and you would be surprised that this is being gone on now for about four or five years and the purpose is really to explore this aspect of healing and  how that process really works for you as an individual that is in fact a discovery learning more and more more about the the importance of healing in order to share stories with men who might even be strangers the other piece is to do work outside of the group and i was really impressed with the stories that i've heard that are young men were there was five of us who went to green hill to meet with brothers who are incarcerated and unlikely to go to adult institutions and there was opportunity to share stories there so that the young men had an understanding of how they take care of themselves first and foremost so the myth of the middle passage is a very powerful group  you know as you know how they say black man i would like to argue with each other and get moved to fights and all that started stuff in five years i can only think of one big argument no fighting no a whole lot of drama so it's obviously have an impact with young men in older brothers like myself who have the opportunity to exchange ideas share exchange thoughts powerful strategy for for reminding reminding members how important it is to maintain unity so we say in a very large circle one one to one but there was something teach one each one to each one teach one yeah so that's what i'm reminded of when i go to these meetings it's a powerful networking powerful  invited to to study something about changing the narrative about us so they when we leave we can lift our heads up we can feel proud not only in don't deal with them so as a result we don't go to the doctor as often as we should if we have an issue we don't talk about things that we have issues so we don't get the help we need early on there by the time we do start to have a conversation near on  deathbed from whatever the sickness or element it was so we just don't have that so what i do when i'm in the middle middle passage is meeting for example when we go around the room we talk about our check ins that we have and we're listening to people  in an environment where i've ever had the ability to see that happen so it was power for me to hear it and in so like i look at datto as there's a lot of myself i had a man issue i would feel very comfortable talking to him hopefully others around the room see me as that way i can talk to me about other things that are happening in their life or issues that me going to be more than glad to help and assist as well but it just frees up all that opportunity in a meeting for the conversations matter of fact  james williams who came to weeks ago is now from tacoma is now talking about starting a min man the middle passage group in tacoma just because of two experiences that  to our young people and vice to some of the brothers that have influence over you know so i'm a start up by talking about a definition of the hero which is one who leaves a situation ga knowledge and understanding it was back in that same situation destructive city reaches out to pull up their brothers and sisters there that's literally the definition of and you two gentlemen have reason why i chose you really have are that the definition of a hero and so last year we talked about your educational experiences etc etc so let's focus a little bit on this show the kind of advice that you would give to young people  they're structured for you to get frustrated with the process so the process is when you're zero to eighteen you know should be in you know elementary school middle school high school but you should be pursuing something because you know you get the next forty years of your life to work somewhere that means you want to take that time and take advantage of that time in order to create yourself as a marketable tool and what happens is that we allow this system to structure the education the people that are around us to frustrate us so that we don't go out in achieve what we need to do and as a result of us not achieving that we get frustrated we take all the different flow in terms of the community and things that we should be doing get into trouble and then there goes the process in the city so i would try to encourage my young brothers and sisters not be frustrated stay in a process of flow if you forgot something you want to do or become pursue that work hard at it try to be the best you can and you know with all the proper help and support you know you i'm sure you'll be achieve that go did and then and then they incurs you to go on to become a lexical engineer at boeing absolutely and so what happens in that in that process i was one of the the few fortunate because a lot of my brother and sisters guys who are with the school ran the streets which you know  when that fortunate in a guy was running the streets were to rob a gas station one night we set it up watched it for three weeks and that night i could i could hear my mom's voice saying you know don't do it don't do it so i went home he goes down to rob the gas sure while giving advice so you know i think that you know i when you asked the question about my journey right  i was thinking about my experiences on the bus on the way to school and on my way to school i used to i can see the bus drivers eyes roll up in his head when he sees me get them on the is terrorizing the bus so some of my my some of my experiences are related to doing wrong and so when chris talks about choices it became very important to me later on when i realized that i wasn't going to be successful by myself i realize that sometimes the knowledge to that gain wasn't again going to come look come from folks who look like me i learned that there are folks in our world who really do have a desire for you to become the best that you can become  i think sometimes allowing people into your life also creates this avenue where you can find yourself when you find yourself you start to believe in yourself when you believe in yourself you begin to see little things that you do but says i'm on my way so i stopped about that the let in the last show how important my last report card my last high school report card was to me it was an artifact and so when i talk to young people today i talk about collecting art of facts that reminds them of their failures which propel them to doing something positive in the future and so when you start collecting that one artifact this is i can then it becomes a belief that i could do more when you find yourself accomplishing then you forget about those false hoods that sometimes lead to this is impossible and when you find that rock that you can purchase you begin to believe that there's something that's beyond me and when you are able to see beyond the horizon that you were born within the possibilities start to strike and it becomes such a movement that you find it difficult to sit still so i've mentioned that the collection of artifacts is what i would recommend to young people is that as you go through your journey is to be able to collect items pitchers songs that just kind of remind you of your success in euro and the reason that i say this is because tom wright and he's the guy who wrote be screenwriters and always remember this young man who said i want to be a screenwriter but the first paper with the first paper that he gave me i rejected it but i rejected they would it i didn't reject it out of hate or disappointment it was a love because it was a love he wrote it again and i rejected it one more time and he wrote it again i rejected it again and they're young man wrote a paper five times to present the time right and then i said i want you to dress up in a suit and he did and so i was watching this change that was occurring and what did he have along the way artifacts that will remind him now that he's in high school how to be successful so i have this  this desire to give young folks a mental model for how they take those few steps not many steps but how you take those few steps to be successful and so most of our children i think sometimes because they don't have opportunity to see they don't have mental models of the work that they have to do and so when you have that mental model of the work that you have to do you begin to see your own personal gifts and this chris said i sacrifice i work carter i work smarter i work with others and that's really this about the things we used to do on the playground wink wink and so here's here's my thought about about the advice to elders one is to be open to receive because you know as we get older we sometimes get into a mindset that this is the way it is and what elders have discovered in this process in sharing wi between young young folks sharing their knowledge elders sharing their knowledge bridges are informed by which they can cross over and say this has been your experience i now have compassion in regards to what you do every single day that i did not have to experience then there's also this link with elders who have history and it's their history they give reason for children to study history study the story so we actually have brought elders to the school the talk about their journey from the south to the north and some of the that they have to face through that journey in which they could walk into a restaurant or even up north and sometimes we think that we always are welcome into all these