All media mark Christmas Miracle.

Listen.

One of the greatest things given to us was by Friday Afternext the film, which was the Christmas episode I'll Pump Down when it was supposed to be a Christmas one.

I still say every year, Merrik, Christmas Miracle, y'all bet or not?

Anyway, Christmas time for us who work in justice spaces sometimes can be very complicated.

It is a time to rest, the time to go see your family, to celebrate, to recalibrate.

I think some of our sort of American traditions have you know, a lot to do with sort of European practices which are not necessarily colonial, if you will.

They're just based on weather.

Like it's just it be cold, so y'all ain't nowhere to go, so y'all shut up.

You go inside, you tell stories, and you know, you burn fire logs and try to stay warm, and you make you know, all types of soups and shit, and you just in the night be long.

You don't because the sun don't come up because you so far into the northern hemisphere.

So you know this like going home and bundling up type beat, Yeah.

You know, I mean it is what it is.

I am an American, so as an American, you know, obviously a black American.

You know, we in my home because I married a Latina woman.

There's some punkin pie versus sweet potato pie wars.

I think I might have won it this time, although they feel a little ambidextrous.

This is the first year refer to her by her prefix was willing to make a sweet potato pie for me, but she was gonna make it her way.

See, the thing is like.

My Auntie and them, My aunt Nini is the one that usually makes the pies for everybody, but she makes it like she protects us.

So she makes it very I mean, like buttermilk like sugar.

You know what I'm saying.

It is just hella sweet, hello rich, Hella dairy, Hella gluten and it's just like you know, we we knew school.

We look it for like, you know, sugar in a raw and you know, gluten free options and are there any coconut milk options?

Were trying to make them all gentrified, but like hintified because it's black and we not Kylon Nazis.

But anyway, she figured out a way to make a bomb sweet potato pie.

And I think I convinced some of my my extended Mexican family that like this should be a part of the ethos.

They are married to their pumpkin pie, like the pie to colonizer.

Anyway, it's time to talk about stuff like that.

You know, argue over stalks in your college greens.

But how do you do that while you know it's there's no ceasefires, and you know it's people suffering and you know, families getting raided, all the stuff that we've been fighting all year.

It seemed like, man, check your privilege.

Ho me, you could just go home and just be like, oh, I'm just gonna shut down and rest for the holidays.

Nigga, what kick rocks?

So I always feel that level of complications until I started traveling and going to the very places and meeting the people in the locations that I called myself being woke enough to be in solidarity with taping with me.

Here's what I learned.

I still feel the tension, right, But then you you start traveling, man, you know, thank the Lord God Almighty.

Yeah, that rap took me across the world and then in turn, coffee, But it took me across the world.

Man, Like I have not toured a lot of a lot of Europe, but I've toured a lot of Africa, you know, because of yeah, the music that I've done, and then in my justice work, I've had a chance to go to you know, places in you know, Arab Nations, parts of South America.

I've had a chance to see culture, beauty, indigeneity, and in some senses, poverty that a lot of people, you know, in my position have not.

And these weren't like mission trips where I was supposed to be the one, you know, payting the school, building, the water.

Naw, like I came in.

You know, sometimes as an artist, you know what I'm saying, where you realize like, damn this this crew of you know folks put together all the money they had, you know, to get me out here.

And then other times you just come.

You come, You have the big organization that pays you to come do the show, and then you tap in with the locals and then you just go see the world.

Right.

So I've seen the level I've seen a level of poverty that a lot of people haven't.

But I've also seen a level of joy, of beauty.

And excitement, a just the vibrant possibility of what it means to be human, even in places that don't have the creature comforts, which is why, like I cannot abide by Christians in America or people in America saying they're being persecuted.

I'm like, my nigga, you do not know suffering, you know.

So when you see places like that and then you see how they live, do they live in a constant state of down trodden this No, they find joy some of the dopest dances, some of the most incredible music.

I remember one time I was in a.

Bantto village in the bush what the Europeans called the pigmies.

You know what I'm saying, Like just you know outside of Cameroon, on the border of Cameroon, in the Congo, you know we out there.

I mean it's it's the six toes people with the you know, like deform deforms and stuff like that, like like like village village, no running water type beat, jaguars freaking out in the like don't go into the jungle like you might get eaten type styles.

I saw this kid find a stick, break a bamboo like or whatever, like a hollowed out branch, break it put it down, sit on the ground with these two sticks and made it just started drumming like the coldest six' Eight i've ever heard in my.

Life and then the rest of the kids just started.

Dancing it was the DOPEST i was, Like i've never this is the just like natural, rhythm smile.

Joy i've never seen anything like that in the middle of a just like in a war torn just people find.

Joy i'm gonna give you some more.

Examples these are people you could follow right now.

Here here's.

One here's an.

Instagram it's called The Gaza Skate.

Team these are dudes that are In gaza In palestine right now right and what they do is they're collecting money for repairs to the skate park in support of children In.

Gaza so when you go on Their, instagram they bust In ali's three sixties kickflips off of bomb mortars so they be finded like bombs that didn't blow, up or like just the shells just all over the ground the, rubble and then they bust Like ali's and burials off the.

RUBBLE i, mean it's just the, spirit the human spirit finds a.

Way there's one called Camp breakers that are also In.

Gaza what they do is they go Find they're THE cb.

Crew they.

Go they started in two thousand and.

Four you can follow.

Them it's.

At camps C A M P S B R E A K e R.

Z it's The Camp breakers.

Crew they find these.

KIDS i mean it be bombed, out hollowed out.

Apartments they just teach them up rock and top rocking and wind milling and they just you, you you find a way to find the human.

Spirit there's The Ethiopian Girls Skate, club, Right ethiopian underscore girl underscore.

Skaters these are women covered up in their.

Hoodjobs Also ethiopian.

Women My, lord Good God.

Almighty let me tell you, so in a parallel, universe your boy would have graduated high, school moved To ethiopia and married one of.

Them you know What i'm, Saying i'd be doing the shoulder dance THAT i can't do BECAUSE i don't know how y'all be dislocating y'all shoulders when y'all.

Dance but.

Whole ass skaters bomb skaters in All ethiopian.

Charge there was they were On.

Vogue there was A vogue episode or episode article on.

Them just the dopest stuff AND i tell you right now In palestine people are planning, advent they coming into their coming into the.

HOLIDAYS i tell you right, Now ukraine And, sudan they're planning their their you, know holy.

Rituals they're gonna hang.

Ornaments you, know they're gonna they're gonna, practice they're gonna sing their, songs they gonna have their candle.

Lights so they stopped.

Too they find a.

Way SO i have found that even in this moment where you, know you feel, like, DANG i can't, REST i can't LIKE i don't, know maybe you don't feel like, that BUT i feel LIKE i need to stay on top of everything and make Sure i'm staying in solidarity and keeping these, things you, know in people's, faces the people That i'm trying to, defend they find a way to, Rest they find a way to find.

Joy so MAYBE i found maybe it was a function of my privilege to think THAT i have to stay down trodden when they're like Shed i'm trying to get on this curry gult tap in with.

Me The book of the s