Eli Davis: Delquan is a very old and dear friend of mine.
we met when we were in our, early teens, early twenties, and we pledged the fraternity Omega Psi Phi together.
A to Gamma Chapter in 1995.
Um.
Delquan is one of the people that, that I can 100 percent depend on.
I could depend on Delquan so much so, I remember when we had an event, when we were, when we were online and, we weren't supposed to be around any girls and I had a sister and I went to Burger King and, our dean came in and he said, Eli, I want you around them girls.
And I said, you know, he said, find one of your L. B. s and come to the frat house.
The only person
Delquan Dorsey: so that, I didn't know.
Okay, that's the first time I, that's crazy.
I thought 30 years, 29 years, I'm getting the prelude, the backstory to why this even happened.
Eli Davis: The only person that I knew that I could find was Delquan Dorsey.
Delquan Dorsey, Delquan has always been an intellectual.
so I knew that I was getting ready to, I knew that I could find him at the library.
And that's exactly where he was.
I said, Delquan, you got to come to the front house.
First thing Delquan said, why you choose me?
Delquan Dorsey: And once again, you choosing me.
Well, no, it's always an honor.
It's always an honor.
but no, I appreciate it.
Just a little background about me.
Jefferson County Public Schools, work in the Office of Diversity, Equity and Poverty Department.
I, people are calling me, and I, I do community engagement through a racial equity lens.
And I also do supplier diversity, which is the inclusion of minority women owned businesses with JCPS, especially around the construction, and renovation areas, making sure we got a goal of 15 percent minority and 10 percent women.
So that's always its own little piece of work.
And then I also do some, work with smaller businesses and nonprofits that support our schools.
That are, more often led and owned by individuals that look like you and I, but here recently, to more point to this topic conversation, I've just, kind of relocated my office, actually in a building that was, house that was housed by one of our departments in J. C. P. S. And they all moved, due to an agreement in partnership, actually, with the pastor of my church, who also has a community development corporation.
Eli Davis: Oh, that's
Delquan Dorsey: And the superintendent and the pastor got together and said, you know what, this building was originally for the community.
And we want to make sure that we're using this building to support the families and students in this community.
And so I've come back and moved into this office.
So I live right across the street from where I actually grew up and where the housing projects, where I grew up.
Of course, they don't look the same now.
They got a facelift too.
Yeah, the hood look cute now.
Yeah.
Eli Davis: The hood looks crime still the same.
Delquan Dorsey: Right.
So now that we're trying to bring back these, these resources and address some, because yeah, you could get a facelift, right?
You could do bricks and mortar, but if you're not doing the work of developing the people that live there, then those, those social conditions will lead to, you know, one of those outcomes is crime, right?
because, you know, due to deprivation, right?
And so how can we, as community builders, those who serve students and families, those who are in the fields of education, because now in the 21st century, especially because of the political climate.
Everybody knows the powers in education knowledge is power.
And if they, if the powers can be could control public education or education period, then they could feel like they could control everything else they could control the people.
So,
Eli Davis: you know, well, we know, we know that's a fact.
That's why they had the anti literacy laws back during enslavement, right?
You know, once you control what the people can think about and how they can think, and then the cultivation of thought, you know, based off of having people be able to read the written word from, you know, one person to another, you have the ability to control psychologically.
So, so I totally understand.
I know that you wanted to talk about the, the equity and how the digital divide, came up, explain how the digital divide is going on, where you are at Del Point.
Delquan Dorsey: Well, so, you know, I guess from a community builder standpoint is really how people using access technology to for their upper mobility.
Right.
And, you know, nowadays we're being dragged along, you know, it's just interesting little things like when you do community meetings now, you want to do RSVP.
You have to put the QR code on the flyer, right?
And so, if you got the QR code, then you assume that those who you want to come out will utilize the QR code still add the phone number on there, you know, for the grandmothers and older generation, but.
You know, it's easy to just hit that QR code and for, you know, you got social media, things of that nature.
And so people even in low income areas can access, online applications.
It's almost in order to survive, you have to be able to access the internet, right?
So it used to be the previous gap and now that gap is closed.
So the new gap is AI.
So now how
Eli Davis: So, so just real quick.
So, so the digital divide is the access to, digital technology.
Right now we're seeing that the digital divide is most pronounced based off of access to wifi.
Right.
and also now with the artificial intelligence, it's going to be an access to the technology that can operate the artificial intelligence effectively.
Okay, good.
Go ahead.
Yeah.
Yep.
Go ahead.
Yep.
Go ahead,
Delquan Dorsey: so it's all about the application.
So how can we now that people have the tools in their hand and say, for instance, I want to apply for a job.
Well, they still have some paper applications, but more often than not, a lot of these positions.
You have to go online to apply for.
Right?
And so, you know, a lot of community, based organizations.
some of us have, computer labs where they could go and apply, get assistance, so on and.
Therefore, so on and so forth.
But then, even once you apply, you got to be able to know how to use the computer once you get the job.
Now, true enough, some positions, you know, they pretty much teach you when you get there, but you still have to have some skills and some sense.
So, how do we support those individuals who have, don't, who wouldn't have the access or wouldn't typically have a job where we learn a lot of the stuff?
I wouldn't know what I know if it wasn't for the job that I have.
I would know a little bit, you know, but more often than not, we learn our skills based on our occupations.
Eli Davis: So, so, you know what, when you're talking about jobs,
Delquan Dorsey: get, you know, jump in Eli and Gabby, man, cause you know, I'll go to Ain't Kitty.
Eli Davis: no.
I'm just saying though, you know, as you talk, I get these thoughts and, what I've been doing is, thinking about like how, oh, so, so, you know, I teach this course.
this college course in Miles College and, some of my students, they use,
Delquan Dorsey: know you were teaching at Miles College?
Eli Davis: yeah, some of my, so, yeah, brother, some of, some of my students.
Yeah, well, thank you, brother.
You know, some of some of my students, you know, scholarship.
It's true.
What?
Delquan Dorsey: You don't know nothing about my family, my elderly?
Eli Davis: so, so,
Delquan Dorsey: that's, I'm impressed.
Eli Davis: Yeah.
Thank you.
But what, what, what some of my students do, they use artificial intelligence.
Right.
Delquan Dorsey: How do they use it?
Eli Davis: Well, well, you know, they're using it.
They just basically saying, write this for me.
put the, they put in the prompt in, maybe, copy and paste in the rubric and saying, write this for me or copy and paste in the assignment and saying, write this for me, except for it's not doing a very good job.
You know what I mean?
So, so,
Delquan Dorsey: it's just like with any technology, right?
Eli Davis: Yeah.
So, so, so what I'm saying is
Delquan Dorsey: in its early stages,
Eli Davis: like, like, when you're talking about people that are doing these, no, when you talk about people that are doing these applications and, they say they got to do a cover letter, they got to do a reference, something, or they got to write an email, you know, to have.
Artificial intelligence literacy or AI literacy to understand how to cultivate the technology so that it has your voice is something that has to be, is needed for people.
And you think about like one person has the ability to have, AI literacy and then you have another person that don't have the ability to have AI literacy because it's not all Due to the technological divide, the tech divide doesn't just limit itself to the people, in the hood.
it is big in districts, you know what I'm saying?
Yeah, it's
Delquan Dorsey: That's what, that's,
Eli Davis: yes.
Delquan Dorsey: unless you, unless there are,
Eli Davis: personnel and all that too, you know,
Delquan Dorsey: Right.
So, so is it safe to say that AI knowledge is dependent on how much we are forced to use it?
Eli Davis: yeah, it's, you know, I always related to playing the guitar.
It's like, you know, you can pick up an instrument and you can make some sound, but how well or how good you get at it goes into practice, to use
Delquan Dorsey: Practice.
Application.
Eli Davis: to use artificial intelligence And to get familiar with what it can do and what it cannot do, to familiarize yourself with, how you can use it, what you can use it for.
it is essential, you know what
Delquan Dorsey: with anything, that's anything with human behavior, man.
We, that's what's cool, you know, cool about humans.
Like we, we might not know something, but if we do something enough, we can learn.
Eli Davis: But I also, yeah, that's the truth, you know, but I also look at it, like,
Delquan Dorsey: And we can improve on it.
Eli Davis: yeah, if you, if, but if you don't know, like certain things, talk about human behavior, if you don't, you know, I studied the science of epigenetics, right?
And I think, intergenerational trauma on a consistent basis.
I think about that a lot and there are there's a certain genre of language that goes to that.
Now, if you don't know that genre of language, and then you want to use artificial intelligence to talk about something, it's not going to say, hey, man.
How about think of this?
You know, it's at this moment.
It's not doing that.
But what it does do, it does expand where you are.
So what I'm seeing with my students is like, if y'all not reading the text, then y'all don't know what to say to the artificial intelligence to pull out the information that you need.
And that, yeah, that Yeah, you know what I'm saying?
So, so that goes into the, to just
Delquan Dorsey: that's one thing that when you was trying, when you was showing me, that's the first thing I picked up on when you were showing me the chat GPT stuff at work.
It's like, oh, yeah, you know, you could tell it to do certain things, but you also need to know some things already in order to be able to direct it.
It's like.
Yeah, I could get a GPS and I could drive his car somewhere, but I got to be able to know, you know, how to drive and I got to know certain rules and I just got to be able to understand you got to have some knowledge to go along with it.
So that's going to be the challenge.
And so I think, but I think to your point, if that hypothesis is correct, then somebody like myself.
Needs to be intentional with how we use artificial intelligence and we do it informally because now You know, it's so cool being an african american community being a sports fan, you know, obviously, I don't go to the barbershop But we still have this virtual without walls Well,
Eli Davis: for people listening, Delquan has a clean, very clean shaved head.
Delquan Dorsey: to see that.
Okay, we have thought we was on video too.
Yeah, I'm one of the I'm of the follically challenged community Oh, but no, but these daddy barbershop talks right now, the barbershop talk was all about who knew the most about basketball, football, so on and so forth.
Now, and you know, a lot of those people that will win those debates, I will have the higher standards with no having that knowledge will be the person sometimes not necessarily knew everything, but was the most passionate with giving a message, right?
Now, you could be the little quiet introvert and you sitting over there with Google.
and I don't care if such and such is loud and talking about LeBron ain't better than Jordan, you can kick out those stats.
Now with Google, Google is a, is a artificial intelligence.
Now, nowadays, we, you know, can you imagine what it'd been like if we had YouTube when we came along?
I mean, think about all the stuff that you fixed at your house with YouTube.
of all the stuff that you learned to do with YouTube that you didn't have to go, you didn't have to call no number.
All you had to do.
had to know what to put in that search button, that search option.
Because if you don't put the right words in that search option, you're not going to necessarily
Eli Davis: But that, but, you know, Delquan has done very well for himself, you know,
Delquan Dorsey: I hear a butt coming.
Eli Davis: yeah.
So, Delquan is, when he talk about, his YouTube access and Wi Fi and all this stuff, he talking about from, an elite status, you know what I mean?
And some of it, and some of it, I'm serious though, you know, DQB, going down here in Birmingham, Alabama, teaching in these public
Delquan Dorsey: Ain't no YouTube on the cell phone?
Eli Davis: Well, well, some of these kids ain't got cell phones, you know what I mean?
And
Delquan Dorsey: what age would
Eli Davis: don't have cell phones.
Huh?
Delquan Dorsey: age would you say, what age would you say, I don't want to be too stereotypical, but what happened to the Obama phones?
I thought the Obama, you
Eli Davis: yeah.
You know, but that goes into, do you have the ability to access?
You know what I mean?
I think that the technological divide is greater than just, having access to Wi Fi and having access to technology.
It also has Access to information and access to how to get to the support and to the information, you know, yeah, to get to the resources.
It's a lot.
It's a lot of folks out here, man, that, don't have the ability, to get to the resources.
And a lot of times what I'm starting, what I'm really seeing in a profound way in, Birmingham is the, How people are being educated.
this goes into, you know, it sucks.
why black men not, supporting Kamala Harris, in such a profound and big way.
Delquan Dorsey: I got a theory on that's not being talked about.
You want to was talking to a sister I work with, and I talked to in another friend of mine, initially, who I'd talked to, and both of them being Black women.
confirmed it.
So think about this.
This is what's in the interesting dynamic, you know, and don't get me wrong.
I'm politically, somewhat politically astute.
So I ain't hating on Kamala Harris at all.
I just, it's just understanding to your field of study, understanding that.
Yeah, we may be a new generation.
We may do things different, but regardless of how different this generation is, there are a lot of things that we still inherit and we still bring from previous generations.
and pre, and previous social and cultural structures too.
So, now, Kamala Harris, if she wins, she won't be the first black president, right?
We had a black president, right?
And he was a brother, right?
Eli Davis: huh,
Delquan Dorsey: he was a brother, married to a sister.
Kamala Harris is a sister that is not necessarily married to a brother, right?
And so if you, and so as black men all of our lives, what have we been told by black women?
If you date.
If you date a woman outside your race, especially a white woman, you're gonna be looked at kind of, you know, they're gonna have their thoughts about you.
Right.
And I said, suppose Barack was married to Michelle, but Michelle was white.
Would you, do you think black women would have supported Barack?
And H1, I'm saying, no.
Eli Davis: That's an interesting comment.
you know, the, that's very interesting.
black women actually are the least people that date outside their race.
You know what I mean?
Black men, we're, yeah.
And black men, we date outside our race, at some of the highest rates.
So, you know, it's, so, so, so
Delquan Dorsey: What about, but, so, but the interesting thing is, okay, so who white men are dating?
I know it's multiple races, but you know, they might date Hispanic or Asian or whatever.
But, okay.
Eli Davis: yeah, I think that everybody, I think that everybody.
Everybody yeah, no, no black women don't date outside of their race.
I
Delquan Dorsey: corporate America made that shift to, to present that, if you notice, remember it was a taboo thing like that, to have interracial couples on TV, now every commercial you see, they like, let's cover the demographic,
Eli Davis: Yeah, I mean, you know, you know, you got,
Delquan Dorsey: every couples
Eli Davis: you know, you know, I mean, you got Trevor Noah, is somebody who, you know, they, he used to be on The Daily Show.
Trevor Noah also is a big advocate for artificial intelligence and also ensuring that artificial intelligence is distributed equitably.
And, but, you know, he comes from the, the South American apartheid.
You know what I mean?
It seems very existence was a crime because it was illegal, you know, just like it was in, in America at one point, you know, for, black men and black women or white men or interracial relationships, you know what I'm saying?
So, so,
Delquan Dorsey: which is, which, I mean, you know, but when you start looking at our actual DNA and biological setup, man, it's a lot more mixed folk than
Eli Davis: Oh
Delquan Dorsey: mixed and we
Eli Davis: yeah.
that's what they say to be American is to be mixed.
is mixed race, you know what I mean?
Just to be American is to be mixed.
You know, all of us, have that genetic disposition of multi multiple races or multiple, geographical influences.
So, you know what I mean?
But,
Delquan Dorsey: anyway,
Eli Davis: yeah, I don't know how we go, like how, like, like, you know, how we get
Delquan Dorsey: Did you
Eli Davis: Oh yeah.
We, the a, a AI.
You know, but no, in all honesty, you know, it does relate to, artificial intelligence and then the different kinds of exposure, going along with the critical, the ability to think critically about what you're being exposed.
So it goes to me.
It just is fundamental on an educational space.
And, Delquan used to work for the governor as well.
So, you know, that's something that, that, being of a political influence at a high level is probably why he started to go into, a political realm.
But, I know for a fact.
So, so Delquan, is there any kind of initiatives that is going on that is, promoting, artificial intelligence, literacy, AI literacy, in the district or in the community, or do you think that's something that, everybody is still a little nervous about artificial intelligence or
Delquan Dorsey: people are still yeah, I think people are nervous about it, obviously, because, you know, they see on social media, some of these, you know, creative, results or outcomes of someone is, you know, done some things you see in your music videos and your TV, your social media, And I, you know, people naturally are scared of what they don't know.
Right.
And then you also hear, well, AI is going to come take the jobs.
. Eli Davis: It will,
Delquan Dorsey: It will, but you got to understand, you know, jobs, the job that you had didn't always exist.
Right.
Eli Davis: Uhhuh,
Delquan Dorsey: So we were constantly evolving.
So it's important as we, as individuals, right.
Have the mindset to want to learn.
I think that's the most important thing is to have the mindset of being not only being a student, but being willing to learn.
So, here at the district, I'm seeing 1 of our partners.
She's doing some really cool things around, the, the goggles.
Eli Davis: Virtual reality.
Delquan Dorsey: me show my English reality goggles.
And they're building whole structures and things.
and, and using that technology.
And so, and I told I was like, look, I mean, I need y'all to give me a training.
I know y'all work with the kids, but I won't learn with the kids.
And so they do some real cool things around there, but, of course, we're not doing enough and so.
That's one of the reasons why I've kind of moved into this space so that we could start not only having young people and family in, but also be intentional on how to bring those resources and tools into the community and give folks using them in a way to their benefit.
And not only to that benefit, but how we how can we move to the benefit and actually start using it with the intentionality around developing skill?
Yes, I would take the jobs, but if you know how to work, and you just got a new job
Eli Davis: Yeah.
You got, yep.
You got a new job.
Yep.
and that's, that goes into
Delquan Dorsey: without the school loans.
Eli Davis: Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
Without the school.
and that goes into me it is, is how can.
We get African American people within the community to understand that using artificial intelligence is essentially getting ready to speed things up.
And if it's getting ready to speed things up, it's going to speed that technology divide, that digital divide too.
It's going to, if we don't get, black folks or our people to, Start to use and utilize and learn how to, make money or treat eight with artificial intelligence.
I just know for a fact that the digital divide is going to come and become a digital chasm because everything is getting ready to get sped up.
everything's just getting ready to get sped up.
Delquan Dorsey: and that, and that will happen and the chasm will be, will have variation it be person to person.
That's the one thing that's interesting, you know, and I feel how when we have these conversations and we talk about large groups of people, it's so easy to.
Make the mental shortcut to throw everybody in one type of perspective.
When in actuality there's, you know what I'm saying, there's various levels based on individuals.
And so my point is that, yes, some people will be left behind, just like they got left behind with the internet, but eventually they got drug alone, right?
My mother was like, you know, one day my mother was like, okay, Delquan, I had enough.
I need wife.
Cause she couldn't watch nothing on TV, like she,
Eli Davis: yeah.
But I mean, just but just to think about everything that she missed, though, you know what I mean?
Delquan Dorsey: Right.
And so now that she has access, now I gotta get off the, now I gotta get off the YouTube.
Eli Davis: Yeah.
Delquan Dorsey: there she's catching up.
Eli Davis: yeah.
So, so what I'm what I'm what I'm experiencing the queue because, when open AI came out.
Right.
I think a couple of years ago, and it can, it dropped around November.
Right.
I learned about open AI, maybe two months after that, and I started to, learn about research.
shucks.
I started to watch, you know, the CEOs and the video Microsoft.
I've been watching Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Oh, man, I've been really engaging into, a lot of the, the CEOs and the moves that people are making with the artificial intelligence is on top
Delquan Dorsey: And what, and not to cut you off, but what's interesting, even when those people that's talking, somebody had to tell them what to say.
Somebody had to teach them.
'cause they CEOs are not sitting there learning this stuff
Eli Davis: Well, well, well, some of, well, some of these particular CEOs are also people who have, are some of the people who are foundation, foundational in, establishing artificial intelligence and getting it off the ground.
So they, you know, they, a lot of them, they know
Delquan Dorsey: a lot of it,
Eli Davis: yeah.
. Yep.
And, they are where they are because they know what they know.
You know what I mean?
So,
Delquan Dorsey: But somebody still has to brief them.
Eli Davis: Well, well, I'm sure that they don't know 100% everything, but No, these people are some of the people that's been writing the code.
is what, you know.
so, what, lemme see.
Where was I?
Where was I going?
oh,
Delquan Dorsey: He's talking
Eli Davis: oh, okay.
I got it.
So, so, what I know is.
That I can do things now with artificial intelligence that people can't do.
You know, it's not that because they don't know, they, can't do it or don't have the capacity to do it.
It's just that they just don't know.
I remember showing my students how to use, effectively, how to use artificial intelligence because their writing was, you know, their artificial intelligence writing was horrible.
You know, I wonder what their regular writing looks like.
You know what I mean?
but, so I remember showing them and I remember one of my students and I just put like five sentences inside or five different prompts.
one of my students said, I didn't even know you could put that much in there.
these are people who are in their early twenties.
Delquan Dorsey: Right.
Eli Davis: You know, and I think about this and I said, you know, some of people are so scared or, you know, there's a group of population that has never been exposed to any kind of new technology, right?
they've been born, like your children, you know what I'm saying?
my, my son, and they always have had this technology.
Elijah has always had a cell phone.
He always had internet.
So now all of a sudden there's something that is new and they don't know how to deal with it.
You know what I mean?
They want to be like, oh, that's just a fad because they've seen so many fads, you know, technology fads come and
Delquan Dorsey: Well, it depends
Eli Davis: Mhm.
Delquan Dorsey: because once again, it goes back to, are you in a situation where you need and use it?
Are you in a profession or passion or in a pathway of demand?
So when you first taught you, when you first showed it to me, you was like, Your application and your practice was man.
I'll write these grants.
Eli Davis: Mhm.
Mhm.
Delquan Dorsey: You see what I'm saying?
But then my son is about your age.
What was really interesting was he's been a college student Of course, he said, okay dad, you know, I'm thinking I'm showing something that I thought you like Yeah, I get on chat GPT.
Yeah, he said that's nice, but they got another app that The professors used that they could tell with what you wrote.
You used chat, GPT.
He said, I said, for real?
He said, yeah.
He said, but don't worry about that.
'cause they got another app
Eli Davis: yeah, but that's not, but that's, but that's actually false.
because, what large language models do actually is they promote, they, they put out original content.
You know what I'm saying?
Whether or not you can understand, a standardized way, artificial intelligence or chat GPTs or these large language models, they kind of write in a similar way so you can tell.
when something is being used, there's an overemphasis on, you know, saying things a particular way, but, you know, no, that's, you know, you can't take, you can't detect.
Something that is original as something that is copywritten, you know what I mean?
And I think that's some of the lawsuits that they are going out are having one of my favorite writers You know, Ta Nehisi Coates is having a he's in a lawsuit for using his works, you know but you know
Delquan Dorsey: doing he, he's doing somebody
Eli Davis: yeah.
He didn't get into detail.
He just said that, you know, they asked him what he thought about right artificial intelligence as a writer.
And he was like, you know, it's it for him.
It's not really writing.
You know what I mean?
I gotta say, I feel you on that, Ta Nehisi Coates, but.
everybody wasn't blessed with two parents that were, highly intellectual like your parents, everybody wasn't blessed with a dad who, you know, essentially owned a black bookstore and a mom who adamant about you reading and all that stuff, you know, and everybody wasn't blessed with those privileges, brother.
So.
Delquan Dorsey: well, but at the same time though, it's kinda like.
Right.
And we get that and he has a gift and even with that, there is, there's still a talent level
Eli Davis: Yeah, but a gift.
A gift.
What is it?
what is what is a talent without cultivation without, you know what I'm saying?
Without somebody being able to open up that flower though, you feel me?
Delquan Dorsey: right.
it's still a process.
And I guess, you know, some people, but no, it's just funny that you said that because, well, it was just like, that was one of the people that you would, refer to when you first started using.
When you was telling me how to use it,
Eli Davis: yeah, but I don't mind, you know what I mean?
Delquan Dorsey: I mean,
Eli Davis: let me, prompt the artificial intelligence to, to critically think like a Ta Nehisi Coates or like a Toni Morrison or like a James Baldwin or like a Melissa Harris Perry or anybody, you know what I mean?
Who I think that, I would like to glean intellectual insight from.
Delquan Dorsey: so let me ask you this, let me ask you this, Mr. Intellectual, Mr. AI, do you feel like, do you feel like AI is a threat to intellectual aptitude
Eli Davis: I think, I think that, AI is going to enhance intellectual aptitude, because it's going to allow us to make obscure and nuanced connections, right?
So, so currently I'm in the midst of, you know, grappling with what my dissertation is getting ready to be, right?
while I'm grappling with what my dissertation is getting ready to be, I decided to write a book.
And what I want, what I'm writing a book about is, intergen intergenerational trauma with the lens of epigenetics, meaning, you know, how experiences impact the expression of the, of your genes without changing or modifying the structures of your DN.
A. so now, all of a sudden, I'm, I'm able to grab research that I had no idea existed, you know, through artificial intelligence.
I'm able to make, connections from this, historical standpoint, from the Tulsa, 19, 1921 Tulsa Massacre,
Delquan Dorsey: Right,
Eli Davis: grab another connection from, all kinds of, social and, biological degradation and trauma from historical opponents of in, during enslavery, during enslavement, reach back before enslavement to start to understand the, the Mali empires and all that stuff to say that, you know, like, like I can now, make those Big and large connections, and do, and then, streamline my research.
You know what I'm saying?
So, so, I think that it's going to enhance because it has the ability to make these deep connections in a very fast way,
Delquan Dorsey: right, right.
You ain't you don't you if you want to pull in some information.
Yeah, before you might have to find the right book of the right researcher and you might have to.
Go to a bookstore in D. C. R. You might go to a bookstore in Africa, but now you don't have to do that.
You just got to know who it was and where it is.
and then you can access it before you used to have to take the time.
To have to read each and every word and now you don't have to take the time to read each and every word to gain the full concept.
Eli Davis: And you can get, yeah, and you can get the whole synthesis and you can make those connections, you know, you can make those connections from Rwanda, you can make those connections from the colonialization of Ghana, you can make those connections from the apartheid in South Africa, and then you can bring them all together.
All together and then make those same nuanced connections with the degradation and the things that African Americans have experienced and are still experiencing and then go to a biological component and say what has this done to our stress response and how is this impacting us on an educational
Delquan Dorsey: how are you planning on getting that piece?
Because I get the historical.
How are you planning on, how will you be able to grasp those along?
Those, biological examples.
Eli Davis: You know, so, so what you can do is you can, go to these articles, you know, if you know these different kinds of publications, like,
Delquan Dorsey: So basically have they captured the DNA of, of, you know, my great granddaddy,
Eli Davis: well, well, well, so this is where it goes.
a lot of research on African Americans haven't been done.
Because of, you know, the devaluing of African Americans.
And then it goes into, Eddie Glaude.
Eddie Glaude, you know, he
Delquan Dorsey: I was watching Eddie
Eli Davis: MSNBC, brother, I think he's a professor at Princeton.
And, what he talks about in one of his books called the democracy, something democracy.
And, what he does is he talked about this thing that's called the value gap, this human value gap in which there is a gap.
between the value of African Americans and our white counterparts.
So, there has been a gap in the research of African Americans, even though we have been going through the traumatic, the historical trauma, you know, from the capture of, the capturing and the selling of the body from Africa to the for Years of enslavement to the failed reconstruction to the Jim Crow segregation to incarceration.
Delquan Dorsey: do you think, so
Eli Davis: So wait, real quick.
So, so what we got
Delquan Dorsey: have been researched
Eli Davis: Yeah.
So what we got it.
So we got to
Delquan Dorsey: the wrong intentions.
Eli Davis: So what we got to use is we got to research, we got to use research of other people like this lady who, Rachel Yehuda, who has researched the epigenetic influences of people who experienced the Holocaust, you know what I mean?
And so we glean insight from her, we glean insight from other research.
and it's a lot of research going on.
not a lot, but it's some research out there that, that is on epigenetics and how, trauma historically still lives inside the body.
I mean, you got, a lot of people that's doing a lot of research on trauma and a lot of research on trauma informed care.
So, so you.
Delquan Dorsey: district now.
that's the interesting thing, but politically, they don't want to hear that.
Eli Davis: huh.
Yeah.
But the thing is this is so, so, so yeah, politically they don't want to hear it, but this is one of the reasons
Delquan Dorsey: even politically,
Eli Davis: well, this is what, this is,
Delquan Dorsey: standpoint,
Eli Davis: well, well, this is what has to happen.
There has to be a reckoning with, what, how education is getting ready to be done.
or how it's going to be able to continue because but now we got fascists.
We got people like, Donald Trump.
My thing is like, okay, so Donald Trump has happened.
what's after him?
You know what I'm saying?
What's after him?
what, what has, what wound has this opened up?
so that the disease confessed to the disease of white supremacy, essentially confessed her, you know, it's a lot of talk is a lot of talk on racial, racism.
now for the first time I'm ever hearing it.
On, national news networks.
You know, my thing is if we don't continue to offer a critical analysis, right, a critical theory, critical thought, inside of our schools, then nobody's going to be critical of, of the next, monster to come to come to bear.
You know what I mean?
Delquan Dorsey: well, I think, but I think the, I think Donald Trump is just the symbolism of that mindset and that culture we know always existed and always has.
But I think of it is this reckoning Is, you know, right in front of the bus.
It's, but we also look at some, we have this tendency to look at it as an event, but really it's a process which is made up of a series of events, like they say, a point is, a line is a series of points.
I think it's same way with the reckoning.
Like this reckoning process is a series of events.
Now, this election is a big event in that process.
. Eli Davis: My,
Delquan Dorsey: go ahead,
Eli Davis: no, I'm just saying though, like, it's like a microcosm of all Right.
it's this guy by the name of Yvo Harari.
Yvo, Noah Harri.
Right?
He's, a super intellect.
He's a historian.
He is, educated in Israel.
but he, I think he went to, European schools and in England and all that.
but just a very deep thinker.
one of the things that he interrogates is how artificial intelligence is getting ready to be able to manipulate, you know what I'm saying?
And if we don't, if we don't have the ability to interrogate on a critical level, if we're not.
Teaching how to be critical about difference, different, stances in how we are educated, what we are educated about, how we know what we know.
Delquan Dorsey: check it
Eli Davis: Yeah.
Well, well, the thing is, it's not even like a fact check.
You know what I'm saying?
It's just like an instrument.
You know, we were just talking about earlier, you know, how to get better at something, right?
It is about practice.
Critical thought is, it's just not something that happens.
It's something that you learn how to do.
Delquan Dorsey: right.
it's a, it should be a behavior.
And now I think even in education, we've gotten to the point where it's like, okay, if we're going to be teaching something, we need to be teaching skills around critical thinking, as opposed to, that's the reckoning taking place too.
Because education was here before was all about, let me teach you how to assimilate,
Eli Davis: Yeah.
Yep.
and I think that, with the algorithms that are going on inside of the social media components, I'm seeing in the educational system, especially with all these little young.
Young little, black girls with them, I don't know what they call it, the little baby hair that they be having all the time with these front lace wigs and this baby hair.
Delquan Dorsey: right?
Eli Davis: Everybody got it.
You know what I'm
Delquan Dorsey: Oh, yeah,
Eli Davis: Every, you know, you know,
Delquan Dorsey: It's a hair trend.
it's no more different than we was getting ports in our box.
We was getting ports in our box, man.
We was getting gummies, we was getting lines.
I had lines in my eyebrows.
Eli Davis: my thing is, as we keep on going inside of, you, you know, being exposed to artificial intelligence and, I think that we have to become critical of how we use it.
We have to be critical of who's who has
Delquan Dorsey: As we're using it, we need to be asking, is this a good use of it, or what's the impact of it?
We can't get too, we can't get too caught up with creating Frankenstein, not realizing Frankenstein could take us out.
Eli Davis: Yeah, so, so, so my thing, Delquan, and, and I appreciate your time and so I want to be very conscious of your time.
So, I just want to go
Delquan Dorsey: hope this was helpful.
This is probably not what you even wanted.
No,
Eli Davis: anytime.
Yeah, in all honesty, Delquan, anytime that I get to sit down and just talk with good people is always a good time, you know what I mean?
Delquan Dorsey: it's definitely, I know I learned something.
Eli Davis: yeah, I had shoot.
I learned some too.
it's, I was about to crack a joke.
I don't know how it was going to go over.
Delquan Dorsey: You can always edit it out.
But no, see, that's you practicing what you want people to practice with, with artificial intelligence.
Like, oh, I had a good joke, but I won't be responsible because it might not.
While, I mean, joy said you might not have the outcome that I,
Eli Davis: Yeah.
Yeah.
You know what I'm saying?
Impact and intent.
All right.
So, Delquan, is there anything that you just want to go ahead and leave us with or, what we got?
Delquan Dorsey: Well, no, I just wanted to say one for one.
I'm very proud of you and the work that you're doing.
I always, you know, that's one thing we've always been about is not only just, I always want to challenge intellectuals, right?
Not just to be the, intellectual in isolation, but an intellectual in practice.
And it's one thing to be smart, but don't be smart in every tower.
Challenge yourself to share that, not only share that knowledge, get that experience.
But how are you using it for the upward mobility of others?
Eli Davis: Yeah, I appreciated Quan.
like I said, DeQuan is one of my oldest and dearest friends.
As a matter of fact, he was my front online.
He number three, I'm number four.
and, you know, if, if there was somebody that, that,
Delquan Dorsey: Eli's in my way, he's in my way.
Eli Davis: yeah.
The shoe, you know.
so it is, I don't even remember who it was in my first one.
I don't know.
Delquan Dorsey: I was there too.
Obviously, nicely coordinated your first weekend.
On the fly.
Eli Davis: n nonetheless, Quan is this, the quan is an amazing human being, you know?
and so it was just such a pleasure DQ to, for you to support a brother and to be on here and to offer your insight and your, and your ideas and your perspectives.
So, with that, we getting ready to go ahead and close out.
I appreciate you.
I appreciate you listening to thinking about and working with AI with Eli.
All right.
Peace and blessings y'all.