- How did you feel the night that you came out to me?
And I was on my video game playing 2K and he was like,
"Hey Kobe, I gotta tell you something."
- It was very, you know, coordinated.
- And how did you feel when I freaked?
I freaked out because when you told
me that you came out to me that wasn't like my, what?
Like I freaked out and I want to talk to mom and dad.
How'd you feel?
- It just, I probably would have if it would have been,
cause you use my person, like you was my twin brother.
I didn't come out to my sisters.
I didn't come out to mom or dad.
I didn't come out to my best friend.
I came out to you, cause you use my twin brother.
And you was the person I thought I was going to go through
high school with.
And I was going to be a hundred percent myself.
And then to, you know, realize like,
damn, like he was, he looked at,
you looked at me like I was a monster.
Like there was something wrong with me. And I remember,
I remember that day, like it was yesterday.
I mean, I've, I've definitely gotten over it,
but it could have been worse. You know?
Like what if he wasn't my brother? What if we,
- I feel like if I,
if I was in your shoes,
me and you would not be talking to this day,
like I was overly,
I was overdramatic about the whole situation. I mean,
I apologize. Like, I don't think,
I don't know if I ever apologized.
I'm sorry that I did that.
Because like,
- It's okay.
- If you did that to me,
I probably wouldn't talk to you because like that's big.
Like you came out to me, you told me, like, that was big.
And like just ran to mom and dad.
And I was like Kyle's, what the fuck is wrong with him.
- I've dealt with worse. Like, you know,
growing up in the AME church system,
like I love him to death, but, remember that time we was,
- I don't know exactly what you,
- we was in church and we were singing in choir.
We were praise dancing.
And this was the first Sunday that we actually got dad to go
to church.
He came to church and there was a guest pastor from
Columbus.
And this pastor had literally had all the young people,
including you and me get in a circle.
He tried to pray the gay away basically.
He was like, he said the spirit of homosexuality,
he said out of this room and dad knew,
I I've never told him, but he knew.
And he looked and he just was just like shaking
his head, was looking at me,
kept on trying to check on me or whatever.
And it was just like, I was wondering like,
if our pastor our home,
like our church, our home pastor,
if he was going to like cut that out.
And he never did but,
- I'm surprised no one stepped. I mean, I feel like,
I mean, including me, like,
like if I was to see some shit like that today, it'd be,
hell, if you seen something like that today in our church,
you'd like it wouldn't, it wouldn't happen.
He would, it wouldn't happen at all.
I mean, everyone in the church that just let that go on.
They're just weak, like flat out, like,
- The highest, the demographic of suicides
and the United States is,
you know, black, LGBTQ people, persons.
Like I said,
my situation could have been completely different.
There's been times, you know, I've been that low or,
you know, had those thoughts, but you know,
the love that I received from, you know,
mom and dad and my siblings, you outweighed anything.
And I always think about that. Like, yeah,
we are all pretty much the same and we have our differences.
But lets answer the next question.
What's the most ridiculous thing you've seen me do?
- Make a teacher cry.
You made a teacher cry in like middle school.
And I remember this one time,
I think it was like seventh grade and the teacher made me
cry.
Cause I, don't know the teacher made me cry
and like you won,
you went crazy.
- All right.
Let's, you know, rewind back.
I don't, I'm not, I don't tolerate that.
Teachers are supposed to teach, not, you know, you know,
humiliate kids. So she was just, you know,
furious and tears ran to the office and I didn't get in
trouble. She kinda,
she had to sit down with the principal and the vice,
the vice principal about that. That was yeah.
Whole thing.
Yeah.
- What are your three favorite memories we share?
- My favorite memory,
one of my favorite memories is probably when I got,
we graduated high school.
I don't know if it was when we was arguing about something,
but I don't know what kind of tension there was.
But one of my memories is, is just the day you kinda like,
I kind of, we got in a situation where it was like,
I was saying that you weren't there.
You weren't like defending me as certain in certain
circumstances at school. And you like, basically, you know,
like shut me up because you said that like growing up in
middle school,
going through middle school and going through high school,
there'd be a lot of stuff that would happen that I didn't
see. Cause you know, I was like super involved in school,
but like say someone was talking about like my mannerisms
being like flamboyant or talking about how I always,
you know, talk about, you know, like, like black history or,
you know, indigenous history.
People would always like have comments, little,
little pecks. Cause you know, we went to, you know,
predominantly white school and someone always had something
to say, whether it was about me being gay or super,
you know,
politically involved and you would put people in their
place, you know,
or whether that'd be like me hanging out with girls,
you know, more, so people in middle school would see that.
And you, you told me like, you would tell people like, no,
that's my brother. Like y'all gotta chill on that.
And I never knew that you did that until we was in the
moment of that argument.
And it kinda like, I don't know.
It just gave me reassurance.
It re like rooted me to understand that like nothing really
ever changed. Like we always been like real close brothers.
What role have you seen me play in our community
and what has it taught you about me?
- What role I've seen you play in our community is, I mean,
I already said it like,
you're like a leader and a lot of people will look up to you
for things. Even I look up to you.
You do a lot of things that people wouldn't want to do.
You get your hands dirty.
I mean,
- You think it was the right decision to stay
and not like go and pursue like,
you know, go away for college.
- Was it the right decision?
I think it was the right decision for you to stay.
The only,
the reason being is there's a lot of unfinished work here.
We worked at the community center, like the past,
like three years. You was like four years in.
There's a lot of work that's unfinished.
If you let,
if you leave and it's just going to be the same old
Zanesville, bro.
- I didn't think about that.
- Like who was going to lead a fucking black lives matter
protest or LGBTQ protest?
No one.
You was the only one that stepped up and did it,
- You know, my dream school
before the pandemic hit what the,
the,
my list of colleges that I was wanting to apply for to apply
for top of my list was Howard University in Washington, DC.
And I think about it all the time.
Like what would be different if I would have, you know,
pursued that going away for college?
I don't regret, you know, I don't, I don't have any regrets,
but I always say what if and
yeah, I don't know.
We always have been like interlocked with, I don't think,
I mean, I don't know what you could say.
I don't know.
I don't think I can just move out of state and be fine with
it. Like, and,
and you'll be all the way in another state just because if
you was to have kids or if I was to have kids, like I don't,
I'm not doing, I don't do distant thing.
I don't, I'm not doing it.
Well, my brother, my twin brother, that just,
but outside of that, you can, you can, you know,
you can acknowledge like all the work that I do,
but you also contribute to it. And other people,
like when I had, you know, my, my launch event,
like there was nothing,
but like there was like family there,
there was friends and my campaign team and different people
from the community, but there wasn't that much like family,
we have a lot of family in Zanesville. They'll say, oh,
I'll be there. And they never show up or, oh,
well he's organizing a protest and never pop in.
So yeah,
that is something difficult that I deal with all the time is
yeah.
If this were to be our last conversation,
if this were to be our last conversation,
what's the one thing you'd never want me to forget?
Yeah.
- So if I was packing my bags
and I was flying to Antarctica,
- Or if you was on your deathbed, you know.
- First off,
I'd let you know how much I love you.
And secondly,
I will tell you to never give up on your dream because I
feel that you're going to change this world one day.
You're going to change it at this local level,
in this little community.
And then it's just going to get bigger and bigger and you're
going to change the world.
- Hey everybody, thank you so much for being here.
It's Nick from the skin deep,
and we really appreciate you being a part of our community.
So if you want to take it to the next level,
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