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Good afternoon and welcome to the City Club of Cleveland, where we are devoted to conversations of consequence that help democracy thrive.

It's Friday, August 7th, and I'm Evelyn Burnett, co-founder and CEO of Third Space Action Lab and Third Space Reading Room.

It is an honor to today's forum, which is the, the Tachovas Foundation Endowed Forum and part of the City Club's Author in Conversation in Health Equity series.

It is a pleasure to introduce Dr.

Timothy Goler for today's conversation, Liberated Mind: Clarity, Identity, and the Conditions That Shape Us.

For Dr.

Goler, this is more than a speaking engagement.

It is a homecoming.

He is a native son— yeah!

He is a native son of Cleveland and a veteran of the United States Marine Corps.

He earned his master's in urban planning, design, and development at the Levin College of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University and his PhD in sociology at Case Western Reserve University.

Where his doctoral work focused on medical sociology and aging and the life course.

Today he is a tenured professor and the chair of the sociology department at Norfolk State University.

His work in this city has not stopped.

He founded and led the HBCU Preparatory Schools Network which used the mission, culture, and educational traditions of HBCUs as a national model for educating students in urban communities.

He is also a co-founder of Policy Bridge, the Cleveland-based think tank created to research and analyze policy issues affecting African American and other underserved communities.

His latest book, Liberated Mind: A Guide to Black Clarity, explains how inequality becomes internalized through environment, stress, expectation, and self-perception.

The book was co-published by the National Institute for African American Health, an organization that mentors the next generation of Black physicians and advocates for improved health outcomes for African Americans.

Joining us for the moderated portion of today's forum is the institute's very own founder, Dr.

Gregory L. Hall, is an internal medicine specialist and associate clinical professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.

He was a governor-appointed member of the Ohio Commission on Minority Health, serving as chairman for many years, and now serves as board president of the Cuyahoga County Board of Health.

First, Dr.

Goler will offer some remarks, then we will be joined by Dr.

Hall for a deeper conversation on how social institutions shape Black consciousness, how we can reclaim agency and live with clarity.

A reminder for our livestream and radio audience, if you have a question during the Q&A portion of the forum, you can text it to 330-541-5794.

And City Club staff will try to work it into the program.

Today, a native son returns to the city that shaped him.

Now members and friends of the City Club of Cleveland, please join me in welcoming my cousin and Dr.

Timothy Goler.

Good afternoon.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Evelyn.

Thank you, Tim Trammell.

Where are you, Tim Trammell?

Brother Peter Witt, thank you.

Randy, where's Randy?

Thank you.

That's my Policy Bridge brother right there.

Thank you to the City of Cleveland.

Thank you to the City Club, Dan, and your entire amazing City Club team, thank you.

To the ancestors, the elders, Julian, where's Paul Hill?

Paul, thank you.

To my family, friends, colleagues, and everybody that came out this afternoon, Thank you so much.

I'd be remiss if I did not acknowledge my life partner, Dr.

Tish Claytor.

Thank you.

It's good to be home.

It's good to be home.

There's a, there's a quote by Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

That I haven't been able to shake.

He said, we need to stop just pulling people out of the river, and we need to go upstream and find out why they are falling in.

Let me say that one more time.

He said, we need to stop just pulling people out of the river, and we need to go upstream and find out why they are falling in.

I want to begin there because too often we spend our lives responding to consequences without examining the causes.

We, we, we treat symptoms without confronting conditions.

We ask why people are struggling but not what they've been asked to survive.

We ask why communities are sick or unhealthy, but not how the conditions around them make them sick, right?

If there's one thing, if there's one thing I want, I hope that you take away from our time together today, it's this.

That the mind is the foundation of everything.

That the mind is the foundation of everything.

Every relationship begins in the mind.

Every institution begins in the mind.

Every movement begins in the mind.

And every future is first imagined before it is built.

When the mind is clear, possibilities emerge.

When the mind is distorted, possibilities disappear, right?

That's why I titled my book Liberated Mind: A Guide to Black Clarity.

Not because clarity will solve every problem, because it won't.

Not because freeing the mind, freeing the mind by itself will change the conditions around us.

It will not.

But I submit to you that we cannot change those conditions until we can see clearly how they have taken root within us.

We can't build what we can't see.

We cannot change what we, refuse to understand, and we cannot become what we can't imagine.

As an educator and someone that— and a sociologist, and someone that's been raised right here in Cleveland, over in Glenville at 812 East 95th Street, right across the street from Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, Went to Miles Standish, Empire, right?

Went to Kirk over there in East Cleveland, got bused over to Lincoln West.

Would have went to Glenville, but we got bused over there.

We ran track against the folks down there, but, you know.

But I've also spent years studying and examining how social conditions shape human lives.

Whether the issue was poverty, racism, education, housing, health, or inequality, it all points to the same conclusion: that the greatest battles that people face are not always external.

They're not always external.

Many of them become internal, and not because people are weak, and not because people lack character, no, but because the environments around us eventually become the environments within us, right?

And over time, conditions outside of us become convictions inside of us.

That's why I often say that the most powerful prison is the one you cannot see.

And eventually the voice of limitation moves inside.

And once limitation begins to feel normal, right, once limitation begins to feel normal, people stop questioning it.

They adjust to it.

They may even defend it.

So one of the most important questions that we can ask ourselves is, who taught me to see myself?

Who taught me what intelligence, what beauty, What success looks like?

Who taught me what is possible and what is not?

You know, much of what we call identity, much of what we call identity is inherited, my friends, and and not everything that we inherit belongs to us.

It was given to us.

It was handed to us.It was put u Some of it was passed down, it was passed down through love and wisdom.

Some of it was passed down through fear and survival.

Some of it was passed down through trauma and distortion.

But what we inherit not only is shaped by the past, it is reinforced every day.

It's reinforced every day by the world around us.

Our attention is bought, sold, measured, manipulated.

Fear, fear is profitable.

Outrage is monetized.

Confusion, confusion serves those who benefit.

When we can't see ourselves or the world around us, when we can't see ourselves and the world clearly.

And for Black people, this struggle over consciousness is nothing new.

It's not new.

I mean, the technology changes, like AI.

We got AI now, right?

The language changes, but the effort to define us, to distort us, and separate us from a clear understanding of ourselves has never disappeared.

Never disappeared.

And that pressure, and that pressure doesn't just remain outside.

It doesn't just remain outside of us.

It becomes embodied.

It becomes embodied.

It enters into the body.

It settles into our nervous system.

It shapes how we see ourselves, how we feel, how we expect, what we expect, how we respond, how we care, and how we love.

That's why the mind matters so much.

That's why the mind matters so much.

The mind is the foundation of everything.

The mind is the foundation of everything.

Think about this.

We spend a great deal of our time talking about quality of life, the quality of life, right?

Jeffrey, quality of life.

We have scales, we have indexes, We have measures that are designed to assess it.

But what attention are we giving to the quality of our thinking?

What attention are we giving to the quality of our thinking?

Because we can have a community, we can have communities that achieve visible progress, both social and material, without changing the belief that shapes how it sees itself.

We can earn degrees, buy homes, build careers, gain access to spaces once denied to us while still carrying inherited beliefs about who we are, what we deserve, and what is possible.

Quality of life without quality of thought can leave us living better materially, but still confined mentally.

In my book, I introduce a framework called the bonsai theory.

The bonsai theory.

I mean, most of us probably have seen a little bonsai tree, right?

It's a beautiful tree, but it's a tree that has been artificially produced by a process called miniaturization.

And, and it's a metaphor of the miniaturized and dwarfed condition many of our people find ourselves in today.

Our roots and our crown have been and continue to be pruned by a cultivator and placed in a little container.

See, without any connection to our root system, right, and true knowledge of ourselves, which only comes through our crown, we will never be able to obtain our true size, our natural form, our correct identity, our true power.

We have been bonsaied through centuries of slavery, segregation, education systems that distorted Black history and reinforced racial hierarchy and cultural erasure.

We've been pruned and wired under conditions that require suppression, not expression.

The plantation was the original container.

Jim Crow was another.

The education system, when disconnected from culture and community, becomes yet another site of bonsai conditioning.

Rewarding obedience over critical thought and compliance over the mental sovereignty to define who we are for ourselves.

The bonsai theory, though, isn't just about personal limitations.

It's about the social structures and systems that produce those limitations.

The container is policy.

The container is curriculum.

The container is media portrayal, right?

It tells us where we can grow, how much we can express, and which parts of ourselves are safe to show.

And just like the bonsai, We've learned to make even our suffering look graceful.

I mean, we can look right here in Cleveland.

Look at our neighborhoods.

We can look at the conditions of our neighborhoods.

We can look at the conditions of our schools.

We can look at the conditions of our families.

We can look at the conditions of our children.

We can look at the conditions of our health.

For sure.

But those conditions, but those conditions are not evidence that something is wrong with our people.

No.

They are evidence of what happens when people are required to grow within systems that restrict opportunity, that limit resources, control access, and narrow the range of what is possible.

But the deepest damage to container— but the deepest damage of the container is not only what it restricts around us, it's what it teaches us to believe about ourselves.

It's what it teaches us to believe about ourselves.

Over time, the tree can begin to mistake the container for its natural size.

And people can begin to mistake the version of themselves they had to become to survive for their authentic self.

They mistake endurance for purpose, survival for freedom.

Listen, survival is necessary.

Survival is even honorable.

Survival has carried our families through conditions they did not create and could not escape.

Survival has brought many of us in this room today, including myself.

But survival was never supposed to become our permanent address.

We have— we come— we can become so accustomed.

We could become so accustomed to adapting, enduring, protecting ourselves, and responding to crisis that we begin to organize our lives around the very conditions that wounded us.

The container, the danger of this, The danger of the container is that the container no longer has to hold us physically if it is— if it has taught us to limit ourselves mentally.

It no longer has to silence us if it has taught us to question the value of our own voice.

Liberation begins when we recognize that survival is not the full measure of who we are.

We're not here only to endure what has been handed to us.

We are here to examine it, to question it, to transform it, and to transcend it.

We're here to transcend.

Listen, let me be clear.

A liberated mind is not a mind that is untouched by hardship.

It's a mind that can see what shaped it without surrendering to those limitations.

It can distinguish between what was inherited and what we must release.

It can distinguish that.

A liberated mind can recognize the container without accepting its limits as our own.

So how do we break free?

So how do we break free from this container?

How do we move from adapting to restrictive conditions, to reclaiming our mental authority and our mental sovereignty to define who we are ourselves.

It begins with unlearning.

We have to begin to unlearn these inherited beliefs, the survival habits, the old roles we were taught to accept.

And from there, we reclaim the mind, and then we activate the reconstructed self.

Making thoughtful choices, and moving with clarity rather than reaction.

That is the pathway I call the reconstructed self theory.

We see what shaped us, we decide what still belongs, and then we begin living from a self we have consciously chosen.

See, In a world that profits from our confusion, a clear mind is a revolutionary act.

But let me say this, we're not just talking about— this is not just some kind of psychological exercise either.

This, this, it also is a health issue.

This is a health issue.

The mind does not live apart from the body.

The mind does not live apart from the body.

What we carry internally shows up physically.

Chronic stress— hi, Eva— trauma, constant vigilance, they all have consequences.

Being forced to survive without feeling safe enough to become whole.

Has consequences.

We can talk, we, you know, we can't keep talking about hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, depression, premature death as though they are disconnected from the conditions in which people live under and the burdens that they carry within themselves.

Dr.

Hall, he reminds us that health is whole.

That health is whole.

It is body, it is mind, it is history, it is environment, and it is identity.

That is the reason that the relationship with the National Institute for African American Health is so important.

We're trying to we're trying to stop treating the mind and the body.

As if they're 2 separate appointments.

We're trying to stop talking about people's choices as those choices were made somewhere outside of the conditions in which they live.

See, a healthier Black community requires more than just treatment.

It requires environments that support life.

Rather than merely demand survival.

It requires changing the container and requires people with enough clarity and agency to recognize what is harming them and reclaim the authority to choose and then be able to imagine something different.

But But here's the thing: clarity cannot remain private.

Let me say that again.

Clarity cannot remain private.

At some point, it has to show up.

It has to show up in how we parent.

It has to show up in how we teach.

It has to show up in how we organize and how we love.

In how we lead.

It has to show up in how we build.

It has to show up in how we care.

The measure of this work is not simply what we come to understand about ourselves.

It is what becomes possible for others because we did.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu told us this: He said, go upstream.

Today I submit to you that one of the most consequential places that you can go upstream is your mind.

The mind does not exist outside of history.

The mind does not exist outside of policy.

The mind does not exist outside of our community, and it does not exist outside of the conditions under which people are asked to live.

Our work, our work then is both to change the container and to reclaim the minds that the container has shaped.

That is why I came home today.

I came home not to simply talk about what Black people have survived.

I came home to ask, what are we prepared to build?

What kind of families?

What kind of neighborhoods?

What kind of institutions?

What kind of city?

What kind of future?

See, a liberated mind is not merely about being free from something.

A liberated mind is not simply about being free.

I'm liberated.

A liberated mind is prepared for what comes next.

And my friends, we have to prepare for what comes next.

Be prepared to think clearly, prepare to act intentionally, Prepare to build courageously.

Prepare to love deeply.

And prepare to help somebody else do the same.

Protect your peace, guard your mind, and keep choosing clarity.

Amen?

Amen.

All right.

Amazing.

Amazing.

So those of you who've seen the book, it's a thin book, but you cannot read it in one sitting.

I think maybe 8.

I was like, this is too much, because I've been bonsaied.

My mind is not liberated, I'm here to say.

And the important part that Tim wanted me up here for is to say it really does affect our health.

The stress of constantly being on the bad end of bias, the bad end of the police, the bad end of where we have to be and what bias does to us at work and at home and how we choose people who work for us and how we work for other people.

That causes stress, and that causes hypertension.

It can cause diabetes, and it's actually doing that.You know, we talk about Flatbush diabetes.

It's just the stress, cortisol.

People are going to the hospital with high blood sugars.

They're being put on insulin because of the stress that they have to endure, and that's not a coincidence.

It's happening.

It happens disproportionately in black people.

In oppressed neighborhoods.

And so it's really important that we unite the mind and the stress because we're spending a lot of money.

If you're a practical person, you know, 40% of Ohio's budget is Medicaid, and 30% of Medicaid budget is African American health, probably more, 30% of enrollees, probably their budget is even higher on that.

And we're all spending, we're all paying for that.

And so it's really not just one little community's problem as COVID showed us, right?

It's all of our problems.

And so being able to liberate your mind, no matter your socioeconomic status, as you, you indicated, right, you know, I'm doing okay, you know, as a physician, but, but I'm not living— my mind is not liberated.

I am under stress, and that stress has given me hypertension and high blood sugar and things of that nature.

And so being able to, to be able to liberate your mind is incredible, Tim.

And I think what's really The best part of it is we don't need someone in a boardroom to decide this about us.

We don't need legislation.

This all can start with each of us being able to look at how we think and why we think that way, right?

Yeah.

I mean, we were on NPR yesterday, and the caller called in and was talking about how he was having problems with— it's dealing with something about his his mom and how the healthcare system was treating his mother.

And he was really upset about it.

And he said that this was institutional racism and this, that, and the other.

And it very well could be, right?

But to become empowered for yourself and to understand, to have knowledge of the system, to have knowledge of what you you're capable of, the fact that you can advocate, right, that you can work with other people to figure out how you can change the system itself.

So part of that is having the— is not taking— is not saying to the institutions or the systems and the structures to say, take ownership, they're not responsible.

But we too can empower ourselves by, by, by understanding the power that we actually have without limiting ourselves just, just to say, well, they doing it to us.

Well, if— but we also can understand that we have power, that we can advocate, that we— that we— that the— there's power in education.

Right?

And so, no, I mean, you know, we do actually have that, that kind of strength.

And the, and the first stage of hypertension is knowing what your blood pressure is.

What your blood pressure is.

You got diabetes, you don't know what your blood sugar is, you, you haven't even started, right?

And so being able to know that in your mind, you know, you just thought, I thought, why did I think that?

You know what I'm saying?

That part of it, right?

It's part of it, is understanding.

Well, first of all, is A lot of us don't have the language to know.

I mean, a lot of people don't even understand stress.

When we talk about— in this room, we talk about stress, but there's people that don't even know how to connect the word stress to how they feel.

We don't have the language to even understand hypertension.

That's a big word.

Where does that come from?

I don't know what that means to me, right?

And, and so just in the basic understanding of how we, uh, um, can understand why, uh, what hypertension means and why am I feeling what, what these thoughts are causing to my body, right?

And still, and still medicine still does, you know, treat it separate, right?

I mean, I've had people say I'm stressed, that's why my blood pressure is high, and I'm like, well, we can't do anything about your stress, but start amlodipine, or, you know what I mean, start this medicine.

And so I've been part of the problem, and doctors like me have been part of the problem.

But, you know, knowing that a lower blood pressure will be beneficial can make a big difference.

We're going to start with the Q&A in a minute.

If you're joining us through a live stream or the radio audience, I'm Dr.

Greg Hall, founder of the National Institute of African American Health and today's moderator.

And on stage today is the incredible Timothy Goler, Associate Professor and Chair of Department of Sociology at North Norfolk State University and Research Director of the Center for African American Public Policy, and author of what we're talking about today, A Liberated Mind: A Guide to Black Clarity.

Today we're discussing how social systems shape Black consciousness and how individuals and communities can reclaim their agency and start living with clarity.

We welcome questions from everyone—City Club members, guests, and those joining via livestream at our City Club or live radio broadcast at 89.7 WKSU IdeaStream Public Media.

If you'd like to text a question to Dr.

Goler, please text it to 330-541-5790.

That's 330-541-5790.

And the City Club staff will try to work that in.

Tim, this is so, so deep, but it's really important for everyone?

Because we've talked before, there are some people who believe their mind is liberated.

And for them, what's the option?

I don't know.

Nothing wrong with my mind.

My mind is fine.

Right.

I mean, I think part of it is the idea of continuing to ask questions, to continue to be curious about your life, because we all feel.

Everybody feels something.

You feel either— sometimes you, you don't know why you feel the way you feel.

I mean, you think a lot of us, we get mad.

Success masks over a lot of stuff too, right?

You know, I have a PhD from Case Western Reserve University, right?

I am liberated.

Not necessarily so.

No.

Right.You know, I think we have to continue to be like 2-year-olds.

You know, why?

Why?

Why is this?

Why is that?

Read, read, read and correct the lies.

Right.

Continue to be curious about life.

You know?

Yeah.

Because people will say, you know, someone's— I mean, these terrible examples that— and I'm just being transparent— if someone's riding a bike and they got shot in a big, you know, affluent white neighborhood.

Well, why was he riding a bike in that neighborhood?

That's a dysfunctional thought.

He should be able to ride his bike wherever he wants.

But I'm speaking on behalf of some Black people in the room that their knee-jerk thought was, well, what was he doing in that neighborhood?

And that's a dysfunctional thought.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

So if we once realize that, why did I think that?

And then get deeper into that.

It's, it's kind of eye-opening, right?

Yeah, that's what I was talking about in terms of, um, um, we have to question the— and these are these inherited beliefs, right?

Because we have— we do carry a lot of beliefs that we didn't create.

You know, we were— a lot of us were born into beliefs, you know, born into a time period.

You know, I was born in 1965.

What was going on in 1965?

We had Civil rights, that kind of stuff.

I mean, so the time period you were born into, you know, it goes— speaks to the condition, right?

The conditions shape, uh, conditions become your, your thoughts, your mind.

They become internalized, and, and then that shapes how we— what we believe, you know.

So don't go in, why did he come in that neighborhood, right, with that bike?

He shouldn't be coming in that neighborhood with that bike.

Right, so we're gonna be taking questions, so if you want to start lining up.

I think it's, it's one of those things that we have to know, you know, my— that was something that my father would second-guess.

Why was he in that neighborhood, right?

Because that's where I got that from.

But knowing that, that, that was— that his whole life shaped, shaped that.

But your dad was born in Jim Crow, right?

He was born in that container of what Jim Crow— I mean, when you're restricted So it restricts it, but it also creates, you know, different coping mechanisms and survival.

But sometimes those same mechanisms and sometimes those same survival habits that we used before might not be serving us, serving us that well today.

And the things that we do to become successful and stay successful takes its toll on our health, right?

And that's the message that we really want to know, that, that if you— no matter where your station is, if you're able to kind of analyze how you look at things and you— and how you react to things and how you expect things, that you can actually improve your health by lowering your blood pressure, lowering your risk for congestive heart failure, lowering your risk for diabetes, all— lowering your risk for cancer.

All that stuff is related to inflammation.

And your immune system.

You know, if you're agitated, your immune system is not as well.

And so this is not just, you know, like you said, how now my brain is now liberated.

You know, it's not just that.

It's like this is related to your life expectancy, how long you're going to live, how well you're going to live, and how much you're going to— how well you're going to feel.

Yes.

We'll take our first question.

First of all, thank you and welcome home, my brother.

I appreciate the conversation because, as you can see, I'm always trying to bring young men with me.

And as I was walking in with Brother Perry and said that I remember when you and Brother Goler was meeting at the old City Club, it's been 30 years of just bringing young men there.

And so, yeah, 30 years of young people coming to this type of a place.

And so thank you for those that have this place.

I asked my young men after you finished, what word did they hear out of all of your conversation?

The word that they said, all 3 of them, clarity.

I'm asking you, Brother Goler, how do we locate those that are seeking the minds of our young people?

Because it takes a special group of people to do that.

So if you could give me whatever your answer may be, being at Norfolk State, and then, you know, you're giving me the opportunity to be the principal of your school the first time that you started, I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Tim.

I, you know, I— there was a— there's a mentor of mine.

He said to me, he used to call me Turkey.

He said, Turkey?

He said, the burden is on the one who knows.

He said, the burden is on the one who knows.

So if you think you know, then the burden is on us, right?

I mean, so if, if, if we need to try to reach the young people, then it's on you because you know.

Me, because I know, and everybody else that think they know, to try our best to connect, um, like minds, if you will, to help these young people.

Because they— where we are right now, they need help.

Yeah.

You know, is it, is it better that we, we intervene earlier?

I mean, is, is that— is there an advantage to that?

Hmm, that's a good question.

In some sense, I say yes.

Right.So we're just done.

Done.

Right.

Forget it.

Leave.

Save yourself.

Save yourself.

I think, yes, I think that's why early childhood is important.

Right.

That's why, you know, but you can't leave the parents out.

Right.

You need, you need the parents involved.

Right.

So I do think if we can get folks early, it matters.

I think what we teach our children matters, you know, what we put in front of them, what kind of curriculum that we give them, what kind of teachers that we put in front of these children, you know, is vitally important.

I mean, part of the, part of the liberated mind is not just identity from the sense of, of, of, of, but it's who are you?

Who are you, right?

You know, um, when we have a sense of our own identity, then you can, you know, you're— that's why, why you think they, for African Americans, folks try to ban books.

I don't want you to know who you are, because once you know that, then you're able to look at other people and say, I love you.

And that's powerful to be able to do that and feel comfortable in your own skin.

Right, right.

Next question.

Good afternoon.

Hi, Dr.

Goler.

Hello, Tamara.

Good to see you.

Thanks for coming back and bringing your love and your intellect and your insights to Cleveland.

In your opening comments, you dropped a lot of jewels, but one of your statements was around monetizing outrage.

I was wondering if you could expand on that and share some of the implications for a liberated mind.

Man, to monetize outrage, confusion, right?

That's— it's, it's every single day on every single platform on social media.

You know, this is, uh, high-stakes propagandization, right?

I mean, if I can control your thinking, uh, I got you.

Right, so, so it's, it's, it's right now the social media is, is rampant, you know, um, TikTok.

Not saying nothing's— not saying there's not good things, but when you're not a, a— when you're not an informed consumer of information, that's where having some sense of your, you know, your identity, having a sense of knowledge then you're able to consume the information in a way that you can dissect the lies.

But when you're not, you're just taking everything in, and then you start saying, well, why are you riding that bike in that neighborhood?

Right, right, exactly, exactly.

You know, so it can make it— it makes a difference with, um, you know, people want— if you want to not like a medication, you can join a Facebook group that hates that medication.

Yeah, yeah, right.

And then you'll only hear reassuring things, but it can be a dysfunctional thing as it relates to your health.

Absolutely.

And what I want to say is when we talk about conditions, right, sometimes we talk about— we think of the neighborhood condition, right?

But this can be a condition too.

This is a condition because you've taken all your energy in doing this.

This is— your whole mind is right here, right?

I mean, so this is a conditioning mechanism.

Right, so, so, so think about our kids, the one that's sitting here doing this all day long, and we don't even have no control over it.

It's just shaping their thoughts, shaping everything, right?

Right.

And what they see is many times is foolishness, and it's, and it's shaping their thought of how they even view their own community, you know, watching fights at gas stations and, you know, I mean, if you— it's just crazy.

Next question.

Good afternoon, gentlemen.

I've enjoyed the conversation.

S the question that came to my mind is you were speaking about the conditions of our body, you know, hypertension, stress.

And some of these things are gifts that our ancestors have given to us that we then have to manage.

But then there's also the external factors of trying to move from your point of survival to a liberated mind.

But there's stressors that drive in the middle of that.

Can you talk a little bit about how we as individuals can balance the two in a healthy way so that we can arrive to liberation while, yes, maintaining a healthy body?

Right.

You know, some of this is not rocket science either, right?

I mean, we know— I think a lot of us know these things.

We just got to Some of it's just exercise, eat right, get your rest, read, breathe.

You know, if it's stressful, you know, it sounds simplistic, right?

But if it's stressful, let it go.

Meaning that you don't have to own everything.

You don't have to own everything.

Sometimes you can just say no.

Right, right, right.

Just no.

I mean, I'm not trying to minimize it, you know what I mean?

I'm not trying to minimize the situation, but I'm saying sometimes we have more control than we believe we have.

Right?

So, you know, it's a matter of not always having to please everybody all the time.

Not getting caught up in the, I got to be liked.

You got to get the likes for the social media talent.

I got to have all these likes.

No, you don't.

You will live a more stress-free life if you just log off sometimes.

Just log off for a minute and realize when you're being manipulated too, right?

Well, yeah, I mean, but the other thing is to, is to, is, is to understand we have to get a better understanding of our own emotions too, you know.

Um, you know, how do you, you know, tap into how you feel, um, and acknowledge it?

You know, I'm sad.

That's okay.

There's nothing wrong with being sad, but don't live there, right?

But, but it's okay because we all human, right?

Right.

You know, you know, when there's a mass murderer, um, and they haven't showed the mass murderer yet, yeah, 90% of the Black community says, I hope they're not Black.

Another dysfunctional thought, right?

We don't have to take responsibility, right?

I can't speak on on behalf of white people, when there's a white mass murderer, they're not feeling like, right, you know what I mean?

So, we are, right?

And, and, and, and that's— that little micro stress, yeah, causes your blood pressure to go up.

There's hormones that release that, and those things matter.

We'll go.

I will tell you, I don't know about anybody else, but I was traumatized by musical chairs.

Growing up.

I don't know if anybody else played that game.

But it's not until you get older and you look back and you start thinking about scarcity and how we learn those types of things over and over again.

And yet we turn around and we play the same game with our kids.

'Cause we haven't really thought about what we're doing.

So the question becomes, when we talk about consciousness, how do we begin to be more active about thinking about what we're thinking about so that we're not unintentionally passing that on?

And I don't wanna say this as if I'm being critical of anything.

I know people always say that when you preface it that way.

But we worship at the heels of those white coats that you doctors wear without taking agency for ourselves and saying, can I pay attention to how I feel after I eat this?

Or can I pay attention to how I feel after I scroll?

So when you talk about this idea of the liberated mind, how do we, how do we get to the place where we're analyzing things?

'Cause AI is really making us dumber, right?

How do we get to the place where we're not just accepting what we've been given and really pull back the curtains so we see was really pulling our strings?

That's chapter 8.Right.

Yeah, right.

No, but Tim.

Yeah, that's a good question.

I think you just started right there at the mic, right?

So part of it is just like you asked those questions and you're curious, You got to lean in.

You got to lean into that curiosity, right?

Because you're asking the right questions.

You're saying, well, why do I— well, I'm trying to figure out— well, keep going.

Don't stop, right?

Don't just go, I'm trying to figure out, and then you're done.

Keep going.

Keep asking.

Keep researching.

Keep digging.

Keep— you know, you want to figure out about food?

Go over to Riddle.

Right?

Tap into, tap into stuff, right?

So, so what I'm saying to you is, is you, is you don't stop.

This is, to your point earlier, like, where do we, you know, where do we begin?

This is, this is a life course thing.

This is stuff that we do for the rest of our lives.

I am not liberated even, you know what I'm saying?

What I'm saying is I just know a little something of something.

But we're going to— we got to keep going.

So I think you, you're on the right track, right?

But you, you lean in and you keep going until it's, till it's time not to go no more.

Very good.

We have our last question.

It's yours.

Good afternoon.

My name is Roland Jones.

I'm a senior at Warrensville Heights High School.

All right.

And yeah.

I grew up in all different types of home situations and different things.

And as I'm maturing to try and urge it going into the real world, I have to deal with trying to, in a way, liberate my own mind.

And so I have the ability, being in high school, to, I guess, try and invest in myself and not have to put myself in so many situations where my mind could jeopardize my situation.

But going into college, how can I be able to put myself out there and do certain things and still be able to liberate my mind effectively, you know, and not put myself in a situation where I might have to go back into my survival instincts and revert to what I went through growing up?

That's a great question.

See that guy over there, Fred Ward?

You can ask him.

He'll tell you about it.

No, but that's a fantastic question.

I mean, because we do revert back to survival, right?

And so how do you break out of survival?

Part of it is, is where you at right now.Again, when we all have these starting points, you got to begin to kind of, um, challenge your own thinking about the stuff that got you to think the way you think right now.

You know, that's where I say you gotta unlearn.

That's probably one of the most, uh, underutilized tools in our toolbox is the ability to unlearn the stuff that we grew up with, because we all grew up with every one of us in this room grew up in a household, either you was Baptist, Pentecostal, whatever it was.

you grew up in some context or a neighborhood, right?

I grew up on 95th and St.

Clair.

There was certain conditions when I grew up, right?

Certain survival things that I tapped into.

But I had to kind of challenge myself to your point about like, and continue to ask those questions about, okay, what do I need to do to become more— utilize my mind more, right?

And so you're on the right track.

Glad you're here.

Thank you, Dr.

Timothy Goler, Dr.

Gregory Hall, for joining us at the City Club today.

My name is Dan Moulthrop.

I'm the chief executive here.

Forums like this one are made possible thanks to generous support from individuals like all of you.

You can learn more about how to become a member of the City Club and a guardian of free speech at cityclub.org.

Thanks once again, Tim and Greg.

We really appreciate you.

Members and friends of the City Club, please have a great weekend.

Our forum is now adjourned.

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