Speaker 1: Welcome to reparations, the big payback, the production of Color
Speaker 1: Farm Media, I Heart Radio and the Black Effect podcast network.
Speaker 1: I'm Erica, Alexander and I Whitney out. There's no reason
Speaker 1: reparations what we are. The ones that were injured were solos,
Speaker 1: were solos. Enslavement is stuff. The people who are owed
Speaker 1: for slavery are no longer here. I want to check.
Speaker 1: I don't think reparations is a good idea. Everyone should
Speaker 1: be given the damage that was done to their family
Speaker 1: cash payment. I don't want no government and though reparations
Speaker 1: should be welcomed by all, some folks may want checks,
Speaker 1: but what we're really talking about is closing that wealth
Speaker 1: gap and making people whole. Let me tell you justice.
Speaker 1: It's just uh. Here we are on the corner of
Speaker 1: Wall and Broad Street, one of the most like famous
Speaker 1: corners in America. Right, it's the seat of capitalism. We're
Speaker 1: standing at the feet of George Washington, founder of our country,
Speaker 1: who's looking across Wall Street at the New York Stock Exchange.
Speaker 1: It this is it. It's smaller than I thought. It
Speaker 1: looks more impressive than pictures. I was doing a little
Speaker 1: research before we came down here. Erica, and you know
Speaker 1: the value of the company's contained in the New York
Speaker 1: stock has changes over thirty trillion dollars. That's ten trillion
Speaker 1: dollars more than the nation's GDP every year thirty Amazon,
Speaker 1: and the value and the amount of trading that is
Speaker 1: done every day about of money that passes through there
Speaker 1: is I think, over a hundred and sixty billion dollars
Speaker 1: every day. When you think of Wall Street, what do
Speaker 1: you think of I think of this. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: a little a lot of stone. There's all these really
Speaker 1: beautiful polished bronze doors with sparkling glass and a lot
Speaker 1: of really decorative iron work around, and it's kind of
Speaker 1: telling everybody, well, if you're a white man, you can
Speaker 1: come in, but everybody else stay out. Meant to intimidate,
Speaker 1: and it does. It's not only intimidating to New Yorkers,
Speaker 1: but I think it's meant to be intimidating to the world.
Speaker 1: What I didn't realize is that directly across the street
Speaker 1: is Federal Halls. Walk up there a little bit America.
Speaker 1: We're standing in front of Federal Hall Memorial and that's
Speaker 1: another Gothic building, and out in front of it, there's
Speaker 1: a statue of George Washington, and it really struck me
Speaker 1: when I saw us. Here's the founder of our country,
Speaker 1: and he's looking across the street at the stock exchange
Speaker 1: age as if he's looking at the capitalist foundation of
Speaker 1: the country. But this is where he took the oath
Speaker 1: of office upstairs in this building. Wow, they really did
Speaker 1: a nice job on the bronze work near his crutch,
Speaker 1: and it matters because you're looking up at him and
Speaker 1: you're meant to see his penis first and then go
Speaker 1: up to his face and follow his eyes to the
Speaker 1: stock exchange. At least that's not what I see at
Speaker 1: our back is George Washington. If we look to our right,
Speaker 1: we can see Trinity Church, the oldest church I think's
Speaker 1: one of those churches in the country, all these church
Speaker 1: in New York. If you look across the street directly
Speaker 1: in front of us as a stock exchange, and then
Speaker 1: if you look down the street to the water, do
Speaker 1: you know what's down that street The location of New
Speaker 1: York's first slave market that was founded in seventeen eleven.
Speaker 1: So if we're should have like the four points of
Speaker 1: the compass in America, we have politics, money, religion, slavery.
Speaker 1: That sounds right. Black people will always make up the
Speaker 1: four points. And in fact, none of these things could exist,
Speaker 1: these politics, that religion, or that money without slavery. And
Speaker 1: that's the unfortunate part. For them to have white freedom
Speaker 1: and white success, they needed black bodies. You know, when
Speaker 1: I met you, Whitney, I had no idea that I
Speaker 1: would be stuck with you for this long. We've been
Speaker 1: talking about reparations for two years. It's only been two
Speaker 1: years for us, but it's been a hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: years for our country. Did you ever imagine yourself making
Speaker 1: a project about reparations with a guy named Whitney Burton
Speaker 1: Dow from the colony of Cambridge, Massachusetts, Like you often
Speaker 1: point out a look the drawing of a wasp or
Speaker 1: a colonist. Well, yeah, I guess if you come from Cambridge,
Speaker 1: Massachusetts in your name Mats Whitney Burton Dow, you look
Speaker 1: a little whitish. So yeah, but who better than you
Speaker 1: represent for your people if you're talking about white people, Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: white people. Yeah, you're the guy white people in America.
Speaker 1: That's you. Well, Hams Hollywood, you know you're no pauper.
Speaker 1: I've seen your house. If you did, you wouldn't be
Speaker 1: saying that I need reparations just as much as anybody.
Speaker 1: I am no Cambridge Whitney Dow and I didn't just
Speaker 1: pop into people's movie screens and on stages and in
Speaker 1: theaters all over the world. I have an origin story.
Speaker 1: We all have origin stories, and origin stories are how
Speaker 1: you live. They don't hopefully determine who you are. It's
Speaker 1: about the stories we tell ourselves, and I guess story
Speaker 1: shape our present reality, and I think that's where every
Speaker 1: story starts. Every good story is between reality and myth, Like,
Speaker 1: what's possible telling the truth? Well, you're setting a pretty
Speaker 1: high bar that you and I are going to get
Speaker 1: to the truth. Everybody loves different truths, and I think
Speaker 1: your truth is mixed with a lot of lies. Thanks
Speaker 1: for that. Are you talking about me personally, Erica, or
Speaker 1: collectively as the white guy here? Both reparations. It's a
Speaker 1: complicated issue, and I'm not sure if I'm the right
Speaker 1: person to tell the story with you, Erica. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: might be too white. Well I'm extra black, I'm extra
Speaker 1: crispy black. Does that offset some of my whiteness? Is
Speaker 1: that what you're saying no, No, you're white. You white,
Speaker 1: you gotta live with it, any of my problem. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna coattail on your blackness here. By the way, this
Speaker 1: is a conversation. If we're going to go on this
Speaker 1: journey about reparations, it ain't about you. Know, you would
Speaker 1: say it is about you, But I'm Harry, it's child
Speaker 1: you hear me. I'm here to rescue my people. And
Speaker 1: the last time I checked, we just got a new
Speaker 1: black woman VP. So right now I'm feeling like, ain't
Speaker 1: nothing too big for me? And if not you Whitney,
Speaker 1: then who step up? If we're gonna do this, We've
Speaker 1: got to make a plan. We gotta find experts. We
Speaker 1: gotta you know, find people who actually know what they're
Speaker 1: talking about. Just goose your eyes and make a wish
Speaker 1: count to three. Yeah, that's come on, that's Sheila Jackson Lee.
Speaker 1: That's Congressional hearing on hrd. America is a place and
Speaker 1: welcomes the diversity of thought. We even welcome the diversity
Speaker 1: of thought among the multi colored chocolate people that are
Speaker 1: African Americans. Did you hear that multi colored chocolate? Do
Speaker 1: you see how she got down old old girl as
Speaker 1: a warrior if we were to pay reparations today, we
Speaker 1: would only divide the country further about to turn on
Speaker 1: him like Mr Colored Purpose. Reparations by definition, are only
Speaker 1: given to victims. Victims had no consent. What you're supposed
Speaker 1: to say? I give you permission to rid Maddin me
Speaker 1: massa who here comes down? Mr Wakanda buck up. We
Speaker 1: recognize our lineage as a generational trust as inheritance, and
Speaker 1: the real dilemma posed by reparations is just that, a
Speaker 1: dilemma of inheritance. Yep, that's what's happening in d C.
Speaker 1: I guess that's why HR forty, a built to discuss reparations,
Speaker 1: has been stuck in committee for thirty years. Meanwhile, on
Speaker 1: these mean streets here we are out here, man, it's crazy.
Speaker 1: The remnants of this history is all around us. Oh snap,
Speaker 1: the New York's Municipal slave market. There's a sign here
Speaker 1: are we less than two feet across and just over
Speaker 1: one ft high. It's drawing on it and has a
Speaker 1: green New York Parks emblement. It says our Wall Street
Speaker 1: between Pearl and Water Streets and market that auction enslave
Speaker 1: people of African ancestry is established by a Common Council
Speaker 1: law on November thirtieth, sev eleven. This is the New
Speaker 1: York's municipal slave market sign. But you can look up
Speaker 1: from this site and see Trinity Church, and you can
Speaker 1: see the New York Stock Exchange and the foundation of
Speaker 1: it all. American slavery gets a two by two plaque.
Speaker 1: You know, I've been here before, but this is the
Speaker 1: first time I'm seeing this. Some I'm a little piste off.
Speaker 1: I don't know why it's not more prominent. I don't
Speaker 1: know why it's just a sign. Look, there's a big
Speaker 1: old statue George Washington over there. Big buildings that we
Speaker 1: talked about with stones look like it should be here,
Speaker 1: and this looked like it'd be. It could be knocked
Speaker 1: over by a hard wind. How does it make you
Speaker 1: feel thinking about all this? You're visibly upset, You're shaking,
Speaker 1: you know much shaking. I'm upset. I mean, I really
Speaker 1: wish I could rip that sucker out. It's not even
Speaker 1: worth it being there. And then also I'm kind of
Speaker 1: mad because I have been here before, I didn't see it.
Speaker 1: There are people walking through, their immigrants, got their children,
Speaker 1: they've got all their families, They should be able to
Speaker 1: see it. There should be the stain of it in
Speaker 1: New Yorkers should have to live with it, they should
Speaker 1: have to learn about it, they should be confronted with it.
Speaker 1: I want them to really acknowledge slavery. I want them
Speaker 1: to give us justice. Black people want justice. We deserve it.
Speaker 1: We should have it by any means necessary. And part
Speaker 1: of that justice is that you should not be able
Speaker 1: to come and walk by a slave market marker and
Speaker 1: not be moved by it, or at least have to
Speaker 1: reckon with it or see it. That was so brutal.
Speaker 1: Being there with you, Erica, someone who I care about,
Speaker 1: and seeing the vistal reaction, the pain that it caused
Speaker 1: you to be there, it left me feeling kind of helpless.
Speaker 1: And I know that if I've been alone, if I
Speaker 1: had been there by myself, I would have find some
Speaker 1: way to push myself away from it and the absurdity
Speaker 1: of it and just kind of intellectualize it. Where being
Speaker 1: there with you forced me to own it a bit.
Speaker 1: But that's my problem, not yours. It is your problem
Speaker 1: and black people's burden to bear. I mean, we gave
Speaker 1: you money and paid the big on your loan. Who
Speaker 1: needs bootstraps when they've got friends like you, Whitney. That's
Speaker 1: what I mean earlier when I said your truth is
Speaker 1: filled with a lot of lies. These realities, they show
Speaker 1: it for me every day. Meanwhile, you're underwater thinking your
Speaker 1: real estate has value. What I'm thinking about is solutions.
Speaker 1: And I really believe the only way towards a true
Speaker 1: reconciliation is to create a funded reparations program. And white
Speaker 1: Americans you have to decide if they want to rise
Speaker 1: with Black Americans or fall with them. I see you,
Speaker 1: Whitney down you're doing something. I mean, you're here, you're
Speaker 1: working on it, you're talking about it. But don't expect
Speaker 1: the parade or props are shown up to clean up
Speaker 1: the mess you've made. Yeah, it is a big mess.
Speaker 1: And Erica, you've told me in the past that you
Speaker 1: feel like James Baldwin or Tattenhassi Coates has said that
Speaker 1: you don't really believe, you don't really have faith that
Speaker 1: white people of the ability to change. And I totally
Speaker 1: understand that if I were black, I imagine I would
Speaker 1: feel the exact same way, and especially looking at the
Speaker 1: events the last you know, a few weeks and we've
Speaker 1: had three or four thousand white people storming the Capitol
Speaker 1: and it looks horrible. Those images were just like atrocious.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, we've also had millions of
Speaker 1: white people in the street marching alongside black and brown
Speaker 1: people protesting police violence. So that does make me a
Speaker 1: little optimistic. I hope it doesn't sound corny that I
Speaker 1: do believe we can change, right, Maybe I feel like
Speaker 1: I kind of have to believe we can change. Like
Speaker 1: in Evanston, Illinois, things are changing. I've known his reparation
Speaker 1: robbin and rolls of parks now, so that's different. How
Speaker 1: about that she's a rock star. Four hundred years after
Speaker 1: the first enslaved Africans got off the boat, Alderman Robin
Speaker 1: Ruth Simmons passes the first reparations bill in America. Oh Man,
Speaker 1: talk about the long arc. We gotta keep an eye
Speaker 1: on her. We will. But I want to show you
Speaker 1: something first. So Erica, tell me what do you see here?
Speaker 1: What are we? What were you walking up to? Oh?
Speaker 1: We're Duyne in Elk Street and it says African burial
Speaker 1: ground a way. So they're building a federal building at
Speaker 1: two hundred fifty six million dollar building and when they
Speaker 1: broke ground on they discovered this burial ground. What does
Speaker 1: this say here? Changing landscape obscures the past. The African
Speaker 1: burial ground was labeled Negroes Burial Ground on the seventeen
Speaker 1: fifty five map at right. Colonial New York laws banned
Speaker 1: African funerals and officially consecrated graveyards, prohibited gatherings of large
Speaker 1: numbers of enslaved Africans, and decreed that funerals had to
Speaker 1: be held during daylight. Nonetheless, Africans and their descendants held
Speaker 1: burial ceremonies in a cemetery outside the city wall, near
Speaker 1: a ravine. As New York City expanded northeast, the burial
Speaker 1: ground was closed in seventeen nine and eventually divided into
Speaker 1: lots for sale. The land was filled in and buildings
Speaker 1: were constructed on top. For almost two centuries. New York
Speaker 1: City's growth obscured the graves and the African burial ground
Speaker 1: was nearly forgotten. So we tried to put a Starbucks
Speaker 1: on it. It's a metaphor, right, The foundation is African
Speaker 1: Americans Americans both on top of it. They turned their
Speaker 1: barrel ground into real estate, but that foundation wasn't paid
Speaker 1: for it was paid for in blood, guts and suffering.
Speaker 1: I think of the people buried here were children. So
Speaker 1: we talk about reparations for work and value created, but
Speaker 1: what about reparations for all the people that were destroyed
Speaker 1: by it? It as children, the people who actually never
Speaker 1: had a life. So this is showing the levels of
Speaker 1: different centuries and what they built on top of those coffins.
Speaker 1: It's a diagram. We're ground level, right, Yeah, we're ground level.
Speaker 1: So the on top there's three different centuries. In the
Speaker 1: lowest right, or at least, is the seventeen hundreds. People
Speaker 1: were buried in individual coffins up to three deep. But
Speaker 1: that looks exactly like the slave ship diagrams coming across.
Speaker 1: That's interesting from Africa. So they went out like they
Speaker 1: came in. That's a cold, cold thought. Let's walk up
Speaker 1: to the next marker. This one is says Africans in
Speaker 1: early New York before the American Revolution, York had more
Speaker 1: enslaved Africans. It's most valuable commodity than any other colony
Speaker 1: in the North. You're leaving out the most important thing here.
Speaker 1: It's not that these people were just here, they say,
Speaker 1: and they give an account of their work. Women sewed,
Speaker 1: cooked harvests, didn't care for owners children. Labors tore up
Speaker 1: cobblestone streets, dug trenches late and joined the pipe sections,
Speaker 1: and filled in the trenches. Pay one dollar a day
Speaker 1: in slave workers wages went to their owners. That's real,
Speaker 1: and you know the real One of the reasons why
Speaker 1: the slave market was established down on Wall Street was
Speaker 1: because there were so many enslaved Africans here and the
Speaker 1: actual way the labor pool was structured wasn't really structured.
Speaker 1: There to sending people out in the street to like
Speaker 1: earn money, and they wanted to sort of like codify
Speaker 1: into something more structural. By the way, this whole thing
Speaker 1: is about white fear. Yeah, you should be fucking afraid
Speaker 1: because if we ever get what we deserve and if
Speaker 1: we ever start to balance those books, there ain't no
Speaker 1: stopping us, and it's over. It's not just the rebrowning
Speaker 1: of America, it's the black nation coming into its own.
Speaker 1: So yeah, they try to bury us too black, too strong.
Speaker 1: From eighteen nineties and estimated fifteen thousand enslaved in free
Speaker 1: Africans were laid to rest in African fifteen thousand bodies
Speaker 1: are here seven burial mounds mark the locations of the
Speaker 1: re internments. Here. They are over here, So this is it.
Speaker 1: Look at the mounds here. Oh my god. Now to me,
Speaker 1: this is significant. My god, look at that. What does
Speaker 1: it make you feel to stand here and look at this? Well,
Speaker 1: I'm very proud. I'm glad to see them. And I
Speaker 1: don't know I gained comfort from them being here. I'd
Speaker 1: come out here and eat my lunch with them. What
Speaker 1: do you think? It's funny because you know, you look
Speaker 1: over at the stone and it's all representational. This is
Speaker 1: so much more concrete. These are real burial mounds. And
Speaker 1: knowing that the remains lie underneath it, and knowing that
Speaker 1: they're aligned in a certain way with their heads facing Africa.
Speaker 1: I think it's beautiful. It's beautiful and they shall rise again.
Speaker 1: Oh hey, you know they give tours of this stuff.
Speaker 1: M Black Gotham, thirty books, Totally worth it. Definitely buy
Speaker 1: several tickets. I gotta take my mom and show her
Speaker 1: all these hidden gyms, because she's the greeno in the family.
Speaker 1: Oh man, it's a shame because no matter how hard
Speaker 1: she worked with me, it wasn't enough, and she won't
Speaker 1: live to see a new world that's created through the
Speaker 1: application of reparations. So like the Africans, underneath those buildings,
Speaker 1: it's going to be beyond her flesh and bone. But
Speaker 1: that means it's fertile ground. It's very fertile. My mother's
Speaker 1: in it. It's blessed and highly favored. What really strikes
Speaker 1: me about it, Eric because that it's called the African
Speaker 1: burial ground. But it's not just African history. It's white
Speaker 1: history too, and it's history that's layered across generations. And
Speaker 1: it's not just about what happened before it happened hundreds
Speaker 1: of years ago. You can also see in it how
Speaker 1: it's impacted what's happening today and how you and I
Speaker 1: how our own families are living within the legacy of slavery. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I get it. I mean my brother is a Philly
Speaker 1: copp and my sister is a social worker, and they
Speaker 1: worked within the racist system that we're talking about every day.
Speaker 1: You know, that's how they make their living. And the
Speaker 1: weird part is if systematic reformation is needed and reparations
Speaker 1: is part of the cure, we have to get ready
Speaker 1: because there's a whole lot of black folks that are
Speaker 1: baked into the current architecture and they ain't gonna get out. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a rough ride. It would disrupt everything.
Speaker 1: So we got to be careful what we wish for first,
Speaker 1: do no harm. Maybe we need to step out of
Speaker 1: our current reality from all Reven Barber says that we're
Speaker 1: in the third reconstruction. So Whitney, this is our opportunity
Speaker 1: to map out a blueprint, to chart a new destiny,
Speaker 1: to decide who our builders are. Our architects are machinists.
Speaker 1: You would probably need a few arsonists. We're gonna have
Speaker 1: to tear some things down along the way. But first
Speaker 1: we need vision. Imagination, you mean a reimagination. That's a
Speaker 1: little change. Oh, it's amazing what a good composition can
Speaker 1: do to carry us away. Okay, I'm ready. I think. Well,
Speaker 1: let's be real. You always feel your best at the
Speaker 1: beginning of the marathon. I hope, I'm ready, Yeah, I hope.
Speaker 1: I bought a black power bar this season on Reparations,
Speaker 1: the Big Payback. I didn't have a lot of skills.
Speaker 1: I was a bad student. That was kind of this
Speaker 1: histof Charlie got thrown out of schools. I was always
Speaker 1: getting good fights. So that's why you got into race work,
Speaker 1: because you were a mediocre white man anywhere anywhere, exactly
Speaker 1: what you're saying. I failed everywhere else, So race took
Speaker 1: me in it. I made a career out of it
Speaker 1: because that's what we needed. This business. We need to
Speaker 1: rejects awesome. Look, we have to define reparations. Some people
Speaker 1: want to define reparations as a give me a check.
Speaker 1: That's not reparations. They treat us like animals more or
Speaker 1: less than like human beings. And we are the ones
Speaker 1: who lost our lives building this country and got paid
Speaker 1: not one dime for it. But everybody else is reaping
Speaker 1: the benefits. That's album money. My life revolves primarily around
Speaker 1: my discovery that my ancestors were the largest slave trading
Speaker 1: family in US history. When I looked at you, Wikipedia,
Speaker 1: my god brother, you're not playing you like the John
Speaker 1: Lewis of the Aristocrats, the inspiration for me and reparations.
Speaker 1: I know that the injustice and the discrimination in the
Speaker 1: racism is a shared problem, but which has to be
Speaker 1: confronted if we're gonna move on successfully together. My life
Speaker 1: would have been any different if I was black, because
Speaker 1: it's the core of who you are. Everyone has a burden.
Speaker 1: It's how you handle the burden, and so I truly
Speaker 1: don't feel that there was a privilege. Absolutely not. Mom.
Speaker 1: What happened was we were standing in there and suddenly
Speaker 1: the window shatters. The policeman told me that he was
Speaker 1: trying to kill some blackbirds, meaning my children, who were
Speaker 1: standing at the window at and not been for a
Speaker 1: double pain windows, probably I would have that morning lost
Speaker 1: two of my children. If I had enough money to
Speaker 1: ease the disparities and enough programs directed run by black
Speaker 1: people to help us, then I would even be willing
Speaker 1: not to have Chambel Harris Speed Vice President. What goes
Speaker 1: on your playlist? The reparations playlist? Well, what I play
Speaker 1: for my students at the end of the semester is
Speaker 1: um when will we get paid? This podcast is produced
Speaker 1: by Eric Alexander, Dan Arnon and Whitney daw The executive
Speaker 1: producers are Charlomagne the God and Dolly s. Bishop, The
Speaker 1: supervising producers Nicole Childers and the lead producers Devin Madock Robins,
Speaker 1: the producer writer Serres Castle, and the associate producers Kevin
Speaker 1: fan With additional research support provided by Nile Blast original
Speaker 1: music by dj d t P Reparations. The Big Payback
Speaker 1: is a production of color Farm Media, I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: and The Black Effect Podcast Network in association with Best
Speaker 1: Case Studios. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit
Speaker 1: the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.