Speaker 1: Good morning, peep Sena. Welcome to bokay f Daily with
Speaker 1: Meet your Girl Danielle Moody, recording from the Home Bunker. Folks,
Speaker 1: there are times when I literally I am so consumed
Speaker 1: with so many feelings about the last seven or eight
Speaker 1: years and what we are all living with, working with,
Speaker 1: dealing with, how we are all managing to continue to
Speaker 1: produce and work through trauma after tragedy after trauma after
Speaker 1: tragedy for the last eight years. I don't think that
Speaker 1: we do enough in terms of really asking ourselves are
Speaker 1: we okay? Really asking our friends and our family, how
Speaker 1: are you really doing? And so I found myself today
Speaker 1: as I was sitting down for this interview with my
Speaker 1: friend Jennifer Tobb. You guys know, she's come on, we'll
Speaker 1: gay off. She's a friend of the show, and she's
Speaker 1: the author of the book Big Dirty Money, and she
Speaker 1: does white collar crime. And I've had her on and
Speaker 1: to talk about, you know, so many of Donald Trump's crimes,
Speaker 1: and you know, and other wealthy entities and capitalism and
Speaker 1: all of these things. That's not the conversation we get
Speaker 1: into today. It's the first time that jen and I
Speaker 1: are talking since the New year, and both of us
Speaker 1: found ourselves in a really deeply reflective and just introspective place.
Speaker 1: So if you are out on a walk and listening
Speaker 1: to this, if you are home, grab a cup of tea,
Speaker 1: a cup of coffee, and just settle into a conversation
Speaker 1: about how the fuck are we really doing? You know,
Speaker 1: I know it's supposed to be New Year, New me,
Speaker 1: calendars change, and yet things don't feel different. And if
Speaker 1: they do feel different, in a lot of respects outwardly
Speaker 1: around the world, it feels worse. So we're going to
Speaker 1: get real and we're going to unpack in a way
Speaker 1: that I don't usually use woke f to do so,
Speaker 1: but today it feels necessary, So join us. Coming up next,
Speaker 1: my conversation with author, podcaster, and professor and all around
Speaker 1: bad ass Jennifer tub Folks, I am so happy to
Speaker 1: welcome back to the show my friend Jennifer tub who.
Speaker 1: This is our first show together on woke af since
Speaker 1: since the New Year, So happy New Year to you.
Speaker 1: You guys know Jen She is the author of Big
Speaker 1: Dirty Money, The Shocking Injustice and Unseen Cost of White
Speaker 1: Collar Crime. She's also a fellow nerd Avenger. She's also
Speaker 1: the host of Booked Up with Jen Tobbs. So if
Speaker 1: you want to be in a good podcast book club,
Speaker 1: check out her podcast and Jen I will let you
Speaker 1: plug it when we rap at the end. But you know,
Speaker 1: I want to start off by asking you just what
Speaker 1: seems like a relatively easy question, but I find it
Speaker 1: to be more and more complex as time goes by,
Speaker 1: which is, how are you doing? Right? Like, there's so
Speaker 1: much that goes into our thinking of this flipping of
Speaker 1: the calendar, the shifting of the year, these grandiose plans,
Speaker 1: these resolutions. I you know, and yet it seems to
Speaker 1: be the same old shit but with a different number
Speaker 1: attached to it. So I genuinely, you know, my friend,
Speaker 1: how are you doing? I'm so glad you asked that,
Speaker 1: because it should be a simple question, right there's a
Speaker 1: for the non friend, you're like, I'm fine or I'm
Speaker 1: having a hard time or whatever. For a real friend,
Speaker 1: that's a hard question because you've got to be honest
Speaker 1: and not superficial. And I don't know how I am,
Speaker 1: Like I seem to be outwardly accomplishing a lot of
Speaker 1: the goals I want to accomplish my relationships with friend
Speaker 1: and friends and family are good. I feel like my
Speaker 1: mental health is in a reasonably good space. I feel
Speaker 1: healthy otherwise, And yet there's this part of me that's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not fooled by this, like the real
Speaker 1: may It's kind of like I say, I see I say,
Speaker 1: you're moving around. I see you walking around, But are
Speaker 1: you really attending to the deeper stuff? And I think
Speaker 1: the answer to that is no, that is no, because
Speaker 1: we have been through so much since twenty fifteen. Our
Speaker 1: world has been turned upside down. Some things are good.
Speaker 1: I probably would not have met you if we had
Speaker 1: not all moved over into so much of these zoom
Speaker 1: spaces and so on. And you know, we could go
Speaker 1: on and that, but you know, that's water under the
Speaker 1: bridge now we all we have the relationships we have,
Speaker 1: we have the bad stuff we have. But I think
Speaker 1: the deeper I think it's time for some you know,
Speaker 1: turning things over in some deeper understanding of how I'm doing,
Speaker 1: how the world is doing, and how and how to
Speaker 1: move forward into the next period of my life. You know,
Speaker 1: I am a full disclosure. I just finished therapy. As
Speaker 1: I come to turn on the mic to be in
Speaker 1: conversation with you, and I realized now that that was
Speaker 1: like the perfect thing to do because I'm having similar
Speaker 1: deeply introspective moments and times when I because when I
Speaker 1: pull back, Jen, and I realize, my god, we've been
Speaker 1: through a lot in you know, been through a lot
Speaker 1: where folks, you know, before we turn hit and hit record,
Speaker 1: we're like, twenty fifteen, what's that been? Seven eight years?
Speaker 1: Like what? Like what are we talking about in terms
Speaker 1: of like a time frame? Because you know, jokingly, I
Speaker 1: will say often time is a construct, and it truly is,
Speaker 1: but that we've been living inside of this weird wormhole
Speaker 1: and the idea that we've had to continue to produce
Speaker 1: because that's what capitalism requires during this time of great
Speaker 1: upheaval and strife and upending of systems and worlds that
Speaker 1: we have been indoctrinated into participating in in a certain
Speaker 1: type of way that when I pull back just a
Speaker 1: little bit from the doing and the producing gem, I'm like,
Speaker 1: how the fuck are we all getting off the couch
Speaker 1: every day? Like how are we all? And were we
Speaker 1: all are in a different state and place of you know,
Speaker 1: in the In twenty twenty one, The New York Times
Speaker 1: referred to it as languishing. That's not it, because it
Speaker 1: isn't for me. It isn't this sense of languishing, this
Speaker 1: this kind of it is just this. I didn't know
Speaker 1: that the upheaval would feel like this. I didn't know
Speaker 1: that I would still have to be doing the normal,
Speaker 1: regular shit as the world around us is falling apart.
Speaker 1: It's funny, you know, as we were talking, I'm thinking about, well,
Speaker 1: when did this begin? And I'm thinking it goes fifteen
Speaker 1: years with a financial crash of twenty eight for me,
Speaker 1: because that was a huge awakening, a huge, huge political
Speaker 1: and philosophical awakening for me, and that I always believed
Speaker 1: if stuff went down and it was really bad, the
Speaker 1: ordinary people would not be left to you know, millions
Speaker 1: of families kicked out on the street everything that went
Speaker 1: down then, and that's what happened. And I also believed,
Speaker 1: you know, oh my god, there's this reckoning. Look looks like,
Speaker 1: you know, having too much wealth in the hands of
Speaker 1: people who can't spend in under chasing an investment. I
Speaker 1: guess we're going to understand that that's a bad part
Speaker 1: of capital, and we'll take the good stuff, some aspects
Speaker 1: of markets, but we'll also take the good stuffs around,
Speaker 1: you know, more socialism in terms of let's have government
Speaker 1: do some things for people. Like I thought we were
Speaker 1: going to get a better balance, and instead that's not
Speaker 1: what went down. And I think it was, like I
Speaker 1: think what happened then at that time, we are still
Speaker 1: feeling the shock waves of that. Honestly globally too, because
Speaker 1: you know, you get, I mean, it was already happening
Speaker 1: in the nineties, the return of you know, neo fascism
Speaker 1: or the turn of fashionism, the form of neo fascism
Speaker 1: in Europe. But I get the sense set in the US,
Speaker 1: the ability to pin the economic problems on the usual suspects.
Speaker 1: Ye starts happening then, And so as much as we
Speaker 1: can mock economic anxiety, that economic anxiety was exploited and
Speaker 1: turned around and every I think, you know, the Tea
Speaker 1: Party came out in two thousand and nine, you look
Speaker 1: at all the stuff that went down. Instead of taking
Speaker 1: that opportunity at the end of the Bush era, an
Speaker 1: early Obama era, to say let's help everybody out, We're
Speaker 1: all in this together, and let's rethink things, it didn't
Speaker 1: go in that direction. And some you know, and I
Speaker 1: feel like the same thing continues to happen. The difference,
Speaker 1: of course, is during COVID it was so much more
Speaker 1: of an immediate shock to the economic system that everybody
Speaker 1: and also because it was a white Republican president, everyone
Speaker 1: was fine throwing money at the problem. Right. I don't
Speaker 1: think Barack Obama got the support that he needed in
Speaker 1: terms of the stimulus. There was a lot that one
Speaker 1: went down in two thousand and nine that set the
Speaker 1: table for getting someone like Donald Trump in place. And
Speaker 1: then the effect of where we are now still and
Speaker 1: the fact that we have these insurrectionists in Congress on
Speaker 1: the Homeland Security Committee, the fact that we've got this
Speaker 1: complete faith, bigger faith than Donald Trump, who is not
Speaker 1: just seated in Congress, but they're giving him committee assignments.
Speaker 1: I don't even know who the hell he is. Look,
Speaker 1: I'm sitting here going you know, for all the stories
Speaker 1: we use, stories, all the fear people used to have
Speaker 1: and say like, well, if such and such a happens,
Speaker 1: then democracy is over. I mean, people, we gotta how
Speaker 1: can this even be happening? Like and why? Okay, now
Speaker 1: I'm gonna rant, why the fuck is the what the
Speaker 1: what the the news should be doing right now, what
Speaker 1: journalists should be doing. There should be two kinds of stories.
Speaker 1: One story should be, Hey, American people, there are thousands
Speaker 1: of dollars in rebates and tax credits available for you
Speaker 1: if you go green. Here's how you do it. Because
Speaker 1: my friends don't even know. All people know is there's
Speaker 1: some stupid culture war between a gas stove versus an
Speaker 1: induction top stove. How about talking about, Hey, you are
Speaker 1: going to renovate your house, or you have a crappy
Speaker 1: old stove, you can get a free one and free
Speaker 1: labor if you do this. Why aren't those the news stories?
Speaker 1: And the other news stories should be what the fuck
Speaker 1: is going on with the Republicans. They've got a guy
Speaker 1: involved in a Ponzi scheme, complete liar, and they're putting
Speaker 1: among committees. There should not be a single story about
Speaker 1: Joe Biden's documents in the newspaper because I don't give
Speaker 1: a fuck, and nobody does, and I don't know what
Speaker 1: is going on anyway. I'm sorry nobody to hear any
Speaker 1: rantings I'm not doing. Okay, no, but but that is
Speaker 1: the is the That's not just your rant, that is
Speaker 1: the rant of anyone who is in touch with reality
Speaker 1: and what's happening not only with us internally, as we
Speaker 1: continue to figure out how to make sense out of
Speaker 1: a world that we realize was built on a lie.
Speaker 1: You know, I said the other day, and I forget
Speaker 1: who I said it to you, but I said, you know,
Speaker 1: the funny thing about K through twelve education and public
Speaker 1: public school education is that it's built on a lie
Speaker 1: about who America is and about who Americans are and
Speaker 1: who we are to the world. And you spend your
Speaker 1: whole adult life if in fact, you are in tuned
Speaker 1: and you're thinking to yourself with that nagging suspicion that
Speaker 1: something just doesn't seem right, This story just doesn't come
Speaker 1: together completely in the way that it should. And if
Speaker 1: you are intellectually curious in that way, in nimble, then
Speaker 1: you're going to start to challenge the things that you
Speaker 1: are learned. And so what then adulthood becomes is this
Speaker 1: entire unlearning of everything that you were taught for the
Speaker 1: first eighteen years of your life, right, And that becomes
Speaker 1: something that is incredibly painful, because one, you want to
Speaker 1: believe that you were smarter than that, and then two
Speaker 1: you're like, what do I do with this information because
Speaker 1: now that I have it, and the system seems so big,
Speaker 1: and the roofs seems so huge, and the Ponzi scheme
Speaker 1: is not just in one area, it's in all systems
Speaker 1: that is built to uphold the uber wealthy, the uber
Speaker 1: white right, the faux Christian nationalists, and everybody else be damned.
Speaker 1: COVID allowed us to see the real truth behind the
Speaker 1: curtain and the lie right, because there was no way
Speaker 1: to avoid why you were why you wanted to open
Speaker 1: up a state when you realize the who the vaccine was,
Speaker 1: I mean, who who was being most harmed? And you
Speaker 1: say liberate this place and liberate that place, because you
Speaker 1: could give a fuck if the people that are dying
Speaker 1: are the essential workers that we say are essential, but
Speaker 1: we don't essentially pay them a fucking living wage. Right,
Speaker 1: But we were all able to stay shuttered in our
Speaker 1: home so that black and brown people and immigrants and
Speaker 1: low income workers could be out there literally battling a
Speaker 1: fucking virus, right, so that we could all stay safe inside.
Speaker 1: So who did we realize mattered and who didn't? And
Speaker 1: I think that there is something that becomes gen like
Speaker 1: really existential about that reality it's it's it's hard to
Speaker 1: look at yourself in the mirror when you think about it,
Speaker 1: because you know, I'm part of a system that I
Speaker 1: did go back to work at a school, but I
Speaker 1: was wearing a mask and I wasn't there all the time,
Speaker 1: and in fact, we dropped the mask requirement. I guess
Speaker 1: it was last spring and it was this past fall.
Speaker 1: That's what I got COVID for the first time. But
Speaker 1: by the time I got it, I had been vaccinated
Speaker 1: four times yep, and I felt safer and I got
Speaker 1: the pax lav it. I wasn't scared because I'm an asthmatic,
Speaker 1: you know, and I'm scared, like holy shit, because I'm
Speaker 1: the person who gets every you know, you name an
Speaker 1: upper respiratory infection. It's like, hey, there's gen lungs. So
Speaker 1: I I was scared. I want to go back, though, too,
Speaker 1: to like this whole Okay, where are where are the
Speaker 1: news stories? Like you know how people are going, Oh
Speaker 1: you have you know all these people I can name
Speaker 1: them who come on the morning shows and TV and
Speaker 1: they say, look, you go to the store and this
Speaker 1: cost more, and yeah, I can you know. I was
Speaker 1: just at the grocery store today and I was surprised.
Speaker 1: I hope a few bags I had and how much
Speaker 1: money it was? Okay, that's absolutely true. But you know
Speaker 1: how much money I could save if I replace the
Speaker 1: old stove we put in this house. We bought a
Speaker 1: really old house and what was it twenty two thousand
Speaker 1: and six and it's a gas stove and it's gonna
Speaker 1: cost I can get an eight hundred dollars what rebate
Speaker 1: or credit plus labor? I could get that thing taking
Speaker 1: out something else put in. It's safer for all of us.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of that's a lot of trips to
Speaker 1: the grocery store, and it stimulates the economy. That means
Speaker 1: someone local here is going to do it. That means
Speaker 1: I'm going to shop in a local appliance store. Well,
Speaker 1: I want them to walk around an appliance store and
Speaker 1: every fucking news show and say, this is nice, what
Speaker 1: does it do? How fast does it work? What would
Speaker 1: it cost? That would be free? And here's why, because
Speaker 1: if you make this amount of money this and then
Speaker 1: I want them to go to the home improvement store.
Speaker 1: I'm not making this stuff up, Danielle. It's real, and
Speaker 1: the word isn't getting out there. And I don't know
Speaker 1: whose fault it is that the word isn't getting out there,
Speaker 1: but I think someone needs to be pitching these stories.
Speaker 1: Maybe I should pitch them. I mean, I could talk
Speaker 1: to people I know who are on television, but this
Speaker 1: should be everywhere. Why is it only a story if
Speaker 1: someone's doing something bad instead of a huge multi billion
Speaker 1: dollars worth of savings for their American people. Why isn't
Speaker 1: that a story? Why is it only a story if
Speaker 1: I'm paying more on milk or pay more for gas, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, they got the gas prices down. You
Speaker 1: don't hear about that, no, because that is not what
Speaker 1: leads in newsrooms. Outrage does. And once we decided that
Speaker 1: journalism was dead and that we were all going to
Speaker 1: just put out whatever was going to be clickbait, then
Speaker 1: telling those good stories, who is that good for? Because
Speaker 1: I'll tell you that I will never forget this. Walking
Speaker 1: the halls of MSNBC. Trump is elected. This is pre pandemic.
Speaker 1: And I heard a producer say he's bad for the country,
Speaker 1: but he's good for business. You know what's good for business?
Speaker 1: The advertisements though for all these appliances, or maybe they're
Speaker 1: just not ready. Maybe the manufacturers aren't ready to advertise
Speaker 1: about like, fuck, aren't these what I understand you come
Speaker 1: from a place of thinking that people don't share good
Speaker 1: information because they don't know. And what I've come to
Speaker 1: realize is that they do know. They absolutely do know,
Speaker 1: and they don't give a fuck. Oh yeah, that is
Speaker 1: the reality. It isn't just like I wish that people understood.
Speaker 1: I wish that the people that were sitting in these
Speaker 1: c suites and making decisions about what the segments should
Speaker 1: be and who goes on air and what is delivered,
Speaker 1: I wish that you know, they just knew. No, they
Speaker 1: do jen, they just don't care, right, because the reality
Speaker 1: is is that if everyone was doing well, then there
Speaker 1: wouldn't really be the bottom of the pyramid, would there? Right?
Speaker 1: And you need to have an oppressed, marginalized, just sick
Speaker 1: enough class of people so that the uber rich can
Speaker 1: live the way that they want. So you have to
Speaker 1: deny education, you have to deny access, and then you
Speaker 1: have to make it somebody else's fault so that they
Speaker 1: don't realize who's really pulling the strings. So the whole obedience,
Speaker 1: so someone's doing the jobs and paying up through the
Speaker 1: pyramid is that you're is that what you're getting at? Well? Yeah,
Speaker 1: And you know it's interesting that just Larry Summers when
Speaker 1: he was doing some kind of television interview from did
Speaker 1: you see this from a beach resort? Island resort, they're
Speaker 1: like palm trees behind him and he's saying, you know,
Speaker 1: you know, you know the trade off people often talk
Speaker 1: about between employment and inflation. He's like, yeah, we've got
Speaker 1: too many people employed, just the way it is. And
Speaker 1: he's sitting there like with the palm trees, and I
Speaker 1: was like, you know, you don't even know how to
Speaker 1: manage that image, and really and if that's but by
Speaker 1: the way, if that's going to be the orthodoxy, and
Speaker 1: that you're going to have to have a certain level
Speaker 1: of unemployment, then there should be a better fucking safety net.
Speaker 1: But you don't want a safety net because you believe
Speaker 1: that most people who don't look like you, don't love
Speaker 1: like you, don't share the same fucking nasty, immoral values
Speaker 1: are undeserving. If everything is about a safety net, and
Speaker 1: you believe, through some mythical form of thinking, that you've
Speaker 1: pulled yourself up from your bootstraps, which is a fucking lie,
Speaker 1: and you believe that you were somehow anointed, which is
Speaker 1: what we think about the royal family and what they've
Speaker 1: told us for generations. Right. If you think all of
Speaker 1: these things right, right, then why would you provide anything
Speaker 1: to these other people? Right? Why don't they just do
Speaker 1: for themselves the way people like people thinking that way? No, okay,
Speaker 1: because I never thought that way. It don't Maybe my
Speaker 1: parents didn't teach me that, but I never thought entit.
Speaker 1: I never felt entitled, and I felt empathy always and
Speaker 1: privilege like but I will tell you, as somebody who
Speaker 1: grew up middle class, and I am a child of
Speaker 1: immigrants who left Jamaica and came to the United States
Speaker 1: to build a better life for their family, that I,
Speaker 1: when I was very young, was fed the lie about
Speaker 1: black Americans that had been absorbed and spread around because
Speaker 1: everyone participates in white supremacy, and so the idea was like, well,
Speaker 1: look at us, we came from Jamaica. We were able
Speaker 1: to buy homes and build lives and businesses and this,
Speaker 1: that and the other thing. Why can't those black Americans
Speaker 1: do that? And it was understand it, but it wasn't
Speaker 1: until like then I would learn and understand and challenge
Speaker 1: this very stupid idea that I was that was being
Speaker 1: taught to me by virtue of my family, but also
Speaker 1: through an education system and society that was reinforcing that
Speaker 1: same lie. When I say understandable, I don't mean accurate.
Speaker 1: I mean the way I relate to that is I
Speaker 1: had so much internalized patriot. Yeah. Yeah, because I was
Speaker 1: luckily one of the kind of kids who learned easily,
Speaker 1: who was a good people pleaser, who did well in school.
Speaker 1: And I became and I was. I went to partially
Speaker 1: with all girls middle school, and then the upper school
Speaker 1: was co ed, and I and everyone would say, you know,
Speaker 1: girls don't talk in class, and I was like, well,
Speaker 1: that's our unfucking fault. I don't believe this. They should
Speaker 1: just do it because I'm an annoying talker, interrupter, whatever.
Speaker 1: And I believed until my and through my twenties that
Speaker 1: you know, women could get as far as men, because
Speaker 1: I was always getting as far, if not farther, and
Speaker 1: men respected me and blah blah blah. And I don't
Speaker 1: know what the moment I realized suddenly I'm I kind
Speaker 1: of dude. But without getting into all of it, is
Speaker 1: that there was no sweet spot all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: like everything worked fine for me until you know, I
Speaker 1: think I got to that glass ceiling. And then I
Speaker 1: also looked around and said, I don't know if i'd
Speaker 1: like these values. I don't know if i'd like to
Speaker 1: relate to everybody in this way. And I don't. And
Speaker 1: I see how cutthroat it can be. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff. But if I can internalize all of that,
Speaker 1: I can see why you would too, if those are
Speaker 1: the stories you're told. And I was definitely told those
Speaker 1: stories that, oh, women make these choices. Somebody asked me
Speaker 1: the other day It's like a really valid question, and
Speaker 1: they're like, you know, I'm just so interested to talk
Speaker 1: to you about your career path because like you're an
Speaker 1: out black queer woman and you've been so successful, and
Speaker 1: I'm just like confused about how that has happened. Like
Speaker 1: what have you faced and like what are like what
Speaker 1: are the challenges you know that you have faced? And
Speaker 1: I said, UM, that is a really good question, and
Speaker 1: I'm going to be really honest with you. I've had
Speaker 1: like very minimal hardship in terms of things that I
Speaker 1: have faced because any microaggressions, Um, around my race, uh
Speaker 1: and gender that I have faced I have readily pushed
Speaker 1: back on because I had a certain amount of privilege
Speaker 1: that afforded me the ability to do that, right. Um,
Speaker 1: and so you had the same from your family or
Speaker 1: from my family. Without that, you wouldn't be able to
Speaker 1: push it back. You would take it, swallow it, shrink,
Speaker 1: and then do whatever it is you had to you
Speaker 1: in order to move forward. I didn't have to do that.
Speaker 1: But then recognizing that just like you did, Wait a minute,
Speaker 1: people are not choosing to do that, like this is
Speaker 1: we are happened to be an anomaly? And why are
Speaker 1: we an anomaly? Oh? Because of these things that these
Speaker 1: other people didn't have access to, right. And so recognizing that,
Speaker 1: to me is what conscious raising is truly about. It's
Speaker 1: we're not all the fucking same exactly right, and a luck.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think along the way, it wasn't just
Speaker 1: your upbringing giving you the confidence a story you had
Speaker 1: in your head. But I can point to all the
Speaker 1: people who saw the real Mai along the way and
Speaker 1: help me even though I had kind of pointy elbows,
Speaker 1: and not everyone gets that. I mean, you could go
Speaker 1: back and think of moments where your life could have
Speaker 1: been hugely different one hundred percent. I mean I tell people,
Speaker 1: particularly my friends that are attorneys, right, I say, I
Speaker 1: wanted to go to law school. That was the only
Speaker 1: thing that I wanted to do post undergrad. And I
Speaker 1: had the white male professor who told me I wasn't
Speaker 1: smart enough to go to law school. So I didn't go.
Speaker 1: That is the one regret that I have and I
Speaker 1: almost went back, but then I was just like, why
Speaker 1: incurred the debt? Because I'm doing all the same jobs
Speaker 1: that everyone around me is doing without the law degree. Right,
Speaker 1: it wasn't a hindrance. And people say, well, they were
Speaker 1: making more money. No, not necessarily, not necessarily, so you know,
Speaker 1: so it was a learning But I say that to
Speaker 1: people often because one person was able to turn shift
Speaker 1: my life trajectory. Yeah, and so what if you have
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of people like that? Do you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying? So it's like recognizing it again, having
Speaker 1: the privilege and the time and the space and the
Speaker 1: thinking to be able to unpack those things, sure, you know,
Speaker 1: and be able to sit here and say, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: been eight years and this ship is fucking crazy, like
Speaker 1: we are living in crazy, crazy times. But this, oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, I just figure something out. Between the two
Speaker 1: of us and our little therapy session. We start out
Speaker 1: by saying, well, on the outside, we're doing blah blah
Speaker 1: blah blah blah, because our whole life we have survived
Speaker 1: by doing all the things yes, right, and that's what
Speaker 1: we do so good through bad. If it's no way,
Speaker 1: it's like where the mailman in the poem, like it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter as it's snow ways at raining, it's the
Speaker 1: whole country burning down, We're gonna be there. Given our kid,
Speaker 1: it doesn't. But you have no idea how we're really
Speaker 1: doing it. And sometimes we don't know because I think
Speaker 1: we've learned to tune that out and there's a benefit
Speaker 1: to dialing it down but not turning it off. And
Speaker 1: so I think I'm trying to take moments where I'm really,
Speaker 1: you know, going, how are you really doing? Yes? And
Speaker 1: it's the moments that I'm really that I'm taking with friends,
Speaker 1: that I'm taking with family and folks that are listening
Speaker 1: to this. If you haven't asked yourself or those around
Speaker 1: you because you are afraid of what the answer is like,
Speaker 1: sit with that as well. Because I think that we
Speaker 1: are all in some shape or form, lying to ourselves
Speaker 1: because the reality of what we're experiencing is so fucking
Speaker 1: crazy and deep, and we just don't have the arm
Speaker 1: spand to wrap our arms around what is going on.
Speaker 1: So we just continue the doing and the producing and
Speaker 1: the moving along, hoping that the tides change. I think
Speaker 1: the one thing that helps me is listening to music. Music,
Speaker 1: new music that I haven't listened to before, and stuff
Speaker 1: I'm familiar with, because I think it's funny some people
Speaker 1: lead with emotion. I just it's deep. I got to
Speaker 1: really find it for me. I mean, I I care,
Speaker 1: but caring is a thinking emotion, right to feel I
Speaker 1: really need and tap into that. So like listening to music,
Speaker 1: going for walks and really doing that, but also, like
Speaker 1: you said, checking in with the people I'm close to
Speaker 1: and say, how are you really doing? Yeah, they tend
Speaker 1: to tell me I'm around people who are much more
Speaker 1: emotive than I am, honestly, and I too, am around
Speaker 1: people that are very emotive. And the thing that I
Speaker 1: have been doing similarly, my therapist said, you need more
Speaker 1: beauty in your life. You need to be reminded of
Speaker 1: art and music, and that there is still beauty that
Speaker 1: is being produced and expressed, and you need to consume
Speaker 1: that so much. Agree, Yeah, with the vigor that you consume.
Speaker 1: All that is wrong. Yes, you know it's funny. I
Speaker 1: in fall of twenty twenty or was it twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: all the things blend together. It was twenty twenty one, right,
Speaker 1: so we'd kind of been vaccinated. And I go out
Speaker 1: and I came down to New York actually to go
Speaker 1: to a friend's book party. And I had to kill
Speaker 1: some time because I drove in and I drove out,
Speaker 1: and I parked right at the met because it was
Speaker 1: actually pretty cheap parking up there, right in the museum.
Speaker 1: And I went in there and I almost started to cry,
Speaker 1: like from looking at art, because I realized how impoverished
Speaker 1: I'd been, and how beautiful it felt to me dance
Speaker 1: because then there aren't words, especially things without words. I mean,
Speaker 1: you and I live in it with words. Maybe no words.
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe look at paintings and dance and for maybe
Speaker 1: music without words, because I think we both need that.
Speaker 1: I have UM I recently, and UM the thing that
Speaker 1: I will tell people I recently I went to over
Speaker 1: the holidays. I saw Alvin Elly, which is a tradition
Speaker 1: that I love and like can try and restore now
Speaker 1: that we're managing to live with COVID. Incredible. M Did
Speaker 1: they do revelations? Oh my god. Yeah, I'm just and
Speaker 1: you know, just sitting there and being able to take
Speaker 1: in the beauty of movement, of spirit of music and
Speaker 1: just like it was similarly how you said when you
Speaker 1: went into the met like I did cry because I realized,
Speaker 1: is that, oh this still happens in the midst of
Speaker 1: all that is occurring. It always has, it always has.
Speaker 1: But it's the remembering to remind yourself to consume it
Speaker 1: right in that in the way that is needed. And
Speaker 1: I don't say in a way that is balanced, because
Speaker 1: we need to be taking in more art, more music,
Speaker 1: more nature, more community than we are the toxicity. Yes,
Speaker 1: So final thoughts Jen to you, what advice do you
Speaker 1: take and do you offer to those listening about how
Speaker 1: to connect with the truth and not just the veneer
Speaker 1: of I'm fine to say it's okay not to be fine.
Speaker 1: I mean, we all have a finite you know, when
Speaker 1: you know we have a finite experience here on this earth.
Speaker 1: Whether you believe in an afterlife or not. This is
Speaker 1: what we have, and we have the relationships, and we
Speaker 1: have art, and we have making a difference. And the
Speaker 1: reason why we should be staying politically engaged and seeing
Speaker 1: things as they are isn't just for us, but it's
Speaker 1: for the next generation and the next one. And that's
Speaker 1: our part. And I think we see ourselves, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about God is at the end of I
Speaker 1: haven't read it in so long, but maybe Anna Karnina,
Speaker 1: we're like whoever the guy in Tolstoy's novel is seeing
Speaker 1: himself because he goes through this whole process of trying
Speaker 1: to figure out who he is religion wise and all
Speaker 1: this stuff, and then he finally situates himself and this
Speaker 1: long arc of history and that's us. We're part of
Speaker 1: thousands upon thousands of years. And people are making gorgeous
Speaker 1: work during the plagues and people, you know, and people
Speaker 1: are doing incredible things during aids, and people now have
Speaker 1: found ways to express in me during these terrible times.
Speaker 1: And the sun always rises, ye, and there can be
Speaker 1: that feeling of warmth of sun on your skin, and
Speaker 1: there can be all of these things, the good and
Speaker 1: the bad in the world, and that happens, and it's
Speaker 1: our job to also be alive to that, even as
Speaker 1: we understand that this political world and this economic system
Speaker 1: is really unfair, infect up, and we can try to
Speaker 1: move it into a better place. But that work is
Speaker 1: never going to be done in our lifetime. But our
Speaker 1: lifetime is going to be done in our lifetime, and
Speaker 1: we can't rob ourselves and the people we love around
Speaker 1: us of that full self, human self that can enjoy beauty,
Speaker 1: feel pain, and show love. Jennifer Tom that I don't know.
Speaker 1: This was not an interview. This was more so a beautiful,
Speaker 1: imaginative intervention, and I appreciate you so very much. Thank
Speaker 1: you for making the time for woke af Thank you
Speaker 1: so much. I didn't know I need this too? Who knew? That?
Speaker 1: Is it for me today, Dear friends on woke f
Speaker 1: as always, Power to the people and to all the people. Power,
Speaker 1: Get woke and stay woke as fuck.