WEBVTT - American Freakshow! Inside America’s Racist Corporate And Educational Institutions 0:00:05.840 --> 0:00:10.360 I'm Erica Alexander, and I'm Whitney down. Welcome to Reparations, 0:00:10.360 --> 0:00:13.640 the big payback production of Color Farm Media, I Heart 0:00:13.760 --> 0:00:23.160 Radio and the Black Effect Podcast Network. Step right up, pery, hurry, 0:00:23.280 --> 0:00:27.480 step right up. The show's about to begin. Wait, I'm 0:00:27.520 --> 0:00:30.880 not ready, hard it's a trick question. No one is 0:00:30.920 --> 0:00:34.159 ready for a discussion about institutional racism, at least no 0:00:34.240 --> 0:00:39.240 one who's benefited from it institutional racism. Okay, Okay, I'm 0:00:39.240 --> 0:00:43.320 getting ready. I'm your friendly host and guide, Mr Tam Bowles. 0:00:44.120 --> 0:00:46.760 I'm here to spill all the freaky t and coming 0:00:46.800 --> 0:00:49.320 to the stage. Put your hands together for the ever 0:00:49.560 --> 0:00:53.360 lovely Mr. And to lock it all. Who is that? 0:00:53.440 --> 0:00:56.120 Who I am? I mean, I don't know what to say. 0:00:56.320 --> 0:00:59.120 Don't worry. I'll be doing most of the label up 0:00:59.160 --> 0:01:04.440 in this piece as usual, as we present the Freak Show. 0:01:07.400 --> 0:01:10.840 See Corporate American prophets and the stagger and wealth of 0:01:10.880 --> 0:01:16.039 America as a whole as the legacy of slavery. Yes, 0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:20.800 it's the freak Show. See powerful educational institutions founded on 0:01:21.000 --> 0:01:27.920 slave money. It's freaking slave money. Got it? Keep up? Son? 0:01:28.440 --> 0:01:32.360 See eerie echoes of slavery and modern day labor practices. 0:01:32.560 --> 0:01:36.440 I'm talking about tipping. It's freaky, deeky Are you even 0:01:36.600 --> 0:01:39.920 following me? So you're talking about a critical view of 0:01:40.000 --> 0:01:45.119 some key American institutions through the lens of contemporary racialized perspective, 0:01:45.640 --> 0:01:48.640 tracing through lines of slavery and the perverse and ongoing 0:01:48.760 --> 0:01:52.280 control of black bodies all the way up to and 0:01:52.360 --> 0:01:58.880 including the power structures of the present day. Wow, you 0:01:59.120 --> 0:02:04.240 changed on me, baby, Just trying to keep the customer satisfied. 0:02:04.360 --> 0:02:09.960 Mr dam Bo, that's the spirit. Step right up, folks. 0:02:10.320 --> 0:02:14.360 What's our first exhibit? Our first exhibit is truly truly freaky. 0:02:14.600 --> 0:02:19.320 It concerns one of America's oldest educational institutions, located on 0:02:19.360 --> 0:02:22.440 the Potomac River in the beating heart of our fine 0:02:22.639 --> 0:02:26.440 nation's capital. Bill Clinton went to school there and actor 0:02:26.520 --> 0:02:30.679 Brodd Bradley Cooper did too. They're the lawyers. They've got 0:02:30.720 --> 0:02:40.200 lots of lawyers. I'm talking about Georgetown University. Georgetown. I 0:02:40.320 --> 0:02:43.760 had them in the final four, Yes, sir, Mr Interlockerta. 0:02:44.040 --> 0:02:47.560 They're famous and they're famously will endowed, if you know 0:02:47.600 --> 0:02:50.520 what I mean. Wait what but it wasn't always that 0:02:50.600 --> 0:02:53.840 way in there In lies to tell. For our first exhibit, 0:02:53.840 --> 0:02:56.919 we spoke to Georgetown professor Adam Rothman of the school's 0:02:56.960 --> 0:03:03.040 Working Group on Slavery, Memory and Reconciliation. There's a couple 0:03:03.040 --> 0:03:07.000 of ways of thinking about Georgetown's relationship to slavery, one 0:03:07.040 --> 0:03:09.080 over the long term, and then one having to do 0:03:09.120 --> 0:03:13.080 with an immediate moment in time. In the long term, 0:03:13.320 --> 0:03:17.560 Georgetown was founded by Catholic elite that derived its wealth 0:03:17.600 --> 0:03:22.360 and status from slavery. The original model for the university 0:03:22.520 --> 0:03:25.920 was that the education of white boys and men would 0:03:25.919 --> 0:03:30.160 actually be subsidized by slave labor on plantations in Maryland 0:03:30.160 --> 0:03:33.160 that had been owned by the Society of Jesus. The Jesuits, 0:03:33.840 --> 0:03:36.160 and Georgia itself was also a site of slave labor. 0:03:36.240 --> 0:03:40.120 Enslave people worked on campus. Students actually brought slaves to 0:03:40.240 --> 0:03:43.320 campus and hired them out to the university to pay 0:03:43.360 --> 0:03:48.200 off their fees. University hired enslaved people from local owners 0:03:48.240 --> 0:03:50.960 to do odd jobs around the university. So in a 0:03:50.960 --> 0:03:55.640 lot of ways, the university was really intricately tied to slavery. 0:03:55.880 --> 0:03:59.720 But the real existential moment of connection comes in the 0:03:59.720 --> 0:04:02.800 eighteen thirties. It turns out that the plantations that were 0:04:02.880 --> 0:04:05.960 run by the Jesuits were actually not profitable, and so 0:04:06.000 --> 0:04:08.160 for twenty years the Jesuits they had a debate really 0:04:08.200 --> 0:04:11.040 about what to do about their human property. They owned 0:04:11.240 --> 0:04:14.520 nearly three hundred people. The Jesuit leadership came to the 0:04:14.560 --> 0:04:18.640 conclusion that they should sell off virtually the entire community 0:04:18.640 --> 0:04:21.279 of people that they owned. So they did that in 0:04:21.360 --> 0:04:25.280 eighteen thirty eight. They sold two two people to two 0:04:25.360 --> 0:04:28.320 buyers in Louisiana for a hundred and fifteen thousand dollars, 0:04:28.640 --> 0:04:31.280 and they took the initial down payment from that sale 0:04:31.320 --> 0:04:34.479 of about two dollars, and they used it to pay 0:04:34.480 --> 0:04:38.760 off the crushing debt that the college had accrued without 0:04:38.839 --> 0:04:42.239 that sale, without the proceeds from the sale of those people, 0:04:42.880 --> 0:04:46.320 you know, it's not clear that the university would have survived. 0:04:46.800 --> 0:04:49.480 And that's why I say that Georgetown owes its very 0:04:49.520 --> 0:04:53.920 existence to slavery. There are thousands of living descendants of 0:04:53.960 --> 0:04:56.400 the g U two City two has also completely changed 0:04:56.440 --> 0:04:59.400 the conversation about the meaning of this history because now 0:04:59.520 --> 0:05:02.520 we have a rual. We have people living today whose 0:05:02.600 --> 0:05:07.400 own families were touched by this trauma of sale and 0:05:07.520 --> 0:05:11.440 forced transportation to the Deep South, and their lives were 0:05:11.480 --> 0:05:14.200 shaped by this experience in ways they didn't even know 0:05:14.800 --> 0:05:17.960 before the revelations of this history came out. I mean, 0:05:18.000 --> 0:05:20.800 the descendant community itself had lots of ideas about how 0:05:20.880 --> 0:05:25.640 the university should reconcile with its history, and all of 0:05:25.680 --> 0:05:29.039 a sudden, the conversation was not just an internal conversation 0:05:29.080 --> 0:05:31.440 of the university. There was an outside partner who had 0:05:31.480 --> 0:05:34.760 been wronged who wanted to voice into conversation. So those 0:05:34.800 --> 0:05:37.320 conversations have been going on for some time. There have 0:05:37.520 --> 0:05:39.440 been some things that have gone on, like in April 0:05:39.440 --> 0:05:41.440 of two thousand and seventeen, there was a big service 0:05:41.520 --> 0:05:44.680 at Georgetown where both the president of Georgetown and the 0:05:44.800 --> 0:05:48.360 head of the North American Jesuits apologized in the presence 0:05:48.400 --> 0:05:51.160 of members of the descended community for their roles in 0:05:51.240 --> 0:05:54.520 the history of slavery and in the trauma of the sale, 0:05:54.600 --> 0:05:57.479 the sin of the sale. That was the language they used. 0:05:58.320 --> 0:06:00.880 But since then, I think it's been slow owing. There 0:06:00.920 --> 0:06:05.080 have been conversations between the university and Jesuit leadership and 0:06:05.400 --> 0:06:07.880 leadership of the descentate community about how to move forward. 0:06:08.960 --> 0:06:11.760 It's hard to wait for those conversations to play out. 0:06:11.920 --> 0:06:17.560 So last spring undergraduate students of Georgetown organized a student 0:06:17.640 --> 0:06:22.000 referendum to enact a student fee, an activity fee of 0:06:22.000 --> 0:06:24.520 twenty seven and twenty cents a semester that would pay 0:06:24.680 --> 0:06:28.360 for a reconciliation fund to support programs it would benefit 0:06:28.480 --> 0:06:31.320 the G two two descent community. Was an amazing thing 0:06:31.360 --> 0:06:34.400 to watch on campus. In the end, the students voted 0:06:34.600 --> 0:06:38.080 overwhelmingly to support the student activity fee. It was the 0:06:38.160 --> 0:06:41.720 highest turnout for a student referendum in Georgetown's history, so 0:06:41.880 --> 0:06:47.640 it was an overwhelming victory for the advocates for what 0:06:47.880 --> 0:06:53.080 was effectively a novel scheme of reparations. The G two 0:06:53.120 --> 0:06:56.320 two was sold for thousand dollars in eighteen thirty eight, 0:06:56.480 --> 0:06:59.480 which is the equivalent of about three million dollars in 0:06:59.600 --> 0:07:04.120 today is money. The student proposal would have raised about 0:07:04.680 --> 0:07:09.840 four thousand dollars a semester, so in five years that 0:07:10.040 --> 0:07:14.480 fee would raise basically the equivalent of the amount of 0:07:14.600 --> 0:07:17.760 the sale. But when we started talking numbers like that, 0:07:18.240 --> 0:07:21.120 that's where it gets tricky, both in terms of how 0:07:21.200 --> 0:07:25.480 you actually calculate the present value of what enslaved people 0:07:25.560 --> 0:07:30.600 contributed to Georgetown University, and beyond that, the question about 0:07:30.600 --> 0:07:32.840 whether you can actually put a price, whether you can 0:07:32.840 --> 0:07:36.520 actually put any kind of number on the value of 0:07:36.680 --> 0:07:40.720 what is owed to the descendants of enslaved people. I 0:07:40.800 --> 0:07:43.560 know members of the descendant community themselves who actually object 0:07:43.840 --> 0:07:47.920 to monetary reparations because they object the idea of putting 0:07:47.920 --> 0:07:52.280 a price on the value of their ancestors life and labor. 0:07:53.480 --> 0:07:56.120 I can't design the program of reparations myself as a 0:07:56.160 --> 0:07:58.840 white historian, but I can say, and this is I 0:07:58.840 --> 0:08:00.480 think what's happened in Georgia, and I and say, look, 0:08:00.720 --> 0:08:04.320 here's the documentation of what actually happened. Think about this, 0:08:04.960 --> 0:08:08.520 reflect on it, and it might move you. So there 0:08:08.560 --> 0:08:12.680 are a lot of harms to slavery. The robbery of 0:08:12.800 --> 0:08:15.160 the fruits of people's labor was one of them, But 0:08:15.280 --> 0:08:18.680 another one was just the denial of history and the 0:08:18.760 --> 0:08:23.080 separation of families. We saw that in the sale. But 0:08:23.280 --> 0:08:24.920 one of the things that I think has happened with 0:08:25.080 --> 0:08:28.000 the recovery of this history is that people have learned 0:08:28.040 --> 0:08:32.880 more about their own families and that psychic trauma of 0:08:32.960 --> 0:08:36.640 the suppression of history that came with slavery, that at 0:08:36.720 --> 0:08:39.599 least has been pride apart a little bit, and that 0:08:39.720 --> 0:08:42.320 I think is by no means a full reparation by 0:08:42.360 --> 0:08:46.000 any start of the imagination. But it's a step towards understanding, 0:08:46.120 --> 0:08:51.640 and I think that's important. Adam Rothman, Georgetown professor and 0:08:51.800 --> 0:08:58.959 Twitter ninja, what's our next exhibit? Would that be? Exhibit be? Actually, 0:08:59.040 --> 0:09:03.720 that would be Exhibit D D for Desmond Meade. He's 0:09:03.720 --> 0:09:06.880 a voting rights activists who led the successful fight to 0:09:06.960 --> 0:09:10.959 pass Florida Amendment for a two thousand eighteen initiative that 0:09:11.080 --> 0:09:14.520 restored voting rights to over one point four million Floridians 0:09:14.800 --> 0:09:18.880 with previous felony convictions. He's one of Time magazines one 0:09:18.960 --> 0:09:23.439 hundred most influential people in two thousand nineteen. That's pretty 0:09:23.520 --> 0:09:27.600 freaky right there. What's truly freaky, though, is how hard 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:31.200 the Republicans, including the Santists the governor, are pushing back. 0:09:31.760 --> 0:09:34.600 It's because they recognize the policing and control of black 0:09:34.679 --> 0:09:37.559 bodies into prison and out of prison. The denial of 0:09:37.640 --> 0:09:42.320 full citizenship after prison is a building block of white supremacy, 0:09:42.840 --> 0:09:45.880 and white supremacy will not give up without a fight. 0:09:46.320 --> 0:09:51.480 White supremacy is the freak show. Freaking deacon told you 0:09:52.160 --> 0:09:54.880 when I was convicted of a felony offense I lost 0:09:55.280 --> 0:09:58.319 my civil rights, which meant I lost the right to vote, 0:09:58.679 --> 0:10:00.679 the right to serve on the are, the right to 0:10:00.760 --> 0:10:04.160 run for office. And then there are other collateral consequences 0:10:04.520 --> 0:10:07.600 that are associated with the laws of civil rights. When 0:10:08.160 --> 0:10:10.959 we passed Amendment forward, amendment for debt with with the 0:10:11.120 --> 0:10:14.160 right to vote, and so when we passed the memor 0:10:14.200 --> 0:10:16.439 for I got to write the vote back right, but 0:10:16.880 --> 0:10:19.920 my civil rights was haven't been restored. And so what 0:10:20.080 --> 0:10:22.480 that meant was that even though I got the right 0:10:22.559 --> 0:10:26.000 to vote back, and even though I graduated from law 0:10:26.080 --> 0:10:28.439 school with a law degree right and I made the 0:10:28.520 --> 0:10:32.000 deans list my last year, I still can't practice law 0:10:32.360 --> 0:10:35.360 because I can't apply to the Florida Bar to take 0:10:35.400 --> 0:10:37.840 the bar exam until my civil rights have been restored. 0:10:38.320 --> 0:10:41.160 What that means is, even though I've had a very 0:10:41.240 --> 0:10:45.800 successful career, I can't even buy or rent a home 0:10:46.080 --> 0:10:48.840 in a lot of places in Florida because my civil 0:10:48.960 --> 0:10:51.719 rights has not been restored. And so the restoration of 0:10:51.800 --> 0:10:56.000 civil rights impact employment opportunities as well in the housing opportunities. 0:10:56.679 --> 0:11:01.520 And so what this policy changed their was allowed people 0:11:01.559 --> 0:11:05.400 to have their civil rights restored along with their voting rights. 0:11:05.440 --> 0:11:08.079 Even though it's all like a package deal now, and 0:11:08.280 --> 0:11:12.960 folks now have more opportunities to buy and rent homes, 0:11:13.240 --> 0:11:16.920 They have more opportunities to get occupational licenses, get a 0:11:17.040 --> 0:11:20.000 much better paying job, and be able to provide for 0:11:20.120 --> 0:11:22.520 their families. So let me tell you, and that is 0:11:22.640 --> 0:11:25.440 impacting every one at the one point for a million 0:11:25.800 --> 0:11:28.520 that benefited from the passing of Amendment four have an 0:11:28.559 --> 0:11:31.880 opportunity to have their civil rights restored. I am so 0:11:32.080 --> 0:11:35.480 grateful that God has chosen me to be a part 0:11:35.559 --> 0:11:39.320 of this process to make that happen, and I'm honored. 0:11:41.040 --> 0:11:42.719 You know, one of the stories that I like to 0:11:42.760 --> 0:11:46.599 tell is one day slave master awakens and here that 0:11:46.960 --> 0:11:49.160 wait a minute, those same people who you didn't think 0:11:50.040 --> 0:11:53.560 was even a whole of a man and families you've 0:11:53.679 --> 0:11:57.600 destroyed and murdered and eaten the flesh off their bone, though, 0:11:57.720 --> 0:12:01.199 famed people that you spent on them, now have just 0:12:01.320 --> 0:12:04.120 as much right as you do. And not only do 0:12:04.240 --> 0:12:06.520 they have the same rights as you do, they started 0:12:06.640 --> 0:12:10.160 exercising those rights. And the same people that you had 0:12:10.240 --> 0:12:13.320 your foot on their neck for more than eight minutes 0:12:13.400 --> 0:12:17.320 of forty six seconds are now becoming judges and sheriffs 0:12:17.400 --> 0:12:20.920 and congressmens and having authority over you, and that was 0:12:21.000 --> 0:12:25.880 a scary sight. And so mass incarceration was the fallback 0:12:25.920 --> 0:12:28.640 to where it Okay, well, why don't we create these 0:12:28.800 --> 0:12:32.760 laws that would criminalize things that newly freed slaves would do. 0:12:33.400 --> 0:12:36.240 In doing so, then we're able to grab them and 0:12:36.760 --> 0:12:39.600 arrest them and convict them. And while we convict them, 0:12:39.640 --> 0:12:42.480 we're gonna strip them away of this new right that 0:12:42.600 --> 0:12:45.680 they have to vote right then to serve on jury 0:12:45.800 --> 0:12:48.240 and and to run for office. And then we're gonna 0:12:48.320 --> 0:12:50.679 take them and we're gonna throw them back into the 0:12:50.800 --> 0:12:53.320 cage that reminds them of the ships that they were 0:12:53.400 --> 0:12:56.360 brought over from when we brought them over from Africa. 0:12:56.760 --> 0:12:58.640 And then when we get ready, we could take them 0:12:58.679 --> 0:13:02.960 out of those cages and take outsource them as prison labor, 0:13:03.120 --> 0:13:06.319 right back into the same fields in which they was 0:13:06.440 --> 0:13:09.720 liberated from. And then for those that were not able 0:13:09.800 --> 0:13:12.960 to capture like that, we're gonna use the same folks 0:13:13.040 --> 0:13:15.760 that are once called slave patrols that but they have 0:13:15.920 --> 0:13:20.520 evolved into what police right, We're gonna use those same 0:13:20.640 --> 0:13:25.840 folks to exact state sanctioned violence to intimidate and threaten 0:13:26.200 --> 0:13:28.360 and the rest who we can, and kill who we can, 0:13:28.920 --> 0:13:31.120 and hang who we can, and burn who we can. 0:13:31.720 --> 0:13:35.600 To drive home a point that you do not deserve 0:13:35.679 --> 0:13:37.760 to be treated with dignity and respect, that you are 0:13:37.920 --> 0:13:41.640 underneath us, and you will not participate in our elections. 0:13:41.920 --> 0:13:44.560 You would not have a say in how this country 0:13:44.679 --> 0:13:48.400 is ran because you're not equal. The driving force was 0:13:48.520 --> 0:13:52.400 the combining of slave patrols, which is police, with our 0:13:52.440 --> 0:13:57.120 incarceration and judicial system, and together you have a system 0:13:57.480 --> 0:14:01.280 that not only terrorized you on the streets, but it 0:14:01.600 --> 0:14:05.720 is designed to capture you and incarceraate you, and enslave 0:14:05.840 --> 0:14:09.000 you in prison. You know, even though the private prison 0:14:09.120 --> 0:14:13.800 industry is a small portion of its prison industrial complex system, 0:14:14.160 --> 0:14:19.160 what we do recognize is that there is an ecosystem 0:14:19.640 --> 0:14:23.720 that profits off of the bondage of people of color. 0:14:24.120 --> 0:14:26.840 You see it an immigration attention, and of course you 0:14:26.960 --> 0:14:29.880 see it in our criminal legal system. The wealth that's 0:14:29.920 --> 0:14:34.000 in this country is directly related to the profit that 0:14:34.160 --> 0:14:37.800 was made off of the backs of our ancestors that 0:14:38.000 --> 0:14:42.520 was stolen from Africa. So how do we get folks 0:14:43.080 --> 0:14:48.880 to understand that reparations is not robbing Peter to pay Paul. 0:14:49.680 --> 0:14:53.680 Reparations is writing in the justice that would end up 0:14:53.800 --> 0:15:02.440 benefiting all parties involved, say Mr Tambo, Yes, Mr Interlocker, 0:15:02.880 --> 0:15:07.040 I'm beginning to get the impression that reparations is about 0:15:07.160 --> 0:15:11.240 far more than just slavery. Go on that, in fact, 0:15:11.720 --> 0:15:15.960 reparations might have to cover a whole network of structures 0:15:16.000 --> 0:15:21.040 of inequality and repression embedded in the American experiment from 0:15:21.040 --> 0:15:25.359 the beginning to ensure the second class status of Black Americans. 0:15:25.840 --> 0:15:30.400 It's slavery, yes, but it's also the electoral college. It's 0:15:30.480 --> 0:15:34.960 red lining from Jim Crone beyond George Floyd and Brianna Taylor. 0:15:36.240 --> 0:15:39.080 It's like, I don't even know you anymore, but you're 0:15:39.120 --> 0:15:42.440 not wrong. Here's son, let me sing it to you. 0:15:51.440 --> 0:15:56.520 De Ray sism and the White side prim c deep 0:15:57.120 --> 0:16:04.480 in resting from me Dinapolis down to Memphis to the see. 0:16:04.840 --> 0:16:12.680 That's where my people here races institutions down on our 0:16:12.920 --> 0:16:19.920 backs or rais or you get vote if you don't 0:16:19.960 --> 0:16:27.320 pay the poll tax or spill my name bakes l 0:16:27.720 --> 0:16:32.040 to tem Us where we can't go no matter what 0:16:32.320 --> 0:16:39.800 we pay. All time sleep patrols become fo That's the 0:16:39.920 --> 0:16:52.680 American way. Do read Sisamander, whites up, primsy everybody. Everybody know. Oh, 0:16:54.080 --> 0:17:14.160 that's America's defining legacy. It's hard. Who ha step back 0:17:14.240 --> 0:17:26.560 beyond sne Oh, who's next. Our next exhibit is an 0:17:26.600 --> 0:17:30.600 interview with Congresswoman Sheila Jackson. Lee represented the fine people 0:17:30.680 --> 0:17:35.679 of the Texas eighteenth. Since you know her, you love her, 0:17:35.960 --> 0:17:37.760 and she's been on the front lines of the fight 0:17:37.880 --> 0:17:41.960 for reparations, she too has something to say about the 0:17:42.000 --> 0:17:46.440 pushback against recognizing slavery and discrimination and the damage done 0:17:46.480 --> 0:17:50.399 to black people in America since sixteen nineteen, and against 0:17:50.480 --> 0:17:55.160 the search for an implementation of remedies. This is becoming 0:17:55.240 --> 0:17:58.720 like a theme, the perversity of the fight against justice. 0:17:59.040 --> 0:18:04.920 The freaky is real, the free is real. Slavery was 0:18:05.480 --> 0:18:08.639 eliminated in eighteen sixty five around the passes of the 0:18:08.680 --> 0:18:11.800 thirteenth Amendment. So people think that's history. That's a long 0:18:11.960 --> 0:18:15.159 time ago, and why are we still talking about it. 0:18:16.080 --> 0:18:18.440 The attitude is get over it. And so I think 0:18:18.480 --> 0:18:21.560 it's important to restate some of those very pointed facts 0:18:21.600 --> 0:18:27.240 of brutality in the inhumanity of slavery. Slaves were not people, 0:18:27.480 --> 0:18:32.080 they were not counted as one human being. What did 0:18:32.119 --> 0:18:37.040 it do to the African American family, male female? Psychologically? 0:18:37.600 --> 0:18:40.200 What did it do to them so so logically? Where 0:18:40.200 --> 0:18:42.720 did they wind up living? What did it mean when 0:18:42.760 --> 0:18:46.399 they couldn't buy housing? How did they feel? What did 0:18:46.440 --> 0:18:50.159 it generate? Did it generate mass and conservation? What did 0:18:50.240 --> 0:18:53.080 it do to them economically? Why was the wealth gap 0:18:53.320 --> 0:18:57.520 so huge even though there were success stories? What did 0:18:57.640 --> 0:19:01.399 do with them politically? What did it do to them scientifically? 0:19:01.880 --> 0:19:04.800 When there was a rage in the nineteen sixties that 0:19:04.920 --> 0:19:09.480 assessed that African Americans were inferior, that's why they couldn't 0:19:09.480 --> 0:19:12.480 do anything. They couldn't accomplish anything because they were inferior, 0:19:12.800 --> 0:19:15.480 not because the laws of the land, which were clearly 0:19:15.800 --> 0:19:20.639 part of the isolating and targeting of African Americans. They 0:19:20.680 --> 0:19:27.080 didn't get anything to pile away, to es, grow, to deposit, 0:19:27.200 --> 0:19:31.119 anywhere to pass on. But the ongoing effects of the 0:19:31.160 --> 0:19:37.280 institution of slavery and its legacy of persistent systematic structures 0:19:37.600 --> 0:19:41.920 of discrimination on living African Americans and society in the 0:19:42.040 --> 0:19:48.240 United States. What is the qualitative and quantitative number that 0:19:48.400 --> 0:19:52.200 you put on touring in fifty years of free labor 0:19:52.880 --> 0:19:58.680 with no workman's cop no insurance, no pension, which literally 0:19:58.920 --> 0:20:04.800 helped build the economic genius and giantness of America. So 0:20:05.640 --> 0:20:08.320 if we look in that manner, I think that the 0:20:08.440 --> 0:20:12.720 truth will just be so real that you would have 0:20:12.920 --> 0:20:17.440 to look to reparations. You lift one boat, you lift 0:20:17.480 --> 0:20:20.960 all boats. You lift boats in America, in urban pockets, 0:20:21.040 --> 0:20:25.400 in rural pockets. Then you lift America. The economy gets excited. 0:20:26.000 --> 0:20:28.640 Can people see that? Can they see if I lift 0:20:28.720 --> 0:20:31.639 this boat, then this boat over here live. Because firstly, 0:20:31.640 --> 0:20:33.080 there are too many people in the United States that 0:20:33.160 --> 0:20:37.119 live in poverty period, but we are African Americans are 0:20:37.240 --> 0:20:41.600 the bulk of that poverty. So there was disparate treatment, 0:20:42.320 --> 0:20:48.720 disparate access, disparate outcomes. And for that reason, I think 0:20:49.040 --> 0:20:52.840 if there is an understanding of that pain and how 0:20:52.960 --> 0:20:58.680 it translated, if people just quietly reflect, then fear will 0:20:59.119 --> 0:21:02.600 move quickly away, because then the reality of the pain 0:21:03.320 --> 0:21:06.240 will come forward and people will ask in collective voices, 0:21:07.040 --> 0:21:10.560 how can we resolve this? Where is a reconciliation? Where 0:21:10.640 --> 0:21:15.120 is the easing of the pain. So reparations is to fairly, 0:21:15.960 --> 0:21:23.400 calmly seek reconciliation over those painful years, more than two 0:21:23.520 --> 0:21:27.639 centuries of pain and brutality, and to address it in 0:21:27.680 --> 0:21:30.320 the twenty one century and then I think it's a 0:21:30.400 --> 0:21:35.640 question of money. And my answer to that is there 0:21:35.720 --> 0:21:39.959 are a myriad of solutions. Let us start the journey 0:21:40.520 --> 0:21:44.680 so that the academicians and groups that have are advocating 0:21:44.760 --> 0:21:48.280 for many different answers, they can all be heard, and 0:21:48.480 --> 0:21:50.919 maybe as we hear them, it will be very simple 0:21:51.040 --> 0:21:57.760 to find a way to address the response. Have you 0:21:57.840 --> 0:22:01.480 ever heard the saying behind every great fortune there is 0:22:01.520 --> 0:22:06.040 a green crime. Yes, I read it in The Godfather. Well, 0:22:06.200 --> 0:22:09.879 the French author Balzac said it, and a Frenchman would know. 0:22:10.400 --> 0:22:12.520 And when it comes to the riches of America, ain't 0:22:12.560 --> 0:22:16.600 it the truth? Ain't it the truth? One woman has 0:22:16.680 --> 0:22:21.399 made a regular specialty of linking various blue chip blue 0:22:21.560 --> 0:22:25.440 chip I say, Lincoln blue chip corporations and their fortunes 0:22:25.520 --> 0:22:29.359 to the slave trade. Her work and documenting that ETNA 0:22:29.520 --> 0:22:34.320 Insurance had written insurance policies on enslaved Africans. Oh, boy, 0:22:34.400 --> 0:22:37.359 I think I see where this is going exactly with 0:22:37.520 --> 0:22:42.360 the slaveholders as beneficiaries, led to ETNA making a twenty 0:22:42.480 --> 0:22:45.680 million dollar payment to the African American community. This was 0:22:45.760 --> 0:22:49.320 the first reparations court victory in American history. In two 0:22:49.480 --> 0:22:55.159 thousand six, Deadria Farmer Pelman good woman, Yes, indeed she 0:22:55.520 --> 0:22:58.760 is very good woman. Now look, boy, I saved a 0:22:58.840 --> 0:23:08.760 good story for our last exhibit. Did you ever wonder 0:23:08.840 --> 0:23:12.240 why we tip restaurant workers? You mean, instead of giving 0:23:12.280 --> 0:23:15.520 them a fair wage? Right? You catching on? But do 0:23:15.600 --> 0:23:17.920 you think it's because they won't it that way? And 0:23:18.000 --> 0:23:22.000 did you ever notice that the the dog or the 0:23:22.080 --> 0:23:24.640 skin color of the staff gets What if I told 0:23:24.680 --> 0:23:26.680 you that tipping in restaurants in this country is like 0:23:26.800 --> 0:23:31.639 the electoral college, just one more legacy of slavery. Here's 0:23:31.640 --> 0:23:36.119 activist Sorrow Jaroman to tell us how it is. The 0:23:36.240 --> 0:23:40.960 restaurant industry has become the nation's second largest and absolute 0:23:41.000 --> 0:23:45.120 fastest growing private sector employers, and yet despite the industry 0:23:45.280 --> 0:23:49.280 size and its growth, it has been for decades the 0:23:49.520 --> 0:23:53.240 absolute lowest paying employer in the United States of America, 0:23:53.920 --> 0:23:56.480 which is bad for a country to have the largest 0:23:56.560 --> 0:24:00.760 and fastest growing industry be the lowest paying industry. And 0:24:00.920 --> 0:24:03.680 that fact is due to the money power and influence 0:24:03.760 --> 0:24:07.520 of a trade lobby called the National Restaurant Association. We 0:24:07.680 --> 0:24:10.399 call it the Other n r A. The Other n 0:24:10.520 --> 0:24:13.800 r A s history does actually go all the way 0:24:13.840 --> 0:24:18.320 back to emancipation, the restaurant lobby and one other industry, 0:24:18.400 --> 0:24:21.840 the Pullman train company, wanted the right to hire newly 0:24:21.960 --> 0:24:26.160 freed slaves black people and continue to not pay them 0:24:26.320 --> 0:24:31.000 for their labor and instead have them rely entirely on 0:24:31.119 --> 0:24:34.119 this new idea that had just come from England or 0:24:34.160 --> 0:24:37.800 from Europe at the time, called tipping, and so at Emancipation, 0:24:37.960 --> 0:24:41.200 tipping was mutated from being an extra or a bonus 0:24:41.640 --> 0:24:45.560 on top of a wage to becoming the wage itself. 0:24:46.280 --> 0:24:49.480 And we started with a zero dollar wage for tipped 0:24:49.480 --> 0:24:54.480 workers at Emancipation that became law in night when everybody 0:24:54.560 --> 0:24:56.520 got the right to a federal minimum wage for the 0:24:56.600 --> 0:24:59.200 first time as part of the new Deal, except for 0:24:59.320 --> 0:25:03.520 groups of black workers, farm workers, domestic workers, and tipped 0:25:03.800 --> 0:25:06.399 restaurant workers who are told, you get a zero dollar 0:25:06.480 --> 0:25:08.800 wage as long as tips bring you to the full 0:25:08.880 --> 0:25:11.920 minimum wage. And we went from zero and ninety eight 0:25:12.440 --> 0:25:15.399 all the way up to the incredible two dollars and 0:25:15.560 --> 0:25:19.360 thirteen cents an hour, which is the current federal minimum 0:25:19.400 --> 0:25:21.920 wage for tipped workers in the United States of America. 0:25:22.080 --> 0:25:24.359 And as I said at the beginning, that is not 0:25:24.520 --> 0:25:27.200 the wage for a tiny sliver of the American workforce. 0:25:27.520 --> 0:25:32.320 It's the wage for the nation's largest private sector employer, 0:25:32.800 --> 0:25:36.679 largest private sector employer of women, largest private sector employer 0:25:36.720 --> 0:25:39.919 of people of color, largest employer of immigrants, largest employer 0:25:40.040 --> 0:25:45.560 formally incarcerated individuals, largest employer period gets away with legally 0:25:45.640 --> 0:25:48.600 paying its workers two dollars an hour at the federal 0:25:48.720 --> 0:25:51.920 level and under five dollars an hour in four out 0:25:52.000 --> 0:25:55.840 of five states, all because of this legacy of slavery 0:25:56.240 --> 0:26:00.440 and the ongoing power of this trade lobby. So the 0:26:00.520 --> 0:26:06.879 restaurant industry is notoriously racially segregated. Workers of color in 0:26:07.000 --> 0:26:11.520 our industry are segregated into lower paying segments of the industry. 0:26:11.560 --> 0:26:15.400 There in casual restaurants and fast food restaurants rather than 0:26:15.480 --> 0:26:18.920 fine dining, and even in fine dining, they tend to 0:26:19.040 --> 0:26:22.720 be bussers and runners and kitchen staff as opposed to 0:26:22.880 --> 0:26:27.000 fine dining servers and bartenders. Now, on top of that, 0:26:27.680 --> 0:26:31.000 if workers of color make it the rare exceptions where 0:26:31.040 --> 0:26:33.760 they make it to be servers and bartenders in fine 0:26:33.800 --> 0:26:38.399 dining restaurants, there is irrefutable data that they earn less 0:26:38.560 --> 0:26:43.080 in tips because of customer bias. There is now mountains 0:26:43.119 --> 0:26:46.840 of evidence that tipping is not correlated with the quality 0:26:47.040 --> 0:26:49.879 of the service. Tipping is a reflection of all of 0:26:49.960 --> 0:26:54.879 America's biases from the inception of America, and what it 0:26:55.119 --> 0:26:58.119 is correlated with is the race and gender of the server, 0:26:58.800 --> 0:27:02.200 her eye color, her skin color, her hair color, her 0:27:02.280 --> 0:27:05.960 hair texture, her breast size, whether she's willing to touch 0:27:06.080 --> 0:27:09.840 the customer or be touched. And so that segregation of 0:27:09.920 --> 0:27:13.920 workers of color into back of house versus front of house, 0:27:14.000 --> 0:27:18.920 which is eerily reminiscent of the way in which slaves 0:27:19.040 --> 0:27:23.800