Speaker 1: Broadcasting from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios. I'd like to
Speaker 1: welcome you to another episode of Civic Cipher, where our
Speaker 1: mission is to foster allyship, empathy and understanding. I am
Speaker 1: your host, Rams' ja he is Ramsey's Jaw. I am
Speaker 1: q Ward. You are tuned into Civic Cipher, Yes you are,
Speaker 1: and we have a very special show in store for
Speaker 1: you today. Please stick around because we are talking to
Speaker 1: the one, the only Asian Self. You might know her
Speaker 1: from going viral on social media time and time again. Well,
Speaker 1: we actually are going to be having a conversation with
Speaker 1: her about several goings on, particularly around immigration and status,
Speaker 1: racial status and classification and so forth, because there are
Speaker 1: some goings on that many people are not aware of.
Speaker 1: And then, of course for those that don't know, today's
Speaker 1: guest as a social media influencer and activist. Again she's
Speaker 1: Asian Self, and she can be found online at the
Speaker 1: handle at Asian Self, Asian Underscore so or at Mixed
Speaker 1: Present and again she speaks on and organizes around the mixed,
Speaker 1: bipoc multiracial experience in the United States.
Speaker 2: Asian Self. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to be here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sorry about that.
Speaker 1: It was like a mouthful, But hopefully you can tell
Speaker 1: that we're brimming with excitement and really excited to get
Speaker 1: into the conversation. Again, a lot of developments, particularly in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, we've learned a lot lately about how human
Speaker 1: beings are regarded.
Speaker 2: Using a pseudo scientific.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't even call it pseudo scientific, bogus scientific basis
Speaker 1: known as race, but it's something that we've come to
Speaker 1: regard each other, you know, as and it's how we
Speaker 1: frame our society. So again, really excited to get into
Speaker 1: those weaks. But long before we get there, we have
Speaker 1: to take a moment and acknowledge some ebony x xces.
Speaker 2: Shall we Yeah, I think we shall.
Speaker 1: So today's Ebony excellence, we are shouting out the one
Speaker 1: and only Kendrick Lamar. Were obviously are big fans of
Speaker 1: Kendrick Lamar on this show, and I'll share a bit
Speaker 1: from Hot New Hip Hop to frame the conversation. Kendrick
Speaker 1: Lamar and Siss set a new standard on the Grand
Speaker 1: National Tour. More importantly, the tour embodies PG Lang's forward
Speaker 1: thinking ethos at the intersection of art and media. Triumphant
Speaker 1: Hardy hardly describes the past twelve months of Kendrick Lamar's
Speaker 1: career like that marked the beginning of a new era
Speaker 1: of his career, where he'd officially depart from Top Dog
Speaker 1: Entertainment and embark on a new journey as a co
Speaker 1: founder of PG Lang, a multidisciplinary creative communications company that
Speaker 1: has extended its reach to the Super Bowl, Cash app,
Speaker 1: Calvin Klein, and Converse, among others. Since Good Kid, Mad City,
Speaker 1: Kendricks bought a cinematic appeal to his work that's gone
Speaker 1: from tragic love stories, introspective reflections on inner conflict, therapy
Speaker 1: sessions and origin stories that have been worthy of Oscars
Speaker 1: had they been turned in the Hollywood movies as much
Speaker 1: of the numerous Grammys he's collected over his career. And
Speaker 1: yet this new chapter of his career, in the wake
Speaker 1: of Not Like Us as Success, has shaped what will
Speaker 1: undoubtedly be remembered as an iconic run, one that seems
Speaker 1: much more influenced by the evolving world of communication than
Speaker 1: it is about simply wrapping. And for those that don't know,
Speaker 1: he has broken some records during the North American leg
Speaker 1: of his GNX tour and is now the highest grossing
Speaker 1: hip hop concert. The Opening nine in Minneapolis grossed over
Speaker 1: nine point one million dollars.
Speaker 2: More than forty.
Speaker 1: Seven thousand fans attended, making Lamar the first rapper to
Speaker 1: exceed nine million dollars in a single show. He continued
Speaker 1: to top this record with the Seattle show grossing a
Speaker 1: staggering in fourteen point eight million from six nine and
Speaker 1: forty one tickets sold, and this is now the highest
Speaker 1: grossing concert by a black man. The Dallas show at
Speaker 1: the AT and T Stadium grossed eleven point eight to
Speaker 1: two million dollars, sur passing the previous record held by
Speaker 1: the Weekend So shout out to Kendrick Lamar. All right,
Speaker 1: Asian soap, I did my best to give you. I
Speaker 1: apologize an awkward introduction, but I do know your work.
Speaker 1: I'm super familiar with your work, and I know that
Speaker 1: a lot of people who listen to our show, a
Speaker 1: lot of people who are interested in trying to make
Speaker 1: the world a better place, have seen you senior viral
Speaker 1: moments from time to time. Do us a little bit
Speaker 1: of a favor, though, for folks that may not be familiar,
Speaker 1: Talk a little bit about your background and your activism,
Speaker 1: maybe even what led you to your activism, just so
Speaker 1: that we have a bit of a rapport with our listeners.
Speaker 4: Yeah, of course. So, like you said, I'm an influencer
Speaker 4: and activist. I organize around a lot of the bipoc
Speaker 4: and mixed race issues in the community, and I've been
Speaker 4: speaking out, learning, unlearning, relearning real history for well over
Speaker 4: a decade at this point, and there's still so much
Speaker 4: to uncover. I consider myself perpetual student. But my roots
Speaker 4: and activism actually started with old school hip hop.
Speaker 3: I mean back in middle school.
Speaker 4: I found myself really like resonating with the music, not
Speaker 4: just like the sound, but like the stories and the
Speaker 4: truth and like where the rawness was coming from. And
Speaker 4: it helped me make sense of what I was seeing
Speaker 4: in the world around me because my father is an
Speaker 4: Asian immigrant and my mother is white from the Midwest,
Speaker 4: and we had a lot of racism in our own
Speaker 4: family dynamics, unfortunately, but I saw such a stark difference
Speaker 4: in how they were treated. But as children, you don't
Speaker 4: have words for stuff like that, you know. And on
Speaker 4: top of that, I grew up in a really multicultural community.
Speaker 4: I mean, I was surrounded by other kids whose parents immigrated.
Speaker 4: There was lots of Cambodians and Cape Verdians, Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, Haitians, Jamaicans,
Speaker 4: like everybody, and we were all living through things that
Speaker 4: we didn't have the language for. But for a lot
Speaker 4: of us, the music actually gave us a mum and
Speaker 4: a lot of vocabulary and a lot of like I guess,
Speaker 4: affinity with one another. And you know, obviously we were
Speaker 4: living through, you know, like so many other people of color,
Speaker 4: like racism or racire identity struggles and you don't always
Speaker 4: have the words for that. And that's like kind of
Speaker 4: what got me into the journey, and it helped me
Speaker 4: really understand that everything that we're experiencing was systemic and
Speaker 4: not by accident and very much related to history. And
Speaker 4: so that's like how I root in everything that I do.
Speaker 4: And that's why I appreciate this platform that y'all have built,
Speaker 4: Like it's the same you know, rooted energy and true
Speaker 4: to the conversation that we all need.
Speaker 3: To be having.
Speaker 5: You know, it means the world that you were able
Speaker 5: to make time, you know, to come on the show.
Speaker 5: It's a moment in history that I think will not
Speaker 5: soon be forgotten. But you know, those of us that
Speaker 5: are in the activist space, it'd be easy to either
Speaker 5: have something else that you feel like you need to
Speaker 5: be doing or feel so overwhelmed that you couldn't press
Speaker 5: pause to stop and sit with us. So we appreciate it.
Speaker 5: You focus a lot on what it means to be
Speaker 5: a mixed race bipoc individual in the United States. What
Speaker 5: are some things that people should know about that experience
Speaker 5: and why it's unique.
Speaker 4: Honestly, when it comes to that experience, there is so
Speaker 4: many generalizations and misconceptions and stereotypes that kind of circulate around,
Speaker 4: like you know what that experience is like in the
Speaker 4: first place, And I think just the biggest thing is,
Speaker 4: you know, we all need a community space. And the
Speaker 4: only way anything has ever changed, or the way narratives
Speaker 4: have ever shifted or anything big in that way has
Speaker 4: happened is through solidarity. And it usually comes through understanding
Speaker 4: and people hearing more about our stories and hearing more
Speaker 4: about what our experiences are. Because there's so many, so
Speaker 4: many misconceptions about being mixed race that all go back
Speaker 4: to systemic issues, and I think having that connection back
Speaker 4: to history and also speaking out about it and also
Speaker 4: creating the space for other mixed folks has just been
Speaker 4: such an important part of this work, and I think
Speaker 4: that that's really important to again have my foundation.
Speaker 1: In now Now speaking of this, you know, and your
Speaker 1: most recent viral video, you're talking about.
Speaker 2: How race is.
Speaker 1: Classified in the United States, and a lot of people
Speaker 1: were kind of shocked that this was the thing.
Speaker 2: You know, people.
Speaker 1: Obviously nowadays have become very accustomed to the idea of race,
Speaker 1: and you know, most people have found a way to
Speaker 1: fit neatly into one box or another. Some people who
Speaker 1: are mixed race particularly have found a way to navigate
Speaker 1: those waters, and many people still are very confused by
Speaker 1: the concept of race entirely. However, the government just made
Speaker 1: some sweeping changes. So talk to us about these changes,
Speaker 1: talk to us about the people who are affected, the implications,
Speaker 1: et cetera, because this is kind of the main thing
Speaker 1: that we wanted to talk about, and this is something
Speaker 1: that people need to know about.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so forty seven million people just had the race
Speaker 4: reclassified by the US government, even though one in seven
Speaker 4: people are mixed race.
Speaker 3: It didn't only impact mixed race people.
Speaker 4: It also impacted eighty percent of Latino people who filled
Speaker 4: out the census and every single race category got affected
Speaker 4: by this. So they for the last couple censuses, they
Speaker 4: use something called the mark method, which is the modified
Speaker 4: Age and Race Census, and in this particular one, the
Speaker 4: data was so they use it as like a way
Speaker 4: to like standardize the data because you can fill out
Speaker 4: the some other race box and put whatever you want
Speaker 4: in there essentially, so you can self identify. You can
Speaker 4: also choose like, for example, me like if I wanted
Speaker 4: to choose some other race box, but then also choose
Speaker 4: the Asian box, you can do that, so you.
Speaker 3: Can select multiple boxes. So this is just another box
Speaker 3: on the list.
Speaker 4: And so basically what happened is they standardize the data,
Speaker 4: but they reclassified a bunch of people as white. To
Speaker 4: say that seventy five percent of the US population is white,
Speaker 4: which is not true.
Speaker 3: We just know that.
Speaker 4: And for it to now say that these forty seven
Speaker 4: million people were reclassified and forty million are now white
Speaker 4: is really questionable. And the census essentially walked back this
Speaker 4: encouragement they had for folks to self identify, and they
Speaker 4: even increased the character count for the some other race box.
Speaker 4: And then with this they just reclassified everyone into these
Speaker 4: outdated races, categories, and the implications are crazy because data
Speaker 4: itself is black and white, but its uses are super subjective,
Speaker 4: and depending on how it's used, they can be deeply
Speaker 4: political and have really harmful impacts. So when we're seeing
Speaker 4: DEI efforts and inclusivity efforts being rolled back, this kind
Speaker 4: of reclassification can not only erase entire communities and justify
Speaker 4: really harmful policy decision making. But data from the census
Speaker 4: itself affects everything. It's funding political representation, healthcare, access, voting, districting, etc.
Speaker 4: Like so much more so when the numbers are manipulated
Speaker 4: like this so dramatically, it's not just a data issue,
Speaker 4: it's potentially a human rights issue.
Speaker 5: Human rights at this time to say is under attack
Speaker 5: is not really saying enough. And lots of people would
Speaker 5: like to argue that white privilege right as we talk
Speaker 5: about this statistic with you know, people being reclassified as white,
Speaker 5: that white privilege isn't real, and Rams and I have
Speaker 5: seen that from you know, people who are white who
Speaker 5: think that white privilege means I win every time, I'm
Speaker 5: always successful, I'm rich, My life is comfortable, no hurdles,
Speaker 5: no pain points, no struggle, when what it really means
Speaker 5: is that the society that you grew up in was
Speaker 5: not completely structured to work against you. What are some
Speaker 5: ways that you push against that sentiment, because I know
Speaker 5: that's something that all of us hear from time to time.
Speaker 3: Honest, it's so sickening how often we hear it.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean, I want to say that this, with
Speaker 4: this reclassification is not common with any privilege, because people
Speaker 4: get the privilege based off of how they're perceived and
Speaker 4: having Like I don't know if you could tell on
Speaker 4: this video, but I'm not perceived as white immediately when
Speaker 4: people meet me, so like, even though I am technically white,
Speaker 4: there's a difference in the treatment. Right. However, you know,
Speaker 4: there's a lot of Latino people who got reclassified.
Speaker 3: And they may or may not look.
Speaker 4: White presenting because there are people who are white presenting
Speaker 4: or white passing as some people say, or whatever. So
Speaker 4: I did see some people in the comments talking about, well,
Speaker 4: isn't this a good thing? Does this mean we'll get
Speaker 4: more resources and we'll get more stuff, and it's it's
Speaker 4: not true. You know, they're not doing this at all
Speaker 4: to give us any more benefits. But what I say
Speaker 4: is I'm just very very vocal about the fact that
Speaker 4: a lot of people misunderstand and co opt so many terms,
Speaker 4: like we see that with woke, we see that with
Speaker 4: you know, like the gay agenda, and like a whole
Speaker 4: bunch of different stuff, and white privilege is just another
Speaker 4: one of those words. And like you said, it doesn't
Speaker 4: mean that you don't struggle, It just means you're struggle.
Speaker 3: You don't struggle because of your race, and it means
Speaker 3: you're not navigating.
Speaker 4: It means that you're navigating the world with way fewer
Speaker 4: racial obstacles and a lot more unspoken considered and a
Speaker 4: lot more easier access to opportunities. And you know, the
Speaker 4: weaponizing and the co opting of these words are so harmful,
Speaker 4: But at the core, it's about the systemic advantages that
Speaker 4: white people hold simply because of how systems in this
Speaker 4: country have been built, and the fact that people make
Speaker 4: it about themselves. It's so hard because the only thing
Speaker 4: that I see that you can really do to push
Speaker 4: back is by having the conversations with people, but then
Speaker 4: also just blatantly being like you're now making this whole
Speaker 4: topic about you, and the fact that you need to
Speaker 4: censor yourself in this is white privilege, Like it's literally
Speaker 4: an action right now, you are doing it right now.
Speaker 1: So I think that we would have Q and I
Speaker 1: would have a pretty good guess as to why the
Speaker 1: Census would reclassify all this data or what forces might
Speaker 1: be behind it. But do you have any like real
Speaker 1: insight into why this is happening to what end and
Speaker 1: who is responsible for it?
Speaker 4: Well, so the Census, So I want to say, the
Speaker 4: Census itself has their own explanation of this, and obviously
Speaker 4: they serve.
Speaker 3: Their own narrative around this. So it's the posession of
Speaker 3: the data.
Speaker 4: Exactly, and they outlined the process and the data is
Speaker 4: all available on the website. However, we got reached out
Speaker 4: to by Ethnefax, which is another you know organization that
Speaker 4: works with like Nielsen and stuff like that, and they
Speaker 4: raised the flag because the data was so drastically changed
Speaker 4: and so this one is so different from the last
Speaker 4: two times it was used because of how drastically it
Speaker 4: was changed, and that's the problem. And then there's also
Speaker 4: been a myriad of other things that they've done where
Speaker 4: they changed the methodology and so people that can skew
Speaker 4: perceptions of things that can create like jumps and changes
Speaker 4: in data that people could use as like drastic ways
Speaker 4: saying that like more migrants are coming to this country.
Speaker 4: Or it's just because people don't understand how like dense
Speaker 4: this is and how what the methodologies are and how
Speaker 4: this is used. It can be really confusing. But why
Speaker 4: am I confused? I feel like I'm not answering the question.
Speaker 4: Did I forget the question?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: No, no, I'm just wondering where this comes from, Who's
Speaker 1: trying to do this and to what end? So I
Speaker 1: think so I think, yeah.
Speaker 3: Okay, I'm so sorry, my age. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 4: People will say that it's not the census. It's just
Speaker 4: you don't really know. I don't have like an insider
Speaker 4: from the Census like telling me, like you know, whistleblowing anything.
Speaker 4: All I have is the data that the problem is.
Speaker 4: Data is black and white, but it's objectively like so
Speaker 4: subjective in its use case. Okay, And there's already been
Speaker 4: a number of articles that came out that's said that
Speaker 4: miss represented this data entirely, and so it could be
Speaker 4: that they're doing something like this to basically, you know,
Speaker 4: set things up for the current administration to make really
Speaker 4: harmful decisions.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 4: It could be that I don't have any insight into
Speaker 4: whether it is for sure, and I don't know allowed
Speaker 4: to say that, but it could very well be in
Speaker 4: that direction, Okay.
Speaker 1: If I may. And you tell me if this sounds
Speaker 1: like conspiracy theory, you tell me. You know, Q and
Speaker 1: I I think you would agree with me. We're both
Speaker 1: a little you have to have a degree of like
Speaker 1: conspiracy theory ishness about you because you're looking for stuff
Speaker 1: and patterns that you know you know are there and
Speaker 1: you're trying to make sense of it.
Speaker 3: But I agree with you.
Speaker 2: Okay, very good.
Speaker 1: So one of the things that we know to be
Speaker 1: true is that the far right feels like they are
Speaker 1: being replaced. There is this idea of the great replacement theory.
Speaker 1: It's a theory that came out of France and kind
Speaker 1: of took root in friend circles in political arenas around
Speaker 1: the world, particularly in the far right in this country.
Speaker 1: And these people feel like Jewish people are replacing them,
Speaker 1: Melanated people are replacing them, immigrants are replacing them, and
Speaker 1: as a result of that, they will lose the numbers,
Speaker 1: they will lose the political influence, so forth, and so on. Now,
Speaker 1: the current administration is chock full of people who have
Speaker 1: echoed these sentiments to one de career or another, including
Speaker 1: the President, and how the data is interpreted could.
Speaker 2: Breathe life into people who feel like they are being placed.
Speaker 1: Right, So let's just call all these this certain group
Speaker 1: of people white so that we get the numbers back
Speaker 1: on our side and that pacifies the fringe folks who
Speaker 1: are super worried the Jewish people are conspiring to replace them.
Speaker 1: Now again, I know that that sounds like I'm being
Speaker 1: the conspiracy theorist, but beyond that, it's hard to kind
Speaker 1: of figure out what's going on here, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, And you know, you you kind of work
Speaker 1: in these circles a little bit more closely.
Speaker 2: How does that hit you?
Speaker 4: The replacement theory is such crazy projection, and honestly, it
Speaker 4: seems very real to me. I mean, there's a lot
Speaker 4: of Freudian slips kind of alluding to that's the thought
Speaker 4: process around a lot of people.
Speaker 3: I mean, a lot of people.
Speaker 4: Think that that's a lot of the motivation around the
Speaker 4: abortion ban that's been you know, taking hold and stuff
Speaker 4: like that. So I don't think it's conspiracy theory, but
Speaker 4: in the circles that I'm in, we hear and see
Speaker 4: stuff that are so aligned with that. Yeah, it is
Speaker 4: quite possible. And the thing is that kind of like
Speaker 4: puts me off about some people. I'm sorry, Am I
Speaker 4: allowed to swear? I'm so sorry? But the thing that
Speaker 4: kind of gets me hot sometimes is that people won't
Speaker 4: believe something until somebody confirms that this is in fact
Speaker 4: what we're doing, and they will never do that. Everything
Speaker 4: has kind of always been like that, you know what
Speaker 4: I mean. And that's why when people say things like
Speaker 4: there's no racist legislation or laws that exist to this day,
Speaker 4: I'm like, well, there is, but so much is done
Speaker 4: neutrally on paper and the census, this whole thing with
Speaker 4: the census is the same thing. It looks neutral on paper,
Speaker 4: but how things are weaponized in real life is where
Speaker 4: the consequences are exact.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I had someone argue with me recently about some non capitalist,
Speaker 5: non expecitative decisions that Ramsson I made at a kind
Speaker 5: of a volatile moment in our career. And the problem
Speaker 5: with trying to argue with us is that we do
Speaker 5: a journalistically credible, data driven show every day on these
Speaker 5: very topics so it's your feelings versus our data in facts.
Speaker 5: So it makes the argument very short because a couple
Speaker 5: of rebuttals back and forth and you realize your loud
Speaker 5: war off and my data is still accurate. And the
Speaker 5: person said to me, it's not about facts, data and information,
Speaker 5: it's about rhetoric and narrative. And I said, oh, okay,
Speaker 5: I didn't know that was the game that we were playing.
Speaker 5: I would have never played. I don't have the tools
Speaker 5: for that game. But it takes me back to the
Speaker 5: points that you guys are making. Let's just reassure our
Speaker 5: people that we're not being replaced, right, Let's find a
Speaker 5: way to make this data say something different, because the
Speaker 5: rhetoric and the narrative are what's most important. And the
Speaker 5: really interesting thing is those who are manipulating the data. Sorry, guys,
Speaker 5: I don't think they actually believe that. I just think
Speaker 5: they know they can rale their base up with that fear.
Speaker 5: I don't think they're scared of being replaced or think
Speaker 5: that it's actually happening. But they know there's tens of
Speaker 5: millions of people that if they say that out loud
Speaker 5: to them, they can make them feel a way. So
Speaker 5: here's a way to reassure them that we're not being
Speaker 5: replaced and we really are still the majority here and
Speaker 5: make them feel great about themselves because I don't like
Speaker 5: to say we're prone to conspiracy theory, because people dismiss
Speaker 5: that term as just blatantly wrong information. But we are
Speaker 5: definitely ones who will ask questions and who will not
Speaker 5: just believe what we're told because someone said it confidently
Speaker 5: on a well pud YouTube video. So you know, that's
Speaker 5: kind of my take on that topic. N This that's
Speaker 5: all I got.
Speaker 1: Well, while we're here, let's switch here is a bit
Speaker 1: because you know, you mentioned capitalism, and that's another area
Speaker 1: that you've dived into. So one of the things that
Speaker 1: we haven't done on this show. One of the areas,
Speaker 1: the subjects we haven't broached. One of the movements, the
Speaker 1: rallying cries that we haven't shared on any of our
Speaker 1: platforms is this notion of eating the rich. Right, But
Speaker 1: it's something that we're familiar with, something that we've heard,
Speaker 1: So for people who might not be familiar with it
Speaker 1: but might be listeners of.
Speaker 2: The show, talk about what that means and.
Speaker 1: What the benefit or I guess cost benefit analysis of
Speaker 1: that sentiment would produce in the real world in terms
Speaker 1: of real, average, every day American.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, eat the Rich is a metaphorical slogan. It's
Speaker 4: rooted in history dating back from like the French Revolution
Speaker 4: and has had like a various amount of resurgences, and
Speaker 4: you know, it usually comes back in a time where
Speaker 4: there's a lot of large concentrations of wealth and a
Speaker 4: huge inequity for most people. And it's not it's a
Speaker 4: rallying cry against the extreme wealth hoarding and systemic inequity.
Speaker 4: And it reflects this like growing sentiment that many people
Speaker 4: feel around billionaires that thrive while others are out here
Speaker 4: they can't afford housing, they can't afford healthcare, clean water, food,
Speaker 4: Like we have all of these disparities, and you know,
Speaker 4: we just see people like Jeff Bezos. I don't know
Speaker 4: if you've heard about the protests in Venice that was successful. Yeah,
Speaker 4: why are you renting out Venice for your freaking wedding
Speaker 4: when you haven't paid any taxes?
Speaker 3: That's crazy work.
Speaker 4: And you know, it's a provocative phrase, but the messaging
Speaker 4: is so clear and like we're just long overdue for redistribution,
Speaker 4: accountability and a reckoning with the system that prioritizes profit
Speaker 4: over people. And you know, billionaires do not happen like
Speaker 4: in a single lifetime. Most of them are from generational wealth.
Speaker 4: And when you think back to like the robber barons
Speaker 4: and stuff like that, they were doing all of these
Speaker 4: things outside of the law, you know, doing all of
Speaker 4: these crazy exploitative measures and exploiting people and wages and
Speaker 4: labor and environments and all of these different things. And
Speaker 4: so a lot of the problems we have can go
Speaker 4: back to billionaires. So again, no accountability for most of
Speaker 4: them for really really terrible treatment of people.
Speaker 1: And yeah, well, no, I appreciate that explanation because and
Speaker 1: I want to add another element here is that billionaires
Speaker 1: indeed have the capacity to influence the masses. Because there's
Speaker 1: there are people who push back on this or is
Speaker 1: your problem with billionaires? Or is your problem with the
Speaker 1: right wing? Or is your problem with the left wing?
Speaker 1: Or you know, what's your problem? You know, you can't
Speaker 1: all these things can't be wrong. And it's like, no, well,
Speaker 1: if billionaires are able to control media outlets, you know,
Speaker 1: the Washington Post, Fox News with Rupert Murdock, et cetera,
Speaker 1: then they can influence huge swaths of the population too,
Speaker 1: with propaganda with selected stories and a cultivated narrative to
Speaker 1: really bring people around to their way of thinking, usually
Speaker 1: by dangling a carrot at the end of the stick,
Speaker 1: suggesting that somehow, some way those people might end up
Speaker 1: billionaires too.
Speaker 2: So stick