Hi, I’m Rée.
Growing up, I felt like the education system wasn’t built for people like me to succeed. As a student with undiagnosed neurodivergence, learning disabilities, and anxiety, I struggled to learn in the ways my peers learned.
In the decades following, I became an educator and taught in various classrooms around the world. I taught in public schools, private universities, large government funded programs, and even small academies. I designed curriculum, measured student success, and even assessed teacher efficacy.
Then, while teaching a group of English language learners in South Korea, who like me, hadn’t received adequate attention in school, I realized I was using the same methodologies as the ones that had failed me.
homeroom is my attempt to remedy this on an international scale. To speak with as many people from around the world about their own education systems to rethink what schools can be. What it should be, when we design systems and metrics which are inclusive of more diverse types of learners and thinkers with varying levels of family involvement and access to resources.
In this episode, I speak with Shawn—a visual effects artist and digital compositor—about the institutional challenges he faced growing up on the south side of Chicago, and the father figure who helped him overcome the limiting beliefs that were instilled in him from a young age. We talk about his early creative interests, the journey of nurturing his talents, and what he had to do before he became a senior compositor on major films and shows like Captain America, Guardians of the Galaxy, The Avengers, and at least 60 others.
Here is our edited conversation.
Computer-generated Transcript
Accessibility Disclaimer: Below is a computer generated transcript of our conversation. Please note that there are likely very many errors––including the spellings of names––and may not make sense, especially when taken out of context.
00:00:03:07 – 00:00:28:09 Unknown Hi, I’m Ray. Growing up, I felt like the education system wasn’t built for people like me to succeed as a student with undiagnosed neurodivergent learning disabilities and anxiety, I struggled to learn in the ways my peers learned. In the decades following. I became an educator and taught in various classrooms around the world. I taught in public schools, private universities, large government funded programs, and even small academies.
00:00:28:11 – 00:01:11:03 Unknown I designed curriculum, measured student success, and even assessed teacher efficacy. Then, while teaching a group of English language learners in South Korea who, like me, hadn’t received adequate attention in school, I realized I was using the same methodologies as the ones that had failed me. Homeroom is my attempt to remedy this on an international scale to speak with as many people from around the world about their own education systems, to rethink what schools can be, what it should be, when we design systems and metrics which are inclusive of more diverse types of learners and thinkers with varying levels of family involvement and access to resources.
00:01:11:05 – 00:01:46:00 Unknown In this episode, I speak with Sean, a visual effects artist and digital compositor, about the institutional challenges he faced growing up on the South Side of Chicago, and the father figure who helped him overcome the limiting beliefs that were instilled in him from a young age. We talk about his early creative interests, the journey of nurturing his talents and what he had to do before he became a senior compositor on major films and shows like Captain America, Guardians of the Galaxy, The Avengers, and at least 60 others.
00:01:46:01 – 00:01:52:12 Unknown Here is our edited conversation.
00:01:52:14 – 00:02:29:17 Unknown I think that growing up on the South Side of Chicago in the mid in the eighties, I was born in 84. In the black community particularly, you know, the community. There’s a certain level of, you know, like that’s pain, struggle and a lot of things that happened due to several different factors. You know, I think that I was raised by a single mother halfway through my life, locked up to about maybe 12 years old.
00:02:29:19 – 00:03:02:11 Unknown My and my my my biological father wasn’t there. So I think that a lot of the times I had like a lot of energy and a lot of creativity growing up as a child. Like I, I loved making things with my hands. Like, you know, I would make cardboard action figures with my hands and, you know, like, I would just get cereal boxes and kind of all these pieces and try to put and try to make something out of it, like an action figure or something.
00:03:02:13 – 00:03:26:17 Unknown And I think that growing up, I didn’t really have the resources, My parents or like my mom, the people around me were just trying to survive and get by. Especially like when you come from I don’t really come from a broken home. I mean, I was kind of sort of like sometimes I was living by the projects when I had to.
00:03:26:19 – 00:03:54:06 Unknown Me and my mom had to move in with my grandparents, and they lived right by the projects. Like, that was a while ago. So I didn’t I didn’t have the resources to even think about what Even think about like, my passion. I knew I had a passion for creativity and for making things with my hands and seeing things that maybe people couldn’t see, you know, like in terms of special effects film or whatever.
00:03:54:08 – 00:04:22:20 Unknown And it was it’s difficult to even even communicate that, let alone people are just trying to like, you know, do the basic things, like in my grammar school growing up, like that’s like me district, K-12 school. I don’t know how it is here, but here it’s like middle school. But my grammar school, we had to play. The only places that we had to play are like, you know, the parking lot in the back of the school.
00:04:22:22 – 00:04:46:01 Unknown They didn’t have any resources. There was no no other resources, no swimming pool, no basketball court, like it was nothing. So we had to make do with the very little that we had. And it’s not like I grew up like poor and desolate. It’s just that I grew up in a broken home, you know? So I didn’t grow up with people telling me that, you should do this, that and the other.
00:04:46:01 – 00:05:20:09 Unknown Or you could be this or that, because a lot of people didn’t even realize their own dreams. They didn’t even they didn’t even have someone telling them that they could be something better than that, than who they were or what their what they were doing or the decisions that they made. So it’s difficult when you’re in a place like that, like it’s very difficult to see, to visualize yourself or to tell or it’s not like a child that they can that they are this way or that way or that you can grow up to be this.
00:05:20:10 – 00:06:01:05 Unknown Like, if anything, I was told, you can be a basketball player or something. It’s just that growing up there was not much opportunity to even communicate my dreams to anyone, let alone them understanding it. And actually because they didn’t really have resources to even pursue their own dreams most of the time. So I don’t know if I answered your question, but I just basically I would say that I didn’t really even get any of that type of I didn’t even really get this word for it.
00:06:01:07 – 00:06:33:19 Unknown Like, you know, teaching as a child that I was valuable, that I mattered. A lot of the time. I was alone. I was alone. And, you know, like I didn’t have adults, adults guiding me for anything. I had, like a lot of adults doing that things around me or, you know, exposing me to things that I didn’t need to be exposed to.
00:06:33:21 – 00:07:04:05 Unknown So stuff that’s really tough. Yeah. No, for sure. And, you know, I can kind of relate my own like childhood story with a lot of the things that you said. Obviously not the same at all, but, you know, like being raised by a single mom and not having a lot of people expect you to become something. Right. Yeah, exactly.
00:07:04:06 – 00:07:38:01 Unknown Yeah, yeah, yeah. I totally get that. Are totally. And, you know, I think that a lot of Asian people have this kind of, you know, helicopter parent who’s like, you are going to become something. You’re going to become this amazing thing. And I know you can do it. So I’m going to push you really hard. And I couldn’t really relate to a lot of the parents who push their children because nobody really did that for me in my in my youth.
00:07:38:03 – 00:08:22:18 Unknown And so, you know, my question to you is, I know you kind of talked about like the basketball thing, and I was wondering if you can elaborate on that a little bit. When you looked around and looked at the role models around you and kind of gleaned that expectation for yourself, what were the things that people thought you would become or what were the things that either your caregivers or your teachers were trying to tell you was a possibility for you after school?
00:08:22:20 – 00:08:53:12 Unknown I think that a lot of the time it was just about finishing school and getting to that next step. And I think I had some teachers that would say, I had one teacher that said to me, like Shawn, I think that you’re going to be different because you like when you are making decisions in a group or whatever, you always try to like be the lone wolf or try to do what you want to do regardless of what anyone else around you says. So I think that that was one thing that one teacher said to me that I didn’t really understand when I was like 11 or 12. I was like, but I just want to I just want to belong. I just want to be accepted and I want to belong. I want to be the cool kid, the popular kid, the kid that got the good grades and also that was the most popular. And I never was that, of course, But I don’t know. I think that there are some times when in the black community, of course, like the only way to get out of the poverty and out of to become the most successful person that you that you could, that the stereotype is to be a B in sports and get a sports scholarship to college and stuff like that. But I never did any of those things. I was terrible at sports, so I don’t know if I actually got a lot of encouragement growing up. I think there was always encouragement to, you know, finish school, finish high school, finish college. But where you want to do with your life, I mean, I think that majority of the people didn’t even it’s kind of like this is kind of like the same where there are, you know, people that don’t have their passions, they don’t know what their passions are. They will just grow to sometimes they will grow to teach their children. They would tell their children or that the children that were around them that, look, you just need to get a safe job, just get something that makes money that you’re good at. You don’t have to love it. You don’t have to be passionate about it. Just do what’s safe. B Be safe. And I think that echoes in some other, you know, another communities also. But, you know, but the thing is, like the career that I have now is totally what, you know, it’s kind of like maybe some if for some of my ancestors, it’s their wildest dreams, right? Like, I work in visual effects. I’m a senior compositor.
00:10:59:00 – 00:11:27:16 Unknown It took me a while to get to this stage, but granted, it’s kind of like you’re talking to. I think it’s very difficult for anyone to understand, let alone think about, like, encouraging a child to do what they love. If they don’t, if they don’t have a passion for themselves, if they don’t do what they love, it’s kind of like it’s all right, you know, that type of situation, if that makes sense.
00:11:27:18 – 00:11:54:04 Unknown They like I saw this documentary from Alan Watts. I’m not sure if it’s from earlier with them, but he was a teacher at UCLA, I think, And he would basically say that he said several things to parents or to children about or Stu to his students about what do you want to do with when you grow up and what is what like what what inspires you.
00:11:54:06 – 00:12:16:18 Unknown Like a lot of parents teach our children to, you know, like they raised their children to, you know, workshops that they don’t like and then is just kind of repeating the cycle for for, you know, for some reason, it’s just like you’re growing up and you’re teaching them to just be safe and just, you know, work a job that they don’t like because they’re doing the same thing.
00:12:16:20 – 00:12:35:05 Unknown But, you know, it’s just kind of like going down this this family timeline. There’s a lot of families teaching their children something that they don’t that, you know, teaching our children to just work a job and be safe and do something that they don’t like because they do the same thing. So that’s what I think. I want to break the cycle.
00:12:35:07 – 00:13:19:17 Unknown Yeah. And, you know, that kind of reminds me of what I think it it was John Adams and he wrote a letter to, like, his wife or his sister. I don’t I don’t know who Abigail Adams is, probably his wife. But he said something in that letter about how it’s the job of parents to study or it’s it’s the job of the first generation and to go into fields like math and science and politics so that they can raise children who can study art and humanities and things like that.
00:13:19:19 – 00:13:56:11 Unknown And so kind of something that you said earlier about, like, you know, the psychological needs, right? If we’re looking at Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, like if you don’t have certain foundational needs met right? Like if you don’t if you’ve never had that narrative told to you that you can pursue your dreams or that you can dream bigger right then they’re not going to raise children who are going to be able to get out of that like mindset and do what they love.
00:13:56:11 – 00:14:28:09 Unknown And so, yeah, and I think that’s kind of what you’re saying. And so what you’re what you’re doing with your life, which is to have access to that creativity, right? To have pursued that same energetic of, you know, making action figures with your hands to translating that into a really successful career of like working on Marvel films and, you know, like all these films that we see have like million billion dollar budgets, right?
00:14:28:11 – 00:15:01:07 Unknown And you being like a senior, having a senior role in these films as well. And so it’s amazing that you have been able to carry that dream of yours into fruition. And I want to flesh out how you do. I think that when I was in, I think that I already knew that I had a creative I wanted to learn one, but I knew that I had a creative eye growing up and I just didn’t understand why I would see things and feel things.
00:15:01:07 – 00:15:28:03 Unknown And it’s really hard to communicate certain things to your peers, especially like when they’re like, Yes, it’s you. When you’re growing up in a community that’s very limited in terms of ideas or what a successful career looks like. My mom wanted me to get into computer science, but I hated that. So I went to a public school, public university.
00:15:28:05 – 00:15:50:01 Unknown I got away from my I think the biggest thing for me was leaving Chicago and actually trying to understand even this. I was in the right place at my university or the like, the right major. I just knew that I needed I needed to work. I want to work on shelves. I knew that I wanted to be a part of that process somehow.
00:15:50:03 – 00:16:15:23 Unknown And so I went to after I got my undergrad, I went to film school in Canada in 3D, and I studied animation and visual effects in Vancouver, B.C. for a year. And it was a really expensive and I took out like a lot of student loans for that almost hundred and 50 K And I mean, I think it was just like all or nothing to me.
00:16:16:01 – 00:17:08:23 Unknown Like I just did not want to, I wanted to pursue my passion and whatever that wherever this would lead me to. So I, I gambled. I gambled, but like, I took out a lot of loans because, you know, only rich kids can be able to afford to go to art school, right. Without paying off, without having debt. So, I mean, I made that gamble, and I came back home to Chicago, and then I worked for free for almost 33 years at all these random studios in Chicago doing motion graphics stuffs and getting coffee and all the admin stuff, getting coffee, getting coffee, taking out the trash, you know, like stupid lots of stupid stuff that
00:17:09:01 – 00:17:36:05 Unknown in my early twenties and on on the side, I worked part time. I was doing surveys for the government. I worked at this place for the University of Chicago. I’m doing surveys for the CDC. So I had a part time job at night and then the day I would just work for free and I worked for free at six studios for three years.
00:17:36:07 – 00:18:04:10 Unknown And after that, I my last my very last internship was at a compositing studio where I was on a commercial, and they did mostly commercials. And I worked there for three months. And then I got some stuff to put together a small reel, and then I got noticed and a studio. And then in Los Angeles a while ago, that was maybe those might have been 2015.
00:18:04:12 – 00:18:29:02 Unknown And then I moved here was like, I don’t know, less than $1,000 in my pocket, maybe less than $600 in my pocket. And I was staying in an Airbnb. I was staying in a hostel right next door to the studio because the studio was located on the Santa monica right by the beach in Santa monica. And the Santa monica hostel was right next door.
00:18:29:04 – 00:18:48:22 Unknown So I stayed right next door at the Santa monica house. I didn’t tell it. I didn’t tell my coworkers this because I was there and they were, you know what it says? I got there. I got it. I got a contract for like 2 to 3 weeks. And I was just staying at the hostel right next door because I couldn’t afford to have an apartment, had no no transportation or anything.
00:18:48:22 – 00:19:19:09 Unknown I mean, I’m, I’m granted at this time, you know, being 24, 25 or paying almost $1,000 a month just to for my student loans because like it was a mortgage. So a lot of my trauma comes, all of my adult trauma comes from paying all those new loans off. But so I was working next door and, you know, and then I finally got my first project, the Civil War or Captain America Civil War as a marvel project.
00:19:19:09 – 00:19:44:12 Unknown And the rest is kind of not necessarily history, but I think it just became easier after that. Granted, I was still hustling all the way through, you know, staying at all these random Airbnbs until I could actually find, you know, until I could actually afford to have an apartment and do things consistently. But it was really hard. It was very, very hard.
00:19:44:13 – 00:20:10:09 Unknown Granted, I was down there 27, 28 by then. So, you know, it was just a big hustle because. Yeah, and I’m wondering, like, if I can we trace back, we can rewind a little bit and I want to know like who are some like faces, what are some faces, people that you remember who supported you on this journey?
00:20:10:11 – 00:20:47:01 Unknown I think that I think that God might be my biggest inspiration because I did I did feel that. I mean, I you know, I was raised Christian, I was raised Catholic, but I don’t practice Catholicism anymore. But I am Christian. And I do believe that God played a huge role in my success because I prayed so much and for almost a decade, like, God, please, like I want to do, I want to work on my passion and I want to I want to use the gifts that you have given me, right?
00:20:47:04 – 00:21:19:21 Unknown Because I do believe that God, you know, like our spirit comes with a gift and that it’s our job in this on this earth, maybe to use that gift to better humanity, to better the world, to improve and stuff like that. But I prayed so long and and so just for a very long time. And I also had a surrogate father that I that I believe that God blessed me with when I was 1718 because my real father wasn’t there.
00:21:19:21 – 00:21:57:03 Unknown But my surrogate father, he is an activist. He practices Aikido, but he’s retired now. But he was kind of the person that stepped into to kind of raise me, even though I was already an adult at college. It was my my roommate’s or my where my friend’s father’s from college. He kind of became my second father and I would almost talk to him every day, you know, I think that he helped me to dream again.
00:21:57:05 – 00:22:52:17 Unknown He helped me to he kind of gave me a lot of confidence to know that I can pursue my passion and that I can be something more than what I was told, that I was growing up and growing up. He I can’t there’s no words to describe how much of a blessing has been in my life in order for me to actually like he taught me the principles, the principles of aikido, you know, about kind of following in redirecting my energy and, you know, like his he has like a few principles, like stay focused and having a loose foundation, like having a, you know, a good foundation, all those things he taught me growing up
00:22:52:19 – 00:23:22:16 Unknown when I was since I was 17, he was a very big part of me being able to, you know, God, of course. But like him, I think that, you know, him being maybe one of God’s messengers, God’s protective forces, he was definitely gave me the push that I needed to pursue my career. And he would say, this is not wasn’t me at all.
00:23:22:16 – 00:23:45:06 Unknown It was all of you, of course. But the step of course, God made a choice. But still, yeah, it’s just a blessing. I think that what’s crazy is that one thing that I kind of didn’t really realize is that, like, no matter how broken of a home that you that we can come from, like all our child needs is just one person.
00:23:45:08 – 00:24:11:22 Unknown They just need one person just to be there for them and to say, I see you, I’m here for you. Tell me what you want and maybe I could help you. You know, maybe I can help you become someone or help you. You know, give you gems and give you things that will help you on your journey. You know, all a child just needs one person.
00:24:12:00 – 00:24:43:14 Unknown That’s one thing that I realized. And I have a thought about this and I have a question for you. You know, when I was younger or when I mean younger, so in my like thirties, I had a lot of like angst about, you know, why wasn’t my family that role for me? Why did my family not fill that role that I felt like I needed to have somebody believe in me?
00:24:43:14 – 00:25:19:19 Unknown And, you know, if I look at everything my family did, I think they were trying their best. And I would say that they were doing that. But maybe there was a block in me for some reason, you know, I didn’t find those mentors until I was in college, you know, until. And so, you know, maybe like, my my, my belief was mistaken that, you know, that it’s the parent’s responsibility or it’s the family’s responsibility or even our teachers responsibility.
00:25:19:21 – 00:25:53:06 Unknown And maybe it in all honestly, it’s it’s kind of a shared community village responsibility, I think, to make sure that all of our children are seen and valued. But you’re right. Like, you know, the universe does send us kind of like an ambassador that is like we think this person is going to be a good match to bring out more gifts and so I want to know more about this person, this friend’s father of yours, who became your surrogate father.
00:25:53:08 – 00:26:40:19 Unknown What do you think it was about him, the way that he talked or the timing in your life or like why do you think the magic happened with this person in that period of your life? Well, being a young 17 year old man, I think that it was perfect timing because he came into my life when I need direction because a lot of the time, like growing up and especially growing up with a single mother like I did, not me and my mother did not have the best relationship growing up because you know, single mothers, they bear the responsibility of having to try to be both like mom and dad, and they end up being
00:26:40:19 – 00:27:05:17 Unknown more aggressive than they need to be. So and also often in the scenarios, it’s all about the bare necessities. You have food, you have shelter, you have a place like you have clothes, you’ve minimal clothes. That’s it. You’re not getting anything else for me. So I almost felt like I was becoming his. He was I was supposed to be a son, too.
00:27:05:19 – 00:27:52:17 Unknown And also, like, there was something that happened with him in his in his life where he actually one of his sons passed away or was aborted and he was going to name him Shawn. And my name is Shawn. So it was kind of like this interesting universe thing that was like, well, you you know, I wish that you were the son that I lost type of thing, But but I think that the way that his mind works, like he can talk your head off, but he’s also very giving.
00:27:52:19 – 00:28:30:19 Unknown He has that he’s kind of an Aquarius a little bit. He has that personality where he’s like, tries to give too much to people. Like emotionally, you know, But he’s he’s a mate. He’s a major like father figure for many people. So I just I don’t know. There’s so many so many more things that I can say. I mean, he’s he I think that he’s just yeah, I just I just think that, like, he was always there for me.
00:28:30:21 – 00:28:55:14 Unknown He was always there for me. And every time I had an issue, every time that I want to talk, I called him up. Even, you know, when I was went through all of my existential crises growing up, you know, 70 to the teens, twenties and thirties, like he was just always there, you know, And and in terms of being a parent, like, that’s really that’s really right.
00:28:55:15 – 00:29:21:05 Unknown Even if he doesn’t have the answer to my problems, you know, just being there and being present, like that’s that’s all that I ever wanted, you know. You know, of course, like, you know, he would give me advice, but, you know, sometimes whether I would take it or not, like it just depends on me. But I think about being a parent from wide, from him is just he wishes there.
00:29:21:07 – 00:29:52:15 Unknown He he was there and he was he was present and he he didn’t judge me. He was he showed like, you know, like he just treated me like when I was one of his sons. And that just meant everything to me. Yeah, that’s incredible. I think there’s so much synchronicity there. And, you know, it’s undeniable that the universe really had, like, a hand in finding you that ambassador to.
00:29:52:17 – 00:30:34:18 Unknown To your life, to God, to the universe. Right. What an amazing match that was. And for you to receive that mentorship and, you know, that sort of medicine, to sort of heal some of those wounds and help you find and channel your gifts into something that the world could see. And I don’t think, you know, a lot of people find it when they need to or they have a hard time seeing the help.
00:30:34:20 – 00:31:05:13 Unknown But it seems like it was it was open on both sides, you know, on his part and on your part. And I think that’s really incredible. And, you know, I was wondering, do you think that that access to the spiritual realm, you know, I think you mentioned it earlier from when you were younger, you had that belief in God and that access to your spirituality.
00:31:05:13 – 00:31:39:23 Unknown And I’m wondering, how did you come into spirituality? well, I grew up in the Catholic Church, which I really disliked. That was terrible. That was more ritualistic based on than being actual me thinking about the spirit world and God and sync on a different way because I would be praying to like, you know, white Jesus, white saints, all the all of that history and culture that was very detrimental to other cultures.
00:31:39:23 – 00:32:11:04 Unknown I was happy I got out of that. But I think that my mom became more of a spiritual person. She became more like Christian, more spiritual as I got older and also more judgmental. But, you know, you know, like there are some moments when I was in church and I kind of felt the spiritual energy. I felt the presence, and I knew that there might be something because I grew up in a black church, right.
00:32:11:04 – 00:32:46:02 Unknown Like the the you know, the energy, the, the, the the gospel songs that are very like in your face with the soul and with like the the the the power of the of the Spirit of the Holy Spirit. So I grew up like that. I grew up going to church like that. And my surrogate father, he also I joined his church, which was the church that Oprah helped us to find in the South Side of Chicago.
00:32:46:04 – 00:33:18:06 Unknown It’s called Trinity. But anyway, so yeah, I became a little bit more spiritual. I did believe in God more, especially after there are so many times in my life where I almost like died. I got into a really bad car accident and when I was maybe I was in college, maybe 18 or 19, and I was, you know, you know, like the car hit us and I was in the passenger side and I was like, unconscious.
00:33:18:06 – 00:33:42:13 Unknown And the car was totaled. And the situation and, you know, I had a gun put to my head before when I was growing up in Chicago, when I was just, you know, like walking home late at night from town, from working downtown. And then this group of teenagers, they just kind of jumped me and they put a gun to my head and said, Give me your things.
00:33:42:13 – 00:34:07:12 Unknown I didn’t really have anything. I just had like a stupid iPod shuffle that they took. And I was like, okay, you could take that. The $50 is fine. I don’t care. But I think that, like, there are so many moments in my life where I felt like, wow, like I could have died. And I do I, I do believe that God was God kept telling me that, you know, that was a close call.
00:34:07:12 – 00:34:38:17 Unknown I saved you like you need to start doing what you what you love your passion because I put you on this earth for a reason. And there’s going to be after a certain point, I’m just going to let things happen to you because you are you already not to say that God would say this says this, but there’s kind of like there was a point of no return where if you did not complete your life’s purpose here on this earth, like, okay, you’re going to be done.
00:34:38:17 – 00:35:15:21 Unknown Maybe your child will do it, maybe someone else’s child will do it. But do you have do you have limited time? That’s what it kind of felt like. my gosh, I can’t believe you’re talking about this just because I. I might have shared this publicly. Maybe not. But for the past year, at the beginning of 2023, I really had this strong feeling of like, my gosh, I’m going to die soon.
00:35:15:23 – 00:35:45:23 Unknown And I need to get out. All of the ideas and projects that I’ve been placed on this earth to do before or my life goes away and, you know, has gone in vain. And so I just got this, like serious push and energy to just be like, okay, ah, I know that I’ve been working on this thing. I need to get that out before I die.
00:35:45:23 – 00:36:26:08 Unknown I’m working on this thing. I have to get out my story before I die. And largely a part of homeroom is what one of those projects that I was like, You know, I have been in education. I really want the next generation of children and students to not feel like they’re not valued if they, you know, happen to not be economic products or, you know, deemed by teachers and adults to be worthy to, you know, keep the economy up or whatever.
00:36:26:10 – 00:37:23:14 Unknown And so what you’re saying really resonates with me. And so if we look back at all of the sort of like messages you receive from God the universe, and you know that messaging from the spiritual realm about finding our and pursuing our passion, how do you how would you suggest that we change the way that we parent or the way that we educate our children to help them find not only find their passion or their purpose earlier in life and find a way to help our children cultivate their purpose in a way that makes them see see themselves as valuable contributors of society.
00:37:23:16 – 00:38:08:18 Unknown Wow. Lord have mercy. I wish. I wish I knew I don’t have children. But I think that if I did have children and I feel like this question is over my head a little bit because I always say the wrong thing because I’m not a parent yet. You know, what I would have liked for someone for me is to kind of not not analyze like what I was interested in, but to just kind of try to cultivate like what I really liked or what I or what they saw that I was really into growing up and I didn’t get that at all.
00:38:08:18 – 00:38:41:03 Unknown Like, if anything, they just ignored me. I was making 3D puzzles, like I made like three really cool 3D puzzles growing up and I was living in my grandparents house and they just kind of like ignored me. They’re just like, he’s just playing. He’s just a child. I’m just play, I’m speaking. And but all the while, like, I was thinking about all these cool, like these lights and sounds and the effects I would watch Power Rangers and Teenage Ninja Turtles and I were just thinking with my head, I was like living in my own fantasy world.
00:38:41:05 – 00:39:17:08 Unknown But and that’s kind of like Sean that that is Sean’s inner child. That is who that’s what I wanted to do. That’s who I want to be growing up. But a lot of children lose that a lot because going through life when they, you know, from being a child to being an adult, like it’s almost like their dreams get kind of like completely they just get punched out of them by the education system, telling them that like, whatever their their whatever their spirit purpose or whatever their life purpose was it just gets fleshed out.
00:39:17:10 – 00:39:36:09 Unknown It gets kind of like not killed by it. It’s like it’s like they are are the systems that we have that just like it just tells them to put your inner child in a box and unlock the door. And then you wake up when you’re 60 or 70 and you wonder, like I wish I would have done all these things growing up.
00:39:36:09 – 00:39:58:10 Unknown I wish I would have had these. But I, I think personally what I would have liked is for someone to just be interested in what I what I like and try to cultivate that within me a little bit more. And, you know, you can’t really tell a child what to do, right. But I think the future is might be all about specialization.
00:39:58:12 – 00:40:22:18 Unknown But who knows? I mean, who knows what the future will be for our children, right? So or for my future children. So I think that it’s a hard question because I don’t have children yet, but if I did, I would try to cultivate a special specification in a certain type of craft that I that they show that they’re really, really interested in.
00:40:22:20 – 00:41:00:16 Unknown But I don’t know, I’m just like, how do I know? But the thing is, that’s the way my brain works. So but some children, they might want to do many different things and be many, many different careers in their life span. So in terms of being successful, I think that what what my surrogate father taught me was he was saying that, like you, if you want to do this, you have to make the necessary choices in order to to you have to make the necessary choices in your life to have that results.
00:41:00:18 – 00:41:23:06 Unknown Like if you don’t make those choices that lead to that, then you’re not going to get there. You’re not going to have the resolve. You have to do whatever it takes and not whatever it takes. But you know, you have to your will has to be impeccable in order to do this, because you can’t you can’t not there is there is no option.
00:41:23:08 – 00:41:49:01 Unknown There is options A, B and C, But like I think that he taught me more of the IQ principles that allowed me to like kind of focus flow, redirect my energy into and to like have this kind of just extreme level of determination to never give up and to hustle and to work my butt off. But everyone works their balls right?
00:41:49:03 – 00:42:20:04 Unknown But it’s just it’s also about it’s kind of like about like what? The thing that I kind of realize now at this point in my life where I do, I do feel that, you know, like, I didn’t realize this before, but I think that I realized it more after, you know, my wife’s mom passed away. Is that like we come into this life with a spiritual, like our spirits, they come with gifts.
00:42:20:06 – 00:42:45:05 Unknown And regardless of what you choose to do or not do with them, when you’re a child, when you’re born with this gift, like the people around you, they kind of need to see it. They just need to basically be able to see it. I see you. I see your gifts. You’re talented. You there’s a place in this world for your gift.
00:42:45:07 – 00:43:09:19 Unknown That’s what I think. There’s a place in this world for you. And I will help. I will try my best to help cultivate this gift that you have that the best that I can. But I think the most important thing that I could, that I was told is that he didn’t he never shot my gift down. He never told me that this is impossible.
00:43:09:19 – 00:43:39:23 Unknown This is stupid. Why are you doing this? Like, that’s kind of that’s that’s one of the more important things, too, because that the fire, that spiritual energy of that gift, you can’t like, you can’t blow it out. And a lot of children, their lights get blown out super early, super quickly. Yeah, for sure. And half past. And most of the time it’s just is their, you know, their parents and their teachers.
00:43:39:23 – 00:44:17:13 Unknown They yeah, they did that. There’s some that tried to do to me too. Yeah. For sure. And you know this kind of reminds me of something that have you Well there’s a book Rich Dad. Poor dad. I read that book. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. Robert Kiyosaki kind of talks about like, you know, poor Dad taught him to stay within your means, and Rich Dad taught him to, you know, know how do you get what you want?
00:44:17:15 – 00:44:43:13 Unknown How, how can you change what you do in order to get what you want? And so it kind of sounds like that’s kind of the lesson that you inherited from your surrogate father, which, you know, is very similar to what I’m learning in therapy, which is, okay, what does what you what is what angers you or what frustrates you?
00:44:43:13 – 00:45:21:11 Unknown What does that reveal about what you’ve value and how can you put your energy towards practicing more of what you value? And so, you know, I think it’s it’s really important that we don’t take down what our children or what our students want to do. We to sort of redirect them and give them the opportunities and the that guidance towards finding ways to make their realities possible, to make their passions possible.
00:45:21:13 – 00:46:31:14 Unknown And so that’s really good insight. And what do you think you wish you could have had more guidance with or support for? Man, that’s a tough question. I think that just kind of when it gets I think that this question the question is, is kind of I think it goes back to the more of the whole picture in terms of, you know, not having father growing up, you know, and also like having a parent that was an addict and, you know, and having a mom that couldn’t really be there because she was working all the time and living in my grandparents home, that was very, very destructive and chaotic.
00:46:31:14 – 00:47:05:13 Unknown I think it’s like the whole picture. It’s not was it for me in my growing up, it wasn’t just about the school system, even though the school the school system just kind of put children through a certain pipeline of like you learn all these ideas, but, you know, foundational, rudimentary things. But for me it was like the whole it’s like a holistic picture of not having a, you know, a to, you know, it’s kind of like the trauma that I grew up with.
00:47:05:13 – 00:47:29:18 Unknown Like it’s kind of like, you know, being raised in a single parent household, having being in a just being in a very chaotic and dysfunctional childhood with, you know, having to live with people that I didn’t want to live with. You know, my mother, she never abandoned me. But a lot of the times she had to because she needed to put food on the table and she needed to pay for things.
00:47:29:18 – 00:48:13:17 Unknown So but I think that as a black man, I didn’t even realize this, but there were, you know, so much this the school to prison, you know, the school to prison pipeline, all those things, you know, have a place in it. And my mom, my mom kind of was very judgmental growing up and she really tried to she tried to dress me a certain way and she would want me to talk a certain way and act a certain way because she didn’t want me to grow up or in and be like a, you know, a thug on the street or, you know, like, whatever a stereotype or propaganda you can imagine that black men have
00:48:13:17 – 00:48:52:15 Unknown in this country. I think it’s it’s more of like the village where you’re mentioning before, like the whole village is not there for especially for children of color in this country, You know, black children, brown children, you know, even so, you know, like me, my wife, like we had totally different upbringings, like I felt alone. And often times I couldn’t, you know, I just felt there were so many things that we have, you know, it’s it’s just a big difference.
00:48:52:17 – 00:49:19:14 Unknown But because, you know, like growing up, you know, I’m not sure how it is. But in the African-American community growing up, there’s a lot of self-hatred and there’s a lot of institutional things that I grew up with that I didn’t really understand. Like, why do you know? Why do people hate each other so much? And why why is there so much jealousy and colorism?
00:49:19:14 – 00:49:51:18 Unknown And why are the more white looking, you know, people treated better? Why is that? Where’s that? Why is that more preferred? Like, why can’t we just be like us? You know? Just why why is all like, you know, the segregation, all these things, all these systematic things that, you know, as a young black boy, I had no understanding of, but I think that I think that there’s so many to to answer the question.
00:49:51:18 – 00:50:21:23 Unknown I think that there are so many systemic things involved in raising a child of color in this country. So I think that it it will involve like a kind of like a maybe a compulsory resort or results a compulsory type of solution, because it’s not just about me not being not having this not having a dad in my life or having a, you know, my biological father.
00:50:21:23 – 00:50:50:22 Unknown It’s not just about that. And it’s not just about being, you know, being raised, you know, like really quickly and having to grow up quickly and being like, plus the projects or whatever. It’s just it’s it’s kind of like a it’s like the big pendulum of what it means to even be a person of color in this country, to even be a black person, feel like that’s this is probably the most difficult question in this interview because it’s involved.
00:50:51:00 – 00:51:25:02 Unknown There’s so many different systems at play. There’s education, there’s housing, there’s there’s having, you know, like good food to eat, having healthy food to eat. Because I was so soul food growing up, so very unhealthy growing up. So it just it involves so many different factors at play capitalism, racism, segregation, like the value of the value of the life of a person of color versus the value of both, you know, the white counterparts of this country.
00:51:25:04 – 00:51:55:13 Unknown It’s very it’s just it’s it’s very unbalanced. It’s like in that tipping scale, that labor tipping scale is super unbalanced. Right? So I think just even placing value on the lives of people of color, especially young, young black men and women like that, that raises bar exponentially. I don’t know what the answer is for that question. I just know that, yeah, what I what I needed was just it’s more institutional type of progress.
00:51:55:18 – 00:52:42:20 Unknown It was it’s not just about my individual prognosis of, like, you know, I could, I could say a lot of things about my individual experience, but on the level of my peers and other black men and women in this country, it’s institutional. It’s just straight. Institutional. Yeah. For us, you know, So I was lucky. I was blessed to have a surrogate father that helped me to kind of kind of he gave me the keys to unlock these mental chains of oppression because it when you grow up in a community that feels like it can’t do much better than this, then it’s like you have to have people in your corner that can unlock those
00:52:43:01 – 00:53:12:00 Unknown those chains, the shackles around her. You know, I grew up when, you know, my family comes from enslavement. Definitely like my grandfather’s Japanese, but he’s like fourth generation. But both of my grandmothers, in their lifetime, they were picking cotton in the South, in Mississippi, like my grandmother was breaking her back at 11, 12 years old, like picking cotton, you know, for a sharecropper, sharecropping for very little money.
00:53:12:02 – 00:53:38:04 Unknown You know, my other grandmother, she was murdered in Chicago. She was from Arkansas, and she was murdered with her own gun in Chicago. You know, when my mom, my biological father, was very young. So, I mean, there’s a lot of trauma there. There’s a lot of there is no I don’t know what the answer is, to be honest, because there’s so much trauma involved.
00:53:38:04 – 00:54:22:22 Unknown And, you know, in that in that question. So, yeah, yeah, no, definitely. There is so much trauma and there’s like it is like you said, there are just layers and layers and layers of systemic obstacles and challenges and inequities. And, you know, there’s both like a serious stalling and a hesitation and resistance to move forward. yeah. And so, you know, as you talk about those layers, you know, it’s like those layers are so thick.
00:54:22:22 – 00:55:04:19 Unknown And for people who are really connected to like the societal discourse, you know, it’s very obvious that there are so many so many things hindering and preventing students of color who face so many disadvantages and disabilities from really moving forward. And you’re right, you are absolutely right. We have to make those systemic changes. We have to rebuild with everybody in mind being on equal footing.
00:55:04:19 – 00:55:49:14 Unknown Because what you talked about kind of reminds me of like that race track image that comes to mind. yeah, it’s like an image that. Right. And like how. Yeah, but also granted, can I add something also, even if you are on equal footing and even if you’re doing just as best or even better than your peers that have that are different shade, is you the dominant, you know, people in this country or the dominant culture like you still have to I still have to work 7 to 10 times harder than them just to even be taken seriously, to be taken as a person, as worthy of the opportunities that I’m that that other people
00:55:49:14 – 00:56:19:14 Unknown of a certain backgrounds, they don’t have to work that hard or they don’t even have to put in as much effort. But me and people that look like me, we have to be perfect or we have to have all of our shit together all the time because that’s what it takes, you know, That’s another form of oppression. I remember when I was at university and I was, you know, it was my last year.
00:56:19:16 – 00:56:39:05 Unknown It was a creative project where we had to create like a 3D objects. And I created this really cool horned capital. Mushi Beetle was a Japanese beetle in 3D. That was like when I was like very, very young, very, very I was maybe 21, 22, and it looked really good.
00:56:39:07 – 00:56:58:06 Unknown But I remember one of my classmates, one of my, you know, white classmates, he looked at it and he was like, did you really do that? Like, how could you really do you did that. Like, is that the. Sure, you didn’t just like, take that from the you know, the did you just like steal that from our line.
00:56:58:10 – 00:57:36:02 Unknown Like did you did you really trade that. my God. I’ve had that situation a few times. Yeah. So that is so awful. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. And so like right. Not to mention throughout the process of trying to move upward, facing that criticism and disbelief and not having people believe in your capability, your worth, your value, your gifts, your passion, like your work, you know?
00:57:36:02 – 00:58:05:22 Unknown So in addition to all of the systemic crap that, you know, you have to fight also in real time on a daily basis to prove that you’re even worthy. And it doesn’t matter how much how much experience I have. I mean, I’ve been a senior compositor for a long time. I have like 64 credits under my belt. I mean, I just finished, you know, big budget films working on big budget films.
00:58:06:00 – 00:58:58:13 Unknown And I still the next video that I go to a slot to reprove myself over again so it never ends. But yeah, and I’m curious about like how all of this sort of, you know, impacts your health because I know for me so there’s I’m meeting with an Eastern medicine doctor and I have hypothyroidism and she told me that one of the one of the patterns that they see in hypothyroidism cases of autoimmune hypothyroidism that these types of people do a lot of things for other people, but they rarely do something for themselves.
00:58:58:15 – 00:59:46:04 Unknown And so I’ve been thinking about like how oppression, how the imbalance of power actually has negative implications and actually causes a lot of physical dysfunction. And it really it heightens autoimmune unity, it heightens lots of inflammatory happenings in our bodies. And it’s that constant tug of war with society where people are like, no, this is just mental.
00:59:46:04 – 01:00:29:04 Unknown This is all kind of optics or it’s just happening in the periphery, but it has real consequences on our bodies and our health, our mental health, or every every health that we can talk about. And so I’m just kind of wondering and also for me, it manifests as like anxiety, social awkwardness. There’s just so much. And so I’m wondering for you, how has sort of like these systemic challenges, interpersonal challenges, how have these things actually impacted your health?
01:00:29:06 – 01:00:58:03 Unknown It’s very hard to be mentally calm when I walk outside the door and when I’m walking just down the street just to go to the gym or something and, you know, like there’s a person in front of me that’s, you know, that sees me in a different way that their own impression of me, I automatically kind of just like just even walking outside the door, like I just kind of build up like a wall of steel in my mind to say like, I don’t see you.
01:00:58:03 – 01:01:22:02 Unknown You’re not even you don’t exist or whatever, just to under, just to not feel, not, you know, it’s kind of like this way of mentally protecting myself so that, you know, people I don’t think that people like, think of me that way. Like, this, this big black man walking down the street, I have to cross the street immediately.
01:01:22:04 – 01:01:46:19 Unknown This just instantly, instantly. When I go when I walk into a store, like I have to clearly make sure that like I talk to the people that are in the store just so they can be more comfortable with my presence, you know, stuff like that. Like I feel like there’s just this extra added level of me having to feel like I need other people.
01:01:46:19 – 01:02:37:05 Unknown I need to make other people feel comfortable of my presence, which is ridiculous. Like, even if I’m just being respectful and on being a normal person, why should I have to do that? Draw my life out? I thought that, even though I’m not like that big or menacing, I still feel like there’s an obligation for me to make to like to kind of acquiesce to white comfort or to really, you know, play into that and I think that as I’ve gotten older and wiser and understanding that I don’t need to do that anymore, that I should be able to be myself and be like who I am, who I am, and I don’t need
01:02:37:05 – 01:03:00:15 Unknown to, you know, the right words placate, but I can just still I can be by myself. And if you don’t accept me, then that’s that’s you. Like it takes a long time to even think that I can just be that way. Like, I mean, I also grew up eating a lot of soul food and that was very unhealthy.
01:03:00:17 – 01:03:26:06 Unknown So I became plant based about 2 to 2 and a half years ago. I think that I became plant based like in my mind, I’m thinking about, like I’m just I’m just trying to cheat the system. Like, I’m not going to be this high blood pressure, you know, person of color. Like, I’m not going to be a someone that they’re trying to get pretty much.
01:03:26:06 – 01:04:02:04 Unknown I don’t know if that makes sense, but I’m not. I’m trying to just eat more healthy. And how they would say is eat more high vibration foods so that I can vibrate higher. I don’t know if that makes sense. That sounds like very it totally makes sense. I mean, I really resonate with that. And I don’t know, I think maybe we’ve talked about this before, but, you know, I read the How Not to Die book, and I was so convinced that I was going to be come vegan.
01:04:02:06 – 01:04:26:17 Unknown So I was vegan for like about a year, a little more than a year until my digestive system broke down. And I had to meet with my Eastern medicine doctor. And she told me that for my Constitution, plant based isn’t the best for my Constitution. And so I have kind of hesitatingly brought back a bit of animal protein.
01:04:26:19 – 01:04:57:11 Unknown But I totally understand what you mean about like the stereotype of like I you know, of because there is I worked on like a health campaign kind of affiliated with a major hospital about five, six years ago. And we were doing a lot of these like surveys and tracking of like race related data and ethnicity and things like that.
01:04:57:12 – 01:05:32:11 Unknown And there is a high prevalence in the black community, the African-American community, for hypertension. yeah. And so when you talk about, you know, I don’t want to I’m going to go plant based. I don’t want to, you know, have the height control the high blood pressure or something like that. It kind of goes back to, you know, like not wanting to meet those stereotypes or, you know, beat the system, beat the system overcoming that stereotype, you know?
01:05:32:11 – 01:05:59:09 Unknown Right. Because the system is meant for me to have high blood pressure and, you know, to have to, you know, be like eat a lot of fast food, eat the sad diet to be white, to be a patient for the health care system, a chronic patient that’s just us is the wheel. But it’s not just about, you know, the black community being being a victim of that.
01:05:59:11 – 01:06:39:16 Unknown It’s just about like the people that have the lesser resources will bear the brunt of that because they have less resources to actually change and the food deserts and not having not having actual fresh fruits and vegetables to eat like it’s it’s actually it’s a big thing, but it is a huge thing. And also I can relate to that because my mother, my single immigrant mom, she didn’t really have an understanding of what healthy food was, you know, And so, you know, food was just food.
01:06:39:18 – 01:07:12:07 Unknown There wasn’t like healthy food. There wasn’t bad food. It was just it was all equal. And so, you know, like, I totally, you know, relate to that idea of it being, you know, not necessarily just a race thing. Right. But definitely a it is a being like a poor middle class thing where we don’t have the resources to get the healthy food to go to, like Whole Foods.
01:07:12:07 – 01:07:32:06 Unknown We’re just considered whole paycheck, you know, deals. I mean, stuff like that is just like and I had all the research that I did just to become plant based. It took me a while to actually stick with it. But all the resources that I had to do, I did it on my own. I went to a doctor right where I had health issues, you know, doing the plant based diet.
01:07:32:06 – 01:07:54:20 Unknown And I went to a doctor and he told me, just just go back to your regular diet. Why are you doing this plant based thing? Why do you eat? It’s it’s like they don’t even care. Some of them. I said, that’s just my experience, right? They’re like, you’re trying to not. You’re trying to become healthier. That means that I can’t give you things or I can’t give you big pharma stuff.
01:07:54:22 – 01:08:27:19 Unknown I can’t, like, make money off of you. So, like, yeah, because all of their solutions are dependent on you staying in the system. Yeah. So, yeah, you know, like and they but the thing is, I think I read something that doctors are just like legal drug pushers. But, you know, that’s kind of first line of defense, you know, like, you know, we have this solution for you that’s part of this ecosystem that’s oppressing you.
01:08:27:23 – 01:08:50:04 Unknown Here you go. Here’s another prescription for OxyContin. Let’s get you hooked on opioids for the rest of your life so that, you know, we can predict how you’re going to die, you know, And so, you know, it really sucks. And it’s it’s part of that. Like, you know, layer the the systemic layers of oppression that we have to fight every day.
01:08:50:04 – 01:09:26:00 Unknown And it’s like, who can we trust to give us the right answers and strategies and tools and techniques to actually become healthier and, you know, beat the system. It’s really challenging and so it’s unfortunate that we have to do a lot of like our own dabbling and our own trial and error and, you know, find systems that are alternative to what got sick in the first place.
01:09:26:02 – 01:09:51:07 Unknown So it’s right, right. Yeah. I think that this is like a slippery slope for me because I just put my life through like I just had an acid reflux, but by taking some water vitamins that I did not need, but I think that the doctor was kind of pissed off that I went through so many years of trying to self-diagnosed myself.
01:09:51:07 – 01:10:10:14 Unknown But, but also I felt like I had to because do I trust you? You’re going to you’re just going to tell me to meet again? Like. Like or just stop doing this. Just go back to what you were doing before. I mean, I eat steak and eggs and I eat all these things. Like, why? Why don’t you do it?
01:10:10:14 – 01:10:33:02 Unknown Like, okay, I just didn’t want to. I, you know, I still, I go through that. But he was even telling me that my just my latest doctor’s visits, he was saying, like you to take multivitamins. I can just schedule you for to get B12 shots, you know, every so often. And I was thinking to my thinking like, I’m not coming to you for B12 shots.
01:10:33:04 – 01:10:52:01 Unknown You know, like, I can just get a B12 coming in to see that. I’m like, are you are you just asked? Ridiculous. But you just want me to spend money. You just want to build me for B12 shots. Are you kidding me? That’s ridiculous. Yeah, it is just. It’s. This never ends. It never ends. It’s just. It’s just ridiculous.
01:10:52:01 – 01:11:17:23 Unknown But I think that the best thing that we can do is arm ourselves with our, you know, like, arm ourselves with the information, just like a constant information about the health care system and about our health, the Eastern medicine, the things that are important, herbs fruits and vegetables. Thank you so much for listening. If any part of this episode resonated with you, please connect with us on social media at the links in the show notes.
01:11:18:01 – 01:11:19:00 Unknown Until next time.