Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, Waiting reparation. You're listening to Waiting Our Reparations
Speaker 1: A production of I Heart Radio. Hey this finished Watching
Speaker 1: the debate between Trump and Biden. Both of these niggas
Speaker 1: is hiding behind they lie in. It's obvious. One of
Speaker 1: them is getting high when he's sweating on stage, like
Speaker 1: he's shooting in his diapers. Y. I haven't seen it
Speaker 1: in my life, certain, but it's okay because come November,
Speaker 1: I'll get in that boat moving up. Remember, he thinks
Speaker 1: America's great and it'll get greater. That's why he's on stage.
Speaker 1: Sounded like a dictator. His text came out. He can't
Speaker 1: making big paper, trying to help Wall Street take what
Speaker 1: they can get later. If you was watching, be afraid
Speaker 1: of it all. If we talk civilization, it's the way
Speaker 1: that it falls. When it comes to November, be ready
Speaker 1: to brawl because they want the course. Tips Scale making
Speaker 1: a call. So they talked about the Supreme Court and
Speaker 1: then some climate change. I saw the nigga flying into
Speaker 1: the blindest rage. Might need to rewind the frame because
Speaker 1: these niggas, it's like twice my age, twice the age.
Speaker 1: You better make it a triple. When these niggas was
Speaker 1: kids candies costing the nickel. We found ourselves in one
Speaker 1: hell of a pickle. This is why I don't be
Speaker 1: trusting these public officials. Ship my name is Dope Knife
Speaker 1: Franca waiting, hurry up. Well, I'm a little shell shocked,
Speaker 1: to be completely honest with everybody. We just we just
Speaker 1: just finished watching the debate. Yeah, we pulled out the
Speaker 1: laptops and we poured a couple of glasses of wine
Speaker 1: and twisted up something. Well, I twisted up something and
Speaker 1: we watched the debate and that was fucking nuts. Heyo,
Speaker 1: Chris Wallace is fired. My homies sent me. He was like,
Speaker 1: what if Chris Wallace at some point had just been like,
Speaker 1: so for the background, Chris Wallace did a terrible job
Speaker 1: moderating the debate, just let Trump talk over him whole time.
Speaker 1: It didn't really like help him or enforce him adhering
Speaker 1: to the guidelines, to the guards, to respecting the two
Speaker 1: minutes each candidate would give it into. My homie sent me.
Speaker 1: He text was that he was like, what if Chris
Speaker 1: Wallace had just been like would you shut the funk
Speaker 1: up for a goddamn minute, to which I responded, I
Speaker 1: would find Chris Wallace's home address and anonymously send this
Speaker 1: motherfucking nudes well as a reward for doing his duty
Speaker 1: of keeping that ship and check because I just devolved
Speaker 1: into Toddler's bickering. I mean, I don't want to get
Speaker 1: I don't want to get a tinfoil hat ship. But
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be shocked if the point was for him
Speaker 1: to let Trump go on and ramble like that. I mean,
Speaker 1: there was barely any substance, and I mean it was
Speaker 1: it was pretty much dictated by Trump that there wasn't
Speaker 1: gonna be any substance in the debate. He wasn't. I mean,
Speaker 1: at this point, I think anybody who is talking to
Speaker 1: you or pretending that Trump is in control of the
Speaker 1: facts of any situation or speaks with any substance or
Speaker 1: authority on anything, I don't know. I think you got
Speaker 1: a question what that person's motivation is or how smart
Speaker 1: that person is. It doesn't mean Joe Biden one, It
Speaker 1: doesn't mean Joe Biden lost. I don't think that given
Speaker 1: what was going down, I don't think that there was
Speaker 1: anything to win as far as Joe Biden is concerned.
Speaker 1: It was just a ship show. Yeah. So they covered
Speaker 1: climate change, which I was pleased that they did. Uh.
Speaker 1: They talked about law and order, which you know, it's
Speaker 1: in regards to the protests that I'm taking place all
Speaker 1: across the country for the last five months. COVID was
Speaker 1: a big topic. I thought COVID was a spot where
Speaker 1: Joe Biden was shining a little bit. But they did
Speaker 1: cover reparations at although they did not but you know
Speaker 1: who he is going to cover reparations, Well, that would
Speaker 1: be us, of course. So today we're finally getting around
Speaker 1: to the topic that we've been waiting on, reparations. This
Speaker 1: will be first in imaginatively many episodes on the topic,
Speaker 1: but today we're particularly looking at our huments reparations grounded
Speaker 1: in the history of land policy in the States, and
Speaker 1: speaking with Ja Corey Arthur, hip hop artist and city
Speaker 1: council and elect in the city of Louisville about reparations
Speaker 1: in a black agenda for local governments. Yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: we feel we're owed for the labor that was stolen
Speaker 1: from our ancestors. And you know, we'll get into the
Speaker 1: dollars and cents and of how much might be owed
Speaker 1: and what redistribution could look like in a later episode,
Speaker 1: but less well known than this, theft is the way
Speaker 1: that the wealth we have man is to accumulate has
Speaker 1: been pilfered again and again, never since. It's important that
Speaker 1: people understand how that ship contributed and led to the
Speaker 1: racial wealth inequality that we see today. This link is
Speaker 1: one that Tatnesee Codes also makes in his landmark case
Speaker 1: for Reparations in Atlantic in two thousand and fourteen, a
Speaker 1: timeless read if you haven't checked it out. Yeah, by
Speaker 1: the way, Coats talks about sharecropping, debt pionage, about voter intimidation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: But what stands out to the piece for me at least,
Speaker 1: is the synthesis of the research on the various kinds
Speaker 1: of land that perpetrated against former slaves in their progeny.
Speaker 1: Coats makes note of an eighteen month investigation undertaken by
Speaker 1: the Associated Press, involving interviews with more than a thousand
Speaker 1: people and examination of tens of thousands of public records,
Speaker 1: all weeks together to document theft of black land across
Speaker 1: the Eras, stretching all the way back from the Antebellum period.
Speaker 1: Their work uncovered over four victims and twenty four thousand
Speaker 1: acres of land value to the tens of millions of dollars,
Speaker 1: all stolen through mechanisms as elegant as legal trickery, and
Speaker 1: those is blunt as cold blooded murder. So, for example,
Speaker 1: on October four, fifty hooded white men surrounded the home
Speaker 1: of David Walker, a black farmer in Hickman, Kentucky, and
Speaker 1: ordered him to come out for a whipping. Walker refused
Speaker 1: and said fire to the hooded men, who then said
Speaker 1: fire to his house. According to accounts of newspapers at
Speaker 1: the time that resided in the Los Angeles Times article
Speaker 1: on the Apes research, Walker ran out, allowed by his
Speaker 1: four children, and his wife put their baby in her arms.
Speaker 1: All of them were shot by the mob. Three children
Speaker 1: were wounded, Walker, his wife, and two of his children died,
Speaker 1: including one who burned to death inside the house. No
Speaker 1: one was ever charged with the killings. The records revealed
Speaker 1: at Walker's two and a half acre farm was simply
Speaker 1: merged with the property of the white neighbor, who sold
Speaker 1: it off to another man shortly after. The second man's
Speaker 1: daughter still owns the land today. So yeah, sometimes it's
Speaker 1: violent vigilantes, and sometimes the current bureaucracy of the state.
Speaker 1: For example, in nineteen sixty four, The l A Times
Speaker 1: reports the state of Alabama suit cousins Lemon Williams and
Speaker 1: Laurence Hudson, litigating that they had no right to their
Speaker 1: to forty acre farms and Sweetwater, Alabama. The land, officials
Speaker 1: argued was property of the state. A judge very simply
Speaker 1: ordered them off the land and there was nothing they
Speaker 1: could do about it, despite the fact that years later,
Speaker 1: in the Apies investigation, it was found that deeds and
Speaker 1: tax records clearly proved that the family had owned the
Speaker 1: land for almost a century. So how does that sort
Speaker 1: of ship have Like what's an example of that today?
Speaker 1: I mean, we'll we'll talk about this in a second,
Speaker 1: but eminent domain has historically been a means through which
Speaker 1: governments have seized lands belonging to black folks and then
Speaker 1: you know, um, particularly in the era of urban renewal,
Speaker 1: and remains untold to this day, though I haven't seen
Speaker 1: a particular dot commentation of ways it could be used
Speaker 1: like in a racially oppressive manner to date. Like, I mean,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't doubt if it's still going on. I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously it's not as like overt as hooded men showing
Speaker 1: up in trade. No, And I would love if we
Speaker 1: utilize like imminente dummain to like seize all the hotels
Speaker 1: that are empty right now and give them the homeless people.
Speaker 1: Ship like that, to like redistribute wealth and resources in
Speaker 1: a decidedly anti racist, anti class this way. But you
Speaker 1: like typically it's always to just downtrod already downtrodden and
Speaker 1: Killer Mike's song Reagan Mike says, we all talk having greens,
Speaker 1: but not on the bus. Don't make the bus. We
Speaker 1: different would feed that people when that people need to eat.
Speaker 1: This is seemingly decrying the lack of agricultural knowledge and
Speaker 1: land stewardship in the black community, but the fact is
Speaker 1: that violence, both mob induced and state initiated, have forcefully
Speaker 1: driven down our ability to provide for ourselves tending to
Speaker 1: the land ever since the days we have to do
Speaker 1: so by force of others. While general farm ownership has
Speaker 1: declined broadly since the Industrial Revolution, is agribusiness becomes concentrated
Speaker 1: and fewer and fewer hands, black ownership has declined two
Speaker 1: and a half times faster than white ownership, according to
Speaker 1: a federal report in two and this land staff. It's
Speaker 1: not a uniquely Southern phenomenon, nor is it confined to
Speaker 1: lands tended to Black folks. For agriculture. Owning a family
Speaker 1: home has always been a practical way to build well
Speaker 1: be as the family goes equity in their home through
Speaker 1: monthday mortgage payments and the home appreciates and value, then
Speaker 1: you are able to borrow against the equity in their
Speaker 1: home for their needs, or even sell the home at
Speaker 1: a profit. But they're looking at cash out. Not so
Speaker 1: much for African descendens of slaves, though, as Coats lays
Speaker 1: bear in his discussion of the fight for Black homeownership
Speaker 1: in Chicago. From the nineteen thirties to the nineteen sixties,
Speaker 1: black folks across America were largely shut out of the
Speaker 1: legit mortgage market, and folks in Chicago as a result,
Speaker 1: turned to buying homes on contract, a predatory scheme that
Speaker 1: made them responsible for over inflated monthly housing costs as
Speaker 1: if they were renters, but then also paying for the
Speaker 1: upkeep of the place itself as if they were owners.
Speaker 1: In a contract sale, the settler kept the deed until
Speaker 1: the contract was paid in full. So if a boiler
Speaker 1: blue and a black tenant had to come up with
Speaker 1: like five bucks to replace it and couldn't and in
Speaker 1: turn couldn't afford to pay their monthly mortgage payment. The
Speaker 1: seller with whom they made the contract could force them
Speaker 1: to forfeit their deposit, all of their monthly payments, and
Speaker 1: the property itself, evicting the family and selling the house
Speaker 1: again at an inflated price to the next black family
Speaker 1: looking for the American dream. This happened over and over again,
Speaker 1: as reported in the Chicago News Stately, and I don't
Speaker 1: want to get too off topic, but this just kind
Speaker 1: of reminded me, And it's just like something that they
Speaker 1: didn't bring up. They didn't talk at all about the
Speaker 1: eviction crisis, what's going on right now? No, I feel
Speaker 1: like they barely touched on just the like how do
Speaker 1: you get the economy to recover from our current procession.
Speaker 1: I don't blame Biden for that, No, that was totally
Speaker 1: a moderator moderator And obviously, yeah, it's like it's not
Speaker 1: even that the questions were necessarily all bad. I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously the whole linking of race and violence is some bullshit,
Speaker 1: But I just felt there was no control to that ship,
Speaker 1: so important things like all the tens of thousands of
Speaker 1: people like facing eviction right now in the middle of
Speaker 1: a pandemic, and stuff like that doesn't get brought up.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I took it off topic, and I think
Speaker 1: it's really interesting how, Yeah, the questions they choose frame
Speaker 1: like what policies are viable like period, And so the
Speaker 1: fact that they don't even bring up because I found
Speaker 1: myself as a reluctant, you know, potential Biden voter, reassured
Speaker 1: by a lot of bidens like stridency and like steady
Speaker 1: handedness throughout the debate. But I think that speaks more
Speaker 1: to the way that the moderator's questions frame what viable
Speaker 1: policies are that it does like the breadth of the
Speaker 1: candidates policy knowledge and in political will encourage Uh. In
Speaker 1: the first place, it's like, oh, within the scope of
Speaker 1: what they're talking about, this seems reasonable when it's like I,
Speaker 1: you know, I want a fucking green new deal, I
Speaker 1: want a fucking mortgage and cancelation. You know, these are
Speaker 1: the things that I want and have been fighting for, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, through the limited powers I have as a
Speaker 1: local legislator. And because they don't even get brought up.
Speaker 1: It's like almost like a form of brainwashing or through
Speaker 1: watching and accepting the framing of these questions, like we
Speaker 1: get sort of it's manufacturing consent. Yeah now, um okay,
Speaker 1: back back to Yeah, you ended it on black families
Speaker 1: getting evicted, So why the funk wouldn't they just get
Speaker 1: a normal mortgage. Well it wasn't so simple. While white
Speaker 1: homeowners themselves use every trick in the book, from restrictive
Speaker 1: covenants governing who could buy a house and from whom
Speaker 1: to straight up terrorists ship the government did their part too.
Speaker 1: Congress created the Federal House and Administration in nine four
Speaker 1: to ensure private mortgages, causing a drop in interest rates
Speaker 1: and a decline in the size of the down payment
Speaker 1: required to buy a house, and lowering barriers and access
Speaker 1: to homeownership for many whites. However, the f h A
Speaker 1: also made us to the system of maps that rated
Speaker 1: neighborhoods according to their perceived stability. Green colored A rated
Speaker 1: areas on the map indicated neighborhoods and high demand, that is,
Speaker 1: one to praise it put it lacked a single foreigner
Speaker 1: or negro. These were neighborhoods considered excellent prospects for insurance.
Speaker 1: Neighborhoods where black people lived were rated d and drawn
Speaker 1: in red and were usually considered ineligible for f h
Speaker 1: A backing because they were called in red. That gave
Speaker 1: birth the term redlining that is come to be widely
Speaker 1: known as a racist practice with regards to mortgage lending.
Speaker 1: As practice of redlining declaring neighborhoods with black people live
Speaker 1: it's ineligible for mortgages spread to the already racist mortgage
Speaker 1: industry as a whole. Since the f and private lenders
Speaker 1: wouldn't approve mortgages for properties owned by blacks either, black
Speaker 1: homeowners and communities couldn't sell their houses, so the homes
Speaker 1: essentially became worthless, and so by these means, blacks works
Speaker 1: sloded from the greatest mass based opportunity for wealth accumulation
Speaker 1: in American history. Allow the tales of having built the
Speaker 1: country with our labor and that paid different the wide
Speaker 1: net of housing practices that have taken place, from mortgage
Speaker 1: lending policies to rental applications to the like violent physical
Speaker 1: theft of land by white vigilante mobs in earlier areas
Speaker 1: like it's all tied together in a way that black
Speaker 1: folks have been dispossessed of wealth we've endeavored to create
Speaker 1: against all odds across the decades, and it creates like
Speaker 1: a secondary argument for reparations. Not only the laborer that
Speaker 1: was stolen to create the wealth of this country has
Speaker 1: benefited from the labor that this government and and uh
Speaker 1: white people, you know, white supremacists have stolen from us
Speaker 1: over and over again as we've attempted to climb. And
Speaker 1: not only that, but with urban renewal, many of these
Speaker 1: black communities were erased as federal governments flushed local ones
Speaker 1: with cash to clear slums and invest in public projects.
Speaker 1: So it's a precursor to urban renewal. But something that
Speaker 1: operator in a very similar fashion is when the US
Speaker 1: seized land belonged to the sp family in Vera Beach, Florida,
Speaker 1: your eminent domain to build an air field. I believe
Speaker 1: in the nineteen forties, sps were awarded thirteen thousand dollars
Speaker 1: for the seven acres, which included thirty acres of fruit grove,
Speaker 1: two houses, forty house lots, which amounted to that thirteen
Speaker 1: thousand sum that they were paid amounted to one six
Speaker 1: of the price per acre that the Navy paid white
Speaker 1: neighbors for similar lands with a fewer improvements. After the
Speaker 1: Second World War, the Navy turned over the airfield to
Speaker 1: the city of Vero Beach, ignoring the SPS plea to
Speaker 1: buy back their land. The city sold part of fifteen
Speaker 1: hundred dollars an acre to the Los Angeles Dodgers for
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty five spring training facility. And in that former
Speaker 1: Navy land, sixty of which once belonging to the SPS,
Speaker 1: was now worth more than six million dollars. And we've
Speaker 1: seen that here locally to a fighter recently engaged in
Speaker 1: Here in Athens is for justice and reparations for the
Speaker 1: community of London, to which is a black enclave that
Speaker 1: existed um near the University of Georgia campus starting in
Speaker 1: the nineteen hundreds and up until the nineteen sixties, where
Speaker 1: working class black folks had scraped together enough money to
Speaker 1: buy homes with the restrictive covenants that barred them from
Speaker 1: buying properties at many white dominant neighborhoods, it was one
Speaker 1: of the few places in town that they could settle.
Speaker 1: They built a community there, but under urban renewal, the
Speaker 1: University of Georgia received money from the federal government and
Speaker 1: support from the city government to essentially clear out and
Speaker 1: demolish the neighborhood, paying the families a paltry some somewhere
Speaker 1: from like fourteen hundred dollars for their homes and displacing
Speaker 1: them into public housing because there was nowhere else happens
Speaker 1: for them to live. They couldn't buy houses pretty much
Speaker 1: anywhere else. This was in the nineteen sixties, and so
Speaker 1: a lot of those children who watched the bull dozers
Speaker 1: pull up and demolished the houses next door to them
Speaker 1: while they played in their yards, and whose parents had
Speaker 1: to pay rent to the University of Georgia to continue
Speaker 1: to live in the houses that they owned Jesus when
Speaker 1: they refused to move. Um, those children are still live
Speaker 1: today and like asking for the government to make amends
Speaker 1: for this conspiracy that they were complicit in back there,
Speaker 1: back in the nineteen sixties. And the mayor himself today
Speaker 1: has noted that those houses, were they still standing today,
Speaker 1: were they not demolished to create student dorms, would be
Speaker 1: valued in the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars
Speaker 1: have not millions of dollars today, And then think of
Speaker 1: the just think of like the ripple effect of having
Speaker 1: that landsday where it was supposed to stay exactly thinking
Speaker 1: about their students, of their their their children might have
Speaker 1: actually been able to afford to go to the University
Speaker 1: of Georgia and what they could have used the equity
Speaker 1: in those homes to buy anything from opportunities for their
Speaker 1: kids to participate in competitive sports or s a t
Speaker 1: tutoring to college tuition or even something as simple as
Speaker 1: like simple luxury. It's like a vacation, and those opportunities
Speaker 1: were denied to them. They were given you know, you know,
Speaker 1: a stack and told to get out force in the
Speaker 1: public housing, which destroyed a lot of these families went
Speaker 1: down with your fight. And so people took issue with
Speaker 1: the fact that we called this an act of white
Speaker 1: terrorism in the resolution that was presented. Uh, I think
Speaker 1: in terms of diplomacy, folks felt Folks by folks, I
Speaker 1: mean my fellow commissioners felt that that was really harsh
Speaker 1: language that would like activate tensions between US and the
Speaker 1: University of Georgia if we were to claim that this
Speaker 1: was an act of white terrorism. And so as well,
Speaker 1: there were seven stories of the legality because in the
Speaker 1: Georgia State Constitution, there is a clause preventing, folks. It's
Speaker 1: called the caratuities clause, preventing local governments from just giving
Speaker 1: money to people. So we wouldn't be able to just
Speaker 1: give the money that's owed to the descended. That is
Speaker 1: send a little bit broad creative than that. And so
Speaker 1: what we did get out of that conversation was a
Speaker 1: fucking task force. I'm so like the task forces, I
Speaker 1: swear to God. I mean, how are you going to
Speaker 1: get done if you don't have a force to do it.
Speaker 1: So a committee consistent of myself and a geographer and
Speaker 1: many of the living descendants of Lyndon Town to figure
Speaker 1: out what reparations looks like and within the bounds of law,
Speaker 1: what could it what could it look like here? So
Speaker 1: the so the fight is ongoing. I think, um, the
Speaker 1: public battle for it has been one, but now the
Speaker 1: more bureaucratic well, this is part of It's definitely the
Speaker 1: most I guess mainstream that reparations has been discussed in
Speaker 1: my lifetime personally. Yeah, I mean I think when Mary
Speaker 1: and Williamson brought it up one of the first presidential
Speaker 1: debates for the first time. Yeah, she's a major a
Speaker 1: major party like had like really really yeah. I still
Speaker 1: don't understand why we wait for Trump to be president
Speaker 1: before we make it like as big an issue as
Speaker 1: it is. Well, if Obama had brought it up, they
Speaker 1: would have been like, oh you black and black. No,
Speaker 1: I know, trust me, I know, and I understand all that.
Speaker 1: But it's just like we got open fascists trying to
Speaker 1: implement a fucking dictatorship, coup and ship. I don't know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like they've controlled damn near all the government for
Speaker 1: the last three years. It just feels weird that we're
Speaker 1: trying to get Nazis to listen to us about REVERA
Speaker 1: because they don't care at all. Well, I would argue
Speaker 1: that half of the country who didn't vote last time,
Speaker 1: many of whom are African American, would be the target
Speaker 1: audience of bringing that up now, and that's when we're
Speaker 1: trying to build their like movement around socialism, et cetera.
Speaker 1: As the left. Sorry, just purchased the microphone kind of
Speaker 1: sucking drunk, get off my ass. Though, though the scope
Speaker 1: of viable policy is constrained by these debates and constrained
Speaker 1: by these candidates, I think that the left is very
Speaker 1: much alive in this country and there's a lot of
Speaker 1: room through things like the Gravelle Institute that has launched
Speaker 1: this week. I saw that video that show was dope,
Speaker 1: and through conversations on the shop floor and in our
Speaker 1: classrooms as you know, you know, as myself as an educator,
Speaker 1: interfacing with young people to bring these these policies to
Speaker 1: life and to bring them to relevance through connecting with
Speaker 1: folks who are unlikely to engage civically at present, what
Speaker 1: could if the government actually offered them something. Today we're
Speaker 1: joined by Jacory Arthur, councilman elect for the Metro City
Speaker 1: Council in Louisville, Kentucky, as well as a music educator
Speaker 1: and artists. How are you today to Corey Oh? In
Speaker 1: between fight and the fight and doing what's right, which
Speaker 1: this is one and the same, definitely dealing with the
Speaker 1: balances of people who are coming from places of ignorance
Speaker 1: in our fight for justice and trying to teach as
Speaker 1: much as I can, trying to educate so I can
Speaker 1: eventually legislate. Yeah, So what does that educational process look
Speaker 1: like for it with the public, Because as an elected
Speaker 1: official myself, I find myself balancing between listening and trying
Speaker 1: to legislating ways that represent the general public while also
Speaker 1: using my platform to educate. So I wonder if what
Speaker 1: that looks like in your own experience. Well, in movement, work, leadership,
Speaker 1: and fellowship, you can communicate to the movement, you can
Speaker 1: have the movement communicate to you, and you can have
Speaker 1: the movement communicate with within themselves. When you have to
Speaker 1: educate people about issues, it's important because sometimes they just
Speaker 1: simply don't know or they're unaware of the seriousness. But
Speaker 1: it's also important on the flip side for them to
Speaker 1: communicate those issues with you. I have an upper hand
Speaker 1: in this district in Louisville because I am a part
Speaker 1: of the neighborhood that has been the most neglected, the
Speaker 1: neighborhood that is the most challenged. That's where I live.
Speaker 1: And on the other side of the district, we have
Speaker 1: almost the the inverse or the opposite of what we're
Speaker 1: dealing with when it comes to wealth positions and home
Speaker 1: ownership and job opportunities and educational attainment. I exist with
Speaker 1: the weakest links, so I know what we need. I
Speaker 1: am very much so the the person that politicians talk
Speaker 1: about when they run and they talk about them from
Speaker 1: a third person perspective. I talked about it from a
Speaker 1: first person perspective. I am the people that I represent.
Speaker 1: So could you tell us a little bit about more
Speaker 1: about who you are and your background and your music history,
Speaker 1: educational history, and you know how you ended up running
Speaker 1: for office. I am my work essentially, I am my
Speaker 1: my different roles in life. I say that as Ja Cory, born,
Speaker 1: raised and still living in the western of Louisville. Proudly
Speaker 1: living in the western of Louisville, Originally from a neighborhood
Speaker 1: known as Parkland where Muhammad Ali was born and raised.
Speaker 1: Now I live in the Russell neighborhood, just west of downtown.
Speaker 1: The West End is the highest concentration of black people
Speaker 1: in the state of Kentucky. I'm also known as twelve
Speaker 1: Dred as a recording artist, are performing composed hip hop
Speaker 1: and classical music, oftentimes fusing those genres together of work
Speaker 1: with the number of symphony orchestras of course here locally,
Speaker 1: but also around the world across the country, rapping and
Speaker 1: performing as a classically training percussionists. I have two degrees
Speaker 1: in music education from the University of Louisville, right here
Speaker 1: in my city. I'm also known as Mr Arthur when
Speaker 1: I travel to schools, community centers, boys and girls clubs,
Speaker 1: teaching music, teaching life skills, teaching about black history. And
Speaker 1: I'm also known as Professor Arthur Simmons College of Kentucky,
Speaker 1: our city's HBCU, the first institution to allow higher education
Speaker 1: for black people in this state. So between being Mr Arthur,
Speaker 1: Professor Arthur twelve hundred Kory, that all kind of led
Speaker 1: me to being known as Councilman Arthur here in the future,
Speaker 1: because I travel to schools in my professional career and
Speaker 1: I see the the disparity that exists and the differences
Speaker 1: that exist from school to school, and I can't realize
Speaker 1: that the bottom five schools, the lowest performing schools in
Speaker 1: this state are in the west, that of Louisver, where
Speaker 1: I am and I love so much and want to
Speaker 1: serve so much, and they're all predominantly black, three quarters black.
Speaker 1: I can't exist as only a teacher or only as
Speaker 1: a musician who talks about these issues and teaches these issues.
Speaker 1: I have to go from that educate to that legislat world.
Speaker 1: If I truly want to impact these issues. So that's
Speaker 1: why I decided to run. That's why I won. I
Speaker 1: truly believe and here I am. I get inaugurated in
Speaker 1: January to actually get in the office and do something
Speaker 1: about all of these issues. Legally, did being a musician
Speaker 1: impact your advocacy? Being a musician impacted my advocacy in
Speaker 1: a number of ways, because not only did I bake
Speaker 1: these issues into my music itself, but I also try
Speaker 1: to bring along the rest of the bunch of people
Speaker 1: who didn't necessarily feel as if they had an outlet
Speaker 1: to speak about these issues through through music, through all arts.
Speaker 1: I'm also an arts organizer, So outside of me just
Speaker 1: performing and composing and recording the music, I'm going to
Speaker 1: organize around other artists and make sure that they are
Speaker 1: a part of initiatives, make sure they have access to grants,
Speaker 1: make sure they're not when I get access to funding,
Speaker 1: I break it down and feed the whole block. I
Speaker 1: very much so one that is willing to either come
Speaker 1: out breaking even or come out in the red sometimes
Speaker 1: just to make sure I'm feeding other people and helping
Speaker 1: other people pay bills. That's more important to me than
Speaker 1: my individual success, because my individual success is not equal
Speaker 1: a collective uplift, and so many of our musicians in
Speaker 1: the black community, they get successful when they make it,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, they forget where they come from,
Speaker 1: They forget the people on the bottom to help them
Speaker 1: into the top. And they still referred to us in
Speaker 1: their lyrics. They still talk about the struggles of living
Speaker 1: in black ghettos. Uh. That comes out of their lips,
Speaker 1: and then they turn around and talk about their rolexes
Speaker 1: or their cars and being able to travel around the world.
Speaker 1: It's almost kind of ironic that they put those lyrics
Speaker 1: together because meanwhile, we still live at the bottom of
Speaker 1: the society that we built, and they rapped the benefits
Speaker 1: of all of our failure. So I was in a
Speaker 1: position where I could teach about that in my music
Speaker 1: as a as a teacher, as an artist, using artist
Speaker 1: just simply a medium to teach those issues and also
Speaker 1: do something about those issues, to organize and work. So
Speaker 1: we talked a little bit about how musicianship has informed
Speaker 1: your advocacy and perhaps even prepared you for public offers.
Speaker 1: But I wonder if there's any media framings that you
Speaker 1: have to push back on as a hip hop artist
Speaker 1: working in politics. And education, and it grew out of
Speaker 1: UM having listened to an episode of Five Things with
Speaker 1: You in which an interview I asked you if you
Speaker 1: had both parents at home, and I wondered I heard that.
Speaker 1: I wonder, It's like, did she ask every interview with that,
Speaker 1: and if not, why you? But I appreciated the way
Speaker 1: that you clarified that you were raised by many people
Speaker 1: at cousins other family as a means of pushing back
Speaker 1: on dominant narratives about black families and asserting a positive
Speaker 1: truth about how our communities work. So do you find that, uh,
Speaker 1: there are other types of media framings that you have
Speaker 1: to push back on UM. As a hip hop artist
Speaker 1: working within politics and education. What I like to do
Speaker 1: anytime talking with media, whether that's independent media, mainstream media,
Speaker 1: or anyone in between, is to contextualize data. I don't
Speaker 1: like to entertain stereotypes, because what that interviewer in the
Speaker 1: podcast that you just referred to didn't contextualize is that
Speaker 1: really all successful people are coming from a place of
Speaker 1: being raised by a village white parents, white kids on
Speaker 1: the East side of Louisville. You aren't just raised by
Speaker 1: your two parents and then you go off to college
Speaker 1: and you find some sort of success. You inherit wealth
Speaker 1: from the people who existed before your parents, your grandparents
Speaker 1: and great great great great great grandparents, and then your
Speaker 1: school is a community that helps raise you. You have
Speaker 1: families horizontally and vertically that contribute to you becoming a
Speaker 1: civically engaged, successful citizen. Some of that is privileged, and
Speaker 1: some of that is is structural, which is is definitely
Speaker 1: tied together. So it's important to realize that a lot
Speaker 1: of those stereotypes are really just mints, which will we'll
Speaker 1: get into as we talk about reparations. But when I
Speaker 1: speak to media, I'm speaking using data. I don't like
Speaker 1: to really give my opinion or entertain stereotypes. I mean,
Speaker 1: there are studies that show black men are are the
Speaker 1: most involved fathers in this country. So we hear about
Speaker 1: black men not being involved in their children's lives over
Speaker 1: and over and over, and it's this repeated trope, but
Speaker 1: when in reality, we're more involved than anyone. So I
Speaker 1: like to speak from data. I like to make sure
Speaker 1: I'm speaking from a place of of scholarship and not
Speaker 1: just stereotype. I'm an interesting place because yes I have
Speaker 1: I have protested in the streets, but I'm less interested
Speaker 1: in protesting in the streets at this point. I don't
Speaker 1: want to No, I no longer want to protest in
Speaker 1: the streets. I want to work on legislation that is
Speaker 1: going to help you own that street. Yeah, I have
Speaker 1: a different role now, and I have to come to
Speaker 1: terms with that role, and other people have to come
Speaker 1: to terms with that world. We are all really supposed
Speaker 1: to just get in where we fit in. Some people,
Speaker 1: your only outlet is to protest in the streets. Some people,
Speaker 1: your only outlet is to make a song about racial injustice.
Speaker 1: Some people your only outlet is to paint a mural.
Speaker 1: Some people your only outlet is to have a podcast,
Speaker 1: and that's okay. Some people's only outlet is to write laws.
Speaker 1: Some people's only outlets is to post a tweet about it.
Speaker 1: Some people were right about it. Everyone has a different role.
Speaker 1: Not everyone is supposed to do everything, and we have
Speaker 1: to realize that in this work where I'm at as
Speaker 1: an artist, as a teacher, as an activist, and eventually
Speaker 1: as a politician, I'm all of that kind of rolled
Speaker 1: up into one big ball, and my life would not
Speaker 1: be what it is if if those elements of my
Speaker 1: life were not fused together. So the Brianna Taylor tragedy
Speaker 1: for me has forced me to lean into all of
Speaker 1: what I've already been doing even more. I turned it
Speaker 1: up even more. I was already rapping about gentrification, which
Speaker 1: led to her her assassination. I was already rapping about
Speaker 1: systematic change with our law enforcement, which we've seen microscopically
Speaker 1: here locally, but it needs to happen in ways that
Speaker 1: are going to change the centuries from now, because our
Speaker 1: police department was actually started two centuries ago, eighteen twenties,
Speaker 1: and it was designed to patrol slaves, to kill slaves,
Speaker 1: to kidnap, it bring slaves back to the slave pins
Speaker 1: in downtown Louisville. So for for me, my involvement has
Speaker 1: kind of evolved over the past few months. But so
Speaker 1: many people in Louisville and beyond Louisville, but so many
Speaker 1: people in Louisville here locally, from what I can see,
Speaker 1: are thinking too short term, thinking too small. We don't
Speaker 1: need to be fighting for justice for the past four months.
Speaker 1: We need to be fighting for justice for the past
Speaker 1: four hundred years. And I don't even just mean the
Speaker 1: past four hundred years. We need to be thinking about
Speaker 1: four hundred years from now in the future, and that's
Speaker 1: why reparations is an essential conversation to happen. I want
Speaker 1: to ask you about that, like, what are your thoughts
Speaker 1: on that. If you don't advocate for reparations, there is
Speaker 1: no justice, like there's there is no racial justice or
Speaker 1: race relations being fixed or being healed, or any of
Speaker 1: this changing. If we don't have wealth, generational wealth to
Speaker 1: pass on to our children. We are the only group
Speaker 1: in this country that faced special mistreatment, so we need
Speaker 1: special treatment. There are three groups in America and the
Speaker 1: United States of America. The people who already lived here,
Speaker 1: the natives, the indigenous people, the people who decided to
Speaker 1: live here, immigrants who were white, brown, yellow, and in
Speaker 1: between and in and in some cases nowadays they're black.
Speaker 1: And the people who were forced to live here. I
Speaker 1: descend from the people who were forced to live here.
Speaker 1: I am forced to live here. I did not hop
Speaker 1: on a plane and come to the United States of
Speaker 1: America for scholarship. My ancestors were on boats and came
Speaker 1: here on slave ships. There's a huge difference between these
Speaker 1: three populations and what we've tried to do. It's almost
Speaker 1: create this, uh, this connectivity between us as black people
Speaker 1: who descend from slavery and every other old press group.
Speaker 1: There are plenty of oppressed groups. Your oppressed, and it's
Speaker 1: not the same as my oppression. My oppression was was law.
Speaker 1: My oppression prevented me from being a part of a
Speaker 1: society that I built. My oppression is centuries long. My
Speaker 1: oppression was two hundred and fifty years of slavery, a
Speaker 1: hundred years of Jim Crew, where slavery locked us down
Speaker 1: and Jim Crow locked us out. So if we're not
Speaker 1: having a conversation about addressing that oppression through direct payments
Speaker 1: to the American descendants of slavery or Adolfs for short,
Speaker 1: we're not having a conversation at all. We we can't
Speaker 1: talk about homeownership, we can't talk about black business, black banking,
Speaker 1: financial literacy, getting college degrees, none of that closes the
Speaker 1: racial wealth gap. The racial wealth gap is over a
Speaker 1: hundred trillion dollars wide. You don't fix a hundred trillion
Speaker 1: dollars with a degree from college, which in some cases
Speaker 1: keeps you in poverty even more. Because colleges are advertising degrees.
Speaker 1: The black folks who take out loans who don't even
Speaker 1: get jobs in that field. Now you're just paying forty
Speaker 1: fifty years on loans and you and even got no job.
Speaker 1: There are millions of black people in this country who
Speaker 1: are unemployed, who got college degrees. So reparations is that
Speaker 1: is like, that's the nonstarter for me. If a candidate
Speaker 1: doesn't even advocate or support for direct payment reparations to
Speaker 1: aid offs, I would never vote for you. I would
Speaker 1: never advocate for you. And if you're not talking about
Speaker 1: reparations when you're talking about racial injustice, you're not talking
Speaker 1: about racial injustice, You're just talking. So what does that
Speaker 1: mean for you at the local level? I mean, I know,
Speaker 1: ideally and I agree with you, we need reparations at
Speaker 1: a federal level to bring to bear um the immense
Speaker 1: wealth that is undertaxed by these giant corporations the top
Speaker 1: one percent of people, and redistributing that to make up
Speaker 1: for the racial injustices that are people have suffered for
Speaker 1: four hundred years. But does that at all influence your
Speaker 1: legislative agenda for the Louisville Metro City Council. There can't
Speaker 1: be local, local reparations. I mean, you can call it that,
Speaker 1: but it undermines the national project because of cities that
Speaker 1: are already penny pitching and desperately in need of dollars.
Speaker 1: If cities start talking about paying reparations to AIDS, then
Speaker 1: the federal government gets let off the hook and now
Speaker 1: all of a sudden they feel like they don't have
Speaker 1: to pay anything because Louisville just gave a ten million
Speaker 1: dollar grant to the Western a Louiver which isn't all black.
Speaker 1: So what I do here locally is I'm going to
Speaker 1: make sure I'm advocating for an agenda that is black
Speaker 1: and concentrated in blackness and in a dowsinus. That doesn't
Speaker 1: mean reparations. That means centering policies on the people who
Speaker 1: have been impacted by past policies. And what I also
Speaker 1: need to do from my elected official position is advocate
Speaker 1: for reparations going up the political ladder, putting pressure on
Speaker 1: the mayor to use his position as the president of
Speaker 1: the u S Conference of Mayor is responsible over of
Speaker 1: our country's population to put pressure on the federal government
Speaker 1: on administration that can actually make reparations happen. I can't
Speaker 1: make it happen down here in Louisville, and I'm not
Speaker 1: interested in making it happen just in Louisville. We can't
Speaker 1: close the racial wealth gap in Louisville unless we close
Speaker 1: the racial wealth gap in America. We can't close the
Speaker 1: racial wealth gap in Chicago unless we close the racial
Speaker 1: wealth gap in America. Any city that you go to
Speaker 1: that has a black ghetto, all of them do. We
Speaker 1: can't close those gaps locally. We can put band aids
Speaker 1: on the issues and we can move the needle a
Speaker 1: little bit, but it's going to take pressure from all
Speaker 1: politicians on a lower level to push to the higher level,
Speaker 1: to the folks who can actually implement this, to the
Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell's of the world, to the A O. C
Speaker 1: S of the world, to the Corey Bookers of the world,
Speaker 1: to actually make this happen. And that's my responsibility. Of course,
Speaker 1: I'm still doing the work and advocating for a black
Speaker 1: agenda down here, but up here I'm barking and letting
Speaker 1: you know, yo, you need to fix us like you
Speaker 1: broke us. I hate when people say something was senseless.
Speaker 1: We has senseless shootings and senseless killings. It makes sense
Speaker 1: to me if I can't pay my bills, if I
Speaker 1: can't put food on the table, I'm gonna do whatever
Speaker 1: I gotta do to make sure that happens, whether that's
Speaker 1: selling dope, breaking in your house to take your dope,
Speaker 1: or to take your money, doing whatever I can. Still
Speaker 1: in Killing and Dylan are happening because we are desperate
Speaker 1: to meet our needs. We are desperate to survive. Ain't
Speaker 1: no senselessness happening here. We were designed to destroy ourselves,
Speaker 1: to destroy each other. Because the design for us to
Speaker 1: be destroyed didn't work. We are still here in this
Speaker 1: country after four hundred plessure years of the most inhumane
Speaker 1: treatment in history. I was just listening to a brother
Speaker 1: talked the other day about walking outside and how hot
Speaker 1: it was and how he couldn't wait to get home
Speaker 1: to his air conditioning and drink cold water. Can you
Speaker 1: imagine working in a field under under that type of
Speaker 1: intense heat from can't see in the morning to can't
Speaker 1: see a night, and never getting to go home to
Speaker 1: to to comfort, never getting adequate anything, and you being
Speaker 1: born into that, and your kids being born into that,
Speaker 1: and your your mother's and your grandmother's being raped, your
Speaker 1: your men being being humiliated being forced to have sex
Speaker 1: with their mothers. Are you like to cuss on this? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: where you think the term motherfucker came from? And I
Speaker 1: don't even cuss. I'm just saying that to drive a
Speaker 1: point home. We have gone through the most in you
Speaker 1: made unimaginable conditions known to mankind, and we are still here.
Speaker 1: So the the new form of methods isn't to necessarily
Speaker 1: destroy us, even though we see that happening. Because Brianna
Speaker 1: Taylor was destroyed, George Floyd was destroyed, from out Aubrey
Speaker 1: was destroyed. We're still getting destroyed. But the new method
Speaker 1: of destruction in the black community is for us to
Speaker 1: destroy ourselves and to destroy each other. And that is
Speaker 1: the peak of the violence that we see. There was
Speaker 1: violence before the shooting industry actually occurred. The violence was
Speaker 1: you being starved. The violence was you not being able
Speaker 1: to get a job. The violence was you not even
Speaker 1: being able to afford to live in your place where
Speaker 1: you're supposed to call home. That's violence in itself before
Speaker 1: we commit the violence of hurting each other. So could
Speaker 1: you give us a little more background on the the organ,
Speaker 1: like what y'all do where y'all. Members are located just
Speaker 1: for folks listening that might not be familiar with, Like
Speaker 1: what you say, what are you talking about? Like the
Speaker 1: movement a d OS one on one dot com. We
Speaker 1: do political education, a movement about three things. Identification, which
Speaker 1: I just talked about. Do you descend from slavery? Do
Speaker 1: you descend from Jim Crow? You're not just black by look,
Speaker 1: you're black by lineage, reparations, you know, direct payments and
Speaker 1: an entire political package that goes into building wealth for
Speaker 1: our generations. And then concentration, which a political agenda, a
Speaker 1: black agenda that is anchored and who we are a
Speaker 1: lot of people get mad at us saying we don't
Speaker 1: advocate for other struggles. It ain't about that. It's called
Speaker 1: American Descendants of Slavery for a reason. So if you
Speaker 1: don't descend from slavery, this ain't your movement. Go find
Speaker 1: some other coalition. We are anchored and data, and we
Speaker 1: are anchored and justice for a specific group, a very
Speaker 1: specific group. And if you need more information, a d
Speaker 1: O S one on one dot com. That's that's a
Speaker 1: group of movement I belong to. We got chapters all
Speaker 1: across the country, all right, thank you appreciate that. Hey,
Speaker 1: thank you for taking the time to talk with us. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this was great, super enlightening alright. Love. So that was
Speaker 1: your Corey Arthur councilman elected hip hop artists in Louisville, Kentucky.
Speaker 1: And now we're going to try to discuss a little
Speaker 1: bit of music. Let's do it, okay. So for the
Speaker 1: music discussion, we're gonna be talking about rappers Killer Mike
Speaker 1: and t I specifically for some of their outspokenness about
Speaker 1: the issue of reparations. And eventually we're gonna be taking
Speaker 1: a little listen and discussion about their two thousand eighteen
Speaker 1: song forty Acres that they did with the rapper b
Speaker 1: Rossi um now rapper activists Killer Mike has been outspoken
Speaker 1: about the topic of reparations the past, citing strong support
Speaker 1: for Representative John Connor's HR forty Bill, also known as
Speaker 1: the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposal for African
Speaker 1: Americans Act. Speaking about an interview with Charlemagne the God
Speaker 1: for The Hollywood Reporter, he said, when you asked me
Speaker 1: about reparations, I have my ideas about where reparations are,
Speaker 1: but just as the people we haven't had our black
Speaker 1: people meeting yet to see what we're asking for. But
Speaker 1: I think is why the Commission to Study and Develop
Speaker 1: Preparations proposals are so important, just like figuring out what
Speaker 1: it would look like, garnering input from the public about
Speaker 1: what it should look like, because there is some division
Speaker 1: in the community about whether it's direct cash payments, whether
Speaker 1: it's investments and infrastructure and community development, community programming and
Speaker 1: predominantly black neighborhoods, etcetera. So we do I think, I
Speaker 1: you know, I agree with Mike here that we haven't
Speaker 1: had our black people meeting about what we're actually like,
Speaker 1: what we're asking for yet, he said. He went on
Speaker 1: to say Dr King started knowing his last two or
Speaker 1: three years of life. He started asking, he said, start
Speaker 1: asking for land, land grants, land lotteries. If you're an
Speaker 1: American descentan of slaves, this is all killer, Mike. I
Speaker 1: want some type of reparations to be paid, given or
Speaker 1: acclimated to you. But before we get to that part,
Speaker 1: we have to know what we're asking for. And then
Speaker 1: he throws out sort of some figures that help us
Speaker 1: understand a potential scope and scale um in proportion to
Speaker 1: reparations payments. For example, what I would say is if
Speaker 1: George to five percent African American, and I would want
Speaker 1: of the marijuana business going forth to be African American.
Speaker 1: That means in terms of landownership and development. So the
Speaker 1: actual cultivation of the crop, in addition to the vending
Speaker 1: and stores, the actual dispensaries, especially a whole another episode
Speaker 1: of the Randa get us here with reguards to repreations
Speaker 1: that are owned. Given the war on drugs. Yeah BT
Speaker 1: founder Robert Johnson over the summer put a number on it.
Speaker 1: He called for fourteen trillion dollars. He said, um, now
Speaker 1: is the time to go big. Short answers too long
Speaker 1: to the long horrific questions about the stains of slavery
Speaker 1: are not going to solve the inequality problem. We need
Speaker 1: to focus on wealth creation and wealth generation. And to
Speaker 1: do that, we must bring the descendants of slaves into
Speaker 1: equality with this nation, not only for the sin or
Speaker 1: tullman of the sin of slavery and Jim Crowism in segregation,
Speaker 1: both to facto into Jura, but to cause America to
Speaker 1: live up to a concept in the notion that this
Speaker 1: nation was born in the idea of American exceptionalism. I'm
Speaker 1: convinced the problems we can front today can be solved,
Speaker 1: but it takes a big, bold action. So we got
Speaker 1: some platitudes in there, but at least I don't really
Speaker 1: know about the American exceptional some ship. But I mean, again,
Speaker 1: this is all playing. I mean, you know, I guess,
Speaker 1: I guess I'm like a lot more understanding to like
Speaker 1: current like mainstream politicians and just mainstream figures having to
Speaker 1: play that verbal game. And it's like when you know
Speaker 1: that the opposite is like they weren't talking about this
Speaker 1: ship at all, you know, showing me the platitude. It's
Speaker 1: about reparations, We're going to actually address it. Robert Johnson
Speaker 1: made this um statement on the CSNB CSNBC, the Business
Speaker 1: NBC channel, and it's like the response to it was
Speaker 1: one of their stuffy asked anchors was like, oh, Mr Johnson,
Speaker 1: I've known you for decades and I've I've never heard
Speaker 1: you say anything that's quite frankly so extreme. So I
Speaker 1: know that you're serious talking about it, so please explain
Speaker 1: for you know what I mean. It's just like they're
Speaker 1: like exactly opening that conversation. I feel it is an
Speaker 1: important thing. And it's like if throwing out a term
Speaker 1: like American exceptionalism greases the wheels in the setting that
Speaker 1: you're in into the people, you know, the audience that
Speaker 1: you're because you don't have to convince me, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. Like I'm sitting here like, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: we we get I get it, you know, but I'm
Speaker 1: not going to give them ship for the having to
Speaker 1: grease the wheels, you know what I mean. It's politics. Um,
Speaker 1: Now for the pure music discussion, we're gonna get into
Speaker 1: this track that I found called that I Found. This
Speaker 1: has been out there, but it's a two thousand eighteen
Speaker 1: song by a t I called forty Acres featuring Killer
Speaker 1: Mike and b Rossi. So let's take a little listen
Speaker 1: to that. Not a prison yard like the kind of
Speaker 1: your house. Niggas gotta que Nica thought he made it
Speaker 1: because he got it here first. Hawn Pold had been
Speaker 1: out of here. I'm not quite new, all right, So
Speaker 1: that is definitely a banger. What are your first initial
Speaker 1: thoughts to that? So, something that I noticed as I
Speaker 1: was listening to this is that I fear I wonder
Speaker 1: if it perpetuates notions that have been forwarded through, like
Speaker 1: the Chappelle's show's discussion of like reparation, etcetera, just so
Speaker 1: that people who don't know. Back in the two thousand
Speaker 1: three is two thousand four ish, Dave Chappelle did a
Speaker 1: famous skit where UM reparations got passed and like everybody
Speaker 1: went and bought a Cadillac and started a record later
Speaker 1: and here talking about putting the reparations in her handbag,
Speaker 1: talking about I have to put my reparations on a jeweler,
Speaker 1: about a time piece. Now there's no looking back. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that that's the hook at the refrain for the hook. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and in a mule er, I spent my reparations on
Speaker 1: a jeweler, brought a time piece now ato looking back? Now,
Speaker 1: I'm asking the motherfucker's what the funk they're looking at?
Speaker 1: And so to counter that myself, I think to recent
Speaker 1: study they've done on universal basic income in Old Fourth
Speaker 1: Ward in Atlanta, which my mentor Petita Love has taken
Speaker 1: part of the task force on, and they found that
Speaker 1: in black committed is especially when people passed UM a
Speaker 1: former basic income, Black folks especially spend that extra money
Speaker 1: on basic necessities, on food and groceries, on rent, on
Speaker 1: doctor's appointments, on clothing for their families, things that they
Speaker 1: just needed to get by, as opposed to this popular
Speaker 1: conception of oh, there's gonna buy Jordan's and flat screens
Speaker 1: TVs and so I think they'll say and findings that
Speaker 1: they took away from that study that was done, an
Speaker 1: old fourth ward can apply to our broader thinking around
Speaker 1: what reparations will be used for. It like you give
Speaker 1: people money, they're gonna buy land, They're gonna buy education
Speaker 1: for their kids. They might buy a car. It's probably
Speaker 1: because I didn't fucking take the bus currently and are
Speaker 1: trying to have a car. There's jewels throughout the song
Speaker 1: as far as like lines where they're they're they're saying
Speaker 1: some ship. That's like, oh, that's that was clever, that
Speaker 1: was Oh that was a good one. That was that
Speaker 1: was a good point. That was a good line. But
Speaker 1: I mean, to be completely honest with you, I personally
Speaker 1: would think before hearing this, knowing how t I and
Speaker 1: Killer might have been talking about the issue of reparations,
Speaker 1: I guess I don't want to say it's disappointing, because
Speaker 1: I do think that the song is a banger, like
Speaker 1: the beat is dope. I think everybody's flowing, everybody's wrapping
Speaker 1: their ass off on it. The ship is dope, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. The song is dope. But just
Speaker 1: from a personal standpoint, it's like, I don't know, it
Speaker 1: doesn't feel serious, you know, it feels fun. It reminds
Speaker 1: me of the way I felt the first time I
Speaker 1: saw Djengo, you know, like I was going expecting it
Speaker 1: to be like this hard, you know, like a hard,
Speaker 1: unrelenting look at a particular topic, and then it was like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is like fun and that's how we normalized ideas
Speaker 1: At the same time. I think that's the power of
Speaker 1: hip hop music too, interlace topics of political potency with
Speaker 1: just like Bracadoggio and just regular asked rhymes to like
Speaker 1: bring it into common currency with like in the culture.
Speaker 1: But that's where I think everyone excels in their verses
Speaker 1: because I think everyone is hitting on those hitting on
Speaker 1: exactly that within their verses. The hook refrain is the
Speaker 1: part that you hear three times though. You know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying in the hook refrain is spent my reparation
Speaker 1: on a jeweler, which, yeah, you know, I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: that if we ever do get a point to where
Speaker 1: we're like seriously discussing um reparations and like what it
Speaker 1: could look like, Tucker Carlson are gonna be like they're
Speaker 1: gonna spend it on a jeweler. Look, they're gonna site
Speaker 1: this is gonna play this on Fox News. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: I mean that's all. That's all I'm saying about it.
Speaker 1: But I mean, I think objectively the song is dope. Like.
Speaker 1: Back in July July seventeen, to be exact, t I
Speaker 1: shared a two page open letter with the UK insurance
Speaker 1: firm Lloyd's of London for reparations for their role in
Speaker 1: the Transatlantic slave trade. He was quoted saying in the letter,
Speaker 1: our people have been financially impaired and economically disabled due
Speaker 1: to systemic oppression and the institutional racism that leaves behind.
Speaker 1: Your commitment to reparations is an honorable one, but commitment
Speaker 1: without tangible actions is merely lip service. He writes. In
Speaker 1: the letter, we demand a specific call to action that includes,
Speaker 1: but is not limited to, direct reparations be made to
Speaker 1: families who were ripped from their native lands and sold
Speaker 1: as property while your company profited from the whole shameful endeavor.
Speaker 1: Tai goes on to suggest four avenues for reparations. Ten
Speaker 1: percent ownership and Lloyd's to be given to the descendants
Speaker 1: of African slaves, accurate annual tracking of US reparations, a
Speaker 1: one million dollar cash loan with one percent interest every
Speaker 1: African American adult once in a lifetime for the next
Speaker 1: two hundred years. And at least one African American member
Speaker 1: on its board, which really is not asking for much honestly,
Speaker 1: and with reguards of the board membership, I mean the
Speaker 1: rest would be fucking dope and owed frankly, um, but
Speaker 1: then representation on the board one member, Like that's how
Speaker 1: do y'all did y'all do that? Yet? Like do you where?
Speaker 1: Like what? What? I think that's kind of going to
Speaker 1: some of the point that I was making though, which
Speaker 1: is like I feel like I wish t I had
Speaker 1: put that into a song. Yeah, you know, like I
Speaker 1: wish here wrapped about that. Yeah, Like I feel that.
Speaker 1: I feel that. I just feel there's a whole audience
Speaker 1: or a whole like segment of the population that would
Speaker 1: have absorbed that knowledge or that or would absorb that
Speaker 1: information better if it rhymed and it was over a
Speaker 1: dope beat, I just do I just I've always thought
Speaker 1: that's not like a criticism TI, that's just my feelings
Speaker 1: on the fucking power of hip hop. With hip hop
Speaker 1: and all things politics as well, has been if you're
Speaker 1: waiting around for someone else to do it, fucking do
Speaker 1: do it. Hey, I do my part, y'all. Motherfucker's gotta
Speaker 1: go listen to that ship. Don't forget that when we're
Speaker 1: not hosting this podcast and we're not helping rent a city,
Speaker 1: that we're both two pretty dope hip hop artists at
Speaker 1: Dope Knife looked me up in the book, you know,
Speaker 1: just talking shit. I walk it. Yeah, I'll do my part. Well,
Speaker 1: all right, we are definitely going to be doing a
Speaker 1: episode coming up soon about voting an electoral politics and
Speaker 1: hip hop's relationship to that. But um, yeah, if you
Speaker 1: saw what the funk we watched tonight, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: we're kind of tipsy and I'm high, so you know
Speaker 1: we're coming through that filter. But I kind of felt
Speaker 1: like I should be really scared watching it. So I
Speaker 1: think that y'all should be check your voter registration, particularly
Speaker 1: if you've moved recently. Make a plan to vote early
Speaker 1: in person or absentee. Uh, talk to some friends about
Speaker 1: getting out to vote too. And it's not just for
Speaker 1: the president. You can leave this ship blink for all
Speaker 1: I fucking care. But vote down ballot. Look at these
Speaker 1: Senate races and these House you know, these congressional races.
Speaker 1: Look at who's running for d A in your city
Speaker 1: and make sure you're informed in order to vote for
Speaker 1: those things as well. Uh, let's get into some rapping things.
Speaker 1: Check check to check check check check? Want to check check?
Speaker 1: Want to how we do check? Check? Want to check check?
Speaker 1: Want to how we do check? Check to check check? Yeah? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I said, welcome everybody to wait in our reparations. And
Speaker 1: can't nobody say that the people was never patient. And
Speaker 1: if you suck around them, we go start the demonstration.
Speaker 1: Been talking about the chifs of segregation. They want to
Speaker 1: go and tell you that they ain't got the money.
Speaker 1: You see, they just lying when they need to bail out,
Speaker 1: the trillions get flying and when you want your vote,
Speaker 1: they may can just buy them. Maybe first, pay me
Speaker 1: for that red line, and yo, pay me for that
Speaker 1: red line in motherfucker. Yeah I'm about to come and
Speaker 1: remind them and all the minding that they didn't on
Speaker 1: our wealth and has a top on the fucking hell
Speaker 1: changing this stuff. They're trying to talk about something else,
Speaker 1: not motherfucker deal with the cards. But tell I think
Speaker 1: what y'all thought in our communities taken stuff from us
Speaker 1: for Tekecades with compunity. It's been a hundred years and
Speaker 1: they paying us back. If these politicians what they say,
Speaker 1: it is whack if you speak on reparations for us
Speaker 1: saying with facts for accessors of slavery that everybody who's black. Yo,
Speaker 1: these people really want lares. But whatever really want is
Speaker 1: for the Acer front yard like David Walker own for it.
Speaker 1: God chart pay us back for the terrorism. Is it hard? Hey,
Speaker 1: this is dope knife and we are waiting on reparations.
Speaker 1: See you guys next week. Everybody be safe. Waiting on
Speaker 1: reparations as a production of I Heart Radio. Listen to
Speaker 1: Waiting on Reparations on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts.