Speaker 1: Are we live?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, we're live. The mic is hot.
Speaker 1: Hey, hey, and we're back episode twelve with Brown Ambition.
Speaker 2: Twelve Real Like Seniors.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes it is. That's how we open. Did you
Speaker 1: even say hi to the people?
Speaker 2: Hi? People, Hi everybody.
Speaker 3: Thanks for sticking with us, Yes every week and your
Speaker 3: feedback has been amazing. We just want to remind you
Speaker 3: to email us at the Brown Ambition or sorry, Brown
Speaker 3: Ambition Podcast at gmail dot com if you have any
Speaker 3: questions or you want to share your Brown break. We'd
Speaker 3: love to answer your questions on air, specifically having to
Speaker 3: do with money or career or anything really.
Speaker 2: Brown Ambition Podcast at.
Speaker 3: Gmail dot com, and please leave a review we're on.
Speaker 3: We're at over forty reviews on iTunes, which is amazing.
Speaker 3: I would love to get to fifty by the end
Speaker 3: of the week. Yes, because it just shows everyone that
Speaker 3: you guys value this show and.
Speaker 2: It helps us get found and people will find us more.
Speaker 4: So.
Speaker 1: So let's get started some buzz.
Speaker 5: Let's do it.
Speaker 1: Let's do some fun. Something fun at first.
Speaker 3: Uh Starbucks, Yes, let's talk about Starbucks. There's some nonsense
Speaker 3: happening every so, this happens every holiday season. The Fox
Speaker 3: News is of the world, like the Christian sort of
Speaker 3: like the right wing conservatives come out with something.
Speaker 2: They'll find anything to prove there's like a war.
Speaker 3: On Christmas, Christians and Christmas, like there's a war on
Speaker 3: the holidays. Usually it's when everyone says happy Holidays, like
Speaker 3: I'm just going to say Merry Christmas and screw you guys,
Speaker 3: you know. And this year they decided to go in
Speaker 3: on Starbucks. Yes, Starbucks has a new Every year they
Speaker 3: have a new cup, I guess, yeah.
Speaker 1: Like it's usually like some some sort of holiday Christmas
Speaker 1: theme cup, and passing years it's been like, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know, like ice skates and snowflake snowflakes and
Speaker 1: you know, they're totally key. You can google it. And
Speaker 1: so this year the cup is red and green and
Speaker 1: it's devoid of like snowflakes.
Speaker 2: There's no patterns. It's like an ombre yes and it's nice.
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know, it's like whatever, it's a
Speaker 3: freaking cup, Like who thinks about that exactly? But now
Speaker 3: people are saying that because there's no festive accoutrement, that
Speaker 3: they think it's Starbucks's a way of ignoring Christmas and
Speaker 3: of course there's a war on Christmas now, which I
Speaker 3: think is such utter bullshit. I actually went to weather
Speaker 3: dot com and looked up the weather in Bethlehem.
Speaker 1: Which is a real place where Jesus was born.
Speaker 2: This was born there.
Speaker 3: Yes, they travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem. Let me tell you,
Speaker 3: in December it is a smooth sixty degrees in Bethlehem.
Speaker 2: You means to tell me there's no snowflakes.
Speaker 1: There's no snowflakes in Bethlehem.
Speaker 3: Now, so Jesus was not born on a wintry night.
Speaker 3: There was no snowflakes from nobody was ice skating in
Speaker 3: Bethlehem the night that Jesus was born. Like, it is
Speaker 3: nothing to do with snowflakes. You guys need to calm down, yes,
Speaker 3: please do. And so I read that. I read that
Speaker 3: there were six passengers on the Spirit Airlines. First of all,
Speaker 3: Spirit Airline is like the toilet bowl of all airlines.
Speaker 3: Like it is just the worst. It's so bad I've
Speaker 3: had I feel like everyone has a like a Spirit
Speaker 3: Airline horror story. If you travel, because you get lured
Speaker 3: in by that, like you know, one hundred dollars round
Speaker 3: trip ticket and then you're like, oh, and it's thirty
Speaker 3: five dollars for a carry on and oh like ten
Speaker 3: dollars for booking online and not.
Speaker 1: If you don't pronoun your ticket ahead of time. It's
Speaker 1: like Frontier some bullshit.
Speaker 5: Yea.
Speaker 3: So they apparently like so they constantly overbook and they
Speaker 3: have so few flights, so like if you get bumped
Speaker 3: from a flight, you have to basically stay over in
Speaker 3: that city because they have so few.
Speaker 1: Flights for people.
Speaker 3: So they overbooked, and they had these to this this
Speaker 3: African American couple. They wanted to change seats, and so
Speaker 3: they asked them, and the couple was like, no, we
Speaker 3: don't want to change seats.
Speaker 2: It's not fair.
Speaker 3: We paid money, like why do we have to change seats?
Speaker 3: And I guess things got a little out of out
Speaker 3: of hand, and then other passengers kind of like piped
Speaker 3: in and stood up. I guess four other passengers who
Speaker 3: were African American like started arguing with Spirit with the
Speaker 3: flight attendant, and then she called the cops, and the
Speaker 3: cops came and everybody like, all these six people had
Speaker 3: to get off.
Speaker 2: The flight got kicked off, and so now spirits in
Speaker 2: a world of bad press.
Speaker 3: Yet again, Yes, and yeah, you know, and obviously like
Speaker 3: it's hard when you're not.
Speaker 1: There to see what happened.
Speaker 2: Yeah, to see what happened.
Speaker 3: But you know, there is that whole thing like would
Speaker 3: this have escalated so much if they weren't black? You know,
Speaker 3: like are they going to be so quick to call
Speaker 3: the cops if it was like a little old white
Speaker 3: lady or you know, just anybody else. Besides that, I
Speaker 3: feel like people are it's always like when you are,
Speaker 3: when you were outspoken and black, what the feedback is like,
Speaker 3: why are you so angry?
Speaker 2: Calm down?
Speaker 1: Like because the threat, the threat is always that violence
Speaker 1: is coming next.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like someone's gonna pull them niight.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like if you went.
Speaker 3: Through security, exactly, nobody has sharp botches. We're using our
Speaker 3: voices exactly.
Speaker 1: There's a a gentleman that told me that he always
Speaker 1: asked for a second employee. He said that way before
Speaker 1: if he feels like, you know, he started to get angry,
Speaker 1: he starts to escalate, he said, because we would need
Speaker 1: to have more than just two stories here, right, you know,
Speaker 1: if you want to there's this really funny rant by
Speaker 1: this woman, young woman named c dot c CS in
Speaker 1: the letter C like cat EE dot C e E TV,
Speaker 1: so C dot cd TV on YouTube, or you can
Speaker 1: just google a Spirit Airlines rant. It is hud.
Speaker 2: I want to play a little clip. She has a
Speaker 2: story hilarious. Yes, thank you, thank you so much.
Speaker 6: So online checking the bag and they're like forty dollars
Speaker 6: for check that, forty five dollars for carry on. What
Speaker 6: I didn't think I was reading it right because normally
Speaker 6: carry on free. I'm doing all the work myself. Why
Speaker 6: why am I paying you to carry my own bag?
Speaker 6: I don't I was very turned off in the first
Speaker 6: five minutes of Spirit Airlines at that moment.
Speaker 1: So I paid eighty dollars forever check my bag going
Speaker 1: to and coming from. So the flight was tours except stops.
Speaker 6: So then if you can tackle on another eighty somebody
Speaker 6: do the math wire kicking your.
Speaker 1: Head somewhere three hundred and fifty six. Now, Spirit, you
Speaker 1: need to stop bamboozling people. You need to stop. It's
Speaker 1: what got me there, they got me.
Speaker 2: Whatever is thee That was hilarious? Yes, it's so true. God,
Speaker 2: just like you need to look out for those hidden fees.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they actually add on fees for the holidays too,
Speaker 3: just for traveling during a high traffic season.
Speaker 1: Oh spirit, you stole her spirit? Any other buzz worthy
Speaker 1: but body? Yeah, a couple, Well this could be a win. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'll save this one, but I want to talk about Serena.
Speaker 1: Did you see the clip? Yes? I didn't actually, but
Speaker 1: I heard that.
Speaker 3: So Serena Williams tennis star Extraordinary, was at dinner at
Speaker 3: a restaurant and she posted this thing on Instagram about
Speaker 3: how she noticed some guy like creeping behind her, but
Speaker 3: she didn't want to like, you know, assume.
Speaker 2: The worst, but she kept her eye on him.
Speaker 3: And then she like had her cellphone on the chair
Speaker 3: next to her, and he just like walks by, casually
Speaker 3: picks it up, and then walks out of the restaurant,
Speaker 3: and then she chases him down in her in her
Speaker 3: Instagram post. You know, of course she's she says she's
Speaker 3: chases him down and she's like he didn't realize I'd
Speaker 3: be so fast, you know, and like she came back
Speaker 3: and everyone cheered for her and whatever, and like the
Speaker 3: picture on Instagram was of a superwoman, like her dress
Speaker 3: like superwoman.
Speaker 1: I saw that picture.
Speaker 2: And then she's like.
Speaker 3: Women like don't feel like just because you're a woman,
Speaker 3: you can't stand up for yourself. This is an example
Speaker 3: of you know, just like girl power or whatever. And
Speaker 3: part of me is like yay, part of me is
Speaker 3: also like.
Speaker 2: Don't chase down a crook.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like maybe they have a gun, Yeah, perhaps they
Speaker 3: have a knife. Like that's not you know, but good
Speaker 3: for her. And then they actually have security footage from
Speaker 3: the from the incident, so she's telling the truth.
Speaker 2: You see the.
Speaker 3: Guy behind Harry picks up the phone. She doesn't chase
Speaker 3: him down the street. She's not running like, he's really
Speaker 3: just strolling, and she just also strolls after him and stops,
Speaker 3: and it sounds like they have like a polite exchange.
Speaker 2: She's like, did you take my phone?
Speaker 5: Sir?
Speaker 2: He's like, oh, yeah, here you go and hands it
Speaker 2: to her.
Speaker 1: So there's no like like creaky chase she's doing on
Speaker 1: the You know how fishermen have like those fishermen stories
Speaker 1: like then I.
Speaker 3: Pulled the big not just fishermen, Like apparently presidential candidates
Speaker 3: have been a little a little bit embellishing some of
Speaker 3: their stories do tell. So Ben Carson, who was gonna
Speaker 3: be my brown break, Actually eventually he probably won't be,
Speaker 3: but I have something else today. But Ben Carson obviously
Speaker 3: is gaining in the polls, and that's just put a
Speaker 3: huge bulls line on his back and people that are
Speaker 3: really digging into his past. He's obviously over now and
Speaker 3: we're a neurosurgeon. He wrote a book in the early
Speaker 3: nineties called Gifted Hands. Gifted Hands. He's like, was it
Speaker 3: an autobiography? You're gonna have a memoir thing? Yeah, And
Speaker 3: several news reports this week have come out saying so
Speaker 3: one of like three different things he's sort of like
Speaker 3: fudged details about. So one that CN ended was all
Speaker 3: about how he claims to have had all these anger issues,
Speaker 3: and he claims to have pulled a knife on a
Speaker 3: friend one time and like beat up people and been
Speaker 3: really violent, and apparently he had some kind to Jesus
Speaker 3: moment where he was in the bathroom and he had
Speaker 3: just like almost killed or just wanted to kill one
Speaker 3: of his friends, and he was in the bathroom and
Speaker 3: he's like, and then I reached in the drawer and
Speaker 3: pulled out the Bible, and then I like I my
Speaker 3: second coming or whatever, like Jesus helped him and then
Speaker 3: he became this new life of like you know, uh,
Speaker 3: kindness and Christianity or whatever. Okay, So CNN went back
Speaker 3: and talked to like a bunch of his classmates from
Speaker 3: this time in his life, and none of them were
Speaker 3: like they're like ben like violent.
Speaker 2: He was kind of nerdy. I wouldn't remember him like
Speaker 2: pulling punch it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, like as he was talking to talk like,
Speaker 1: you know, I used to be out thug out in
Speaker 1: these streets.
Speaker 3: That's so random, Like why and especially in a book
Speaker 3: that supposed to be like, you know, talking about yourself,
Speaker 3: why would you say something negative about it?
Speaker 1: I guess I guess it's it's the build up to
Speaker 1: like and you know, everyone has to have like the arc,
Speaker 1: you know, and their story, like I was so terrible
Speaker 1: and then Jesus saves me and then I'm better. And
Speaker 1: I'm not saying Jesus can't save you. Yeah, but let
Speaker 1: it be authentic. You don't need to give extra you know,
Speaker 1: lies to I don't know. That just seems really crazy
Speaker 1: and not just that.
Speaker 3: So he also said that he was offered a scholarship
Speaker 3: to West Point, which is this like highly competitive military academy,
Speaker 3: and turns out there are no scholarships to West Point
Speaker 3: because people who go there don't pay, and the only
Speaker 3: way to get in is you have to be you
Speaker 3: have to have a reference from like basically someone in
Speaker 3: Congress or someone in political power or from the military
Speaker 3: has to refer you, and nobody, like he nobody referred him,
Speaker 3: and he didn't actually get admitted at all.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's a big one.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So the way he explains it is that he's like, oh,
Speaker 3: actually I had a conversation with someone who said I
Speaker 3: should apply, but he only had ten dollars and back
Speaker 3: then it cost ten dollars to apply to college. He's like,
Speaker 3: I only had ten dollars, so the one place I
Speaker 3: applied to was he was a Yale and he got
Speaker 3: into Yale and went on And I'm just like.
Speaker 2: You have an amazing career. The story is amazing. You
Speaker 2: have to add in these lies.
Speaker 1: Because I mean exactly like you went to Yale. Dude,
Speaker 1: it's cool, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this happens, like you always hear these stories about people,
Speaker 3: you know, like, oh, like the people who lie on
Speaker 3: their resume and they become like executives at these major companies.
Speaker 1: And then you find that later you're like, who was
Speaker 1: the the news anchor.
Speaker 3: Guy Brian Williams. That wasn't a resume, that was like
Speaker 3: an Embellas story.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I always see like the memes on him, like, oh,
Speaker 1: like the time I was hanging out Beyonce and jay Z.
Speaker 3: You're like, it's sad because you know, I think we've
Speaker 3: all done. I'm guilty of it too, Like you retell
Speaker 3: a story and it just gets a little bit more dramatic.
Speaker 2: But when you are on that.
Speaker 3: When you get to this public stage and you are
Speaker 3: in front of a camera and you're talking to people
Speaker 3: like you cannot be lying, especially in the day, in
Speaker 3: the age of Google.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that everyone can find out.
Speaker 3: I can imagine Ben Carson in the nineties being like,
Speaker 3: how they gonna know? You know, like there's not even
Speaker 3: computers yet. So yeah, it's just and you. It's a
Speaker 3: cautionary tale, like do not do not lie. Your story
Speaker 3: is enough?
Speaker 2: Yes, you know, are enough, Ben, You're enough whatever.
Speaker 1: I mean, but I mean, yes, you said you have
Speaker 1: something funny about Donald Trump.
Speaker 2: You said, oh Trump, Yeah, so real quick. Today is Sunday.
Speaker 3: Last night, Donald Trump was on SNL and I obviously
Speaker 3: did not watch because I had better things to do
Speaker 3: with my life. And it's a hot mess. He was
Speaker 3: even on there in the first place, and he you know,
Speaker 3: I was really worried that because of his because of
Speaker 3: his like his media savvy or like just people being
Speaker 3: really fascinated by him and loved watching him for entertainment purposes,
Speaker 3: I was worried they were going to get high ratings.
Speaker 2: And the ratings haven't come out yet, but.
Speaker 3: All the reviews of the show said he was terrible
Speaker 3: good that he just like totally bombed. He wasn't funny,
Speaker 3: and he watered down, Like he said no to several
Speaker 3: sketches because he was worried about how they play in
Speaker 3: the polls, and so he ended up just doing like
Speaker 3: a really weak cameo and a couple of skits, and
Speaker 3: the whole show is kind of awkward.
Speaker 1: So yay SNL that NBC.
Speaker 2: And there was all those protests.
Speaker 3: You know, that famous Latino actor John Luguizamo, he was
Speaker 3: actually interviewed on Yahoo. I got to see the back
Speaker 3: of his head. Yeah, he's like, he's an amazing actor.
Speaker 3: He's not really vocal politically, he's not. But he came
Speaker 3: out on Yahoo and said that he was boycotting. He
Speaker 3: was like, I'm never gonna watch SNL again because they
Speaker 3: had this joker on there, and I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: I hope it was worth it, NBC.
Speaker 2: I hope it was worth whatever.
Speaker 3: Ratings you may or may not have gotten, exactly alienate
Speaker 3: such a huge base. They also got called out because
Speaker 3: one of the sketches apparently they had another and this
Speaker 3: isn't this isn't Like. SNL is notorious for having white
Speaker 3: actors play Latinos and they had yet again. I think
Speaker 3: a white one of the white show people people on
Speaker 3: the show played am a Latino personality, politician or something
Speaker 3: like that. So they need to diversify their cast and
Speaker 3: they need to stop having these racist xenophobes.
Speaker 1: Exactly as host. You see, it didn't work out for you.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, but we all have to learn
Speaker 1: Lama's a bitch and she bites, and that's it for buzzworthy.
Speaker 4: Brown break, Brown break, what you're gonna do?
Speaker 1: That was the break?
Speaker 2: You didn't get it.
Speaker 1: We're doing a lot of like voiceovers and like you know, we're.
Speaker 2: Gonna get like sued for copyright infringement.
Speaker 1: I feel like if we well no, I mean, because
Speaker 1: it's our own voices and clearly we're off tuned.
Speaker 2: It was a remix. Yes, so cops, sorry about that
Speaker 2: brown break this week? Yes, you want to go first, So.
Speaker 1: Mine's a little bit embarrassing. I don't care. So I'm
Speaker 1: taking a brown break from waist trainers. Yes, I said it.
Speaker 1: Some of y'all are wearing it right now.
Speaker 3: I believe I've got so I can hardly wear tights
Speaker 3: without feeling like I'm gonna die.
Speaker 1: I'm not to do that, And honestly, I'm not judging
Speaker 1: because I totally bought two different waist trainers.
Speaker 2: First of all, Like what are they supposed to do? Like,
Speaker 2: how do you train your waist?
Speaker 1: Because if you wear them, are you're supposed to wear
Speaker 1: them for a number of hours a day and it's
Speaker 1: supposed to like basically like remold your body.
Speaker 2: But these are what the Kardashians wear.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but that's not what I was using it for.
Speaker 1: I was using my waist trainer because I was like, ooh,
Speaker 1: when I had a dress on that was like slim fitted,
Speaker 1: and now that I'm thirty six, I had a little
Speaker 1: pudge in my belly. I wanted something like the next
Speaker 1: level up from spanks, right. I wanted something I was
Speaker 1: gonna kind of like hold me and then I could
Speaker 1: just eat all night.
Speaker 2: Is it like metal?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so tis have like a little bit of metal boning,
Speaker 1: but like so like it really cause spank's kind of
Speaker 1: like it spank smooths where you already are. That's what
Speaker 1: I felt. That it pulls you in. Of course some
Speaker 1: but the waist trainer actually like shapes your waists. But
Speaker 1: I found that first of all, it was like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, it didn't do anything, but I felt like
Speaker 1: it made me look like I had a bigger belly
Speaker 1: in clothes. Really yeah, I had like pictures. I'm like,
Speaker 1: what is this stuffach No, because I've got like twenty
Speaker 1: bucks on it. Maybe that's why people were like, well
Speaker 1: there you go to him and then too, I was
Speaker 1: just like, you know what, how about I just get
Speaker 1: a personal trainer? And I did. Yeah, and in the
Speaker 1: last week I lost two pounds, sooo, I know, and honestly,
Speaker 1: it's come for my belly and so like I was
Speaker 1: wearing a dress that we can't.
Speaker 2: Always just you can't always choose where it comes from.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, but you know what she really I
Speaker 1: told her one of my areas I really wanted to
Speaker 1: work on and so I want a meal plan. And
Speaker 1: the meal plan's not anything crazy. It's just like literally
Speaker 1: just just better eating, you know. Like she's like, hey,
Speaker 1: instead of chicken thighs, have chicken breasts, salad, more greens,
Speaker 1: you know. So it's nothing like crazy. She's just given
Speaker 1: it to me. And honestly, I know how to cook
Speaker 1: fairly well, so just using these ingredients in better ways,
Speaker 1: you know. So that's been great. Even Superman he was like, so,
Speaker 1: I'm not on a diet. I was like, hush, she
Speaker 1: eat this food. He's like, I made salmon baked salmon
Speaker 1: the other day, and I found this recipe on YouTube
Speaker 1: with like basil and this and that and lemon, and
Speaker 1: it was so good. And he was like, are we
Speaker 1: eating healthy again? But I made it. He was like, babes,
Speaker 1: this is so good.
Speaker 3: I was like, Samon's delicious. Yeah, I just need some
Speaker 3: lemon juice and some olive oil.
Speaker 2: And just pop that.
Speaker 1: Yes, it was just so good. And so that's why
Speaker 1: I'm like, it's really on lifestyle shift and I've been
Speaker 1: going to gym and I feel great. I can already
Speaker 1: tell the difference. Like I wore dress the other day
Speaker 1: that I would normally whip out my waist training for
Speaker 1: and I didn't, and I was like, I looked, like,
Speaker 1: you know, almost back to my normal self. So where's
Speaker 1: your brown break?
Speaker 2: My brown break this week?
Speaker 3: So being in like, I mean, I read a lot
Speaker 3: of financial bloggers. Obviously I read, well, you don't really
Speaker 3: blog that much, but I read a lot of I
Speaker 3: read your stuff. I read everyone's sort of like little
Speaker 3: blog posts and stuff. But one of the most popular
Speaker 3: types of financial blogging these days is these travel hackers.
Speaker 3: And I need a brown break from these travel hackers
Speaker 3: because they get under my skin for a specific reason.
Speaker 3: They call themselves mile runners, card churning, card churners, travel hacking. Basically,
Speaker 3: what it is is they they say they're getting free travel,
Speaker 3: like oh, I got my flight to Hawaii paid for
Speaker 3: I you know, didn't pay for my hotel. And how
Speaker 3: they do it is they take out a bunch of
Speaker 3: rewards credit cards, and these credit cards, you know, where
Speaker 3: you spend three thousand dollars in the first two months,
Speaker 3: and they'll give you fifty thousand miles, which is like
Speaker 3: six hundred dollars, which you can put toward airfare or
Speaker 3: you can you know, trade those miles for like a
Speaker 3: hotel stay or if you have like a oh we're
Speaker 3: getting a called again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, collar colors are there?
Speaker 2: Why they always calling?
Speaker 1: That's funny, Let's keep it.
Speaker 3: It's like the points guy calling me is like I
Speaker 3: heard you were dis an travel hackers. And you know,
Speaker 3: I'm not calling out anyone specifically on this, but my problem,
Speaker 3: and it's not just travel hackers, but it's with the
Speaker 3: entire rewards card frenzy. They're amazing, Like I love my
Speaker 3: AMX Blue cash card, give me six percent back on groceries.
Speaker 3: But the reason you should get like, you should never
Speaker 3: open a credit card to get bonuses exactly because first
Speaker 3: of all, it's a hard inquiry on your credit report.
Speaker 3: It'll ding your credit score.
Speaker 2: Second of all, you have to spend money to get money, exactly.
Speaker 3: And I don't like how they make it seem like, oh,
Speaker 3: it's a free trip, but you spent three thousand dollars
Speaker 3: to get to there. And it's one thing. If you
Speaker 3: spend three thousand dollars anyway within two months on a
Speaker 3: normal basis, if that's.
Speaker 2: Normal for you, exactly, I don't think that's normal for
Speaker 2: a lot of people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for most people, it's not.
Speaker 2: You'd be like spending.
Speaker 3: I mean, I feel like it would just encourage you
Speaker 3: to whip out that card and spend more. And that's
Speaker 3: a lot of money to spend in a two month period.
Speaker 3: Do you have three thousand dollars to pay it off immediately?
Speaker 1: Exactly?
Speaker 2: Because some of these cards don't all have zero percent
Speaker 2: interest rates.
Speaker 1: And see if they do. Honestly, I always suggest, you know,
Speaker 1: because you know, I'm the budgetiest to full time. And
Speaker 1: so when people ask me, like, you know, I want
Speaker 1: to get a card because I want to, you know,
Speaker 1: save on this flight or whatever, I'm like, well, to me,
Speaker 1: first and foremost, the purpose of getting your credit card
Speaker 1: should not be, like you said, for the bonuses. It
Speaker 1: should be for the specific thing you might say, because
Speaker 1: I suggest that people have at least one card, especially
Speaker 1: if you're an adult, you're going to have to rent
Speaker 1: a card sometime. It's a great way to build your
Speaker 1: credit if you use it responsibly, you know, And.
Speaker 3: So say further, you have more protections from fraud and
Speaker 3: things like that.
Speaker 1: So when I buy certain things, I definitely will use
Speaker 1: my card because I know, like, Okay, if this doesn't
Speaker 1: work out, I know I can call the credit card
Speaker 1: company and they will reverse the charges. And then after
Speaker 1: I've decide that I need a card for a specific
Speaker 1: financial purpose, then I look for a card that matches
Speaker 1: the kind of rewards that I want. So that's secondary.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, do I use gas a lot? I
Speaker 1: look for a gas card. If do I use you know,
Speaker 1: if I travel a lot, So I have a travel card,
Speaker 1: you know. But that wasn't the intention of me getting it.
Speaker 1: I got my card because I wanted a credit card,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 3: But then if it's working, I mean, I definitely feel like,
Speaker 3: if you're going to get a credit card, it should
Speaker 3: be a rewards card because there's just so many out
Speaker 3: there are. But these what these guys don't always say too,
Speaker 3: is that there's a lot of fees. Like some of
Speaker 3: these cards have ninety five dollars and up annual fees.
Speaker 3: Ye you know, I actually have a I have a
Speaker 3: rewards card with the airline that I travel with the most.
Speaker 3: Like I said, my parents live in two different states,
Speaker 3: so I'm always you know, flying to see them, and
Speaker 3: this card gives me a free check bag, which I
Speaker 3: feel like if I take four flights, which is easy.
Speaker 3: It's like Christmas travel for me. You know, it's a
Speaker 3: ninety five dollars annual fee. But if I fly four times,
Speaker 3: then you go, it pays it off. And and I,
Speaker 3: you know, I do get a big bonus if I
Speaker 3: spend a certain amount of money in the first two months,
Speaker 3: but I made sure it wasn't too much. And I
Speaker 3: would just say, be weary and shop around and be
Speaker 3: careful with these travel hacker blogs too, because a lot
Speaker 3: of them are recommending cards and they're getting kicked backs.
Speaker 2: Yep, they're getting paid money from you clicking on affiliate.
Speaker 1: Liketh Sometimes it's much as one hundred and fifty to
Speaker 1: two hundred dollars if you sign up.
Speaker 2: You're kidding.
Speaker 1: So they're like laying into you like it's so amazing good.
Speaker 1: They see you as a payday, you know, which, like
Speaker 1: I said, if you are already in a hunt for
Speaker 1: a card. That's why I love about that. Nick's website
Speaker 1: Magnify Money.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, magnified money dot com. It's a personal finance
Speaker 3: kind of like education site. Yes, and they do a
Speaker 3: lot of card do they do travel reward card comparisons.
Speaker 1: They do everything. But what I love is that you
Speaker 1: could just go in and be like, hey, I'm looking
Speaker 1: for this, and he will compare and he makes it easy.
Speaker 1: He'll say, this card has a A here's why. This card
Speaker 1: has a C. Here's why, and a clear, plainly spoken language.
Speaker 1: So when you look. When I'm looking for a financial
Speaker 1: product or service, I usually go there first and then
Speaker 1: I'll say, like, you know, let me see why, you know,
Speaker 1: like if I'm looking for a secured card or whatever
Speaker 1: it is. But yeah, so that's a great place to
Speaker 1: start if you're already looking for a credit card. Not
Speaker 1: for a credit card so you can get travel points,
Speaker 1: but just a credit card in general.
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely. And what's so Magnified money is a good site.
Speaker 3: And I mean a lot of these sites do good affiliates.
Speaker 3: It's the reason they don't charge you. Like for example,
Speaker 3: credit Karma, which I like because you give Credit Karma
Speaker 3: is one of those sites where you can get an
Speaker 3: estimate of your credit score, which is nice to keep
Speaker 3: track and you can get if you from it, an estimate. Right,
Speaker 3: it's not your FIGHTO score. It's actually based on just
Speaker 3: one of your credit reports, but it gives you a
Speaker 3: good benchmark to tell you where you are. It won't
Speaker 3: be exactly like your fighto score and it's it's a
Speaker 3: nice way too to monitor your credit on your own
Speaker 3: because they do have all your you can see, like
Speaker 3: if someone takes out a credit card that's not that
Speaker 3: you didn't take out, you can go on credit Karma
Speaker 3: and it'll show up there and you can go dispute
Speaker 3: it and whatnot.
Speaker 2: They're actually launching pretty soon. This actually might be under embargo.
Speaker 2: I don't know if I should whatever, who cares. It's
Speaker 2: Credit Carmer. They'll love it.
Speaker 3: They're starting a new thing where you can dispute errors
Speaker 3: on your credit report from credit CARDMA. Yeah, before you
Speaker 3: credit Carmer was nice because you could see your credit report,
Speaker 3: but you couldn't actually do anything about it. You had
Speaker 3: to go to Annual Creditreport dot com and dispute stuff
Speaker 3: through the different channels.
Speaker 2: But yeah, they're adding on that feature.
Speaker 3: But so they obviously when whenever I long go onto
Speaker 3: Credit Karma, i'd see my score, I see my stuff.
Speaker 3: I'm like great, and then it has a million oh like,
Speaker 3: while you're here, here's some recommendations for credit cards. You
Speaker 3: should and honestly, that's that's where I got my AMEX from,
Speaker 3: through them and change then yeah, exactly, So I mean
Speaker 3: you have to keep that in mind. To you are
Speaker 3: they showing you all the best options for you? Like,
Speaker 3: so don't just go to one site. I would say
Speaker 3: magnified Money is a good site. Credit Karma, well maybe
Speaker 3: not credit Karma for credit cards, but nerd wallet I
Speaker 3: like a lot, although I'm pretty sure they get kickbacks too,
Speaker 3: nerd Wallet.
Speaker 1: We're honestly. What I like about Magnified Money is that
Speaker 1: like they well they weren't getting paid before, but now
Speaker 1: for those credit cards that are kind of up there,
Speaker 1: it clearly says on top sponsored, so you can kind
Speaker 1: of like choose, you know, so it's not but their
Speaker 1: a's are not for free. So if you like Nick
Speaker 1: has told me that people have said it, well how
Speaker 1: much for an A?
Speaker 3: Those are not so the credit card company ask because
Speaker 3: they can pay to be listed on other sites.
Speaker 1: Yeah, now I know I'm not going to mention some
Speaker 1: of the sites. I used to actually recommend the one
Speaker 1: site in particular that I loved br but I found
Speaker 1: out that people could like pay do you mean bankr
Speaker 1: I don't know what you're talking about, And so I
Speaker 1: was like, what you could pay? No, because how do
Speaker 1: I know what's real?
Speaker 3: You know what I mean, right, So it's just like
Speaker 3: shopping around different sites and just being aware that maybe
Speaker 3: they're showing you what they want to show.
Speaker 1: You because they get kickbacks exactly.
Speaker 3: And just because it works for one guy to turn
Speaker 3: and get a bunch of open up a ton of
Speaker 3: credit cards in one year just to get a free trip,
Speaker 3: is it worth the amount of debt you will put
Speaker 3: yourself in to get that free trip.
Speaker 2: It's just so that's my.
Speaker 1: Brown break, brown break, what you're gonna do?
Speaker 7: We done broke on you, you know, let's do it.
Speaker 1: Let's we always forget. If you're gonna tweet us, please do.
Speaker 1: We'd love to hear from you. I love when people
Speaker 1: tweet us.
Speaker 2: So it's our Twitter handles.
Speaker 1: Our tweetle handle is the BA podcast at the BA podcast.
Speaker 1: Good and so, but also I love when people tweet
Speaker 1: us at the BA podcast. And they also hit you
Speaker 1: up Mandy Mandy with an I woodruff that's what you
Speaker 1: are on Twitter.
Speaker 2: Right at Mandy woodruf.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I and I'm at the Budget Nisa, like
Speaker 1: fashion Nissa, but the budget Nissa. So if you tweet us,
Speaker 1: we'd love to hear from you. I love those tweets
Speaker 1: when they're like I listen to you guys, or you
Speaker 1: guys say something that we said back, but you tell
Speaker 1: us like this is your brown break.
Speaker 2: We love those.
Speaker 3: I know somebody said they had a brown break against
Speaker 3: windy millennials. Oh oh, and I was like, hmm, you
Speaker 3: sound like my dad.
Speaker 1: I like that one. See you're a millennium. I'm like
Speaker 1: one year past millennial age.
Speaker 2: Yeah, different gen X.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So anyway, I wanted to take so this week, I
Speaker 3: want to do something special we have we don't always
Speaker 3: have guests on. Yeah, but I had a really great
Speaker 3: conversation with someone I admire a lot.
Speaker 2: She's a writer. Her name is Mira Jacob.
Speaker 3: And the way I thought I came on to her
Speaker 3: work is she writes sometimes for BuzzFeed. She's Indian American
Speaker 3: and her husband's Jewish and they have a six year
Speaker 3: old son. He might be a little bit older now,
Speaker 3: but he's around six years old, and he's obviously biracial,
Speaker 3: multicultural and not just that, but interfaith. I don't think
Speaker 3: she was raised obviously, Mirror wasn't Jewish growing up. And
Speaker 3: she did this like amazing BuzzFeed article. It was like
Speaker 3: a graphic novel almost of taking the questions her son
Speaker 3: asks her about race through the This Is to Stay
Speaker 3: with Me. He's asking her about race, but with Michael
Speaker 3: Jackson as the theme. So he's apparently a big Michael
Speaker 3: Jackson fan and his parents had like all Michael's like albums.
Speaker 3: I don't know if they have like forty five's or
Speaker 3: vinyls or whatnot, but anyway, he can see the progression
Speaker 3: of Michael from like black Michael to like different shades
Speaker 3: of Michael throughout the years, and that's sort of like
Speaker 3: how he started looking at rape. And she, on top
Speaker 3: of that, has written about what it's like to be
Speaker 3: an Indian American writer in the publishing world. So I
Speaker 3: had a really great conversation with Mira about raising a
Speaker 3: biracial multicultural child and then also what it's like to
Speaker 3: be an Indian American in the publishing world, and I
Speaker 3: just wanted to share that with you guys.
Speaker 1: Yes, let's real Tate, Miya.
Speaker 2: Jacob, thank you so much for being on Brown Ambition.
Speaker 8: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 5: So.
Speaker 2: I know you're a very successful fiction writer.
Speaker 3: Obviously that goes without saying, but I got to say
Speaker 3: that I found your work through your nonfiction writing. One
Speaker 3: of the first pieces I read by you, and probably
Speaker 3: a lot of people out there have read, was on
Speaker 3: BuzzFeed and it was about It was actually a cartoon essay,
Speaker 3: which was excellent, by the way, on how you handle
Speaker 3: your son's awkward questions about race. And I could really
Speaker 3: identify this, identify with this because like your son, I
Speaker 3: grew up and I'm bi racial and I have a
Speaker 3: younger brother who used to ask me a lot of
Speaker 3: awkward questions about our race as kids, like why is
Speaker 3: my hair curly? And why is it not flat? Like
Speaker 3: you know the Backstreet Boys. Yeah, written right, And I
Speaker 3: just love to talk to you about you know where
Speaker 3: this how this story came about, and what inspired you
Speaker 3: to write it in this way?
Speaker 8: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Sure, well so the story, you know it really it
Speaker 5: came about pretty naturally and intensely because my son is
Speaker 5: he's six now, he's about to be seven, and he
Speaker 5: is really obsessed with Michael Jackson. He watches Michael Jackson
Speaker 5: videos all the time, and he tries to emulate Michael Jackson.
Speaker 5: You knows a bunch of different ways to dance, like
Speaker 5: Michael Jackson's pretty good actually, And all of this is
Speaker 5: you know, he's sort of had this burgeoning obsession. And
Speaker 5: one of the things that I did so he wouldn't
Speaker 5: become part of the generation that just keeps skipping between
Speaker 5: songs the way you do when you have an iPod
Speaker 5: or something else, is I got him a record player
Speaker 5: with albums, so that came with. I got him these
Speaker 5: very big Michael Jackson albums, and he has been studying
Speaker 5: those for a long time and looking at them. And
Speaker 5: what happens when you look at Michael Jackson albums at
Speaker 5: that scale is that you realize pretty quickly that early
Speaker 5: Michael Jackson looks nothing like later Michael Jackson.
Speaker 3: Actually, I'd like to do that myself. Let's just get
Speaker 3: all them together and look at the color palette changing.
Speaker 9: Yeah, it's pretty impressive.
Speaker 5: It's really it's pretty shocking when you see it, and
Speaker 5: when you're a little kid and you.
Speaker 9: See it, you have a lot of questions.
Speaker 5: So obviously one of his first questions for me, which
Speaker 5: I didn't realize was going to open this whole can
Speaker 5: of worms, is what color is Michael Jackson? And so
Speaker 5: I said, well, you know, he's a great question. He
Speaker 5: sort of started brown and he turned white because he
Speaker 5: turned white and I said yeah, and then he just
Speaker 5: looked at me and.
Speaker 9: He goes, are you going to turn white? I was like, no, no,
Speaker 9: turn white.
Speaker 8: And he goes, am I, And I said no, you're
Speaker 8: not going to turn white?
Speaker 9: And he said is daddy? And I said, well, Daddy's
Speaker 9: already white?
Speaker 2: And he goes, but was he always It's just.
Speaker 9: Like he was.
Speaker 5: So I was, oh, God, what have I done? And
Speaker 5: then but what was interesting about that is so I
Speaker 5: messed my kid up for life pretty instantly right then,
Speaker 5: and it was it was both funny and weird, and
Speaker 5: I realized I'd kind of blown it and that I
Speaker 5: had been taken off guard by this really simple question.
Speaker 5: So I thought to myself, the next time he asks
Speaker 5: a question about race, I'm really going to be on it.
Speaker 5: I'm really going to have some better answers for him.
Speaker 5: And as you can see in that segment, I never
Speaker 5: had better answers for him. I'm continually baffled. And my
Speaker 5: main goal in trying to talk to him was just
Speaker 5: to try to be truthful without being scary, which is
Speaker 5: really hard in a world where you know, that was
Speaker 5: last year and most of the stuff at Ferguson was
Speaker 5: breaking and when he's asking questions about who is Michael Brown?
Speaker 9: You know, when he's asking these kinds of questions, and
Speaker 9: he keeps.
Speaker 5: Seeing things on the television that tell him that brown
Speaker 5: kids and black kids are you know, are targeted by.
Speaker 9: White police, and he.
Speaker 5: Has a lot of questions about that in the six
Speaker 5: and it's you know, it's really.
Speaker 9: Hard to to kind of thread.
Speaker 5: That properly and say this is the real Yes, this
Speaker 5: is a real problem.
Speaker 9: This is something that we are all working to change,
Speaker 9: and that's.
Speaker 5: Why we go to those protests, and that's why we
Speaker 5: go to those marches, and but also keep his world
Speaker 5: somewhat safe for him. And frankly, it's easier to do
Speaker 5: for him.
Speaker 9: I'm well aware of that.
Speaker 5: It's easier for it to do for him because I'm
Speaker 5: East Indian and my husband is Jewish, and he's facing
Speaker 5: a different set of circumstances than a lot of kids.
Speaker 5: But he's aware also that his skin comes with a
Speaker 5: story behind it, and he's unsure of what that story is.
Speaker 3: It was interesting to me that you said, you know,
Speaker 3: you knew, you knew, you didn't do the greatest job explaining,
Speaker 3: but you wanted to wait until he came to you again,
Speaker 3: that's hard that I feel like that'd be hard to
Speaker 3: do for you know, I'm kind of I'm a nerdy
Speaker 3: finance nerd, and I tend to be like, wait, you
Speaker 3: don't understand this, let me explain it to you right now.
Speaker 3: I have all my power points ready. I'm going to
Speaker 3: like drill us into you. And what do you think
Speaker 3: is important about waiting for your son to come to you?
Speaker 2: For that?
Speaker 3: For those questions before you you know, kind of laid
Speaker 3: on them all at once.
Speaker 5: It's a great question, you know. And I'll be honest
Speaker 5: with you. It's not that I'm always so good at that.
Speaker 5: There are times when I've definitely over explained things. But
Speaker 5: the other thing is is that when I when I find,
Speaker 5: when I do, when I do wait, usually the questions
Speaker 5: he asks me are quite different than the ones that
Speaker 5: I want to give him answers to.
Speaker 8: So I will want.
Speaker 5: To tell him, you know, you're great, you're fine being brown,
Speaker 5: and you're gonna be okay.
Speaker 9: And those aren't even the questions he has. That's that's
Speaker 9: not what he's asking me.
Speaker 5: And he's asking me other questions which are which are
Speaker 5: harder to answer.
Speaker 8: Sometimes.
Speaker 5: I mean there was a section in that when he
Speaker 5: asked me if white people were afraid of brown people,
Speaker 5: And I was so devastated after he asked me that.
Speaker 5: I mean, at the time, I sort of answered it
Speaker 5: very as straightforwardly as I could. But that night, and
Speaker 5: part of the reason I started drawing this whole piece
Speaker 5: is because I just the idea that he was asking
Speaker 5: me these questions and that the answers were so complicated
Speaker 5: and occasionally unforgiving was it was really hard to kind
Speaker 5: of live with all of that at once.
Speaker 3: And I'm sure your husband's I mean, I know he
Speaker 3: wasn't included in the cartoon, but he can't be off
Speaker 3: the hook altogether. I'm sure your son is also sort
Speaker 3: of asking him, And how do you guys sort of
Speaker 3: approach those questions together?
Speaker 2: Do you talk about it?
Speaker 3: You know on the side, how are we going to
Speaker 3: you know, address race and kind of come to an agreement?
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, there's a there was a part of
Speaker 5: that strip that I didn't include, which is when my
Speaker 5: son asked me because he asked me, a poite people
Speaker 5: are afraid of brown people? And then shortly after that he said,
Speaker 5: is daddy afraid of us? And I said no, and
Speaker 5: he was just quiet, and he was doing that thing
Speaker 5: that kids do when they're just thinking, thinking, thinking, and
Speaker 5: I said, again emphatically, no.
Speaker 8: No, he's not.
Speaker 5: And then and then what I said to him was,
Speaker 5: I said, you know, you can ask Daddy that. And
Speaker 5: Daddy would love it if you if you did ask
Speaker 5: him that, because he would be happy to answer that.
Speaker 5: For you can always ask Daddy these same questions you
Speaker 5: asked me, because I know on some level that he
Speaker 5: comes to me with this stuff because I look like
Speaker 5: him and I'm brown, and so I'm in I'm dealing
Speaker 5: with some of the same things that he sort of feels.
Speaker 5: But also he is half his father, and his father
Speaker 5: certainly thinks about all this plenty.
Speaker 8: So I said that to him, and he said, oh,
Speaker 8: I don't want to do that. And I said, you know, sweetie,
Speaker 8: you know, don't be afraid.
Speaker 5: Dad is not going to get angry with you. You know,
Speaker 5: this is a totally worthwhile question. He said, no, it's
Speaker 5: not that. I just what if we hurt his feelings?
Speaker 5: And I just felt so wrecked when he said that.
Speaker 5: I mean, at the time, I said, yeah, okay, yep,
Speaker 5: I understand. I said, you know, I don't think we're
Speaker 5: going to I don't think you saying that to him
Speaker 5: would hurt his feelings at all. That I understand that,
Speaker 5: and it also but it hit that part of my
Speaker 5: heart that you know that you have growing up as
Speaker 5: just a person of color in the States, where you
Speaker 5: know so often that the kind of the worry you
Speaker 5: feel about how people are going to react to you and.
Speaker 8: Is so often subsumed by your need to want.
Speaker 9: Them to be okay with you.
Speaker 5: And it was really heartbreaking for me that he would
Speaker 5: feel that with his dad, you know, like I want
Speaker 5: him to be okay. He was sort of saying that,
Speaker 5: like I want him to be okay more than I
Speaker 5: want to answer this question for myself. And it was
Speaker 5: really hard. You know, that was really hard, and it
Speaker 5: you also can't push someone to say something. And it
Speaker 5: did go and talk to my husband about it because
Speaker 5: I said, you know, because secure and I, my son
Speaker 5: and I have so many talks about race.
Speaker 9: And I said, by the way, he's probably going to
Speaker 9: ask you.
Speaker 8: I's probably going to ask you if you're afraid of him,
Speaker 8: just get ready.
Speaker 5: And my husband said what And I said yeah, And
Speaker 5: it was you know, it was so funny because I
Speaker 5: had been so deep in this conversation with ze Cure
Speaker 5: about race, and I'd.
Speaker 9: Been so kind of bogged down with it in a way.
Speaker 5: We've been like in the deep water for you know,
Speaker 5: weeks at this point, and I hadn't realized that he
Speaker 5: just bringing all the race stuff only to me. And
Speaker 5: then when I saw my husband's face, I realized, like, oh, yeah, no,
Speaker 5: it's all it's all.
Speaker 8: Coming to me, because he looked so broken hearted.
Speaker 5: By it and I and I, you know, I said, oh,
Speaker 5: we need to just have a moment to be upset about.
Speaker 8: This, Like we need to just have a moment where you're.
Speaker 5: Allowed to be just upset that we're in a world
Speaker 5: where your son has to worry about whether or not
Speaker 5: you're afraid of him because of everything he's seeing on TV,
Speaker 5: and we can do that.
Speaker 3: I wanted to bring up the most recent story I've
Speaker 3: read of yours on BuzzFeed, which detailed something right on
Speaker 3: this topic. Like you were just mentioning how you were
Speaker 3: invited to speak at an event hosted by Publishers Weekly,
Speaker 3: and the talk was supposed to be about your successful
Speaker 3: year getting published your book all the great reviews, but
Speaker 3: things didn't go exactly as planned, and you wanted an
Speaker 3: opportunity to sort of talk about your experience and some
Speaker 3: of the microaggressions that you had gone through in the
Speaker 3: publishing industry, and again things didn't quite.
Speaker 2: Go as you expected.
Speaker 3: Can you talk about that and what you what message
Speaker 3: you were trying to get out that night?
Speaker 8: Sure? So Polloser's Weekly.
Speaker 5: Actually they were lovely and they asked me to give
Speaker 5: this keynote speech for them at a.
Speaker 8: Young Publishing Stars event, and in the course.
Speaker 5: Of of kind of coming up with what I would
Speaker 5: speak about, they said, oh, just talk about your last year.
Speaker 5: And I thought, Oh, this is the perfect time to
Speaker 5: talk about what that what my last year was, because
Speaker 5: I think.
Speaker 8: There is you know, far and might.
Speaker 9: Have had a very nice year, very nice reviews.
Speaker 5: And generally a kind of lovely moment of coming out
Speaker 5: with a debut novel, but what was happening behind the
Speaker 5: scenes was often very different from what was what I
Speaker 5: was kind of presenting, and so I wanted to talk
Speaker 5: about that and it and what I started with in
Speaker 5: the speech was a Boston radio producer who asked me
Speaker 5: to to read a portion of my book on air,
Speaker 5: and he said, you need to edit it, and I said, oh, sure,
Speaker 5: of course, you need to edit it. And so he
Speaker 5: sent the edits back and part of them were what
Speaker 5: you'd expect. It was like, here are three hundred words
Speaker 5: and I've now cut them to twenty five. I thought, yeah, sure,
Speaker 5: But then I looked further in his notes and he
Speaker 5: had circled the names of my characters and said, if
Speaker 5: you're going to stick with the unusual names, maybe cut
Speaker 5: down these three characters to two, because you're going to
Speaker 5: confuse our audience.
Speaker 3: Which I just thought they couldn't possibly understand these weird names,
Speaker 3: I know.
Speaker 5: And it was really funny, by the way, because these
Speaker 5: were all two syllable Indian names.
Speaker 9: I wasn't even going with like rama, you know what
Speaker 9: I mean.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it was like a kiel.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 9: I don't know that that's that confusing.
Speaker 3: I hate how he was underestimating his listener's intelligence at
Speaker 3: the same time.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 9: It was crazy.
Speaker 5: So he said this, he said, you know, cut out
Speaker 5: one of the characters. And I thought, this is this
Speaker 5: book has been published, crazy person. I can't just change
Speaker 5: a scene and cut out an entire character. But anyway,
Speaker 5: I didn't say that. I just said I said you know,
Speaker 5: we can't cut a character. But then further down, because
Speaker 5: he had asked me to write a quick one sentence intro,
Speaker 5: and I had said, these are three East Indian teenagers,
Speaker 5: children of immigrants, are sitting on a roof talking and
Speaker 5: he had crossed out East Indian and written Asian Indian.
Speaker 2: And I just.
Speaker 9: Remember, I know, I read that, and I thought, what.
Speaker 5: Because I have because I literally have never heard anyone
Speaker 5: say Asian Indian unless they were saying no, not like
Speaker 5: American Indian, like Asian Indian and so and I wrote
Speaker 5: back and I said, yeah, I just you know, first
Speaker 5: I just crossed that back out and wrote.
Speaker 9: East Indian and just gave it back to him.
Speaker 5: And then he crossed it out and again and he wrote,
Speaker 5: he wrote this note to me on the bottom, and
Speaker 5: he said, you know, alas here in this country, East
Speaker 5: Indian is just not a term that we use, so
Speaker 5: I want to be sure or that, you know, our
Speaker 5: listeners are going to understand what you're talking about. And
Speaker 5: I just, I mean, I read that and I just
Speaker 5: kind of had this moment where I felt like my
Speaker 5: brain was going to fall apart because I just thought,
Speaker 5: are you kidding?
Speaker 3: Well, I mean it's not even I mean, it's a
Speaker 3: direction and there's a country and it points to a region.
Speaker 3: I don't understand what's so difficult about that.
Speaker 5: The whole thing was baffling, but the part that was
Speaker 5: most baffling to me was his assumption that I was
Speaker 5: not every bit as American as he is.
Speaker 8: Just an assumption, and.
Speaker 5: I'm you know, I'm forty two, I have been born
Speaker 5: and raised in this country. I have been waiting for
Speaker 5: it to catch up with me for a long time.
Speaker 5: And this is just to say that when this happened,
Speaker 5: I wanted to talk about that in the speech.
Speaker 9: I wanted to say because I think that there.
Speaker 5: I think sometimes when I'm in the book world, I
Speaker 5: feel like they are catering to that guy, that guy
Speaker 5: who is so sheltered and so not a part of
Speaker 5: the conversation that the rest of us are having, and
Speaker 5: they're saying, well, let's make sure everything is understandable for
Speaker 5: that guy, And I feel like, what about the rest
Speaker 5: of us.
Speaker 8: There are so.
Speaker 9: Many of us.
Speaker 8: We can go so far beyond this conversation.
Speaker 5: East Indian is not confusing three kids without.
Speaker 9: Names that are you know, with names that.
Speaker 8: Don't happen to be Mary Dick and Tom.
Speaker 5: That is not confusing. People can handle this. We are
Speaker 5: these people, you know. I think one of the things
Speaker 5: that I have problem with with that narrative is that
Speaker 5: it assumes that nobody like me exists or buy things or.
Speaker 9: Is out in the world.
Speaker 5: And meanwhile, there are so many of me. And I
Speaker 5: don't mean East Indian women raised in New Mexico. I
Speaker 5: mean people that come from a broad range of cultural
Speaker 5: experience who expect to go into the world and not
Speaker 5: have every question answered immediately about somebody, but are curious
Speaker 5: enough to push through that and to.
Speaker 9: Find out who someone is and where they come from.
Speaker 5: Because we're a huge audience and you haven't found us
Speaker 5: because you keep trying to make books for only white audiences,
Speaker 5: because you're relying on your own experience, and you don't
Speaker 5: need to. There's so much more here, And frankly, frankly,
Speaker 5: I think in New York especially, there are plenty of
Speaker 5: people that have a lot of experience outside of that.
Speaker 5: So part of it was also just to like trust
Speaker 5: your gut, here, go with this, go with what you
Speaker 5: know in the world, Like get rid of those voices. Well,
Speaker 5: let's override these voices that tell us that it's all
Speaker 5: too big to take on.
Speaker 9: It is not too big to take on.
Speaker 1: All I do is when, when, when, no matter what. So,
Speaker 1: first I want to say thank you to Mirah for
Speaker 1: being awesome.
Speaker 3: Yes, thanks Mirah. And again you can check her out
Speaker 3: at Mira Jacob dot com. Her new book is Sleepwalker's
Speaker 3: Guide to Dancing.
Speaker 1: So now it's time for whens.
Speaker 2: Ending on a high note.
Speaker 1: When what I love? What like my new my new favorite?
Speaker 1: Like races like what w e T?
Speaker 2: What?
Speaker 1: What is that?
Speaker 2: A question?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Like so it's like you're staying there? Yeah, No, just
Speaker 1: like a question, just a sassy like what were you saying?
Speaker 1: So sometimes like I'll send it to like my best
Speaker 1: friend Drina or Linda, like something will happen. I'm like, wait,
Speaker 1: what did she say?
Speaker 5: What?
Speaker 1: Anyway, when something else I really wanted to talk about
Speaker 1: for a win is so the very first person Chicago
Speaker 1: woman became the first patient to be cured of sickle
Speaker 1: cell I know, which is huge because why is McDonald's on.
Speaker 1: I don't know, they just I'm looking at my computer. Man,
Speaker 1: it's looking on because sickle sau effects one and five
Speaker 1: hundred African Americans. It's if you are African American, you
Speaker 1: probably know someone who's suffering from sickle cell. Unfortunately, it's
Speaker 1: like is it Tay Sacks set with the Jewish population,
Speaker 1: Like usually there's like every race kind of has like
Speaker 1: some sort of like illness that like you know, it's
Speaker 1: like really specific to that race anyway. So for us,
Speaker 1: for African Americans, it's sickle cell. And so Lesha so
Speaker 1: Lesha Tom and she's thirty three. They cured her through
Speaker 1: stem a stem cell transplant. And this is right here
Speaker 1: in Dwell. We're not in Chicago, but right in Chicago.
Speaker 1: The physicians of the University of Illinois Hospital and Health
Speaker 1: Science System performed a procedure using medication to suppress hermune
Speaker 1: system and a small dose of body radiation before during
Speaker 1: a stem cell transplant. And so that was just really dope.
Speaker 1: But I'm just like, wow, they can find a cure
Speaker 1: for sickle cell. So many like a great friend of mine, Uh,
Speaker 1: look me, a great friend. I can't remember her name, Eddieomi.
Speaker 1: She has sickle cell. Her sister has sickle cell and
Speaker 1: has had so many scares with death, and she started
Speaker 1: this great organization called well, she can't call it anymore
Speaker 1: because Susan G. Cooman sold them. Yeah, I know, I
Speaker 1: don't know what he or they it's called now, but
Speaker 1: just I remember that was like kind of like my
Speaker 1: first kind of like just like knowledge about sickle cell
Speaker 1: from somebody in person. Then knowing that you kind of
Speaker 1: go through these bouts where you really can't get up,
Speaker 1: where you're so sick. She said, she spent so much
Speaker 1: of her her childhood in the hospital, right, And I'm
Speaker 1: just like wow, So if they can find a cure
Speaker 1: and do this again.
Speaker 3: The cell, you know what, stem cell research. This is
Speaker 3: just one example of how powerful it can be. And
Speaker 3: there's a lot of controversy because embryonic stem cells are
Speaker 3: used widely and they're the most powerful tools in stem
Speaker 3: cell research. They're much better than adult stem cells. So
Speaker 3: they get them from fetal tissue, you know, which can
Speaker 3: be you know, donated from women who have abortions and
Speaker 3: other ways too. But this just goes into like the
Speaker 3: other side of the debate about stem cell research and
Speaker 3: just look how powerful it can be. So if you
Speaker 3: you know, feel like you're anti stem cells, then just
Speaker 3: look at this example.
Speaker 2: Woman's life was saved exactly. So those those are some
Speaker 2: good ones.
Speaker 1: I came ready because you know, Mandy was beating me
Speaker 1: up last week.
Speaker 2: You weren't prepared. I keep this going.
Speaker 3: You get a plus. This is a good one. So
Speaker 3: I used to be a big fan of Project Runway.
Speaker 3: This was like the antidote for me to like America's
Speaker 3: next Top Model, Rest in Peace, which is ending after
Speaker 3: like seventy five cycles.
Speaker 2: Yes, I was done with like I.
Speaker 3: Needed a brown break from a A n TM like
Speaker 3: years ago.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So I love Project Runway and I love Tim Gunn
Speaker 3: And they just had the very first plus sized designer
Speaker 3: wind the whole the whole kit in Kaboodle. Yes, her
Speaker 3: name is Ashley. What's her last name?
Speaker 2: What her last name is? Oh my god, I love Ashley.
Speaker 2: She's so cute. Ashley tipped in Yep.
Speaker 3: I didn't watch this season, but I feel like I'm
Speaker 3: gonna binge watch it now because she's so cute. She
Speaker 3: has like this this cute little watermelon skirt. Yeah, I
Speaker 3: love me some watermelon clothes and her little lavender hair,
Speaker 3: and she just looks so so cute, and she looks
Speaker 3: so like everyone else in America.
Speaker 1: You know, I want to I want to see like
Speaker 1: her clothing. You know, usually like American and they'll have
Speaker 1: like I mean, Project Granway will show you like all
Speaker 1: of her looks.
Speaker 2: Oh the looks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, gotta look. I gotta google her to watch.
Speaker 2: The season finale.
Speaker 3: And speaking of Project Runway, they had this big when
Speaker 3: plus sized designer winning. But then mister tim Gunn, who's like,
Speaker 3: I love him. He just actually, if you want something,
Speaker 3: you want a Tim gun fix. He's he's doing the
Speaker 3: rounds right now. I think he has a book coming
Speaker 3: out or something or other. He was just on for
Speaker 3: a new Staabbies podcast, so money. Yeah, it was a
Speaker 3: pretty good interview. So he was on Huffing to Post
Speaker 3: Live and they asked him about his feelings about the Kardashians.
Speaker 3: I forget how they came up. Tim gun does not
Speaker 3: strike me as the kind of person who just brings
Speaker 3: up Kardashians in his everyday conversation because he hates them,
Speaker 3: like his his feelings toward them were so visceral in
Speaker 3: this interview and he says that he basically says he
Speaker 3: hates he he thinks it's disgusting and tasteless, like how
Speaker 3: they have used their platform to influence fashion, and he's like,
Speaker 3: if you want to know what not to wear. Just
Speaker 3: look at whatever the Kardashians are wearing. And he doesn't
Speaker 3: like that the fashion. It seems like he's a bit
Speaker 3: bitter about how the fashion industry is has, you know,
Speaker 3: so supposedly embraced them. They're like at all the shows
Speaker 3: now Balmain is like their official Kardashian fashion house, and
Speaker 3: he even calls out Kendall Jenner. And I feel like,
Speaker 3: if you're a model today and you work, like modeling
Speaker 3: isn't easy and it takes a lot of hustle, and
Speaker 3: I feel like if you look at a person if
Speaker 3: you're modeling, you're trying to get your you know, your
Speaker 3: career off the ground. You look at someone like Kendall Jenner,
Speaker 3: like I'd feel like you can easily feel a little
Speaker 3: bitter about how quickly her star rows and question whether
Speaker 3: or not that would have happened if she didn't have
Speaker 3: the Kardashian pr machine behind her.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean definitely. I mean Kendall obviously has the
Speaker 1: build and she's beautiful, so I don't I think that
Speaker 1: she would still be a model. I don't know if
Speaker 1: she'd be a top model, but I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 2: She certainly wouldn't have been like hanging out a car
Speaker 2: Lagerfeld house.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, those things. Yeah, but definitely I think
Speaker 1: that she's got the building, the look to be a model.
Speaker 8: Well.
Speaker 3: I just loved Tim that he kept it so real
Speaker 3: because I feel like people for some reason have become
Speaker 3: afraid of the Kardashian Like they're so powerful now that
Speaker 3: people are afraid to come out and talk against them.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 3: That one time Katie Kirk who works at Yahoo, but
Speaker 3: apparently Katie Kirk when like Katie Kirk said something about
Speaker 3: them that wasn't so nice about Kim or something like that,
Speaker 3: right before Northwest was born. And then when Northwest was born,
Speaker 3: she sent her like a little baby gift or a
Speaker 3: card or something congratulating her, and Kim send it back
Speaker 3: and like and like posts on Instagram about it. So
Speaker 3: I remember, the people are afraid to talk about them,
Speaker 3: But I don't know. I just loved him gun for
Speaker 3: calling them out for the crazy, insane machine that they
Speaker 3: are and calculating they call them entrepreneurs.
Speaker 2: Now that's just like just yeah, any other wins, I
Speaker 2: think those were my two wins.
Speaker 1: And with that we say it.
Speaker 3: Do another episode of Brown break in the can no
Speaker 3: Brown break another Brown mission.
Speaker 1: If you have a Brown break you want to share,
Speaker 1: If you have a win, we'd love to get some
Speaker 1: more wins that.
Speaker 2: You want to share or questions.
Speaker 3: You know, November is not just Thanksgiving and Black Friday season,
Speaker 3: which we'll probably talk about in future episodes, but it's
Speaker 3: also the time when everyone who graduated from college in May.
Speaker 3: It's when your student loans come to six month grace
Speaker 3: per it's over. My little brother included, it's a wrap,
Speaker 3: it is. They're coming for you. Please do not forget.
Speaker 3: I made the mistake of forgetting about the grace period
Speaker 3: ending and I was like two months behind right out
Speaker 3: the gate. Yeah, awesome for my credit score. So anyway,
Speaker 3: just a public service announcement about that. And if you
Speaker 3: have any questions about student debt, salary negotiation, something happened
Speaker 3: at work story to share, email us at Brown Ambition
Speaker 3: podcast at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: Tweet us at the BA podcast, Facebook us Brown Ambition.
Speaker 2: I love our Facebook group.
Speaker 3: Everyone's really like involved and really support him on there.
Speaker 3: So it's a fun place.
Speaker 1: And then just everything all in general can be find.
Speaker 1: I feel like that's a lot. Just go to Brown
Speaker 1: ambition dot com. Everything is literally the Brown Ambition Podcast
Speaker 1: dot com, Brand Ambition Podcast dot com.
Speaker 3: Someone said brown ambition dot com years ago. Currently Brown
Speaker 3: Ambition podcast dot com. All of our information, they're all
Speaker 3: the social all the different places you can find us
Speaker 3: on iTunes, Google, Sure, SoundCloud, all that.
Speaker 1: Gets just everything. That's where you can find this though.
Speaker 1: All right, and we're out by