They're Trying to Kill Us: Diet, Poverty and Racism

Factual America

11 Aug

Written By

In our final episode of Season One, we're joined by John Lewis, aka Badass Vegan. John's upcoming documentary, They're Trying to Kill Us, touches on so many of the issues that we've looked at this year on the podcast – factory farming, race and Big Pharma, just to name a few – but this time through the unique lens of hip hop.

They’re Trying to Kill Us explores the connections between diet, poverty and systemic racism. As well as looking at veganism, we discuss Big Pharma and the link between mind and body.

John's life is literally the material for a great movie, as we found out recently when we joined John from his home in Wilmington, North Carolina.

“I don’t think we can wait for the governments and the rich to make a change. We have to make the change ourselves.” - John Lewis

Time Stamps:

03:25 - Who John is and the importance of his name.
05:40 - The issues we’re going to talk about today.
07:29 - How much of the project is left to film.
10:02 - How Keegan and John started working together.
12:05 - A brief synopsis of the film.
15:54 - Why John went vegan.
18:05 - The importance of not getting too stressed.
19:13 - John's holistic approach towards health.
23:07 - Who John thinks should become vegan.
24:45 - The benefits of going vegan.
27:03 - The amount of land that is cleared to grow soybeans for animals.
29:03 - What John hopes to achieve with this documentary.
34:27 - How John got so many big names involved in the film.
39:45 - The way food cultures have been shaped by the rich.
44:44 - How people can help resolve some of these issues.
49:10 - What keeps John driven and motivated.
52:45 - The importance of self-love.
54:41 - How to connect with John online.

Resources:

They’re Trying to Kill Us
Globalisation of Factory Farming
Eating Animals, Factory Farming and the Pandemic
Alamo Pictures
This Is Distorted

Transcript for Factual America Episode 26 - They're Trying to Kill Us: Diet, Poverty and Racism

John Lewis 0:00
Hey everybody, my name is John Lewis aka Badass Vegan. I am a film director and I'm just getting finished with my first film called They're Trying to Kill Us.

Speaker 1 0:10
So this is the neighborhood I grew up in, right in Ferguson, a friend of mine was actually shot in his driveway, right there.

Speaker 2 0:20
You put drugs in the communities, put guns in the communities, put disease into communities, put poor food in the communities. All these things are designed to shorten your life expectancy.

Speaker 3 0:32
It's by design, it is not accidental, that this is what's in the hood. And this is what's over there.

Speaker 4 0:38
There's actually an active hand in making sure that we're living like this.

Speaker 5 0:43
It's all about control, money and survival to them.

Speaker 6 0:47
Your death is not an expense to them. It's an expense to you.

Speaker 7 0:50
They're trying to make money from us. Even if it's at the expense of killing us. You just die slow. Your family just watches you die.

Speaker 8 0:57
The alcohol industry, fast food industry, tobacco industries target communities of color.

Speaker 9 1:03
Your health is not their main priority. The're trying to keep you sick.

Speaker 10 1:06
We are in a state of emergency when it comes to our health.

Speaker 11 1:09
Keeping people sick is very lucrative.

Speaker 12 1:11
Now you're on pills, now you're on dialysis. Now you want medicine. You go into the hospital on a regular to see a doctor.

Speaker 13 1:19
Everybody's getting paid, except you.

Speaker 14 1:22
Big Pharma, pharmaceutical companies are making billions of dollars off of all of us.

Speaker 15 1:27
As long as they can make that valid, they don't care if you live or die.

Speaker 16 1:30
There's something about being here that's making black people sick.

Speaker 13 1:34
Everybody's getting paid, except you.

Speaker 17 1:37
There are more dangerous and harmful chemicals and products made for women of color.

Speaker 18 1:42
It absolutely is a crisis.

Speaker 19 1:44
They don't make a dime if you're healthy.

Speaker 20 1:46
It's kind of like the dope game. It is the dope game just bigger, gangsta.

Speaker 21 1:54
Look at the Hidden Hand. You see that government is feeding the crisis.

Speaker 18 1:58
They fed wrong knowledge besides all the wrong food.

Speaker 12 2:01
It's about money over people's health.

Speaker 14 2:04
If you can control a populations access to food, you can control the person.

Speaker 11 2:08
Only about 8% of African Americans even live in communities that have a grocery store in them.

Speaker 8 2:14
Because the deep root problem is the food.

Speaker 7 2:17
When poor dies two or more bros are pissed cuz you know we fighting for our lives, like Michael Vick's pit bulls.

Speaker 13 2:23
Black men were dying off so quickly in so many ways.

Speaker 16 2:26
It's here, in our community.

Speaker 14 2:29
We don't want a healthy population.

Speaker 18 2:30
That is injustice, plain and simple.

Speaker 20 2:32
The powers that be we're making that money at the top, thery're trying to kill us.

Intro 2:39
That is the trailer for the upcoming doc They're Trying to Kill Us. And this is Factual America. Factual America is produced by Alamo pictures, a production company specializing in documentaries, television, and shorts about the USA for an international audience. I'm your host, Matthew Sherwood and every week we look at America through the lens of documentary filmmaking, by interviewing filmmakers and experts on the American experience. Subscribe to our mailing list or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter and Alamo pictures to be the first to hear about new productions, to find out where you can see our films and to connect with our team.

Matthew 3:26
In our final episode of Season One, we're joined by John Lewis, aka Badass Vegan. John's upcoming doc, They're Trying to Kill Us touches on so many of the issues that we've looked at this year on the podcast - factory farming, race and Big Pharma, just to name a few - but through the unique lens of hip hop. John's life is literally the material for a great movie, as we found out recently when we joined John from his home in Wilmington, North Carolina. John Lewis, Welcome to Factual America. John, how are things there in Wilmington, North Carolina?

John Lewis 4:02
Doing pretty well. I'm pretty good. Just relaxing. I've been pretty much in my own little zone between working on the film, working on the book, working out and just being a family man. So it's been good because I travel probably 100,000 miles a year. And this is the one time I don't even think I've reached, you know, 5000 at that, you know. So it's been good to be here and just focus on things and get things in order.

Matthew 4:34
And I imagine your family's quite happy?

John Lewis 4:36
Yeah, yeah. My wife Maggie not so much, but kids yeah.

Matthew 4:40
I know. I know. I hear you. I know where you're coming from. So, do you want to be known as John or should I call you Badass? How do you want to be?

John Lewis 4:48
I mean, Badass has a nice ring to it. It didn't hurt my feelings. But yeah, it's so funny. Cuz you know, the passing of John Lewis, the civil rights leader. That's actually why I kept that name. I was gonna change that name about 20 years ago. And a good friend of mine who was elder, he was like, you know what, you should really look into that name before you change it. He's like that name's got a lot of power to it. And I remember looking it up, but I was just astonished. I was like, wow, I was like okay, I think I'm gonna stick with this name.

Matthew 5:19
I think that's a very good point. I mean, I think it also brings us to a good point in terms of, I mean, thank you again for coming on to the podcast. For our listeners out there who have stuck through with us this crazy year, this is our 26th and last episode of Season One. And I think you're the perfect final guest for our first season, John, because I think a lot of the issues we're going to talk about today we've touched on throughout the season. We've dealt, we've had two episodes on factory farming, which also touches on Big Pharma. So that was episode six. We did a film, you may have heard of it - Soylism. Episode 10 we looked at eating animals and Natalie Portman film on this. We've touched on race a number of times. Episode nine, we looked at capital punishment and this BBC series called Life and Death Row. We did Episode 13, we did James Baldwin, and I'm not your Negro. We've looked at Big Pharma. Episode 12 was opioid addiction and talking about the scandal that that is. And yeah, in a film called This Drug may Kill You, which is similar title to your film. And then race and hip hop, again, we've done, looked at doo-wop and how a lot of, certainly, black and African American singers didn't get their due. And we've got the most recent episode, we've looked at the history of jazz dance, which is actually the history of America really. And African Americans in America and some big figures in hip hop. So that's a long winded way of me sort of mansplaining basically. But thanks for helping us bring Season One to a close and to, I think, tieing us quite well up for Season Two.

John Lewis 7:09
I appreciate the invite.

Matthew 7:09
Yeah it's no problem. Now we're going to do things a little differently today. Cuz, well, you're in a little bit different world than some of our filmmakers that come on. Usually they've got the films finished or it's in post production. But your film They're Trying to Kill Us, well tell us where you are on the project right now?

John Lewis 7:29
We're pretty close to an end. I'd say about 80% done. We were scheduled to be done in June. But when everything happened, we kind of had to take a halt on the actual interview process. With our film being so interview based, you know, having to go to people to interview them, it was kind of tough to get people to sit down and have an interview at the beginning. Which was understandable on both ends for the safety. You know, we didn't know what was going on, things were, you know, we still kind of don't know what's going on. But I would say about 80%. Now we've been really, really focused on the aspect of the editing part. So it kind of gave us a window to just really focus on that. Now we put together a solid 80% of the film, which right now is just gonna be about kind of like dropping in interviews where we see fit. So it was like, we have a template ready. And we can kind of say, hey, we're missing this - let's go talk to this person and then fit it in.

Matthew 8:30
Okay, and you've got most of your B roll all kind of sorted and that kind of stuff?

John Lewis 8:36
Yeah, it's such a tricky, like this is my first large project. I've done quite a few smaller ones but this is my first large project. And it's like, there's so many segments - okay, this is stored here, this is stored here, oh, man, where were ... and the good thing is it's two brains working with Keegan and I. So if I forget something, hopefully he remembers. But it's just so much. We have over 125 interviews already. So imagine, you know, decipher in between oh man, remember he said this one time if we go back to this date, it's crazy. It's crazy.

Matthew 9:09
Like an encyclopedia. I mean, we'll tell us about, a little more about the project. Who's, so you mentioned your co-director it's Keegan Kuhn, right?

John Lewis 9:18
Yes, Keegan Kuhn. If anybody's seen Cowspiracy or What The Health, or he also made another documentary called Running for Good. He co-directed and wrote that as well and produced those films. So he's a, he's legit in the game of documentaries. He knows what he's doing. And while I, like I said, I know a little bit about filmmaking. I'm learning on the fly. And he's been teaching me a lot as we go along. And it's just been, it was just an epic scene I had in my head as far as the film went, and he was like, you know what, I like that. Let's go with it. Because he approached me about actually doing something together.

Matthew 9:59
Was that right? I was gonna ask you how that went? How you got together?

John Lewis 10:02
Yeah, we've known each other for years. And we were at some vegan festival. I won't even name the name of it because I don't want to make them feel bad but it was like nobody there. I own a protein shake company and he had a table for his Cowspiracy movie at the time, What The Health wasn't even out yet. And he came over to my booth. He's like, Hey, man, I was wondering, can you come to my booth, I want to talk to you about something. I looked around. I was like, Keegan, nobody's here, I can leave the booth, it's fine, like. So we go over there. He's like, man, I want to work with you on a project. I just don't know where to, to do it. And I said, well, you know what, I said whatever we do, I want to focus on people of color. You know, like, wanna help them out to see this. He was like, that's good but how do we do it. And I was like, hip hop. That was my first word out of my mouth, was like, is the biggest genre ever. It's the most influential genre and I always tell people if you want to really see the impact of hip hop. If you close your eyes, especially here in America, if you close your eyes and imagine six foot white guys on ice skates with Jay Z playing in the background. You just described the NHL, the National Hockey League. It was like, think about it, like, you know, that's powerful. So, you know, everybody listens to what they eat, you know, how they drink, where they traveled to, you know, the gadgets they have. Why not show that they actually do care about the health too? You know, a lot of people don't see that part. And that's pretty much where the premise came. But we interviewed doctors, politicians, lawyers, health practitioners, everybody in the film. It's not just stuck on hip hop. Even athletes too.

Matthew 11:42
Okay, yeah, I noticed that. Maybe, for all our listeners, so they've seen, they've listened to or some have seen it on YouTube, have seen the trailer. But maybe you can give us where you are now. I know it's only 80% finished, but what would be a synopsis of the film? How would you describe what this is all about?

John Lewis 12:05
It's a film about food injustice and social justice through the lens of hip hop. And we just want to, the main goal of the film is to provide empowerment for people. To understand that while they, I think people have been beat down so long that they believe that, you know, most of the health problems that we suffer from are hereditary, and not a choice of what we actually eat. And I use choice pretty, pretty stern. In a sense that they sell a lot of junk, but we buy the junk. It's up to us to kind of not buy it. Like, you know, they talk about food deserts a lot. And what we're starting to see is that, it's not necessarily that it's food deserts, it's nutrition deserts. There's food there, it's just no nutrition in the food. And money speaks volumes. So it's up to the consumer to start buying the fresher items. And the other items will start to leave. Even if it's a convenience store. Because, at the end of the day, they just want to make money. So whatever the consumers are buying, they're going to provide. You know, look at vegan, I mean, look at vegan items in restaurants now. In KFC or Burger King. It's not that the KFC or Burger King is going vegan. It's just they see as money in there, so they're gonna do it.

Matthew 13:30
Exactly. I mean, let's, I'm very keen to talk more about that. Because the thing what you said in terms of empowerment, and what's the purpose of the film. But while we're still focused a little bit on the project specifically, I mean, your role - you're co-director, I think I saw somewhere you describe yourself as protagonist and narrator. So what's your role with this, with this project?

John Lewis 13:57
Well, it starts off with me. I was born in a Little Rock, Arkansas. Some people know about the gang violence that was down there and my mother moved to St. Louis Missouri, which was Ferguson was the actual city we were in within St. Louis. Which a lot of people heard about Mike Brown, things like that. And that's where I was raised. So, you know, just the stress that's involved in that and kind of environment already can do a toll on anyone. And then also, by the time I was a freshman in high school, I was around 315 pounds, and I'm 6'6 now but I was not 6'6 as a freshman in high school, I was around 5'8. So I liked to call myself chubby for football pride, but in the end of the day, I was obese, you know. And, you know, I look back at it like, my mom did the best that she could with the knowledge that she had, you know. We didn't really focus on where did this food come from? Who made this food? Oh, this is an animal. Oh, you know, there's you know, certain ailments diseases associated with eating these processed meats and so on. We, I can honestly say we had chicken something every day. Once my mom got like a Sam's wholesale card, it was just this deep freezer of like, you know, processed foods that were just sitting in there. And then, you know, fast forward along the way, end up going to grad school down in Miami, and that's when I kind of like took a turn. Because I finally went vegetarian. After being there for like, six months, I always wanted to do it, but I think I just had that peer pressure being around family and friends. And then after doing that for about two years, I had a, I was in my final week of grad school, and I was doing my capstone and my brother kept calling me and that. And I was like, why is he calling me? He knows I'm in class. Long story short, he was calling because my mom was very sick, and they took her to the hospital to get checked up. And I'm a very happy go lucky, I'm always trying to cheer people up. And I get it from my mom. And this is the first time ever, that when I asked her like, Hey, Mom, how you doing? And she's like, well, son, I actually feel like shit. And I was like, Whoa, like, never like, my mom just knew how to, even if she didn't feel like it, she covered it up well. This is the one time she was like, I can't even hide it. And so my brother was like, you know, so we'll call you back. We'll see what's up. And I'm, to remind you, I'm in Miami. They're back in St. Louis. And, you know, he called me a couple days later and said it was a colon cancer. And so I remember talking to the doctors, I'm like, how did this happen, what's going on? And he's like, too much fried fatty foods, too much animal protein. I'm like, wait, this is not a hereditary thing? He's like, no, it's a lifestyle choice. And that hit me. You know, I didn't go vegan immediately. But you know, I remember going home doing more research and I'm like, wait a minute. So all these things like heart disease, hypertension, you know, cancers. This is related to this animal protein that we've been, you know, told that if we don't have it, we're gonna die. And I started looking at like all these people that live this like plant based vegan lifestyle, and, you know, they were looking like they were like 30. And they were like 75, wait, what's going on? You know, people say it's like a death certificate on your side if you go vegan, and I'm like, I'm seeing the opposite. And so I decided to do it. And it's been 14 years now. So, it's kind of showing my journey, but also like showing my journey and learning along the way. That's what the film is doing it's like, I'm learning this process, along with the crowd.

Matthew 17:37
For those who are watching this on YouTube, tell them how old you are.

John Lewis 17:41

Matthew 17:42
Yeah, exactly.

I mean, I say only. I'm only 10 years older than you. But I've certainly but you, you don't look 43 to me, I can tell you that right now. And I think it's probably more than just going to the gym on a regular basis.

John Lewis 17:58
Yeah, yeah, it is. Oh man. But I also say, you know, along with the eating though, I don't stress anything, I don't stress. Like anything that happens to me, I'm not saying I don't deal with it, but I don't dwell in it. You know, like stressful, stress is a major component in aging and disease as well. It has a lot to do with that. And, for some reason, I just, I lost the ability to stress, which I'm glad I did, but I just don't know how to stress anymore.

Matthew 18:33
Well, I mean, I've looked at you, so I should give a shout out, we'll have it in the show notes, the link to your website - it's badassvegan.com, I believe. And there's some great information on there. I think what I found very interesting is this very holistic approach to health I think you bring to this. I think, you know, it's not just, I think for maybe too long, we've all just been focused on one element of health in a lot of ways, you know, I don't know if you agree.

John Lewis 19:06
No, I do. Definitely. You know, everybody's like, well, if you do this one thing your whole life works out. Like, no, it's a, it's a constant practice. You know, I tell people all the time, they're like well, how do you stay so happy? I'm like, okay, if you're trying to learn a language, you got to practice it every day. If you're trying to learn math, you got to practice every day. If you want to be an engineer, you got to study every day. It's just like happiness and health falls right in the same line, you have to do it every day. Like, even when something does come at you. The more you practice it, the more you understand that, okay, I can control my reaction to it. You know, I can control what I eat. You know, sometimes binge eating is an emotional thing where it's like, you know, I'm so upset at this situation. Well, if I kind of handle that, in a sense, where I understand myself and I understand my triggers, you know, and I know how to make myself happy in the long run out of short term, then I can do better. And that's what it comes down to, the holistic approach like, mental, physical, spiritual, you know, like, there's a lot of things that go down today. And I'm not saying you have to be religious, but you have to tap into something else sometimes.

Matthew 20:15
Yeah. I think this, I mean, this gets down to so many things that are just sort of broadly we could broadly describe as a society, if you will. I mean, I think we've, it seems like we've gotten to a point in humanity where we just want easy answers to everything. We just want to be able to snap our finger and things everything be okay. And we've stopped learning or forgotten how to cope. Also with eating. I mean, our culture and society is evolved. I've raised this in a previous podcast as well because I just remembered, sure, we'll talk more about veganism, but my father's, god bless him, his 90 and I still have him with me. But he always, when we were growing up, and when they were growing up, they just had one chicken on a Sunday. And then that was it. You know, and it was rice and beans for the rest of the week, basically, and vegetables. So we've also come to this point where we've been told that we've got to eat all this protein. And that's part of, and that's led to, and then it's conjunction with the factory farming and pushing all this stuff at us. I mean, I know what you mean by the Sam's wholesale. I mean, two bags of processed chickens in the freezer. And we see it over here as well. I mean, the poor areas, what are the supermarket, the outlets that they have access to, often are places that specialize in frozen and processed foods.

John Lewis 21:51
Yeah, it is across the board from what I've kind of learned with a lot of countries you know. It's just a, it's a system that has been put in place for years, centuries, you want to say years and cut it short, centuries. And, and that's what I say about empowerment is that, because it's been in place for centuries, we can't expect them to change it overnight. Because most of the people that are involved in that system, don't even believe they did anything wrong in the first place. So in order to get them to even see that something's wrong, then you got to implement a change. So it's kind of like why you want them at the top to come down and meet us and help us, we also have to start down here and take care of ourselves and progress. You know, I'm saying I don't think we can wait on the government's and the higher ups and the rich and whoever to make a change. I think we have to make a change for ourselves.

Matthew 22:51
So obviously you promote veganism. And you're, I would say you're the cool poster child for veganism. And you've shown that you and others have shown you can be athletic, that you don't miss out on proteins and things like that. Is it your desire that everyone go vegan?

John Lewis 23:11
Of course, but I'm realistic as well. Like I would love to see the world go vegan. Am I realistic? Yes. I'm also realistic. I understand. I grew up in the South. I was also a butcher at one point of my life. The Vegan that used to be a butcher. And that's why I'm not so, you know, I don't like to be a hypocrite. You know, like, I don't talk trash about people that aren't vegan. I can tell them, you know, the ins and outs of what I see wrong, but I don't bash anybody. You know, like, because I understand, I don't wanna be a hypocrite. Um, you know, my family in Arkansas and Tennessee owns the number one barbecue restaurant all throughout Arkansas and Tennessee called Sam's barbecue. So when people hear that, I remember I did a speech in Little Rock in Arkansas, you know, I was very appreciative of the crowd that came out. And you know, a lot of people in the crowd were not vegan yet. And that's why I started talking, it was like, it doesn't matter what your background is and where you come from. This is your change. You can do it when you want to. And when I told them about Sam's barbecue being my family's restaurant, they were like, oh, wow, if you could break away from that, then anybody can do it.

Matthew 24:28
I can tell you right now, you're much stronger man than I am. I don't see if I would be able to. But, so maybe let's even take a step back. Why do you want, would love everyone to go vegan? Maybe you can give us, four our listeners, what's the point?

John Lewis 24:45
For me, what I've seen is there's just so many aspects that veganism would help. For instance, a lot of people think that, I get the weirdest comments and emails and even questions in seminars. You know, people literally are like, Well, if we don't eat the animals, they'll take over. It's like, no, that's not how it works at all. First of all, you know, if you think about how cows even become pregnant, if we just stop at the cow, you know, this artificial insemination. There's no, there's no cow orgy happening out in the fields, it's not what's happening.

Matthew 25:21
First reference to a cow orgy on this podcast.

Yeah, first reference. (laughter) And then also like, most animals have a heat, have a season to where they mate. They're not, we're overpopulating them because we're making them have calves. And you know, when you look at that aspect of it, the natural selection would come back into play where it would come down. You look at that part about it. You look at the pandemics part about it, about eating animals and just look at what's going on now. Where did that originate from? Regardless of, if people think it was, you know, introduced by man, this and that. It came from this certain origin of animal agriculture at the same time. You look at that aspect. You look at the ecosystem, you know, you look at the greenhouse effect and stuff like that. It's like, yes, people are like, well, if we stopped driving cars and planes. And so I'm like, okay, you could do that. Or you can stop killing animals. Like, it's really not that hard. And then you start seeing that people do survive and also thrive with eating plants. You know, the plants that we use to feed all the animals in the world could feed all the homeless, hungry, starving people in the world, if we stopped feeding it to all the animals that we keep breeding just to slaughter in a fraction of their actual lifespan.

I think, and I'm gonna make this shameless plug again. In Episode Six, we had this, we interviewed the directors of this film called Soilism, which looked at this, there were two films that looked at this in a slightly different way. One was looking at the whole global soy business. Now I know, soy and it's not about soy being bad or anything, it's just, how much land is cleared every year to grow soya to feed to the animals.

John Lewis 27:14
Exactly. People think this soy is like, all this soy is grown for human consumption. It's like no, like, these animals. Yes, I want to say 75%, if I remember correctly is grown for animal consumption. Well then...

Matthew 27:31
Yeah, I'm sorry to interupt, I was just gonna say this. 75% are kind of, I mean, I don't have the numbers in front of me from those episodes, but they're off that sort of ilk there. Even 75% of the drugs, I think that are made are for the, the

John Lewis 27:47
vaccination of the animals.

Matthew 27:48
... vaccination of the animals. I think the number of livestock has gone up, you know, the numbers are just astronomical in terms of how many livestock we had in 1950 versus now. And then what we're expecting in 50 years time.

John Lewis 28:06
And when you look at it, it's funny because you have so many people that are anti-vaccination, anti-soy, it's like, but what do you think you're eating when you eat the meat? You know, it's like the same people have a cheeseburger the next day. And they're like, they were just so against soy and GMO, they're against GMO, they're against soy, they're against vaccinations, they're against antibiotics, all this stuff. And what do you think happens when you go to these restaurants? This is very interesting to see.

Matthew 28:39
So, you were saying, at the same time, you're realistic. I mean, being a realistic man, what do you - let's assume that not everyone's going to go vegan - what are you hoping to achieve with, well one of the things you're hoping to achieve? I know you're hoping to achieve a lot of different things.

John Lewis 29:01
Right, right. I would say the main thing is that people wake up and see, hey, all right, at the end of the day, if you still want to do that, I wish you wouldn't, but at the end of the day, I want you to have the knowledge to understand what is going on within your body, within the ecosystem, within the animals. You know, another good thing that we kind of covered in the film is that people don't understand, a lot of people think that vegans don't care about humans. I say, well, let's look at another reference is, if you check next to all the factories, the factory farming, all these slaughterhouses, you know, who mostly stay right next to these facilities all across the country? People of color. And one of the things we looked at is that, you know, this one pig farm that we went to, they have three lagoons that are filled with 6 million pounds of pig waste in it. Nobody's buying pig waste. They spray this pig waste in the air to what they call spray fields. And all it takes is a gust of wind and it goes up. So you got houses up to a five mile radius around these factories and farms, where they've actually done tests on the walls and the microwaves and the stoves and the bedrooms, and they take samples off the wall and all unanimously have feces living literally on their walls and on their stoves. So imagine the health. So every time you buy a piece of bacon that you act like you can't live without, you are supporting that as well. There is so many aspects.

Matthew 30:42
Well, and you, you didn't have to go far to find that farm. I know that's just down the road from you.

John Lewis 30:47
Yeah. Not at all.

Matthew 30:49
I mean, again, I highly, this is to you, actually, John. I highly recommend, if you haven't seen them already, there's a film called Soilism and one called Eating animals. And both of them, without knowing what they were doing, came out about the same time. They both went to the same area of Eastern North Carolina to look at those same pig farms. The same people who are fighting these farms. I think one of the films they were able to sneak in some cameras. There have been different people who've been able to sneak some cameras in, but it's the one, it's the most secret place probably in the United States beyond...

John Lewis 31:24
I don't understand, I'm gonna be honest with you, Keegan and I, in all honesty, we don't understand why they allowed us to have cameras there. To this day, we were like, we even backed in to make sure if we had to leave. We were gonna get out there real fast, like. To this day, we're like, I can't believe they let us film in here, you know. And it wasn't a slaughterhouse. It was more of a grow house. This was like, he gets the pigs at five weeks, he gives them to the slaughterhouse at 25 weeks. So it wasn't like that kind of atmosphere, but it was just to be around it, it was like you, it was like just being around death. Like, even though they didn't know what's going to happen to them. Like, I think a lot of times people don't think that animals have any knowledge. And it's like, no, they communicate to each other, they talk to each other, they love each other, they fight each other, they hate each other. This is one big family. It's the same thing. So that was something interesting to see, that we had these cameras here and just got footage of this.

Matthew 32:29
You know, and I actually lived in North Carolina in the late 80s and early 90s. And I remember when all those farms were going in, and there was some, you know, people were protesting. You know, there were some light protests, but you know, it was all, well, they need jobs in eastern North Carolina, that kind of thing. And, in retrospect, you see what's happened in the last 30 odd years. It's just absolutely remarkable. I'm going to actually, hold that thought, I'm going to take us into a break, give our listeners a little bit of a break, and then we'll come right back with John Lewis, the filmmaker behind They're Trying to Kill Us.

Factual America midroll 33:10
You're listening to Factual America. Subscribe to our mailing list or follow us on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter at Alamo pictures to keep up to date with new releases for upcoming shows. Check out the show notes to learn more about the program, our guests and the team behind the production. Now back to Factual America.

Matthew 33:30
Welcome back to Factual America. I'm here with John Lewis, co-director, narrator, filmmaker, concept guy, I guess too, of the upcoming doc They're Trying to Kill Us. So, we were just talking about, we were focusing there on factory farming and your work with veganism and how you would, how you'd like to make the world a better place, certainly. Certainly, we could all do our part by having better diets and health and thinking about where our food comes from. I just want to get back to the film a little bit more because there's an interesting, you mentioned it earlier, and we haven't discussed it yet. Well, you've discussed a bit the lens of hip hop and how you're hoping to reach people that way. How did you get all these big names to come on?

John Lewis 34:28
I still don't know. You know, I will say that, fortunately, through my journey of social media, I've had quite a few influential people that have kind of been drawn to me from what I do. Because I don't take the approach of like, hating, you know, other people that aren't vegan or bashing people. So I've gotten, I've been quite fortunate to have people follow me. So a lot of people I reached out through social media, which they were already following me or I may have gotten to know them along the way along the path of my journey as well. John Salley is actually my mentor. So I didn't even ask him, I just told him he was in the film. I was like, John, you're in the film. He said, oh, okay, well, I'll check dates. I was like no, no, no, I'm letting you know, now - you're in the film.

Matthew 35:20
That was my next question, actually. Because you're in the heart of ACC basketball country. And I was gonna say, how dd you get John Salley?

John Lewis 35:29
Yeah, that's it. Yeah, yeah. And actually, a good friend of mine, that I actually grew up playing basketball with, he played at Duke, and now he's like an assistant coach at Duke. So I'm always like, yeah, I'm coming when this opens back up.

Matthew 35:43
So, who is that?

John Lewis 35:45
Chris Carrawell.

Matthew 35:46
You know Chris Carrawell! Oh, cuz he's from St. Louis.

John Lewis 35:49
Yeah, we grew up together. Yeah.

Matthew 35:51
Wow. You see, I went to Duke.

John Lewis 35:53
Ah, there you go.

Matthew 35:55
And Chris Carrawell was one of my favorite basketball players. Actually. This is excellent.

John Lewis 35:58
I actually got to see him. It's funny. I hadn't seen him in person since we graduated high school. And recently there's just, since I came up here for everything that was going on, I got to spend some time with him and his wife over there in Raleigh. Yeah, so we have quite a few good basketball players come out of St. Louis. I wasn't one of them, but we have quiet a few.

Matthew 36:26
You're making your name a different way. But yes.

John Lewis 36:28
Yeah, exactly, exactly. But yeah. So that's how I ended up with John Salley. Mya. We were, actually, her stylist was a client of mine when I was a personal trainer. So we had met before this as well. So I kind of had an end with her on that. Stic from Dead Prez. I met him through just vegan journeys. Being at vegan festivals. I used to speak at around 20 to 30 festivals a year. So, going on all these festivals, I would meet people from town to town too. Styles P from the Lox. I knew him because my protein shake company, he actually had a flavor under my protein shake company. Which is funny because my two business partners, which are fraternity brothers, they graduated from Duke as well. So there's another Duke connection for you. And so yeah, just kind of trickle down line. Mathematics from the Wu-Tang clan.

Matthew 37:24
Yeah, my error, I didn't recognize some of these people, I have to admit. But I saw Mya, I saw Professor Griff, but, but wait what about Mathematics?

John Lewis 37:36
Yeah, Mathematics was a connection through, I think that was social media as well. I saw that he was following me. And I just reached out to him. And that worked out. Who was I about to say, Professor Griff, actually. I met him at a veg fest in Atlanta. And we just stayed, no, actually, I take that back. I met him through a mutual contact in Miami. They wanted to have a meeting about something else. And him and I just, we hit it off, because he was vegan. I was vegan. We just hit it off. And we stayed in contact since. Sole, which is his wife now. She's a hip hop artist from back in the day, we met through social media as well. Sa-Roc we met through social media as well. And I guess I'd say that social media has its goods and its bads. If you use it for what it's worth, and use it for good, it can do good things. So a lot of people were literally through social media. Ne-Yo was through a contact though. That was good. We had a contact with that, that just helped us out. Yeah, it's been a lot of social media work. Definitely.

Matthew 38:51
I think, a lot of people talk about a golden age of documentary filmmaking and I think it's, I agree with you. We've even done an episode on the ills of social media, but I think what it's also done is it's just made filmmaking and other things so much more accessible. And it's almost democratizing things, you know, people who would previously not had access to this, it's amazing from that standpoint. You mentioned Ne-Yo, I mean, I just had a question for you because I did, the trailer people have seen it, as intro to this show. So, because I also kind of turned to this discussion that comes out of the trailer, at least. He says what's going on is not by accident, it's by design. Could you maybe go more into that, in terms of what he's getting at with that?

John Lewis 39:46
Yeah, it's what people fail to realize that - okay, let's just take for instance food inequality. You know, again, and I just had another interview that I did earlier today and it is interesting, I said the same thing. When people hear about, oh, it's a racist act, it's a racist this. And it's like, oh, well, white people suffer from this too. It's like, yes but white people that are not part of the 1% that we talk about. They're just collateral damage at this point. If you're not part of the 1%, the 1% doesn't care what race, what gender, what your sexual preference is, they don't care about you, if you're not a part of the 1%. So you got to understand that when this whole system was put into place, they controlled all the food that a slave ever ate. And when I say slaves, I don't just mean African slaves. I mean, indigenous slaves as well. You know, they put them all in the same camp, you know, so, when you look at that, this system was never dismantled. It just got a little weaker. You know, we have the money to buy food now that we didn't have back in the day. But once you've been put into a system where soulfood was making into your actual staple with soulfood was nothing but the waste and scraps that the owners didn't want to eat. And so what happened was people of color made, black people specifically, made this food into a delicacy for themselves. Because they had no other choice. It's like - okay, if I'm not going to eat anything else I might as well make this the best thing I can do. The problem is now, the problem with conditioning, which is another word for brainwashing, is that the best conditioning and brainwashing that ever has been done is when the person who's been brainwashed doesn't know it happened. And so that's what we're dealing with now. So you're dealing with people that live under a system, that didn't have their benefits to begin with. You still had all men created equal while they had slaves. You know, that's a part of, that's a part of history. You know, like, you can't say all men are created equal and then you got slaves in the background while you're doing that. And that system has been going on, and it still has to be dismantled. So when they say that system, and that's just a quick rundown of it without giving away the movie is, yeah, without giving away the movie.

Matthew 42:16
We don't want to spoil it. We want people to see this film. So, yeah.

John Lewis 42:19
But there is a system in place, you know. And again, it's not that the people in position now started this system, but they're not breaking their backs to dismantle it either.

Matthew 42:32
Well, yeah, so I probably because of my background, because of my race, my gender and everything, I probably see things a little differently. But it also, certainly now, it comes down, it comes down, it's basically pure greed, isn't it? I mean, people are just, they've got their lifestyles, is the upper 1% or whoever they are. It's not in their interest to change things, certainly. And so, I mean, what you described about soulfood, I mean that's, maybe I give something away. Maybe I'm a little bit more Marxian in my views of things sometimes, but I definitely see it as a sort of class poverty, rich sort of dynamic. But it's, I think it's all the same basically, really. You know, you've got lots of poor cultures who've done the same thing. They've taken the worst cuts of meat and made delicacies out of it, and that kind of thing. And I think, but what you do have, I mean, in one of the films I've alluded to already, they have someone who comes on and says, Look, this, no one went about designing. And I'm not debunking what Ne-Yo said but no one necessarily, in terms of like factory farming, decided this is going to be the best way forward and do it and this is our strategy. But it happened. And because it was to the benefit of certain individuals, and that's where we are. And we're all like, you know, don't have the choice when it comes to, if we're going to buy meat, what kind of meat we're able to buy and our choices in food? I mean, so what do we, I mean, again, not giving away the film, but what are you telling people? What's the best way to overturn this system, if you will? And is this what's, maybe let's broaden this out, I mean, I was going to ask you, we were talking before we started recording. I mean, what the hell is going on in America right now? I mean, is this part of it? Is this part of this big convulsion of history that's happening because of all these sort of historical crows coming home to roost?

John Lewis 44:43
Yeah, I believe that what's happening right now is that people that kind of ignored a lot of things are now being open to understanding and learning. You know, like, let me say like, the white allies, you know, the people that always knew something was wrong. They just knew that they could ignore it a little bit. They could say it's wrong, but they could ignore it because they would go over in their corner of the world and they didn't have to deal with it. I think now people are, I think people are putting the right social pressure on each other. I think there's no wrong pressure when you're telling somebody to do the right thing. Now you can be horrible with it and you know, be irate. That's wrong. But if you're telling somebody, you know, that's wrong over there, you know, you should say something too. That's not wrong. I think that we've gotten to the point where people are so sensitive about subjects, like if you say the word black or the word white. People automatically go to like race. I can be talking about a newspaper. They see black, you know, like, I can say black and white and they're like, Oh, here we go.

Matthew 45:57
Exactly.

John Lewis 45:58
So I think we're getting to a point where people are starting to speak up, because, to allude to your first question, the only way that things are going to get better is the silence has to stop. And I, that's what I mean, like, I'm don't wanna say that people have to be pissed, they have to be out there. Just when you actually see something wrong, if you don't say anything, you're part of the problem. At the end of the day, that will always be the truth. If you see something wrong, and you don't say anything, you're part of the problem because you enabled that to keep going. So a lot of people always say, especially on my posts like, Well, you know the racial divide is an imaginary divide. I was like, well, that's interesting, because people are still dying because there's an imaginary divide in. You know, though, people think that being silent or ignoring something will make it go away. I said, there's no way that's the truth in all aspects. If I have a disease, I can't ignore the disease. It's going to just eat me up unless I change something and I take action. If I have bills that are overdue, I can't ignore the bills and just think whatever the bills are for is just gonna disappear. You know, like, if I'm in an abusive relationship, I can't just say, Well, I'm gonna ignore this person in a relationship, and everything's just gonna get better. There has to be action steps. And many times the action steps has to be the acknowledgement of the problem, first of all. And I think right now we're at a space in America where people just want, they don't want to acknowledge the problem. They just want everybody to forget. Because they know we have to acknowledge the problem so we don't go back to that problem at the end. And that's what people fail to realize.

Matthew 47:40
Well, we've basically been forgetting for 50 years. Because I mean, a lot of these issues have been just bubbling, well, sort of under the surface and above the surface now and then. I mean, even silly things like the naming of sports teams and stuff. I mean, when I was a kid, I mean, we all knew the Washington Redskins was the most ridiculous name ever. But it took, it's taken this long to change that. I mean, teams were, universities, Stanford used to be the Indians. They changed their name like in the late 60s and things like that. So it's not like this is all brand new.

John Lewis 48:15
Social media, like you said, social media. Now we have more access to things, good and bad. Cuz, some of the stuff are not even real news and some of it's fake, but we got more access to see what's going on.

Matthew 48:32
I mean, I want to, this gets back to something we were touching on earlier and you've kind of given already a bit of a synopsis of your life. And I would say, I guess in essence, you are making a doc about your life, but I was gonna say they should make one about your life, but you're doing that. But you know, growing up in Ferguson, which is now, you know, synonymous with police brutality, and so you've lived through that and college athlete, entrepreneur, now influencer, filmmaker. I mean what's driven you? I mean, you know, from going from that 315 pound 13 year old boy to being who you are now - this young man who's, cuz I can say that because I'm 10 years older than you, but you are, you know, something's been, there was something driving you all these years.

John Lewis 49:30
Yeah, I would have to say it's, my mom is still alive, fortunately, but it would be the spirit that she put in me. Again, like my mom, my mom picked cotton as a kid in Little Rock, Arkansas. Now, mind you, she wasn't a slave, but she was only getting paid since. You know, my brothers and sisters, they were a part of the groups that went to the first integrated school in Arkansas. I look at it this way is that, if somebody would have never spoke up, if somebody would have never, you know, fought for the right thing, where would my mom still be? If that wouldn't have happened? Or where would my brothers and sisters be? Or, you know, where would I be even? You know, if that wouldn't happen. And I see so many people, while it's not, you know, necessarily the same aspect of what my family went through, there are people still suffering. For no reason. You know, if there's a reason and there's a cause, I understand that suffering is a part of life. But we're just basically using people to get certain things done. You know, one of the things that I always talk about, I think I mentioned earlier, is you know, with the pharmaceutical industry, being a $1.3 trillion industry. If just 10% of the people that were hooked on some of these drugs got healthy, the whole platform would just collapse. And they would go bankrupt. They don't want healthy America. They don't want a healthy society. They don't want that. Because there's money involved. They could easily help somebody to break their habits instead of prescribing appeal. And I'm not saying all medication is bad, because let's be honest, there is medication that is needed. Well, we have medications that help people deal with symptoms of things that, if they just stopped doing the actual thing, they would go away.

Matthew 50:33
I mean, John, that's a whole another podcast to talk about. US medical health system and pharmaceutical company. I mean, it's the most, again, I think it's another one of those 75% numbers. Actually, I think 75% of the profits in the pharma industry are made in the US, something like that. It's just absolutely, it is crazy. Well, I mean, it's hard to believe, I think we're coming close to the end of our time together. And it's been fantastic having you on. I feel like there's so much left untouched and we haven't really discussed. But we're definitely looking forward to this film. You're gonna have to let us know when it comes out. And if we haven't scared you off, we'd love to have you back on, to discuss it when it's ready to go.

John Lewis 51:33
Maybe I'll be in London, I'll just be there in person.

Matthew 51:55
Well, yeah, maybe, you know, we'll keep our six feet distance. But yes, we'd love to have you. I mean, before we sign off, what, to all our listeners, we've got a varied demographic of people who listen to this. It's International. Most of its in North America, but it is an international audience. What bit of advice do you want to give to everyone out there?

John Lewis 52:44
I would say, as far as advice is like, look within and fill yourself with love. I think that's one of our biggest problems right now, is that we have so many people full of hate, but they wonder why they can't receive love. It's like you can't receive love unless you actually are loving yourself. Like people have to love themselves first. And I think it's hard to hate people if you love yourself. It is, it's almost impossible to hate someone if you love yourself. And I think the more that people have self love, it'll trickle over to loving someone else and it'll just, it's like a domino effect or the butterfly effect depending on how people look at it. So I just want to, I want to empower people to love themselves and with loving yourself that also looks into what you're feeding your body. What you're involving yourselves in, the situations, the relationships. You know, if you know something's bad for you, you know you get anxiety or you know you get upset, stop involving yourself in it. That's self love as well. So I just want people to love themselves and the more people that love themselves, the more people will start to love other people.

Matthew 53:50
Some of us old dogs learn lessons late in life. And I would have to agree with you that I think certainly love, I increasingly realize, is going to be the answer to all these issues. And I'm not trying to sound like some hippie or something.

John Lewis 54:05
Right, right, of course.

Matthew 54:07
Because my dad's listening. I don't want him to think I'm soft but...

John Lewis 54:10
And loving yourself, to go along with just saying, loving yourself doesn't mean you don't fight for what's right. Loving yourself is not a weakness. Yeah, I don't want people to think that.

Matthew 54:19
Yeah. I think maybe that's the best way to end this discussion, I think. I want to thank you, John Lewis, the filmmaker behind They're Trying to Kill Us. Where can people follow you? I think they can Google Badass Vegan. What are other ways? What's the best way of following you? We'll put the links in the show notes.

John Lewis 54:41
Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, even though I barely follow it. I'm even on Pinterest. You can find me pretty much anywhere.

Matthew 54:50
If you're on Pinterest, that's the first place my wife's gonna be able to find you. I think, well that's great, and it's all those different channels are Badass Vegan?

John Lewis 55:02
Yeah, I just kept it. I kept it across the board, to make it easy.

Matthew 55:05
It's brilliant. It's a brilliant piece of, well, I don't want to call it marketing, but branding, if you will. Hey, so thanks again so much for being on the podcast and we look forward to having you on in a future season.

John Lewis 55:22
Thank you so much again for the invite.

Matthew 55:26
As I noted previously, this is the final episode of Season One. And with that in mind, I would like to take this opportunity to thank a lot of people that have made this first season so successful. First of all, a big thank you to all of our guests like John Lewis, who's been on now, they've all been incredible bunch of people. So patient and cooperative as I stammer through my various questions and monologues. And if this season's any indication, then I think this is a golden age, this golden age of documentary has many more years to run. This podcast wouldn't be possible without the many hours of hard work behind the scenes. I'm sure I'm going to leave out a few names, but I just want to specifically thank our producer Emmett Glynn, who ensures that we continue to win plaudits for the quality of our production and who has really shaped this podcast and the format, that I think is now a winning one. Shout out to our podcast manager Nevena Paunovic. She makes sure the trains run on time and everything goes extremely smoothly even when I take long vacations. And yet she's such a lovely person to work with. So many thanks for your patience, Nevena. Malcolm Mann handles the social media side of things for Alamo pictures, and as such does most of the heavy lifting when it comes to promoting the podcast. He's as much an expert as me, if not more so, in every episode and that comes out in his witty tweets and posts. He also manages the official Twitter account for Alexander the Great, so do check that out. Manny Rose Ponoc has taken over the social media duties for the Factual America channels from Yours Truly and thank God for that. The quality is much better and it's no coincidence that the number of followers, likes, retweets, and reposts have increased exponentially. Laubrey Fernandez does all the video clips and has greatly improved our followers experience in terms of social media. Danni Drenovci, going to get that wrong, but our famous, or should be famous Kosovan designer extraordinaire, who has transformed the look and feel the Factual America branding, and we are forever grateful. Want to thank Spirit Land studios, our first home away from home, in Kings Cross London. A big shout out to Alex at This Is Distorted in Leeds for helping us get back into the studio after the lockdown. My family will be forever grateful. And speaking of which, thank you to them for their patience. They've had to endure two lockdowns, one of which was inside their home, while I recorded episodes from our kitchen. A big thank you to Patrick Scott Armstrong, my podcast brother in arms. What you are achieving at The Lone Star Plate is an inspiration to us at Factual America and we're always grateful for your support. If you haven't checked out his podcast, please do so. Nas Tavakoli-Far, host of The Gender Knot podcast, and one of our first guests, your advice has been like gold as we navigated Season One. Kevin Turley, our inaugural guest, likewise, his advice about doc films and life in general have been invaluable. I want to thank him for introducing me to Paul Brennan. And I still think I should have been a policeman and gotten my pension. And last but not least, Sebastian Sauerborn. He's executive producer and founder of Alamo pictures. It was his idea to start this podcast. I'm still not quite sure why he picked me for the role of host, but I'll be forever grateful. And finally, a big shout out to our loyal listeners in this craziest of years. Without you, there would be no point in doing what you do. You've stuck with us through thick and thin. And please continue to do so. Have a lovely summer, a great break from it all. Hope you can tune out for a little bit. And please remember to like us and share us with your friends and family wherever you happen to listen or watch podcasts. And this is Factual America, signing off until September.

Factual America Outro 59:44
You've been listening to Factual America. This podcast is produced by Alamo pictures, specializing in documentaries, television and shorts about the USA for international audiences. Head on down to the show notes for more information about today's episode, our guests and the team behind the podcast. Subscribe to our mailing list or follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter at Alamo pictures. Be the first to hear about new productions, festivals showing our films and to connect with our team. Our homepage is alamopictures.co.uk

They're Trying to Kill Us: Diet, Poverty and Racism

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