hi there and thanks for joining us for another vet talk um for this show we're going to be doing something a little different we're having a different conversation uh dr carl southern is going to talk about what it has been like for him um being a black veterinarian and not just being a black veterinarian but some of his experiences in the light of what's going on in society right now related to police brutality and protests and so we get to have a frank discussion about his experiences and and i think it will be helpful for people to to hear his perspective and but hopefully we can continue the conversation

hi everyone and welcome to vet talk i'm excited to welcome back dr carl southern he's been on the show before we're going to do something different today though so the the world right now is talking about things specifically talking about race and race relations differently and um so i i approached carl to say hey would you be would you be up for this and and thankfully he said yes of course so um so thank you so much for being here of course um what i want to do is this show's going to be a little different um you know we we like to have an educational bend on this and i think this falls very nicely into an educational ben but it is going to be a little different we're not going to have any sort of timeline on this and the conversation's going to go where it's going to go uh you know carl and i have established that this is going to be a safe space for us to talk freely ask questions and you know but also be able to call each other out you know so if i say something stupid carl's going to call me on it and we're going to talk about it like adults and as friends and so um we're hoping that we can we can address some issues that are a little heavier than what we're usually talking about on the show and uh and so thank you again for agreeing to be here probably all thanks for doing it yeah um when i first started thinking about this show um and what we were gonna do i started thinking about um you know just my experiences and all the things and i had all these stories that i was going to you know bring up and then i stopped and i realized you know what this isn't this isn't my story this show isn't about my story so um so what i'm going to do is something that is not easy for me and i'm going to shut up for a bit oh man yeah i know anybody who knows me at all is going to know that that's a challenge um so what i want to start with is maybe if you just want to share with me with everybody kind of how are you feeling right now and and you know are you feeling differently right now just given the moment we are in in society or is it like now this is kind of normal for me so so you take it away for a bit it's so it not that it's normal but it's not like anything has changed you know this is what we've been seeing we've been living and what we've been a part of for forever and it's like now that the spotlight is on it like literally the spotlight is on it there's nothing going on right now because the world's on quarantine so it's even more focused on this topic in this subject but it's more like okay now you all are willing to to say what we've been trying to preach and talk about and just ask for it to be treated the same this entire time so it's it's it's a little bit frustrating to be honest and it's of course at times it's anger and you just want to get angry yeah but for me at least you know i i i try and just remember okay if i do get like really completely upset and angry it's not going to change what i want to change i think it's okay to be angry 100 we should be angry there's nothing wrong with being angry yeah but i think that we just have to remember okay let's let's be angry but still be controlled and this is something that's not going to go away even now even though this spot is on it's not just gonna disappear it's really not because there's decades and decades and hundreds of years of you know this same thing yeah but i will say that i am encouraged by what i'm seeing there's there's some things that are changing yeah some of it's genuine some of it's not genuine and you can sniff out the non-genuine ones as soon as you see them you're like yeah right yeah but i mean some of it is genuine and just to see you know the number of you know white people and and different races that have actually said okay i'm gonna go to the peaceful protest some of them might not turn out peaceful at the end but i mean it's not just us as black people in the protest now there's plenty of other people and i'm like wow that's for me that's big see you're you're seeing it something's a little bit different this time for sure like 100 i'm like okay at first i was like it's going to die off in 10 minutes yeah i mean we're weeks in now it's it's still going i'm like okay and then when i saw it was not just in the u.s it was like london and i was like wow this is this definitely is different yeah it's not just in the city because normally it's in that one city where the event happens and it's like a riot or you know a piece of protest that turns non-peaceful and then it'll it'll die off this went from city to city to city to state to state and it's sustained it's if anything in some places is growing yeah it's growing and so i'm like okay this is excellent and that's what gives me like hope and encouragement like okay this is this is great and then the same time like i hope that we can just get somebody to understand like just something that's going to be everybody it's never going to be everything it's not going to be a complete overnight change but just some people to say man i didn't even think about it that way right i didn't realize that i was even saying things that way i didn't realize that i was doing things unintentionally that way and that's what the biggest thing for me is is just to just give people that that avenue to say man i can do that differently yeah and i can say it differently i can think differently yeah i can you know i can probably support someone differently yeah i can support a black business that you know i can do things differently now to help kind of change the culture of just the norm like it's just been embedded that way this is the way things were dealt with and we went along with it yeah and and everybody did every everybody did and it was just the way it was under the rug like we kind of know it's there comes up once in a while yep there we go alright well it's not affecting me personally and so i'm just going to move on because it's hard it's hard it's difficult it's it's really something that's you know it's kind of edgy and you're like i don't want to bring that up i don't want to talk about it yeah it's in the news it'll be gone uncomfortable it's really uncomfortable to talk about it's really like i don't want to say the wrong thing i don't want to be that person that speaks and i say the wrong word that's why i think conversations like this are major yeah they're huge because you just come like you laid it out this is a safe place if i say a wrong word it's not intentional i'm i'm telling you i'm trying to exactly it's not intentional and i just want you to call me out on it so i can't know yeah it's like this is not an easy thing to do right and and then for me you know as being a black male it's like okay i i want to have that conversation with my white colleagues my white friends but i don't want to make them uncomfortable yeah you're talking about this i'm like it's like the same thing right you're like i don't want to say the wrong things like well i don't want to say the wrong thing yeah and like so we just we avoid it just avoid it and that's we got to stop that god that's exactly right if we stop just avoiding it yeah then it will be addressed and we're less okay we can talk about it we can discuss it we can say you know what i i agree this shouldn't happen that way yeah it was wrong we've been wrong yeah you know and you look at even in the sports worlds you know the nfl we were wrong that's major people saying they've they were wrong like that's one of the things that i've actually i've been like impressed with and that to me that's different yes they're not they're not making excuses and say well it was a different time and blah blah they're just saying we were wrong we should have done more yeah and that's major yeah that is major to me when i when i saw the nfl players post i was like the nfl is never going to come out and say we were wrong i said yeah i said they're not going to say that they're just going to like donate some money to some some charity and say this is what we did not even a week later they were like we were wrong i was like whoa wait a minute yeah like the nfl the nfl said that yeah i'm like okay this this is different yeah and it's good yeah it's good i feel like those are really powerful words right i was wrong yeah like that's powerful stuff to ignore and not qualify it right just as it that was it we were wrong i yeah and i i'm gonna keep making mistakes but i recognize that that was wrong so we can do better moving forward well in the spirit of that i'm gonna i i have thought about us having a conversation like this many months ago it it occurred to me and i thought you know what like we don't have a lot of black veterinarians that that i've worked with over the years a handful i can count them on one hand and i said god you know what carl's got a different perspective and i should ask him if we could do a show like this yeah and and i was scared and i was like god is that like and even when i called you for this one i was like oh i don't want him to feel like all right you got to be the the black veterinarian who tells the story and i was like you know what you gotta get over that yeah you have to get over that but so so i was wrong we could have had this conversation months ago and and so yeah you know i'm like okay that's i'm a little bit ashamed to admit that i thought it and then didn't didn't follow through it's tough though i mean it's it's not an easy conversation and and and honestly you know you have to you have to be comfortable with that person to even try and say hey let's let's talk about this it's something that's not just one you can just pick up and be like you watch that game last night yeah like let's talk about you know how you've been living for the your life like it's it's it's it's yeah it's deep stuff and so you know we could quote statistics and this that the other thing but what i really think impacts people is stories and so you know what i would like to hear from you is if you're comfortable sharing and these can be things about you know i was trying to think you know there's like the jogging while black and birdwatch i was like practicing veterinary medicine while black if if you have stories about how that's impacted you that you want to share but it doesn't have we don't have to limit it to your experiences in vetmed but i feel like again telling stories is is helpful for people when we we've all got stories when i say we like everybody that's that's african-american has stories i can i can date them back to to middle school you know from middle school up to you know practicing veterinary medicine in houston you can texas houston like like yeah i can give you you can talk about that for hours just practicing but you know there's there's always three stories that stand out in my mind okay so we're in high school i have five really close friends all of us are our males unless we were in the dollar store went to get some candy and you've heard this story time and time again i'm sure we go down one island here comes the the guy working follows us down this aisle we turn another out he comes right behind us again in the other owl and then we turn another out when my friends is fed up he's like can i help you and the guy's like oh god he he caught him off guard he was like oh no i i uh mumbling stumbling over his words and then he went back to the to the register and we're like we were like just freaking let's just go like we didn't like he knew he was wrong yeah like clearly and we weren't even doing anything we had just come from the gym we were of course in basketball shorts t-shirts we just wanted to get some candy and some drink you're a teenager normal stuff candy and drink dollar store it's cheap we got like 10 bucks five of us let's get some bags of candy some juice and go back to the gym and we're like you know just forget and for us it was just that's just what happened yeah it's like it's an annoyance but like but you're like yeah that's part of it and but why like yeah and that was again that's just the way it was but don't think nothing escalated from there and that's that and yet that story still sticks in your mind i remember the hour we turned down or what the guy looked like i remember everything about that day and i probably was maybe 14 15 something like that yeah the next one is one that this is a this one's a little bit more this one like it's pretty much scary almost so i'm i mean i'm in vet school my buddies came down with these same five friends me and him we're just we're coming down where we're coming from honestly we're driving back from walmart okay coming from walmart back roads of auburn you're gonna get from auburn to tuskegee against where the walmart was and we turned down the street and here comes a police car behind us followed us for about 10 minutes maybe we weren't speeding our headlights were on tags are registered everything's in place yeah and because you think about that all the time you always yeah i mean that's the first thing you think about when you when you see them pull behind okay was i speeding nope my tag register yep headlights on it's not yep i can go through all your little checklists like okay what did i do wrong now and she follows us for a few few miles flicks the lights on pull over and this lady comes it's a lady female white female lady she comes up and she sees my friend is driving driving my truck and i'm in the passenger side and she looks in with her flashlight looks in the back seat sees something on the ground it's just in the floor of my truck and she immediately draws her weapon and says put your hands on the on the dashboard and hands on the steering wheel and i'm like what in the world is going on and my friend's like frozen he didn't even know what to move and she was like i see his hands on the steering wheel and he's like froze she literally had the gun in his face because he wrote the window down yeah and i'm like you know i'm saying officer what's the problem don't speak i'm like all right this is it so i just put my hands there and i'm like all right this is when you can't say anything now like just just leave it alone like and she was like where's the gun and she thought she was had seen a gun holster in the floor gotcha and there was no weapon in there i i did have a pistol which is i had a concealed carry license but it was in the in the glove box where it's supposed to be ammunition separated from the weapons this is in alabama yeah you didn't even have to do that but that's why i did it yeah and she's like yelling at my friend and he's like don't even he doesn't know anything yeah i'm like ma'am yes there's a weapon in here but it's concealed in the glove box and she's like get out of the truck now so she gets out and we're like what in the world is about to happen you know that's scary yep my heart's racing his heart is racing and it's freezing cold and and we're like on the on this truck of the hood shaking shivering cause we wanted we're scared or two were cold and she's like searching through the truck yeah i thought i'd say exactly where i said yes in the glove box yeah and and the the magazine is in the in the other glove box i have one the armrest and then the glove box okay yeah so she pulls it out and then another another car comes she calls for somebody to come back and it's a black guy he comes does that does that impact you at all you just does it we're like man okay we're good and he said y'all cold like man we're freezing y'all get back in the truck and i told him i said look i have a concealed carry permit it's in my wallet i said she never asked me for it yeah and i said i tried i got i didn't even try i tried to talk but i just stopped talking and he was like let me have it real quick gave it to him he went back and showed her she comes back and like of course it's like it takes for forever she comes back and has hands me my whip and it's like completely dismantled and all my all the rounds are she took out one by one it's like dropped him in my hand and the guy was like y'all are fine you can go ahead and go out like what did we get pulled over yeah yeah and he was like i don't know and of course she never came so i was like yeah she sent him to talk to you guys at that point yeah i was like what did we get pulled over for he's like i'm not sure i'm gonna talk to her you all are free to go so i was like let's just go let's get out of here but you know and i think about this all the time you know did she have to draw her weapon one because when she came yes she might have saw something that she thought was a gun holster in the back seat which is which that's fine it's nighttime but she had her light and she clearly could see into the into the back of the truck this is what i think could be wrong i can't speak for her but when she saw that both of us were black we were driving a truck it's a nice truck she saw something in the back seat that she didn't know what it was and she's like all right they either stole this truck or they're doing something they're not supposed to be doing let me just go ahead and and and handle this the way i think is best she could have just asked us like hey where you guys going and she didn't have a reason to stop us there was no ticket we didn't get any we didn't even get a a warning for anything like there was nothing wrong like it's not like she said hey you got to bust a tail light or you know your tags right around your tags and they're not up to date yeah it was nothing yeah when she came you know normally they say you know why i pulled you over you know why i stopped you and you're like nope she didn't even ask that like she just immediately was like put your hands on the stair button where's the gun put your hand on your like what did you did you sense that she was scared i think she was scared yeah i really do i think she was scared but she didn't have to be like like jerrod rolled the window down yeah like in the go room she's like where's the gun we're like whoa what you know where i just escalate that quick and you know and we think about it i think he talks all the time like we literally could not be here today depending on what moves he made you know what moves i made yeah there's no one else out there with us yeah it would have been you know her story versus ours and that one still like sticks out in my mind as as one of the scariest times with police i've had you know yeah i'm i haven't seen i haven't had many police running i've got speeding tickets and things like that but you know i haven't been arrested or anything yeah nothing like that but that was probably the closest i've come to the thing is you weren't even worried about getting arrested about getting killed killed yeah yeah like not knowing what like what can i do to not upset you yeah like that's how and you know i've been pulled over um interact with the cops and i've nev that's never been my worry it's not i mean like if i'm being honest it's i'm always like damn you know what you know i pulled you over i was like cause i was going too fast huh i mean there have been times i didn't know but sometimes i was like i know exactly actually my favorite time he was like he didn't ask me he's like we all we all know he's like you were going this fast this is your ticket i was like fair you know but i've never you know i've never been in a situation where i was worried the cop was a danger to me yeah yeah um but like i mean the scene you're describing and it sounds um did you see the movie queen and slim when it came out so it came out not that long ago and that's how that movie started like eerily similar to what you just described you got except as a man and one black man and black woman they're coming back from a date and she pulls them over and they don't know why um and i don't even remember if we ever figure out why um in the movie um but she's a lawyer what was it oh he changed lanes without signing something egregious like that okay topher was there we saw that together um so how do you remember those details anyway um so really really bad stuff you know changing lanes um but there's there's a reason okay yeah but um you know he asked them to get out of the car and same kind of thing she's a lawyer so she jumps out she's like why are you know why are you asking to get out of the car this that and the other it just escalates escalates and at one point he says hey you know can we speed this up because he's cold and yeah like that resonated with me too but you were you guys were like we're not gonna say anything we're not gonna say and i'm like so do you was there a time i'm gonna ask you this and you have your third story but um was there a time like when you were growing up like did was that like a discussion that you had with either your friends your family somebody says if you're in an interaction with the police this is what you do like were those conversations that you've had we didn't have that exact conversation but it was discussed like you know don't talk back to the police don't run like even if you are you do something wrong just go ahead and go to jail like you just go like you're not going to win trying to resist well i think we didn't have that like like laid out like this is what you should do right but you did we discovered i didn't have that discussion with my family when i was never like you there was never a sense that you have to be careful or afraid of the police like the police was just understood that that's who you call if you need help not that's you know who you have to kind of watch out for yeah and and that's going to throw in a way around like yeah like it was it and that's what you just said is i have a son and a daughter now so that topic has to be discussed and it has to be discussed multiple times at different age groups right you have to have it with them several times throughout their just bringing up like they have that conversation over and over and over until they understand like this is the way it is and hopefully it'll change by hopefully yeah you know they're six months and and three years old so yeah but it still has to have that conversation yeah because you you're not gonna feel safe sending them out without preparing them for that i had somebody tell me that they um it was on tv actually that they're a black man and he saw his white colleague said his children are just watching like pbs and nickelodeon now trying to shield them from all this stuff and the black guy was like unfortunately i don't have that luxury i have to sit down and let them see it and explain to them what's going on like a happiness for their safety yeah for their safety not just yeah i can't shelter them can't show they're from because they're going to be in i mean they're part of it kind of being involved with it and that's that's another unfortunate thing you know it's and again that's just the way it's been the way it is it's not right it's not the way to do it but that's the way we've been living yeah to survive you're trying to survive and so you say we're gonna until we can get the change this is what we have to do right so i'm gonna get to your third story but i have one um so i've i've had to call the police a handful of times in my life always the non-emergency line yeah i've called like i'm people who i was like that person might be drunk driving like somebody's driving erratically i call the non-emergency line to let them know about that i've had a few things um you know just like weird situations and i called them because i'm like hey i would like you to look into this and it makes me feel safer right well last week or went over was saturday just a few days ago driving to ocala for my shift in the morning i'm working the 7-4 shift so it's like 6 30 in the morning still a little bit dark out but sun's starting to come up there's a little bit of light and i'm driving it's rainy and kind of crummy and i see um uh just off the shoulder on the left side of the road there's a car no hazards on but there's just a car not the most unusual thing but then as i as i pull you know and i'm driving i'm on the highway so i'm going exactly the speed limit of course but so i'm driving and then i see a man come out as a black man um and as i'm passing he kind of waves his arms over his head like trying to flag somebody down well i'm not going to stop on the side i'm not going to stop for anybody but for a variety of reasons but i was like oh but i can call so i'm driving i know not we're supposed to do that but i quickly look up the the non-emergency line for ocala because that's probably closest and i call the number to just say hey somebody can go help him in for the first time ever like i i called and i said i'm between my work or this or that that's where the car was this is what it was and they asked and you know the woman was nice got my information she said i'll put this through to highway patrol because that's who would handle this but she she was gonna deal with that and then i started thinking i hope i did the right thing yeah and i've never i've never thought that before and all the times that i've called the police i'd never thought like could could me calling and having you know sending somebody to help him potentially make that situation worse and so you know there and maybe it's the proximity you know everything's going on right now but also like right now like tensions are high yeah he might not want to see the police i know and i was like god did i do the right thing but i've always taken for granted that the police are there to help yeah you know and later that day um we're at the clinic and this this old man is on the phone we have no idea but this old man calls like no joke like eight or nine times he's trying to get a hold of his son he's calling the clinic he doesn't have the right number and we're like trying to help him but he's not really giving us good information and um he at one point you know it sounded like he was in like a home an assisted living facility and he said it where it was and we look it up online call that place and they're like we don't have anybody there by that name so again i was like let's call the anonymous like maybe they can do a reverse lookup so they have these resources and that's that's who i call but i'm just like it when all these discussions now about defunding the police like why does that have to be the police no we could have somebody who doesn't have a weapon go check on the guy on the side of the road we can have somebody who doesn't have a weapon go do a wellness check on this old guy and find them like so i mean guns freak me out i'll be honest yeah i don't like them at all um but i and i think because i think when you have a weapon like that and you're scared that's that's a dangerous message it is you're 100 and um and you know we we assume that the police are trained and they're you know they know what they're doing and they know how to de-escalate but they're people they're humans they're people and if they're scared scared people do dumb things exactly that's exactly right put them into positions that are scary and then we get surprised when they do dumb things can you just imagine like we we pin animals down what they do they bite their way out yeah that's a normal reaction like so a human's gonna fight its way out they're gonna be scared yeah your adrenaline's pumping exactly like can you expect them to be controlled and calm in a tense strange situation if you have a weapon what are you gonna do i'm gonna use my weapon but i think a lot of that they're trained they're trying i mean how many of us have heard the phrase shoot first ask questions later exactly that is messed up that's dumb that is missing they shoot the kill yeah and they're trained like center of mass or something like that yeah exactly that's messed up yep i don't know it's i i i it's go back real quick yeah i think you definitely made the right decision to call because like you don't know the situation you're not there you don't know and he flagged you down it wasn't like he was just out of his car like yeah cleaning he was like yeah usually i assume people have cell phones but right yeah he flattens you down right right decision yeah if you're just driving by and you see him like you know like maybe empty some out of his trunk he's like yeah i'm going to call this might and somebody shot like what no no i wouldn't i wouldn't i've never because again i kind of just assume everybody has a cell phone exactly um but um so my yeah but he was waving his arms and i was like i'm not gonna stop but so that that was my thought i was like you need help we have people who are supposed to do that um but i did it it crossed your mind it did and that's the first time it ever has yeah so in that makes me feel bad that it crossed my mind that i had that thought but in a way it's a good thing i think like that this is coming to the forefront that it's like as a white person i'm also thinking like uh you know just a little bit in his shoes um you know because it's i think being a woman is also a little bit different like we have a different perspective and like you know walking somewhere by myself at night i'm probably gonna feel differently yeah regardless of the situation um then a man might and you know there's different perspectives there and so you know there's a little bit of that that understanding of i should feel safe in this scenario but i don't right and i think that's you know different scenarios but i think that's a little bit of what um you know what what black people have been feeling for so long okay question for you since this just came up and then we're going to get to your third story because i keep asking questions do you prefer black or african american or do you care that's so me personally yeah that's all i can answer for like when and it depends on how what you're describing it as when you say the thing i don't like is blacks when you add it that's fine you can say blacks like to like multiple people like yeah like blacks i'm fine for someone to say you know he's a black man you don't have to say african-american african-american is politically correct nothing's going to use it but if you were saying like the blacks or you're adding like to get caught comments a group of black people and you add that and make it plural that's what drives those okay we're blacks that's actually that makes that makes sense to me that's actually a good explanation you know a black man that's exactly what i am and that's that's how i see myself okay man you can if you want to you know be politically correct african-american nothing wrong there either but when you had that s on the end that just makes it like sense it makes you want to grit your teeth in this yeah the blacks no that makes a lot of sense so but yeah if i say you know you you know you're a black veterinarian that's fine north african african-american veterinarian you're fine with that yeah i just i don't know because you you hear people use it differently and like but you like you said some people might have yes preferences and certainly if you said hey i would prefer like most of the time i don't need to it's not like oh by the way every time every time i refer to like obviously you know you're a veterinarian but like when we're having conversations like this and talking about it you know um you know black lives matter certainly rolls off the tongue a little easier right than african-american lives matter for sure but um i don't think anybody has a problem with with just like black lives matter you're a black boy or a black man or we're in the black community it's just when you make it plural it's just yeah it doesn't i mean it would be the same thing as like this is a white man or the there's a bunch of whites like that that the connotation is different no i think that makes perfect sense okay thank you for that explanation for sure okay third story story and so the third was actually recent it was um so last year during my my internship you know i was driving back and forth from north carolina to gainesville family was still in still in durham and it's one night um it's a sunday night and i'm it's late i left home at like 4 00 p.m or something like that and it's a seven hour drive so i'm i'm driving back and yep i was speeding so there i mean i'll take that 100 i'm speeding and i come off a ramp and i stop to get some like a drink or something come off the get back on the highway the police comes and i'm like crap cause i knew i was speeding yeah but you were speeding before so you now got off the highway yeah i got my i was speeding when i went i was like okay i was right yeah i was like i mean get there i gotta i had to get in there you're tired yeah yeah yep so i'm speeding he pulls me over and he says saying you know why pulled over i said yes sir i was speeding and he said all right do you have your license and registration and he came to my passenger window so i was on the i pulled off on the ramp and there were still cars coming on the left side so he sort of makes sense i guess then he's away from traffic the thing that makes this one different is when he came i already had my hands up like i was like lit i literally was like this both hands in the air and said do you know why i pulled you around yes sir i was speeding and he said all right and then he said you're okay like he was like you're you're fine he's a white officer he's a white officer he said you're fine i still didn't move yeah i was like yes sir i'm i'm i was speeding he was like all right let me see your license and your your registration around like it's in here and i point down to to my armrest yeah like it's in here and i was like i said i'm gonna get my wallet out of here like i had to predict for him everything that i was about to do yeah and the thing that's different about this time is every time i've been pulled over i've never like done it that way yeah the only reason that i did it that way now is because i'm thinking about britney i'm thinking about israel and i'm like okay something happens to me then i'm no longer to be with them they're not they're not going to be i'm not going to have me to help take care of them and that's why so wasn't anything different about the situation it was your life situation was different yep and i was like i'm thinking about things yeah i'm thinking about different things now so i'm like i have my hands up i point down to him and say it's in here and he's like again like you're fine sir it's okay and i'm like no no no like we're gonna say that now but exactly if i make a wrong move something drops like i don't want any problems and i had a ton of stuff with me i had like luggage in the back seat i had you know laundry that i had done in trash bag so there's a lot of stuff in my truck yeah and i'm like look he might be looking around and thinking where is he like i've been here before and when i wasn't doing anything i wasn't even speeding then so and then he he said you're fine so i opened up the armrest i pulled it out like you know how you hit two fingers and i'm like not doing anything else you can see everything i have to literally pull it out of here and he's like sir you're fine go ahead and pull it out so i pull my lights out hand to him and i tell them my insurance registration is in the in the glove box he's like you're fine go ahead and get it so i reach out and to him slow and then he says where are you coming from and i said north carolina he was like where are you going i said gainesville that's a it's a long drive i was like yes sir it is you know and and i don't i always say yeah i say yes sir yes ma'am that's just the way i was taught and raised but and he's like well why are you going so fast and i said i'm just trying to get back like just want to get back and he was like okay hang on a second so he leaves and comes back and he says um i caught you doing whatever to speak once i caught you doing touching such speed and you were um you know 13 over and i'm like no problem like i'm not speaking anything i'm like no problem like i'm willing i'm like i don't have my ticket i will pay it no problems and he says i'm going to give you a warning and i'm like what seriously i'm like wait a minute and he was like just slow down and hope you make it back safely and then i'm thinking like okay did he give me a warning because he knows that the way i was acting to give me a warning because he was just being generous would he give me a warning because he was white and i'm black i i don't know from my perspective when you're telling that story i'm thinking this guy feels bad that's what i think too i think he feels bad the fact that you he legitimately pulled you over yeah and he knows that you know that you all know that despite that he's like this guy you know that makes me think like his intentions were you know whatever but he's just like dang that this guy is scared just be like that was probably really powerful for him you know and maybe i maybe he's had that happen before maybe not but he's probably like i feel bad and like he looks and checks everything out everything he said is you know is legit he probably runs things to be like all right this guy's fine and he probably felt bad because you know everybody speeds exactly you know especially when you're like i'm tired i just want to get home and but i i guarantee like i would like i feel bad you telling that story like that you feel like when you get pulled over for a very legitimate reason and again you're like yep i'll take my lumps that's you know when i speed i'm usually the same way like yep you know i speed all the time you only caught me this one time so really i'm doing all right right i'm against i'm but but i've never felt that fear and you know thinking and so i just i guarantee this guy was just like man that's messed up it's messed up because he hadn't done anything wrong he hadn't done anything to make you feel that way and so he knew and which you know is kind of like this there's a little glimmer of hope there exactly yeah like he shocked me i was like okay i'm getting my ticket you're like yeah i i i take it yeah i had no problems and i was like whoa what what just happened what did i do when i woke brittany up and i told her what happened she was like what she was like what i

you get a warning like i don't even get warnings i never my mom like females get worn out i've never gotten a freaking warning i always use it you know why because i don't cry yeah oh well yeah there's that was that was awkward we don't have to get into that story that could be a story for another show but yes i did get pulled out i was driving on a suspended license for a year a year i didn't know i didn't know it was there was an issue with my insurance it like it had lapsed and i thought it had gotten sorted and so i was paying my insurance for a year driving along everything's fine had gone to the dmv re-register our vehicles nobody said anything during that time like during that year i had no reason to think i was fine of course i'm like an hour and a half from home on the highway and um and i get pulled over no idea why luckily it was like near a rest up so i pulled into a rest stop and the guy was like dude i was like no idea and he was like uh your license is suspended i'm like what i mean i've been driving back and forth to ocala in a university vehicle like i was like i'm sorry what like i what i was like the most shocked i've ever been and luckily the guy said there's there's two forms if you knowingly are driving on a suspended license like i i don't i don't understand like the charges in it but it's bad um and like this was like a missed is like a traffic violation if if you don't i'm like i guess it's their judgment if you know like obviously after he pulled me over if i started driving then i'm knowingly driving up so i had to sit there this dude had been working overnights was sleeping called him several times never answered i ended up having to call because i'm like i need two people to come out somebody's got to drive my vehicle back so i ended up calling travis and sarah and they drove out i'm sitting in a freaking rest area for like two hours just waiting for somebody because i'm driving on a deck so then i gotta go sort that out anyhow uh yeah but uh i'm pretty sure he was just like running people's licenses and seeing things and saw that i was like oh pull this one over i was like i haven't done anything like this is one of the few times i'm not absolutely worried but um i was never scared um he didn't he didn't let me out for the morning though my license was suspended like i'd be right be done yeah for a year i was driving i'd be done that means i was driving very safely for a year i didn't get pulled over in this time i'd like to point that out he makes fun of me for he doesn't let me forget that one um yeah um so we've had different experiences with the police um uh no doubt and um and all mine aren't bad like i have i have that second one's pretty bad no like having a gun holding all my experiences like in yeah yeah overall yeah i've had some positive yeah they're all not negative but 100 percent that i've had negative experiences in the police plenty of times yeah for just because you're black just because i'm black yeah we say all the time driving while black yeah i'm doing anything while black you're you're just being black yep yeah it's just is what it is but i think you're right about that that last scenario i think he just felt bad yeah and that's that's something you know it's positive to me i would say that too i would say that that's a positive um because yeah that's one of the things like women will be like if you cry you'll get out of the ticket because they feel bad yeah i was like i can't do can you imagine me just like working out the tears to get out of a ticket i was like give me the damn ticket but um but yeah i think you know they're human again and if they feel bad they're like all right i'm gonna give this guy a break yeah um feels like this guy needs a break so so that's kind of i'll take it yeah heck yeah

so what about your experiences in veterinary medicine yeah so the probably the worst one ever was when i was in houston it's in a private practice and you know we get all kind of complaints just just for practicing like clients angry disgruntled i don't even know to this day what she was angry about but i came up to the front desk because she was like letting the receptionist have it and i come up and she's talking to him about me and she's like just laying it out and i say man what let me help you like yeah i said what is the issue because it's about me like let me yeah let me help you know i love getting my complaint i love talking about hearing right then and then yeah yeah and she's like yelling and screaming and i do like always like man can you just calm down like let's just let's just talk about it like you want to come you want to come back into the room and talk and she says a string of of words and i don't know what they were before all i remember is the last two words she said in the last two words where she called me the n word and then she followed it up with she said your n-word a-s-s so i was like and i just stopped and i was like did she really i'm like okay it's a 21st century right and she yeah like this is 2012. i don't know okay now and she turned around and walked away you know she said and she walked out the store and i'm like so what do i do now and then like the receptions everybody's looking at me like were there any other black people in the facility or yeah okay so that's it's just you yeah and so they're all stunned yeah i'm like so i i follow her out i walk out behind her and and i she said she's at the door like about to walk out and i say and i don't know why you think that's okay to say that or why it's appropriate for you to say that i said but i would appreciate it if you wouldn't come back and i said you're more than fine to take your care elsewhere and i said but i would appreciate it if you wouldn't come back and then like like always happens here comes the apology and she's like oh i'm so sorry i didn't mean to say that i was just frustrated and and she stuck out her hand to shake my hand and i just turned around and walked away like i just left it i was like i'm going back and i was like i haven't i never saw her again she didn't come back of course but yeah i was just like she blew me away twice the fact that she tried to shake my hand one after saying what she said and she knew it was wrong cause she's going to apologize i think she wanted me to blow up on her she wanted she could feel justified yeah exactly she wanted me to like go back on her call her out of her name go off on her yeah and it's hard like i had to leave that i had to come both with myself that's why i took a second i was just like because i wanna i'm impressed how do you handle that i want it to blow up trust me i think but i mean you still called her out yeah you did call her out yeah i don't let her get away with like i i stopped letting people get away with things like i have to say something i can't just you know eat it and let it go like i had to say something to her and when i told her i was like i i would appreciate if you don't come back like that's that's enough for me like i don't want to see you again i want to deal with you again yeah we're done like just don't come back and i and i called the practice manager and told them they and they came and we had a whole conversation about it and they're you know they're they were like remorseful i'm like look this is nothing new like yeah it's this this is the way but they were supportive they were supportive yeah they were like she's fired she's done good 100 they were on broadway that's important it is it's major yeah it's major they weren't like trying to justify it yeah oh well yeah she spends this much money i don't even want to hear about that yeah like the old intent to say oh well i'm all right i'm done yeah oh wheels come out you're like no but that that that one right there like i had i finished 2011 i was early yeah yeah and i'm like what in the world and i told my dad about it and he was like he was like oh well welcome yeah welcome to your life you're in you're in texas yeah you're you're a young person i look even younger than i look now at that point he's like you're a young black man like you're gonna get that and he's like this is what's gonna happen to you for a long time but you handled it even at that stage you handled it so well i i created it to to them to my parents because yeah literally like i wanted to snap i wanted to blow up i wanted to do that but it it wouldn't have made anything but situation work like you said she would have she would have felt justified she was like see that's why i called him that because he's acting like and that's yeah that's what always can't do that yeah so it that like that's one of the problems even though you would have been justified blown up at her like to be honest like super justified i really really wanted i told brittany about it she was like that's all you said it's funny the different reactions she had she's like that's it and i'm like dang that was pretty impressive like but i think that's how you handle people like that you know is is you don't give them an excuse to feel like yeah that's right you know and they just and you yeah and then and then this lady walks away and says man maybe maybe she thinks about things for half a second like maybe maybe i don't think i mean that's awfully upsetting i think she was like dang it like he didn't even snap on me i think i didn't probably think about it anymore like i bet to this day she she's probably hopefully not i hope i'm wrong and and she's like even now wherever she is yeah she's seeing like and remembers that interaction she had with me and was like dang i was wrong in that interaction yeah i was wrong at that standpoint maybe not here's what i find incredible about scenarios like that it's it's not i'm not naive enough to think that there aren't people who think that yeah i know that but that you have people in this country who feel safe enough to say it that's you know and i know that that's not okay to be like oh quietly as long as you keep your racism under wraps it's okay like i'm not saying that that's okay but like that's amazing to me that that woman felt safe like that's amazing she felt safe enough that you're right there and she can say that yep we were this far apart that's that we're two feet away and she can say that to you and then just feel like all holier than that walk away and can you imagine like if it had been the reverse role if i would have called her out of her name or if i wasn't the one to initiate that yeah she would have been trying to get me fired it would be my worst complaint

and then you're just like yeah it's tuesday you know like oh man that's messed up and then there are you know and it's not the same thing but i i do feel like there are parallels between the experiences that you know women have as well yeah um so you know when the metoo movement came out and the whole point was like all right share your stories of where yeah it happened to me too and i remember when i responded back when i had facebook at the time and my response was like me too but like of course me too of course i've had situations where i have felt harass or been harassed or felt uncomfortable like i don't think any woman goes through her life and doesn't have that and it's the same you're just like you sort of start to accept it and then i've sort of stopped doing that you know it's just like and i look back and i feel a little bit ashamed of all the times that i allowed things to be said by people who i'm i care about and i'm friends with and i and i just brushed it off because i'm like they don't you know they're good it's a good person and you know this thing you call it you excuse it they're just ignorant like no no and and i and sometimes you call people out and it goes well and sometimes you call people out and it changes the relationship and i thought good yeah you know if it changes the relationship i i need i want somebody who i can call them out and they can say maybe they're initial reactions i'm a good person but um but over time i want them to reflect and say okay you know maybe there's something to that i need to think about things differently and and i think that's what we're still not there you know in you know in society where we feel like and i get it you know we everybody we want to feel like we're good people right i get that and so i get it it's hard when somebody calls you on something that you do that's maybe not so great but we just we're going to have to if we want to move forward as a society like we're going to have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable exactly exactly that's the best way to describe it let's just say all right you know what okay my your first reaction is what it is you know you're human you're gonna have an emotional response but then to take the time to say all right what it what did i do and what can i learn and how can i be better yeah because i am a good person okay being a good person doesn't mean you always do the right thing doesn't mean you can never make mistakes like yeah so but how can i learn from this and try to do better next time and so and i've got a long way to go because like i said i mean i there have been times when i was like oh i should have i should have brought that up or i should have asked that and i try to do more of that i've had some conversations we've had you know students you know um that are people of color you know and in florida we've got a lot of people with you know kind of latin backgrounds and and not a lot of of black students coming through um um but i have had some conversations with them and and you know we just kind of scratch on the surface but at least that little bit you know trust me that for them that i guarantee you that was major they're probably like wow she she cares yeah she she wants to understand yeah she wants to know how i feel about this yeah i can't guarantee you it wasn't just like oh it's just another conversation with a faculty and that's kind of sad in and of itself right like that's such a thing you know like that's a low bar that's a low bar to be like be able to have a conversation um and uh and yeah so what if you were gonna say all right white people in veterinary medicine let's listen because that's the audience here what would you want white people to do like because that's i think what a lot of people are thinking what can i do we can say things and we can there's platitudes that we can miss what would you want us keeping it to vet med within vetmed what would you ask your white colleagues to do not being so judgmental off of looks when we walk into the room don't think one that definitely can't be the doctor that just can't because i don't have a name tag on 10 out of 10 they think he ain't the doctor like before i open my mouth hey the doctor i come in the room after the technician's been in there and they'll or a student even they'll say that other doctor and i'm like oh smiles came in before me i'm like who who came in before me and like the doctor just left out i'm like all the technicians they're like oh i'm like see like just stop being so judgmental off making assumptions yep and that's the that's a huge implicit bias exactly if you would just be open and willing to accept that we are just as smart just as capable had the same education and training yes we may look different may have a different way of talking and speaking but just stop being so judgmental off initial looks yeah because that right there is what it just drives us from the get-go and what i used to always get and i still get is are you old enough to even be a doctor i'm like come on like how many times you are going to say this yeah and it was like last year i was like no you heard a doogee houser

exactly like i used to just take stuff and and i had one guy i was going out to my here and she was going out to my truck left my telescope in the truck i pulled it out and i'm walking back in and guys it's a white man he asked me do you know how to use that and my response is yup and i'm pretty good at it too and i keep on moving i didn't even look back i just heard him in the back he was like oh okay okay i didn't even look back at him i just said and i just kept moving like i can't take it anymore why even say that though he's just judging me he's just judging me off of looks like do you think that's funny i i wish i would have been the one she would have come see me now i wish he'd been the one i come in the room that would have been ideal but it wasn't of course but like and you put this death scope on backwards

you know jesus exactly i mean like why like why why are you judging me for the way i look like and i guarantee that i was just making a joke exactly it's not funny it's not funny it's not funny it's not funny and nope it's not anything that i'm gonna laugh at and like it's it's terrible and this one like it was just like why hmm why do you have to judge me off and then like that's that's big there's a ton of other things but like if because i if i could get just the white audience because yeah sure enough university of florida there's there's not many black doctors yeah there's not and i would say if like the clients that come in sure they're probably not expecting to see a black doctor they're really not no but i guarantee you most of them after interacting i mean like oh it's not so bad like like not so bad that wasn't as big i'm sure what am i about to get like and i notice what they're thinking like i know it and people ask me all the time like why do you honor your scrubs like man i just can't i can't come in here wrinkle yeah i can't come in here and like have stephen i just can't do you feel like this extra responsibility 100 yeah yeah 100 you know the you've see you've seen the transformation in my hair a little bit the last few months yeah that's major for me like i i kept my hair short yeah clean cut for you know most of my career and and i'm like man why can't i change my hair like why can't i wear it in the afro if i want yeah why can't i grow grit dreadlocks if i want and i'm like why can't and then and then the reason the real reason that i'm going my hair growing dreads is because i want some black boy somewhere to be able to say oh shoot he's a doctor and he has locks yeah he looks like me and he looks like me yeah and that doesn't do that like it's it's possible and that's that's the you break it down from the inside though you know for sure yeah for sure and i'm like you don't have to just have a clean cut like just stop judging me yeah yeah i i iron my clothes one because i have to two because i want to though i want to be i want to be you know presentable yeah yeah but i have to be though when i come to work i guarantee if i come in with wrinkled clothes or if i come to an interview with you know yeah just you know sloppy looking i'm not one i'm not gonna get anything past that interview and you're not gonna get any respect right and leave it at what it is that's true yeah that's just the truth but the say the biggest thing is just stop judging like and that and that sounds like oh that's it no that's that's that's huge it's huge because just for the guy in the parking lot you know how to use that thing i'm like really dude like yeah do you know how to use one yeah like seriously it's just like i'm like yeah and i'm pretty good at it too and then just walk all right so if you and i are walking together and the guy says that to you do you want like is it a thing like for me to be like do i call that guy out do i keep my mouth shut like what would you want if we're in that situation what would you want a white colleague to do that's a that's an excellent question and and what i would say for that white colleague is if they feel compelled to speak up because i'm going to say the same thing i said yeah if they feel compelled to speak up in that moment do so why not yeah why not you don't have to sure we're not saying that we want you to do that sure we want your respect sure but if you feel compelled we're gonna be like heck yeah like we're gonna be like that's what i'm talking about like i i love we love that support okay i love it cause good yeah i don't want people to worry and be like oh well you know you don't need me to protect you or you know what i mean like that that's i imagine somebody could feel like oh is it my place or whatever because my thought would be like are you kidding me right now like are you are you serious like what um and the fact that you like so what what nothing that matters scenario is if you catch it yeah sometimes they don't even catch it they're like oh look at this guy's making a joke like that ain't a joke yeah that's not that's not a joke not a joke yeah and and in that scenario like if you and i were walking i imagine you probably would say something to him yeah or you probably would say something to me like oh you you know you handled that appropriate like yeah and we're not asking you to like go off on the guy and go off on a tangent yeah yeah let me tell you how good it gets we're like we don't need defense like you were just saying you know don't need that but if you feel compelled really like well i mean i can imagine myself saying like that is completely inappropriate right like and just leaving it at that you're not necessarily going like yeah that there's no need to say that yep and that's it and move on like not escalate the situation but like also hear like no you know like it's just a small thing um you know clients are always a tricky tricky situation in the world too but the one thing like i you know i've fired my fair share of clients and i don't tolerate when they're disrespectful to anybody on the team if you're rude to the students or do this like and then you're coming real nice to me don't matter i hate that oh yeah i know it's the worst it's like no you have to be respectful to everybody here otherwise you take your animal and you go wherever else you go here is your records they're right here for you and so how much money you have yeah i've had yeah exactly in fact the more you have the more i want you out of here yeah buy some more entitlements absolutely like no that doesn't earn you the right to treat people like crap um and no there's no amount of money you you can pay here that makes that earns you the right to treat people like that and and because we don't have a lot of people of color in in our profession i i have not seen you know i haven't been in a situation with like a client or something i've been in plenty of situations where they're disrespectful and i'll be like no these are the rules like i don't want to work with students cool there's plenty of hospitals that don't have students go to one of those or it you know just people who are being disrespectful i've i've called them out and i know like the technicians appreciate that support when they're getting you know they're getting dumped on and then they come to the doctor and they're like oh hey everything's here like yeah right they act it's not i'm not buying it um so i you know i'd like to think that in in that same circumstance i would i would behave in the same way um it's um it's i think it's tough though for people to always know and and like you said the first thing is probably recognizing that that wasn't okay yep um and even just saying to you like hey are you cool are you good yeah you know um but it's uh yeah it's it's tough from from you all standpoint like from from being a a white faculty here i can i'll speak to this real quick too because i've had client complaints we get them all the time one day travis put me into dialysis and he's like hey talking about this complaint yeah and he told me about the complaint before he let me speak he said let me ask you this do you feel like he got a complaint because you were black and i was like what the heck did he just ask me he's like i wasn't expecting him to say that yeah oh and i was like to be honest that's exactly why i got this complaint yeah because he knew it was a bogus complaint he knows who i am at this point yeah and he was like do you feel like and i was like 100 he was like all right we're done i'm done yeah i don't say anything else i don't have to go and go through the whole like i'm sure you just yeah let's learn from something next time he's like yep you know and he told me he was like i understand that you know there's plenty of people here at university of florida who feel entitled and they have money and like he knew because it's not him yeah and he was like all right you're good yeah you understand i understand there was nothing more to be said you know on the same page you're done like and and that to me like he didn't use that that instance to like you know say oh we could have did this differently you should have said this difference like yeah you did everything it wasn't a team he was like i recognize there's nothing you could have done differently yep there's nothing you could have said nothing you could have done you could have said these exact words what they want to hear and that's important right that that recognition is that is important it's just him saying that and seeing how it's like man nice yeah like and i know you all have my back i knew that yeah but it was just like man that was but that's a subtle thing like you said because you know you could say okay we get complaints sometimes and sometimes they're legitimate like you can do something better and and i would you know that that's a tough situation for you personally and also for supervisors to be like is this is this real yeah you know it's also trusting you to the point of saying look if he screwed up he'll admit like i probably could have handled that better yeah and so just asking you point blank like do you yeah is this just is this just because you're a skin color and if so we we're done here yeah and so yeah that's i mean that's pretty that's good that's a good thing and and so things like that are really it's just giving you the benefit of the doubt and saying look i know you um and so i'm gonna get you know i want to hear from you before i just assume oh well you must have screwed something up right now and i mean we would all like that right we'd all would like that to be extended to us like hear me out before you make a judgment so you know that's the same don't judge me don't judge me yeah to me it's coming back to just like that's what all this is about even back in slavery every time we look different so we got judged yeah and that was yeah yeah that's it yeah it's i i really think that the more this happens yeah just a conversation yeah the better it's going to be because we can i can tell you numerous stories i can tell you numerous encounters until we just get comfortable talking about it since this whole thing with with george floyd has happened i've had zero conversations yeah at work when i wouldn't have them at work anyway yeah i wouldn't have them at work sure but no one's even said anything to me i don't expect them to i don't want them to work's not the place work is not the place yeah but i've had two text messages and you were the one phone call yeah reached out to me just saying you know hey support you didn't need anything and again not that we need that that just shows me like this is different yep every other time yes this has happened in the world everybody lives in their own bubble and does their thing it's just like oh there's another other major event in history or another event that happened but the phone call for you was major like huge yeah huge and then those two i was like man it takes much from and the two text messages weren't like from people who i would say are my friends like it was just like a a co-worker calling like hey just saying like hey you know i understand things are going on we're in the world right now and no do you need anything are you okay are you good i'm like man that's that's pretty good huge it's huge it shouldn't be huge um it's a little bit sad to me that it's huge but you know you take what you get sometimes and it's progress right it's a sign that like people are are recognizing as a white person um i recognize or it seems like this feels different right like this this moment feels different and um and you know you have a lot of people who i think internally are like yes this is important we agree you know black lives matter this is not okay this is not okay but not feeling like sort of helpless um and knowing what to do and then also frankly everybody's got their own lives you know everybody has their own thing and and but they're you know something you know a switch flipped where people are like you know what enough is enough and whether it's right you know the pandemic is happening and everybody's like everything's a little weird anyway and the moment is just it is the moment and also the just how awful you know the

what happened to george floyd and just you know watching that and seeing that is just that's it's just if you can watch that and not be disturbed by that and you'll have a way then you're something's wrong yeah something is wrong with you and you should seek help immediately but then you have all the other stories and and you know you think you know here in florida um you know we have the trayvon martin george zimmerman situation imagine if that had been caught on tape if things would be different you know or um you have all these stories and the fact that that was caught very very clearly on tape the entire thing and again it's sad that it takes that but i mean and since then you know the protest all the video like video cameras are there and and that's powerful stuff and i think that's part of it there's just i mean i mean nobody people will probably analyze it for for a long time you know why but this feels different and um and so i i i appreciate that you were willing to come on and talk about this because it's not always easy and i think that we should sort of pledge to keep doing it i think so too let's let's keep talking about it it can't just stop here you know it has to keep going even i think that we honestly should have because like there's not many there's not much diversity and diversity what i mean like black males or females in bad men and when there are we honestly if we stick together like yeah we like that hang because you have a somewhat shared experience right sure like i can't like i can i can you and i can come talk not to be the same as if i go talk to you know another another black doctor like we're not going to have the same conversation sometimes i have to change the way i talk at work like honestly it's just the way like i use different words different different terminology it's just just the way it is i i really think that if we could just increase the the amount of black veterinarians we see and we get even just students like how you have a hundred and some students and maybe one or two of them are black if that if that's almost always not always like i was in south africa where the population is 75 black and in the vet school there it was like i don't know the numbers but it was 90 white that's what i'm saying like wow so that that i have some thoughts on that on why and and what the hard part is i think a lot of the reasons that we don't see more black people in veterinary medicine are issues that start when they're children yep right i agree and so it's i think you know universities and veterans and things like that exactly but then there's also the financial implications of you know it's expensive to go to vet school and to have the debt for a long time um there's the um obviously the representation is an issue not seeing somebody looking and be like hey that's a job i would consider but there's so many other things and you know we all like to say everybody's got opportunities everybody doesn't have the same opportunities and so you know people are talking more and more about equity versus equality um and and so i think that there needs to be more that veterinarians whether that's vet schools or the avma or whatever we need to start doing more earlier in people's lives to make a difference and so um so maybe that's what the next show can be about we can get into you know specifically okay in veterinary how can we increase you know maybe maybe veterinary medicine could look like america like right maybe maybe we could get um maybe we could get you know generally you know better representation not just from you know you know black americans but um you know we we don't have diversity it is a it is a profession right now of rich white women yep when i was in school and i i wish i was just the one powerpoint i wish i would have saved yeah i remember who it was but they came and gave us a presentation and they broke down the demographics of like veterinarians and it's number one of course white women yep second is white men when it came to black men way down it was like it was a little bar graph yeah really less than one percent yeah like how do you be less than one percent and this was at tuskegee yeah they produced the most black veterinarians as a whole right and and my thing is i applied to auburn undergrad because i knew they had the best school and that was part of my thing i want to apply where somebody had a school i applied to auburn and i got denied and i still read the letter to this day i remember it said you don't meet the qualifications of an auburn student and i was like what in the world does that even mean i'm like 17 years old what does that even mean so and and then this is probably wrong i've always held a grudge against since then like like what does that even mean yeah i didn't apply the vesicle there of course yeah yeah you're like screw them exactly i was like what does that even mean you don't need the qualifications yeah i wasn't a 4.0 student in high school but neither exactly i was going to say i was like most people are like yeah you're only taking 4.0 like i'd like to see the the gpa and everybody else who came through exactly yeah in the world it's just that like we just need to some kind of way increase the amount some of the things they think you know people are making changes and they're starting to make some strides like in admissions processes and things like that to say that it's not just gpa and test scores because that that isn't equal somebody who can afford to take the exam four times that's not the same as somebody who takes it once it's like that's what i get um so there's some some you know privilege there you're selecting for people who have additional means right and so i think there's some recognition that guess what maybe that test score isn't really telling you everything you think it is um and that we need to start valuing yeah exactly the you know that there are still there are still schools right now who accept students without an interview they're like oh your grades are amazing you've got this you you have a four point you have the crazy and you just take them in and you're like oh you know so and i've been on admissions committees and i've interviewed students and and even just internships residents and things like that and just working with people over the years you know somebody who's the valedictorian had a 4.0 in their vet school class and then comes to the internship and you're like what in the world stay away from my cat you know and like so we know like everybody has those stories we know that that's not you know how things go and yet we just go well we don't have anything better so we'll leave it well you know what let's try harder let's try let's try harder try a little bit harder just look a little bit deeper and just just be a little bit more inclusive i guarantee you're skipping over yep a couple of years but that's that's where i think veterinary medicine can do better but we have to start so much earlier it can't just be the people who are applying to vet schools one we don't have a lot of people of color applying for that school so but it can't just be undergrad either i think it's got to be earlier i think we need to get out and get more involved and just take more responsibility for saying like well you know the the class looks pretty close to what the admissions rate was like well you know what that's a cop-out right so all right i think maybe you'll need to come back and we'll have uh um we'll have a more in-depth talk about that and how we can we can sort of change things in vet med i think so i think we'll do it 100 we're going to fix it nobody no no big deal right yeah hundreds of years of problems we'll get them sorted in a couple no i mean obviously change change takes a long long time and um but it's every step every set yeah it's gotta it's got to be somebody willing to do it yeah and i say why not let's start it yeah today's a good day carl thank you so much of course for coming and having this conversation i really appreciate it and i think um yeah we we need to continue the conversation all right thank you

thanks for listening to today's show i'd like to thank topher my producer you can follow us on twitter or instagram at vet journal club our website is veterinaryjournalclub.fireside.fm email us with questions comments or show ideas at veterinary veterinaryjournalclub gmail.com and remember to check back weekly for new episodes and we'll catch you next time