Transcript
Into America
Where Are They Now?
Trymaine Lee: Into America launched in February 2020. I'm Trymaine Lee, and this is Into America, a podcast about politics, about policy, and the power that both have in shaping the lives of the American people. We started this show to talk with the American people, especially as we approached a fraught and pivotal presidential election. We wanted to hear your stories directly from you.
Lee (archival): So we're here in East New York, and this was ground zero for stop and frisk. Hey, pardon me, y'all. Can I (UNINTEL) for one second. I'm with MSNBC. We're doin' a podcast about stop and frisk. So now Mike Bloomberg is tryin' to run for president.
Archival Recording: I got harassed the other day for no reason--
Lee (archival): Did you ever experience any of that?
Archival Recording: Several. First they'll try to make up a reason why they're stopping you. "Oh, you're smoking"--
Archival Recording: Look suspicious.
Archival Recording: "Oh, well, someone else had that color on. Someone committed a robbery."
Lee: I know that presidential campaign feels like a while ago, right?
Lee: Of course we had no idea what was coming.
Archival Recording: Breaking news tonight. The dire new warning about the Coronavirus in the U.S., the CDC saying the outbreak here at home is inevitable. Americans told to brace for major disruptions. Schools and businesses--
Lee: By the time we released our third episode our team was on lockdown just like much of America.
Dr. Anthony Fauci: Please cooperate with us.
Archival Recording: These guidelines are very specific. They're very detailed. They will only work if every American takes this together to heart.
Lee: In an instant, our show had evolved.
Lee (archival): We're heading to Charlotte, North Carolina to find out what it's like to face a pandemic without health care coverage.
Lee: And it kept evolving.
Archival Recording: Tonight anger in the streets across America. Massive crowds gathering again to protest the death of George Floyd in cities from coast to coast peaceful protests marred as violence erupts. (CROWD NOISE)
Archival Recording: Anger, frustration pouring (HONKING) into the streets of America.
Archival Recording: That could be my father. That could (CHANTING) be my brother. That could be me.
Archival Recording: I can't breathe. (CHANTING) I can't breathe.
Lee: And the news wasn't always so heartbreaking. There were definitely some lighter moments along the way.
Lee (archival): How long have you been doin' this? And how'd you actually get into comedy?
Archival Recording: Oh, my God. Okay, low budget Steve Harvey. (LAUGH) How we doin'? I'm so sorry. This is what happens when I put on red lipstick and shoulder pads.
Lee (archival): It's all good. (LAUGH)
Lee: And some true moments of joy.
Archival Recording: (SINGING) "We shall not, we shall not be moved. We shall not, we shall not be moved. Just like a tree that's planted by the waters, we shall not be moved."
Lee: We've spoken with extraordinary people during these unprecedented times, people who've helped us make better sense of the world around us, voices that have helped us amplify the stories that needed telling. I'm Trymaine Lee, and this is Into America.
Lee: As we close in on 150 episodes and a new year, we'd like to take time to reflect with some of the people who've helped shape our show, people who've an impact on us and on y'all. We got in touch with a handful of them to check in and see how they're doing.
Eric Deggans: Well, first of all, I made sure I was in town for Sunday morning 'cause we gotta go to church. (LAUGHTER)
Lee: Eric Deggans is a TV critic for NPR and a contributor with MSBNC and, I should mention, an old friend of mine. Back at the end of March 2020 he came on our sixth episode, Life and Loss in a Pandemic, to talk about his mother, Carolyn Williams.
Deggans: And what I remember is her gettin' up early and singing her gospel songs. So I always made sure I brought a suit, and I always made sure I was here for enough time that I could go on Sunday morning.
Lee: Earlier that month Miss Williams had taken a fall and ended up in the hospital in her home town of Gary, Indiana. She was 81 years old and had already been battling cancer for a year. So Eric traveled to be at her bedside.
Deggans: A nurse came in and said, "Well, they're not gonna allow visitors anymore. You're probably gonna have to leave." But then a huge security guard shows up, so I started, you know, packin' my stuff up and tryin' to comfort my mother, who was getting agitated and startin' to cry at this point.
Lee: The hospital told Eric that patients were only allowed visitors if they couldn't make decisions for themselves or if recovery was no longer possible.
Deggans: So it was a double-edged sword kinda situation because I knew that if they let me visit her again it would be because they thought she was gonna die.
Lee: For four days Eric's mother was alone in the hospital with no family beside her. Finally he was let back in.
Deggans: She wasn't lucid for much of it, but I think she knew I was there. And so we just sat together. I'd talk with her a little bit, but it was mostly just to let her know I was there. I held her hand through most of it. And, you know, (SIGH) you're just sitting there waiting for it to end. And, you know, then she passed on.
Lee: Eric had to try to plan a funeral in the age of COVID-19. He was told only 10 people would be allowed in the church for her service.
Deggans: I mean, there can't even be a choir. There can't (LAUGH) even be a choir to sing for a woman who sang in a church choir for 60 years.
Lee: The funeral was live-streamed from her church.
Archival Recording: We've come to celebrate the life, legacy of Sister Carolyn Williams.
Lee: Eric was hopeful that when the Coronavirus was contained he would be able to hold a bigger service for the community to give his mother the proper tribute and sendoff she deserved. But COVID has never been fully contained. And when we checked in with Eric last month he still hadn't been able to organize his mom's service.
Deggans: So we haven't done it yet. I was thinking it might be somethin' we might try and pull together next February because by then, you know, everyone who wants to be vaccinated will be vaccinated.
Lee: February is Miss William's birthday.
Deggans: I'm just glad that you guys were willing to tell that story, and it just meant a lot. I wanted as many people as possible to know about her and to know about her life because we didn't really get a chance to give her the memorial that she deserves.
Lee: And almost two years later Eric is still upset at how the hospital handled his mother's situation during those early days of COVID.
Deggans: So if it's okay for me to come in when it's clear she's gonna die, why not let me stay with her when there's a chance that I could help her live? I mean, it was just such a bizarre circumstance. It wasn't like she had been in the hospital for a while.
And it wasn't like she was infected with COVID. She just had the bad luck of getting ill right as the lockdown started to hit the health care system. And, you know, if she had had her accident a couple weeks earlier, you know, who knows? She might've recovered and been out of the hospital by the time everything locked down.
Lee: In the time that Eric has had to reflect on this experience he's decided to be more open and honest about his health.
Deggans: Part of the problem with my mom was that, you know, she was very proud and very independent and did not wanna let me know how ill she was or how much she was struggling with stuff or how scared she was that she was gonna die. And so all of that stuff has just convinced me that I wanna try and handle that differently if I can and be more honest with my children about what I'm goin' through and make sure that I lean on the people who are willing to help me through it.
Lee: Eric still gets her mail from all of the charities that she used to donate to.
Deggans: It's also kind of a tribute to her spirit. You know, she gave in ways that weren't the biggest. You know, nobody's gonna put her name on a wing of anything, but she gave what she could. It's just a reminder of how far and wide her kindness and her generosity spread, you know, for somebody who was livin' on a teacher's pension. So that's kind of a cool thing.
Lee: COVID-19 dominated the news and our attention for months following lockdown until Memorial Day 2020. The world watched in horror as Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd.
Archival Recording: Tonight (CHANTING) cries of, "Black Lives Matter," and "Hands Up, Don't Shoot," echoing from coast to coast.
Archival Recording: Whose streets?
Archival Recording: Our streets.
Archival Recording: Whose streets?
Archival Recording: Our streets?
Lee: The deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor were some of the most high-profile killings in recent memory. This vigilante and police violence and the widespread protests that followed led many Black Americans to start thinking about gun ownership. 2020 marked an historic year for gun sales overall, but Black Americans saw the biggest increase in gun purchases. One of the people in the middle of making that decision was Jeneisha Harris.
Jeneisha Harris: No justice?
Archival Recording: No peace.
Harris: No racist?
Archival Recording: Police.
Harris: No justice.
Archival Recording: No peace.
Harris: No racist.
Archival Recording: Police.
Lee: Jeneisha is an activist and organizer in the Nashville area and became a target of racial hate. We talked to her in August 2020 for episode Black America's Call to Arms.
Harris: They label me as extremist. I'm too radical. When I go to the grocery store that have spit on me, that have thrown things at me simply because they recognize me and my voice and being on TV for leading protests. And I thought about Breonna Taylor being at home and how she was literally murdered as these people bombarded her apartment. And so for me, I thought I could be another Breonna Taylor.
Lee: But she was conflicted. She'd lost her uncle, a father figure in her life, to gun violence when she was just a teenager.
Harris: You know, with trauma you have these flashbacks. And even now just thinking about firing a gun I think about all of the bullets that have been fired to kill unarmed people. I think about the gun that was used to take away my uncle's life.
Lee (archival): Are you willing you think to take a life to protect your own?
Harris: I battle with that question. And I'll be honest, I do not have the answer right now.
Lee: When we caught up with Jeneisha again some 15 months later she felt a little differently.
Harris: I've kind of altered my thinking when it comes to, you know, potentially getting a firearm myself.
Lee: As an activist, Jeneisha has always received threats and has tried to keep tight security around her. But earlier this year a conservative radio host called her a derogatory name on his show and the clip went viral. So she decided to level up.
Harris: And so I had to kind of double up on security.
Lee: Jeneisha got connected with the Nashville chapter of the Fred Hampton Gun Club. Her comrades, as she calls them, became her personal security detail. That's who she called when two random men showed up at her home just a few months ago, beating on the front door.
Harris: I did not open the door. And if I'm honest, I grabbed a weapon, like, a mini knife from my kitchen just in case something escalated in any way. But I was very adamant on not opening the door.
Lee: Jeneisha stayed quiet hoping they'd think she wasn't home. Luckily, the men gave up and left. Someone from the gun club got there shortly after.
Harris: And thankfully he got to me in about 13 minutes. But I think about what would've happened within that 13 minutes. It doesn't seem like a long time, but a lot can happen in 13 minutes.
Lee: Those 13 minutes were a turning point.
Harris: What is a gun to a knife? That is absolutely one of the moments that I wish I would've had a firearm and obviously one of the moments that kind of altered my position regarding all things guns and being a potential gun owner myself.
Lee: Jeneisha still doesn't have a gun, but she's actively taking steps to get one.
Harris: So it's kind of like a New Year's resolution for me. But again, I have to do things incrementally because I have such a traumatic experience with gun violence. I am planning after the holidays to get some classes in. I wanna go to the range and shoot. I'm educating myself on the Tennessee laws, the federal laws across the nation, the risks, the pros, the cons, and really just educating myself on all things guns so that I can be prepared before I even touch one.
Lee: When we asked Jeneisha again if she was prepared to take a life to protect her own here's what she said.
Harris: I believe in protecting myself, in the words of Malcolm X, "By any means necessary." I would hate to, you know, have a traumatic or an extreme instance where I had to take someone's life. That is never something that I want to do, but I do believe in defending yourself, your family, and your loved ones by any means necessary.
Lee: One quick quest update before the break. Around the one-year anniversary of George Floyd's murder we talked with Christopher Martin, the young store clerk who had initially accepted a counterfeit bill from Floyd. His poised and emotional testimony during Derek Chauvin's trial captivated viewers around the world.
Archival Recording: Can you tell the jurors what happened, what you were doing, here I guess?
Christopher Martin: At this point I think I was just kinda emotional. And I went to the African American that was standin' there on the curb and I was just like, "They're not gonna help him. This is what we have to deal with." So.
Lee: Christopher spoke openly and honestly with us about all that he'd been going through in the past year.
Lee (archival): What was the hardest part for you?
Martin: I think the hardest part for me was when I would sit back and think of like, "What if?" That part really haunted me because obviously no one in the store knew that he would lose his life but it's just the simple fact of like, "What if I would have not said anything and just taken the bill?"
Lee: We reached out to Christopher earlier and he wasn't able to speak with us. But he did have some good news to share. My man got into college and that's where he's putting his focus right now. We wish him the absolute best of luck.
Lee: Along with all of the activism we saw in the streets in 2020, people were having deeper conversations around structural racism and ways to support Black causes and Black people. Buy Black emerged as a rallying cry to support Black businesses.
Adija Smith: People come, you know, near and far for our peach cobbler. They come for the caramel cake, cheesecakes. Some people come for our signature cinnamon rolls.
Lee: Adija Smith runs the bakery and dessert shop Confectionately Yours at the Sherman Phoenix Market, an economic hub for small Black-owned businesses in Milwaukee. When we talked with her back in December 2020 she was loving the energy at the Phoenix.
Smith: I mean, it was love. And 99% Black-owned, where do they do that? Where do they do that?
Lee (archival): That's amazing. I guess they do it in Milwaukee.
Smith: Listen--
Lee (archival): I guess they do it in Milwaukee (LAUGH) I guess--
Smith: And right in the hood, okay? We are in the hood. We are in the central area of Milwaukee. And we are serving our people.
Lee: Even with the hardships of COVID, including businesses, especially Black ones, shutting down all across the country, Adija still felt the love from her community.
Smith: Oh, my goodness. Prime example, I had a huge order for the Green Bay Packers. And we ended up havin' a power outage. When I say it was pitch black the day I had to assemble all of these dessert boxes for the Packers. The ladies in the Underground Makers Market, the beauty salon, like, they came down to the kitchen, they started takin' all my inventory upstairs, layin' it out, helpin' me pack everything. They like, "Listen, we're gonna get this stuff packed in the dark if we got to. You're not by yourself." I mean, everybody was comin' through. (LAUGH)
Lee: And because of that support Adija's business was thriving and doing so well that she started thinking even bigger.
Smith: 'Cause even in the pandemic Confectionately Yours is gonna open up another location.
Lee (archival): You're breaking news. You heard it here on Into America.
Smith: You sure did.
Lee (archival): Confectionately Yours is gettin' location number two.
Smith: We sure are. (LAUGH)
Lee: And Adija told us that she could actually feel the impact of the Buy Black movement.
Smith: I saw a influx of support that came in from our non-Black support system. And I think that many of them were trying to send the message that this is their way of showing that they are for us and not against us. And I appreciate that. And just to be extremely transparent I feel like it goes far beyond this though. As much as supporting the Black business is great, I hope that it's not just a temporary thing. (PHONE)
Allison Bailey: Hey, Adija. How's it goin'?
Smith: All right.
Bailey: What's goin' on right?
Lee: Our associate producer, Allison Bailey, called Adija just a few weeks ago. She was where she always is, in the kitchen of her bakery. But 2021 had brought some unexpected hardships.
Smith: I'm doin'. I'm still, you know, all gas, no brakes. It's sorta different around this neck of the woods.
Lee: Adija says the Sherman Phoenix isn't the hustling and bustling market it was at this time last year. She thinks there are many reasons why, but one is an uptick in crime in the neighborhood.
Smith: We've had a large population of young people in the grand theft era (LAUGH) again. Because we're on a very, very busy street in the inner city, a lot of those crimes are taking place, you know, really around this area. I think that has deterred people from coming.
Lee: Adija couldn't help but notice that another market, one that is more established and in a whiter part of town, was booming and busier than ever. She recently visited the Milwaukee Public Market to support a new Black-owned business there. But unlike the Sherman Phoenix, Black-owned businesses seem to be the exception not the rule.
Smith: I just was surprised at how many (LAUGH) people were there. It was just unbelievable, whereas, you know, in the Phoenix area, in our neighborhood we may see that many people throughout the whole week. (LAUGH) The sad part is that because these numbers have drastically changed we've had businesses here close. Like, our pizza place has closed now. Our ice cream shop is closed now. And it is because it couldn't survive through the pandemic. There was not enough support keepin' it open.
Lee: This is exactly what Adija feared would happen after the movement to support Black businesses died down. Adija personally is doing okay. But the drop in traffic has definitely affected her bottom line.
Smith: Holiday time is always generally a busy time of the year for me. I do see a shift in what those numbers look like now versus prior. But I am hopeful that those, you know, it'll increase.
Lee: But through all the ups and downs Adija still plans to open that second location for her bakery.
Smith: We are still kinda finalizin' some of the details on that, but that movement is in place. So it'll open around the beginnin' of the year. It's nerve-racking just because, you know, I'm seeing first-hand kinda the lack in this location, and I'm just prayerful that it will help increase, you know, our brand.
We just ask for, you know, continued prayers for, you know, small business, for Confectionately Yours, that we will continue to stay relevant and, you know, continue operating through this struggle period. You know, it's a season. And I do believe that seasons are only temporary. So I'm just prayerful that this season will come to an end so that we can move into a brighter one.
Lee: Adija was on one of our last episodes of 2020. And with a new year came a new administration, one that promised racial justice and policies to bolster the prospects of Black Americans.
President Joe Biden: We've all seen the knee of injustice on the neck of Black Americans. Now's our opportunity to make some real progress.
Lee: In the American Rescue Plan, a COVID relief bill signed by President Joe Biden back in March, there was a carve-out designed to aid Black and disadvantaged farmers to remedy the Department of Agriculture's long history of discrimination. At the time of its passage experts called it the most significant legislation for Black farmers since the Civil Rights Act.
Lee (archival): Do you know if y'all qualify yet?
Eddie Lewis Iii: I mean, we definitely qualify, man.
Lee: Eddie Lewis III is a fifth-generation farmer in Louisiana. Sugar cane is his main crop. And he is always in his sugar cane fields, and I mean always. When we first talked to him back in March for our episode Justice for Black Farmers, he tried to do the interview in the fields. But we finally convinced him to come on inside because podcasts and tractors sounds don't mix.
Lewis: We've been havin' debt with the USDA for the last 45 years, 50 years. So we definitely, if anyone's (LAUGH) gonna qualify it's gonna be the Lewis family farm.
Lee: Eddie was overjoyed at the prospect of some relief. His family farm had $600,000 in outstanding debt.
Lewis: I never thought me or my family would see this. And it's given a lot of hope to young African American farmers. I have a lotta family and friends in the community, and our work ethic and our morale is definitely goin' up.
Lee: Farmers rely on yearly loans from the USDA to keep their businesses going. But Black farmers have a long history of receiving fewer loans and less debt relief than their white counterparts. Eddie felt that the money could help him hold onto his farm.
Lewis: And I'm probably going to be one of the last Black sugar cane farmers if I can't sustain my family farm and let my little boy farm. I have to tell him, "Look, that degree you're gettin', you may have to go work somewhere else." You know, but I wanna take that degree and put it to work on my farm. But the amount of land that we're losin', it's not gonna be possible.
Lee: Nine months after President Biden signed that relief bill we called Eddie again. (PHONE) And of course you know exactly where we found him.
Lewis: Allison, how you doin'?
Bailey: Hey, Eddie, how are you?
Lewis: Good, good, good.
Lee: That's Allison Bailey again, our show's AP.
Bailey: Where are you right now?
Lewis: I'm in the middle of a sugar cane field. (LAUGH)
Bailey: And what are you doing?
Lewis: Harvesting sugar cane, cuttin' cane and sendin' it to the mill to make sugar.
Bailey: So it's just business as usual, huh?
Lewis: Business as usual durin' this time of year. It's a good harvest season. The crop is lookin' real good. Some things kinda worked out.
Lee: So the harvest has been good. But what about the relief he was bankin' on.
Lewis: But we're still kinda waitin' on that debt cancellation. We just kinda put it behind us and just, you know, kept goin' forward. And God blessed us and the crop is plentiful and we're tryin' to save it. And hopefully we won't have to depend on the government anymore.
Bailey: Right. So you never got the relief, right?
Lewis: Never got the relief. It caused a lotta, lotta problems. It was unnecessary to do what they did. And the way they're doin' it, you know, if they don't pay what they say they're gonna pay right now it's really gonna damage a lotta farmers.
Lee: Turns out before the USDA's Farm Service Agency could even send out the debt relief letters to farmers they were hit with lawsuits by white farmers who claim the bill's eligibility requirements were discriminatory.
Lewis: What they did was crushed a lot of African American farmers basically. They made it seem like a lotta Black farmers were gettin' debt relief and all kinda money and we should be improved and we should be doin' a whole lot better. It just kinda crushed us with the banks. It crushed us with landowners. It's kinda like gettin' food stamps and you didn't get any.
Lee: As this funding has been held up in court, there's a section in the Democrat's Build Back Better Act which says farmers could receive debt forgiveness of they're of limited resource or economically distressed. But in this proposal the lawmakers removed mention of a farmer's race.
Even this workaround as part of the BBB looks poised to fail in the Senate. Eddie is frustrated at the Biden administration and worried that going forward removing race from legislation will give white farmers another advantage over Black farmers like him who continue to steadily lose their land.
Lewis: They didn't need the money 12 months ago like we did. I mean, it is what it is. I'm not mad about it anymore. I mean, everyone's bein' helped. And, you know, should we be compensated for it? Yeah, we should be compensated for it. And yes, it should be called reparations. Give us our money, that way we can move on with our lives because at this rate we're not gonna be in business much longer, you know?
Lee: In the meantime, Eddie says he's just lucky that this year's crop was so fruitful.
Lewis: No, I'm not doin' better because of anything the government did. This was God.
Lee: And as frustrating as this whole experience has been the highs of thinking relief was coming to the lows of realizing it may never come, Eddie feels stronger for it.
Lewis: I've never been this beat up in my life. I've never exhausted my brain and my physical body this hard in my life. I don't think anyone has in my family's history of farming, of making (BLEEP) work. Like, the (BLEEP) that we went through the last seven, eight months fightin', not havin' operatin' non and things like that.
And, you know, with God willin', you know, he's keepin' me goin' forward to be honest with you. So it's, you know, bein' that we already, I touched those lows, you know, goin' forward, you know, I don't think anything else could phase me. So do I think the future's bright for Lewis Cane Farms? Yes. Are we gonna make it? Yes.
Lee: The first time we talked to Eddie he told us about how farming is his form of therapy. Maybe that's why we could never get him inside. And trust and believe, it's still the same today.
Lewis: Hey, look, I tell you what, it tested me the last seven, eight months, but honestly it just made me harder. It made me better, to be honest with you. That's what made me keep pushin' forward. I felt that pain of me not havin' that farm, losin' that legacy.
I felt that. It got down to it. So I can't imagine not havin' my farm, my field, to be in the field right now. So yeah, right now I'm in therapy. I'm in the middle of a sugar cane field cuttin' sugar cane and sendin' it to the sugar mill. This is still my form of therapy. I'm still enjoyin' it. I still love it. And I'm always gonna protect it.
Bailey: (SIGH) Makin' the ancestors proud. Thank you, Eddie. Really appreciate it--
Lewis: Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. Good talkin' to y'all. I love y'all.
Lee: Before we wrap up we'd like to honor a really special guest on our show, one of our favorites and I know he was one of yours, beloved Sag Harbor resident, advocate, and history-maker, William Pickens III. He passed away this fall. We'd spoken to him at the beginning of the summer for our Black Joy in the Summertime episode, all about the importance of Black beach enclaves and the Black families just like his who filled them.
William Pickens Iii: And that 90-day period was when you had family and friends come out, and that's how we did Sag Harbor. And then one day in the '50s some guy named Colin Powell showed up from the Bronx. And we became friends. And we both went in the service later in our lives. And he stayed and did pretty well.
Lee (archival): He did (LAUGH) all right for himself. I think he did all right.
Pickens: Cole did okay. I do have some worries about the future. I feel attached to this place. My children are attached to this place. And that attachment is so strong that I'm sure they will resist as long and as hard as they can vacating this land.
Lee: We checked in with Mr. Pickens's son, John, who told us about the memorial service for his father.
John Pickens: You know, he was a life well lived and a life well loved. So it was a wonderful celebration to be in the middle of all this pandemic and everybody came out, to see the village come out. It must've been a two or three-mile long parade of cars with a police escort.
And just friends came out and, you know, we were able to really give him the highest honor and celebration. And now he's resting peacefully by my mother's side. (LAUGH) I mean, he was an amazingly humble and quiet man, but his friendships and his stories and his insane ability to be witty and precise and just thoughtful and compassionate for everyone he encountered and together we had a magnificent existence. My father had a magnificent existence. I still have my own magnificent existence. My sister and my brother, we're livin' our own magic. So I know I'm not alone in missing that man. (LAUGH)
Lee: Mr. Pickens passed away on his birthday, September 27th, 2021, at the age of 85.
Lee: We're looking forward to telling more of these stories and meeting more incredible people in the new year. Let us know what you wanna hear in 2022. You can tweet me @TrymainLee. That's @Trymaine Lee, my full name, or write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com. that was intoamerica@nbc and the letters U-N-I.com.
Into America is produced by Isabel Angell, Allison Bailey, Aaron Dalton, Max Jacobs, and Joshua Sirotiak. Original music is by Hannis Brown. Our executive producer is Aisha Turner. Special thanks this week to producer Olivia Riçhard. I'm Trymaine Lee. Happy New Year. Be safe and be blessed.