoFundMe and her mother at the very least, and I think her husband, I wasn't clear if that was her bio father or her step father, but they were planning to go to Zanzibar and find out what happened to her and then also get her body because she's still over there. And the fiance is too. He's been detained for questioning. They've taken his passport so he can't leave the country. But at this time, he hasn't been charged with anything. And I was like, whether something with foul play happened to that girl or not, I want her momma to know what happened to her. If her momma want to share it with the rest of us, then so be it. But I want her momma to know what happened to her. Because this story is, it doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense. If she took her own life, why? If she got into an argument with him, what did they argue over? What was going on with them? You get into one big argument and then you go kill yourself? That doesn't make sense. And if he had something to do with it or someone else has something to do with it, I want to know what that is too. I want that girl's momma to know what happened to her. Like her child who seemed perfectly fine by all people's accounts. Like she was happy, she was in good spirits, she wasn't depressed. Okay. But something happened. So what was it? I didn't talk about that last week because I was waiting for more details to come in. It actually might have happened after I finished taping the episode. So maybe that's why we didn't cover it. But usually with stories like this, I try to wait. It was much better when we were doing it twice a week. But I try to wait at least 48 to 72 hours to let the fact shake out. A lot of details were flying around about who, what, when, where, why. I just like for the story to settle a little bit and let good reporters get to the story and get some established facts. So I think we're at that place right now. I just want to know the rest of the story of what happened to this girl, because it doesn't make sense. So on the heels of that story, Justin Fairfax, former Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, I think that's important, killed his wife. I'm not really sure how many times he shot her. They've been married, I think, for around 20 years. He shot her while their two teenage children were in the house. The son, who's a teenager, I haven't seen his age mentioned anywhere. The media and I think everyone else is trying to protect the kids, which is good. The son called the police to report his mother had holes in her body. He thought his father stabbed her, that she had holes in her body. She was bleeding and asked the police to come. I think I read this on People. He had in fact shot his wife. For whatever reason, the son is not processing because he had to hear the gunshots. He's not processing that he heard gunshots. That poor baby. The police arrive and they find Cerina, the wife, Dr. Cerina in fact, she's a dentist. They find her body on the floor and then they go upstairs and they find Justin Fairfax laid out on the floor next to a gun. He shot himself in the head, committed suicide. So you killed your wife and yourself and you've left these two teenage children to fend for themselves in this world. The world that was too overwhelming for you to deal with. You were depressed. You had all these issues. We'll get into some of them with all of your access and you left these two kids to fend for themselves without a parent. So, trash ass man. Trash. Apparently, he and his wife were going through a divorce. Most recently, a judge had ruled that he had to move out of the house. I think the state of Virginia, not even I think, you have to file for divorce, like a legal separation and then you have to like be separated, legally separated at least for a year and then you can proceed. Justin was a lawyer. He kept fucking around with technicalities to delay the divorce being final. But most recently, a judge had ruled that he had to move out of the house, and then he lost custody of the children. I did read that he was able to get access. I think it was like twice a week or something like that, and I don't know if it was supervised or not. I think he was supposed to be out by April 20th yesterday, and he killed his wife five days. Is that what it is? Before he had to be out of the house. The Washington Post has two really good stories, really well reported. By good, I mean well reported, because it's a sad story. But well reported stories about the Fairfax family. Conditions in the house had deteriorated to the point that he was not, he didn't have access to the family Wi-Fi or the family food. His wife was keeping the food in a refrigerator in her bedroom. He was drinking heavily for years, apparently. In the court documents, and this is based on reporting, I haven't actually seen the documents myself, but his wife said that he had spiraled in the last few years. While he was lieutenant governor, he was accused of sexual assault by two different women. One woman said that he assaulted her, raped her very violently. She did an interview with Gayle King, back in 2019, but she said somewhere like circa 2000 or so, when she was in college with Justin, they went to Duke together. She said that they were friends. And she said that one night, like they were hanging out. She's like, as they always do, it wasn't like a big thing, but she said he assaulted her very violently. She was like, you know, he held me down and assaulted me. Like it was very intentional. It wasn't a misunderstanding. It was very violent. She did the interview with Gayle King, and she told her story with tears streaming down her face. If she was not telling the truth, then that woman needs an Oscar because she's an amazing actress. I believe her. But that woman came forward, but she came forward after another woman came forward. And she said that at the DNC one year, I think this was like 2004, if I have the date right, she said that he assaulted her at the DNC. She said they met, they were hanging out. She said that he said he had to go up to his hotel room for something or another. And she was like, you know, I'm not a stupid woman. And she was like, I went up to the room, but she was like, I stood by the doorway. I wasn't like, you know, lounging out on the bed or like sending signals or anything. And she said, he said he had to get paperwork or something like that. And so she said, he went in the room, she stood by the door. He was getting the paperwork. And she said, then he came over to her. She said, he started kissing her. And she was like, and I was cool with that because like I met him. I thought he was like a nice guy. She said, we were kissing and she said, he led her to the bed. And she said, we were laying down kissing. And she was like, the next thing she knew, like he was forcing her head into his crotch and violently forced her to perform oral sex on him. And she also told the story to Gayle King. And tears were also rolling down her face. And she seemed to have like a, I don't know if I want to call it a panic attack, but like she went to another place. You could see it all over her face. Like it was bad. It was painful to watch. But I also believe her. Cerina's version in her court documents was that after her husband was accused of sexual assault, which he vehemently denied over and over and over. She said he was able to stay in his position as Lieutenant Governor. He ran for governor later and wasn't elected. He was supposed to be like this shining bright star. I think I read only the second black person to be elected at the state level in the history of Virginia. The other guy is Wilder, who was the first black governor. He had this very promising political career. And his version is that it was derailed by, again, his version, these false accusations of sexual assault. So he was out of politics. He couldn't get elected. He started his own law firm. He won a case or two. He made decent money, but in the following year, it was next to nothing, nothing to survive on. The family was surviving on her business. She had a dental practice. She was very successful, but she was carrying them for years while he continued to spiral. One of the recent Washington Post articles describes that recent stories about politicians being accused of sexual harassment had brought up a lot of the ish that he went through when he was accused. And he started spiraling again. The Washington Post has stories from friends saying that he had reached out recently, kind of seeming to say goodbye, and friends were worried about him. He was asking people to speak up on his behalf and defend his good name to say that he hadn't done the things that he'd been accused of, the rape of the two different women who don't know each other, had never met. He went off the rails and he decided to kill his wife and then himself and orphan his children. Many people who blame this on depression or mental illness, and again, not a therapist, do have some experience with depression, totally get how a divorce, which you've heard me talk about mine on here many times, I refer to it as pulling the pin in my own grenade or nuke bombing my life. I talk about like the level of stress that I was under, how I had sciatica and then also shingles, not actually I had the shingles first and then later sciatica from stress. I understand wanting to harm yourself, not that I condone it. I have really not PC thoughts on suicide, which I don't think it's appropriate to share here, but I understand wanting to self-harm. I don't condone it, like please don't do it. Please get help. I think that's important to say. If he had just killed himself, I would have been fine with people blaming mental illness. I would have been fine with people saying like, oh, he was depressed. Like there was just so much going on in his life. Like he really just spiraled out of control and, you know, mental health. I would totally understand everyone talking about mental health. I think to kill yourself is one thing. I think to decide to kill your wife and orphan your children, that's more than just like mental health. Like online, I refer to it as evil, but I think that's also simplifying it. It's a level of entitlement to someone else's life. It's possession, it's ownership, it's I think most important though, a lack of value. Because if you actually valued your wife, if you actually valued her life, I understand that it's hard to value other people's lives when you don't value your own, but not even your children, not even the welfare of your children. Like, if I can't be here, neither can you. To blame your wife, because that's essentially what this feels like, as the source of your anger or depression, the woman who supported your family when you were spiraling, when you were drinking and holed up in your office, the madman all day and not contributing to the house, like the woman who literally held you down, who didn't leave you when the accusations of sexual assault came to light. That's who you chose to murder. Like, why? Because she dared to not want to be with you because you felt possession, essentially, of her. If you can't have her, then no one else can. Like, that's the logic that plays into this. It's not unheard of. I think any woman who halfway pays attention, especially one who's exiting or trying to exit a fraught relationship, everyone warns you, because I was warned, that leaving a situation is the most fraught time without going into great detail. My ex-husband showed his natural ass when I left, and I didn't leave him destitute. I left him the house and everything in it because I had to get away from him for my safety, but also my sanity, because I was in a really bad place by the time we went our separate ways. And then the way he showed his ass during that divorce and dragged it out for two years, although there was no fight over money or housing, we didn't share an account, we had no property, we were not financially intertwined. Because very early on in the marriage, some crazy shit happened and I was like, oh, I don't know this won't work. I stayed as long as I possibly could before, honestly, before I killed myself. So there, me leaving was as much to get away from him as to give myself a chance to live, because if I'd stayed there another month, I would have killed myself. That's not the point. Point is, women are warned, and that's not to put the onus on women, that's to acknowledge that how often it is that men, so many men, not all men, but always many, you never know which man. But that's to say that women are warned because so many men do unhinged shit when women try to leave them. And if it's not killing you, then it could be stalking you. I had one friend, she left her husband, her husband proceeded to terrorize her via all of her friends. If you were following me online at the time, you might have seen it happen. You could call me and say, if you don't call so and so and tell her to call me, buy this deadline or something, then I'm going to do X to you. I'm going to post X. I'm going to say Y. I'm going to do whatever. Men whose egos are bruised, men who have lost power and control and don't have proper boundaries or guidelines can be very, very, very unhinged, very manipulative, very emotional, very scary, very scary. Even the quote-unquote nice guys, the sane guys, the educated guys, the guys you think they... No, they would never. I'm thinking about the interviews that the two women who say they were assaulted by Justin Fairfax gave, because I watched them earlier today, and I posted them earlier today on threads. And they both were like, he was so unassuming, and he was really nice. And one woman was like, you know, he was my friend. Like, I'd known him for years, and I'd hung out with him many times, and we shared secrets, and he knew a lot about me, and he still did this to me, and I just can't reconcile it. And the other woman, I mean, she didn't know him that long, but she was like, I met him, and he just seemed like a super nice guy, very unassuming. She was like, nothing would have made me think that he would harm me. Like, obviously, I wouldn't go into his room if that's what I thought. And yet, she alleges that he assaulted her, nevertheless. And then fast forward, like, all these years, one of the women, the one who said that he assaulted her when he was at Duke, she said the reason that she came forward, she said, I felt so bad. She's like, the other lady came forward first, and she said, I had to come forward really to back her up. Because she said, I didn't tell anybody what happened. I was so embarrassed. I was so ashamed. I couldn't believe it happened to me. She was like, I felt terrible because I didn't speak up and I didn't say anything. Like, essentially, I didn't stop him. And so he went on to do this to other women. That's a really terrible feeling. It's just very scary. I think that's what I'm trying to say. It's very scary to be a woman and interact with men. Like sometimes people post their text messages, that they met somebody on a dating site and they just exchanged text messages. And the guys will go from seemingly normal to full fucking nut job. And like, I don't know, five introductory texts, like you can't even get off the ground before they start saying crazy shit. Or on dates. Like I think I told you about the guy, like who like I wouldn't give him a hug, so he like grabbed my fingers and like pushed them back. He told me, I could force you to hug me if I really wanted you to. And then when I walked off from him and went and got in my car, he stood behind my car and like challenged me to like run him over. Which, if he hadn't been related to somebody I know, I probably would have at least tried. I would have nudged him just on the GP. I'm a little crazy that way.

Speaker 6:
[46:41] There's no one like you and there never will be.

Speaker 7:
[46:44] From the producer Bohemian Rhapsody, there are many legends, but there is only one. Michael, rated PG-13 in theaters April 24.

Speaker 8:
[46:56] Amazon presents Jeff vs. Taco Truck Salsa. Whether it's Verde, Roja or the orange one. For Jeff, trying any salsa is like playing Russian roulette with a flame thrower. Luckily, Jeff saved with Amazon and stocked up on antacids, ginger tea and milk. Habanero, more like habaner, yes. Save the everyday with Amazon.

Speaker 1:
[47:26] I don't have any advice. I don't have any insight. I just need to say that like this shit is really crazy. And I was reading this statistic earlier today. I don't know if I screenshotted it. I hope I did. It was comparing the number of women who are killed by their partners, black women, to the number of black men, black people, excuse me, who were killed by police. It says 299 black people of all genders were killed by cops in 2023. 2088 black women were killed by their ex and current partners in the same year. So the way that we like freak out about like, you know, cops killing black people, we're like, oh my God, state station violence. They're slaughtering us, they're killing us, black lives matter. But men, this study doesn't say whether it's black men or white men, it just says men, but it says men are killing women, black women at the same rate that police are killing black people. We created a whole movement, we take it to the streets, we riot over that when it's black people, when it's black women, black men, not all black men, always men, can't tell who's who. Get online after a man murders his wife and orphans his children and then kills himself and write tributes calling him a good man, posting pictures with him like he's like some fucking rock star as opposed to being a murderer. Roland Martin, he's not the only one, he's just probably the most prominent person who did it. He posted like four different pictures of this man. He talked about how they were such great friends. He only mentions the deceased, Dr. Cerina Fairfax, to mention that she had once recommended him as a speaker at some university, I think, and that for whatever reason, he wasn't hired for the job and he was disappointed by that. The woman just got murdered. And you want to talk about what she invited you somewhere or recommended you for something while being excited to let people know that you pile around with murderers, that you were close friends with a murderer. Like, everyone talks about how talented this man was, how he had so much to offer, how he was so gifted, brilliant, politico, when he couldn't find a job. He has a law degree. I think you had a law degree from an Ivy, DC adjacent and can't get a job. You a lawyer in DC, they can't get a job. Huh? You with this frat brother, you with all these people who are writing all these amazing tributes, all these men, they are writing these amazing tributes about you, how you're such a wonderful person, how you're such a great guy. None of y'all hired him? That tells me everything I need to know. This is such a tragedy. It's such an awful tragedy. It's not the first time it happens and it's not the last. That brings us to the third black woman, black women, third and fourth, black women that we have to discuss today. There's a story out of Shreveport, Louisiana. This mofo, early 30s, what's his name? Does it matter? This mofo went to where his wife was. I'm looking up the story. That's why I'm looking down. Jamar, Jamar Elkins, 31. He went to where his wife was and he shot her in the face. It's from New York Times. And then he went to where his girlfriend was, and he also shot her. Then he went to where the children were. I think there were nine children in total. He shot eight of the children. Seven of the children are biologically his. The eighth child, I think, was a cousin. He killed these kids, I'm reading here, they range in ages three to 11. He shot them execution style. One of the children ran out the house, somehow got on the roof. It was a girl, age 12. She jumped off the roof to get away from him and survived. She's badly damaged, she's broken bones, but she gonna be all right. The wife that he shot is expected to survive. She got shot in the face. I don't know what that's gonna be like, but more importantly than what she looks like. I think the kids are spread between the wife and the girlfriend. I don't know which one of them has the surviving kid, the mother of the 12 year old girl who jumped, but either way, you either have no kids or all but one of your kids is dead. What kind of life is that? It's a life for sure, but how are you okay after something like that happens? And then the man, he leaves the scene of crimes. He carjacks somebody, drives to, from what I read online, it used to be his officer when he was in the reserves or something. He was in the army, he was never deployed. He drives to his officer's house and either shoots himself or the police kill him. What do you do with that? What do you do with that? I don't have words. This phenomenon is called family annihilation. It happens so often that there's a whole name for what this shit is. It's a tragedy beyond belief. At least people are not calling this man a hero. Like some of the pushback from last week about people saying about people being like, have you lost your goddamn mind calling a murderer, talking about what a great guy he was, and how outgoing and friendly and accomplished and all of that. Like I think some people got the message that this is not appropriate. This guy, I will say this, this guy did have a documented history of mental health issues. Maybe earlier this year or last year, he had checked himself into like the VA hospital for mental health treatment, and they said he was doing much better or seemingly so. When he came back, this is another situation of a guy going through a divorce, and if I can't have you, if I can't be with you, I guess if we can't be a family, but I was like, you got a wife and a girlfriend. Whatever was going through his head, he decided that these women and these kids got a goal. He going to go and I guess they going to go with him. I don't know that I have anything more to add. There's no women, I feel like have been begging men, and not just because of situations like this, but just like the day-to-day interactions with men and dating and relationships, whether they're dating or online texting or boyfriend, girlfriend, or marriage, divorce, whatever it is. But I feel like women have been begging men, begging them to talk to other men, talk to a therapist, address their mental health, like dismantle patriarchy because it harms you too. It's not just about oppressing me. Like it's fucking you up as well. And it is all seeming to fall forever on deaf ears until you actually address, not just mental health, mental health, yes, but in addition to mental health, address the manosphere and these fucked up ideas that men have about women and possessing them and owning them and entitlement over them and hating them, fear of them, whatever fucked up issues you got. Like it plays out in these fucked up ways that are detrimental and harmful to women. And these things keep happening. Like this is not the first time we heard this story. It won't be the last time we hear any of these stories. Something crazy like this will happen next week, the week after, the week after. As a society, we just don't like women. We don't respect women. We don't value women because if we did, shit like this wouldn't keep happening. And yet it does. I got to run to the airport. My driver is on his way to pick me up. I got to be there three hours in advance at 632 and I'm not finished packing yet. My driver's on his way for 7 p.m. He just texted me. If you heard the phone go off, that's what it was. There's more things I want to talk about, but they all pretty much come second to talking about literal life or death. I want to talk about Tina and Teddy, Mary Mary. My friend calls Tina Mean Mary. I'm not even addressing that. She and her husband infamously, publicly, deal with infidelity. Maybe about 10 years ago or so, I interviewed her. I think for BET, shortly after it happened. I don't know if I can find that interview. It was a sit down. We did it at BET Awards one year. I want to talk about that. I think she's getting a lot of blame. Her husband cheated very quickly. Her husband cheated on her and we learned of it because her reaction to it, she was taping a reality show at the time, and her reaction to it was part of the TV show. She had a full fucking meltdown in her kitchen, and then she decided to stay with her husband. I don't remember the details of him cheating at the time. I just remember it was really messy. One of her complaints was the story kept trickling out over time. He wasn't giving her the full information upfront of what happened. It was like, okay, it was this, and then she dealt with that, and then it was okay, there's more, and okay, there's more, and okay, there's more. She was like, you're killing me, man. But she decided to stay with him. Then now fast forward all these years later, he has filed for divorce after, I think, 26 years of marriage. I have thoughts on that. I have many thoughts on that. But if we can save them for next week, let me get to America. I gotta work some stuff out to make sure this move happens as planned on the fourth, but I should be good to talk about Tina and Teddy. And then also, I wanna talk about Emma Greed and her new book that is causing such an uproar and a stir. I wanna get a chance to read the book. Just cause I'm seeing conversations online about how much time she spends with her kids or whether black women should be working from home. As a fellow entrepreneur, I'm not a corporate girl. I haven't had a day job since 2011, but I do know a lot about entrepreneurship. I've had several businesses, I own and run several businesses now. So I do have thoughts about that, but I want to make sure that I have an informed opinion about what Emma Greed is saying. Give me a chance to read the book, or at least listen to it, so I can get back to you on that. In the meantime, thank you for listening to Ratchet & Respectable. This week's episode is depressing as fuck. I apologize for that, but we cover the news and the news is fucked up. So that's that. All right, talk soon. Bye.