Is Public Education a Scam? Addressing Childhood Traumas | Alicia Watkins & Boyce Watkins DSH #356

Our image in the world is racialized.

Okay, it's like there's stereotypes of black women, there's stereotypes of black men, and of course it has an effect on us as individuals.

Which means that if the black guy's in the movie, he could just be a regular guy.

He doesn't have to be the black guy, you know?

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All right, guys, we are back.

Alicia Watkins and Dr.

Boyce Watkins here today.

It's going to be a great episode, guys.

Thanks for coming on.

Thanks for having us.

Yeah, absolutely.

Thanks for having us.

You two each got your own specialties.

So it's really cool to see this together.

It's going to be a fun episode.

It definitely makes sense.

Love and money.

Love and money makes sense because...

Isn't that what everybody's trying to get?

They're trying to get love.

They're trying to make money and be successful and have a full life.

Love and money, that makes sense.

Right.

And a lot of people can't succeed at both, it seems like these days, but you guys have figured that part out, right?

That's so interesting because I was just thinking recently about, and of course I specialize in African-American community.

I was thinking recently about all of these successful black men and they're doing so many great things in their professional life.

They're achieving a lot.

But when it comes to the interpersonal relationships, it's falling apart.

Like, how can you really have all this success and not really have a good time in your personal life?

And you're speaking from experience, right?

Your clients are probably coming and talking about this with the therapy sessions.

Oh, my therapy sessions.

It's a calling that I feel like

really has been in

my future.

Ever since I was a child, I grew up with therapists.

Like, I grew up, both my parents were healers in the black community.

Wow.

And it's, and it's, it's subconscious because I never really realized why I wanted to be a therapist and a college professor.

But when I stop and think about it, wait, I was raised by therapists and educators.

So it would make sense that this is what I would want to become.

And

it's just great to give back to the black community in this way.

Absolutely.

You guys are both professors, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm a finance professor, and my wife is a social worker.

And she's a therapist, and she's taught me a lot about a lot of things.

First of all, all, you know, a lot of people that we talk with are from the black community, but really everybody's kind of experiencing the same universal challenges when it comes to things like love and money.

And in America, for example, I found that financial insecurity is kind of at an all-time high.

Car loan debt's at an all-time high.

Student loan debt is at an all-time high.

Credit card debt's at an all-time high.

And what happens is that you see a lot of these psychological effects from people just being stressed out all the time.

And it's because of money.

And I think people should know that there's a reason why they don't teach you how to evade these issues when you're young, because a lot of our capitalism in America is driven by this addiction to spending that so many of us are given when we're young.

And so it's sort of like they lead you into the rat trap and don't teach you how to get out.

And so ultimately, I became interested in money because I didn't have any money and I wanted to learn about money and talk about money.

But really, I found that money is kind of the key to so many other things in terms of quality of life, right?

They say money can't buy you happiness, but money can at least give you the day off work so you can figure out what's going to make you happy.

So that natural blend of what she does as a therapist and what I do as a finance professor, it became really magical because I was like, you know, there's this whole field of financial psychology that really needs to be explored so we can all find the thing that's more important than money, which is peace, happiness, health, and all these things that we lose in this rat race.

I love that.

Yeah, but I also think that for the black community, I think that we're just unique, the black community.

I think although love and money is important for everybody, I think for the black community, it is an extra struggle because of the specific, unique traumas that black people have

experienced.

Just being in America, like our whole story, slavery, you know, that's historical trauma that black people carry with with us, passed down from generation to generation.

So that intergenerational trauma is something that keeps that makes black people unique in that way.

And although everybody, you know,

is faced with all of these issues, I think the black community is have higher rates of trauma in our community,

particularly because of race-based trauma as well.

I mean,

to be on the receiving end of psychological and physical discrimination and racism, I mean, what that does to yourself.

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Your psyche.

It makes you feel like there's something wrong with you.

What's going on?

Why can't I make it?

Why is this?

And studies have shown that for black people who experience that, and that's what you experience in this country, it has an effect on you that mimics PTSD.

Wow.

Yeah.

That's why there's higher rates of alcohol abuse, drug abuse, just the psychological damage that it has on black people, just for race-based trauma, intergenerational trauma.

And then you think about historical trauma.

Think about black people as a whole, the community, slavery, Jim Crow.

All of these things have affected an entire group of individuals in America.

And then you talk about love and money.

I'm supposed to, all of these things are happening and I'm supposed to be married and have a marriage that lasts.

It's very, very difficult.

Difficult.

And divorce rates are at an all-time high, right?

It is at an all-time high across the board, but it's specifically higher in black communities.

Right.

I've heard in black communities, single parenting is common, right?

Why do you think it's so much higher in that community compared to the others?

It's difficult to get along.

I mean, think about all of the stereotypes of black men and women, and we talk about this a lot on our podcast.

You know,

we are, our image in the world is racialized.

Okay, it's like there's stereotypes of black women, there's stereotypes of black men.

And of course, it has an effect on us as individuals, but

it also has an effect on how we treat each other in our marriages.

Internalizing those stereotypes of black men, I'm going to treat my husband through those stereotypes.

You know, okay, you know, those stereotypes, my husband is going to treat me based on those stereotypes because he's internalized.

the stereotypes of black women and it comes out in our relationships.

So not only is society treating us this way, we're treating ourselves this way.

It's unconscious,

subconscious.

You don't know that you're doing it, but it's happening.

And that's why I like to dedicate my life to fixing some of this.

Wow.

I could definitely buy that because the subconscious programming these days is insane once you look into it.

Insane.

I mean, I used to watch the news growing up.

I will never watch the news again.

I would go to school depressed because it's just like they're feeding you negativity all the time.

Well, of course, it's on ratings and we have to, you know, it's on what they feel like they can get eyeballs on.

It has to be sensational.

But I also think that those images that you see of black women, the stereotypes of black women, the Mammy stereotype, all women that you see in media are going to go through those four stereotypes.

The Mammy stereotype came straight out of slavery.

Okay.

The

angry black woman, the sapphire stereotype, that's what you're going to see in media.

You know, the ghetto, the ghetto queen, the one who's like, I just want to make my, the welfare queen, I just want to get my money.

That's what you're going to see.

And those stereotypes of black women that's racialized stereotypes it's oppressive from to me to see myself in that way because i'm so much more than just that yeah you know well you know the stereotypes are real right if you really look at mainstream media you typically see black men excel in uh two or three key areas uh either he's a rapper a comedian or an athlete.

Right.

And so what that does is that does dehumanize the black male because it allow it at least the world to kind of see us through these this really narrow lens.

And you don't see all the millions of black men who want to be engineers and doctors and dentists and construction workers and just all these other things that make us human.

And so it's, you know, those who fit the stereotypes, I don't think it's their fault that they chose to become rappers or whatever.

But

there's something about America.

I mean, for those that really want to understand race a little bit better, is really the goal is for us to be as diverse and as human as anyone else, right?

Which means that if the black guy's in the movie, he could just be a regular guy.

He doesn't have to be the black guy, you know?

And I spent most of my life kind of being the black guy.

And I don't like that.

And it's interesting because sometimes we draw,

we look at that through liberal and conservative lenses.

Okay, the Democrats are racist.

No, it's the Republicans that are racist.

And it kind of exists kind of everywhere in the sense that I remember when I was on the faculty at Syracuse University, and here I was, I had a whole PhD in finance, you know, and it was very rare.

I was the only black man on the planet to get a PhD in finance.

Yeah, in 2002, there was no other black male or female anywhere, right?

So I'm here teaching finance at Syracuse.

Anytime CNN called me to go on TV, they never had me talk about finance.

I would only talk about the race issue.

Oh, my gosh.

Yeah, so they'd be like, Dr.

Watkins, a bunch of black kids beat up some white kids, and we want to get commentary about it.

I'm like, dude, I, okay,

sure.

But, you know, what really kind of was weird to me was it was actually Fox News.

That was the only place that said, no, we just want you to come in and talk about economics.

Yeah, yeah.

And that kind of shifted, challenged my views in terms of what was going on with this liberal conservative thing.

Now I'm more independent.

I just believe, I believe we should talk to each other more as a country.

I don't think we talk enough.

And I think that there are people that don't want us talking.

But over time, it's like, okay, if you want to look for racial bias, it does exist everywhere, right?

It's a disease that's affected a lot of us.

But then at the same time, at the end of the day, I think when we get to know each other as human beings a lot of those politics go out the window right like i'm talking to you man to man in the same room yeah i'm not gonna say oh well based on these characteristics of who you are this is what i expect and i think as a country we should aim for that absolutely now this is an interesting interesting question because you're both professors the public schooling system i mean I talk very negatively about it.

You guys are both professors.

What's your overall feedback on the public education system right now?

Garbage.

Is it really garbage?

Her mom's a school teacher.

Okay.

So she's going to have a different view from me.

But but go ahead, babe.

No, I mean, you say it's garbage.

I just think it's, oh, gosh, it's a societal issue.

You know, it's like,

I grew up with school teachers and educators.

Okay.

I've had firsthand experience on Sunday morning after church, we would go after mass, we would go and have a breakfast with my mom and all her sisters.

They're all educators.

And I hear about the struggles that they have.

It's, you know, they struggle in working with the parents.

You know, if parents and teachers work together, things could happen.

Good things can happen.

And I've seen good things happen.

But it's just, it's a reflection of society more so than anything.

So I don't think the teachers are the problem.

Teachers aren't the problem.

It is the system.

It is the system.

I think it's what they're teaching mainly, yeah.

Okay, tell me, you tell me, what is it you teach?

Well, I just look at my experience, right?

So I went to public school for 12 years.

I didn't learn anything that I use today other than how to communicate with people, maybe networking.

Recess was a joke.

I mean, gym was a joke.

No one took it seriously.

It was a complete waste in my opinion.

A complete waste.

Not a complete, but like a large amount of time wasted.

Yeah.

I hear where you're coming from.

And I think we can talk about this without vilifying teachers, right?

Yeah.

You know, it's, and really, we know it's a parent-teacher combo.

They can create a great child, but you look at this broader system.

There's something really screwed up with the whole politics of education in this country.

First off, just let's talk, if you talk just from a financial standpoint, I'm a firm believer.

Again, capitalism is what I study.

I'm a firm believer that

there's some merit to these conspiracy theories about the Rockefellers and people like that donating money and saying, look, all we really want is for you to teach people how to become corporate slaves.

Teach them how to go get a job and show up to work every day and do what we need them to do because we need workers.

Capitalism does not survive without its workers,

without its consumers.

So that, to me, speaks volumes about the public educational system because it's really sort of like teaching you how to sit down, shut up, and regurgitate information.

And much of that information, to your point, does not actually enhance your ability to survive.

You know, like to me, education, if you really want to design education in a way that was beneficial to the child, you might ask yourself a question like, okay, when this seven-year-old boy is 32 years old, maybe with a wife and kids, what's he going to be thinking about every day?

What's he going to be trying?

What problem is he going to try to solve?

And how do we prepare him to solve that problem?

Well, if he's a husband, he's going to have to learn how to be a husband.

I believe everybody wants to get married and stay married, take a class on get married and run in a family.

That's an institution.

If you're not a good CEO of any institution, it's going to fail.

What else?

How do you raise kids kids and not them up?

That's another thing that he might want to be trained on early.

How's he going to make money?

You know, and how's he going to make money in a way that gives him the psychological benefit of financial security, just knowing that he's not going to have like night sweats wondering if his boss is going to fire him that day and all the stress that comes with the corporate plantation.

Right.

Right.

I think if you do that and you train, you shape education in that way, it's going to work.

But there's nothing in this system, especially in capitalism, that is incentivized to do any of that.

Okay.

That's your problem.

All of that is true, but I have to reflect upon my experience.

Okay.

I,

first of all, I was born in Tuskegee, Alabama, some of the blackest place in the world, right?

Actually, I was born at John Andrews Hospital, which was ground zero of the Tuskegee syphilis experience.

Yeah, so I mean, just think about mass trauma there.

I mean, in that community, they're still traumatized by that.

They don't trust the medical profession for a good reason, right?

so but i was raised in gary indiana another black place the blackest city in the world

yeah gary indiana where michael jackson's from come on you know you know gary i know jackson i'm going back to indies it's a song on it

i'm young you gotta remember oh yeah i gotta i'm gonna send you the song i know thriller and that's about it oh oh oh we gotta hang out somewhere i'm gonna tell you about that but that's where i was raised i was raised and educated by black women and men who loved me who cultivated me okay who made me confident enough, no matter what challenges I had, and I had several, you know, but it was nurturing.

My environment was nurturing.

I'm the second generation therapist.

So my parents had advanced degrees in

child development.

So I didn't have that interpersonal trauma growing up, but I was, my gifts were cultivated.

I went to a performing arts school.

You know, there's something to being raised in a place that's nurturing.

Yes, the school system, there's problems in the school district and school systems, of course, but it's those interpersonal relationships that I had with my teachers and people who cultivated me to be what I am now.

Yeah.

So I love that.

It's a double-edged sword.

It is.

I'm more speaking from an entrepreneurial perspective, not a nine to five, like a corporate job.

Because I was, I felt like they make you learn at the same pace as everyone.

You know what I mean?

And I just felt like it was, I don't know, it was too.

Entrepreneurs are terrible for public schools schools because the way you become a successful entrepreneur typically, I think, especially now, is you have to be creative.

You have to think outside the box.

You know, you have to solve problems in certain ways.

And there's not much in the public school system that incentivizes that.

You think outside the box, you're going to get punished.

You're going to get thrown in detention.

Yeah.

That's what happened.

Right.

That was me too, man.

My grades were garbage.

I was always in detention.

And it's because

somebody that has the genius to say, do what you've done, right?

You've made a a lot of money and you're doing your thing

at an early age.

That person is somebody who is going to look at the structure and question everything.

Like if someone says, well, sit down, shut up, and stay in this cage, you're going to be like, well, why?

What's going on here?

How do I benefit from this?

This doesn't make any sense.

Why do you have this rule?

And when you do that kind of thing, you're going to be punished in almost every single system that exists in this country.

And so, yeah, the public school system wasn't a good place for you.

It would have surprised me if you told me that everything went great and you made good grades.

No, it's terrible.

How to 1.7.

Yeah, yeah.

Schools don't produce, schools don't mass produce people like you, but there can be schools that could, right?

Which is why someone like yourself at some point becomes the teacher of people that don't fit within that system.

Yeah.

Now, this is super interesting because you two have total opposite views.

So do you guys have kids?

We do not have children together.

I'm the bonus dad.

She had three kids when we got married.

Got it.

Got it.

And are they in public school?

Well, they are.

But we live in a very nice neighborhood.

He's laughing.

We live in a very nice neighborhood.

So it's a good public school.

I can tell you, I listen, coming into, okay, I was raised in the inner city, right?

So urban area.

So being a suburban mom is a whole different world for me.

And I'm looking at the school district like, y'all didn't do this.

You're not doing this.

And they actually were pretty good.

Oh, they listened?

Not that they listened.

It was just that the things that I was very skeptical of.

I mean, just think about, you know, I'm thinking about discrimination.

Are you taking out your issues of black men out on my child like what's going on i mean this is what black parents you know are concerned about so i'm like trying but they really did have a pretty good education i would have to say okay um but

They do yearn for a black experience.

So, you know, it is possible, you know, we'll send them to an HBCU, you know, that so they can have a rounded, well-rounded experience, but they're getting a pretty good education.

I just think that.

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Our homes,

we can supplement a lot of the things by what we do in our homes.

You know, I mean, Boyce is an entrepreneur.

I am an entrepreneur.

He's influenced me.

I never in a million years would ever think about starting my own business.

And I've done it, and it's been pretty successful.

nice and i owe that to you thank you baby i really appreciate you pushing me in that direction yeah well to that point you know um I believe that the strongest educational driver for the child needs to be their home.

Like, I think families, any family that's concerned about what's going on in the public school system should make sure that you're the dominant voice in the minds of your kids.

And so one of the things that I just believe is that there should be tolerance and space for other points of view.

I listen to my wife.

I listen to our other relatives.

And I know I'm a little bit weird, but I know that my weirdness is what helped me save me.

My weirdness saved me from the despair that so many of my friends experienced because they were trying to be a round peg in a square hole.

So when the kids come home, it's like, yeah, okay, you went to school.

That's good.

You want to learn how to survive within a structured space because that may benefit you.

But then I say, okay, but let me tell you how life really works.

And so when our 13-year-old asked me, like, what do you think I should do when I grow up?

I said, I don't know.

I don't think we should live in a society where we define ourselves by what we do.

I said, you know what?

Because if I tell you what to do, then I'm only constraining you.

And there are so many kids out here that are miserable that became doctors because their dad told them they were going to be a doctor when they were 14 and they're 45 and they hate it, but they did it because daddy told them to do it.

I was like, look, if you want to make money, I can show you how to make money.

I know all about money.

But then also, I said, really, the best thing I could do for you as your father is I want to show you how to be happy.

And money is a tool to help you do that.

But also,

this, these corporate structures, the way society is built, it's designed to block your happiness every step of the way so you can serve the agenda of somebody else.

So I said, the best thing I'm going to do for you is I'm going to teach you about money, teach you about life, give you some resources and position you so that you have that space to pursue basic human rights, life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness.

That means you are free enough.

You have enough liberty in your life that you can then go figure out what's going to make you happy.

And if that means going to Europe for a summer, do it or whatever, whatever, you know?

And I think that's the goal, right?

Happiness is the goal.

And we have a society where my wife explains to me all the time how depression and anxiety is at an all-time high

because.

That's one of the sacrifices we make for our commitment to capitalism.

In America, we have a lot of workaholics.

We don't support mothers.

We don't support families.

And all this is due to really American greed, good old-fashioned American greed.

And it's fine.

It creates the strongest economy in the world.

But there is a huge, huge negative side effect.

And you can see a lot of that when you go down to like Skid Row and you see all the homeless people and the mental health facilities that get shut down and all that stuff.

So, we, you know, we're good at capitalism.

We need to be a little more socialist in our thinking so we can have the balance that we need, or this country is going to fail.

Wow, that's a statement right there.

Yeah.

So, you guys both grew up in poverty, right?

And for many families, it's a vicious cycle.

It doesn't end.

You two are able to escape it.

How much of that do you think was a mindset shift?

It was huge.

I'll let my wife explain her experience as well.

I will say that being poor financially does not mean you have to be poor in terms of love and vision and,

you know, and values.

You know, what I see in our family, the common thread is that, yeah, we might have been poor, but we weren't poor when it came to the quality of the character of the people that raised us.

Wow.

I had a structured family with a hardworking father where even when we didn't have food in the refrigerator, I saw a man busting his ass every day to take care of the family.

I saw a woman that supported that man no matter what.

They told me education was important.

They told me about personal responsibility, all these things that you're not supposed to talk about, but it's like, no, this is the stuff that allowed me to make good choices and to put myself in a good situation.

And I know with my wife, you know,

you were poorer than we were, but you,

but you had,

well, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, but you had family that protected you and taught you things.

Go ahead.

Yeah, I don't know.

And in terms of my story, I'm not certain it was poverty.

I mean, I'm the fourth generation college student.

So I had the thing, you know, growing up with educators, you're not going to be rich, but we definitely didn't live, you know, paycheck to paycheck so much.

You know, it was pretty, you know, middle-class sort of a neighborhood.

But

I think the issue with me is I don't agree with that.

I'm going to write.

I don't agree.

You told me your story.

I think it was a middle-class mentality, but I think that there was there that I think there was a financial strain, but I think your mother taught you to live below your means.

Let me tell you my story.

Okay.

My grandfather was admitted into medical school at University of Chicago.

He was admitted in medical school.

They would not let him attend medical school because he was African-American.

Wow.

And so

he ended up going into the chemistry department at University of Chicago.

So I'm the third generation University of Chicago student.

So it's not like we were wealthy, but all of us were educated.

And

I was given the values that you, you know, that a car is just something, a vehicle to get you from point A to point B.

You know, it wasn't,

there wasn't an external validation.

It was more like, did you have fun?

Did you have a good time?

You know, what are you doing?

Do you want to do what you love and what you desire to do?

So that, that was sort of the,

those were the messages that I received growing up where materialism and all of those things wasn't held as important as who you are as a person.

Interesting.

Yeah.

Do you think families should be more open with their kids about financial situations?

Because a lot of them are super closed off.

You think they're super closed off?

I mean, I never talked about it with my parents.

I don't know if that's common or not, but I've heard from other people.

Not to talk about money and not to talk about those things.

Yeah, I really do think definitely talking to Boyce and being married to Boyce, we need to have better conversations about money and finances, but we need to not have it so that your worth is tied to what's in your bank account.

And it's interesting because people always talk about, I'm on social media and I hear all these conversations about high value people.

You got to be with a high value man and a high value woman.

There are no high value people.

Everybody is valuable.

Everybody is valuable.

Just.

What the type of car you drive, how you look, a trophy wife, having a rich husband, all of those things, that does not create a high value in you.

It's who you are as a person

to me.

And that's, those were the values that I was raised on.

Wow.

And I think you make a good point about the fact that

a lot of times everything that glitters is in gold.

And I think that if you, and that is true, if I was talking to, you know, say a 20-year-old,

I would say, look, money and all that stuff does matter, but there are a lot of people that have a lot of money who have horrible lives.

Right.

Right.

Because they, they've sacrificed a lot of things that money can't buy in order to get the material stuff right so that is important i think i think really being honest in your metrics of whether or not your life is what you want it to be it has to go way beyond just what kind of car you drive what kind of house you have or job and all that um i do think though at the same time one one difference that my wife and i have is that uh i kind of grew up with uh a father that held old school values that says that as a man there is an expectation that you can provide at a certain level because that maintains structure for the family, for the household.

In fact, when I wrote a book called Financial Lovemaking years ago, I studied and

they have studies that say that even women are naturally less sexually attracted to men when they're falling off financially or they're financially irresponsible or financially incapable.

Like there's a biological reason why the rich, powerful, intelligent guy is more attractive than the wimpy little guy that works at McDonald's and kids.

Women want to admit that.

though.

Right.

What do you say?

Women want to admit that though.

They won't admit it, but it's true.

It's not.

You don't even know they're doing it.

Right.

Right.

It's subconscious.

It's subconscious.

You don't know that you're doing it.

And of course, studies show that men who are most likely to cheat are men who make less money than their wives.

Really?

Yes, because that's their way of asserting their manhood.

Interesting.

I could see that.

That makes sense to me.

None of my rich friends treat, honestly.

You know what I mean?

And think about the black community.

There's women, black women are it.

You know, they're making money, they're entrepreneurs, they're being successful.

And a lot of the marriages I see, the women are doing very well, and the men are struggling.

And those men who are struggling feel less than as a man.

Yeah, unfortunately.

And of course, in therapy, we deconstruct all of those things, but that's what encourages them.

They don't know that they're doing it to make them go out and cheat because there's their way of saying, I'm a man now.

Yeah.

They've done studies on that.

Women that make a high salary actually struggle dating men.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

It's interesting.

Yeah, I mean, my theory on that is pretty simple.

That

I think naturally a lot of women just kind of want the man to have a little bit more of whatever it is.

Like, like, whatever I make, I need you to make a little bit more.

If I'm five foot nine, I need you to be five foot eleven, right?

And again, not in all cases, not in all cases.

You date a guy shorter than you?

Hold on a second.

Let me, I want to talk about our story.

Okay.

Okay.

So I have known boys for 30 years.

Okay.

Okay.

It's amazing that I'm on this podcast.

It's amazing that I even have a social media platform, right?

Because I'm, you know, I'm raising children.

I'm a college professor.

I'm doing my thing.

I am not on social media.

So every time I would talk to Boyce to find out what's going on with him, I would just call him on the phone.

It wasn't until we started dating that I followed him on Facebook.

I wasn't even your Facebook friend.

I followed him on, I didn't even have an Instagram account, so I couldn't follow you on Instagram.

After we started dating, now mind you, and I know Boyce does not like me sharing the story, but I'm going to share it.

When Boyce and I started dating,

his blood pressure was, can I say it?

Yeah,

it was high.

His blood pressure was high.

No, I'm telling this story.

His blood pressure was high.

His phone was cracked.

Okay.

He had, it was in the wintertime.

He had a coat with a big hole in it.

He lived in this really nice apartment in Chicago, but, you know, it was an apartment, you know, he had all of these things.

And I was like, this poor baby, my friend, for all these years, like there was something really beautiful and gentle in that.

And I'm like, you know what?

What's going on?

You know, his

health was failing.

And I did not know until after we started dating how popular he was.

We would go places and I'm like, why are people taking your picture?

People doing this.

I had no idea.

Wow.

And I have fell in love with a man who I thought was this poor little thing.

And I had no idea.

Interesting.

That's probably why he stuck with you because probably had a lot of gold diggers coming at him and stuff.

I don't know what his experience was, but I've always,

the moment I met Boyce.

in the library, we met in the library, Indiana University.

I was 19 years old.

He was not Dr.

Boyce Watkins.

He was Boyce, the graduate student.

And when he came up to me and he talked to me, we spent how many hours hours together?

About three or four hours together.

We spent three or four hours together.

And I said to myself, I was 19, I said, I found him.

Wow.

Found him.

That is the message that came through my head.

And ever since then, I have always stayed in contact with Boyce.

Boyce would even say, Boyce would fall off the face of this earth.

I'm calling you.

You are not going to ignore me.

Like, that's the type of relationship and friendship that I had with him for many years.

I had no idea that he was even interested in me.

He went for years after we dated, I had no boyfriend.

He could have tried to talk to me.

I had no idea.

Voice can tell his story.

I had no idea he was even interested in me.

Wow.

No idea because I just figured, okay, he's dating all these ladies.

He must have been.

So wait, wait, so what does that have to do with the whole high value, low value?

I'm trying to, yeah, you tell the whole story.

We're almost out of time, man.

Go away.

I know we're out of time, but I just really want to share that story because I, listen, I had, I got a divorce from my husband.

He was an excellent provider.

It didn't work.

You know what I mean?

And I wasn't necessarily looking for that.

For many years, when you're in a relationship or marriage, you just feel lonely.

I didn't have anybody that I wanted to love.

I had so much love inside of me.

I wanted to be able to express.

You know what I mean?

And so it's not that I was looking for somebody, but you know, I never thought I would fall in love with you boys.

I really never thought.

And one day he just called me and confessed his love to me.

It was really amazing after I've known him for 25 years.

It took 25 years for you to do that it took me well you know what it was

it was we we were friends and i was happy being friends for a long time yeah and uh and to your point earlier when you said gold diggers coming at you and all that her her depiction of me you know women will look at a man a happy man in his life and say oh you poor baby but it i didn't care that my phone was cracked i didn't care you know now the blood pressure thing that did help right i think being married does help with your health.

But generally speaking,

overall, that whole idea of the gold diggers and all that, that was true.

And so

circling back and being with somebody that knew me before I've meant anything to anybody, that did mean something.

That does provide a type of security.

Because when you get a little bit of money, you suddenly become more handsome and your jokes become funnier.

You know what I'm talking about.

And eventually you learn how to see through all that shit.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So when I was looking for a wife, I was looking for quality as opposed to this other stuff that's out here, but but it takes time to grow into that, right?

You know, maybe if I was 25, I would have seen it different so a lot of younger guys fall into that trap too yeah yeah and it's a it's a great pathway to misery you know a lot of poison comes

the devil shows up in a nice little dress and you know cute little butt and everything else and next thing you know you're miserable and and it takes time right absolutely yeah so so i would say that for any any young person wants to be smart know that difference between what you want and what you need uh if you know my wife i married my wife because she was a nice mix she was what i wanted because i thought she was the most beautiful thing in the world but she was also what i needed because she's right.

I did have some of the health issues that, and she helped me through some of that.

And so it's a good combination.

No, but you know what, boys?

I mean, like, for real, like, I think we've helped each other.

Like, honestly,

I mean, it's just.

I mean, I almost want to get emotional.

I feel like a dating counselor right now.

I know.

It's really, it's very fascinating how both of us have grown because we were together.

Like, we have healed each other.

I mean, there's no perfect childhood.

There's no perfect relationship.

There's no perfect nothing.

All of us have things.

The thing is, is that do you have a space from which you can heal by being together?

I mean, that's the biggest thing with the black community.

All of us find a space where you can be yourself, where you can let your guard down, you can talk about the struggles, the feelings.

your thoughts, your intimate thoughts and feelings.

You know, intimacy is a big thing for me.

If you have that space where you feel comfortable, and that's something that we have built with each other, and it took time.

But I really do think we've gotten to the point in our marriage where i can just tell you anything and you could hear it voice can say anything to me you know voice gets triggered i get triggered you have to be able to have that conversation with each other in a place where it's loving that's what i really want right for the black community and that's how we raise well we want it for all communities not just the black community

because of the history because of the history we need it love is in need of love for black community people right and i and i i would just generally say, too, you know, what I've learned over time is even though I do a lot of work in the black community,

I run into so many people that don't look like me.

When I was teaching in Syracuse, 98% of my students were not black.

And I found that there's a lot of universality in terms of the frustrations with relationships and money and all that stuff.

And so I think generally speaking, therapy is something I think everyone can benefit from.

And I mean, I don't care if you're on top of your game and you're the best in the world at what you do.

Therapy will help you become a better human being, and that and it'll also help you find your happiness.

So, that's the biggest recommendation I make to anybody.

Listen, I'm glad you're saying that because a lot of guys are like opposed, I think it's weak, but uh, I've done some therapy and it's helped me tremendously.

So, yeah, therapy makes you stronger.

Because here's the thing: when you get therapy and you really do the work, you don't have to pretend to be strong.

A lot of guys pretend to be strong, they're like, oh, if I smoke a cigar and grow a beard and talk tough, I'll be, you know, but deep down, there's all this weakness they're trying to hide.

Yeah, but when you're really whole and you really learn to love yourself, you're cool.

You can step out here and just say, whatever.

You're truly not scared.

Right.

So I don't pretend to be

as fearless as some people think I am.

I really am.

You're that guy.

Yeah, I'm committed to it.

It's like, no, I'm next guy.

I don't even have to pretend that I don't have to send you a signal that this is who I am because this is really who I am.

Exactly.

And that's the goal.

Yeah.

Guys, closing messages and where can people find out more about you guys?

Oh, gosh.

Okay.

So I am, you can find me on Instagram, Coaching with Dr.

Alicia.

Anybody who resonates with me, who wants to work with me,

you can find me on my website, coaching with Dr.

Alicia.com.

I really appreciate you inviting us on here.

This is so important.

I really do think that there's hope for the black community.

And I know this is universal, but this is my dedication because that's who I am and how I grew up.

And to be able to be a second generation healer, I think is so important.

And

I think that it's important to just love our children, children create a space for our children where they can feel free to talk about the things that are bothering them if everybody did that there'll be no wars there'd be no fighting in our community there'll be no internet fights back and forth I think all of us will be healed if we have that safe space from which us which we can process things

Bad things are always going to happen to you.

There's no guarantee that they won't.

But where it turns into trauma is when you don't have a space of which you can talk.

You can definitely reach out to a professional, but there's other therapeutic moments that you can have in your life where you can be able to get it out and learn from it.

That's the whole purpose of having things that happen that are unfortunate.

Love that.

Yeah, I kept stuff bottled in for years.

And yeah, I love that so much.

You've got to get that stuff out.

Doctor?

Real simple.

My website is boyswatkins.com.

And also,

I send out stocks.

I like to look at the stock market constantly.

That's what I wrote my dissertation on.

So if anybody wants me to send them stocks that I like, you can just text the word stock to 87948.

And if you text stock to 87948, I'll send you profit alerts, AI stocks.

I think that preparing for the future is important.

Understanding things like AI, understanding where the economy is going.

AI is going to disrupt a lot of jobs.

I think people know that by now, but it also creates a lot of opportunities.

And there are going to be, unfortunately, there's a divide coming where you're going to have the haves, the have-nots, and the no's and the no-nots, right?

And that divide is only going to get wider.

So, it's very important to get ready for that.

So, I'm going to help with that.

Thanks for coming on, guys.

That was fun.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Thanks for watching.

We had a lot of questions.

You didn't.

No, we're good.

We'll do a part two.

That was fun, guys.

Thanks for watching.

As always, see you tomorrow.