The Scoop with Tanya Flanagan

Unknown Speaker 0:00
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Unknown Speaker 0:25
Good morning, and thank you for joining me for the scoop with Tanya flat again, I'm so happy you decided to wake up and start your day with me. Here on the scoop, where we talk about life, joy, funny moments, trending topics, and so much more. We promise to keep you in the know and find out what you know. So let's get started.

Unknown Speaker 0:53
Happy Sunday morning to my listening audience. Thank you once again for waking up on this beautiful day. To spend some time here with us on the scoop. I am so delighted to have one a dear friend and a beautiful person in the studio with me this morning to talk about, well, a little bit of everything. Please join me in welcoming, I should go into the show today. But before I let her say hello, I'm hoping that she blushes a little bit over her cup of coffee. Her birthday celebration is today. And as I was thinking about her, she's been so many wonderful things to me and to people in the community and to the community as a whole. I thought what is a way that I can honor this magnificent, dynamic, diverse woman and I thought a man on the street segment of the scope would be so cool. And who can be my first man on the street guest. I used to go and so I want you to know that that was the inspiration behind this. It's kind of a happy birthday to you, and a moment to publicly celebrate all that you are. And I think also, because you've done so much to share with the community a lot. Because I think they'll learn a lot in having today when we have this conversation. So I should thank you for waking up this morning and having a cup of coffee with me.

Unknown Speaker 2:16
Thank you for having me. I appreciate this early. But thank you for having me. Oh, I

Unknown Speaker 2:19
appreciate you, you know, rolling over and climbing up the bed and saying I can do this. And you know, it's radio, they can't see me so. So today we're gonna have some fun. You are the founder of Black joy consulting. Yes. Which is super cool. Tell us about this. So

Unknown Speaker 2:41
Black drink is old. It is like my second business. And this one was birthed out of my nonprofit. And I just saw a need that wasn't being felt kind of like a political operative. And there isn't a lot of black consulting firms that deal with government and politics. And so that's where Black joy consulting came from.

Unknown Speaker 3:04
Awesome. So when you say government and politics, are we talking political races? Are we talking policy legislation? Initiatives? Are we talking all of this,

Unknown Speaker 3:17
I think it becomes all of it. And when you when you're in government, and you're doing policy, I think you just kind of take on a little bit of campaigns, you take on a little bit of outreach, because you're just really in that space and the needs show up. So if you have an understanding of government and how it moves, then clients are just kind of attracted to that. And one of the things that I do specifically has to do with people of color, communities of color. And that would be and when I say communities of color, I think people just assume black people, but the people hiring me know, so I do some Latin outreach. I do some AAPI outreach, and I do black outreach. Okay,

Unknown Speaker 3:57
so you're covering the whole gamut, um, which I think is great. Because it doesn't, it makes you have a listening ear to so many different communities. So after you do that kind of work, are you ever on? I know you're on task specific projects? Who's been the most embracing? Is it just across the board? Or as a black woman? Do you feel like I guess what I'm saying is it harder, you know, where I'm going? And I'm trying to go nicely, but

Unknown Speaker 4:28
you know, it's voter apathy

Unknown Speaker 4:31
is so real. Right. So, and, you know, full disclosure, I've been in a couple of campaign races and part of my joy and love for you comes from the time you gave to me helping me with a campaign with outreach and just mobilizing people, right? But when you look at especially municipal races, you know, city council races in some spaces, people don't come out like right you're have someone get elected with 1600 votes when 250,000 People Both right or let's say 65,000 People could have voted for that particular race within those that city jurisdiction and you have 1600 people make the decision of who's representing them. So is one group versus another more apathetic? Or do you just find that as different issues that hold people back no matter what,

Unknown Speaker 5:21
it's always so? What? That's a great question. In the last five years, I've seen an evolution right. In original, when I originally came into political work, it was about the politics politician that was always about the candidate, right? And who that person was that could move our agendas forward. And the last five years, we've evolved, and now it's issue based people or issue based. So one of the one of the things that I'm seeing with my clientele now, Is there specific two issues? There they are. I'm interested in this, and I'm interested in this, and these are the candidates that are interested in this, and can you amplify this, and in amplifying this, this candidate will, you know, get some press because they believe in this? And I think that's where we're I think this campaign, you know, just because we're dialoguing about it, I think this campaign season coming up, the candidates are going to be hard pressed if they're not considering the issues of their constituents. Because these constituents are, we used to have constituents that weren't necessarily educated because there was a lack of information, right. But now we are in an information world where this is an era of information so that everyone has access to do their own homework. And if these politicians and these candidates aren't focused on the issues of the people, the heartbeat of the people, they're not going to win races, and to your point, people aren't going to show up and vote for them because there's no need or no desire to vote for that person, because they're not interested in their issues. And that's the clientele that I'm picking up. There's a client tells us, for example, I have a client right now. And because this is one of the clients I could actually talk about, but I have a client right now. And their issue has to do with menthol cigarettes and how that negatively impacts communities of color. And they have a candidate that is specifically lined up with that specific issue, right. And so the idea is to bring interest and to garner allies for that issue that will also fall in line with that candidate. But if we're not considering those kinds of candidates are considering those kinds of things, then it's going to be a tough race for them, and no one's going to show out because these young people, they're interested in what they're interested in, right? Like, my son is 19. And he he don't even believe in the presidency. He thinks that, you know, he says the people wanted to King so they got the king, but he thinks there should be a true democracy. And these are the new voters that we're talking to. And these voters, they're registered to vote, because it just did a new poll, a new poll is that there are more nonpartisan and libertarian voters than there are Democrat and Republican.

Unknown Speaker 8:02
It was really interesting that you bringing that up, it was really interesting to see how people and very influential spaces, like clergy, people consider community activists, whatever, right. Examined valid issues and evaluated things to make a decision and then thus further influencing the congregation or the audience that they had a foothold on, right. And as you were talking, I was like, Oh, so you answered the question that was going through my mind. We have a more in a sense we have we have a more educated voter base? Yes. Because they're driven now by issue. And if the issue resonates with them, it's funny because not going into personal space, but there was like a campaign, right. And healthcare was the focus. But at the time that health care was the focus, we weren't focused on healthcare. And it was in the wake of COVID. But now we are I think people and I hear campaigns are commercials, right. And the commercials were very focused on how healthcare is so important. Yeah. People get it now that they finally connected that maybe there was such a COVID has such an impact on our lives. And it was directly tied to our overall health care. I agree. And time has passed. So there's a connecting evidence, I guess there's enough information out there to draw these conclusions and for people to pay attention to health care is subject differently than it was a subject at the time because we had so much of unrest and turmoil going on in our country, as we were navigating COVID to I think that things you do you just it's a fascinating space that you live in because you wear this hat. So, you know, we just got through talking about political campaigns, but you also do some some community mobilization, which may be in the same vein, we're working with NAACP, but also working with kids, but to do fun stuff to like, scavenger hunts to get people to engage culturally. Yes. So I remember one time you did a scavenger hunt, where people had to learn the history of the community by participating in a scavenger hunt. And I was like, that's a really cool and unique way it was at educate people. So where did that come from? It's actually

Unknown Speaker 10:38
an environmental justice. Scavenger Hunt. So this is the funniest thing about that. So.

Unknown Speaker 10:46
So it wasn't a blend. It wasn't, it was like a blend?

Unknown Speaker 10:49
Well, we blended it, because we wanted to make sure that the community bought into the idealism, right. And that's the that's the difficult part of I was actually making work in Nevada when we did that. And that was a collaborative idea. But that is the job of what my consulting firm does, like one of my clients right now.

Unknown Speaker 11:13
But doesn't that check into the apathy portion like,

Unknown Speaker 11:16
Absolutely, here we are. Absolutely.

Unknown Speaker 11:18
I'm saying, Oh, you had a cultural scavenger hunt, right? You're saying that we had an environmental Yes.

Unknown Speaker 11:22
But that's why I'm making that that's the reason why I'm making that correlation because of correlation. Because that's the work that I do, what I do is, that's really why people hire me, they want what they are doing to be relevant to the persons that we're trying to reach. Right. And that means that you have to do things uniquely different. So I'm never so for example, I have a I just launched this cigar club, it's called Three Little Birds, because I like cigars. But the point of Washington belt,

Unknown Speaker 11:54
those bursts in a minute, because I'm just not gonna get a little bird cigar club, like, what are the birds have to do with this guy, and ash and tapping and whatever, but we're gonna find out about this in a minute. But

Unknown Speaker 12:05
I launched so this is how you make through lines when you're a consultant, right? I launched the cigar firm, because I have a client that is a cigar lounge. And so it gives me more value to my client to have something that sticks there. But you have to do that through line and be creative at it. So this is why people hire me is because I'm always thinking of not I don't do business as usual. Well, I don't even know how to do business. So that's really you are not linear? Yeah, I'm not. Because I don't I always say if I'm going to do the work, I'm going to have fun at it. Because works hard enough. Right. So and that was

Unknown Speaker 12:42
about going back to what we were talking about. Because I didn't do I did the scavenger hunt. Right. Okay, so my girlfriends, and I got up on Saturday morning, and we went out people. And we got some matching T shirts. And we even did, we did so much we stopped at a candy store. We got candy, we got earrings, we got all this T shirts, matching earrings and favorite candy so we can get through the scavenger hunt. Because lunch was coming after the fact. And we kind of had breakfast, but not really. And we didn't necessarily do the scavenger hunt with a commitment to I think mine was probably more commitment. Oh, it'll be cool to to show what we know about the community. It was based in the historic West Las Vegas area. Yes. But I don't think that it all was with an understanding of what that process of the environmental responsibility associated with it. Yes, we took some things away. But no, I can't say that. That was my because I now do stuff with the Sierra Club. And so I'm a real proponent for environmental consciousness. I understand. I always understood, but I have had another an opportunity to look through a lens and see a different view of how committed certain people are to environmental issues that I think we just take things for granted, except the one that is burning us up right now, which is climate change, right? So people are very in tune to climate change, because we're on fire. And we're worried about water from one minute to the next. And but we're not thinking about all the different components,

Unknown Speaker 14:20
right. And so one of the things that we highlighted in that is when you were talking about the candy store, that was actually an asset, and what we were highlighting as a small business assets in the community.

Unknown Speaker 14:31
All Sandy's laid.

Unknown Speaker 14:33
One of the other things that if you notice when if you remember when you got there, we have boxed water. And the purpose of the box water was to bring your mindset back to the importance of not using plastic. So there were subtle there were little subtle things that one of the things that we had to do is you had to walk from one point to another and what we were highlighting is there were no sidewalks.

Unknown Speaker 14:57
So yes, and I mean we planted We went to the garden. Yeah. And we got a plant we got some potting soil, the idea to green to reinvest Grow Your Own, and then also greenery puts oxygen in the air. And then when you're in in the area because you did this in historic West Las Vegas, historic Westside there a lot of heat islands Yeah. And that's a huge conversation right now we talk about kids and being them being asthmatic. Yeah. So

Unknown Speaker 15:27
we're so we're highlighting the shade also. Right. So in in that moment, the funniest thing about that is we had a couple of people leave that scoured trends and get their own home gardens. So that's when you Yeah, that's when you know, like, the work that you're doing is being impactful. It's not, I'm not looking at Black joy consulting, I'm never looking at whether or not what I'm doing in that moment has value to everyone, I'm just looking to impact the one right, if I can impact one person all the time, consistently, then I know that I'm, you know, doing a good job. Although, you know, the measurement now is, you know, numbers. But I believe in the concept of five by five. So if I can impact five people, they'll impact five people, they impact five people. And so you can, you know, be collective and actually have some effectiveness. But, you know,

Unknown Speaker 16:21
I agree with you on that. Because you're not ever going to please or reach everyone, right, you can touch one person, it starts the domino effect of having an exponential effect. And so you have to start somewhere. And to engage, I used to do the young professionals organization, so we started the Urban League,

Unknown Speaker 16:40
and just started here, the reason why half of these people are here, like there are like, you know, I don't want you to overshadow that there is a generation of leaders leading right now because of young professionals. So, you know, congratulations on the work well done, and keeping people invested and engaged, because that also is its own task. And I you know, I don't since you left, I think they started again, now, they are trying

Unknown Speaker 17:08
to rev back up, but it'll be what the second rebirth. But you know, what was cool about doing the Urban League young professionals, when we did it, the National Urban League has a group called young professionals and across the country, they number over 15, probably going towards 20 25,000. Professional between the age of 21, and ideally 40. Now it's about 45, that do community outreach and direct service engagement, to bridge the gap where the nonprofit Urban League, and any other entity, big government, the private, whatever, to bridge the gap to give disadvantaged people, but in in some cases, just people who might be under educated about something, what they need in order to make a difference in the community, whether it's given back to kids in school of various ages, to improve academic outcomes, helping people understand how to be first time homebuyers. Improving financial literacy, civic engagement, of participation in the voting process in policy, and this change. They're doing this work, right. And when we were doing it, it was so effective that all of the upper chambers came to find out how are you doing this? And we sat and had meetings with them to talk about because, you know, the Metro Chamber has a young professionals component do they have? Yeah, they do. The land timber looked into it, the women's chamber looked into it, because it's also the see for future growth. So you have to have your next generation in line to make sure things keep going. So thank you. This is your day. Thank you for acknowledging so this you know, we're to two great systems, but I want to circle back to the little chirping birds. What's the three birds why three birds as far as the gauntlet?

Unknown Speaker 19:08
saw the three there is I am what they will call a Cigar Aficionado, but I'm relatively new, but I love cigars. And I also have clients that own lounges. So if I say meet me there, you'll beat me there every time like matter of fact when we leave here this morning, I will be going to change to be at the lounge for my birthday. But um so one of the things that I found out is women are one of the black women specifically I went the fastest growing demographics of cigar smokers. Okay. And it seems to me but the business hasn't learned to cater to us yet. No,

Unknown Speaker 19:51
it's very much a male activity. Yes, very much very mature man. Yes, get together and smoke cigars

Unknown Speaker 19:58
and my client hence, they don't know how to tap into that. And so, you know, I sat down with a couple of lounge owners from actually all over the nation. And, you know, we talked about not just lounge or distributors, brand owners. And we talked about, like, what need what asset was missing. And they said that one of the assets that they were missing is women focused reviews, women focused, focused ideas, women focused client tail, and they just didn't. They didn't know how to do that without bringing in the party substance. And the lounges aren't made for party, right? They didn't want to lose that culture, because there is a culture in cigars. And so I started Three Little Birds and Three Little Birds actually is because I come from marijuana. Okay, and Three Little Birds is Bob Marley's Don't worry be happy song. Oh, I love that some were a bad thing. Yes. So that's actually the name of that song is Three Little Birds. And so I wanted to bring in an element of where I came from, into, you know, something that I'm doing new. And that's how that's where the name of that cigar. It's actually a social club.

Unknown Speaker 21:09
I love it, though. It's super cool. It reminds me one day, I was sending a text to a girlfriend. And she was saying, God bless you and have a good day. And it came out gold, gold bugs anointed. And I've always wanted to use gold bugs anointed to name something. So at some point, I'm going to do that. Maybe it'll be a book. I have no idea yet. But I've always wanted to. It's one of those little quirky things.

Unknown Speaker 21:33
They stay with you. They always wanted to do this. So I think that the rebirth is Three Little Birds and birds. I found out that that was the name of that song. I was like, what that's just bizarre, like,

Unknown Speaker 21:45
I thought the song was, I don't know,

Unknown Speaker 21:49
the thing. So when I found out that was the name of the song, the name of that song, it's been in my head for years. And to your point, I was like, one day, I'm gonna name something Three Little Birds. And so being able to start a women's social club, that gave me an opportunity to use that name. And you know, it's my tribute to Bob Marley into the marijuana culture. As I don't want to say I'm evolving.

Unknown Speaker 22:17
Some evolution in there because for the longest we have always I have long associated you with cannabis. Yes. So cannabis into our community, and whether it's business growth, legal aspects, I mean, equity and fairness access for people, you have been on the front lines, really making sure people who want to work in that space, or who are, whether they're the business owner, the worker, whatever, how they're impacted. They have an understanding, and they have representation in spaces where because it's overwhelming to start a business. And it doesn't mean that when you're starting something, you have the time to be in Carson City talking about how the rules that govern Yeah, what you stepped into so you have been like that champion to say, Hey, hold on, think about this. Yeah, but why? What made you do that?

Unknown Speaker 23:18
You know, that's a funny story. So and I was a consultant for one of the cannabis. What actually the first cannabis business in the city? dispensary. And you know, I was given an ultimatum you will you said you want to, you know, my mentor at the time. He's like, so you want to change the world world? This is changing the world, right. So I moved into I helped launched one of the first cannabis industries in the city, which also happened to be black owned. And in 20 Oh, that was 2013. And then in 2014, we worked on the I worked on the campaign the yes on to campaign at that time, which was legalized marijuana, like alcohol. And I actually went against my mentor at that time he was in for he was for decriminalization for legalization, he just wasn't for the laws as it related to the business industry. And I was pro decriminalization and legalization, because that was in the best interest of my community. And I went against his thoughts and his ideas at the time. And, and I when I worked that campaign, I didn't get paid. I need to say that openly because that was one of our conflicts is he thought they had given me money. But they didn't. I didn't get paid to do that. I did it because I thought it was in the best interest of my community. And I didn't take the money at the time also, because I didn't like the way that they were presenting the information to my community. So I didn't align with their talking points. And that's why I didn't allow them to pay me because I believed in that but I wasn't going to use their talking points to do it. So what happened was, I decided when I went against my mentor and he told me I was wrong and it would bite me But and blah, blah, blah, I made a vow, no one knew this. But I made a vow to my community that I would work for my community until I could tell my community had inter entered into the industry. So I made a vow to my community. Now I'm wanting to stay good on that, because my vow to my community is the same route as my Lord. And so that's what got me into the industry. And I did that I started a nonprofit, I still do it. I've just focused more on the policy component. And I don't, I'm not in forefront of the nonprofit anymore. And I'm not doing a lot of forefront work. I think that it's important to me mentor in support more young people that are they have more energy to do the work.

Unknown Speaker 25:45
And that's where the young professionals are. started that, although I like to think we still look young. Yes. When I really was that young. It's a lot to unpack there. And it's a show in and of itself. It really is because it's like we're thrown off this taste of conversation about how cannabis equity evolved, primarily in the African American community. But there's the other side of that, that also talks about how cannabis was unveiled. Historically, yes, in African American communities, the stigmas, the legal ramifications that have gone out there. So that's, that's a conversation that we might, you know, want to return to one day or not, but what be my pleasure, but it's a conversation that I think to really give it it's just this justice is it's like the cliffhanger because he wants you to come back for more at some point and hear more from my Isha. We're closing in on it's amazing how fast time flies when you're having fun, and you're talking about good stuff and to good people. But again, it is your birthday. Yeah. And I know today's going to be fabulous as we as many people in the city who love you come together to celebrate you and all that you do and just your fabulousness and I want to say thank you for spending. Getting the day started with me. Happy birthday. If I can sing everything to you. I should have gotten someone lined up to serenade you this morning. I have a friend who sings very well. Give me a serenade this morning. But we're not going to torture you metallic or my lack thereof. Happy birthday, beautiful woman of black joy consulting so many things. So many more things to come. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for all that you do. Thank you for having me birthday. Thank

Unknown Speaker 27:39
you 49th year so I was last year my 40s I

Unknown Speaker 27:42
am proud to tell us how old she is because I would not tell. I'm at that point where I start flipping the numbers and reversing. But we're going to tell some champagne to you later today. Yeah, tip our hats tell you you're fabulous. Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 27:56
Thank you. Thank you for having me. Thank

Unknown Speaker 27:57
you to everyone out there for listening. I hope you've learned something great and worse for social. How do people keep up?

Unknown Speaker 28:03
Yeah, you can. Coach ag that's coach and you should Goins on all the social medias and then you can find me I used to going down pretty easy. Is it is H A G Oh I ins okay. And at Black joy club.com. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Unknown Speaker 28:25
Everyone. Have a wonderful day. Have a great week. Bye for now. I want to thank you for tuning into the scoop with me Tony Flanagan and I want to invite you to get social with me I'm on Facebook and Twitter. My name is my handle TA and YFLA na GA N You can also find me on Instagram at Tanya almond eyes Flanagan. And if you have a thought and opinion or a suggestion, don't hesitate to shoot me an email to tanya.flanagan@unlv.edu Thanks again for joining in. Stay safe and have a great week.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai