Podcast
Afternoon Coffee Break with Darren Watts
Hosted by Darren Watts · EN
Every day is racism for black people. Most people are not open-minded to understand racism, nor are most people open to believing in racism. Afternoon Coffee Break with Darren Watts serves two purposes. One, education in discrimination. Two, a platform to talk about racism. Dive in with me to learn the history and the hypocrisy of those who don't believe racism exists. We will look at current events involved with racism as well. Let's have an uncomfortable conversation.
129episodes
Episodes
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After The Brew: Remembering Nolan Wells & The Weight of Unanswered Questions
2d ago00:12:24Tap to summarizeDarren takes a moment he wasn't ready for on Tuesday but needed to take today. Nolan Wells was laid to rest on Monday, July 20th, at Olive Springs Church, with hundreds of people gathered in blue to honor him. His mother Christine spoke about a son who longed to be a father — he had already chosen names for the three daughters he hoped to have one day. Sophia, Charlotte, and Olivia. Darren reads her words carefully and sits with what it means to bury a child who had that much life still planned ahead of him.But the questions around how Nolan Wells died remain unanswered. The independent autopsy is raising more questions than it is resolving, Ben Crump is involved, and two parallel investigations are underway. Darren connects it to the thread he keeps coming back to — transparency. Nolan Wells's family doesn't have it. Kentucky doesn't have it with Mitch McConnell. And Darren doesn't have it with his own healthcare. The heart monitor results came back with nothing. The CGM appeal has been denied twice. His PCP team sent a message telling him to reach out if he has questions — after finding no explanation for his blackouts. He's in multiple battles at once, all of them asking the same thing: why is it this hard to get a straight answer?After The Brew, Darren Watts, Afternoon Coffee Break, Nolan Wells, funeral, Christine Wonsley, Ben Crump, Jackson County, transparency, independent autopsy, justice, Mitch McConnell, Iran war, heart monitor, blackouts, continuous glucose monitor, CGM denial, insurance appeal, type 2 diabetes, patient advocacy, long COVID, unanswered questions, real talk, Black podcast, July 2026, accountability, Olive Springs Church, be the light,
Transcribe →After The Brew: Coffee, Caffeine & Cardiovascular Health — A Love-Hate Relationship
4d ago00:26:25Tap to summarizeDarren spotted a trending article on coffee and heart health and couldn't let it pass without talking about it — especially on a show literally named after the brew. He breaks down the American Heart Association's latest research on caffeine and cardiovascular health, walking through what up to 400 milligrams of caffeine per day actually means, how different sources of caffeine affect the body differently, and what the research says about coffee's relationship with type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, cholesterol, heart rhythm, and stroke risk.But this isn't just a research recap. Darren makes it personal — the Excedrin story that kept him up writing five blogs straight through to 5 AM, the irregular heartbeat he thought was coffee but turned out to be post-COVID symptoms, his homemade cappuccino recipe built around cocoa powder, coconut oil, cinnamon, and almond milk, and what happened to his mother in February after years of energy drink consumption caught up with her heart. He loves coffee. The research gives him reasons to worry and reasons not to. He's drinking it anyway — just smarter about when and how.https://newsroom.heart.org/news/coffee-and-heart-health-how-many-cups-of-caffeinated-coffee-are-safe-to-drink-each-day After The Brew, Darren Watts, Afternoon Coffee Break, coffee, caffeine, cardiovascular health, American Heart Association, heart health, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, cholesterol, heart rhythm, atrial fibrillation, PVCs, long COVID, Mounjaro, blood sugar, homemade cappuccino, Excedrin, energy drinks, herbal tea, coffee and diabetes, love-hate relationship, real talk, Black podcast, July 2026, health research, coffee lover,
Transcribe →Hate Crimes Through 2024: Kansas — "Get Out of My Country" and the Bomb That Never Went Off
5d ago00:28:06Tap to summarizeFebruary 22nd, 2017. Austins Bar and Grill in Olathe, Kansas. Adam Purinton approached three men, demanded to know how they had entered the country, left, came back with a gun, and opened fire. He killed Srinivas Kuchibhotla — a 32-year-old Indian national and aerospace engineer at Garmin — wounded his friend Alok Madasani, and shot Ian Grillot, a white American who tried to intervene. Purinton later told a bartender he had shot two Middle Eastern men. He is serving life in federal prison without the possibility of parole.The same year, in Garden City, Kansas, three men who called themselves the Crusaders spent months planning to detonate a bomb inside an apartment complex where Somali Muslim immigrants lived and worshipped. Eight months of FBI undercover work stopped them before anyone died. Curtis Allen, Gavin Wright, and Patrick Stein received 25, 26, and 30 years respectively — 81 combined years for a plot that never reached detonation.Two acts. One completed. One stopped. Two communities targeted with the same conviction — that their presence in Kansas was a problem to be solved.This episode goes through the full cumulative data for Kansas — Anti-Black bias leading at 146 for the sixteenth consecutive state, the most unusual religion subcategory number this series has produced anywhere at Anti-Eastern Orthodox 52, Anti-Sikh at 24 connected directly to Garden City's South Asian meatpacking community, and Religion as the second-largest bias share in the series at 23.5 percent. It also covers three additional federal cases: a knife pulled on a Black teenager in a residential street, a year-long campaign of gun-backed racial threats against Black residents and visitors, and a bomb threat against a Nashville Pride event.His name was Srinivas Kuchibhotla. He was 32 years old. He came to this country to build something.Timestamps00:00 - Disclaimer01:01 - Introduction02:59 - The Thesis05:37 - Opening09:12 - The Background12:53 - The Data20:32 - Personal Thoughts24:09 - ClosingAfternoon Coffee Break with Darren Watts. Follow the show wherever you listen. Rate and review on Apple Podcasts — thirty seconds, it matters. Number 17 Cult All Time. Number 33 Business News All Time on Goodpods — because of you.
Transcribe →Black and Missing: Why 40 Percent of Missing Persons Are People of Color, and You Probably Haven't Heard Most of Their Names
1w ago00:20:02Tap to summarizeThis week, Kiyel Williams posted an emotional appeal on the Instagram account he shares with his twin brother Kamar — one half of the popular 80KTwins duo based in Atlanta. Kamar had been missing for nearly 48 hours. Millions of people shared the post. Kamar has been found safe, stepping away to focus on his mental health and now connecting with professional support.What worked for Kamar — a massive platform, a brother who knew how to reach millions of people, a story visible enough to cut through — is exactly what most missing Black Americans don't have.In 2023, 563,389 people were reported missing in the United States. Forty percent were people of color. African Americans make up only 13 percent of the U.S. population. Of 224,706 missing persons of color that year, 162,755 were children under the age of 18 — children who are disproportionately classified as runaways instead of missing persons, which means no Amber Alert, fewer resources, and a narrower window for intervention.This episode goes through the three documented reasons the coverage gap exists — runaway classification, criminalization, and desensitization — sourced directly from the Black and Missing Foundation (BAMFI) and the 2023 NCIC Missing Person Statistics. It connects those patterns to the systems that under-respond before any facts are established, and to what it would mean for every missing Black person to receive the same urgency the system reserves for cases with enough visibility to force it.BAMFI's tip line, search database, and family resources are at blackandmissinginc.com.SourcesBlack and Missing Foundation: https://blackandmissinginc.com/statistics/80KTwins / Kamar Williams: https://people.com/influencer-kamar-williams-has-been-missing-for-over-2-days-says-brother-kiyel-12021543Timestamps00:00 - Disclaimer01:01 - Introduction02:45 - The Thesis04:48 - Opening07:18 - The Background11:04 - The Data13:40 - Personal Thoughts17:25 - ClosingAfternoon Coffee Break with Darren Watts. Follow the show wherever you listen. Rate and review on Apple Podcasts — thirty seconds, it matters. Number 17 Cult All Time. Number 33 Business News All Time on Goodpods — because of you.
Transcribe →After The Brew: Indiana's $1.86 Billion Surplus, No Transparency & Election Night Lies
1w ago00:22:10Tap to summarizeDarren starts his morning with two headlines that don't add up side by side. Indiana Governor Mike Braun ends race and sex-based contracting preferences — and right behind that, Indiana announces a $1.86 billion operating surplus. The state is in an "incredibly strong financial position" while ranking 48th in quality of life, leading in foreclosure rates, and watching childcare costs consume 15% of a two-income household's median pay. Darren breaks down where the money is actually going — downtown sports infrastructure, corporate tax earmarks, visitor taxes — and asks the question out loud: if we're in a rainy day fund situation right now, why is $1.14 billion sitting untouched?He also gets the heart monitor results back from his two-week wear. Normal. Just like he called it. And still no next steps, no follow-up, no explanation for the blackouts and lightheadedness that started after COVID. Investigation mode continues.Then he gets into Lindsey Graham's Senate seat being filled by his own sister — no experience, no process, filled overnight — while it took over 50 days to seat Arizona's Senate replacement. He connects it directly to the DEI versus merit argument Governor Braun is making and calls it exactly what it is. And he closes with Trump's prime time announcement on the 2020 election — a pre-emptive fact check delivered plainly: there was election interference, but pay attention to who it actually came from.No transparency. No honor among thieves. That's the throughline today.After The Brew, Darren Watts, Afternoon Coffee Break, Indiana surplus, Mike Braun, DEI, merit, Lindsey Graham, Senate vacancy, heart monitor results, long COVID, blackouts, lightheadedness, election interference, Trump, Elon Musk, 2020 election, no transparency, foreclosure rates, Indiana quality of life, childcare costs, sports infrastructure, NCAA, rainy day fund, patient advocacy, investigative journalism, real talk, Black podcast, July 2026, no honor among thieves, Andy Beshear, Kentucky,
Transcribe →After The Brew: Normal Results, Missing Pieces & The Transparency Nobody's Giving Us
2w ago00:23:27Tap to summarizeDarren opens with Lindsey Graham — from "tell Trump to go to hell" in 2015 to becoming one of his loudest cheerleaders, to the Christine Blasey Ford hearing where Graham used his time not to ask questions but to perform outrage for the cameras. No condolences. No pretending. Graham and McConnell built the Supreme Court that's gutting rights Americans fought generations to earn, and Darren isn't going to fake sympathy for either of them.From there he connects it all to the thread he's been pulling for weeks — transparency. Or the lack of it. His lumbar MRI came back normal. His heart results will probably come back normal too. His left ventricular function improved from 47% to 50%, which sounds like good news, except none of it explains the blackouts, the radiating back pain, the temperature dysregulation, the freezing hands while his body burns up. He knows what long COVID feels like from the inside. The system keeps telling him everything is fine.But Darren is putting the pieces together anyway — the same way he spent six hours working through an Unsolved Case Files cold case this past weekend. Witness statements, crime scene photos, evidence inventory, all of it. He solved it. And that's the point. The Republican Party built their Supreme Court supermajority the same way — methodically, piece by piece, through cheating and cruelty while most people weren't paying attention. The stimulus checks weren't Trump's idea. Abortion rights didn't disappear overnight. The Voting Rights Act didn't gut itself. Pay attention. Put the pieces together. That's the message today.After The Brew, Darren Watts, Afternoon Coffee Break, Lindsey Graham, Mitch McConnell, Supreme Court, Christine Blasey Ford, Brett Kavanaugh, transparency, long COVID, lumbar MRI, heart monitor, back pain, temperature dysregulation, continuous glucose monitor, insurance, ADHD, patient advocacy, Unsolved Case Files, investigative journalism, Voting Rights Act, abortion rights, Iran war, stimulus checks, Republican Party, January 6th, real talk, Black podcast, July 2026, putting the pieces together, no condolences,
Transcribe →Hate Crimes Through 2024: Iowa — Kedarie Johnson and the Weight of a Name
2w ago00:22:24Tap to summarizeBurlington, Iowa. March 2016. Kedarie Johnson was sixteen years old. Gender-fluid. A high school student. Two men lured Kedarie into their car, knocked Kedarie unconscious, gagged them, wrapped a plastic bag around their head, drove to an alley, shot Kedarie twice in the chest, and doused the body in bleach. One defendant was convicted of first-degree murder. The DOJ's Civil Rights Division cross-designated a federal hate crimes prosecutor to assist Iowa state prosecutors — an acknowledgment that what happened to Kedarie was a hate crime.Fifteen states into this series. Kedarie Johnson's case is the most methodical, premeditated killing the DOJ's case file has documented in any state this series has covered.Iowa is also one of the few states in this series with a consistent declining trend — 105 incidents in 2021 down to 65 in 2024. That is a genuine, documented positive development, and this show names it. What it does not do is let a declining trend line erase the weight of what sits underneath it.The second federal case: a Des Moines woman who, within thirty minutes on December 9th, 2019, drove her car over curbs to strike two different children because of their perceived race — one near Creston Avenue, one near Indian Hills Junior High School in Clive. She was sentenced to more than 25 years in federal prison.This episode also covers the full cumulative data — Anti-Black bias leading at 121 for the fifteenth consecutive state, Anti-Jewish bias third at 44, White offenders at roughly 80% of identified cases — the highest proportion this series has documented anywhere — and two murders in the cumulative offense data.The trend line is declining. The cases underneath it are not abstract.Timestamps00:00 - Disclaimer01:01 - Introduction02:57 - The Thesis04:37 - Opening07:08 - The Background10:23 - The Data16:25 - Personal Thoughts19:41 - ClosingAfternoon Coffee Break with Darren Watts. Follow the show wherever you listen. Rate and review on Apple Podcasts — thirty seconds, it matters. Number 17 Cult All Time. Number 33 Business News All Time on Goodpods — because of you.Iowa hate crimes 2024, Kedarie Johnson Burlington Iowa, hate crimes through 2024 series, anti-Black hate crimes Iowa, Des Moines hate crime children, Iowa gender identity hate crime, anti-Jewish hate crimes Iowa, Iowa declining hate crime trend, Afternoon Coffee Break Darren Watts,
Transcribe →Who Gets Protected: Nolan Wells, the WNBA, and the Selective Outrage of a Country That Chooses Whose Safety Matters
2w ago00:22:57Tap to summarizeJuly 4th, 2026. Horn Island, Mississippi — a barrier island accessible only by boat. Eighteen-year-old Nolan Xavier Wells went out to celebrate the holiday with his friends. He was the only Black person in the group. His friends came back. He didn't. His body was found two days later. The cause of death is still pending.The Jackson County Sheriff concluded no foul play before the autopsy was complete — while simultaneously putting out a public call for bystander video of what the family's attorney Ben Crump describes as a documented altercation on the island. Messages were deleted from Wells's phone while it was in a friend's possession. His friends now have lawyers. An independent autopsy is being conducted by Dr. Roger Mitchell in Washington, DC, funded by Colin Kaepernick. His family will not stop until they have answers.In the same week, eleven Republican members of Congress sent a letter to WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert demanding the league protect Caitlin Clark from what they called racially motivated attacks. Alyssa Thomas — the player in the same story who is actually receiving death threats — got no letter. As journalist Jemele Hill put it, the WNBA is 70% Black and more than a quarter identifies as queer, and there is nothing that sells better in this country than making Black women a target.This episode connects both stories to Pew Research data — 75% of Black Americans say they have experienced racial discrimination, 73% say the system was designed to keep them down — and to a personal truth about what it means to be the only Black person in a group when something goes wrong, and whether anyone in authority will move with urgency to find out what happened.This is a developing story. We will follow it.SourcesNolan Wells — AP News: https://apnews.com/article/nolan-wells-death-mississippi-island-mystery-4b4e63036e7fa2ad3e3cf7e505e05c8cCaitlin Clark/WNBA — The Root: https://www.theroot.com/republicans-ask-wnba-to-protect-caitlin-clark-from-raci-2000115475Racial Discrimination Data — Pew Research Center: https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/2024/06/15/racial-discrimination-shapes-how-black-americans-view-their-progress-and-u-s-institutions-2/Criminal Justice Data — NAACP: https://naacp.org/resources/criminal-justice-fact-sheetTimestamps00:00 - Disclaimer01:01 - Introduction02:44 - The Thesis04:38 - Opening08:13 - The Background12:52 - The Data16:08 - Personal Thoughts20:24 - CloseAfternoon Coffee Break with Darren Watts. Follow the show wherever you listen. Rate and review on Apple Podcasts — thirty seconds, it matters. Number 17 Cult All Time. Number 33 Business News All Time on Goodpods — because of you.
Transcribe →After The Brew: Normal Results, Missing Pieces & The Transparency Nobody's Giving Us
2w ago00:13:31Tap to summarizeDarren follows up on Tuesday's episode — Nolan Wells, Mitch McConnell, and the frustrating pattern of Black people always being asked what they did wrong instead of holding the right people accountable. Then he gets personal. His lumbar MRI came back normal. His heart monitor showed no plaque buildup, no explanation for the blackouts, no explanation for the rapid heartbeat. Everything is normal — except none of it feels normal, and none of it started until COVID. Long COVID still won't be officially diagnosed. ADHD still won't be officially documented. And Darren is sitting on a MacBook full of notes, articles, and stories about all of it that he hasn't been able to get out yet. He's scheduled an appointment with a spine specialist because he knows what he's feeling in his body, and a normal MRI result doesn't change that. He connects it all to a bigger thread — the lack of transparency running through his own medical care, the Nolan Wells investigation, and the Mitch McConnell situation. We're missing pieces everywhere. And he's determined to keep putting them together.After The Brew, Darren Watts, Afternoon Coffee Break, lumbar MRI, normal results, long COVID, ADHD, undiagnosed, medical gaslighting, spine specialist, back pain, heart monitor, tachycardia, transparency, Nolan Wells, Mitch McConnell, Black community, accountability, patient advocacy, missing pieces, Substack, unsolved case files, real talk, Black podcast, July 2026, health update, no answers, keep pushing,
Transcribe →After The Brew: Nolan Wells, Mitch McConnell & Stop Playing Politics With the Truth
3w ago00:08:37Tap to summarizeDarren keeps it brief but doesn't hold back. He opens with Nolan Wells — a young Black man whose death at the hands of people he considered friends has Darren thinking hard about who is genuinely in your corner and who is just performing it. He connects it to a larger pattern of the elimination of Black lives and says it out loud: it makes you reevaluate everything, including the people closest to you. Then he turns to Mitch McConnell and the political games being played around his condition. Darren breaks down the August 3rd Senate vacancy deadline under Kentucky's HB 622 and why he believes that date is exactly why the truth is being withheld. His message is simple: stop playing politics, tell the truth, and let Kentucky have proper representation. He has no sympathy for McConnell's legacy. He doesn't pretend otherwise.After The Brew, Darren Watts, Afternoon Coffee Break, Nolan Wells, Black lives, racism, friendship, trust, racial violence, Mitch McConnell, Kentucky, Senate vacancy, HB 622, August 3rd deadline, political games, Supreme Court, Barack Obama, McConnell legacy, real talk, Black podcast, July 2026, opinion, no filter, political commentary,
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