WEBVTT - Brea Baker Talks Black Land Ownership, Reparations, New Book + More 0:00:00.480 --> 0:00:02.400 Yep, it's the one more dangerous, wanting to show the 0:00:02.440 --> 0:00:05.360 Breakfast Club Charlamagne the God just hilarious, envyous out. 0:00:05.400 --> 0:00:07.240 But Lauren la Rossa is in and. 0:00:07.240 --> 0:00:10.000 As promised, her mama called up here and said, you 0:00:10.080 --> 0:00:12.920 better have my baby up there to talk about that book. 0:00:13.440 --> 0:00:14.840 Okay, Bria Baki is here. 0:00:15.360 --> 0:00:17.720 Thank you so much for having me, and thank you 0:00:17.800 --> 0:00:18.880 mommy for making sure. 0:00:19.040 --> 0:00:21.320 That's why I said, it's mommy the manager. Mommy needs 0:00:21.360 --> 0:00:22.080 to be the manager. 0:00:24.520 --> 0:00:24.920 Your mama. 0:00:24.920 --> 0:00:28.200 Fine, and I mean that respect, I mean that respectfully, 0:00:28.440 --> 0:00:34.159 beautiful woman. Okay, no disrespect. Okay, yes, yes, yes, I'm 0:00:34.159 --> 0:00:38.239 just saying. I'm just saying. Now Rooted, Sim is your 0:00:38.240 --> 0:00:40.040 best friend. Sim works here at the Breakfast Club. 0:00:40.440 --> 0:00:42.280 How do you how to fall? You and Sim go back? 0:00:42.560 --> 0:00:45.560 We went to middle school together and like from then on, 0:00:45.680 --> 0:00:48.440 we've just been locked in. We thought we were both 0:00:48.479 --> 0:00:51.080 going to be in medicine, and now she's obviously up 0:00:51.120 --> 0:00:53.240 here doing this and I'm writing books. So it worked 0:00:53.240 --> 0:00:54.840 out exactly as supposed to be. But yeah, we've been 0:00:54.880 --> 0:00:56.040 locked in for years. 0:00:56.120 --> 0:00:58.760 She's the one who gave me a copy of Rooted. Yes, 0:00:58.880 --> 0:01:00.600 that was a while ago. How long ago? I don't even. 0:01:00.440 --> 0:01:02.480 Remember, and she said he was pretending like you didn't 0:01:02.480 --> 0:01:04.720 read it. I did read it, I know, but he 0:01:04.760 --> 0:01:06.240 was playing with her, you know, because. 0:01:06.360 --> 0:01:07.440 I'm always playing with them. 0:01:07.440 --> 0:01:09.840 And because she didn't, she only gave it to me 0:01:09.880 --> 0:01:11.560 wanted she It was two books she gave me, and 0:01:11.560 --> 0:01:12.800 she kept asking me, did I read them? 0:01:12.800 --> 0:01:13.400 Did I read them? 0:01:13.600 --> 0:01:15.760 I read this one, yeah, because it was interested in 0:01:15.800 --> 0:01:18.559 me because I'm from South Carolina. This happens a lot 0:01:19.080 --> 0:01:20.080 in the low Country, and. 0:01:20.040 --> 0:01:22.320 Our families land is in North Carolina. So I was 0:01:22.360 --> 0:01:22.959 peeping that. 0:01:22.959 --> 0:01:23.560 That's amazing. 0:01:23.760 --> 0:01:27.000 I didn't read it, but I'm just captivated by the title. 0:01:27.040 --> 0:01:27.720 What is it about? 0:01:27.800 --> 0:01:28.160 Thank you? 0:01:28.240 --> 0:01:31.600 Okay? So, in general, the book is about black. 0:01:31.440 --> 0:01:34.160 Land ownership, the fact that we owned more land one 0:01:34.200 --> 0:01:36.400 hundred years ago than we do now. And I'm sure 0:01:36.400 --> 0:01:37.920 the people in this room and people listening to know 0:01:38.000 --> 0:01:41.200 land is where you really build wealth, like property, real estate, 0:01:41.240 --> 0:01:42.840 that's where it goes. So the fact that we've been 0:01:42.880 --> 0:01:46.120 losing land while White America has been continuing to get 0:01:46.120 --> 0:01:48.520 these gains means that this racial wealth gap we keep 0:01:48.520 --> 0:01:50.680 talking about is because of this land laws. So I 0:01:50.720 --> 0:01:53.320 started writing this book because my family has land in 0:01:53.320 --> 0:01:56.400 North Carolina. My grandfather passed away in twenty nineteen, and 0:01:56.400 --> 0:01:58.680 on his deathbed, he was like, don't sell the land, 0:01:59.080 --> 0:02:01.000 because that happens a lot of times. An older black 0:02:01.040 --> 0:02:03.760 person passes on and they'd are sure if someone in 0:02:03.800 --> 0:02:06.440 the next generation values it enough to keep it in 0:02:06.440 --> 0:02:08.760 the family. And so it's just really important to us, Like, no, 0:02:08.800 --> 0:02:11.359 we're not letting this go anywhere. That land means everything 0:02:11.400 --> 0:02:13.400 to us. There's no price that we will accept for it. 0:02:13.840 --> 0:02:16.440 But what we have now is still a fraction of 0:02:16.480 --> 0:02:18.440 what we used to have, even like my great grandfather 0:02:18.520 --> 0:02:21.160 owned and like, I'm a sixth generation Black landowner. So 0:02:21.400 --> 0:02:23.239 the first person in my family to own land was 0:02:23.280 --> 0:02:27.040 my great great great grandfather Louis Baker. He bought land 0:02:27.080 --> 0:02:30.200 like ten years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed. And 0:02:30.280 --> 0:02:32.880 so to go from that legacy to now, it's like, 0:02:32.919 --> 0:02:36.440 how could I not value this? And unfortunately in this country, 0:02:36.520 --> 0:02:38.880 black is kind of like they equate it with urban 0:02:39.360 --> 0:02:41.680 so they think we only live in cities. But most 0:02:41.680 --> 0:02:43.800 Black people live in the South, and most Black people 0:02:43.840 --> 0:02:47.040 come from grandparents who lived in these rural areas but 0:02:47.120 --> 0:02:49.360 were disconnected just around the time when we could have 0:02:49.360 --> 0:02:51.120 made some money from it. So that's really what I 0:02:51.120 --> 0:02:53.320 wanted the book to be, is like we need to 0:02:53.440 --> 0:02:55.519 be champion in Black landownership, whether you're getting it on 0:02:55.560 --> 0:02:58.040 your own, whether we fighting for reparations. But that needs 0:02:58.040 --> 0:03:00.520 to be a conversation in our community because that's where 0:03:00.520 --> 0:03:02.160 real equity comes from. 0:03:02.040 --> 0:03:05.000 I was gonna ask you, with all that history, how 0:03:05.000 --> 0:03:07.720 do you feel about like landbanks and what they do today? 0:03:08.040 --> 0:03:09.320 Because there's like the pros of it. 0:03:09.360 --> 0:03:11.280 I think people are inclusion and people and get the 0:03:11.320 --> 0:03:13.720 land easier, but then there's conds of like people feeling 0:03:13.760 --> 0:03:16.959 like the landbanks only sell and like work with different people. 0:03:17.080 --> 0:03:19.280 Certain people, certain developers like you kind of get closed 0:03:19.280 --> 0:03:20.400 out if youn't have a certain amount of money. 0:03:20.400 --> 0:03:21.960 So how do you feel about Labanik? Yeah, I think 0:03:22.200 --> 0:03:23.560 some of I love that you brought that up. 0:03:23.560 --> 0:03:25.560 I feel like some of the landbanks are really good 0:03:25.600 --> 0:03:27.320 and they're trying to get land in the hand of 0:03:27.360 --> 0:03:29.919 black and Indigenous and like people who don't historically get 0:03:29.919 --> 0:03:32.560 a chance. But in anything in this country, there's always 0:03:32.600 --> 0:03:34.519 going to be people who are doing it and it's 0:03:34.600 --> 0:03:37.240 like their way to get cheaper stuff to people who 0:03:37.400 --> 0:03:39.840 really don't need the cheapest stuff, like they're already good. 0:03:40.760 --> 0:03:42.520 But I do think that some people are doing it 0:03:42.520 --> 0:03:45.840 in a really good way, where like like climate justice 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:49.160 conservation groups will give land to black and indigenous people 0:03:49.160 --> 0:03:52.720 because like, you'll treat the lamb better than this company will, right, 0:03:52.760 --> 0:03:55.160 you'll treat this lamb better than this private developer will. 0:03:55.240 --> 0:03:57.640 But it's kind of rare to find these landbanks that 0:03:57.680 --> 0:03:59.400 will do it in that way. But again, that's why 0:03:59.440 --> 0:04:01.880 I'm a big champ in reparations, because landbanks could be 0:04:01.920 --> 0:04:04.760 a form of reparations if you dictate that it has 0:04:04.800 --> 0:04:07.280 to be going to black people and black families. 0:04:07.000 --> 0:04:08.240 Who come from this history. 0:04:08.600 --> 0:04:11.160 But if we all got to save up the money, 0:04:11.160 --> 0:04:12.640 scrounge up the money to buy al it, I mean 0:04:12.680 --> 0:04:15.160 it'll take forever for us to all become landowners in 0:04:15.200 --> 0:04:17.640 that way because not everybody has the down payment money, 0:04:17.720 --> 0:04:20.800 especially when you're talking acres that's not just a house, right, Like, 0:04:20.839 --> 0:04:23.840 that's not just a condo. That's that's really going to 0:04:23.960 --> 0:04:26.880 cost like ten k plus per acre that you want. 0:04:26.960 --> 0:04:29.039 So if you want a lot and to have buildings 0:04:29.080 --> 0:04:31.200 on it, it gets expensive. So I think the landbanks 0:04:31.200 --> 0:04:33.680 are just a good way of making it more accessible 0:04:33.720 --> 0:04:35.279 to people. They just got to make sure it's accessible 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:36.039 to the right people. 0:04:36.120 --> 0:04:38.279 You know, in the book, you talk about how reparations 0:04:38.320 --> 0:04:41.240 is a racial and economic justice policy as well as 0:04:41.240 --> 0:04:44.440 a climate imperative. So how do you outline the bunk 0:04:44.480 --> 0:04:47.000 common myths about the difficulty of enacting reparations? 0:04:47.040 --> 0:04:49.800 But also too, I wonder why we got away from 0:04:49.880 --> 0:04:51.080 wanting the. 0:04:51.080 --> 0:04:54.200 Forty acres right exactly, because that's where reparations came from, 0:04:54.320 --> 0:04:55.880 was right after the Civil Wars, Like we want our 0:04:55.920 --> 0:04:57.800 forty eights and a mute, and we still talk about that. 0:04:57.839 --> 0:05:00.360 You know, Spike Lee has the production company, but it's 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:02.920 almost like we talk about forty acres and a mule 0:05:03.040 --> 0:05:05.680 or reparations as pigs flying, Like, oh, that's never going 0:05:05.760 --> 0:05:07.160 to happen. They never going to do that for us. 0:05:07.200 --> 0:05:10.839 It's like, why are we defeating ourselves? We have to 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:13.720 demand it. To me, anyone in this country who believes 0:05:13.720 --> 0:05:16.560 that slavery should not have happened should support reparations. It 0:05:16.560 --> 0:05:19.160 should be that simple, because how you don't believe in slavery, 0:05:19.400 --> 0:05:21.880 but you won't actually do anything to change it for 0:05:21.920 --> 0:05:25.800 the people who are the descendants of not having benefited 0:05:25.839 --> 0:05:27.680 from it. So to me, it's just that's one of 0:05:27.720 --> 0:05:31.200 the biggest myths is it's just like, oh, it'll just 0:05:31.240 --> 0:05:33.599 never happen, and it's like they give out money like 0:05:33.640 --> 0:05:36.400 it's nothing all the time. Ukraine got the money that 0:05:36.440 --> 0:05:38.880 should have been our reparations. Israel got the money that 0:05:38.920 --> 0:05:41.839 should have been our reparations, like the Pentagon. So the 0:05:41.920 --> 0:05:44.560 money is out there, they're just not given it to us, 0:05:44.960 --> 0:05:47.120 and we have to start demanding our fair share of it, 0:05:47.200 --> 0:05:50.480 especially because every election cycle they're coming around begging for 0:05:50.520 --> 0:05:50.960 our votes. 0:05:51.279 --> 0:05:53.239 What are you offering in exchange? And why is reparation 0:05:53.320 --> 0:05:54.000 such a bad word. 0:05:54.120 --> 0:05:55.520 And then the other thing that gets to used is 0:05:55.560 --> 0:05:58.400 black celebrities actually are used as an excuse. Oh you 0:05:58.440 --> 0:06:01.039 don't need reparations. You got to Oprah, you got Michael Jordan. 0:06:01.160 --> 0:06:03.400 Black people are already making money. The fact that you 0:06:03.440 --> 0:06:06.400 can name them means it's not widespread enough, right, Like 0:06:06.480 --> 0:06:08.919 if I was saying, oh, white America has money, like 0:06:09.080 --> 0:06:11.400 I think Chris Tucker or Chris Rock, one of them 0:06:11.680 --> 0:06:13.719 has this like stand up where he's like, yeah, in 0:06:13.720 --> 0:06:15.960 my neighborhood, it's like me and a bunch of black 0:06:15.960 --> 0:06:17.040 comedians and then like. 0:06:20.760 --> 0:06:21.200 That crazy. 0:06:21.240 --> 0:06:24.120 So how come we have to be superstars to live 0:06:24.160 --> 0:06:27.160 next door to a dentist and accountant or whatever. Like, 0:06:27.320 --> 0:06:29.320 any black person should be able to access it the 0:06:29.360 --> 0:06:31.320 same way that white people can. And the fact that 0:06:31.360 --> 0:06:33.560 you have to be exceptional to get your fair share 0:06:33.560 --> 0:06:34.640 in this country is ridiculous. 0:06:34.880 --> 0:06:37.000 I want you to speak to the land thing for 0:06:37.120 --> 0:06:39.840 reparations a little bit more, because you know, Aaron Magrude 0:06:40.400 --> 0:06:43.920 had created this show called Black America and it was 0:06:43.960 --> 0:06:50.520 an all history drama that black Americans had received the 0:06:50.560 --> 0:06:54.599 southern states of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama has reparations for 0:06:54.680 --> 0:06:56.960 slavery and with that land they were able to shape 0:06:56.960 --> 0:06:58.680 their freedom. And the show never came out, but it 0:06:58.720 --> 0:07:00.400 was an idea that he had. How do you think 0:07:00.440 --> 0:07:01.760 that would have played up? 0:07:01.880 --> 0:07:03.880 Oh yeah, it would have been major because those states 0:07:03.880 --> 0:07:08.039 that you're talking about had predominantly black majority like populations, 0:07:08.320 --> 0:07:10.800 so that's where black people were. So if you actually 0:07:11.040 --> 0:07:14.320 like think, especially at that time, agriculture was the economy. Now, 0:07:14.360 --> 0:07:15.920 you can make your money in a lot of different ways, 0:07:15.960 --> 0:07:18.400 but back then you needed land to be able to 0:07:18.440 --> 0:07:21.040 compete in any way. So if you didn't own the land, 0:07:21.040 --> 0:07:23.520 you was a sharecropper, like, you're not making no money 0:07:23.600 --> 0:07:26.240 that way, you barely make an even So I really 0:07:26.600 --> 0:07:28.640 I think if those things had happened in the timeline 0:07:28.640 --> 0:07:30.800 when it should have, it would have been monumental because 0:07:30.800 --> 0:07:31.960 that's where most of us was. 0:07:32.280 --> 0:07:34.240 And there are some places where we saw that. There 0:07:34.320 --> 0:07:35.240 was examples of. 0:07:35.560 --> 0:07:37.840 Former plantations that after the Civil War had been burned 0:07:37.840 --> 0:07:40.680 to the ground. Confederate widows were like, I can't afford 0:07:40.760 --> 0:07:42.840 to rebuild this. I'll just sell it for pennies on 0:07:42.880 --> 0:07:45.880 the dollar to this Black people thinking I'm getting over 0:07:45.920 --> 0:07:47.720 on them, But we always make a dollar out of 0:07:47.760 --> 0:07:50.720 fifteen cents. And so you had these formerly enslaved people 0:07:51.040 --> 0:07:54.160 turning their plantations into communities that were so vibrant, and 0:07:54.200 --> 0:07:56.000 then when they see us doing well, they're like, way, 0:07:56.520 --> 0:07:58.240 let me get that back from you actually, And that's 0:07:58.240 --> 0:08:01.720 what happens in places like Tulsa, Wilmington, even Atlanta. Like 0:08:01.880 --> 0:08:05.240 you had these predominant black communities that somehow, without having 0:08:05.280 --> 0:08:07.080 their forty ecres and the mule, were able to figure 0:08:07.120 --> 0:08:09.600 it out. And it's like even when we pick ourselves 0:08:09.640 --> 0:08:12.000 up by our broup straps, they still waiting to take 0:08:12.040 --> 0:08:13.680 that like wait, you wasn't supposed to do that. Well, 0:08:14.000 --> 0:08:15.720 I didn't expect exact black wall streets. 0:08:16.480 --> 0:08:18.280 People don't talk about women's in North Carolina at all 0:08:18.360 --> 0:08:18.720 at all. 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:20.960 They when they talk about when they have those conversations 0:08:21.000 --> 0:08:22.520 about things that they took from us. 0:08:22.640 --> 0:08:24.840 Yeah, and it needs to be talked about because actually, 0:08:25.200 --> 0:08:26.840 and this is like something I talk about in the book, 0:08:26.880 --> 0:08:28.800 there is like on paper. 0:08:28.600 --> 0:08:29.080 Proof of this. 0:08:29.920 --> 0:08:32.640 The folks in Tulsa went to the people in women 0:08:32.679 --> 0:08:35.280 to because the Wilmington massacre happened in eighteen ninety eight 0:08:35.920 --> 0:08:39.640 and Tulsa massa happened in nineteen twenty one. They literally 0:08:39.640 --> 0:08:42.680 were like, teach us how you did that and learned it. 0:08:42.960 --> 0:08:44.760 They did that too in Atlanta in nineteen oh six. 0:08:44.760 --> 0:08:46.920 There was a massacre in Atlanta where they were like, hey, 0:08:46.920 --> 0:08:48.760 black people are getting into positions of power here. We 0:08:48.800 --> 0:08:52.280 got black politicians, black entrepreneurs, this is crazy. Oh, but 0:08:52.360 --> 0:08:54.640 in Wilmington, they just figured out how to how to 0:08:54.679 --> 0:08:56.680 get them out teach us. And so it was like 0:08:56.720 --> 0:08:58.640 they were it was like a think tank for how 0:08:58.640 --> 0:09:01.040 to be a white supremacist, Like, okay, teach us how 0:09:01.040 --> 0:09:01.679 to get black. 0:09:01.480 --> 0:09:02.160 People out of here. 0:09:02.480 --> 0:09:06.080 And Tulsa became this like big example of it, and 0:09:06.080 --> 0:09:08.719 it deserves to be because you still have survivors who 0:09:08.800 --> 0:09:10.760 are going into court at like one hundred and five, 0:09:10.800 --> 0:09:12.679 one hundred and six years old, trying to get there. 0:09:12.720 --> 0:09:17.360 Just do We're not even just talking about descendants, right right, and. 0:09:17.280 --> 0:09:18.800 They and they got museums. 0:09:18.840 --> 0:09:20.800 And if you go through Tulsa in the in the 0:09:21.360 --> 0:09:24.520 in the sidewalks, it'll tell you there used to be 0:09:24.559 --> 0:09:26.920 a barber shop here and it was burned down in 0:09:27.000 --> 0:09:29.520 nineteen twenty one. It used to be a dry cleaners here, 0:09:29.640 --> 0:09:31.320 it was burned down in nineteen twenty So you know 0:09:31.400 --> 0:09:35.360 exactly which businesses worth where. Why are you not giving 0:09:35.440 --> 0:09:38.760 reparations to those direct like these were people who were 0:09:38.840 --> 0:09:41.360 kids running for their lives when it was happening. But yeah, 0:09:41.400 --> 0:09:45.240 Wilmington was definitely the blueprint. And I think people ignore 0:09:45.280 --> 0:09:47.720 that because they don't want to be accountable, especially in 0:09:47.760 --> 0:09:50.120 like the Carolinas. They don't want to be accountable to 0:09:50.160 --> 0:09:53.440 the fact that, like, we did that here, and what 0:09:53.440 --> 0:09:55.520 would it mean to have to give it back? What 0:09:55.520 --> 0:09:58.000 would it mean to have to say sorry, I. 0:09:58.000 --> 0:10:00.280 Read, I read, I read your book and I hear 0:10:00.280 --> 0:10:03.480 you talking. You're so passionate about this, Like where did 0:10:03.480 --> 0:10:05.720 that passion come from? Like it's one thing to know 0:10:05.840 --> 0:10:08.120 about something, but to be passionate about it and wanted 0:10:08.160 --> 0:10:09.880 to be your life's working. 0:10:09.679 --> 0:10:15.080 A way, and you're like a historian too. I appreciate 0:10:14.240 --> 0:10:15.240 you and. 0:10:17.040 --> 0:10:20.560 I want to know how She like, yeah, well, I 0:10:20.600 --> 0:10:23.240 will say, like I've always been very studious, so I 0:10:23.240 --> 0:10:25.240 think I do have that memory for stuff like that. 0:10:25.559 --> 0:10:27.400 But my mom used to joke like, oh, we sent 0:10:27.440 --> 0:10:29.199 you to Yale to be a doctor, you came back 0:10:29.200 --> 0:10:29.840 a black panther. 0:10:30.040 --> 0:10:37.080 But it was it was horrible. I did not like it. 0:10:37.760 --> 0:10:40.480 Yeah, I mean, I think so growing up where Samantha 0:10:40.480 --> 0:10:41.960 and I grew up in Long Island, but we're in 0:10:41.960 --> 0:10:44.440 this like black and brown bubble. Everybody's kind of on 0:10:44.480 --> 0:10:46.760 the same footing, Like I'm the lightest person in the 0:10:46.840 --> 0:10:49.000 room in Long in that part of Long Island that 0:10:49.040 --> 0:10:52.360 I'm in, going from that to Yale where I was, Like, 0:10:52.559 --> 0:10:54.920 I remember growing up and thinking because by the time 0:10:54.960 --> 0:10:56.920 I was conscious of it, I got a black president. 0:10:57.400 --> 0:10:58.920 Obama became president when I was in. 0:10:58.920 --> 0:11:02.240 Middle school, and so I'm thinking, like minority, that's an 0:11:02.240 --> 0:11:04.160 out dirty term. I'm not a minority, like all I 0:11:04.200 --> 0:11:05.960 see when I look around is black people. And then 0:11:06.000 --> 0:11:07.480 I got to Yale and I said, oh, this is 0:11:07.559 --> 0:11:11.520 where y'all were, Like there is this white majority and 0:11:11.800 --> 0:11:14.240 the amount of wealth, Like you can't even wrap your 0:11:14.280 --> 0:11:15.640 mind around how much money some. 0:11:15.600 --> 0:11:17.480 Of these people have. The institution. 0:11:17.800 --> 0:11:19.680 When I was at Yale, they had a twenty billion 0:11:19.760 --> 0:11:23.360 dollar endowment, which is their investment portfolio sitting in a 0:11:23.400 --> 0:11:24.760 bank account somewhere making money. 0:11:25.120 --> 0:11:26.160 Now, eight years. 0:11:26.000 --> 0:11:29.360 After I graduated, that is a forty five billion dollar endowment. Like, 0:11:29.640 --> 0:11:32.560 it's so much money there, but you still try so anyway, 0:11:32.840 --> 0:11:36.280 it was a very like radicalizing experience when you realize 0:11:36.280 --> 0:11:39.840 there's people with enough money to completely change the lives 0:11:39.840 --> 0:11:42.800 of people you grew up with, but they would never 0:11:42.880 --> 0:11:45.240 open up their bank accounts to do it because their 0:11:45.280 --> 0:11:47.559 job is to just keep collecting, collecting, collecting, and never 0:11:47.600 --> 0:11:49.719 make it in service of anybody. So I would say 0:11:49.720 --> 0:11:51.720 that was a big moment for me. And also, I'm 0:11:51.720 --> 0:11:54.520 going to college at Yale when the Black Lives Matter 0:11:54.559 --> 0:11:57.560 movement is popping off, when Occupy Wall Street is popping off, 0:11:57.600 --> 0:11:59.480 So there's just a lot of conversations. Bernie Sanders is 0:11:59.480 --> 0:12:01.559 talking about this top one percent, and it just has 0:12:01.559 --> 0:12:03.480 you really thinking like I'm going to school with them though, 0:12:03.520 --> 0:12:05.319 like that they're here and what. 0:12:05.280 --> 0:12:05.840 Do I want to do? 0:12:05.880 --> 0:12:07.720 So yeah, I just remember thinking I cannot sit in 0:12:07.760 --> 0:12:09.400 nobody's lab for the next ten. 0:12:09.360 --> 0:12:12.000 Years while we're getting being killed in the streets. 0:12:12.240 --> 0:12:14.840 And then as I got older, because my grandparents are 0:12:14.880 --> 0:12:18.360 from North Carolina, I felt like to me, activism was 0:12:18.440 --> 0:12:21.000 the Black Panthers, was Angela Davis, was being in a 0:12:21.040 --> 0:12:23.720 city with the bullhorn. But I had to realize growing 0:12:23.760 --> 0:12:26.200 up that I had been kind of like downplaying the 0:12:26.240 --> 0:12:28.360 activism of the South, that there are people who their 0:12:28.360 --> 0:12:32.079 activism was buying land, holding onto it, employing people, giving. 0:12:31.800 --> 0:12:33.360 People a job, feeding themselves. 0:12:33.600 --> 0:12:35.760 Even now during the pandemic was the first time a 0:12:35.760 --> 0:12:37.920 lot of people realize how dependent they are on somebody 0:12:37.920 --> 0:12:40.440 else to eat. If the grocery store shelves are empty, 0:12:40.520 --> 0:12:41.839 what are you going to do for your family? You 0:12:41.880 --> 0:12:42.839 don't know how to grow nothing. 0:12:43.000 --> 0:12:44.840 That's what all the activism was. That's what the civil 0:12:44.960 --> 0:12:46.480 rights you know, the movement was in the. 0:12:46.440 --> 0:12:48.040 South, right, it was all on the South, but it 0:12:48.080 --> 0:12:50.319 was in southern cities though it was in Selma's, in 0:12:50.360 --> 0:12:54.560 Birmingham's and Atlanta's but black people were as far as 0:12:54.600 --> 0:12:57.280 like working class black people were in the Moonies, like 0:12:57.320 --> 0:13:00.000 where my family is is still very rule. 0:13:00.320 --> 0:13:02.040 When we were kids going there, they didn't have no WiFi, 0:13:02.080 --> 0:13:03.280 and I was like, I want to go home. I 0:13:03.320 --> 0:13:04.240 don't want to be here. 0:13:04.679 --> 0:13:06.719 But you grow to appreciate it when you're like, but 0:13:06.760 --> 0:13:08.760 they're breathing fresh air, they're drinking clean water, and it 0:13:08.800 --> 0:13:12.640 just sounds so theoretical to an extent until eggs is 0:13:13.080 --> 0:13:15.240 the price of eggs is going up, until they doing 0:13:15.280 --> 0:13:17.040 recalls on chicken, and then all of a sudden people 0:13:17.040 --> 0:13:19.440 want to talk about where's the farmers at? And then 0:13:19.480 --> 0:13:21.800 you realize, like, oh, they've been fighting by themselves for 0:13:21.800 --> 0:13:24.120 a really long time. So I really have to credit 0:13:24.160 --> 0:13:27.000 my grandparents because it was after my grandfather died that 0:13:27.040 --> 0:13:28.560 I was like, man, I wish i'd asked you more 0:13:28.600 --> 0:13:30.719 questions while you were alive. And my grandmother was like, 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:33.240 I'm here, and I just sat there, asked her question 0:13:33.280 --> 0:13:35.880 after question after questions. She's my research partner for the book. 0:13:36.080 --> 0:13:37.360 She would take me around. You got to talk to 0:13:37.440 --> 0:13:40.040 Uncle Ed and we gonna ask him these questions because 0:13:40.040 --> 0:13:42.319 he remembers this better than me. And then I would 0:13:42.360 --> 0:13:44.880 corroborate it by going into these different places to like, okay, 0:13:44.920 --> 0:13:47.200 but where on paper can I find that that really happened? 0:13:47.559 --> 0:13:49.600 And there are records out there, So I would say 0:13:49.720 --> 0:13:51.720 to anyone who's thinking, like that's so cool that she 0:13:51.720 --> 0:13:54.280 did that, talk to your elders, talk to your grandparents, 0:13:54.280 --> 0:13:56.320 your great aunts and uncles like they're still if they're 0:13:56.320 --> 0:13:59.600 still alive, talk to them. There's stuff that they've survived 0:13:59.600 --> 0:14:02.240 and if through and things that they're probably like, yeah, 0:14:02.280 --> 0:14:03.160 that got taken from us too. 0:14:03.160 --> 0:14:03.960 That's our story too. 0:14:04.320 --> 0:14:07.000 And with this reparations woman going, the more proof you 0:14:07.040 --> 0:14:08.880 have of that, the more you can actually try and 0:14:08.880 --> 0:14:11.120 get your land back. There are black families getting their 0:14:11.200 --> 0:14:13.960 land back, and like it's happening in little pieces here 0:14:14.000 --> 0:14:16.280 and there, but we can be that movement that brings 0:14:16.320 --> 0:14:16.760 it together. 0:14:16.840 --> 0:14:18.320 And to your point, like you said, you know, you 0:14:18.360 --> 0:14:20.480 don't even know. It takes like a pandemic or something 0:14:20.480 --> 0:14:24.040 to happen where you'll be like, damn, like I don't 0:14:24.080 --> 0:14:27.000 know how to I'm I can't go to the market. 0:14:27.080 --> 0:14:28.760 How am I going to feed? And you know, how 0:14:28.760 --> 0:14:30.960 am I going to buy food? And everything like that. 0:14:31.040 --> 0:14:33.560 And it wasn't until I met my fiance. He was 0:14:33.600 --> 0:14:35.360 told I used to cray jokes on all the time. 0:14:35.400 --> 0:14:38.520 He was talking about farming. You know, we got this land, 0:14:38.600 --> 0:14:43.160 let's grow this on. I'm like, grow, but he do 0:14:43.240 --> 0:14:43.560 all of that. 0:14:43.800 --> 0:14:45.560 I'm sorry, that's why you got to bring that up. 0:14:49.840 --> 0:14:53.600 Yes, but he is, yes, but well but yes, he's 0:14:53.640 --> 0:14:56.640 still he's saying that, like, YO, got all this land, 0:14:56.960 --> 0:15:00.680 less less, less, grow everything, what are we gonna do? 0:15:00.760 --> 0:15:02.560 And I'm like, dang, you's not like the movie. 0:15:02.800 --> 0:15:06.200 Let's not leave the world, but it's the real it's 0:15:06.280 --> 0:15:07.400 rain and you have to. 0:15:07.600 --> 0:15:09.680 You have to do that, and if you wait until 0:15:09.680 --> 0:15:11.520 you need it, it's too late. You have to learn 0:15:11.560 --> 0:15:13.880 the skill before you need it. And I'm actually glad 0:15:13.880 --> 0:15:15.520 that you did bring it up because I will say, 0:15:15.560 --> 0:15:18.360 like black people, historically, we are the ones who were 0:15:18.360 --> 0:15:20.480 forced to work this land. So the fact that we're 0:15:20.520 --> 0:15:22.320 so far removed from what it means to work this 0:15:22.440 --> 0:15:26.720 land is like systematic. It's intentional because when we were 0:15:26.720 --> 0:15:29.640 working the land, we were doing it forcibly, with no pain. 0:15:29.800 --> 0:15:31.360 The moment we could start making money for it is 0:15:31.400 --> 0:15:33.120 like actually we we could find somebody else to do. 0:15:33.120 --> 0:15:34.600 It's like wait a second, now, we don't know how 0:15:34.640 --> 0:15:37.240 to do it. But I really think that like Mexican Americans, 0:15:37.280 --> 0:15:39.920 Chicanos in California, like they're they're in a similar boat. 0:15:40.120 --> 0:15:42.880 They're the ones picking strawberries out in California with the 0:15:42.880 --> 0:15:51.240 will fires. It's crazy, well what you want to call it, 0:15:51.640 --> 0:15:54.320 in the same situation where it's like they want us 0:15:54.360 --> 0:15:56.680 to work the land when they can profit off of it. 0:15:56.720 --> 0:15:59.080 And then the moment that we start to be entrepreneurial 0:15:59.160 --> 0:16:00.880 and get our own arms off the ground, all of 0:16:00.920 --> 0:16:03.000 a sudden, it's like, actually, I got a machine that 0:16:03.000 --> 0:16:05.400 can do that. Actually I got some like I could 0:16:05.400 --> 0:16:07.840 take advantage of an immigrant community and they can do 0:16:07.880 --> 0:16:09.520 it because I don't want to pay you your fair share. 0:16:09.560 --> 0:16:11.480 So we got to be able to own our own 0:16:11.520 --> 0:16:13.120 land to decide what actually happens on it. 0:16:13.240 --> 0:16:14.360