Hey, what's up on today's show, we got a hard show ahead of us, we've got a boyfriend who's non-committal after four or five years, we got boundary setting with a brother in law is getting out of prison. We talked to our new friend, Park, an agent who's studying here in the United States in the disgusting racism that he's facing. Stay tuned.

And what up, what up? This is John with the Dr. John Delaney Show. You're doing well. Pakistan had trouble. If your friends are getting along well, I hope you and your family are doing all right. And if you're stuck somewhere by yourself, I hope you're reaching out to folks. Hope you're doing okay. If you're laughing, hey, if you haven't watched the new Bergonzi special on Netflix is awesome. It's hilarious of you finding ways to laugh.

This isn't really a commercial for me, but, man, I'm so glad you're here. Give us a shout if you want to be on the show. We talk about relationships, mental health stuff, marriages breaking up, all of it and everything. One eight four four six nine three thirty two ninety one. That's one eight four four six nine three thirty two ninety one. We have two things of business here, one for the podcast team and one for the YouTube crew.

So I was just getting ready to go with the show here. And so here's the thing. I work at Solutions here, Nashville, and this building is full of like a thousand of the most creative people on Earth. There's people from Disney and Pixar all all the places you can imagine. There are creative folks.

They migrate and work here. Even James and Kelly work here.

They were here before things got really creative, but they're still here. Right? So we're about to shoot the show.

And then my man, Matt Hudson comes in, the creative extraordinaire. And he brought me these, and if you can't see it, these are can you can you show me that in there in the booth? Zach, look at Guy Wave. Dude, he made me a bunch of stickers that are rocket ships being fueled by diarrhea, rocket diarrhea stickers, if you will. Do can you it's it's the most absurd, awesome sticker. I've already put it on my water bottle here.

This is why you work with creative people, because they will make rocket stickers. Listen, the first person to DM me after this episode airs and just say I want a sticker, I'm going to mail you some. Where do you use your creative talents to bring joy to my life, man. I'm going to put these over my kid's lunch boxes. I'm going I'm going to put them all over my wife's car, I'm for sure. Going to put them on Kelly's car.

This is so great. You've made my whole week, man. Thanks, brother, for using your creative talents for good. You could have been using them for evil to make stickers that say, like my kids, an honor student or stupid stuff like that. But nope, you took the show colors and made rockets being fueled by diarrhea. I'm so, so happy that that makes me laugh. It makes me joyful. All right. And here's the other thing.

So. The guy who serves is kind of the VP of Dulaney, right? The guy who's like the manager who runs my life here. He lives in a neighborhood. And last this past weekend, Nationals' got smoked with with rain. I think seven inches, six inches like that in one night was wild. And there's flooding all throughout the city. Just a lot of damage. A lot of people struggling, a lot, people rallying together.

And then this there's like a neighborhood Facebook page in his neighborhood, his name's Cody in his in his neighborhood, and somebody's house flooded and they had standing water all through the house.

And so they ran the sub pump all night to get all the water out. And it's probably a sub pump that was borrowed by another neighbor or somebody dropped it off.

Everybody's helping each other out and then somebody dresses up so they can they disguise themself so they don't they're not seen, unlike the little ring cameras and they go up to the door and they leave this note.

And it's a picture of a note here. I'm going to read it to you. Here's what the note says. You are sub pump, dear, so and so your sub pump kept our entire family up for the entire night, it clicked off about four thirty am likely because there was no more water in your house or yard.

It's so loud it shakes our house.

How can you think that's the neighborly thing to do? Water out of your backyard. That's fine. Do it in a reasonable hour there. Quiet hours in this neighborhood. Next time the cops will be called. No questions asked. So since this is my show, I just wanted to say, if you wrote this, you're not a very good person.

And I want you to know that people like this exist out in the world and they get swallowed up by the people who show up. And we're cleaning houses for neighbors. They were showing up in loaning equipment. They were some guy came in, was helping me. My driveway got completely washed out and he shows up with his tractor and starts up on the driveway. My son and I were pulling sticks out of the road and logs of the road. Everybody in this company is helping folks who were had stuff, had their houses covered up in water and people getting reaching out to each other.

I want you to know that there are idiots and morons and just genuinely bad people in the world. And but I want you to know this. There's more good than bad. There's more good people out there helping and serving than this type of person. And I want you to know, if you receive a note like this or somebody pipes into your social media outlet or your whatever, your stupid little digital box on the Facebook or the Internet or whatever, and they leave you stupid notes or even notes or notes, I want you to know that they're not the only voice out there.

And somebody who's going to leave is going to know. It's got a lot of demons in their own heart and their own soul, their own family. And I'm going to think positive thoughts about them because I'm not going to wear this stuff. And I want you to know that there's more good than ugly in the world, period. End of story. And as this person writes here to the neighbor who disguised himself and left this letter on my sister's doorstep.

Your lack of compassion and self-awareness have not go unnoticed. I'm certain it wasn't the torrential downpour, the thunder or two thousand plus lightning strikes is would have kept you up.

I pray as you watch the news today on this Palm Sunday, your heart softens as your fellow neighbors help each other out. Happy Sunday. I concur.

Oh, man. That makes me think we all need another rocket to stick around. Can you imagine, James, can you imagine you're not even a good person and you wouldn't know like that out there.

Good God Almighty. Now, I feel really guilty for writing the things you should and what superfunds you. Even you weren't trying to disguise yourself. That's just how you look black. That's how you showed up. All right. Let's go to Jamie in Indianapolis. Jamie, what's going on? How are we doing? I'm doing well, how are you? I'm good, I'm good. I've got my stickers, I've got my bad attitude out of the way, and now we are ready to help some people in Europe.

What's going on?

Well, first of all, I'm super jealous of your stickers, but I'm super grateful to be talking to you, taking my call.

Jamie, you should be super jealous of these stickers, if you could see them. They're incredible. But such. Such it is. All right. So what's up?

So my boyfriend and I have been together for almost five years now. It'll be five years next month.

And why so long? Well, we're basically married without being married, and this is probably my own fault. But I really I thought that this would really be the year that he proposed that he would propose. And it sounds like that's not happening any time soon.

And what made you what made you think that this was the year? This is I tend to read into things way too much. So that's end up, like I said, my own fault. And I own that. But I, I work every year. He's got to take vacations right at the beginning of the year. And he happened to have off Valentine's Day and my birthday and our anniversary. And I thought for sure it would happen at one of those times.

And so he didn't say anything. You just looked at the calendar. You're like one of these is going to be.

Yeah. Which, yeah, I shouldn't have let myself think like that.

I don't I don't know if that's necessarily the case. I mean, I'm as hopeful and optimistic and and reading into things as the next person. Why do you want to marry this guy.

He's he's a good person and we make such a good team, like we just we've knocked out that together, which I know is definitely not what you teach. But I mean, we just we just make such a good team. We we build each other up. We we've helped each other grow so much. We we love each other like crazy.

I mean, what it why does he want to marry you. I wish I knew, and I think that's when I'm having some trouble dealing with so in one hand you've told me all these things you do together, you make such a great team, you complement each other. You're Renee Zellweger and he's Tom Cruise. Like, you complete him and it all comes together. Except you can't have this one conversation about why you're not married. I just tried to bring up the conversation and it upsets him when I bring it up and he more.

What do you mean it upsets him?

You said that like a young child, it's like we must keep the floors clean before daddy comes home because it upsets him. That's what like. What do you mean it upsets him? It's kind of hard to describe, it's almost like a it's almost like a trauma response. It's he just he feels really angry and almost a little bit attacked and. I don't it's kind of hard to describe, I'm sorry. So, no, that's OK. So are in lieu of him feeling attacked for you saying, hey, we've been doing this for four or five years, you know my heart, you know, I want to be you know, that we are great together.

You instead of him feeling one quote unquote attack, you like you endure a small attack after attack after attack every single day upon week upon month upon year.

Why is his feelings and. Emotional state, so much more important than yours. I guess that's a good question, because you're hurting, right? It does hurt. I'm trying to hold on. No, no, no, it's OK to hurt. This sucks. And people can say whatever they want, blah, blah, blah, about it, will you? You shouldn't of man. I would have done the same thing. I would have looked at the dates.

I mean, like one of these is going to be it. I would've done the same thing. I mean, you're not dumb or bad or anything like that. You're heartbroken and that's OK. I'm never going to take that away from somebody. The real question is like, what can I do to help? What are you going to do? I guess I just need help knowing how to be patient with him, because that's that's exactly what he just asked me for, was patience.

What are you waiting for? I mean, he's I think he's still just kind of scared by the idea of being married, we I mean, a lot of marriages in his family aren't good. We just watched my parents go through a really bitter divorce. You all live together? We do, yes. And you joined finances. I mean, what does he think is going to be different? Is he just leaving the door cracked a little bit in case he just needs to run out or is not getting married like his his little blanky that keeps him warm and safe at night?

I'm not sure. I mean, there probably could be a good way to put it, honestly. I mean, when I've asked him about it before, I mean, he says stuff about divorce statistics and the living with statistics are just as bad, if not worse.

Oh, yeah, I've I've brought that up.

So it's not a data conversation. So I'll tell you here, here's my personal story. Me and my wife dated for five years.

We broke up a whole bunch and dated people off and on in between and all that.

And it was ultimately a conversation I had fishing with my buddy Ryan, and he looked at me as only guys can do at midnight after, you know, you stop pretending and we're just sitting out there with our stupid catfish lines in the water and there's nothing doing. And he said, Why aren't you married?

And I said, no, I'm just like being single. And he said, Do you know, you don't you don't do anything single people do. You're boring. You don't go out, you don't date or like, what are you doing? And I remember thinking, I don't know, what am I doing? And he's like, that's the person you're supposed to marry. And it was that I had to have somebody just talk to me. Right.

Otherwise, I was just sitting around and being a wimpy child brat is what I was being.

And we weren't even living together. I mean, we were just dating. Dating. Here's the thing. You've already accepted this as is. And so for him, another year can be another two years can be another three years, can be another five years or ten years because what's y y change what he's got right now?

He's got a great roommate. He's got somebody who he loves. He's got somebody who's on the same page with him financially.

He's got someone just on the same page with him.

Everything except doesn't want to be commit to stability. So why change it for him? There's nothing really a plane, there's nothing in his world that needs changing at all. And if the person he says he loves wants to change, then all he has to do is throw a temper tantrum about it, get his feelings hurt, and then go back so far off and you won't bring it up again for a year. You'll hurt over it. You'll ache over it.

You'll dream about it. You'll check his calendar about it.

But you won't wade into that uncomfortable water and then then you're out, and so there's no reason for him to change. So I'll ask you, what do you want to change?

I mean, I would I would like us to be married, I just love the idea of. Everybody that matters to us being in the room together and holding us accountable to their spouses to make to each other. I love that I'm an old dude. I'm self admitted. I'm an old fashioned marriage nerd. When it comes down to it, I'm still a sucker for it.

I love it. And so, yeah, I'm with you on that. But at the end of the day, you got to ask yourself, are you going to walk out the door? You can hang on. So five years later, are you still in the same boat or is there a or what moment for you or an if then moment for you? Have you put a date on the calendar? I haven't I'm I'm very type A and I've considered it, but I've.

Taipei is usually a defense mechanism and, yeah, what's in your heart? If he says, hey, I'm not I'm not getting married to you, OK, I love you, you're my person, but I'm not going to do it. He's going to he's going to call it what it is and just be together for the next 10 years.

Or are you going to say, I want someone who's going to respect me and the life that I want to live and I'm out? Yeah, I guess that's kind of where I'm at an impasse, because he keeps saying it is going to happen. But. There is zero nine zero impetus for him to change anything, none, I'm not even blaming him. There's nothing there's no reason for him to disrupt his life. None. My concern for you is what happens when he does marry you, then the kid question comes up, the whose parents are going to stay at over Thanksgiving comes up the the hey, we're going to go to my parents for Christmas and they're going to get his parents for these hard conversations will emerge time and time again.

They're just going to get way, way more complex and harder.

Right.

Are we going to send our kids to this school or that school or are we going to move to this? Because I got this new job and my bigger concern for you guys is not that you were together for five years. I did this and I've got a better marriage than most folks I know. It's hard. All marriage is hard. All relationships are hard. They're a mess. They're to challenge. So the time isn't that big a deal. My concern is y'all don't have a platform to have hard conversations together or deep meaningful.

This really matters to me conversations because it sounds like when you lay that on the table, he turtle's up, says you don't care about me.

This really hurts. And it's everyone's.

And then you backway off because you want peace. Is that fair? Yes, and that's totally fair and I am trying to work on that, I've been reading Gottman and Chapman and trying to hear this. Hey, listen. Find out more about these things. You don't have to read anything else.

All you have to do is remember this. You're what you want really, really matters, and often 21st century women are conditioned to be peacekeepers, your job is to make sure everybody else is OK. And I want you to know that's not your job in this relationship. You are a fierce co member of this relationship. You're 50 percent of it. And you should be 100 hundred percent of it for him and he should be one hundred percent of it for you.

And I know that math doesn't work and I don't care. Relational math never works. You all should be in this all together and you should at least be able to sit down and have this conversation where he can explain to you without getting his feelings hurt, without being drama, without throwing a temper tantrum. It's coming. It's going to be all that nonsense.

He'll be able to sit down and say, here's what really scares the crap out of me about this.

And his feelings could be really valid on that. I just hate grown up temper tantrums and vice versa. You should be able to to articulate. Here's why I want to solidify this etch it into concrete and stone so that we are right or die to the end of time.

Because right now, like, we just wanna have a party, everybody hold us accountable. That's not a good reason either.

Like why do you want to take what you guys have an elevated to marital status forever? Right.

Why are you going to bind yourself, this guy? You don't need to be able to have that hard conversation because it just gets harder and harder and harder.

And I tell you what, there are some girlfriends in my past that I would do anything to go back and redo conversations because I acted like an idiot. I was a child. I was a moron.

I hurt people's feelings not because I was trying to be rude or I just don't want to do it. And then I would do anything to be able to go back and have some conversations early in my marriage with my wife because I don't know what I was doing. And I threw temper tantrums, not in a slamming door kind of way, but in the kind of way you're describing the, you know, I mean, just that dramatic. And so here's the thing.

I want you to have the courage to have your voice be heard. You deserve to have your voice be heard in this thing, what you want, what you deserve, what you envision in this thing, it matters. It's important, Jamie, and it counts.

It counts. And if you are already if you've already over four and five years created a world where all he has to do is throw a temper tantrum to get what he wants, all he has to do is say don't talk about it.

And you're like, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, man. You deserve more than that, Jamie. And I'll tell you, your if your fiance, husband, I mean, your boyfriend, whatever, when your boyfriend hears this. You deserve to have to articulate what's going on in your heart, man, not just play some kind of angry. It's going to happen someday, sit down and have grown up conversations.

And if you can't do this, go see a counselor right now, a relationship counselor together that helps you map this stuff out together, OK? You both deserve to live in a in a relationship where both of you are fully heard, fully expressed and fully happy. And those are not all mutually exclusive.

Not everybody wins. Right. But listen. If you win and he loses, you both lose, and if he wins and you win, everybody wins. And there's a ways to do that by communicating. Listen, Jamie, I know this is hard and this is heartbreaking. And I'm not going to take that from you already said that. I'm going to take it from you. I hate this for you. I want this to be the moment you say, you know what, my voice matters here.

It matters in this relationship. It does. And if you don't have somebody in your life that thinks your voice matters or that there's matters more than you, and when you think hard about meeting with somebody about is this the relationship for the rest of your life, because it just gets harder from here.

Thank you so, so much for the call.

Let's go to Tracy in St. Louis. What's up, Tracy?

You know, just living the dream.

Good for you. I'm glad somebody is. That's awesome. How are you? What can I do to help? How are you?

No, it's actually funny because I had a pretty bad day before that. But my question is, how do my husband and I tell his parents, my in-laws, that we're not going to have anything to do with my brother in law who is soon to be released from prison without it sounding like a declaration of war? You know, like and like, you have to pick a side. I don't know. I don't know that you can it sounds like you've declared war.

We picked a side. Well, no, we don't want them to feel like they have to pick a side. But we want to make it clear that we're not going to have anything to do with him. And so, like, he's not invited to our house, we won't be attending gatherings like that. But we're happy to be, you know, flexible if they're going to do things together. You know, we're not going to say, well, Christmas dinners at our house at noon, be there or don't.

What did this guy do? That's irredeemable. So. He's in prison for committing burglaries. OK. But leading up to that, he had stolen over fifty thousand dollars from my in-laws. That's their issue. Yeah, our our issue is that while he's been in prison, he has sent hundreds of letters to my in-laws house where we used to live, talking about all kinds of crazy and violent things, including fratricide. And he also thinks that my nine year old stepdaughter, my husband's daughter.

Is his spirit child, and he is spiritually her father, Woa, and. And that, combined with the violent letters, makes. So we're not willing to risk. Her or my husband? Yeah, so are your in-laws planning on welcoming him back with open arms? Are they going to get a restraining order the moment he gets out of jail? I mean, my mother in law just tried to buy a house for him, they passed the home plan, but he's not actually going to be scheduled to be released this coming Saturday.

But because it didn't pass the homeland, he's not coming. But now we're like, OK, we need to have this conversation because I mean, the main issue is really my stepdaughter, because before I was near her.

So let's step back from him because this is supercharged. OK, this is really heavy. Let's back it up and just say that your in-laws asked you to go camping in the Arizona desert in August. As a family, and they said, hey, this is our jam, this is what we do. You just married into this family, little lady. We all go camping in Arizona in August.

It's hot, hot, and we get sunburned. It's kind of a family tradition. In fact, we put little stickers on our bodies and we get sunburned all around them. Gorgeous weirdos. Right.

And you decide that's not just for the record, Tracy, it's super weird, but it's not it's not weird at all.

But you didn't know about this. You married him. And then all of a sudden one night you are laying in your bed and the lights are off and you just say, hey, honey. And he's like, yeah, baby. And you say, there's no chance I'm going camping in Arizona. None, zero. And he starts laughing. He's like, I was waiting for you to say that. I get that. And then you have to have that conversation with his in-laws.

And it's just as simple as, hey, we love you guys, we're not going to go camping this year, but we can't wait to see at the holidays. In the more you try to explain, dramatize, give reasons, examples on the back end, the more complicated and messy it gets.

And so that's not a charged situation.

It could become one depending on how cool or lame your in-laws are. But it is what it is when it comes to this. This is somebody who's demonstrated to you and your eyes that they're not safe, that they don't intend on being safe. They haven't been safe in the past. They're not going to be safe in the future.

And so it's just a very simple. We will not be communicating with this person in any shape, form or fashion, any way, and we may even pursue a restraining order when they get out of jail. We don't want them near us, near our daughter. And then we're going to go about our lives. If you choose to have in their life, great, we will not be there. And there's just appeared at the end of that sentence said in a matter of fact way, not to go to war without an angry way, but just a way that this is what's going to happen, as though the sky is blue and our grass is somewhat green.

Ed, any sort of drama on the back end is not yours, you cannot be responsible for how other people experience your boundaries.

I mean, yeah, it's just it's it's sucks.

It's not your it's not you didn't cause it, but now it's in your lap and you've got to deal with it.

Right. Right. So somebody ring your door like. We're really close my. I guess I worry that this is definitely going to be a barrier to that if your in-laws choose for it to be, it will be.

That doesn't mean you're not doing the right thing. It doesn't mean that it doesn't change over time. It doesn't mean that four years later, three years from now, two years from now, this guy's out and he's cool and he's doing his work and doing his thing and taking his whatever he's got to be doing. And you'll make some concessions and changes. But if you don't feel safe, if you don't feel comfortable, this is an easy, easy situation, an easy boundary to draw.

This isn't like, hey, I don't like sleeping outside. This isn't like I don't want to drive halfway across the country.

I guess it's a simple boundary. It's not an easy thing to do because it's symbolic. It's straightforward. And I guess I guess I was looking like, oh, he's really good at stuff.

Maybe he'll have something to say that won't upset people and they'll just be like, oh yeah, I totally get your viewpoint there is that when it comes to somebody who has lost perspective with one of their kids, there is no rational conversation you can have straight for as short as possible and then you separate. That's it. So whenever you're bringing somebody in to let them go, to fire them from their job, that should be a very, very short conversation.

And we're going to let you go in a week or two. We'll circle back and you can meet with each other to get the specifics that we've chosen at this time to let you go if you let me do that job.

Well, it's OK if you've got well, it's it's the kindest thing about it ripping a Band-Aid off or a surgeon. Right. Do you want the surgeon to take the blunt instrument and just drag it across your poor little leg? No. You want to use the sharpest item. They've got the smallest, most precise tool. And they want to make a quick cut, a concise cut and get it done right. Same thing here. It can not be a surprise to your in-laws.

It can't be unless they've just become delusional, too. And that does happen right when you're talking.

I mean, parents like that with students of mine that were that way.

But he had a come to Jesus talk two Christmases ago, OK, because as I say, it's me and it's my mother in law, OK? You know, my father in law. If you take him aside, he is totally against it.

But then he needs to stand up to for the safety of his family. And he's choosing not to. So he's choosing not to protect his family. Yeah. And, you know, my husband has two other brothers, and vocalese, they're also like, no, he can't be back into our lives unless he's willing to go through all of the hoops of probation and parole and get on medication and get help. Because clearly, what's in those letters, like you cannot be of sound mind.

Yeah, so and I am so happy that you're super lucky here. So join forces together, do that meeting together, make sure everybody's on the same page, maybe even write a letter. If you want to be really straightforward and bold, send him a letter in jail that because of your behavior, because of your letters, you're not going to be welcome at our home until you do the following X, Y and Z. Let him know up front so we can hold this letter.

We love you.

We wish the best for you. We can't help you at this time. And the things that you're writing in these letters are making us uncomfortable for the protection of our family.

You'll have to do that. You can you can write that letter to your mom or your mother in law knowing that she's going to show it to him.

Right. But here's the thing.

There is no shortcut to hard conversation. Say it, be clear, concise, know exactly what you want to say and then get out and be right. It's as straightforward as humanly possible and there is no easy way to do it. There's no way that it doesn't isn't uncomfortable. The quicker and cleaner that the quicker and cleaner it can heal. Right.

I just never even thought of that surgery analogy till just now.

And I think it works pretty good. All right. Let's take one more call. Think. Tracy, thank you for that call. It sucks. I do want to know how the conversation goes, though. If you will have that conversation with your in-laws, draw that line, you're going to feel, wait, leave your shoulders. We've done it. This is it. You are not going to feel good when he gets out of jail.

You're not unless you get some sort of police protection or some sort of come to Jesus conversation, maybe between your husband and him in the jail before he leaves some sort of closure conversation. But chances are this is going to be something that's going to haunt your family for the future and you are going to be really clear on your boundaries and really direct. All right.

Let's talk to Park in Indianapolis, Indiana. What's up, Park? How are we doing, brother?

I'm doing great. How are you, man? I could not be doing much better.

It is beautiful out today and I'm doing all right. So what's going on, man? How can I help?

So, first of all, I'm Asian. Yes. And I'm getting attacked frequently because of my race. Oh, my God. Hey, hold on. Hold on, hold on.

OK, dude, I'm sorry. Oh, yeah, man, I'm heartbroken for you. Tell me about what's going on. So last week I was at the parking lot at the front of the grocery store, and there was a man who called me like Chinese virus Zinchenko, and he said, go back to communist China. You don't deserve to be here. So he even kicked my shopping cart. I'm not exaggerating. He kicked my shopping cart and I had to pick up all the stops from the ground.

So most, you know, no one helped me. No one helped me.

So I was so scared. Yeah. I felt so lonely. And then so I'm so scared of going out and buy groceries, going to class. I feel like I might get killed because of my race, you know.

Now, the answer, Sparkman. Hey, I'm so, so sorry. How old are you, man?

Oh, twenty three. Twenty three. What are you studying? Yeah, I'm studying economics in college.

Yeah. What what school are you up. My school. Yeah. You know, you don't tell me that you're not to me, that's cool. OK, so tell me about tell me about who you are. Tell me about your story.

OK, so first of all, I'm from South Korea. Yeah. And I moved to the United States after I finished my elementary school from South Korea because of my parents' job. Yeah. So I first moved to Boston and I attended a middle school there. Mm hmm. And after that, after finishing middle school, I had to decide whether I go back to South Korea for high school or stay in the United States. And then I decided to stay in the United States.

And then I attended high school. And at the time I stayed at the home state. Mm hmm. And after that, I finished my high school. And then I got accepted to the college in Indiana and I and I moved to Indiana. And right now I'm staying in apartments, going to school, studying economics. And also I'm doing remote internships at one of the software, like I.T. software company in Silicon Valley. So awesome. Hey, good for you, dude.

Listen, I hate this. It's disgusting and it's evil. And that crab should not be going on, man. Absolutely. Listen to me, um. I shouldn't be going on, and I'm sorry that you can't go outside and you feel scared to go to the grocery store because somebody attacked you already. It's nonsense and it's ridiculous.

And I'm heartbroken for you. I'm heartbroken for the idiots who think that's a good idea and it makes them feel better. I'm heartbroken for you. I'm heartbroken for the passerby's who didn't stop and intervene.

And even those who were terrified, who didn't stop help you pick up your stuff. I'm heartbroken by the whole mess. Do you deserve better than this? From from. The citizens of Indianapolis, and you deserve better than this from the city's citizens of your community and park, I'm sorry. I know that doesn't make you any safer at the grocery store, brother, but I'm sorry, I should not be able to tell me about your community there. Do you have a group of people that you love and interact with?

Are you stuck all by yourself, people isolating you? Tell me what's what's going on in your community there.

So, you know, since last year, I have been staying by myself because majority of my friends are international students, mostly from China. Taiwan. Sure. And some of them are from like Vietnam. And since covid-19 hit the United States very hard to matriculate, they went back to their country. Yeah. And I also tried to get a flight ticket, but it was so expensive. And also, you know, in South Korea, if I enter there, I had to do self quarantine for two weeks.

Right. And I have to pay for it. And also due to time zone difference, like, it is so difficult for me to take classes during the midnight, like two or three a.m. in the morning in South Korea. So it's nonsense for me. So I just decided to stay in the United States. And since covid, I have not meeting my friend face to face, only like chatting, like Facebook chat. And that's it. Oh, man.

So listen, you you may have heard me on the show before. Understanding the physiology of that, you realize that your body is slowly falling in on itself from loneliness, right? Right. And you're in a tough, tough situation because you have to be in proximity to other people. You have to you got to you've got to have a community of people that you can interact with, talk to, communicate with that will help that your brain feel safe.

At the same time, you're in a situation now where you can go to the grocery store.

Man, I think. Tell me about your school. When I was the student affairs guy at multiple universities, we worked with students in your situation to make sure they were safe, to provide them with some sort of community to make sure they could get to and from places if they needed to. There should be some support networks are built into the university or is that available to you or know that's available.

So actually, like before I send you the letter, I already talked to my academic advisor. And there is the organizations that support international students and I already talked to them. But I feel like I have to share this story to everybody. You're exactly right. Nor is the problem for the racism. Ignorance is the major cause.

Yeah. So you you're going out to a whole bunch of people, right? To millions of people. If if, um, and you have done a brave thing by calling into the show and you've done a brave thing by putting a name in a in a situation to this, I want everybody listening here. I just want to get groceries.

And somebody kicked over the cart, call them a bunch of derogatory names or something, has to go to college. He's trying to help out you and your communities. This type of stuff is disgusting, man, so if you could say anything to the millions of people listening to this, what would it be?

I'm also belonged to your community. Yeah. Yes, I'm Asian, but I'm not type of virus. I don't carry virus. I already took covid testing for two times and they're all negative. I have been very musk. I have been washing my hands. I have been following the rules. But why do I have to get blamed? Because I'm Asian, because I'm international student, because my accent is not American. That's ridiculous.

Hey, man. Yeah, you're right. So. Here's what I want every listener to hear when you're walking at the grocery store, looking at the prices of the fruit, looking at is there any discounts on cereal, and you see somebody that doesn't look like you.

I want you to understand they're having a totally different experience and then I'll than you are. And if they happen to be Asian-American, they happen to be Asian, they happen to be visiting your community, putting money into your community and getting educated at the schools that you're attending to, like our friend Park here. I want you know, there's a chance that they are walking down that aisle, terrified that you may reach out and hurt them. That you may reach out and kick their cart over.

No one's going to sit there and bend down and help you pick up your stuff. And so I'm calling on every listener of this podcast, every listener of this podcast with kids, every listen to this podcast who's married or dating, somebody who's got parents, open your mouth and open your eyes. What's happening is ridiculous, stupid, it's obnoxious and it's embarrassing for our whole country, it's embarrassing we got to be better than this park. I'll tell you on behalf of everybody, I'm glad you're here.

Thank you. And I hope that the ignorant, ridiculous, heartbreaking actions of a few morons will not poison you to those of us who love you and we're glad you're here. And I'm calling on folks in Indianapolis to step up. I'm calling folks of every city, every place in the country to step up and start serving the least of these in our communities, especially those folks who don't look like us because everybody's fighting a battle inside their heart and mind every day.

And we just look like we're pushing grocery carts and we're not.

I heart. The person walking in front of you in the grocery store walking a little bit too slow, you don't know what their marriage is like. You don't know if they got a kid in the hospital. The young Asian-American guy, the young Asian guy just going to get groceries. You don't know how terrified and how tightly he's gripping that car because he's scared to death. Park, thank you so, so much for your call.

Thanks for being brave. And hey. If somebody reaches out with a hand of support, let me know if any more further nonsense calls, let me know. Please don't hesitate to call the police because they're there to serve you to. Please don't hesitate to call your campus support networks because they're there to support you, to please call on your academic advisors. Please gather allies if possible. Let your classmates know what you're experiencing. Let those kids in your internship class know what you're experiencing.

And my hope is when they hear your story that you're no longer a headline, you're no longer an issue, no longer something happening in somebody else's town.

Hey, hold on. That's our body park. No way, dude, we're all going to the store now, Park. You're coming with us and that's how we combat this nonsense park. You're coming with us. All of us, no more, no more. No more than James. When we wrap up the show here in. I think we're good. Yeah, I think we're good about no song for today, guys, men and women. When your neighborhood near.

Pull out your headphones and go help your neighbor during this podcast off and help your neighbor. This has been the Dr. John Allen show.