But we have Timothy Conley, whose works at the California College of Arizona State University, has some wonderful leadership positions there, and teaches a variety of things, films, studies, media studies, ethnic studies, and so on. We also have Mikayla Jackson. Yes. Mikayla. A recent graduate of Georgia State University studying women's gender and sexuality and theater. Thanks. And we have Natalie Colbert here, a retired teacher after 34 years as an elementary and middle school orchestra teacher in the Atlanta Public Schools. We love our educators. We love our educators. Diane Carol George from Atlanta, who's passionate about the education and training, particularly of marginalized populations, and a loving mom, and serves on the training institute board for the southeastern states. And Paula Richards Ball, 25 years as an educator, most recently worked as an instructional coach in an elementary school and contributes in a variety of ways to the Bahá'í community here as well. And then our Jasmine Miller Klein-Hens, who's a cancer researcher at Emory University and also serves as an auxiliary board member here. So please join me in welcoming this incredible panel, Jasmine. Thank you. Thank you all so much for the love and support. And I just wanted to preface this panel as I would say it's more of a conversation and sharing some of our learnings, especially from this moment of historic portent that the House of Justice talked about. So think of it more of us sharing and as being a conversation rather than it being an academic presentation. Because as I think Shabnam alluded to, learning happens in many spaces. Knowledge is generated in many places. And this so happens to be knowledge that's been generated at the grassroots amongst communities. So I did want to start, as Shabnam mentioned, that there is a letter that came from the House of Justice on July 22, 2020, so a little bit more than three years ago. And it was written to the Baha'is of the United States. And I don't know if you all remember 2020 at all.  It was a significant moment in time. There was much happening, not just the pandemic, which restructured all of our lives, but also there was a reawakening for many people and an awareness about the social injustices happening. And the House of Justice wrote to the Baha'is of the United States was that it's actually a very rare occurrence. They write to the national spiritual assembly of the Baha'is of the United States often, but to the Baha'is of the United States themselves. A letter hadn't come from the House of Justice since 1988. So it is not common for them to write to us directly. But when they did, it was very important for us to turn our attention to it. And we continue to do so today. So I'm going to actually reread that first paragraph of that message, just so that you can work from that understanding of where we are approaching this panel. So to the Baha'is of the United States, dear Baha'i friends, a moment of historic portent has arrived for your nation as the conscience of its citizenry has stirred, creating possibilities for marked social change. It holds significance not only for the destiny of America, anticipated in the sacred writings, but also for the mission entrusted to your community by the hand of Abdul Baha'i, who cherished you dearly and called you to a path of sacrifice and high endeavor. We are pleased to see that, led by your national and local spiritual assemblies, you are seizing opportunities, whether those thrust upon you by current circumstances are those derived from your systematic labors in the wider society. To play your part, however humble, to the effort to remedy the ills of your nation, we ardently pray that the American people will grasp the possibilities of this moment to create a consequential reform of the social order that will free it from the pernicious effects of racial prejudice and will hasten the attainment of a just, diverse, and united society, that it can increasingly manifest the oneness of the human family. So with that paragraph in mind, there are many of us that seized opportunities, but some of the friends that are on the stage are those who are coming to share what we have learned since seizing these opportunities, particularly in the Southeast region, that we have a friend from the West who also, and the reason that we have invited a friend from the West is because actually we had a large group from the West come visit a few months ago to help share what we've been learning and also learn from them and to be able to continue this process forward. So I'm sure you're seeing pictures playing behind me. These are slides and pictures from the efforts to bring about a more just, diverse community, but also manifest the oneness of humanity. And as our friends are talking, these are the fruits of their labor. So these are pictures that are actually reflective of what they're sharing. So with that, I'm going to let the panelists introduce themselves and share what that moment of historic portent was like for them. And then we'll share more about what we've been learning. Good morning. My name is Natalie Colbert, and I'm a native Atlantan. Yeah, go ATL. And we're just so appreciative that the conference has been able to be here and have been learning so much. I remember that during that time of that summer, the way I was affected by it is that I have a son who's 30 years old, 35, and grandchildren. And as the events were unfolding, I began to say to myself, another generation is seeing these same things that I have been witnessing how can we begin to have the right type of conversation in families and with our youth that can help them be able to use a spiritual solution and learn how to really make change and affect it. So with that, I began just talking to my family about it. And I think that was the change for me during that time. Hi, I'm Paula Richards Bell. And for me, I'm a Guaneshan. For me, the first thing that I remember about receiving the letter from July 22, 2020, is my community's immediate reaction to the call to study it together as a community. And we did that over a series of, weeks, we studied that letter along with several other letters that had been written about race in the United States. And the love that we had been fostering, because I was fortunate to always be in a community, that it's been a number of years prior to this moment trying to center African-Americans within the community, small population, in the Baha'i community, but always trying to make sure that we were centered. And we'd probably spent a decade working towards that. And so when this moment came, there were a lot of us really ready to dive in and study and think about what we could do as community members to make change. And the other thing about 2020 is the series of brutal murders that occurred right before this letter were impactful. Because 2020 was also the same year that I was going to have to send my son off to college. And he was going to have to really leave my home of protection for the first time. And he represents and embodied all of the things that were being attacked. And recognizing that any moment, regardless of what he was doing, he was vulnerable and that I could not protect him, really hit home that particular year. And having a community that recognized that with me was very supportive and helpful. My name is Diane Carol George. When I reflect back on 2020, it was for me the first time where I kind of realized that our society is not as stable as I thought. But at any moment of a real test where to hit our nation, we would not be prepared. And I didn't know how to respond to these things. You know, there are a lot of things on the news and different things. And I felt very, when we received this message, I felt like honored to be in a faith that is directly addressing the American Baha'i community about these issues. And not only were they addressing it the way in which they are addressing it. And I remember maybe even tearing up when reading that first sentence, that a moment of historic importance have arrived in your nation. And I felt, thank you, Baha'u'llah. Hello. I'm Mikaela Jackson. And for me, in 2020, I was graduating high school and moving into my undergraduate career. I had been blessed to be a part of and working with and serving with many of the friends here on this stage and others in the community, the Baha'i community, for a little over a year. And I was animating. And I think I, in lieu of the pandemic, exposing various injustices and the fact that they can't be hidden, I felt myself in a mixed emotion of extreme anger, but also being so tired of extreme anger and not really knowing where to move forward. And my first time studying the July 2020 message, I felt similar to Diane and extreme blessing because in this message, it was saying something, answering questions that I had always had my whole life, questions around what did it mean to contribute a distinctive share and not just simply molding myself to the environments around me, to the ways in which those around me were telling me I should contribute. And so I was grateful that we were able to study this message continuously in our community. And that's where I was at. And I was grateful to be able to learn alongside these friends about greater and greater what it actually meant to contribute a decisive share and to not feel apologetic for what that looks like in spite of various friends or community members like urgently, like, no, this is how you should contribute. Before I say anything, I just want to say, this is super exciting to me to see these strong, powerful black women on the stage. Just give them a hand. And I wanted to say that. I'm Tim Conway, by the way. I'm from California, South Central Los Angeles. They say South Los Angeles. I'm from South Central Los Angeles. It's a whole other conversation. But I wanted to say that because I was raised and I was taught and held up through all of the challenges of my life by black women. Black women have been at the forefront of teaching and holding up this nation. And they're never given the credit for it. So that's why I wanted to do that. A moment of historic port. What did that mean to me? I was sharing with the friends yesterday about an incident that happened in a series of incidents that have happened in my life. And it was probably a month before we saw the unfortunate tragic incident with George Floyd. And I was up early in the morning before teaching my class. And I was out walking my dog to go to the bathroom. And there was about 15 Los Angeles LAPD cars out front about just a stone's throw from my town home. Across the street, a neighbor had had a domestic incident that had happened. That neighbor, also African-American, was about five foot six, 150 pounds. I'm going to stand up for a second. I'm the largest Baha'i in Atlanta right now. I am six foot six, a retired professional football player, and I am not five, six, 160 pounds. But to many of the police officers in our nation, whether they recognize this consciously or not, they have been taught something that started by the first police force in this nation, slavers. Enslavers, I should say.  That was the language used to justify the barbaric treatment of somebody that looked like me. So fast forward that into the future.  And whether they know this history or not, when they see somebody that looks like me, whether I'm dressed like this, which I was that morning, all they see, thug, criminal, danger, all of those things. So the first thing they did is I got about 15 police officers pulling out a gun pointing it straight at me. I am terrified because it happens over and over and over again. And I'm tired. I'm tired. It's been happening since I was 15 years old. And the only thing that stopped them from pursuing this was my white Australian wife, who came outside and demanded that they put their guns down. So how am I supposed to feel as a man, a proud man, who comes from proud, strong people, that I have to rely on my white wife to protect me? So when I received this letter, I said, glory be to God. That this administrative body understands. They understand like Abdul Baha understood. And Abdul Baha began to understand the condition of people of African descent because of his relationships that he built, with folks like Robert Turner, so on and so forth. So when I think about this moment, I think about this happened to me, but what am I going to do now? And I want to close this part of what we're talking about with something, especially since we're in Atlanta, from Dr. Martin Luther King. Now is the time to make the real promise of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. And I'm going to add sisterhood to that. Friends, brothers, and sisters, now is the time for us to continue to work, and this is what we're talking about today. Praise God. And I think one of the things, like you said, to have an administrative body, the Universal House of Justice, that addressed us so directly, there is no question that racism is a deviation from the standard of true morality. We don't have to question whether it exists and whether we need to combat it. And actually, what are the tools in which that we have at our disposal that we can utilize to do so? And so later on in that message, it says the concepts and approaches for social transformation developed in the current series of plans that can be utilized to promote race unity in the context of community building, social action, and involvement in the discourses of society have been set out in our messages. Every believer as the promulgator of Baha'u'llah's central principle of the oneness of humanity should deeply meditate upon it in ways demanding implications for the profound alteration of thought and action required at this time. So many of us had that opportunity to meditate upon what has been laid out for us in the current series of plans by the House of Justice, to address race unity, and to think about the profound alteration of thought and action that it requires. And for this particular region, we had an opportunity to reflect deeply about how we can learn with large numbers of African-American youth and their families in engaging in community building processes that will hopefully do time, which we know he says it's going to be a long and thorny path beset with pitfalls. So we know that this isn't going to happen overnight, but we took a step towards on this long and thorny path to work with these African-American youth and their families. And so we wanted to share some of what we've been learning about that. And I want Natalie to start because she will be able to provide a perspective of the Southeast how we framed our approaches, especially starting out. Thank you, Jasmine. So as she outlined, we were thinking deeply about in the Southeast region, about understanding how the training institute can affect lasting change and serve as the engine of growth and to learn about achieving race unity and social justice in all the areas of life, as well as its role in creating human resources. So our first step in learning about that took us to studying the Ruhi Institute's statement of methods and purposes. And I want to share just a little bit about that right here. It says, guided by universal participation, both as a principle and as a goal, the Ruhi Institute tries to design and carry out educational activities that combine classroom learning and personal study with acts of service in the community. Each educational activity is to be in itself an enabling experience, which helps participants develop the further qualities, attitudes, capabilities, and skills of a new type of social actor whose energies are entirely directed towards promoting the well-being of the community and whose actions are inspired by the vision of a new world civilization, which will embody all its structures and processes in it the fundamental principle of the unity of human race. So this concept of a new social actor that begins whose energies are entirely directed towards promoting the well-being of the community began a major focus of our work. And as Jasmine said, we were looking at community building, involving families, and learning how all segments of a youth's life is not dichotomous.  So as we all have said in 2020, the pressures of the pandemic came about, and it was so much grief and anger about what can we do? And we wanted to see the youth's energies directed in not fragmented areas or fragmented ways, but what can we do as a region to help them become this new social actor? And how we can start them thinking about the Institute as a place for social justice. And as it was said, Bahá'u'lláh says, those charged with strengthening the training Institute are asked, if Bahá'u'lláh names justice as the most beloved of all things in God's sight, how could there not be a Baha'i activity that does not seek to advance justice? So we then turn to the Institute after the extreme upheaval that occurred in 2020. And in consultation with Council of Lawson, the training Institute began to think about how to further stimulate the movement of youth in the region. And reflecting on the paragraph from December 30th, it says, appreciating the effectiveness of the Institute process, every follower of Bahá'u'lláh will feel a desire to contribute to its advancement in some way, not least the Bahá'i youth. Institutes know well that releasing the potential possessed by young people is for them a sacred charge. We now ask that Bahá'i youth view the future development of the Institute in the very same light. So when in that summer there was a surge of awareness in the society about the pressing need for social change, we saw hundreds and thousands of people channeling up their energies into movements that they felt addressed social change. And then we received the July 22nd message, telling us about the moment of historic port and for our nation. So observing this response of what can we do both within the Bahá'i community and the wider community, we asked ourselves, what is our understanding again about how the Institute addresses social change? And in learning about the Institute process, we know that it is free of manipulation. It is a system that seeks to empower every individual to be in charge of their own learning and through using the word of God as its guidance, using the word of God as its knowledge. And there are too many examples of participation by the righteous and the highly trained in the structures of oppression to allow any objective observer of social processes to accept proposals of change based solely and entirely on the redemption of the individual without direct attention to social forces and structures that at the same time history has already shown the evils of systems that deny individual freedom and derive their moral and social codes from a perception of the necessity of change in the structures of power. So the Ruhi Institute tries to understand the processes of transformation of human society in terms of a far more complex set of interactions. And this is from the statement of methods and purposes. There are two parallel developments, the transformation of the individual and the deliberate creation of structures of a new society. Moreover, just as it does not view the human being as a mere product of interactions with nature and society, it does not identify structural change only with political and economic processes. Rather, it sees the necessity of change in all structures, mental, cultural, scientific, technological, educational, economic, and social, including a complete change in the very concepts of political leadership and power. It is understood then that individuals, all of whom possess a more or less developed spiritual nature, may be illumined by the divine teachings, even under the most oppressive social forces. These individuals then, by no means perfected, try to walk the path of social transformation. A path, nevertheless, is not one of individual salvation, but one which implies a constant effort to create and strengthen the institutions of a new social order. So by really studying this statement and understanding with clarity how the Institute is that place where the youth can go and begin to transform themselves and become new social actors and be able to take this into their communities, that led to a series of regional youth camps in the Southeast region that were focused on this lasting change and social justice reform and meeting the needs, particularly of African-American populations, but all of our sacred youth and seeking to bring about the oneness of humanity, the power of the covenant and how the youth can draw on that as they begin to think about this moment in history. So my colleague and friend here, Paula, will talk to you about how we began that process of learning how as tutors we can begin to talk with our youth about the self-transformation. So one blessed thing about the Institute process is it's systematic, and it's systematic so that it can be replicated. So there are specific steps and actions that happen, and there was a continuous belief in action, reflection, consultation, action, reflection, consultation. That is a process that's ongoing right now with regional camps. But the very first time, we began with tutor prep, recognizing that any Institute process and any study can only be as effective as the tutors that are leading, facilitating, and learning with the group. We spent eight hours studying the July 22 message, the statement on methods and purposes. We studied the, at one point, we studied the group. We studied the Bahá'í International Community statement on eliminating racial prejudice. We studied book seven sections. We studied book one sections. We studied things from book two. There was eight hours just for the very first camp of just study. And it did not matter how committed you were if you were tutoring for a weekend, if you were tutoring for the full 10 days. And everybody that tutored had to attend tutor prep. That was mandatory. If you discovered you could not attend tutor prep, we'd be like, thank you so much, but we will catch you on the next wave. Because that is how vital it was. The tutors needed to be present because studying systematically those documents allowed tutors to be able to handle whatever conflicts and whatever isms arose within the camp. There was no need to then turn to something else or try to figure out another way of handling the situation because the Institute was born of working with people of color and handling situations in some of the most egregious spaces. And so clearly in our space, we can use that same systematic process to do that. So tutor prep was very important. And the focus of tutor prep also dealt with this idea of accompaniment. So it wasn't just study the book and now you have knowledge. It was study the book and you're gonna do something that you might not be comfortable doing because you're gonna learn how to do it so you can do it with the participants. So you've never done home visits. You're gonna do some now. You haven't hosted a devotional. Why are you tutoring in book one? And you haven't hosted a devotional before? I don't think so. You have to be part of the action that takes place, the service that takes place within whatever book you're studying. If you haven't animated a group, then you are not the best tutor for book five. You need that personal experience 25 years and we need the personal experience. You need to be able to speak to problems. You need to be able to speak to situations. You need to be able to hear what other people have said and consult together to come up with ways in which that works. So that was also very intentional. The people who were tutoring were also people involved in those activities in their own personal lives. Every subsequent camp came with tutor prep. We did not study for eight hours and then, oh now we're good forever. We went back at the beginning of every camp. There was space to study for tutor preparation. There was also space to reflect at the ends of evenings for every camp. So no matter how tired we were, how sleepy we were or where we were driving, we knew we were getting together to reflect upon the day. And that was very systematic. It's in place on purpose so that the camps can be successful and they can handle whatever happens. And a real understanding started to grow of study and action going hand in hand in the work that we were doing. So when we started every camp with the study of the July 22nd message. And I remember thinking, why are we doing that? Because time had went by and the memories and the different things, like we had to, personally I moved on with my life. I had to watch my kids and different things. But the institution brought us back to this very important message. And I still didn't know the answers but out of obedience that we just went with it and the other board members were in each of those rooms where this message was studied. And as the study of the message started, you can see it was needed. The way that the youth responded, they had a lot of questions. So even though a lot of our society had moved on, the questions that were in the hearts of the people who had not been answered. And when we were studying, they brought a lot of those questions to the space. And there was one question that I think, I had too, I mean understood it better now, but those youth who wanted to know, they sacrificed their time to come here. How is this message? How is this institute gonna really solve the problems of society? What about Abdul Baha's example? What about all these moments that we have? How do we respond in the light of this guidance and the light of things that we're studying? And the spirit of the forces that contributed to otherness were very present in the beginning of the camp. I remember going to my auxiliary board members and saying, it's feeling a little uncomfortable here. And I was saying, maybe we might wanna create another space where we can address this conversation. Maybe we wanna show some films or I don't know, but it was obviously uncomfortable. And I remember the solution being consultation with your study circles. And not imposing upon this space some other ideas. So we met with our, we met with our study circles and simple questions like, what do we do when the youth are using their phones and not participating? They had simple answers. The youth would say, it's not that hard to not use my phone. When we're studying, I can just put it aside and then after we study, we can get back to it. I don't know why that question caused me so much stress, but the youth figured it out. And then they did that. They were perfect. And then it helped build this culture of when there is a problem, you consult with it with your study circle. And it was this large group of people was a perfect arena to really put this guidance to the test. And I must say by the end of that camp or by the middle, I had to leave early. The spirit of love, those forces that had divided people or starting to erode. And the amount of love that was felt in that space by people who came to the camp. And it was because of the efforts of every individuals. And that includes the institutions, the community and every individual were all doing their share to create this type of environment. And it was a perfect space because there's so many youth to really learn about applying this guidance and not just reading it and putting it on a shelf that we are the creators of the spaces in which we live. And I think that taught me a lot how the institutions reminded us of this guidance. It was intentional and I think that's important. It was intentional that we studied this message and we addressed some of these problems very in the context in the framework of the Institute. And at the end, I personally felt because a lot of the people in my group were not behind but they still felt satisfied by this message. But it made me feel very confident to go share this message with all the people who I encountered. I shared it with you. I gave a talk at my school. I brought out the message. This is from the Universal House of Justice and the group was like the Universal House of Hoops. I shared it with my neighbors. It started the first, like one of the first study circles. It didn't continue. But I took from this space that this message does not only belong to the Baha'i community that is actually healing the hearts of all of those people who are suffering in our country. And so just to give a little bit of like context as well for these camps, the first camp that we had, it was in June and there were, it was actually a 12 day camp. I attended my first youth camp in 2019. It was about a weekend, I think it was a weekend camp. There were youth from the Southeast as well. And so to go, we went, we didn't have any major youth camps in 2020 as you might imagine. Well, I'm sorry, we did. We literally did, the camp I was about to share with. In a span from the first and second camp I attended, there were a few months where there were no larger camps. And then in reflection of what we could do, it was decided that this camp would be 12 days. Now, so the average person to go from a weekend to a 12 day endeavor with a lot of new youth that may be in sending through the institute for the first time, it was a big, it felt like a big jump to me. And we didn't really know like what would come of it. But by the end, we had a roughly like 130 youth that had participated in some extent in the camp, most of which actually stayed the full 12 days. And a lot of them that was their first experience with the Ruby Institute. And so some of the transformation that we were able to see very clearly over the series of camps because that was the first in June. And then we had another Labor Day and then a weekend. Then we had another Thanksgiving over a weekend. And then we had another longer one this December. And then we had this past June, actually. Some of what we were able to see was that many youth, some of whom had been involved with the institute process before some of whom were new for the first time, were able to learn very quickly what it looked like to actually apply what we were studying. In each camp, there was planned outreach and like community involvement based on what study circle you were a part of. So the book ones, for example, there was devotionals organized for them home visits to high families mostly, where they were able to share some of the concepts and say prayers around what they were learning. Book two participants were also engaged in home visits. Book three participants were able to like go out into communities and teach children's class either that were ongoing already or be able to learn about outreaching for new children's classes, as well as by I believe the third camp being able to host a children's festival adjacent and within this youth camp. Other aspects of transformation that we were able to see over time were that many families were actually becoming quite engaged in this process as well. It was no longer just like youth coming from South Carolina and Mississippi with their besties and maybe never going back home to share with their families, actually got the last camp. We were able to have family gatherings and some families brought like mothers and children that were part of children's festivals but also that joined book one. And we were able to even see like even amongst the volunteers by the last camp many family members were like maybe I haven't helped at a camp before maybe I've never done the Ruhi Institute before but I would love to come and just be in the space and serve food or I would love for a youth to come visit my home. And so we were able to kind of create this culture where everybody felt that they had a part in the Ruhi process and the community building process and this transformative process regardless of what that part looked like and it all felt I believe and it felt like from what the people that was around were expressing that we all felt that each role was important. In addition to other transformations that we were able to see, youth were able to forge long term friendships that at the beginning of the camps maybe like Diane was mentioning, there were some, you know, tensions but by the end there were friendships that are even forged to this day. There's like a group chat made and many of the friends are in this room so we always are like really happy to see each other but then also reflecting with each other on like how is it going? For many of the youth that came they didn't necessarily have a pretty like a large community that was doing many things back home but they really were inspired by being able to serve and actually apply what they were learning while they were here in Atlanta so much so that by the end of this camps as well our last camp in June it was planned for some youth to be able to dedicate a period of service after the camp and initially the vision was for several youth from the many states that have been represented within the camps from states and also areas. Jackson, Mississippi, Florida, South Carolina, Metro Atlanta, Georgia, Gwinnett cluster in Georgia and by the end though there was a cohort of about four youth accompanied by a resource person and Natalie and what we were able to accomplish in the month of July we actually were able to travel to each of those areas actually to some extent some visits longer than others. We were able to go to Jackson, Mississippi most recently and help in the revitalization I suppose or the vitalization of a focused neighborhood that was gonna be like new and developing and we were able to like help them to see the tangible next steps. We were able to go to Florida, South Carolina and accompany some youth that have been present in most of the camps in the starting children's classes but also learning about what does it mean for the effectiveness and quality of the children's program to be uplifted specifically drawing on resources from the neighborhood and so those are just a few of the things we were also able to outreach around the Baha'i Unity Center indicator where these camps were hosted and this past month we were able to speak to about 70 people out of 200 doors that we knocked in within a week's time every day going out studying in the mornings, going out in the afternoons reflecting on what are the questions that we're asking people what are the questions that yielded the 12 conversations that maybe lasted more than 15 minutes and in that learning we were able to have several people that actually came a few people that came to events within that week and we were able to think about what is it that got this mom and her three kids to our children's festival days within meeting or this youth to come to a youth night on his own volition within meeting and we're still I think reflecting on this but a lot of it had to do with tapping into what they also understood to be important and that importance is working together with the community many of the people that we spoke to didn't necessarily already feel that their community was very collaborative but saw that there was a need for it and so I feel like the more that we were able to tap into that in our conversations the longer the conversations will yield and often people will share like things that they're trying to do already that they feel to be addressing these and often they're very eager to hear about a larger process that was taking place where more and more people are gathering and also considering that there's a spiritual reality to these solutions. What wonderful, wonderful service happening here in the Southeast region. I was excited to hear about Mississippi being included in this service, right? My family range from a small town, Grenada, Mississippi about an hour from Jackson, Mississippi where you all were serving and so I'm happy to hear that the message of Baha'u'llah is shining its way through Mississippi and other places, of course. I just want to share briefly about when a group of African-American tutors made our way to Atlanta back in March when it was much colder. Kind of felt like this room outside. Not how it feels outside now but like this room you need a jacket or shawl or something, right? But in all seriousness, it was really, really transformative for us to be able to share about the service and learning in a large city like Los Angeles and also in metropolitan area of Atlanta, right? And one of the things that was really important is one of the friends was invited who at one point was really, really active and sort of pulled back in many respects and then I can understand why. I had a long conversation with this friend before we came down here and she explained to me that one of the reasons that she had pulled back is the reason that a lot of folks pulled back. We have been studying a pathway of service and talking about unity from one perspective for so long and is extremely Eurocentric. It is not talking about centralizing or acknowledging other perspectives, one of them being Afrocentrism. Afrocentrism is a pathway of study and understanding, seeing the world through what we would call African eyes. I heard my dear brother Masoud Olofani talk about his connections to his family roots in the continent of Africa and really engaging in a high level of Afrocentrism. And there's been a stain on this country of really not allowing for and speaking against people of African descent in a derogatory and undignified way. And speaking as if people of African descent are less than. And that language seeps its way into not only those of European descent but of other descents in our communities whether they wanna acknowledge that or not because that is the language that has been reigning supreme in the continent of United States. So because of the challenges of not centering blackness or not centering other perspectives it causes distance sometimes and challenges within communities. And in order to change that it is the work that we're hearing about right now. The truth. The truth is that Africa, people of African descent are those who come from the cradle of humanity, right? We know scientifically now that the continent of Africa is where humanity started whether folks wanna believe that or not. And that for thousands of years innovation, thousands of years strength, thousands of years of majesty come from the continent of Africa and spread out amongst now what we call the world. And so we're all one human family and it's okay to center blackness. It is okay to begin to understand the conditions of those of African descent in this country. And it is okay to really dive deep. And it is important to dive deep. And so coming down here we studied from I'll say an Afrocentric perspective the statement of purpose and methods. And I had never really dove into the statement of purpose and methods and I've been a tutor for quite some time. And after studying that document this friend and studying from another perspective a perspective that she could engage with that she felt safe with that finally understood her condition has come back home to Los Angeles and has arisen to serve once again.  She is on fire in her service. And that is because of what happened here in Atlanta. And for the friends who cared so much to acknowledge the work and the majesty of people of African descent. So I'll stop there. We don't have much time but I did because our friend came so far. There was something I think that we were hoping that you would share in particular about how the institutions have been impacted in this time and just sharing about the two, what is it two? Two stage election. Two stage election in the Los Angeles community. Just sharing a little bit about that and then we'll. I'll try to make it brief but you give a microphone to a former preacher and a teacher and I don't always know how to be brief but I will. Remember the convention. I'm looking at your eyes.  I'm not gonna talk. I have a couple aunties that have those eyes and I'm still nervous. In short, you all are probably aware or many of you are aware that there was the first of what is happening now across the country in two stage elections. In Los Angeles was one of the cities that was chosen. It was Los Angeles, San Diego and New York were the first cities. Now I think it's Chicago and Arizona in the second two stage election that happened this past Rizvang. And so in that first two stage election something happened in Los Angeles that had never happened before. And we have now serving on this current assembly that started with that two stage election a couple years ago for African Americans serving on the Los Angeles Spiritual Assembly. And why is that important? When I talked about earlier seeing the world from other perspectives, if we're really gonna reach the community in the backyard of the Los Angeles Bahá'í Center which is South Los Angeles then we need to understand the conditions of the community that is there which is predominantly black and brown. And understand truly how we can be a part of this moment of historic portent. And so this election, the first one was interesting. And I thought it was gonna be business as usual. I hadn't seen any change. And the fact that they were, and I'm jokingly saying this but maybe somewhat serious, they were crazy enough to vote me on the assembly but I'm somewhat joking on that. Was interesting. And I think often about this because in my work as a department chair in a PWI for those who don't know the terminology that's a predominantly white institution we have all of these acronyms that we use. Bahá'ís know we use a lot of acronyms as Bahá'ís. I really thought about that because one of the first things I did in that PWI is I made sure that I opened up the opportunity for deserving people of color to have opportunities to teach in my institution. And I'm proud that we were able to do that because we went from having predominantly all white males teaching our classes to now having balance of women, women of color, men of color, all teaching courses. And of course, you know, I was gonna make sure that we had some brothers and sisters in that teaching course. When I say brothers and sisters, I'm talking about black folks, all right. So I was gonna make sure that deserving that weren't given those opportunities. And so I think about this and the reason I'm bringing this up is when we're consulting as an assembly, we're now consulting from those who are bringing their culture, culturally responsiveness into the consultations, into the decision-making. And every single assembly member on that assembly is engaged in the framework of and for action within the community. We're not just serving on the body. We are hands deep, feet deep, in there with the friends in the community and whether it's accompanying or leading discussion or whatever it may be or being active in the field like brother Derek Smith talked about Ella Baker, we are in there doing the work at a grassroots level. That is what's gonna change things, folks. Not just Orator's talking in front of people as he was talking about, but people at the grassroots level, whoever you are, whether you serve on an assembly or you serve in a different capacity, if your job is just to say the prayers, we all have a commitment to serve the cause of Bahá'u'lláh's panacea for society, for America, for Canada or wherever you hail from. That is our duty to be of service. And that's what this assembly in Los Angeles understands. And we wanna thank the friends in Atlanta for helping us to help others arise to serve and also learning from you all how we can institute some of the things you're doing in the camps that we're doing, such as focused neighborhoods like View Heights in the South Los Angeles area. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. I just wanted to thank all the panelists. I know it's hard to condense years worth of effort, hundreds of and probably thousands of families, youth, community members, institutional members. It's not, we're trying to condense so much into such a small amount of time. But I think what you can see is that through systematic efforts to bring about social change, much can happen. And the systems of oppression are working hard and they're systematic and they do not rest. And so we have to do the same in terms of our systematic effort to raise up not one Martin Luther King but one on every block, one in every home, multiples in every home. That's what we're doing. Praise God. And so I just wanted to thank you all and end the panel with just the last part of the message which says that which is confirmed is the oneness of the world of humanity. Every soul who served this oneness will be undoubtedly assisted and confirmed. So I hope that all of you today feel that you can go out, hopefully taking some of what we've learned to impel you to work towards this oneness and hopefully we'll have more learning generated that we can share this time next year. Thank you all so much. Thank you.


Ma. Ma, ma. Ma, ma. Ma, ma. Welcome to the Thursday vlog, and we are with Steve, he decided to come in here, because he was on the floor yesterday after eating typhoon. We just want to show everybody that he is alive. How ya feel, Steve? You know, the monster probably wasn't the best idea. My stomach hurts. He did survive, he survived the experiment. Yeah, the typhoon incident. The incident. Got some Oladine news, I'm still alive.  Exactly. And then we are finally, we got the magical foam on the walls. Foam equals studio. Yeah, and we're all impressed. We all have, how do you say it? Did we ear-sring at night? Well, tinnitus. Yeah, or tinnitus, as some people will say it. So one of us doesn't have it. I was noticing, once you get in the studio and you covered all the foam, you go, wow, my ears ring a lot. Yeah, they really do. They really, really do. But that's all right, though. You know what, we'll flip the camera around like this. And you can see how we decorated the walls. And now we'll bring it back. Like that. Magic. Magic is the last time I remember to edit it. Studio magic. So if magic didn't just happen, all tom's fault. All my fault. So we are doing it today, but we're not sure what we're going to do yet for next Thursday. I'm always planning ahead, seven days ahead, because Microsoft is flying me out to the build conference and they're flying me out Tuesday. And they don't fly me back until Friday. So I don't know, we'll do. We can do a long distance. We can Skype you in. Yeah, Google Hangouts. Maybe do Google Hangouts or maybe me, Steven, Kyle, we'll just do our own. That's fine, too. You guys could just do it without me and I would be fine. Kyle's got things to say. Of course he does. I want to make a collection of Kyle's puns. Because, dude, some of them are really, really bad, but they just, he rips off all the time with some. He makes us pause and stop and think about what in the world he just said. So that's, maybe that'd be a list. We'll give Kyle one of these and we'll get them just to... Just to rattle off. If he could write them all down, the ones he does, like the weekly Kyle pun reading. We should keep track of them. We'll have a whiteboard with all of Kyle's puns on it. That'd actually be pretty good. That would be pretty good. This isn't a Kyle pun, but it's one of my favorite puns that a buddy of mine Russ told me.  No. It's a little chewy. Okay.  Oh, and on that topic. And it's May the 4th. So May the 4th be with you. Oh, right, yeah, right. May the 4th be with you. I loved our 2D2 in Star Trek. Oh yeah, he was great. Yeah, when Gandalf was captain of the Enterprise, it was great. Oh my goodness, yeah. And he would always be like, use the Force, Harry. Yeah. Is there any culture we didn't defend yet? Yeah, we're working on it. Yeah, we're working on it for the future. Do not install Back to the Future. Did you know Rick and Morty is a rip-off of Back to the Future? Of course, yeah, of course, yeah. When I look up Morty and Doc. Yeah, the first time I ever, I was like, did they, I just saw, I just saw, the first time I saw it, I just saw like a screen capture and I was like, did they make a cartoon version of Back to the Future? And I was like, Rick and Morty, what's that? And then I fell in love with it. Yeah, whole another topic. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyways, on to technical things. I just posted a new Google phishing email which I just posted a video about. Really interesting. I posted, not just, I didn't need to reiterate the news but I posted how you can check your security settings in your Google account because once you get your Google account taken over because this is the way cloud services work, it's not like you can clean your computer or disinfect it. You have now connected your account to the attacker's account system that is stealing all your email addresses and emailing all your friends. Google did shut them down, but it's still a good time to, anytime's a good time to do a security audit. Especially after maybe you clicked on a Google link that said it was from someone and it was all a scam. So yeah, there's that. You could still have things shared with people you don't talk to anymore. You could have things shared with people. You're now enemies with. Yeah. I've had people just randomly share things with me, like folders and things like that. I still have a weird list of things that have been shared. I don't know why. Just maybe because I've been using Google Docs since it came out like 10 years ago. Yeah. People are just like, Tom would like this. A lot of people actually just set theirs to open and use it in place of file sharing programs like mega upload and that now. Yeah. You can actually use it for that and they just share folders or things. So that's always fun. So if you want to share a folder with me, I guess I'll look, depending on what's in it. Yeah. Onto more technical things. It won't stop raining here in Michigan. We've been trying to get some jobs outside done but apparently the weather is working against us. We're probably gonna have to cancel another job tomorrow if the rain doesn't let up because we're supposed to do another wifi, outdoor wifi system for actually, we have more than one client that once when installed, the weather delays are kind of hanging us up. So I got a big box of Unify stuff to program but we can't finish deploying until the weather gets better.  We've been doing a lot more of the wireless deployments. Everyone, we've been working with the wifi company that did the virtual terminals for the carnival. We've helped them out with some more things that's from the time goes to the carnival things. Right. Where big flight broke out, did you see that? Oh yeah, yeah, they had a pretty big. I've saw it, I was like, dang it, Tom started another riot. It wasn't over the wifi, because the wifi kept coming out. No, actually they said in the new story that the one thing everybody was happy with was the wifi. Yeah. Yeah, really. Yeah, let me show that. We will have a grand opening for our new building in how many weeks, Steve? Like after you get back. Okay. Well, you said after you get back because you're flying out on Tuesday, it didn't make much sense to do it. We're trying to set the date. We're gonna have a date set here maybe before I leave. Probably don't want to do it Memorial weekend though. What day is that? That would be the 26, seven, eight, nine. Probably don't want to do it like. Oh, we can do it like the Monday after it gets back. Yeah, you can do it Monday because it's just like the chambers and stuff. So we're working on it. I know people are asking, I have a couple of different news agencies that, hey, I'd like to write an article. We want to make sure everything's finished and everything's put away. We have the studio, but just off screen is a mess that we slid over. It's not that bad. It's not that bad. It's really not. A couple pieces of foam in a box. It's good to have a big table. The other side of the wall is a tragedy. Yeah, I was very excited to have the largest office in the place until they filled it with a bunch of stuff. Yup. We really need you to move your desk closer to the wall. Exactly, I felt so much like Milton. I was like, I could set the building on fire. We took opportunity to basically go through everything that we ever possessed here at the store, like every screw and scrutinize whether or not we should keep it. And then it's kind of like, this is how it goes. Like we know the goal of this quest. We know the end of the road and the dragon we want to kill. And there's so many side quests like, ooh, look what I found. Ooh, should we keep this? Should we eBay this? Oh, what about all this? Oh, why do we still have this? And then something breaks and then something falls down. And then somewhere in between, we're actually running a business. So, somewhere in between. Somewhere in between, there's a business be run, so there's still billing, there's still, you know, clients that need issues, new deployments. We got my team out right now, is doing another school with putting more cameras in and drilling holes and all the other things. So the business kind of goes on and when there's not clients, we're just back here at it.  So, there's a lot of, where's that thing? I just saw that thing yesterday. Yeah. And that thing is money. Money. Yeah. There was money yesterday. Where's that thing? And there's no money today. We had stacks of it, and what happened to it all? It's all gone. So we've been a little bit more on top of billing. Yeah, so. By the way, remind me to invoice the people for the carnival stuff. Oh. They haven't sent an invoice yet. They're carnival, they've already moved on. They're out of town now. We missed that opportunity. You missed the opportunity to bill them. What other exciting things are you going to buy? They did buy a router when they came in though. They did? Yeah. Oh, cool. Excellent, excellent, excellent. That's very good. Well, they did spend some money. Hey, all right. But my tent's been occupied with building my office out, which someone asked me to do a quick tour of my office. Maybe I'll get that done today, so it's pretty brief. It's a pretty small office. I made my office really small. Six and a half by nine, it's a change. Tour of the office means there's my office. I like, my goal is to own a tiny house and just live in a small area. I'm much happier like that. And in a short term, I built myself a really small office. Everyone's like, why don't you need a bigger office? Like, all I want to do is stare at my computer screens and have a couple little things in there. So I have a really small office. And it is, because we literally built and built the walls for it, I truly did design it to be that big. It wasn't like an incident of something that could have been bigger. Well, yeah. You wanted seven by 10, but the studs were at like six and a half and nine foot eight, I think. That's fine. Something like that. Way to leave room for the door to open when we built this. But once we're done, we're going to do a whole, once we're done with the entire T of the building, we'll do an entire one. I probably will do just like my specific office because people want to know about some of the workflow and how I use Linux to process all these videos, which also brings me to being kind of fun. I'm going to bring my camera to the Microsoft Build Conference. They said I got permission to film, so we're good on that. And the only other thing about it is I'm going to be running Linux on my laptop. So I got that to talk to them about, because they wanted to do a Skype conversation today. I already have another appointment at the time when I do Skype, and I'm almost like, you know, you guys kind of let the Linux Skype support flounder. So sorry, I can't talk to you. Oh, no. I kind of want to say that. Well, and here's the thing. Why were you invited to this conference, Tom? I'm not sure. Oh, you know why you were invited. There's a decent possibility Tom doesn't come back from this conference. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And when we asked, they're just like, Tom, we don't know. Tom, Tom, who? We never heard of Tom. Yeah, they're just like, those guys don't care much for our products. But on a good note, we actually are going to be interviewing some engineers. That's what, I'm starting to, they're starting to get the itinerary together and the schedules together. That's actually what I have to discuss between today and tomorrow with Microsoft over Skype. We just got to get the meeting. They're supposed to send me some agendas, which is pretty cool. So if people have things you want me to ask to Microsoft engineers, email tom at laurancesystems.com. And I will hopefully have time to ask questions. Now, I don't have the list of the engineer's names, but it's going to be regarding any of the Linux services that are running on the Azure servers is something we're going to be discussing with. So it's because Microsoft, as they claim loves Linux, or as I say, they love Linux podcasters. Ha! Ha, ha, ha.  They're running on Microsoft, right? They're running on Microsoft. Well, it could with all the downtime of Outlook.com. Yeah. Zing. Zing. Anyways. But that's about it. It's been so much work getting this done. I don't have time to get all the other YouTube stuff I want to get done, but that was the goal of building this whole studio out was so I can get a lot more time put into doing more YouTube videos and have an easy place, because one of the problems before was we set up this early in the morning and then we have to move it because we were also using as our tech area. This is a dedicated kind of studio space. Mark, grab the mixer. Mark. My name's Mark, not Mark. I thought I said Mark. That's all right, look at that. You totally said Mark. We are going to be putting in like cool stuff and Mark's got the slide. Be like DJ Mark. Oh, heck yeah. We're gonna drop the next hottest mixtape. Yep, DJ Big Marvy here. Yeah, that's me. Gonna burn the place down. We gotta get our microphone set up and you know, put all this in there. Then the TV's gonna go on the wall and you know, just, we're gonna make this kinda cool.  Somebody say yeah. So, that's what we got going on but we are excited cause as, once all this gets set up and it can just, you know, we're not moving boxes all the time, we'll just leave it set up, we'll be able to come in here, rip recordings, do some more product reviews, have all the lights set up and everything just ready to go whenever we want. And that's gonna make our workflow so much more convenient cause YouTube's always been the kind of the in between stuff we do between everything, being able to just go with it whenever it'll be great. And I wanna do more drone videos and it's been raining constantly and the drone's just not like the rain. So yeah, that's on our to-do list is get that and get signs on our building and more graphics and. They're coming. They're coming. They're on order. Government. Yeah, government. Yes. Government. Oh, side note cause I'm still getting emails regarding this. So, I'm debating out how to handle this. Now I went and filled out with a leasing company that they had a property inquiry of one of the other property looked at over on King Road. So we filled out with the leasing company. They have a contact us form. No big deal. I put contact us on there. That set off a slew of emails and phone calls. I heard you're moving. So they didn't, they talked around it. I couldn't get a single person who's called or emailed me to answer where they got the lead from. But I already know I only ever filled out because we always dealt directly with the owners of the building. I would go and seek them out so I could bypass leasing companies. This one wasn't as easy so I just filled out their little form online and they clearly have sold my information and decided to give it cause no one else knew we were moving. Like moving companies, painters, everything. Like, oh, we'll help you get that new building ready. We don't even have a building yet when they were calling. Yeah. Alls it was was me filling that out and it clearly set off cause I just got out of email today. How's your new office going? Here's different artwork we have for sale for your office. I mean, they wasn't one like a structured cabling company that called you. Right. Like you clearly don't even know what we do. Exactly, right? Yeah, no, we got that covered. Yeah. Yeah, we are a cabling company. So I'm not thrilled about it because I went and looked again. There's nothing on it. It says they could give my information out which is probably why that these companies won't tell me where they got the lead from but I know cause there's only one leasing company that's Signature and Associates, right? It was that guy? I believe so, yeah. So he's got signs all over the place and it's, he comes like this whole, well that one guy alone we talked to covers like the whole down river area. Everything I see with Signature on it has his name. Yeah. I'm less than thrilled but also maybe I wouldn't mind having some leads for it. That's what I'm thinking, right? Like how did they get this information? No, I'm not super angry. Just throw me the leads too. Yeah, right. But yeah, I just, I didn't see that in anywhere on there. It says when you contact them and we never signed a lease with them because it was well absurd what they wanted for the building. Yeah, that's why they sold it. They're like we're gonna get some money somehow. Yeah, so they make money off selling the list and the lead but they never, we never signed a lease so less than thrilled about that and a big picture of things but still happy that we're here. We like our new landlord, he's great and we've been getting along well. He keeps coming for tours of what we've done to his building and he's been pretty impressed. So. Super nice. And he's a super nice guy. Really is. It's because of how you, I was here one day working by myself and he just stopped when we were getting the carpet done and he just stopped and he goes, I just wanna stop and see how you guys are doing. I go, we're doing great. He goes, well, when are you guys supposed to open? I go Monday with like a couple days from now. He goes, oh, that's great. Yeah. He's just happy. Yeah, he's just a real just laid back. Just yeah, happy dude. He lives in the area. He'll just stop in and, you know, he takes care of some of the stuff around here. He cuts the grass. Yeah, I was walking back from the road and I saw his car with the trailer and there he is just driving around on the lawn mower.  Yeah, what when you're retired? That's actually pretty cool. I would totally dig that. How much would you pay a company though to do that versus I'm retired and I got a bit of time in the area? I'll just go, I'll go ride my lawn mower around. Exactly. I'd be paying somebody a hundred bucks, you know, every couple of weeks. Yeah, right? Yep. All right, well, thanks again for watching. We'll figure out what we're gonna do next week or they're gonna do next week because I know what I'm doing next week. Yeah, we'll come up with something. Don't worry. Let's Photoshop you in.  Could do that. Yeah. Actually, you know, we'll just check. We just need to. We need to take a check. Oh, we'll talk about that. Yeah. All right. Thanks for watching. Bye. Like and subscribe.


Yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, what's good? What's good? What's good? Y'all what's going down? What's going down man? What's happening right now? What's happening if you can hear me? Let me know If I sound good, let me know What's good everybody I had to set up some modern warfare 3 for you guys man. I've been playing it since Last night man, and boy it's it's been a doozy. Let me go ahead and bring in the visuals man Go ahead and bring in the visuals What's good everybody? What up with up with up with up? Yeah This has been a very interesting few hours. Like I said, I've been playing a game since 11 o'clock last night and Boy, oh boy. It has been Tough I know I'm being dubbed probably playing on streaming our you know our join gameplay of this of modern warfare 3 I want to say possibly I know this weekend is his son's birthday. Isaiah's birthday So he's gonna be busy with that, but I do believe Maybe sometime in the middle of next week We can definitely get some some dual gameplay sessions We've just been trying to set it up make sure everything looks good for you guys So we're gonna be trying to get that Situated so we will be doing some some Dual stream action man, but in the meantime this weekend, I will be streaming the game for you guys So it should be a good one Should be a good one. Oh Man this, huh, bro, this someone that commented I'm waiting to see Ross rage It's gonna be some raging bro. I've been raging already like I This is this is tough I Gotta get used to the time to kill I gotta get used to you know the visuals Yes, I played these maps long time ago, but the way people play them now is much different from back then It's gonna be a good one It's gonna be a very good one So we're gonna get right into this one man. I gotta show y'all how bad I've been struggling Y'all need to see so I need to fix this up. Let me go to settings Need to make sure I get the same right Where is it? Oh, I hadn't even switched over the screen y'all can't even see what I'm doing my bad Let me go to it boom. There we go All right, I need to go to visuals graphics No, is that it? Yeah, it's graphics Fullscreen exclusive bit All right So the cool thing about this game is if I go to multiplayer Cool thing. I can't say that they've done with this game that I can't appreciate It's the fact that this is a character that I was able to unlock in modern warfare 2 right here Oh, I wouldn't even try to get into a lobby. No, I'm gonna try to even get to a lobby. Let me show you So when you go to operators all the operators that you unlocked last in the last modern warfare You can carry them over So I do appreciate that because you know people spend a lot of money on those on the packs and stuff like that The character skins and the fact that they actually transfer over it's pretty cool. So I do like that I think that's dope I wouldn't try to do that. Oh, I do like to spawn character. I Still have to unlock him through the battle pass which I'm about to so and then all the stuff over from the battle pass Still keeps going through so you can still unlock stuff on the current battle pass. So I Like that and then when we go to the weapons go to the weapons they had the modern warfare 2 weapons and it comes with the The the bundles that you bought I bought this bundle. So it still comes over which is cool I I appreciate that the only thing is and I don't know if people have said this I don't know if anybody's mentioned this is The fact that the modern warfare 2 guns Aren't as good as obviously the modern warfare 3 guns I don't think they were optimized for the time to kill in this game So they're not as good like I've tried the modern warfare 2 guns There's a lot of visual recoil there and it takes more shots to kill people. So yes It's not as good as you would think, you know I'm saying That's why the mark the modern warfare 3 guns. They're still the top tier guns And I think they made it that way so people are forced to still want to use the better guns because It only makes sense to you know, so just want to make sure the visuals look good There we go So as you can see I have some of these modern warfare 3 guns, but they're there At least the attachments and stuff come with it. So if you do want to use them, you can so Now let me show y'all how much I've been struggling. Whoa.  That was weird That was weird my screen just went black. I wouldn't even try to do that Let me make sure the graphics is still good for stringer scoops of our bit. So let me show y'all if I can get to Trying to figure out where the bags would be I think it's would it be under Hot HQ. No, it would probably be under maybe progression. No, it's not under progression stats Let me show y'all this is my KD, bro Look at this. I played 16 games. Got two hours time Look at my KD, bro a 0.84 Now I want you to understand All the Call of Duty games I've played. I'm over a 2 KD easily on every single call of duty I've played I'm over a 2 KD. I Think the highest KD I've had was probably black ops 3 and 4 I think and I had it on both consoles back then on Xbox I think I was like a two-something on PlayStation. I was like a I had like a 4 KD then on X black ops 4 I had like close to 3 KD all the other advanced warfare infinite warfare over to I'm not flexing.  Oh Man Model cap, what you mean cap? I'm not you want me to show the stats. I don't I don't I don't have to lie Are you saying cap to to my KDs and other games? I can show you the stats I don't I don't lie about that But yeah, man, this is it's tough. So maybe y'all will give me the good luck. Hey Ronin, bro Hey, I I mean Please Ronin chill, bro. Like, you don't have to keep reposting the same thing. I saw it earlier, bro Just chill dog anyhoo Yeah I'm gonna try to figure this out, bro I'm about to get folded on here then well That's the thing what I found out is with the games they pretty much Gather all your kills like your average KD from multiple call of duties I think they started with 2019 and they pretty much already have you in a skill bracket as soon as you start the game So I was destined to play nothing but switch Jesus bro, look at this man I'm My highest kill streak was eight My highest kill game was 27.  So we're gonna give it a shot man I'm gonna need y'all to send me all the best wishes. Are you watching SmackDown tonight with dub? I'll probably watching his solo a dub. You know, he he'll show up if he's able to I know he's gonna be with the kids. So Yep, caught this. It's turned into that. I didn't even see him. Let me turn it down.  I'm gonna turn it down just a little bit. Hey, I'm gonna turn down just a bit like right there Right there should be good then Cuz I it looked like it was a little bit loud on y'all All right, let's try this again No graphics full screen to survive Are you gonna play the campaign or are you not a car campaign person? I'm not I Watch other people play it before I play it.  I think I see I sounded I just want to make sure it sounded good Yeah, I turned it out just a bit. I had to turn it out just a bit Hi, oh rust. Oh rust. Oh, this is about to be.  Yep What's good? What's good? If I'm not talking this because I'm trying to concentrate on this Taking effective fire. Oh, he's not even playing so I don't even really matter switching bags Shoot me again.  I think he's above me. Did he spawn in front of me?  I just gotta get my aim together Like see how many shots that took I didn't even know they were right there Got the lucky headshot. I'm gonna go to the next point. Where did he come from? I don't know He's just take so many shots to kill people. I heard him at the last second I'm dead. Got stunned. No, I'm not copying the Nicki Minaj skin I'm taking fire Yeah, I can't I can't hear nothing, bro. I'm playing on PC. He's look at look at my team and look at their team, bro They're thrashing us.  I'm dead. Put this right here. All right. I got one of them And then I'm dead. How did I kill him? I don't know and then I'm dead Oh, there's that one dude sniping over there and again. I can't even get over. This is just One by one point dog. We won the game by one point, but we got thrashed.   That was so bad Man that was bad.  Oh, it's right here. Love trigger.   Yes, sir uh That's the double XP. That's the weapon XP and that's the I'm gonna run with this I need that weapon XP.  Let's do this hurry up Crossback hurting I didn't carry. I mean I didn't I wouldn't even at the top of my leader team, bro I'm trying. I'm trying y'all. I need to get a rhythm I'm trying and I'm trying to stay positive because boy Getting man, this is tough It Definitely tough wins a win. Yeah wins a win, but Jesus, bro I'm trying to get to 40 kills I can't even do that It's going on But I appreciate y'all joining in and prompt to like like I said, uh, I don't know if I'm gonna be streaming later on the night I probably won't Uh the game I'll probably end up streaming the game tomorrow tomorrow afternoon and then um Probably maybe sunday So I'll be streaming it all weekend. So be a lookout for that Um, and then uh, like I said, we should be able to stream me and dub should be able to stream the actual game together um To uh next week sometimes next week. So All right, y'all let's Let's go Oh the packet burst All right, I got something going there Try to hold this spot now get as much points as possible and then I'm dead Y'all saw that just that quick. Yep, man. I'm dead. Don't know where I was getting shot from and I'm dead Geez, bro Uh Maybe I'm just not good at call of duty no more man That may be the case, bro I just may not be that good at call of duty no more. I think maybe I'm proud of my prime How did I lose that I shot him in everything I knew where he was coming from and I still died Can someone tell me how I lost that? I lost that man trying to hold down this point Saw him first everything and I still died.  I'm not playing elite. Y'all know elite. I'm not dropping 50 60 kills. This ain't it I'm getting destroyed, bro.  How did I lose that during the fight, man? Well, I didn't get to kill off that. I'm not just playing with pc players. I'm playing with everybody I'm trying to get something Yep Five kills, bro This is just I don't know it was different. I was having a lot more fun in the beta than this The full game.  I'm playing on keyboard uh on controller He's shooting his dead body.  How did I lose that, bro? He's up here Shot him first and everything and I still lost that I don't know man. Maybe this gun ain't it because I every time I shoot somebody first I still died They just melt me so I don't know man.   What's going on up here, man? What y'all got going on up here? And then they go right back up there Like what is happening man? I have 13 kills And that Like how am I to how am I to combat that? I'm sorry my back. Gee that was bad. We won the Damn, I gotta find me the right gun setup, bro Appreciate that uh Walid 14 and 28 Each y'all Ross gonna be a mod on your channel. Oh, you don't make one sure you mod on the main channel too Welcome to the mod crew Oh my god, bro Y'all see the sweat. Oh, okay. I got a suppressor. I got a lot of stuff. Okay Let me back out because I'm gonna try to rank this uh kind of before I switch to something else And I like that one. Oh, this comes with a suppress Sprint the fire I may go with this under barrel I don't have a grip Let's just go with this magazine I'll go with this I like this one all right See what we can get Because I'm getting thrashed, man Getting thrashed All right, let's do this. Let's try this again. We won two games on the road though. So that's good Gotta go back to work. Have a good one. We the ones. Amen. Appreciate you joining in just for a little bit Thank you so much And uh, you know, hope you have a rest of a good day at the job. I'll probably play that one Ross they're air frying you like solo. Yeah, man. I'm getting cooked We're winning but I'm getting cooked, bro This is why I decided to play Hardpoint because all you need to do is just stay on the objective as long as you possibly can, bro So I'm trying to get my timing right because I know people are going to come to the objective But also trying to get as many kills as possible and trying to get as much score as possible So I can rank up quicker so I can get all the attachments and perks I want to get Yo Ross, will you be streaming smackdown tonight? Of course, man Of course, bro. I'm doing all I can To make this make this work. All right, let's get into this one, man They're gonna nick him a notch I haven't played this mapping so long, bro Gosh, I'm about I he was laying down, bro. And he melted us with that gun He was laying down Oh, they got UAV. I killed him, but I'll take it Yep, gosh, I'm about Why am I spawning there just to get shot in my back? I'm trying I'm trying how I didn't get oh, that's a weird spawn. Y'all saw how much sweat that was I'm dripping with the sweat, man. No, I'm gonna save it I'm gonna save it for the next one What's going down? What's going down from above shot in my back. I'm like look at that, bro Look at that. What am I to do? What am I to do, bro? I think it was laying in the shadows All right, we can make it come back. Maybe changing man.  I got lucky, bro Damn it. I lost that job, bro. I still lost that I may need to change up my sensitivity, too What am I to do? What am I to do? I need to change up the sensitivity Bro, that's that's ridiculous, bro We got some teammates trying to try to make it a come back Let's go.  I'm out here. So I'm out here saucing it up like a white person, man I gotta get a little bit of season in my drill Okay Okay It takes forever to drop the damn equipment This is the best game I've had so far requesting reconfly. I'm dead Yep This yeah, this is the best game I've had so far in this game, bro. Yeah, they got it I got thrashed, but that was the best game I had so far, man That was the best game I had so far, man.  What is that? Give me all the attachments, man Let me back out. How much time I got left I only have one minute left of double XP. All right. Let me see Do I have any more because I like using the guardian to get I got the overwatch. Hello. I'm not getting that shit, but I'll still That's still I ain't getting it right now. It's going to take some time It's going to take some time to get the overwatch. Hello Um, let me run We run magazine 45 Because that's a must I'll take this off. Yeah Oh, yeah, I can put my kd on here too. So I'll put that on here Try to get some camos um Trying to see Let me see. Do I need a up controller? aiming The horizontal I'll probably turn it up just a little bit Let's try five I'm gonna try five Let me see controller Yeah, I'm gonna go with a five horizontal Six vertical All right Get it going, man. What's going now? Let's see nation Yeah, I did hear about uh gta 6 It's gonna be interesting kd herding for sure kd is getting cooked I mean getting flambéed And the thing is you would think if your kd if you have bad games It's gonna put you in easier lobbies. Not for me.  I cannot complain Hopefully you guys have been joining as well And I want to thank y'all for joining in All right All the game you call doc to modern warfare 2 it's it's an expansion pack, bro It's an expansion pack a lot of packet burst Somebody come through this way I'm late this map is so long, bro Yeah, it's pretty much a 70 dollar expansion Oh my bad, man Yep, got sniped Damn it I like the visibility on this map. I like what they did with the visibility here I look I couldn't even see Where he was shooting them us from Jesus Then I'm dead Yeah, I hadn't played warzone in a while, bro I kind of lost my interest for warzone to be honest with you used to play it a lot more But now I don't know who's the metal ass second man. He got stunned Switching bags. All right. Let's rotate over He spawned there and what is out to do I'm just ladder I'm trying to figure out how to get down I shouldn't even challenge that Yep, dead I mean you just spawn and you just get sniped and there's not much you can do about that How did we lose that? What type of spawn was that? Someone's above us Shit, yeah, I knew someone was above us And I'm dead Yes, that is uh, Keith Davis voice. I'm playing as uh, my character is uh, spawn Y'all saw that? Y'all just saw how many shots that took I don't even You wasn't tripping man shot him first and so many people was coming after me, man If I can just get my rhythm down. Yep, two behind us.  I'm happy. I got my first, uh Aerial street, but we about to lose it takes forever to place a damn century gun.   Okay, I'll take it but just let me place down the streaks Why is it so complicated? I'm sitting up there pressing rt. It wouldn't let me drop it.   Yes, I can get the suppressors this Uh, let me see how it does with that No, I'm not joining you because it means I'm not joining you, bro. I'm playing solo right now Ah, so annoying. Um, let me see. Oh the answer is no Let's see. No Oh man, I don't want to play a state.  He don't really deserve that. I'm gonna just be honest with you That's cold. They're cooking him I'm going with this. Let me go audio Because the game All right, I got the suppressor on there.   Yep Takes you on the reload To he means doing but we're getting destroyed This is one of those games Alrighty, y'all. I don't know. I'm I may back out of this one because we can't get nothing going Yeah, I may back out of this one, bro. Yeah, I'm gonna go to some free for all, bro Uh, yeah, it just it's not it. Let me go back. Let me go to some free for all Switch it up ain't because Jesus Christ. I'm I'm just getting flambéed I'm getting cooked dog audio. Let me go to Audio i'ma turn it up just a bit voice chat to like 15 14 Let me see you make the funny sound bites when wrestlers do moves like Beak and heal and hit them hit them with it and rock would come for you Also a street fighter or Tekken that's super random. Um, I'd probably go with Tekken not Tekken Uh street fighter Ross. Can you make a video this of your favorite wwe theme songs ever possibly? Possibly You asking for too much pop rich? Why am I getting so much packet burst? Whoa, I'm getting so much packet burst. Where is everybody?  It's not his fact space as it should be I shot him through the wall y'all. Where is everybody, bro? Hell nah, this is boring. I thought free for all would be funner.    Yeah, this game is frustrating. It's super frustrating Do I have that other gun unlocked? Yeet, when do I unlock this at level 30 set? I got this unlocked Geez, bro What just happened? Oh, it just It just kicked me out. Yep.  Let's be a new playlist update or something. I don't know What's good Shay Hounds was going down man. I am struggling on call of duty It's rare, but it's happening How's it up in houston always wanted to go pretty chill pretty cool can't complain All right, let's try this again. At least uh, uh, the startup was pretty quick. Let's see what other stuff I've unlocked. All right, so I'm gonna activate this uh, double xp.  No, I'm not I'm still negative best gun for me is the uh, sva 545. I think that's the one I'm using right now That's the the gun you've been getting consistent kills with Because the gun that I'm really trying to get is this holger 556 This shit melts anytime. I see anyone with that gun. I get sent to the gulags Quickly and then for the smgs. I don't really know I really know for the smg so Some people having a good time on this game. I'm just getting cooked bro.  It was three people there. What what am I to do when there's three people there? Where was I getting shot from? Yep, Ned. Oh, he was laying down. Couldn't even see him. He was getting number of hit markers All right, look at that. I'm just here to pick up the tags at this point I could have sworn somebody's done it.  I don't know how I won that But I'll take it and hopefully it goes crazy His team may save this life, bro. I'm dead. I'm dead. I'm dead. I'm dead I've been doing okay this game Maybe this is my map.  No, I didn't get the roll ones. I didn't like the sway material That's the reason why I didn't get it and we was just doing good at the beginning We was just doing good at the beginning and now we're starting to get Dead dead dead.    All right, there's one up here I didn't know where he was I'm looking on the radar. They don't give you an indication if they're above you or below you, which I do not like I think that should be indication of whether you're above or below like did in modern warfare 2 Just like that. That's crazy, bro. Oh my gosh, man We lost just like that, man Ross, you know, we never got cross versus edge. Yeah I don't know what they do playing on doing with carrying cross to be honest I'm not even sure in the cook ent. Yes I am just getting flambéed Getting destroyed It's not meant for me to do well. Let me see gunsmith Yeah, I'm gonna keep this one Will you be playing mortal combat one? Um, not sure I've already seen the story of it and stuff like that. So I'm not sure I play it Not sure I know for gta 6 I definitely will be playing that though Maybe play change the thumbnail to wwe2k and play that Nah I'm I'm I'm here because I got um, I want to at least unlock the stuff I need a lot to, you know Maybe have that better experience So I'm here. I'm dedicated I'ma get better. You know what I'm saying? Didn't even see him in the playground Maybe I need glasses y'all. Do y'all think I need glasses? Didn't even see him bro. He was laying down I was not supposed to know that was him. There's nothing I can do, bro All right, if you're one shot It's old Stun grenade out All right, if you're one shot in this game Don't think of trying to Take out anybody else So they got people Yep, there's one more over there starting to cook up just a bit. I melt it I'm doing okay right now.  He's just sitting in the back Back at the spawn bro. I'm starting to get something going And then I died. That's as soon as I say that As soon as I say that I'm starting to get something going. I died Thank you teammate police picking up that kill got melted I just gotta get used to things man. It's gonna take some time I got that kill but I'll take it I mean someone's coming up from behind us. Yep. Oh my god. I got melted, bro Y'all see this bro.  This is one of my better games for sure I probably should have pushed it up closer Rotating around God, there was three of them outside just waiting for me my surprise motherfucker Get the tag Let's go That's how you do it guys Oh, no, we won y'all That was a good win That was actually a good win finally Going in the upper trajectory. That was a good win, man. I can't even be mad at that. That was a good win Look at that 31 and 20. Look at that, man Look at that look at that, man That's how you do it. We get some we getting something going, bro We getting something going, bro. Finally Like the rock would say Uh, let me see what we unlock Duplicate, uh duplicate facial mask stacked And what's the one Reduces combat noise allows improve identification of enemy footsteps. So this should be an interesting one So I can run that I can't wait to get the covert sneakers Armory unlocks at level 25. Oh So the next level then I should be able to get it through the armory unlocks Let me see Yeah, that's where I can get all the extra stuff I actually want to start leveling up. Um, I'm gonna start leveling up I think I have this one. Let me see which one This one's almost pretty much maxed out Because they ain't really much extra that I would want on here I'm good with the I'm actually good with the 30 round mag I'm good with the 30 round mag to be honest So for the smg zone, I want to max This out gunsmith I'm gonna run this What's going on in the chat, man? Tell og band to put me back in the cookout discord y'all niggas acting like I left He clearly kicked me out Are you sure about that because they could have they all said you left, bro Since you're saying this I gotta take a picture of this for proof Oh, no Put this in the discord right now Let me do this right now.  No cap.  I guess so. I don't know Yeah, this map is huge for 6v6 Yeah, I don't like big maps like this Damn, I don't know how I got him. Yeah, this map is huge for 6v6. I don't know how we was doing this back in the day I remember that used to I think they used to have big team battle on this map There's so much play space.  Yo, what's up ron still is it? Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. I'm gonna read it But let me read.   Have a great day, ooze Thank you so much honorary oozy sammy man With the 200 dollar don't know. I really appreciate that man dark What the hell that I was not expecting that bro. Thank you so much for that, man I'm over here getting destroyed on the game and you stop by just to do that, bro. You don't have to do that, man Save him save your hard-earned money, bro. I just appreciate you coming in here, bro Thank you teammates Jesus Holy shit, man. That was cool, bro. I Thank you teammates 200 dollars, bro. I appreciate you, bro You did not have to do that, man Let's do this.  Let's not put it right there Oh, there we go.  Yo, what do you do? You're welcome and not it's fine I'm still gonna get you back for that promo ross on me. Here's another bro Honorary ooze, man. You you good, bro.  Yo, what are you doing? Bro, you don't you don't have to don't know you man. You not like that, man We I appreciate you just stopping by what the hell Hey, man, we appreciate you man. God damn just He's a scammer He's definitely not no scammer, but this is not his first time doing that He's donated like this a few times on the main page This is wild, bro. You don't have to do that, man. I promise you I don't even Yeah, man. I you you don't have to do that, man.  It's not fun. It's not fun. Just running around Hey, I thank you so much, bro. I I thank you so much, man. What the fudge That's all I can say.  That's crazy I'm gonna go with the 15 minutes of the double weapon xp He got his taxes, right, man That's crazy, bro That I I appreciate you once again, man.  I'm just I'm chilling. That's I was not expecting that y'all Was not expecting that Someone said acknowledge him Bro could buy an xbox. Yeah, you could buy an xbox series x bro That's crazy, man.  I'm out here getting destroyed on this game And y'all being here makes it better Him doing that. He didn't have to that was truly amazing Y'all are great, bro. Found a secret arabian the million Maybe man My teammate knife them get your team mate team mate Yeah, I gotta stay within my range. I'm not doing that that Oh I thought I could get it broke and pay off my student loans Facts Y'all be thinking I'm paid. He's paid, bro Y'all be thinking I'm paid. Nah, he paid, bro I'm I'm I'm doing okay. He doing all he doing I caught them both, baby caught them both slipping in the bathroom. No pun intended. Then he called me There we go. At least the teammate got the kill. I just don't like this iron sight once I can get that red dot, bro Oh Shit I'm not trying to hold this spot, but Pop them good them good I fail Got my halo Got it I'm doing much better these past few games Jeez. I come back And uh streaming he got two and three hundred dollar donation.  That was a good placement of that. Uh What's the name the one that done fight, bro Didn't cook for him paid Didn't know we're doing good at this game. No, no, no, no, no, I Nope not challenging that that's out of my range God damn Soon as they're broken solve world hunger Shit on the cool I keep telling y'all y'all be thinking I'm I'm super rich That's y'all bro. What are you doing over here? Dang it It's definitely not bench. I can tell you that now. It's not Vince Vince does not have time to be in some random persons Uh live stream playing call of duty Vince is it's definitely not yet, bro.   That's probably the most frustrating Yeah, this dude has just been killing me the entire time Just I'm getting it's that hoger bro.    I was getting blambéed again Yeah, I feel like I take a more bullets to kill. Yeah, bro. It does That's why I'm trying to get that hoger the gun he was killing me with he was dropping me Like I can put in as many bullets as I wanted to Could have had a conversation could have unloaded the entire clip and I was still gonna get close Unlocked it man. I think I unlock armor Let me see so I'm gonna go here Complete five daily challenges to unlock the hijack I got a okay, so what I want to do I want to unlock covert sneakers complete three daily challenges And then when I go to the challenges what it says It starts us up.  Let me go to gunsmith. I still haven't unlocked anything useful That's crazy I think you can only do it one time at once at a time Going live for smackdown tonight for sure, of course Of course I am You should start a war with russia. Uh, no Um, I'm good on that I'll probably run with this one. This map look good too. I like what they did with this one Rotate around Of course Thank you teammate Damn it Please don't spare me if you are spamming really chill with the spam man.  That was good Almost died hurt him at the last second. I got shot in my back. I like how this map plays so far It's okay. I like you can see more. Not damn it I need to help you crane out. Yeah, I'm I'm staying far away from that one He's over there always getting shot in my back, bro. That's the The most annoying thing is getting shot in your back and there's nothing you can do about it except just well GGs They're all the way and that's far back. I think about that They're literally in the far back of their spawn not even trying to push up All right, look at that. They're literally just sitting in a far back Not trying to push up, bro. I don't know how people play like that, but Look at that since boring They're literally just sitting back there.  I don't know how many times I gotta hit somebody for them to die in this game, bro Yep, they're just sitting back there They're literally just one sniping They're not trying to push up. All right, jeez dawg This is why the game's going slow because people play like this This is probably the campiest game I've played so far, bro It has not been this bad It's not fun Like this is not fun This is the most this is probably Camping ain't easy. Yep for sure Like this is boring like who wants to play like this I know some people do but that was close. I'm getting inside Like the game is almost over and we having no one's gotten even past 50 tags Like that that should not be a thing This is my first time on this side of the map My first time on this side of the map Hunter this and hunter actually be bullshitting like hunter can actually rush around He can actually move. I've seen I've watched plenty of his videos. Dude's actually pretty good He doesn't he doesn't just camp just like this was boring He said ten and one as he sat in the back of the spawns To lose Hey, happy birthday. Lloyd McKellar man. Hope you have a great one, bro That's why I got to get that hogger, bro.   I'm not to figure that out, man But uh, I'm about to go ahead and get off. I appreciate y'all once again For joining in I should be streaming this most likely tomorrow evening. So be on the lookout for that Uh, and once again, uh, we'll be I'll be doing a live stream reaction for smackdown later on on the main page So I appreciate y'all. Thank y'all so much And we gonna get off out of here. Catch y'all next time man


Hello, and welcome back to the craft box. My name is Brent and today we're on episode 99 of the completionist crafters series last time I don't even need to go about last time if you haven't checked out any of the other videos You should there's 98 other ones, but today we are crafting the tapestry to barking in palace Which is from my man's here Captain dart mouth as always everything you need is on screen But yeah, this is the level 40 one of the four dungeons Yeah, and there are a couple of things I need to tell you about this recipe one The fact that you need these royal guernards now they spawn in this pond here and this pond here only they are rare fish They are fire rank two, so I just cast summon and and and win a rank two and then win over fire and Yeah, I got pretty lucky. I got them pretty quickly But yeah, they can take a wee while since they are rare to get so just be careful of that But anyway, let's go and craft this bad boy up Also, this is the second last episode of the series on this channel. Wow crazy I know next episode is gonna be a wee while away because it's a huge mongous episode I'm putting a lot of extra work into it And I can't wait for you all to see it It'll be out in a couple of weeks from when you're seeing this But yeah, this series will be changed over to a live stream series Just because I don't I'm trying to do other things for this on this channel here. So this series will be A live stream series instead let's quickly just feed you to pets so we have a little bit of space But yeah for this we need a one mote of beauty Which you can get from one of the dungeons you can also get them from raw one mote of wisdom as well the same thing there a Royal Gernad to I've shown you how to get them. I believe beauty is from the Barkingham Palace and wisdom is from the Kimberling village by could be wrong the scrap iron 25 of it not too difficult found all over Marley bone I do have a video on that bronze gear you can get them from Drops it from things in Marley bone and you can also transmute scrap iron I believe into bronze gear and then ten amethyst you can get at a reagent vendor Let's create this bad boy up lovely lovely lovely and we'll go whack it down over here Just because why not why not put it over here on our new tapestry Wall we'll shove it next to the the Kimberling village and look let's head there and it takes us right there Right where you would expect it to take us So yeah, that is all for this for this episode the second last one of the completionist craft the series next episode will be a Massive it's one that you've been asking for for a while or at least some people have been And it'll be the last episode episode 100 on this But if you want to go and see more of it They'll be on my second channel and also on my twitch every single week. So yeah, otherwise Thank you for watching and remember to leave like and subscribe if we're subscribed press the way little well So you know exactly when I post another video and remember to craft outside the box