Hello, and welcome to Most Popular. The podcast about pop culture and the impact it has on society. I'm Dr. Adrienne Trier Benick. I'm a professor of sociology and also your host. I gotta tell you, I'm in a good mood today. It is beautiful outside. I had a really delicious vanilla latte earlier. I've got one dog sleeping next to me.

I've got another dog. Actually, I don't know. I think she's on the porch sleeping. But it's just, it's a good day around here in my home office. I'm excited to bring you my guest for today. My guest is Bruce Anthony. So Bruce is the host of the podcast, Unsolicited Perspectives. I met him when I was a guest on his podcast, and I very quickly realized that he naturally does something that a lot of us in [00:01:00] Higher education specifically, but I think a lot of folks struggle with, which is having difficult conversations about really important topics.

So Bruce and I chat about how he got into podcasting, the inspiration for hosting a podcast that is Really focused on topics that may make people uncomfortable and I think whether you're a student in a class a faculty member trying to lead that class or even a person who knows that a difficult conversation is on the horizon or really just Anybody who struggles with having a crucial conversation?

There is really a lot to learn from Bruce and his approach to dialogue. As always, please consider rating and reviewing this episode. And if you're so inclined, there is a link to support most popular in the show notes, unless you are my student in that case, keep your money. And remember if a strange ghost ever asks you, if you are a God, you say yes.

That's just some good life advice from Ghostbusters. I'm really excited to bring this conversation with Bruce Anthony to you. Here it is. [00:02:00] I like doing this with other folks who do podcasts, because you all like, it doesn't even phase you when I say, can I hit record? Like you just go, no problem. Yeah. You know, you know, so anyway, welcome.

Thank you for doing this with me. So I did your podcast. Now you're doing my podcast. And as I just previously said, we're together again. Reunited and it feels so good. Your students probably won't get that reference. No, probably not. Yeah. Okay. So could you just introduce yourself, say a little bit about yourself, and then we'll move into more pressing topics.

Sure. I am Bruce Anthony, the host of unsolicited perspectives with Bruce Anthony. It's a podcast and video podcast on wherever you get your audio podcasts and on YouTube as well. I don't know how else to describe me. I guess now I'm a zener. Is that what they call it? A millennial and gin? [00:03:00] Like I'm in between getting ready to be 44, I'm not a young cat, but I'm not old, or at least I don't think that I am.

So I feel like I still have something to say to both the youth and to the older generations. So I started my podcast just to give different perspectives on different lifestyles and try to educate people who are ignorant to different lifestyles and different perspectives of life. Bye. We're going to dive into all of that too, because I think that's what's interesting about what you do.

What's your, what's your educational background? What kind of led you to do, to want to do this part? Educational background? I, it does not connect to this at all. I went to the University of Maryland. I started out as a double major, getting my secondary education degree and my history degree. Walked into the classroom doing my student teaching and said, nope.

This isn't for me. So I just finished with my history degree. So I have a history degree from the university of Maryland. I started to get my doctorate [00:04:00] in physical therapy, walked into the physical therapist office. So there was a lot of old people with varicose veins, and I don't like touching people and said, Oh, this isn't for me.

Somehow I got into the restaurant business in college and started a restaurant management and, you know, got kind of. Unhealthy, a gentleman called me a chunky monkey, and that got me into working out. He saved my life, actually, Sebastian. I'll never forget him. He said, Bruce, you turned into a little chunky monkey.

So that made me turn around my lifestyle. I got into fitness, became a personal trainer. Currently I am a president of a fitness company right now. That's my day to day job. And then the podcast, which is also turned into a 40 hour a week job. So that's, that's, that's a long way of saying what my educational background is.

I don't know how I got here. I just got here. But that's what's important is because you're kind of sold the idea when you start college that you got a straight path and there's going to be no [00:05:00] forks and the forks far outnumber the straight and narrow, you know, go gung ho into something. And even if you, you know, get into the career that you've trained for and all of that, there's still going to be these detours that pop in.

So I love it when people are like, I started out at A and now I'm at Z and I had no idea that this was going to be where I went. I think that's great. Yeah, you know, I think college is, you know, really about finding yourself and experiencing new things, right? Unless you come from a major metropolitan city, you're not getting a diverse lifestyle in wherever town that you're from.

So college gives you that experience. And I know people who knew exactly what they wanted to do when they were started as a freshman and ended up doing that. And I know people who felt like they knew exactly what they wanted to do as a freshman, and they do something completely different. You just never know where life is going to take you, but you have to be open to all the possibilities.

Yep. And I love, we're the same age, so I love that you feel also [00:06:00] somewhere in between. I feel more X than millennial like I because you know, I'm 1979 so I still feel very XC XC. I don't think that's a word but you know what I mean. Well we're both on that cusp, it's something about analog and digital and the way up.

So, like, my aunts. My mom's younger sister is eight years older than me. I never, and she's 14 years younger than my mom. So I never looked at her as my aunt. She was always my big sister because my mom was more like a. Aunt or second mother to her because such of an age difference. Now she was born in 72.

She is a product of the eighties. I'm at the back end of the eighties, but really the nineties, but our lives are, there's a lot of connection between our experiences. But mine is a little bit more technology based. Cause at the tail end of my adolescence, that's when the internet really started to blow up.

Doing AOL and instant messenger and then going into college [00:07:00] and using AIM and then, you know, Napster and LimeWire and things of that nature. We're technologically savvy. Now, the younger generation behind us is so far more advanced as far as technology is concerned. But yeah, so I'm Old and young at the same time, but also I don't have any kids.

So that has a little something to do with it. My friends who are the same age that have kids run at a little bit slower speed than, than I do. So that has something to do with it. Kids will slow you down. But, uh, my cousin who is 30 years old, loves hanging out with me. Says, Hey, let's go to the club. Let's do that.

And I had to tell him, Hey man, you do know I'm in my mid forties. Like I can't hang like I used to. No, I need a nap. And probably still have to be in bed by 9 30. That's I have to be a bit early because my clock wakes me up. You know, my biological clock wakes me up early. Like I can't sleep in. So yeah, I don't know what that is.

Like, anyway, this is besides the point. So [00:08:00] let's talk about your podcast, because here's what I think is interesting about what you do. You take topics that potentially could be contentious. Or difficult to talk about and you talk about them and that is my life as a sociology professor. I mean, that is basically what I do.

I, I take what's happening in society and we talk about them in class and in research and in all the things I do. So it's really interesting to me when I find someone who. Has that intention with the, with the content you're putting out there? Like you, you want to have the difficult conversations. So I'm wondering what inspired you to head down that path?

Like what made you want to, what, what got you to the point of, I'm going to create these podcasts and we're going to have these conversations. That's a long story, but I think the spark of. Not being afraid to have difficult conversations for a lot of people that, because it's an [00:09:00] audio platform. I'm a black man that grew up in America in the 80s and 90s.

My parents were born in the 50s. That means they were born when segregation was a thing. They were not born with all of their rights. I am the first generation born with all All of my rights as a black person in this country. And I also grew up in an era where there were repeals of social programs that Lyndon Baines Johnson had instituted in the sixties and Reagan took office and started repealing a lot of these programs.

So a lot of black Americans. So they started to progress in the 70s, started to regress in the 80s and the 90s was building ourselves back up. So these conversations, to me, are not difficult because they are a part of my life. I have to have these conversations within my family, within [00:10:00] myself. Every day because I live this existence, so it's not complicated for me.

It's complicated for people by and large because they don't want to examine it. There's this whole idea of feeling guilty. And I say that it's okay to feel guilty. Guilt is the arrow on your moral compass. Without that guilt, you don't know what's morally wrong or morally right. So if you feel guilty, that's okay.

That's fine. Take that and learn from it. And so, yeah, you know, I do, uh, episodes where I interview people that have, that come from different walks of life. And then I have a, uh, another episode once a week where I do with my sister and we don't, we, we Touch on just about everything. There are a few topics that I want to address because they're really, really hot topics and I'm not trying to get canceled.

Not yet. Let me blow up my podcast first before I get canceled. But by and large, yeah, there isn't anything I'm afraid to talk about because it's my life. I appreciate that so much. I think we're [00:11:00] very similar in the sense that, and I think it's the nature of the work I do where there's, there's very little you can throw at me and I'm not, I'm going to react.

I think that's kind of how I feel about it. So you. Do you have something, let me ask it like this. Do you have topics that you love to cover? Things that you just love to talk about anytime you get the opportunity? I don't know if there are topics that I love to cover. Some of the topics that I cover, I get annoyed that I keep having to talk about them.

Like for instance, I filmed an episode last night with my sister and it was just announced that a County in Florida has banned dictionaries and encyclopedias. From the school, the county has banned those books from the school system. Now I've talked about the bannings of books probably on three or four different episodes, because it keeps happening.

I'm tired of talking about it, but it's important because I feel like they're trying to dumb down the next [00:12:00] generation, take away critical thinking. So it's easier to tell you what you need to. I don't believe. Um, so there are things that I'm tired of talking about. What I do love talking about are other people's lives.

Even though I grew up in a semi diverse area. You know, I moved to DC when I was 16. I was. Living in a small Southern town in Virginia before that called Lynchburg. That was not diverse. And you can get that from his name. It was Lynchburg, Virginia. It was in Southern Virginia. Um, The home of Liberty university and Jerry Falwell.

So it was not diverse. It was, and it was still very much segregated. So when I moved to DC and I had all these different cultures that I was introduced to, I loved it. And so that's what I really enjoy. I love talking to different people from different backgrounds and learning about their life, their culture, their customs.

Is there something that you, have you had moments where you've had conversations and then [00:13:00] on your podcast and then thought I could have done a better job with that, or I wish that I would have said this instead. And how do you handle that when, if you've had those thoughts? Cause I have those thoughts all the time.

So my original major, one of several majors that I switched my first couple of years goes back to that road of discovery in college was journalism, and I wrote for the school paper. So I guess I have a little bit of journalism and my background, and the first interviews that I did, I would love to scrap them all and redo them, because they weren't conversations, the interview that we did.

I've evolved so much more as an interviewer than those first couple of interviews. It was pretty much ask the question, get a response. If there was a nugget that, that the interviewee said, then I would expand upon that. But more, by and large, it was just ask the questions, get answers. And so I wish, because I had some really, really [00:14:00] great people that I interviewed, and I didn't get I didn't get the most out of the interview, I feel, and that's the evolution.

So that's the only thing that I wish, I wish I could go back. And then I go back and I watch some of them and I cringed that they're still good, but they could be better. And that's what I'm always striving for to be better. So that's the only thing that I wish I could change. It's funny because I think what you're, you're talking about is what I've experienced where In the initial stages, like when I first started teaching and I would posit a question to the class and they would respond and I would either be so psyched that they were actually talking to me that I would forget to listen to what they had to say, or I would be so in my head of, I got to ask this next and then that next and that I would forget to listen to them.

And as I've. Gone through the years and I've done this for two decades now, but as I've gone through the years, I've started to realize that's the key is the conversation is going to go wherever it's going to go and you can have your structure, but it's a conversation [00:15:00] like there's no. Way to map it out and hear listening and hearing what people say is more important than I got to get through these notes.

I got to get through all these questions. I think that's kind of what you're saying. Yeah, my dad sent me I forgot who I was Jamie Foxx. My dad sent me a YouTube video of how Jamie Foxx had a, he had a TV show where they would come in and they sit on this couch, I think. I forgot where, maybe it was on Peacock and his interview style and his interview style was very calm.

So he was really, really good at it, like Oprah back in the day, or maybe even a Phil Donahue, right? Like that's a generation that we grew up on and it was a conversation and that's what I wanted to base my show off of is those old 1980s kind of talk shows, even the Ricky Lakes, where it was a, it was a give and take.

And they did such a great job at listening. And, and in the beginning, I didn't listen, just like you're saying with teaching, like in the beginning, it's just, you're trying to, [00:16:00] you have an outline and you're trying to get through everything that you need to get through. Instead of just letting the conversation take you where it needs to go.

You have a basis, you have a thesis of, of what you want to get across in every podcast and every interview and every lesson, but also you can learn stuff. Just by having that conversation and just by, I call it free flowing, free flowing where you just, you just go. And so, yeah, that, you know, I wish I was better at that in the beginning, but I'm getting better now.

So that's okay. But that's also what makes having difficult conversations productive, right? If you've learned that it's not about getting your point across or saying what you need to say, it's about hearing what the other person, where the other person is coming from, taking that in and reacting in that way, as opposed to, I did this a lot when I was younger, I would know what I wanted to say in, in some sort of conversation and I would not.

I needed to get that out and I would not be [00:17:00] listening to what the other person had to say. And I think that's what you do well in, in the podcast you put out that there's a, there's a real building of that. I like asking, Oh, sorry, go ahead. No, I was going to say, but I think that's a human thing, right?

That, that, that. Need to get out what you want to say and not necessarily listen. We, we have that oftentimes in arguments, whether it's with loved ones or friends, you had the point that you're trying to get across and you're not, you might be hearing the other side, but you're not listening to the other person because you're so focused on getting your point across.

I think that's oftentimes that the problem and, and, um, In society by and large, so that's not an issue just, just with us. That's an issue in, in nature and me being in DC, trust me, I get that a lot where people have the point that they want to get across and they're not listening to anything that you say.

So, yeah. Yeah. You're basically in the Mecca of that, right? Yes, I am. I am. Is [00:18:00] there anything that you've talked about that has kept you up at night after the fact? There have been some interviews that I've done that I had to had self reflection in myself. I, I will say that I've evolved a lot through the years.

And that happens anyway with age, right? As the older you get, you evolve. I was a misogynist jerk in my twenties. And, and I was homophobic throughout. My teens and my early twenties, it stopped when I got into the restaurant industry, uh, because I was around people from the LGBTQ plus community. And I realized growing up in that small town in Lynchburg, Virginia, and, and coming from a family that was very deep in the church.

My father used to be a pastor. My uncle was a pastor, uh, that a lot of the ideas that I had, as far as my homophobia was concerned, was steeped in how I was raised. And I was kind of, [00:19:00] I hadn't experienced other lifestyles, right? When I moved to DC, I experienced other cultures and not really other lifestyles.

And it's funny because My favorite aunt is gay and has been gay for the longest time, but that still didn't, I still had homophobia. So it was working in the restaurant industry and getting past that. So I do these interviews and every now and then I will see I've evolved, but I had, I still have more work to do, which is good, right?

You need that recognition, but also there are some things that I think. thought that I knew that I had no idea about, right? I interviewed an immigration lawyer and she broke down immigration for me and it was like, wow, I thought I knew about the immigration laws and about green cards and work visas and things of that nature and how people can get to this country and, and why they might be denied.

And, and. I had 50 percent knowledge. So there was 50 percent [00:20:00] of stuff that I thought I knew that I had no idea about and was enlightened. And that kept me up like, wow, it didn't change my stance. My stance on immigration is still my stance on immigration. This country has always been bring us your, your poor, you're tired, you're weak, right?

That's, that's always been on model. So. I'm like, come on, if you want to come to this country, you're only going to make it better. The more, the merrier. Right? But it did enlighten me on how really difficult, it is extremely difficult to immigrate to this country. It is extremely difficult. And especially if you come from a country that is a poorer country.

It's very, very difficult. So it was very enlightening. So there are some times where I interview people, or my sister will bring up a nugget that I didn't think about, that will make me do some self analysis. I love this, that, that, because I think one of the reasons why people do podcasting, I think, I don't want to say if you're doing it right, but that was the first thing that came to my mind, [00:21:00] and that's very judgy, but I think if you're doing this and you're not a curious person about other things or other people's lives, I think it comes, it comes across and in what you're doing, I think one of the beauties of this medium is that you can learn and Share people's stories that you may not have had exposure to before today.

Before I talked to you, I was talking to a man in Edinburgh in Scotland who does, um, he's a personal trainer, but he does like anti diet culture stuff on Instagram. So he posts things that are. Like, here's the real way that you should be going about taking care of yourself. Don't pay attention to the, the influencer that, you know, has no clue what they're talking about.

And he does it in a humorous way and it's really fun to watch him. And this is an industry that I know nothing about. So it was great to just sit and ask questions and learn from him. And I think if you're doing this. It's [00:22:00] this thing this, you know, connecting through podcasting. You should be learning from the folks that you're talking to.

And there should be growth in some way. But I'm also an educator. So, you know, I kind of feel like why not do it if you're not going to learn something that's just sort of how I am. Well, we're both because at the heart of me, even though I did not. Finish that degree because I could not go in the classroom with those kids.

I still don't understand how we send 21 year olds or 22 year olds in the classroom with kids that they are only four or five years removed from educators at heart or people that just want to learn. Not everybody is like that. A lot of, a lot of people out there are happy and content being who they are.

They say ignorance is bliss. And that's the saying for a reason, you know, sometimes the less, you know, the happier you are, the more, you know, it becomes difficult to look at the world and examine a world. And every now and then not get a little depressed because you see, you see everything [00:23:00] and you're like, wow, we can do a lot better, but if you don't know about it.

You could just keep your blinders on those horse blinders on and, and it keep charging ahead in your own life and not worry about it and be content and be happy. So we're not, that's not us. We want to absorb all the information that we can because we want to learn. We want to keep expanding. We want to keep evolving.

This is why we need to just go on the road together and there we go. Bring your sister because I've told you this. She and I are going to be friends. I don't know if she realizes that yet. I told her that last night. I told her that last night. She really enjoyed the interview. And she was like, I don't care.

Like we tend to gravitate towards my family. My parents are really intelligent. Extremely intelligent. Both of them. Um, my brother and sister are extremely intelligent. Everybody's smarter than I am. I know I have at least above average intelligence, but, but they are all smarter than us. And we come from two [00:24:00] parents, like my dad graduated high school early.

He was in college at the age of 16, you know, and, and he swears up and down and my mom's smarter than he is. And my brother is brilliant. And my sister is brilliant. So we like to surround ourselves with people that are smarter than us so that we can learn something from us. And we didn't realize that that's what it was subconsciously.

That's what we were doing. Uh, but the older I've gotten, I've realized that the people that surround myself are. Either academics or not people that are successful because you can be successful and not be smarter intelligent, but just people that have real thought about them and critically think about things and have intelligent things that they want to talk about or discuss.

I'm done with the barbershop conversations of the Michael Jordan and LeBron debate. Or who do you think is a better football team from past decades? Those, those things don't entertain me anymore. I need to have real thought and real discussions. [00:25:00] So yeah, that's just, you know, just what you strive for is once again, growth.

That leads me very well into the other question I want to ask you. What is your suggestion for folks that want to have, or that maybe not want to, but that are going to have difficult conversations or want to have difficult conversations, or maybe don't feel quite comfortable yet addressing things? What would you say for that?

So, it depends, right? If you want to have difficult, say for instance, The white person wants to talk to a black person. Me and my sister often get in debates about this. A white person wants to talk about black person wants to talk to a black person about their experience where there's a, there's a ton of books out there.

There's a ton of resources to get that information from. And I tell my sister all the time, yeah, we're bombarded with too much. Resources information is sometimes people need help to narrow it down. So I would say to those people that want to learn one, Google, Google is your [00:26:00] friend, right? And have a discerning.

approach to all the information that you get. If you read one thing, look up what the opposite would be. And then, you know, look at your circle, your circle will tell you what you need to be doing. If your circle is a bunch of people that think look and act like you. It's a very limited circle. Expand your circle.

How do you find friends that expand your circle? You know, I got lucky. There was college. I worked in restaurants. What I do now expands my circle. It's not like you could just go out to bars and clubs and say, Hey, can I be your friend? But there are ways there are, there are friend groups out there in every city.

There's like, you know, intramural sports, adult sports leagues that you could join. Even if you're not into sports, there are book clubs that you can join where you can meet diverse people. That's what I would say. If you want to learn. [00:27:00] About or you want to talk about topics that you really don't have any idea about or if you're not a part of that particular community and you want to learn more about that community, community, I would say expand your friend group because odds are if you have that expansive and diverse fan group, you can go and talk to your friends or those people that are close to you.

If you have nobody that you could talk to about it. The net right there is an indicator that you need to expand your group. That is the best answer to that question. Oh, okay. I'll take that. No, it really is because, I mean, I'm also from a really small town in Northern Michigan, and I, I shared this with you when I was on your podcast, but my parents made it a point to say.

You're going to see something beyond here because we don't want you to think that this is what the world is. We want you to see other things. So we, we drove everywhere when I was a kid and went to every national monument. I've seen the monuments in DC more times than I can possibly count, but that's what's important, [00:28:00] right?

Is if you want to know something, start to educate yourself and look at who you're surrounding yourself with. And I say the same thing with social media. If you want to expand your horizon, look at who you're following, because if there's a theme with who you're following, the chances are pretty good. The algorithm is just.

Spinning back to you that same stuff so that you don't know that there's other stuff out there. I really feel like there needs to be, as far as the popularity standpoint, more emphasis on learning about different learning about things that you're not familiar with bringing us out of ignorance. We're all ignorant of something ignorant.

Isn't a negative word. Ignorant is just not knowing stupid is a negative word. Ignorant is not right. Ignorant is just not knowing, and we're all ignorant of something. So that's what I feel like podcasts should be. Where do I see it going is the problem because the most popular podcasts are clickbait.

Yep. And they say [00:29:00] inflammatory things just to get an audience because there's a lot of money if you can grab it. In podcasting and the loudest voices and that's in life in general are typically the ones that say the most inflammatory things. You see that on, on, in every form of media. So I would love for podcasting to get more of a focus on sensible people that are more on the center.

I think that's where everybody should be in life. Don't think of life as in black and white, think of life as shades of gray. And that's why I would love to see. podcast to go. Hopefully we can get there. Podcasts like ours help. Podcasts like Rick Clement's Life Uncloseted help. Things that, that open your eyes up to experiences and people that you're just not associated with.

So the last thing I want to ask you is a question I ask everybody, and you can take a second if you need to, to think about [00:30:00] it, but the podcast is called most popular. So. Who or what do you think should be voted most popular? And it can be anything, but who or what would you vote most popular? Ooh, most popular.

And we're going high school standards, right? Like voting for prom king, like that kind of situation. Yeah, this is because I'm a historian. Lyndon Baines Johnson was the greatest president this country has ever seen. Okay, good. Please expand. Okay, so Lyndon Baines Johnson took over after John Kennedy was assassinated.

And John Kennedy had a lot of ideas of progressing social movements. John Kennedy wasn't going to get it done. Because John Kennedy had a lot of hate from the other side for those that are, God, your generation for those that, um, I'm trying to think of what I could compare it to Bill Clinton at the end of his presidency W, uh, and his second presidency, just, [00:31:00] just the other side at Obama during his entire presidency, like the other side, Trump, just the other side, just absolutely hated Kennedy.

Lyndon Johnson was a career politician, and there was a thing called the Dixie cracks. So when right wing conservatives talk about the civil rights movement, and that Lincoln was a Republican, and that there were so many Democrats that voted against Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act in the South.

What, what they failed to mention that there was a great shift between these Dixiecracks in the South, that, that basically they became Republicans. So, these people that were trying to hold back Civil Rights Movement and Voting Rights Act were Democrats that jumped to the Republican Party. They're Republicans now.

That's a lot of what the right wing conservatives don't want to talk about. Lyndon Baines Johnson had to navigate all of that terrain [00:32:00] and get legislation passed, not just for black people, not just for women, also things to help the poor, to help children. He passed so many social programs during that time and, and he got flack because the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act were supposed to be in the same package.

He knew that he couldn't get Both of them passed at the same time. So we separated them and they got a lot of flack from the black community and a lot of liberal Democrats that was in this party. But he knew I had to get one in. And then once I get one pass, I can get the other one pass. So he passed the civil rights act first and then he got the voting rights act pass.

The greatest president of our Well, that's not our generation, but in this country's history, everybody wants to talk about Washington and Lincoln. And I'm not going to get into, you know, a lot of stuff that Lincoln did. He celebrated, but fact of the matter is if he could have got out of the civil war [00:33:00] without the emancipation proclamation, he would have, he would have absolutely done that.

He was just trying to save the union. And that was a tristige. Strategic move to, to get, he didn't, he didn't really care, but yeah, Lyndon Baines Johnson should be the most popular president of this lifetime, uh, period of, and Kennedy is still more popular to him. And I just, I get it. He was charismatic. I get it.

But he wasn't more important. And the tragedy of him. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean there was tragedy and it was a tragedy. He was, the people that loved him really, really loved him. But the people that hated him really, really hated him. So yeah, most popular. Have you ever, have you ever read the three illustrated books about John Lewis's life that it's like a series of three books and it's, it's illustrated.

Like it's a, not a comic, it's, you know, but it's very comic based and he wrote it with whoever the illustrator, I forget the name of the illustrator, but he has a whole [00:34:00] scene that they drew. Of him being on the phone with president Kennedy and talking to him about, you know, he was young at the time, really young, like 20, I think he was.

Yeah. Cause he originated with SNCC student. Yes. Nonviolent. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But he talks about that, about how hard they had to work just to move the needle with him. Just, just a hair and how you're, you're right. That it wasn't going to get where they wanted it to go. No, it wasn't. I, I, I love this answer. I could talk to you all day.

So, you know, let's do this again sooner than later. Okay. I would love that. I like, like I said, I love being around academics because the critical thinking. And the intellectual dialogue, I learned so much and that's, I can't, I can't stress enough. If you're not continuously trying to learn, you've stopped evolving.

We need to treat life like sharks [00:35:00] treat living in water. We have to keep moving forward. We have to keep moving because if we stop moving, if we stop learning, we die. We die intellectually. And I just think that's very, very important. So I really, really enjoyed coming on this podcast. And I hope, I hope people learn something.

I mean, I think what you're saying is school is cool. I'm not going to say it like that. If somebody's going to follow that lead. School is cool. Schoolhouse rock moment. Right. I would, I don't know what the young generation says now. Do they say school is lit? I know they wouldn't say that, but I think they would say school is lit.

No cap. Well, this was great. for having me. So, once again, I'd like to thank my guest, Bruce Anthony. Thank you for listening. You can find more episodes of Most Popular on iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, and wherever you get your podcasts. Please take the time to follow, rate, and review, and again, if you are so inclined, and you are not one of my current students,

a Patreon for most popular is set up and linked in the show notes. More information, including additional resources for educators, can be found on my [00:36:00] website, and I am on Instagram at dr. adriennetb. As always, thank you to my students for the encouragement to keep making these episodes, and I'll see you next time.

Bye!

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