An Army of Normal Folks - Arshay Cooper: Inner-City Rowing (Pt 1)

Episode Date: July 25, 2023

Arshay grew up on the West Side of Chicago and his life was forever changed when he joined the first all-black high school rowing team in the nation (and became the captain). As an adult, Arshay found success as a chef before returning to his true passion by starting inner-city rowing teams. He’s the author of “A Most Beautiful Thing,” which was made into a critically-acclaimed documentary by Common, Dwayne Wade, and Grant Hill. Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

And they put you in a boat you'd never been in and a life jacket that you really don't know how to use and water you can't swim in in a place that you can't get to from your neighborhood and say, Ro. Ro. I bet it. I bet it. Well, they pushed us out. We didn't move.

That's what I said the line in the book. One of the kids, I'm sorry, I got to call him out, but he's my boy, DeShon Benson. He starts crying. I was like, man, I know you, you know, I'd be getting shootouts you saw. And you like go outside the next day, the next moment, you know, and you're crying in a boat. That's hilarious. That's so different, you know? And I remember we would move and they had the pull-ups back in. They were looking at each other like, what did we get ourselves into?

Welcome everybody to an Army of Normal Folks. I'm Bill Courtney. I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, a father and entrepreneur, and I'm a football coach and intercity Memphis. In the last part, I unintentionally led to an Oscar for the film about our team. It's called undefeated. Guys, I believe our country's problems will never be solved by a bunch of fancy people in Naisu, talking big words that nobody understands on CNN and Fox, but rather by an army of normal folks, us, just you and me deciding, hey, I can help. That's what R.S.A.K. Cooper, the voice we just heard is done. R.S.A. grew up in the West Side of Chicago, one of the most dangerous and impoverished neighborhoods

in our country. And yet this kid who couldn't swim became the captain of the first all black rowing team in the United States. And it was a pretty rocky start, as you just heard. But since then, Arche has helped start a ton of inner city rowing programs. His book, a most beautiful thing, was turned into a movie by Duane Wade, Grant Hill,

and was narrated by Common. I can't often say. I usually just jump in. Our guest today is our shake Cooper and I cannot wait to talk to him and Talk about his story, but it's also an opportunity to talk about a lot of what a lot of what our society is dealing with confused about and I am more than excited to have this time Today and for those you listening, it's gonna be a really cool opportunity for you to get a

reality check on what goes on and so much of the city centers across our country. So with that, we're going to get started, Arche Cooper. Hey, bro. Think about me, Bill. I'm excited to be here. I am so stoked to get ready to talk to you. Let's just dive into R. Shay, the young man. I want to hear about where R. Shay was born, you know, siblings, and I'm not talking about 13-year-old in high school before that, you know, just where you came up to tell us where you came from Yeah, I was born in Chicago Chicago Westside You know my mother was born in Mississippi. You're oh whoa whoa. Why didn't you know that? Yeah, do you know where what city Jackson? The hub. Yes

My grandmother's from Jackson and great grandmother Yeah, and Great Jackson and great grandmother. Wow. Yeah. And your great grandmother? A great grandmother. She would have been maybe even a sharecropper. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, my grandmother said she picked Totten and you know, she was out there in the field. So that's the, yeah. That's your mom remember that? No, my mom moved my grandmother. She said she wanted to escape the violent South until when my mom was born she moved She wanted to escape the violent South. Yeah, it went to West Side of Chicago. She missed brother And you know, she's looking for more opportunities And I didn't know that until I was a teenager. But yeah, Chicago, West Side, where I was born, and, you know, as a kid, I can remember just my mom and my stepdad.

And she had a job. She was working. My stepdad was working. I had an older brother and a younger brother and younger sister. So it's four of you. Four of us. And it just seemed like a normal life. I was young. And but I think I was about nine years old when I started noticing a difference.

Difference in what? And a difference in your own family's reality, changing or difference in your family dynamic, another. My, a difference in my family dynamic, not just compared to others, but the change of being able to have dinner and sit at a table with my family to step that not being there. The difference and, and You know my mom

Being holed us every night to the point that she's not there, you know arguments every night Mother scratching her skin Christmas gifts no longer there on December 25th I was too young to understand what was happening, but things were changing. And it wasn't until maybe I was 11, I was sleeping on the couch, and my brother had this old chillin's bucket. You know, people would make chillins,

and they'd keep the buckets and use it for a mop bucket or something like that. I thought chillins were only in the sound. I guess it came from Jackson with the Greg Graham Mama. They brought it to Chicago. And I remember him throwing a bucket of water on me. He said, wake up. Let me show you something.

So I followed him through the hallway. And he said, look through the keyhole. And I looked through the keyhole. I see my mom. I stepped that in my aunt. And I was a mirror. And I was white powder on the mirror. He said, you see that?

That's called drugs. And the first thing he came to my mind was these like a box of limohed or Boston baked beans that says, say no to drugs when you open it or a commercial to say, this is your brain, this is your brain on drugs. And I was like, this is not good. And that's when I noticed a change in my family's dynamic. And I became aware that, you know,

we are not the same that we were maybe, you know, a few years before. Like, there's no happiness here because now there's fights and now we go from being punished to like sitting on the corner or or writing to get in beat with belts or extension cords. And so, all as a result of ultimately addiction addiction, you know, no So are you That's that's a good picture up to 11 and we're gonna go chronologically But it's a good time to talk about now. How do you know? I am now 40

now 40. Yo, that was always me bro. But looking back, okay, because if that's a case, that was the late 80s, early 90s. Yep. Right. Warren drugs. Just say no. I mean, all that stuff. Um,

but before that reality, you had a mom that was working and a stepdad that was working and a seemingly organic family. What was the socioeconomic situation that your family was in? What kind of jobs were your dad, or your stepdad and your mom holding? Yeah, he was like a mechanic, right? I know. Blue collar, dude. Blue collar, dude, a mechanic, you know,

and my mother was working at a laundry mat. It was a little simple job. Blue collar, but- Blue collar, but- They were making enough to keep a family, right? They were making enough to keep an family together. And- Do you think there was addiction prior

when you were younger or did it evolve as you got older? No, I think it evolved as I got older. And honestly, I don't wanna skip anything, but I didn't ask my mom about this until I was older. And my stepdad hanging out with the wrong crowd, right? They were young and he started doing drugs and he introduced it to my mom. And my mom did it because she loved him.

And I think it was at parties. From there, you know. They're steps. Yeah, they're steps and they became a everyday thing. So, your family is living under one roof. It's not your father, but stepfather. I assume you stake in the father role at that point, right? And you got a mom, both are employed. Kids are clearly cared for up until addiction took over. All right. Well, that doesn't agree with a societal story about inner city black families, which is it's all fatherlessness. It's all, you know, remember what was the term

welfare queen I think to describe, you know, women having children just to get the extra wick or welfare check. But you had the organic family. You had the two parents working. On the incomes that your parents are making, you certainly weren't living in some big fancy house, but you had a home. And it's interesting you just described going from having a family dinner at the table to not, which means there were family dinners at the table. I mean, to me, it sounds like an inner city black version of leave it to be for starting

off, just an organic American family. That is not what most people think when they think Chicago Westside. Yeah. So how many kids at four, five, six, seven years old in your reality, how many kids had that started with that type of dynamic? I mean, in your neighborhood?

Not a lot. I'll tell you that. Not a lot. I mean, my, I think maybe some, but you know, I'm just thinking about my five closest friends. Yeah. You know what I mean? One of them, One of them had a dad around. And, you know, we all counted on each other for food, right? Like, you don't have food, let's all go to Donald because Donald's the one family has food. You know what I mean? This week. This week, exactly.

And so, same story, right? Family comes from the South. Some mom was single parent moms who work a few jobs and some moms with some drugs and one mom with selling drugs, you know what I mean? Were you living in a project? We were not living in projects. The apartment or apartment buildings where it's like yeah just families you know people doing drugs in a hallway. I mean the access to that was a high rise. That was a high rise inner-sign inner-sitting building'm I'm I'm envisioning the Jefferson's built not

the Jefferson's the the good times built. The good times building. Yeah yeah I like that. Yeah kind of like that you know you walk in a hallway and people are doing drugs people are shooting dice right you're you're definitely walking through cloud of of Rock OK most times. So even when your family union had not been gripped by addiction, you were still surrounded. You were still surrounded by it. And now, a few messages from our generous sponsors, but first, we're now offering premium memberships

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But guys, that's really not what it's about. You get all that cool stuff and we're going to provide all that stuff. But the truth is, we're trying to grow the army of NormalFox and have a greater impact on the country. And with the Premium Memberships, we can fuel our marketing efforts to grow it. This podcast picked at number 10 on Apple's podcast chart and all of the US, which is absolutely crazy and it's not about me, it's about the guest and it's about you. So we've decided to set an exciting new goal of trying to be on Apple's top shows chart for our entire first year, which will mean more attention, more listeners,

more Army members, and most importantly, more impact. But we need you, as always. So go to normal folks.os and click on Premium if you're down to help. If not, just keep listening. We'll be right back. So, when you would know this, I'll just tell you, my father left when I was four. My mother was married and divorced five times. And as a result, I had to a paternal and a maternal set of grandparents that cared for me deeply thank goodness.

And my mother left me and tried her best, but you know, and she's still us, me and not of her. But I mean, it's the fact is with with five to four says there's not a whole lot of at least as a young man, you'll feel like a lot of stability. But despite all that, I found a way to go to college on scholarship, graduated, worked hard, made money, and worked my way up. And I started coaching football and teaching school, got into business, and ended up at Monassus, and Coach Football there are seven years.

The reason I'm telling you this is, prior to my time at Manassas, my mentality was a very ingrained American mentality, which is we have a free education system. We are the freest country in the world. We are not held back. We have free will. And if we want to take advantages of the amazing opportunities this country offers us, we can go to school, we can get an education, we can pull ourselves up from our bootstrops despite any of our circumstances.

And we can find a way to be successful. That was my belief set. And then I spent seven years of an asses. And an asses is a neighborhood. The neighborhoods of Srell, and Manassas are wrongly enough. One's called Nuskago. And the other is Greenlaw and the other Smoky City. And the kids that I coached from that area. Prior to going to Manassas, I would have said, I get they're coming from poverty, I get they're coming from destitute situations, I get they're coming from places when you walk down the hallway, you see addiction and

all of this dysfunction around you like you does a kid, but they still have free school, they still have an opportunity, they can still do it in this great country we have. But I don't believe that anymore. I believe that opportunity exists, but I believe there are fundamental barriers that exist in inner city neighborhoods across our country to kids much like the kids that are your friends that you grew up with

and you that are bears that weren't in my face. And while you can still do that, there's a whole hell of lot more to overcome, then just go to school, get an educational work hard. Talk to me about that. Yeah, you know, the first thing come to mind when you say that. Yes, what do you, that's a great point. What do you hear when you hear a white dude say that? For real, what do you feel in here? You know, it just, you know, I think people do have, you know, it's rough because it goes back to just this thought, especially

when we talk about opportunities and everyone should be able to go to school for education and work. I explain why. It goes back to me missing 40 days of school my eighth grade year and walking into school and I didn't have to go school in work because my mom wasn't around at that point. She was, I mean she'd come home every now and then grandma had too much going on. Because your mom wasn't at it. She's in the streets. And my teacher told me, you know what, you're gonna die before you're 14 years old if that. Because the times I was there, I just couldn't learn.

I know. Like when you learn. I understand. I want the people listening to us to understand why a kid from inner-city West Side Chicago can't learn in school, even though it's free and profitable. Yes. Why can't learn in school even though it's free and profitable. Yes, why can't you learn?

I live in an environment where to have not to must have. And people do whatever it takes to feed their additional, feed their family. And because of that, I heard gunshots when I slept. I skipped over pools of blood, I lost friends, I ran from my life. I see people take others' life to protect theirs. And I seen what some soldiers have seen in war, but before I was 13 years old. And I am hungry at the same time. I wonder if my mom's going to call home. And there's no way after seeing all that I can walk in the classroom And learn about who really discovered America or what's 50% of half

There's just no ways it's impossible Do you Do you uh? Do you know as a 12 year old you're not learning what you're supposed to be learning? Are you even aware? You know, I'm not aware. I just know that you, I knew that I wasn't doing well because I didn't feel well. You know, honestly, because kids clown each other and roast each other, you, you know, um, you, you, honestly, you, because, you know, kids clowning each other and roast each other, you believe that a teacher is always right.

And when you hand, or you're handed a piece of paper to says F or D, you think you're just dumb. You're not smart. Cause you don't want to stand the systemic You know issues behind that and so you grow up losing that confidence losing that hope you know, yeah, you got to throw a chest out and a bravado Like you're a badass to survive while in between your ears and your heart and head you feel like hell Feel like hell absolutely that. That is it. That is the answer. And of course we want it, right?

You want the education. That's another thing that's interesting. A lot of people will say, education is there. They just don't want it. Quote, you can't help these folks. In quote. Yeah, I think that, you know, the same folks will say, hey, you know, I just got a divorce I kids need therapy, you know what I mean?

You know, you know, you think about what we saw, you know, and there's no access to therapy or talking to someone about, we have one social worker in a school of 400 people. And so even with soldiers seeing their older, of course, let's advocate that they talk to someone to have them on see what they just saw. That was no access for us to that. Yeah, well, what you're talking about is trauma, which is interesting.

You went to that because that was my next question. But first, a few messages from our sponsors. You know, I was shot at down a hallway when I was a kid by my fourth daddy. The third daddy was a guy that I got into my first fist fight with because he was yanking on my mama's hair and I was too young but I was ready to roll at 14 you don't know what you know what's going on or what's right or wrong you see something you're at right and now as a 53 old man I'll look back on that and I recognize that I was traumatized as a child by some of those situations and by constantly believing

that this man's finally I'm going to have a father that's committed to me that loves me for rest of my life and then he's gone. And so I understand childhood trauma in a very personal way, but I didn't until probably 10 years ago. And I lived with it all through being married as a husband and a father and a business owner and a football coach and everything. Still never really understanding even my own insecurities as a grown man as a result of that all to that drop. So in your book it opens with something that dude it just, I mean I've read it like four lines, I read it over and over and over again and everybody listening to me, get Get our say Cooper's book. In the opening line is you had a raggedy fan in your apartment and it wasn't any count,

but it's all you had, you weren't gonna go buy a new one because it blew air, but it clicked. And it clicked all the time. And if you walked into the apartment, first time the apartment, you would have noticed the clicking, but when you live with this fan in your apartment your entire life you just don't even hear the clicking anymore it's just a fan over here clicking and you just tune it out because it's so common and it's just something you every time the fan play spends

around which is a lot of clicking and the metaphor you use is that's what death and drugs and murder and gang life and everything is to a kid and West Chicago is just a click and fan that you get used to and you ignore it. Yeah, one of my teammates said in a documentary, he said, when he was asked how did it affect you, he said, it didn't. You know, that was every day. That was our way of life. I also said in the book, because of that, I felt like, and my teacher, who I love, who's amazing, I was a part of my life in seven.

Great. She said, I was still her at my wedding. At my wedding, she said that I said, who's amazing. I was a part of my life in seven great. She said, I was still her at my wedding. At my wedding, she said that I said, God exists everywhere but on the West Side of Chicago. And you know, and- Which is ironic that everybody over there calls himself Lord. Yeah. Yeah, I sure do.

Which we'll get to it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll get to that, no matter. But the point is that clicking in the fan that you grow to ignore because that's where you live and it's just a noise in your life. So is death and murder and everything. And the point is tying it back to my personal story is,

you were traumatized. So we're all of your friends. So are your classmates. So I mean do you think it's is it is an exaggeration overstated to say that The fastener Jordy 95% are better of the kids growing up in West Side Chicago by the age of 11 are traumatized Yeah, absolutely no different than a Vietnam war veteran. No different. So how are they to concentrate in school? They know. Can. So how are they to learn?

How are they to learn? So how are they to break the cycle of the despair and destruction that is their lives and the lives of those around. And so therefore, do they have the same opportunity and a life that I had? I think that's the answer to everyone who's stay here, Bill. But am I being a white paternalist and overstating this or is this real? It's real.

I think it's absolutely real. And I think that the way it is told effectively through our storytelling, you know what I mean? And I think our film really highlights and get people an opportunity to walk through that, to understand, to see it, and also shout out those rates of PTSD on the West Side of Chicago, you know. And the statistic says that one out of every three child on the West Side of Chicago have lost a close friend or a family member. Just say that again. Everybody needs to let that one sink in.

One out of three young people on the West Side of Chicago have lost a close family member or a friend through game violence. Now let's talk about in psychology there's a list of things called stressors. And if you experience two of the top 10 within a year of your life, you are considered highly stressed, highly traumatized, right? And it's the death of a child, the death of a spouse, the loss of a job, witnessing a robbery all the way down to losing your watch. You know, it's a list from really traumatic things all the way down to losing your watch. You know, it's a list from really traumatic things all the way down to ultimate things. And if you add up the points of the stressors that are happened,

that kind of puts a number on your stress. And if you're over a certain level, then you're considered a highly stressed, traumatized individual. The death of a friend or watching a crime committed is traumatized individual. The death of a friend, or watching a crime committed, is way up there, and you're saying, by 11 years old, you'd experienced all of it. Absolutely. How do you break out of that? How do you expect them to go to school

and care about your ABCs when you're just trying to survive? Yeah, also I look at like the mass shootings that happened like in suburban schools. I even remember Columbine and I remember it was happening more often and the first thing they would say we will send in trauma counselors and trauma experts to help these kids unsee what they saw and we're gonna give them time off from school. Everyone will be able to see someone. I was like, damn that. Every day.

Yeah, you know what I was like, why are you learning? We just saw that was every day. And you were expecting to suck it up be a person. And the thing about trauma is that, you know, we are taught to bury it, but the thing is that you bury it alive. And you bury it alive, that's great.

And it always comes back. Everything reminds you of it. You know, you see some of these kids in the courtroom, your friends, who are doing life. And you can see the pain in their eyes, and the hurt, and the pain, and the trauma that they endure. And the thing is is that if you never gave them access to heal from that trauma and pain, they're gonna grow up and redistribute that same trauma and pain to their peers. And that's what we're seeing. And their children. And their children.

And their grandchildren. And their wives, and their husbands, and everybody else is close to them. They will redistribute that to them. And thus goes the cycle. I think any soldier in combat will tell you that. That concludes part one of our conversation with the R.S.A. Cooper, and I hope you'll listen to part two that's now available.

But if you don't, make sure you join the Army of Normal Folks at NormalFox.os and sign up to become a member of our movement. It only takes committing to doing one new thing this year to help others, and there will be a ton of awesome ideas on this podcast from the folks we're featuring. Some of them may resonate with you, and others may not at all, and that's okay because we're all called to do different things with our different talents. By signing up, you'll also receive a weekly email with short episode summaries, in case you happen to miss an episode or prefer reading about our incredible guest. Together we can change the country and it starts with you. I'll see you in part two.