HUMANE RIGHTS w/ Dr. Akilah Cadet
Season 1
Episode 8: Rafael Casal
DR. AKILAH CADET
Hey.
RAFAEL CASAL
Hey. Hi. Hey.
DR. AKILAH CADET
What's up?
RAFAEL CASAL
No spotlight? No nothing.
DR. AKILAH CADET
You know, I think the beauty about me is that I'm just real. So welcome to Humane Rights.
RAFAEL CASAL
Fantastic.
DR. AKILAH CADET
No, 60 minutes ticker. No. No ticker. None of that. It's just. I am so excited to have this conversation with you, Rafa. So welcome to Humane Rights. Welcome to my studio. You get to be the first virtual guest. So does that make you special?
RAFAEL CASAL
Absolutely.
DR. AKILAH CADET
I think so. Yeah. 100%. You are you know. Did you notice? I don't even. I don't even have to wait for an answer. I'm like, Yes! I am. Yes.
RAFAEL CASAL
And this is what we call confidence.
DR. AKILAH CADET
And this is what we call why we're friends.
RAFAEL CASAL
Gotta have 'em.
DR. AKILAH CADET
This is important to note because you, you really are one of my favorite people. But before we get into how much you are one of my favorite people, I would love for you to just introduce yourself to the world, let them know who you are. And fun, fun thing that you probably don't get to do all the time. Do an image description. Let them know what you're wearing, what's behind you. Because we have a wide range of... Oh, Sure. Yeah.
RAFAEL CASAL
All right. My name is Rafael Casal. I'm a Bay area original. I am currently wearing a semi cropped like blue T-shirt. Like oversize T-shirt. I have two posters behind me. One of Blindspotting, the movie which I created with my bestie Daveed Diggs. Next to that is a poster, an alternate poster for that same movie that we never released, which is the one that I loved more.
DR. AKILAH CADET
And then I. Love that one more, too.
RAFAEL CASAL
I know, and then this right here is the first time I was in Billboard magazine with my whole cast at Sundance. And so, a friend of mine, a friend of mine. Look, I have hand commands. Nicole. A friend of mine framed it for me. Janina Gavankar, who plays Daveed's girlfriend in the movie framed that.
DR. AKILAH CADET
Aw. Dope!
RAFAEL CASAL
Then I requested the two times we were Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. They'll give you a little trophy. I put those up, and then down below is a frame from Bad Education, which I did with Hugh Jackman. Where we're sitting, and I have a fun story about this frame, which we can talk about later. And then above that are some instruments that my pops brought back from Cuba when he went with my sister when she was 14.
DR. AKILAH CADET
That's dope.
RAFAEL CASAL
There's some other little random instruments around. But anyway, that's what's going on in this frame guys. Hello!
DR. AKILAH CADET
Piano. White piano, brown couch. It looks like things have happened there.
RAFAEL CASAL
They are. Yes. Like ideas. Yeah, like I've tried to. I've tried to, you know, muster up a novel on that couch and failed.
DR. AKILAH CADET
Well, you haven't failed. Your life isn't over yet. Life is still still going.
RAFAEL CASAL
Yeah. There's my pair of maracas up there. Yeah. There's stuff goin' on here.
DR. AKILAH CADET
So, do you want to tell other people while you're also amazing and great?
RAFAEL CASAL
I don't know.
DR. AKILAH CADET
You want me to do it for you?
RAFAEL CASAL
Yeah.
DR. AKILAH CADET
Well, you went to this iconic high school in Berkeley, California. Where I am right now recording this podcast. Right. A lot of incredible things happened there.
RAFAEL CASAL
Yes. Yeah. It was a crazy place.
DR. AKILAH CADET
You are a producer, a writer, a lyricist, a poet, a good person.
RAFAEL CASAL
Oh! Sometimes farmer.
DR. AKILAH CADET
Sometimes farmer. Sometimes farmer. Yeah.
RAFAEL CASAL
I mean, I've been in the arts since I was 13. And what's great about the Bay and what's great about where you're sitting right now, Berkeley High — it's a permission. It's a permission passing place. Right. That tells you if that's something that you're into, you can probably get really good at it. And because the Bay doesn't have this massive ecosystem of like major, major entertainment industry, success is about recognition by the community. And so it's achievable. And so people go, yeah, you can be a painter. Yeah, you can be a poet. Yeah, you can be a musician. Yeah, you can be a filmmaker. Because the top of the ladder there is a top of the ladder here that is like perceivable. And so for me growing up, it was like, all right, I'm going to start writing and then I'm going to start performing this stuff that I write, and I'm going to start writing longer and bigger stuff and performing in it and making it, and then you're producing it and, you know, then suddenly it's been 20 some odd years and you have all these titles that are jobs, and you didn't realize they were separate because it was all one hustle. Right.
DR. AKILAH CADET
Yeah. And it all made sense, which I think is why I really enjoy us because we do so many different things, but it is rooted in storytelling.
RAFAEL CASAL
Definitely.
DR. AKILAH CADET
So I think you already know this because I already brought it to you, but Blindspotting is one of my favorite movies of all time.
RAFAEL CASAL
It's so cool.
DR. AKILAH CADET
I saw it three times in the theater, and of course I had to go to Grand Lake Theater to see it one of those times. I had to support. I had to spend the money all over the bay before I went to go see the movie. I think a really important fun fact that you should probably share more — and I would share this every day if I were you — was that you were Barack Obama's favorite movie.
RAFAEL CASAL
You made the list. Like. Okay, so this was a fun day because I was asleep in bed with my lady. And usually I'm, I'm if she's nudging me in the morning and says I'm late. And she's like shaking me violently. She's like, you need to wake up. And I was like, what? And I look at my phone before I kind of get to register what she's trying to show me on her phone. I'm like, oh my God, why do I have like 180 texts. Who died? You know, like what happened. Right? And she shows me that post of being on his favorite movies of the year list. And I — look, I didn't even know he did lists. They don't tell you in advance. You just find out like everybody else. Just wake up. Yeah. And like, I knew that Daveed knew Barack Obama because they performed Hamilton at the White House, and he was doing Hamilton on Broadway.
DR. AKILAH CADET
Casual flex.
RAFAEL CASAL
So maybe I was like, maybe there was some way that it would get to him, but also he hosts a million people at the White House and somebody tells him everyone's name when he gets there, you know, like you're supposed to feel like you're close to everyone at the White House when they get there because they prepare for that. Yeah. But I think when we saw that, and saw that that family had watched the movie, it sort of was the goal of the film. Right. Was to be at a place where people with authority would acknowledge what's happening in cities that sometimes feel forgotten.
DR. AKILAH CADET
Yeah.
RAFAEL CASAL
And so to know that not only did he see it, but he acknowledged that he saw it and liked it. Here's the thing. He got away with something because a lot of people haven't seen it. So they don't know how radical it was that he was like, this is one of my favorite movies of the year. But knowing what the movie's about and knowing what it's trying to expose the complexity of is wild for a sitting... you know. On so many levels, for a president to be like, hey!
DR. AKILAH CADET
I couldn't I could not imagine just waking up and just knowing that somehow Barack Obama knows who you are. Like, I get Daveed. I understand, I get that, but for you that that's incredible. So I just want to say, the next time your lovely lady wakes you up, you could be on another presidential list. You don't know.
RAFAEL CASAL
I probably... Let me tell you, I'm definitely on a current presidential list. It's just not in a good way.
DR. AKILAH CADET
Also same. Also same. All the other things that I post. Also same. Have you left the country yet? In the last... yeah. Like, since Donald's been in office.
RAFAEL CASAL
Since Donald's been in office, I have not left the country, no.
DR. AKILAH CADET
Yeah, I haven't either. Is it nuts? Well, people out there just going, like, are y'all okay? I mean there's that but like I'm a daughter of a retired diplomat. So my father was like, so listen, don't take your phone. Don't be yourself. Don't do anything. And then just come back because I actually think it's a real concern when you are someone who's being active about like, doing the work and talking about how awful Donald is. You don't know what list you could or could not be on. So I'm just not trying to shake the table.
RAFAEL CASAL
And that's a Real Housewives. Or is that a Love & Hip Hop?
DR. AKILAH CADET
That's a Love & Hip Hop. I think. Quote, "I'm shaking the table." I'm not — I don't want to give... The intersection of those two worlds. Is that Real Housewives? Or Love & Hip Hop?
RAFAEL CASAL
What thespian said that? But, those are not channels next to each other. But it tells you a little bit about me and my life. I live in a trap, but I'm also a doc, you know? So there's a lot of things there.
DR. AKILAH CADET
But no, I like in all seriousness, we have to be mindful because we are seeing so many things happening in the world right now, like we're obviously seeing with what's happening with ICE. You know, ICE was up here a few weekends ago. A lot of the mayors were like, not in our house, which I thought was really, really great to see. But that leads me to one of my favorite questions to ask. And that is, what does Humane Rights mean to you?
RAFAEL CASAL
What does Humane Rights mean to me? I don't know. You know what I've really... So when I was about like 17 or 18, I started touring with poetry a lot. Right. And it was the beginning of, like, a pretty significant divide between friends of mine who never left the Bay and people who travel. Right. And if you're in the Bay and you're raised in a certain kind of progressive politics as the status quo, you have this vernacular around what it means to be increasingly just and to be pushing society towards a more morally just world every day. And then you go to other states. And you go to other countries and you realize that like, oh, this advanced vocabulary is not table stakes here at all. And so there's sort of what I think of as Humane Rights as like the bare minimum. And then there is my — unfortunately like my sobering reality over the last 20 some odd years — of like, there are states where we are still just trying to get basic shit that were a part of my upbringing that I didn't even know we had to question until I started traveling. And so I think unfortunately, like my bar keeps lowering and we have to be very mindful of that. And aware of not dropping it so low to accommodate like the most absurd version of people's discomfort about what it means to push for people to have the basic essentials of a free and just life.
DR. AKILAH CADET
Yeah. Even that word freedom has gotten really specific for me in the last like 15 years, as opposed to my upbringing, because there were freedoms that we didn't question. And then now there are freedoms that we have to examine. And there's almost — I almost feel like childlike again, because I don't have a vocabulary for debating things on this basic of a level.
RAFAEL CASAL
Yeah.
DR. AKILAH CADET
Well, first of all, I think that's beautiful and great. And I think this is a wonderful example of how important it is for us to continually learn and unlearn. Right? So I grew up in Sacramento, California. So the land of white people, they were there. Shout out Sactown north campus. But like I, you know, we were just like, I pledge allegiance United States of America every day. You know, we're like doing these things. And now you won't see me stand for anything, honestly. Because, like you said, we're looking at what are those freedoms mean? Because when you are a kid in high school or maybe even in college, you just feel like you have these opportunities and you know your family, you know your history or the culture of the place you grew up.
RAFAEL CASAL
And then you realize, like you said, you go, you travel — like I'm a child of the immigrant. So I have had a passport for my entire life. I can't date anyone who just doesn't even have a passport. It's like, just how do you — you don't have one or like, lapse — like I have to always be like, you know, ready to go. But I think lapsing passport is a red flag.
DR. AKILAH CADET
I think lapsing that. Right. So Rafa is also team find Akilah a partner, which I really appreciate. Thank you so much. So for anyone who likes Rafa more than me and you're single, but you like what's happening here, slide in my DMs.
RAFAEL CASAL
Yeah. No, but I don't fight, and I feel like I would be highly recommended from you, like.
DR. AKILAH CADET
Yeah, highly recommended, Come on. I just want to get on record. Woah, so we have that, but this, this thing of, like, really thinking about what our freedoms are, and we think about where Donald and Co. are — because, you know, I call them Donald and Co. 'cause Donald, when you call me by the first name, it means they don't know what they're doing. So Donald and Co. coming in, we're at a point where the shutdown is not happening anymore, where Democrats stood for nothing. And health care is under attack and SNAP benefits will come back. But it's also part of project 2025. But anyway, Go America! [Laughs nervously.]
RAFAEL CASAL
Well, this is that thing, right? Because like, we had to do the Pledge of Allegiance, too. Right? It's not like fucking Berkeley schools got to get out of that shit, you know. Yeah. I mean, it was just the time. However, like the Berkeley school system for me at least, was like, yeah, you go to Jefferson, but then you go to Malcolm X, you know, but then you go to Martin Luther King Middle School. You know, like there was an understanding that the version of America that we were learning was not one that was sugarcoated or understood to be either one thing or the other, but that it was an ideal that was being chased and was often failed. And now we're in this sort of political system right where it feels like one party owns the American flag, and the other party is like trying to get it back.
DR. AKILAH CADET
Yeah.
RAFAEL CASAL
Not that it represents all of us in the imperfect version of the society. And like that, that is one of the scariest divides for me — is that like, now when I see an American flag, it's not ours.
DR. AKILAH CADET
I'm like, oh, that's. It's not ours. The American flag to me means slow down or go faster. Like if I see it on a truck or car? Don't get out of the car. Get out of the car. I'm not welcome here. It means so many things, and it should not be that. And that's the thing that is, like, incredibly frustrating about America. Because there was a time where I was excited about Fourth of July celebrations. There was a time where things were simple, and I knew about Juneteenth and all of those other things, but I felt like I was also part of America. But now where I am now, not so much.
RAFAEL CASAL
They weren't supposed to be at odds, right? Like I remember July 4th were like, look — I'll say this like, I'm not going to — you're probably not going to find too many photos of me and like an American flag tank top. Maybe it's happened once. You know, because somebody provided it. But we'll have to try new things. Try it on. Like, is a little far from me. But I don't think there was this aversion with a certain kind of national pride because there was this sense that, like, while there were problems, we were going in a direction where we were eliminating those problems. And the problem for me was the pace of the change. Right? It was like, I'm hearing the vocabulary, but we keep hearing, wait, wait a little bit longer. Wait. It's coming. It's coming. Wait. And the narrative that I got from the people that I was raised to look up to in terms of political figures — which, let's be clear, like mostly black political figures — the narrative is, "Wait is a bullshit answer." Right. What, you're going to wait people into the grave? That seems to be the plan. And so the political movement that I think we all grew up in was like, hey, we're trying to expedite this process. That's the mission. Yeah. And now we're in this very different process, which is like, oh, I didn't realize we were in a backslide. Like what — we're like I thought we sort of like generally agreed that where we were going was the right direction. And you were struggling with your comfort zone, right? Not that you, like, fundamentally wanted the world to be the 1940s.
DR. AKILAH CADET
I know. I know. Don't know, I just — I think we're still dealing, we're still reeling with the shock of the conversations that we're having to have. And that's the place where I'm just constantly uncomfortable because I can't believe how remedial I'm having to be.
RAFAEL CASAL
Well, the goal is to be comfortable being uncomfortable.
DR. AKILAH CADET
Right. Because we're. Not this way though.
RAFAEL CASAL
I know it's just. It's a lot. You're like, so personally, it's just like, everything's fucked.
DR. AKILAH CADET
And the amount of discomfort — I'm a pro of being comfortable being uncomfortable — but the amount of discomfort is so much that I've had more flares. Like with my health, I'm thinking about things differently. I have to be careful about where I'm putting my time and energy and spaces or places. I, you know, there's just like a lot more that's there. But with that said, I think the one thing that we both do well, but you way better than me, is storytelling, right?
RAFAEL CASAL
Doubt it. No no no no no. But like, the power of storytelling. And so you've done and you continually do really great things.
DR. AKILAH CADET
But I would love to talk about the Bay List, and how important that is, because it literally is breaking down a lot of systems and structures that don't want to tell our stories.
RAFAEL CASAL
Yeah. Well, it's based on the same idea of the art scene that I grew up on, right? Which is like, we have to create our own sort of ceilings and metrics for success. And I think what we haven't had for the filmmaking vertical is a really clear understanding of what it means to have local success as a filmmaker and local acknowledgment to where it, like, gives you credibility on the home turf. Right? We have that with music to a certain degree. We have that with visual art. We have that with a few other artistic mediums, because you can get clout locally for the way that things come out. But film is this thing where you need this abundance of money and funding to create something successful. So the idea for the Bay List is really to create a benchmark of success just for writing the script — that people should know who you are because you've been acknowledged for writing something dope, which doesn't cost any money or shouldn't cost very much money at least. And so what I wanted to do with the Bay List was replicate this thing that Frank Leonard had done in L.A. with the Black List over the last 20 years by creating this massive sort of contest around what are the best unproduced scripts going on in the industry right now. And we know that the Bay Area is full of all these people who make shit on their own and are looking for a stage for it, and there just wasn't a stage for it. Yeah. And so, making the Bay List was about making a regionally specific list through the infrastructure of the Black List that would get the attention of Deadline in L.A., would get the attention of local major press in the Bay Area, would get some industry recognition in the core of the industry in Los Angeles to look at regionally specific lists. And the last thing I'll say about is the reason that I think that's so important goes back to what we were just talking about politically, which is like, if you are from, raised in, have spent a significant portion of your life in the Bay Area, it is impossible for you to be unaffected by the Bay Area's touch politics part. So, you know, and I think it has a profound effect on people's art. I just think it does. People who lived there for a couple of years, when they talk about their time in the Bay, there is a starry eyed look that they get that feels different from anywhere else. And so I think that secret sauce gets into these scripts and makes them interesting, compelling stories. So the idea was to try to clump those together and go, hey, look over here, look over here. We've done the hard part. We've sifted through the list — here are ten that you should read. And so that's what we built.
DR. AKILAH CADET
What we've been getting is people — now a bunch of industry people have been requesting those ten scripts that just got announced. And big, big people.
RAFAEL CASAL
Yeah. Which is awesome.
DR. AKILAH CADET
I love that so much. And you're welcome of how I tied all those things together.
RAFAEL CASAL
You sure did. Skills. Look at the skills at play.
DR. AKILAH CADET
But, I mean, the reason why it's important to tie all those things together is because these stories help dismantle these oppressive systems and structures, not just film, TV and industry, but whatever those stories are about — representation and just existence, survival. It could be the same boring story we see all the time — not that any of those are — but with people who look and live like us. So like, I've been in The Bay for 25 years. I've been here longer than my childhood home. There is no way that I'm not Bay. No one can talk shit about Oakland. No one can talk shit about Sacramento like it's equal. That is not happening. I was here for the birth of the hyphy movement. I worked in education at the time. Here I am at Encinal High School. Like you can't ghost ride the whip here, but if you go to the street, you can do that there. Like you cannot do in the parking lot. You don't want this for you. Like you don't want that to happen. But I am not who I am without the Bay Area, so I love that you're able to kind of share this Bay love with folks. And no matter how they're here. And so that leads me to another question I have for you. This one, I feel like I kind of have an answer for. But what are you doing to, like, bring you joy with all this stuff that we talked about? What are you doing to find little pockets of joy?
RAFAEL CASAL
Oh, yeah. Well, you know, it's so funny, like, I was about to hop on here with you, and... every time I'm about to do a podcast, it doesn't matter who it is. I was like, I'm explaining to my lady who was in the kitchen, and she's like, oh, what do you have today? I was like, oh, I got this podcast, but it's with the homie. So yeah, you know, my general like, I don't want to do podcasting. Like I'm not feeling that because it's going to be fun. But you know what? I fucking hate doing podcasts. And she's like, well, yeah, but you love to talk about art with smart people. That's why you're doing it. And I was like, I do love to talk about art with smart people.
DR. AKILAH CADET
Oh my gosh, I just got so many compliments. I just want to say thank you.
RAFAEL CASAL
Yeah. But like that — but that's my thing — so I realized that like I nowadays I lean into craft conversations with people and why conversations with people because they're like uplifting and exciting for me because I'm like, oh, right. I get to dig into why I've been doing this thing for, you know, over two decades and why it's really important to do now. So there's that part of my life which is like not about actually making the art, but like talking to artists, friends about why we're doing things and how we're doing things. It's like nerdy and fun for me in a way that I think is just solidified as a thing I want to do for the rest of my life. And then, you know this, but some people don't know this. I got really into animals. I got really into horses the last five years. So there is a back story here, like I did. There was a horse thing going on in my childhood also. Right? Like my grandfather, who was from Kentucky, but he lived way up north by Shasta. And like north, like for real Northern California — like we think we're Northern California, but there's like, another seven hours.
DR. AKILAH CADET
Yeah. There's a whole other...
RAFAEL CASAL
So he lived in a mobile home with his wife, my other grandmother up there. And up there, you know, the land was so cheap. So he always just had shit, right? Like, yeah, he was a bartering motherfucker. Like, he always just like, oh, yeah, I came up on this car because somebody owed me some money. And I'm like, I don't understand how your life works, but bet. And so he always had, like, two horses in a small, you know, self-made fence behind the mobile home. And then he had a membership to, like, a ranch nearby, which was like a way for people to, like, share a bunch of horses. So it didn't cost a lot of money. And so growing up, we'd go up there and he'd throw you on a horse, and he was just like a cowboy. Like this is my Irish side of the family. Like he's an old school Marlboro cigarette, cowboy hat, you know, all this like silver jewelry. You know what I'm saying? Like, you know what — when you go on someone's — how long have you been in a house like this?
DR. AKILAH CADET
But they've got horse shit everywhere. It's a horse lamp.
RAFAEL CASAL
They got a horse wallet.
DR. AKILAH CADET
In Sacramento. So you drive 10 minutes. Yeah so you know. You know. You know what I'm talking about. Yeah. You know what I'm talking about.
RAFAEL CASAL
But he was one of those. Right. And so we grew up getting our horses there, and then he passed away and was like, you know, I don't know anybody who has horses in The Bay — like you kind of see, if you do it anywhere around there, you don't have a lot of money. And we don't. That's not us, you know. So you know that kind of just went away and it was like, oh, what a great experience. And then the last five years, I tapped in, was with people out here who are from Texas and other places in the South who had come to LA, who had horses out here in horse country, like outside of LA. And it just reconnected me to something that had nothing to do with art. That was about kind of bringing your ego down and doing something that is a little terrifying and relinquishing a little bit of control. And it's really good for people who have ADHD because you got to use all your limbs. You can't think about anything else. And it gave me something to do outside of obsessively thinking about art all the time, which can get a little destructive, I think, for folks, especially when it was a survival technique when you were younger. And then it becomes your career, right? You have to sort of look away from it.
DR. AKILAH CADET
Yeah. Yeah. No, but it's a good way to like disconnect, to recharge. Which is why I think storytelling is really important. So no matter what you're doing, you're actually connecting all the things that you love. And healthy ways. I didn't really go into it, but there's a painting in here from Taylor Smalls because I do love art, and it's Joyce Gordon of Joyce Gordon Galleries here in Oakland, California. And so there's so much storytelling that goes into that. On my shirt — I didn't do my image description — it says White Supremacy Is All Around, which, you know, the title of my book, but there's two calla lilies here. It's designed with Phil America, an artist.
RAFAEL CASAL
Where do we get the merch?
DR. AKILAH CADET
It's coming to you. Don't worry. It's coming to you.
RAFAEL CASAL
Where's the merch? But I designed — I got to be — here's the thing. Let's be clear. I can't wear that.
DR. AKILAH CADET
No, no, no, no, but I have other merch for you. But it's great. But I designed this with Phil America and Phil America is from Sacramento. He's a designer. He's an incredible designer, artist and all the things.
RAFAEL CASAL
But the calla lilies represent the flower of the Black Panthers, and the font represents the black panther. So I use this on the back. It says, tis the season to dismantle white supremacy with, like, this kente cloth print.
DR. AKILAH CADET
So I have this white sweater on, ripped jeans and snakeskin boots and blond braids and brown sugar skin. And the studio that people know. But, saying that to say that I think you are so important for so, so many reasons because you're able to use your intersectionality to go out in the world and hold people accountable in so many ways. So Rafa, thank you for doing that. Oh, I don't know how. Tell me more about that. What does that mean? Well, because you have this incredible background. And you can — you are a Cuban person. You are an Irish person. You can pass as white, you can pass Latino, you can pass. You know, there's so many things that you can do. And in your spaces, it's really it's always about people, which I think is incredible. So thanks for that.
RAFAEL CASAL
And then you just casually drop bars. You're like, oh, by the way, you forgot that I gave you this song. That was a banger. So here you go. Yeah, I mean that is the conundrum, right? It's like — and I get very like — I don't say things about myself like I'm white passing.
DR. AKILAH CADET
I just think that's white.
RAFAEL CASAL
No, I know, but like, I mean, I have my light skinned privilege and my light eyes. So I use it.
DR. AKILAH CADET
Sure.
RAFAEL CASAL
And award winning cleavage. [Laughter] But I think that's the like, you know, being Spanish and Irish is like a weird combination because it gives you a proximity to two things, right?
DR. AKILAH CADET
Colonization. No I'm sorry. Well yeah.
RAFAEL CASAL
It gives you an — it's not a proximity to colonization. It's right there. Okay. Yeah. That's it. But it also — because this country, especially right now, is like deeply at war with Spanish speaking people, you know, and not with any specificity whatsoever. And then there's the decades prior to that in my life, this mass confusion about even what any of the terminology around the many communities that represents — before we even get into the colorism or like the tiered levels of society in that. So you have this sort of leg in to a marginalized group in the country that is, you know, nearly a majority. Yeah. Also the Irish who, like, are a really interesting group of people, you know, are this strange group of whites being attacked by the Brits.
DR. AKILAH CADET
Colonized by the Brits.
RAFAEL CASAL
And so then you meet like old school Irish people and like, they talk like people of color.
DR. AKILAH CADET
They do because there's a shared lived experience. So I just really appreciate you like knowing that about yourself, bringing us together, going into places and places. And I just want you to Keep Being Amazing.
RAFAEL CASAL
Oh, I love that. I love that shirt.
DR. AKILAH CADET
This one is coming to you. I want that Keep Being Amazing shirt. Yeah. I love that. You and your lady are getting one. So, and everyone else, you can just go and buy one from the website. But I just want to say thank you so much for this, this time today, and I can talk to you forever. And I look forward to seeing you soon. So thanks so much.
RAFAEL CASAL
That was awesome. Yeah.