Um, when the pushback started from some members of the Black community, what was your initial reaction?

My initial reaction was just to...

Obviously, there was a lot of internet chaos.

The comment section was filled with different perspectives.

So when you're, uh, getting this backlash, you just have to sift through what's not important and sift through, okay, what are the right people to actually contact? And we did that.

We got in touch with Kaya from We Love Leimert, as she's connected to the vendors in the, in the L- Leimert Park community.

So we had a conversation in the cafe, and we were hashing things out.

Did you feel that you needed to offer anybody an apology for what you were trying to do?

Go for it.

So I think at first I just want to like introduce myself.

Like my name is Henry Gallardo.

I was born and raised in South Central LA, just south of the 10 freeway.

So I think it's like just the gates of South Central LA where the Pollo Loco is at and like the new high school is at, Santee.

And I was always like... like a scholarly kid and my parents were always like hey don't be joining gangs like there's like uh like gangs around my neighborhood there's like streets you couldn't really like walk in but I lived like in a in a weird spot like around the neighborhood basically and um yeah I went to UCLA uh for college and I felt like I never belonged there I didn't really like school that much like I like I graduated and I'm blessed to have that opportunity as a first generation student and when I came back I saw like a lack of representation of fitness in the South Central LA community Um, I did sports all my life in high school.

I did four years of football, four years of track.

So I think that assumption is messing them up.