Stephanie Rosario Rodriguez and Nathaniel McLeroy

00:02 My name is Stephanie Rosario Rodriguez. I'm 31 years old today is January 12th, 2021. I live in Boston, but I'm currently based in the middle of nowhere Virginia and I'm chatting with Nathaniel mcleroy who is my romantic domestic partner with my partner Nathaniel make Leroy 33.

00:34 She just mentioned the date. It is the same day. I'm in Boston at our home and Stephanie kind of Partners. We are it's hard to quantify.

00:53 Romantic partner life partner Finance partner business partner. Yeah, I need cuz I think that that has been in question a lot, you know.

01:11 I I definitely don't love the term all this is my boyfriend and this is my whatever and I remember one time at a wedding someone I said all this my partner and he responded. Well, that's a very select choice of words. And I think that that's very true. Cuz I think this is a very different type of relationship and Union, you know.

01:36 Yeah, I told so the new sister that I meant. I recently met a part of my family that I had to know cuz I didn't know my dad said and I told them I say partner and for the longest time, I think it was only so I've known them for two years now and then maybe three months ago. They're like, so are you gay? Why do you think that and partner and I think it's taught me a lot about how we treat words and how when even

02:17 Coming from we can be from the same place and then have such drastic different meanings for things and I think even with you and me, we've come across that and and learning how to define things so that we can have conversations together has been really important on yours and micros which you said website as well anytime I get you. No, thank people just assume that I'm a list when I say my partner to the point where I don't care to correct anyone because to me that that's not important, you know.

03:01 Yeah, you know, I think it's early on I was like, oh, well, you know my partner is a man and then I was like why like, why does it matter? You know, not just why does it matter but but almost like me going out of my way to clarify that almost seems like more problematic to me where it was just like my partner is a a spirit that I've kind of United myself with and it is what it is, you know, and I definitely do Steve it, you know, one of the things that I really appreciate you and appreciate about us is you know, I grew up in a very Puerto Rican household and and what that means is that there's a lot of gender roles, you know, very very clearly defined and you know women cook and women clean and women get married and women have children and I never saw.

04:01 A lot of those things for myself and I think you know exploring.

04:09 New ways of of showing love or language or whatever like how that really impacts a lot of the do the way that we kind of go about our lives in our business, you know an end for me and makes it much more enjoyable and much more Equitable, you know, do you know I think of the language and and how does that affect?

04:37 Everything around it.

04:40 I ate a greasy language. So something that I've been coming to terms with in the last couple years is that language is actually one of our weakest forms of communication. If you just drop so much that we are trying to say and trying to convey to the people that were communicating with I've been on this real emotional.

05:07 IQ Journey or emotional quotient Civic EQ journey, I have always been a very emotional person like understood emotions in a general sense. Not doesn't mean I've always been good about understanding my own emotions and then operating in the world, but I have always know that emotions clearly dictate how we operate especially when we don't understand them or even know them to like exist being a black man being a man. We are taught that we pretty much have a an emotional like a very short emotional range and it's between it's not even really happy. Like happy isn't really a man feeling. It's more just like we exist and we eat there are angry or were there and it's not it's not like we don't have all the emotions. We just never been taught to express.

06:07 Summer even understand them all. So I remember when I was in high school and then like right after high school, I would I found this that I really enjoyed putting a lot of words to a place where I could just say in a sentence in like very few words and what it ended up doing to me is like making me frustrated that I was always coming up with really cool ways to say things but not really being treated as like it was a norm. I would always get told him speak so well and then there's like an ellipses after that and it's in my head. I'm finishing the sentence for them and it's you speak so well for being a black boy and that's not like that. I have this like oppositional Defiance disorder type of personality and it turned me into Walt now. I'm just going to say things really blunt in shortly.

07:07 And in doing that it actually made me realize how weak words actually are like I was saying so like I went from having these lofty lock the explanations of things to having these very direct and blunt ways of saying stuff and in doing both things either way. My message was Miss like what I'm trying to get out of me. So exploring this like emotional quotient in understanding how much we feel versus how much we're staying is severely lacking even if even so even with you, I think there's been moments where we've just looked at each other and kind of just like touched or even not even such just looks and

07:50 And the facial and the the facial expressions and just like the glint in the eyes and All the Small Things told me more than what you could stay and I felt more than what I could express emotions into words. I let you know growing up. I think most easily accepted was anger, you know, if if I was nice, I was believe you know it I grew up in a very kind of them the community I grew up in is very different. I think they want the community is now and it was hard. You know, there was a lot of like you have to have an incredibly tough skin and and I don't know that I'm that person by nature, but I had to condition myself, you know in an order like a cell.

08:50 Reservation in one of the things you said. Do you know like always speak so well for a black boy, you know, I remember that kind of charger this memory of you know, something sometime in high school when it's a like 9:30 10th grade. I wrote let you know. How is a English Second Language student and butt by 9th grade and you know, I had I was a provision of that, you know, and the teacher called me up and asked me where I got the words in my essay and and I thought it was a trick question. So I said like my mind and and you know looking back on it, you know, when he questioned me of a bit more about it and looking back, you know, he pulled me to his desk in the front of the classroom, you know, this is definitely not like a quiet conversation by

09:41 Looking back really he was testing my my competence in my intelligence and it's almost like he didn't believe that someone like me could put words into a beautiful wife and my reaction to that was people think I'm plagiarizing I need to dumb myself down and I regret that you know, and and I try not to hold what 13 year old need ID like to harshly because again, you know, how is the 13 year old who really up until that point at you know, I was largely

10:24 Is Leah a kind of described it as like one step above feral or a like so much of my self-governing was on my own. You know my mommy my mom. She used to work 3 to 11. I got home from school at 2:45. So sometime they were weeks that I didn't see her which which definitely came out in very aggressive way is right when we moved we moved a lot when I was a kid and all of those came out in very like her bulit ways, you know, how is destructive in classrooms? I was talkative, you know and and never in a way where I was like actively combat it but I was in engaging, you know, and I think of of all the things that kind of condition need to be like that whether it's

11:16 Community whether it's people, you know and how when I was seventeen I was like I need to get the hell out of here. And and I I remember when I got accepted to college I packed my bags in the spring even though I wasn't leaving until the fall and all of that to say is that I think I've still struggle to kind of understand that what a good communication style is in and how language

11:48 Is used, you know, and I think a lot of it wasn't until really I met you that if it made me kind of rethink how I communicate, you know.

11:59 Yeah, it sounds so I guess it's all to say is like I'm I'm interested to to kind of here about how or what necessarily kind of triggered your transition into that like shift of a perspective and language, you know of if it was like a catalyst event or if it was just like over time like seeing that people are not understanding you and trying new things. I've been told I 2 I think I've been very blunt and in my professional kind of

12:36 World and what I've been told that a woman has I lack tact I've been told to attend. You know, I not even been told I've been forced into like communication workshops and I hate it because you know, those workshops just tell me that I'm the problem and I need to very vividly remember and it tells me that I'm the problem and I need to shift the way I communicate to better suit my audience and then I found that when I did that I was just a hundred different people and I have kind of lost sight of that. So I wonder if there was like a catalyst for you to kind of shift your your language perspective.

13:22 I want to say there was I'm stressing out right now. I would have stayed there is a catalyst.

13:28 I'm I've always so I'm going to remind cuz I forget that you and I had very similar childhood in the sense that like their moms worked a lot and we both have the same amount or had the same amount of siblings kind of you have.

13:46 Three younger siblings that you live with here in the country and you have to in Puerto Rico, Also, I'm always always she still to this day works two jobs, and she doesn't need to she may have needed to when we were younger, but she definitely doesn't need to know so she wouldn't work and I would take my brother to school. She would work 3 to 11 to or and then she would do 11 to 7. So sometimes you just work doubles and then we wouldn't see her at all. So I get up in the morning and get my brother to school. She would have liked something to like throwing up and she like making me look for us warm that up at whatever after school. So we were at the same latchkey kid that you were I just responded differently. So

14:36 So when you had those issues you were just angry and you had helpers and I would do things like shut down. I ran away a lot which like will feed into like what we will talk about you and me and our relationship, but I ran away from my tub used is abusive household. Once my mom met her the man that she married while I was living there and then and then I also left as soon as I could so I ran away and Foster homes and then lived then I was like emancipated at 17, especially after 17 as soon as you could to come to Boston which isn't far physically but like emotionally and socially I think you distance yourself from your family as much as I like this since mine for mine and then I join the Navy right? So I have all these things I kept doing were weren't actually it's like me getting emancipated me join the Navy me getting out of the Navy and then like moving to boss.

15:36 Everyone's like. Oh you you're an independent person and you do these things all the time. Why why do you say that you're running away and while they seem like really cool and really necessary changes in life. Like I went to school in things. They were actually just attempts to like distance myself from whatever pain that I have from from childhood.

16:01 Growing up because I was never like in one place. I never had like that that closed group family friends or anything. So I always had to fit in always have to make friends. I would have to figure out how to survive which it doesn't seem like it seems like I'm making friends but in reality what we're doing is surviving. We're we're we're packed creatures were more social. So we need people around us and I've been so many different environments learning the language of all those different environments from living in a 98% Mexican farming town in California to go eat that has 3,000 people that I move to the big city and feeling

16:59 Feeling more stand feeling like I stood out more with those black folks and I threw it back seconds, but I feel like I fit in with more and not knowing that language. I've been learning that language and realizing like all of these languages. Like I learned the language of black community. I learned I still speak you and I have like small covered like I could say a few words in Spanish and I can understand a lot.

17:27 Select all of these even literally different languages, but speaking the same language of having different meanings. Like I said,

17:36 It allowed me to get in there and communicate with people but it never made me feel close with people like actually have that emotional deep spiritual connection with folks and I recognize that obviously as a kid, but when I got to be probably like 25:26, I realize like I have a lot of friends of friends all over the world and it's cool, but I don't actually feel necessarily connected with them. They're good friends and like I can hit them up and I can come hang out with them and we can go hang out and talk and drink and play games and all that. But there's none there's none of that like what you and I have or we can just look at each other and kind of feel well.

18:20 What the other person is feeling or at least when we share those moments, we know what we feel about that person. So it wasn't like a catalyst there was no moment. Just it clicks for me, but I will say around 2425 I started.

18:39 Welcoming myself to feel those emotions in and play with them like try to understand them and see where they go. I took this.

18:50 Emotional quotient test. I think that's what it was and I'm really good at understanding emotions. I'm really good at understanding people and why they do what they do you I'm also terrible at understanding my own emotions and yit could idea which was funny to see that. So in the last few months, I would say this year definitely since we started the podcast and everything I've been

19:20 This has to do with you and me. I've been learning like my triggers and what what I do when I feel anxious or things like that and the whole running away season 2 that which I'm going to stop talking now and let you talk, but we can talk about

19:40 How it played out of the things that we grew up with probably played a role in our relationship now relationship is my cousin to Haida and we're going on 27 years together and I say that because you know, I sometimes I look back and I think I like who really knows me, you know, and I think it comes down to you and to Haida and you know, and she was someone. You know, we're cousins in the way of my mother married her uncle is my step dad and my mom is not divorced for my stepdad. You know, she you know starting in we went to the same Elementary School. We lived in the same duplex for growing up and then once we got to middle school, I would take the bus to her.

20:40 House and spend all after see you talk about after school program. My after-school program is going to die this house and that was you know up until the point where I had to vent, you know, come high school. I had to go to my own house and care for my siblings. Like I had to make sure that the chicken was taken out of the freezer and all of that and

21:03 When I got to be like 17, I was like I hate this town. I hate the fact that I go to this High School where people might stab me like how is this my reality? You know, I remember what time very vividly in a classroom. I was in a psychology class room and someone came to our campus with a gun and they flashed it out some of the kids and then they left and you know in that moment no student and we were talking to our teacher in the classroom with a gun and showed it to us and then left and she was like, why didn't you say anything and it's like we don't know that that's not normal and you know, and and now it's like no school shootings and all that are so so prevalent and I think like

21:58 That was almost expected for us. You know, it's like you knew where you would go. You knew what you would hide and and you said you grew up in a you live in that town of three thousand people why High School is 4,000 people, you know, so that was kind of like its own ecosystem in it in itself, and it really taught me I think

22:20 Seeing that and then going to a private small formerly all women's Catholic College made me realize that like I was in other, you know, and that my communication was subpart, you know, I I I was talking to and every time I send a high does cuz you know her and I recently had a conversation we had a big falling out for a long time and we eat we recently come back together and you know, she said you're my cousin that's in the big city and I think like

22:55 I was like, you have no idea, you know, like going to the big city to big city as in Boston just meant but I was lost and I was confused and and I was trying to kind of like consistently code-switch and you know, it's it's trying on a bunch of different outfits and then you kind of forget what your original style even was, you know, and I found that in my separation of of my hometown in my community.

23:25 I also separated from my poor and I didn't know what I was doing, you know, and I just kind of like wandered aimlessly and I think like a lot of a lot of that has kind of appeared in in relationships, right? I became very dependent on another growing up. I was very independent. I always had to be the oldest of technically 7. So I was always the caretaker. I was always the one that had to make sure that I unlocked the door because I was the only one with keys, you know, and those types of things so that when I went to college, I became very dependent and largely on men which took me a really long time to unlearn and and that dependency on my men and other friendships. That weren't really genuine kind of left me. I save a little bit bitter and angry, you know.

24:25 And you and I I think a lot about trust and opening up to people and I would say that you're a little bit more trusting than I am in terms of others, but you were really taught me to to beat open and that it's okay to be open and ask for help and I found that the reasons I didn't ask for help is because I've asked the wrong people, you know, and I was I you know, I was not Discerning enough to understand who's the right people in the wrong people. So when those wrong people let me down or let me astray. I just assumed I almost put those experiences to all of society, you know, because like I said, I grew up in a I grew up in an environment when you can't trust everyone, you know, it's it's it's dangerous to trust everyone, but I also found that I had

25:25 More comfortable around gang members and in homeless population your end up working with homeless populations for some time. I had more comfort in those circles than I did with like the board or with my professional environments because I didn't understand those people's intentions wear when it came to a community of poverty in a community of struggle. I understood what their intentions were the end and even if it was like a drug dealer, I knew what that drug dealer wanted from me, but like this director at the fancy organization. It's like I trust you last because I don't you may say one thing but I don't know what your intentions are you now, and I think it's interesting that thing looking back and seeing all the things that are happening and how did that as kind of jumbled into how we interact with people and I think that there's a lot of similarities between you and I'm there.

26:26 Absolutely. I do you know that I always think on a macro-level and how might these major things affect us individually. So. Social trust is what you're talking about. Like I'm like being able to trust in the people around us. So right now you're in a new and it's not new to you at this point, but it was new to you when you came into the when you start working at the organization you work at now, which is run by

27:00 People of have a different class then we grew up with and when were when were answering those new classes like you and I have officially made it out of the socioeconomic status that we that we started it and I mean your mama, so the so doing that we've luckily so for me, like I said, I've been in all of these different environment I grew up in a small farming town I lived in a big city is I join the Navy and worked alongside people that don't really think the same as those that rolls that I grew up with in California. I'm intimately and

27:49 Interconnected with people that I I should I don't know if I showed you but one of the people the one that has the face paint and the headdress that everyone's showing from the from the interaction, I was drinking buddies with that guy. Yeah. I haven't sent you a picture. I'll send you the picture. He's in my keys in my cruise book from the Kitty Hawk. Chris. Send me the picture of Chris him and I used to go a different Port-au-Prince decent people that I know right and I'm I

28:31 So what I mean to say it like I have built this it's never been fake for me. That's what they all say. I got the code switching is it's not just in genuis in the sense of I've lived in those environments and learn from those social markers. So it's not fake. I've always been honest with how I express myself and who I'm saying how it how I say it and what I saying I will save like back to what I said before. It's much more direct much more streamlined to what I'm feeling.

29:06 But we don't have that social trust they talked about because we're all living in different bubbles. I've just been able to be a part of the most of the different bubbles that exist. But because we live in a different bubbles. It feels weird when we go into another bubble. So when it comes to you and me who have successfully made it.

29:27 Passed the class that we started in.

29:31 It's still uncomfortable sometimes so now I'm working at this new job and I still get what's that called imposter syndrome and I've been doing is the first time I'm back. I'm in the private sector, but this isn't the first time I've worked with people who work with law enforcement and yet I'm here talk to them and sometimes I get that little like and that's from that's that's kind of just ingrained in our social structure because we haven't built those those Pathways to having that connection that were talking about and also is because language isn't strong enough, right? We keep saying these words and I'm hearing both sides and both sides are saying the same thing, but neither side guess that they're saying the same thing everyone wants to feel safe. Everyone wants to feel comfortable and everyone wants their kids to do better and when we say inflammatory statements, they're not even inflammatory. They're very basic, right?

30:31 Play Black lives matter and I can say all lives matter and those are both very basic but in our language, they mean two different things because because we're not actually listening to each other and we don't have that social trust that you're talkin about. We don't have communication skills, and we don't have trust to secure. Someone say something and trust that they're not trying to hurt my feelings right when I say black lives matter. I'm not telling you that you're like this it matter when I say all lives matter. I'm not telling you when we're saying, I'm just going to point out that that our Congress are our communication Styles differ because our language isn't strong enough to 10.

31:19 To get to the heart of what we're feeling and we're not learning how to do that. We're not learning how to express ourselves emotionally. We're not learning how to figure out or something emotionally like understand what's going on inside me when I hear Black lives matter and it frustrates me, like what's actually going on cuz there's an emotional response that's causing us to do something crazy or do something that makes me feel like I need to one-up you and say yeah for sure less matter all lives matter. So stop trying to be mean to me. So I just went on the tangent but to your point, I like that.

31:57 That we are building you and me are buildings like this space that we have right now are building strong communication patterns that will that will cement into a relationship rather than just hey, we're not communicate communicate properly on this on this topic. Let's figure out how to fix this topic instead. We're saying we're not communicating.

32:20 The best weekend let's fix the fact they were not communicating the best we can. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that that that's very true and right now and yesterday I went to the supermarket and it was you know,

32:38 Everyone's like wearing camo and everyone's like, you know, it's I think a lot of the assumptions I had about people kind of all came up to me while I was in that supermarket and I and I and I panicked I became very scared and and I tried to contact app until it was you know, because I've been in many rooms of all where I'm the only place a person of color, you know, and and even still like I I I've always been very keenly aware that I have one foot in kind of either in those spaces, you know, I am often, you know, I am Puerto Rican ethnically, I grew up in Puerto Rico. It's it's something that's very tied to who I am and I know that if I really wanted to hide it I could you know, I I could pass as like a white woman in my life would be so easy.

33:38 You know, he's eating some ways. I'm not going to take it that's with your Fall outfit things being easy, but I happen to like what my anxiety around that space is in what those feelings are and in so much of it is can be conditioning. You know, I grew up in a place where are high school was like 70% minority, you know largely. I came from a Puerto Rican and Cambodian Community a lot of Laotian lot of Southeast Asians. So to me that history was always very kind of deeply ingrained because I always felt that there was a lot of similarities, you know, I had friends who grew up or who were born in the concentration camps. Do you know they were part of the Khmer Rouge, you know, where

34:31 Internment camps is what I mean. I'm sorry and

34:36 It's hard, you know you think about you think about those struggles and you think about where those people are now, it was a very different experience when I came to my kind of Wealthy College and people were talking about their boats and their ships entered and the email and that and all those other luxuries that I couldn't even fathom, you know, and I just remember thinking like you don't care for your siblings like you don't care for x y and z and end in sometimes I wonder

35:07 Well, sometimes I wonder you know from both ends. I think a lot of the people from my hometown. I'll call and townies who knows where where where they would be if they've been exposed to others. Right and bites are Sinai and I I feel like so much of that this communication. This language is kind of like the overlap of a different circles kind of coming together and I worry that now that's harder than ever because there's so much there's like so much information, you know, and so many people talking where it's it's it's really overwhelming.

35:47 I had a hundred percent agree. I think that's why so one of the things about being good with emotions and like understanding where people come from it's kind of like a gift and a curse. So it's hard for me and people find problems with this but it's it's hard for me to like be upset with with the the rioters and protesters from last Wednesday because I understand that from this didn't start when Trump got elected this started when Obama started running for president, but like that's low incline of lies and confusion and anxiety that they're getting anxiety from a black man black man. I can't get upset with them for being anxious and I can't get upset with them for because a lot of these people I've had the privilege to live with poor white folks so I know what

36:47 I know what the world looks like for someone who grew up in Rio Linda Sacramento because it's it's a hard strike place and it's not it's not too dissimilar. It's still it's still a little bit different but it's not too different than being black being a poor white person.

37:07 By the the wealthy Elites they get treated their name and that other wall that the prophet the court issues are what I understand.

37:19 It's hard to be upset. So I forgot what I was saying this. I know I think that's a great point in that kind of brings me back to a conversation that I had with Matt van few years ago about the metco program in Boston to the metco program. As you know, you take inner-city kids and you bust them out to Suburban schools, which are better resource better. All these are just like good schools and and I've always had a problem with that because it's taking a handful from a lottery and taking your literally busting them out and putting them into better schools. And once I get to the school, if you know, these are inner-city kids that are now in like a predominantly white community and and they have the code to the other. So there's a lot of learning that they have to do and Matt was really angry that he as a poor white person could not access that opportunity.

38:12 And I kept trying to explain like systematically by people of color supper more and then like looking back. It's like you were orphaned to you know, who am I to say that because you were excited but he was like, I am a minority cuz Matt is a Russian Jew. So it's a him. It's like he was a minority in Russia and I I get it and it took me years to really understand his frustration, you know.

38:39 But I can come from language. Right like if we could if we so, I keep having these conversations with people about these generic terms that we even that we put on so you can with you when we got in an argument about minimalism and I said, I'm tired of hearing people say the word vandalism a friend of mine and I were talking about depression even anxiety, even though I said it it's still kind of just like this this castle that doesn't catch everything. We're trying to say this one term to meet so many different things. So when we say minority it actually means so many different things, but for some reason when we say here and I could just mean black and brown folks, but like if I think of people from

39:23 Bosnia and Lithuania like all these places that had really devastating. What's it called when someone genocides right? They were treated as minorities and they are but they are minorities in their country. So to come here there we just make it white and black like I don't know any.

39:52 I know a lot of people that come from European countries or even come from the state like Eastern European or even South Asian that don't consider themselves white and when they get here, they're automatically logged into white and white is white another one of those cattle terms that doesn't even tell us what we talked about me know is not a race. Do you know and I think of I think of this time where I was working with an executive director and I work for an international organization organization and we had these pictures of from one of our sites in Denmark bunch of you know, and Denmark is love Barry White place and she was like, we need to show more diversity here and I was like,

40:39 What like what? What are you saying? You want a black kid in this picture this this site is 99% white and and their diversity might be economic. You know, these might be pork is it might be you know disabilities. It might be all these other things but because there's not a brown kid in this picture and it doesn't this is Denmark lady like, you know, and I just remember being like you don't understand what that versity is. And if it's just putting a brown face in a picture you're missing a lot.

41:13 Yeah, I agree with this new job that I have. So I came from the nonprofit sector. I work with families and kids for the last decade and it's not working for a private company that manufactures law enforcement tools. So they do body-worn cameras. We do empathy training now through VR. We do all these really cool things to make policing so much better. I have a lot of problems with that and that's why I'm here. So one of the reasons that I am I'm now working at this job is because after the George would think they hired my friend Regina because they realize that there a unit that other company a multi-billion-dollar company that

42:02 Builds and creates technology for law enforcement to police communities, but never in their last since they've been around I've ever talked to the community never even reached out and done anything with others and now they're realizing and now they're realizing a hold on communities are actually our customer. They're the ones that are going to be utilizing these these these Innovations in policing. So now I'm here my friend Regina is starting this two-part this apartment community where we actually go out and talk to the community something that's obviously necessary for organization that's making stuff that directly affect the community. So when we're say community will you mean specifically black and brown communities and communities overly placed or have disproportionate araxes with police?

42:59 Those things I don't know why I got here. Now. I keep doing this. I think all those things are really important because we're not we're making decision that we're doing things for a community that we don't know nothing about you know, and being here in Virginia. One of the things I realize is I don't know anything about the rural struggle being some of that grew up in a city. I drove 20 minutes to get to the closest grocery store. I thought about how insane that is that that's something that someone has to do on a regular basis. Where in Boston is, you know from my from my apartment. I can walk to the closest grocery store in under 10 minutes and how that kind of feeds into other struggles of like food insecurity or food deserts and things like that. And all of that to say is that there's so much Community struggles that I think are just overlooked when you break it down into a black-and-white issue, you know, it's not that all white people are willing well off and it's not that all

43:59 Black people are struggling and we need to kind of let go of those assumptions and those those ideas and I know that like

44:13 We also pay attention to the nuances of all of those. So I think you're I mean, you're definitely right that we can't just say black people are in poverty and white people are rich. We also can't just say well all poor people need this and oh, I remember we were talking about diversity. So all poor people need this rich people don't need anything cuz has to decide rates for rich white men are higher than ever before. I have it still there's there's a problem there. That means there's something that needs to be fixed also suicide rates for user going up. So there's a problem there that needs to be fixed, but we can't just say oh

45:00 All rich, people are committed suicide because of this or all teams are committed suicide because of social media, which is probably like there's a high correlation there, but there's also something else going on and I could definitely use America's current state of like anxiety as an impetus for a lot of issues underlying are a lot of reasons. A lot of these issues are happening.

45:28 But I want to go back to what were time out before where you were talking about diversity with the Denmark place where it's like diversity isn't just

45:36 Rick's which is why I'm at axon M. You say their name while I'm at the company that but the diversity isn't just going to be there now branded as a tech company diversity isn't just going to be getting more colored folks and tech people of color, but it's more of a we can't just do this because people look different we definitely need cuz I don't want one of my always say this, but the only thing that frustrates me more than rich white folks is Rich or bougie black books, so I don't want like nothing but Elite Class black folks here either like we need only need black men. We need black and brown women in tattoo. We need more trans Intech. Sol diversity isn't just your sexual orientation or or your

46:36 Race, it's also like different beliefs. I don't want to work a big part of the reason. I left California is cuz it it's it's a giant bubble and like I love my California, but we tend to think very similarly about things that I don't want in that that gets a stuck. So in talking about I'm talking about like the different kinds of problems, but under that are running under like the other kind of America we can just say this is what has to happen first actual divers. Yeah, I agree in it and I think more than anything that what I'm taking away from this is that you know Innovation as a whole and and and progressiveness really comes through a combination of a bunch of different ideas, you know, so sometimes it's even better to work with someone that you don't agree with because it kind of helps you tap into that, but I know that this is like the end of our time

47:36 I just wanted to thank you for for this.

47:41 Yeah, thank you. I'm sorry. I had to get macro who's supposed to be about us, but

47:51 What's better?

47:54 Cool