Speaker 1: Push it. I don't think whiteness is trying to take
Speaker 1: our color. They're trying to take our culture. They're trying
Speaker 1: to take you know, really the things that make us
Speaker 1: unique and vibrant and flavorful. It's all of these things.
Speaker 1: I'm Khalil Gibrad Muhammed and I'm Ben Austin. We're two
Speaker 1: best friends, one black, one white. I'm a historian and
Speaker 1: I'm a journalist. And this is some of my best
Speaker 1: friends are some of my best friends are dot dot dot.
Speaker 1: In this show, we wrestle with the challenges and the
Speaker 1: absurdities of a deeply divided and unequal country. Don't Khalil,
Speaker 1: Oh my god, it is. It's election day. You know,
Speaker 1: it is Armageddon Day. Armageddon Day. And I got a
Speaker 1: question for you. Yeah, do you vote? Of course? I voted.
Speaker 1: Not only did I vote, I voted early? No. No,
Speaker 1: I mean do you do you just vote? In general? Like? Oh,
Speaker 1: do I vote? I don't vote? What's going on here? Man?
Speaker 1: Do you think I'm one of those people? I love
Speaker 1: voting on election day. I love going in there and
Speaker 1: seeing all the people volunteering. I love getting a sense
Speaker 1: of what's going on, just like it's a pulse of
Speaker 1: democracy in some way it is. Yeah, My wife was
Speaker 1: an elected official as she ran in local school board election.
Speaker 1: She won two out of three of them. And I
Speaker 1: will admit, before voting for her for the first time,
Speaker 1: which was about a decade ago, I didn't really care
Speaker 1: about local elections. I mean I didn't pay attention. And
Speaker 1: I think more than at any point in American history,
Speaker 1: certainly in the twentieth century, the stakes of this country
Speaker 1: hanging the balance and what's happen locally all over the place,
Speaker 1: for local munist elections, for state elections, and so today's
Speaker 1: a day to vote, folks. All of it matters. And
Speaker 1: if you listen five years later, it's also going to
Speaker 1: be a time to vote. So it's almost a reason.
Speaker 1: That's right, man, where you just said it is exactly right.
Speaker 1: And this has been accelerated in the Trump years. We
Speaker 1: all have our eyes on national politics. We are no
Speaker 1: longer thinking about what's going on locally, which gets us
Speaker 1: to our guest today, Christopher Reevas is somebody who is
Speaker 1: going to get us in some ways into Los Angeles politics, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because this guy it represents in a way the future
Speaker 1: of the world. He is helping us to see the
Speaker 1: fullness of our humanity and what's at stake. He is
Speaker 1: an amazing author, actor, podcaster. He's got these two podcasts,
Speaker 1: Brown Enough and Ruby Rosa. He's got a one man
Speaker 1: show that he put on called The Real James Bond
Speaker 1: was Dominican, the Dominicans, the Doctor, the Diplomat, the Jingalo,
Speaker 1: the Alchemist, the last living Playboy. And he's also a
Speaker 1: network sitcom actor. He's been on a show called Call
Speaker 1: Me Cat, You Picked Me Over Max with his perfect hair,
Speaker 1: chisel jaw and searing blue eyes. All Right, So he
Speaker 1: also has this new book out called Brown Enough. True
Speaker 1: Stories about love, violence, the student loan crisis, Hollywood, race, familia,
Speaker 1: and making it in America. We devoured this book, yeah,
Speaker 1: And part of what grabbed our attention immediately was that
Speaker 1: he identifies Tanahassie Coats giving this talk at the Los
Speaker 1: Angeles Public Library. Tanahassee had became famous for this article
Speaker 1: about reparations in twenty fourteen, and then a couple of
Speaker 1: years later wrote a book that became a bestseller, and
Speaker 1: it was about the black white story of the horrible
Speaker 1: shit that has happened to black people in this country.
Speaker 1: And continue used to happen. That's exactly right. So Chris
Speaker 1: gets up to the mic and he asked a question,
Speaker 1: and this is a question black and white. That's all
Speaker 1: I hear, black and white as a brown man, a Dominican, Colombian,
Speaker 1: Afro Latino in this world. Where does that leave me
Speaker 1: in the conversation? And Tanahassi answers, not in it? Oh staff,
Speaker 1: you're not in it. He calls it my moment of
Speaker 1: awakening that made me realize, oh shit, something's up here.
Speaker 1: That was that was cold blooded. When I read that,
Speaker 1: I was like, damn um. And I've interviewed Tahs in
Speaker 1: the public, you know, in front of a big audience,
Speaker 1: and he can be prickly about, you know, people saying here,
Speaker 1: you are the super successful author, why didn't you tell
Speaker 1: my story? Or why didn't you tell a story that
Speaker 1: represents me? And he's just like, I mean, I've heard
Speaker 1: him basically say, you know, write your own book, and
Speaker 1: that's exactly what Chris does. He writes his own book.
Speaker 1: He takes this moment as an occasion to say, you
Speaker 1: know what, I have power. I have agency over my
Speaker 1: own voice. And while I didn't always think I did
Speaker 1: that's his awakening the agency to tell his own story.
Speaker 1: And we are grateful that he's done it, because as
Speaker 1: much as I saw that moment, I was like, hmm,
Speaker 1: and like, is he really kicking Tanahasi Coats in the
Speaker 1: butt here and like making me think differently about it?
Speaker 1: And in the end, you know, this is the most
Speaker 1: the most powerful. In the end, he really does help
Speaker 1: us understand how black and white are the pillars that
Speaker 1: uphold the erasure of brownness. He was saying, listen, in
Speaker 1: this country, the binary that we're stuck in is between
Speaker 1: black and white. And he was saying, you got you
Speaker 1: gotta like redefine that, you gotta change that story. It
Speaker 1: was like challenge issued. All right, well, let's go to
Speaker 1: our interview with Chris. Hey, Chris Rivas, thank you. We
Speaker 1: are so excited to have you on our podcast. You
Speaker 1: know this great book that you wrote, Brown Enough, Khalil
Speaker 1: and I both dug it. We both read the whole
Speaker 1: thing where I had to talk about it, talk to
Speaker 1: you about the struggle you're going through of being brown
Speaker 1: in the United States. Great, Yeah, let's do it. This
Speaker 1: is also partly a story that grows out of your
Speaker 1: own childhood your own socialization within and a Dominican community
Speaker 1: in Queens, your own parents immigrant story, and trying to
Speaker 1: make sense of the anti blackness that exists within that community.
Speaker 1: And let's talk about this incredible place you come from,
Speaker 1: but is also this very complicated experience, this personal journey
Speaker 1: around race itself. It took what thirty four years to
Speaker 1: discover that where I lived was the actual representation of
Speaker 1: the world in my opinion. You know, I think we
Speaker 1: know Queens is one of the most diverse places in
Speaker 1: the world, and Jackson Heights, where my grandma live, is
Speaker 1: literally I think we've done the numbers, the most diverse
Speaker 1: place in the world. What a blessing that I had
Speaker 1: no idea. I had no idea that in that place
Speaker 1: was a pool of genius, a pool of brown and
Speaker 1: black genius, a pool of like literal beauty. Because they
Speaker 1: were never on the billboards, they were never on TV,
Speaker 1: they were never on screens. I didn't see my Dominican father,
Speaker 1: I didn't see my Colombian mother like I never saw
Speaker 1: Jackson Heights in that way. I never saw Queens in
Speaker 1: that way. I saw Beverly Hills in that way. I
Speaker 1: saw so many things that were not me and my community.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be like the kids on TV. And
Speaker 1: then my parents didn't want me to speak Spanish. I
Speaker 1: know that I felt embarrassed by it, but I didn't
Speaker 1: understand why I felt embarrassed that I didn't speak Spanish.
Speaker 1: I didn't understand why my dad was fighting with people
Speaker 1: and his family who called him, you know, a good ingle,
Speaker 1: trying to be like the white people in order to
Speaker 1: move ahead, in order to do the American dream and
Speaker 1: everything that came with that. My mom and dad thinking
Speaker 1: we can buy a house. That's what Americans, that's what
Speaker 1: we do. That's what's going to get our kids this
Speaker 1: next level of life. You know, maybe they'll go to college.
Speaker 1: All of this, they stopped seeing as much of their family,
Speaker 1: you know, certain parts of their family. I think the
Speaker 1: quote in my book is that my dad has after
Speaker 1: that moment, it's like they don't matter. They're not the
Speaker 1: ones paying the bills, they're not the ones putting food
Speaker 1: on your table. They want to call me white because
Speaker 1: when we use the word white, really, what my dad's
Speaker 1: cousin was saying is what are you trying to have power? Now?
Speaker 1: You're trying to leave us behind and I wanted to
Speaker 1: be an actress since I was a kid, y'all, ever
Speaker 1: since I saw Peter Pan on Broadway, you know, like
Speaker 1: I was just like I was, I was invested in
Speaker 1: telling stories in that way. And one of them I
Speaker 1: love the most was James Bond. I mean, that's that's
Speaker 1: me running around in my tidy whities with all my
Speaker 1: little nerve guns strapped around me, like, pretending to be
Speaker 1: on missions, pretending to be this white British dude. And
Speaker 1: it was as simple as like, how would my life
Speaker 1: have been different if I wasn't pretending to be some
Speaker 1: white dude, but I was pretending to be my pops myself? Yeah,
Speaker 1: khalil An, you know anyone else? Oh? All right, well
Speaker 1: that's fascinating about this desire? Is that the guy you're
Speaker 1: going after, So just unpack him a little bit. You know,
Speaker 1: it really started. I created this play and it's now
Speaker 1: a podcast about this Dominican man, James Bam was based on.
Speaker 1: You gotta tell us his name because it's an awesome name.
Speaker 1: Portfido Rubrosa what we call him, got it? I mean,
Speaker 1: let's just assume our listeners don't know him anymore than
Speaker 1: you did, and I'll admit the first time I'm hearing
Speaker 1: about it. So tell us the interesting, the most interesting
Speaker 1: man in the world's story. Yeah, So Portia is incredible,
Speaker 1: truly the most interesting man in the world. He was
Speaker 1: twice the richest man in the world. Wow. He was
Speaker 1: a diplomat for the dr He lived in Hitler's Germany.
Speaker 1: He lived in Fidel's Cuba. He ran guns for the
Speaker 1: New York City mob into Cuba. He was best friends
Speaker 1: with Sinatra, Kennedy, the rat Pack, you name it. Was
Speaker 1: he a playboy? Yes, they say, the greatest living playboy
Speaker 1: of all time. I mean slept with every major princess,
Speaker 1: Harris and waitress of the forties and fifties. So this guy,
Speaker 1: this Dominican man, is this international playboy and super cool.
Speaker 1: And he befriends Ian Fleming, who writes the James Bond
Speaker 1: novels which become the movies. And Ian Fleming is like,
Speaker 1: this is my guy. Ruby is who I'm going to
Speaker 1: base this character on. You discover that James Bond is
Speaker 1: based on this Dominican dude, and you just feel all
Speaker 1: kinds of pride. Right when I discovered Portfridio Ruby Rossa
Speaker 1: and that this man was Dominican. I went straight to
Speaker 1: Pops and I said, Yo, you know about this dude?
Speaker 1: He said yeah, and I said, Yo, he's epic. Why
Speaker 1: don't you tell me about him? And he said I
Speaker 1: didn't think it mattered? And I was like, it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter matter. All I wanted in my life were heroes,
Speaker 1: Like why doesn't it matter? This is an epic person
Speaker 1: everyone should know about, not just Dominican. And then this
Speaker 1: makes me wonder, my grandma has property out there. Why
Speaker 1: don't you visit? Why haven't you been back in thirty years?
Speaker 1: Like I don't want to talk about it, you know,
Speaker 1: all of this stuff. I go to my mom, Yo, Mama,
Speaker 1: how come you never took me to Columbia. Well, we
Speaker 1: was busy here. We were here trying to give you
Speaker 1: this life. Look at your life now. Yeah, we call
Speaker 1: that striving strive me. That's that's the immigrant driver's story, right,
Speaker 1: and the things we lose in that striving. They had
Speaker 1: their heads down, they were focused. Here's a question I
Speaker 1: have for you, Chris, because I was I've been thinking
Speaker 1: a lot about you know, I like Khalil. This is
Speaker 1: the first I'm hearing about him. And I'm also thinking
Speaker 1: about this moment for you where you discover this person
Speaker 1: who you would you literally embody on stage. And there's
Speaker 1: also seems to me, and I'm asking this rather than
Speaker 1: saying it, there seems to be something a little tragic
Speaker 1: about him too, in his own sense of identity and
Speaker 1: you know, racial identity. Am I right about that? You're
Speaker 1: one hundred percent right? I mean he in the forties
Speaker 1: and fifties was whitening his skin and got a nose job,
Speaker 1: and so then talk about how this is the guy
Speaker 1: that is also like you're coming out guy, you know,
Speaker 1: like this is the weird moment. Do you sort of
Speaker 1: find affinity to him because he doesn't just capture pride,
Speaker 1: but you're all of your own confusion as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's why I call him a warning sign. You know,
Speaker 1: I saw someone so desperate to be seen by whiteness,
Speaker 1: so desperate to be seen. He also tried to be
Speaker 1: an actor in Hollywood. He was going to do a
Speaker 1: movie with Jaskobor. He was denied by the US Immigration Service,
Speaker 1: like last minute, they were all said. He was getting
Speaker 1: acting classes from Humphrey Bogart. Humphrey Bogar, y'all like that's
Speaker 1: me calling Daniel de Lewis and being like yode y'all
Speaker 1: get out. He was so desperate to be accepted by whiteness,
Speaker 1: not by his dominicanness right, not by where he came from,
Speaker 1: by the things he wanted to be. He was never satisfied.
Speaker 1: You repeat some of these mistakes, I mean, you you,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, like crazy and the brown man, and
Speaker 1: me was like, oh, is this why my manager told
Speaker 1: me to get a nose job? And is this why
Speaker 1: I did it? Oh? Is this why my manager told
Speaker 1: me to cut my hair? Yeah? You do get on
Speaker 1: a sitcom, like a network sitcom after you get this
Speaker 1: nose job? Right? I do? Yeah? I mean after I
Speaker 1: got the nose job, I started booking work left and right.
Speaker 1: And I have to wonder, am I a better actor?
Speaker 1: Or is it because I look more? I look nicer,
Speaker 1: I look more approachable, you know, I look Yeah, I
Speaker 1: fit the standard, I fit the mold. The more you talk,
Speaker 1: I mean, the more remarkable it is to really hear
Speaker 1: in his life this story of cultural appropriation. It doesn't
Speaker 1: make any sense that most people, and maybe it's not
Speaker 1: most people, maybe it's just me and have been in me.
Speaker 1: But like that, I think certainly in my own immediate circle.
Speaker 1: Most of us haven't heard of this guy, and so
Speaker 1: cultural appropriation is as much about the erasure of people
Speaker 1: who are the actual doers of our society. Right Yeah,
Speaker 1: the beautifully said, I mean that's that was another big
Speaker 1: tipping point for me. It was like, oh, whiteness is
Speaker 1: trying to take things from me, Christopher Reevas trying to
Speaker 1: take my nose, my hair, my curls, literally, you know,
Speaker 1: trying to take queens from me. But also what heroes
Speaker 1: has it taken from me? What warnings has it taken
Speaker 1: from me? Who else is out there that I don't
Speaker 1: know about? I want to know about the other amazing
Speaker 1: heroes we have brown heroes black Like, who else is
Speaker 1: out there that the narrative of whiteness controls, either takes
Speaker 1: or says, I'll let you have this one. I'll let
Speaker 1: you learn about this one, you know, which is so
Speaker 1: powerful in a time right now where we're banning books again,
Speaker 1: we're banning books in twenty twenty two. Humans should know
Speaker 1: about this man. Anyone who's been twice the richest person
Speaker 1: in the world. I feel like that's pretty cool, you know,
Speaker 1: like that's accomplishing something regardless of how you got there.
Speaker 1: And so one of the things about Ruby's life that
Speaker 1: really stuck out to me, on top of all this
Speaker 1: sort of epicness and sadness and wildness, was like Homeboy
Speaker 1: was with a lot of white women, and I got
Speaker 1: a lie and something clicked to me, you know, like
Speaker 1: I was dating a white woman. And so I looked
Speaker 1: at this sort of you know, white woman that I
Speaker 1: was literally sleeping next to, and I looked at my
Speaker 1: history of all the women I dated, and I said,
Speaker 1: I need to do some work around this, and so
Speaker 1: we broke up. You know, I didn't exactly say why
Speaker 1: didn't you know, I didn't be like I'm having a
Speaker 1: racial awakening, like I gotta go, I can't do. It
Speaker 1: was just a real life It was a real life
Speaker 1: It's not you, it's me, which is true. And then
Speaker 1: I went in search of my desires. I went in
Speaker 1: search of like, Okay, every movie I've ever seen as
Speaker 1: a kid shows me some brown or black dude being
Speaker 1: saved by some white women. Right. Why have I thought
Speaker 1: that the hand I hold determines my worth more than
Speaker 1: my own hand. I've really started figuring out what am
Speaker 1: I attracted to and why And because I like to
Speaker 1: do things in a public nature or I don't know
Speaker 1: if I like to do them. I think it's just
Speaker 1: how I But you are a professional actor, come like,
Speaker 1: so yeah, you do like to doing things that the
Speaker 1: public matter. I think it's just how I meet myself.
Speaker 1: You know, if I write it down, it's like it's
Speaker 1: holding me accountable. And so I wrote this piece in
Speaker 1: The Times that I titled please Don't Hate Me for
Speaker 1: dating white women. They called it I broke up with
Speaker 1: my girlfriend because she was white. It went insane, It
Speaker 1: got translated into all these different languages, and it really
Speaker 1: opened the door to me asking bigger questions about how
Speaker 1: I moved through the world. Like that was a big
Speaker 1: in for me. Looking at dating and intimacy in that
Speaker 1: way in relationships was a big into like how am
Speaker 1: I moving through the world as a body of culture?
Speaker 1: And what power am I literally giving to to whiteness.
Speaker 1: So listen, you know this is a black guy and
Speaker 1: a white guy show, right, So here we are talking
Speaker 1: about our interracial friendship. We're best friends. You heard about
Speaker 1: the show, and we are the embodiment of literally the
Speaker 1: black white binary that troubles this story that you tell
Speaker 1: and you enter into this conversation in power by saying like, yo,
Speaker 1: enough enough already. So do we have this wrong? Are
Speaker 1: we contributing to the problem, Chris, help help us figure
Speaker 1: out how to be better. You are not causing or
Speaker 1: keeping the problem going. That is the world. It is
Speaker 1: a binary world. It is a white black world. Before
Speaker 1: you even came into existence, before you were formed, like,
Speaker 1: it has been a white black world. It has been
Speaker 1: his her world. We are just now starting to really
Speaker 1: crack open the doors. And this goes way beyond race
Speaker 1: of what it means to embrace the middle space. We're
Speaker 1: making this space more full right now. So it's literally happening.
Speaker 1: It's more conversations like this. That's when he needs to
Speaker 1: have it. Yeah, you're talking about this middle space. But
Speaker 1: you write in the book, you know what is brownness
Speaker 1: the vague but large gap in the middle where things
Speaker 1: are forgotten, don't exist, don't matter, or don't belong. What
Speaker 1: is brownness a concept everything between black and white, the
Speaker 1: global majority and both a large and majority. You're not
Speaker 1: talking about a small number of people, We're talking about
Speaker 1: a huge number. You're in La where over fifty percent
Speaker 1: of the people are Latino explain that, like, how could
Speaker 1: such a large group be left out of the conversation.
Speaker 1: I do think there is more brownness in the world
Speaker 1: than anything else. Yeah, Yeah, this world has a lot
Speaker 1: of brown people in it. And I'm not just talking
Speaker 1: about the Enos. More ethnicities and heritages and cultures and
Speaker 1: flavors than I can even think off off the top
Speaker 1: of my head. Yeah, I don't know how we all
Speaker 1: get left out. How it happened. I mean, yes, it's systemic,
Speaker 1: and it happened, and we're just we're here now. And
Speaker 1: so what I can speak to is maybe hopefully towards
Speaker 1: the future and be like, all right, so how do
Speaker 1: we have more inclusive conversations, dialogues, awarenesses. Yeah. I want
Speaker 1: to stay with this for just a second longer, because
Speaker 1: I think it's really important, like both to acknowledge that
Speaker 1: brownness is also about a physical appearance and also a
Speaker 1: kind of political project. And I want to share very
Speaker 1: quickly two examples from my own children. My wife grew
Speaker 1: up herself a little bit anxious about her blackness, and
Speaker 1: partly because she spoke in such a way that other
Speaker 1: black kids teased her. You know, you're trying to be white,
Speaker 1: and so at some point she kind of defined herself
Speaker 1: as Neapolitan. And that matters because when we were raising
Speaker 1: our fine bndess lady, it is kind of crazy, right,
Speaker 1: but okay. Nevertheless, so when it was time to be
Speaker 1: parents our firstborn son, named debraun Stephanie, like, her instinct
Speaker 1: was to like acknowledge his brownness because he's, you know,
Speaker 1: he's like Beyonce colored right like that, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of a little shade darker than beige. And I was like, no,
Speaker 1: he's black. And so this little like debate between us
Speaker 1: manifest later on when we left this like super white
Speaker 1: college town in Bloomington, Indiana, and we went to visit
Speaker 1: my mother who lived on the South side of Chicago
Speaker 1: where I grew up. And we were walking on Michigan
Speaker 1: Avenue in downtown Chicago on the Magnificent Mile, and we
Speaker 1: were surrounded by the sights and sounds of the city.
Speaker 1: Everybody was there, and our son literally is like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, there really are black people. And this is insane, right, Chris,
Speaker 1: because here he like, there's the dude's lame is Jabron Muhammad,
Speaker 1: Like if nothing else, he's like some some like black
Speaker 1: dude in the making right, Like, you know, he can't.
Speaker 1: He's nothing but brown or black or something. But he's
Speaker 1: our child, and somehow we had missed the fact that
Speaker 1: in his own socialization he was seeing his face as brown,
Speaker 1: but the political stakes of him being black weren't clear
Speaker 1: to him yet. And I think that's kind of what
Speaker 1: you're talking about, Like there are the whole world is
Speaker 1: made up of brown people more than any other, like
Speaker 1: physical reality, and yet the stakes of our politics internationally
Speaker 1: are like choosing white or black. Yeah, we've choosing is
Speaker 1: a good word. I mean, we could expand all the
Speaker 1: whole our own choice. Yeah, man, that's what we're here,
Speaker 1: because we are here to you want us to make
Speaker 1: a choice. Let's talk about this. Let's talk about brownness
Speaker 1: as a different choice, assuming you have the choice to
Speaker 1: make right. We talk about privilege a lot, and that's
Speaker 1: one of the great definitions, is the ability to have choice.
Speaker 1: I don't think whiteness is trying to take our color.
Speaker 1: They're trying to take our culture. They're trying to take
Speaker 1: you know, really the things that make us unique and
Speaker 1: vibrant and flavorful and colorful, you know, like it's all
Speaker 1: of these things. And when you say, take what do
Speaker 1: you mean? Because when I think of assimilation and I
Speaker 1: think of pretending, and I think of choices like what's
Speaker 1: going to allow me to survive literally physically, what's going
Speaker 1: to allow me to thrive possibly move up a social
Speaker 1: financial ladder, and the dangers that come with pretending an assimilation.
Speaker 1: I think it's trying to take bodies of culture's culture
Speaker 1: and make it one way, you know, make it our way,
Speaker 1: make it the white way, make it the acceptable way.
Speaker 1: And so this idea of choice, when do we as
Speaker 1: bodies of culture wake up to the choices we've been making?
Speaker 1: You know, that's a whole version of racial awakening is
Speaker 1: have I been making my own choices? Or have I
Speaker 1: been brainwashed hypnotized into think I'm making my own choices?
Speaker 1: But really I'm just trying to survive. All Right, we
Speaker 1: are here with Chris Revas. We've been talking about brownness.
Speaker 1: We're gonna take a quick break and we come back.
Speaker 1: We're going to talk about Los Angeles, where Chris lives.
Speaker 1: Now we're going to talk about a local scandal about racism,
Speaker 1: this tape that was released and how it reflects on
Speaker 1: the national stage and national politics. Hey, we're back with
Speaker 1: Chris Revas and some of my best friends are Chris.
Speaker 1: You know here we are mid term elections. Politics is
Speaker 1: royaling the country and you live in Los Angeles and
Speaker 1: you know so in October the scandal happened. This tape
Speaker 1: was released, and we want to just sort of unpack
Speaker 1: it a little bit because it seems so relevant to
Speaker 1: your work and to this conversation. Three Latino City Council
Speaker 1: members in Los Angeles are caught on tape, including the
Speaker 1: council president, Nori Martinez, and also a Latino labor leader.
Speaker 1: So there are four people talking and this conversation actually
Speaker 1: happens in twenty twenty one, but the tape is just
Speaker 1: released and then run by the La Times this year.
Speaker 1: They're talking all kinds of anti black stuff and both
Speaker 1: like actual black people, like African Americans, but also people
Speaker 1: of darker skin. So yeah, let's let's let's listen to
Speaker 1: a clip because this is this is it's just a
Speaker 1: really strong language here and our listeners should here. It's
Speaker 1: a black and brown on this floe, and the white
Speaker 1: guy with a little black kid was risky, hate the
Speaker 1: kids bousing off the There's nothing you can do to
Speaker 1: control him. They call someone's kid a black kid, a monkey,
Speaker 1: thank you. I wasn't going to even try it. Uh.
Speaker 1: They talk about working class immigrants from Wahika who live
Speaker 1: in Korea Town as little short, dark people, dirty dirty. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then even like the progressive da this guy George cascoone,
Speaker 1: you know, they sort of dismiss him as somebody he's
Speaker 1: with the blacks. So yeah, man, I want to throw
Speaker 1: it back on you, like explain like was it did
Speaker 1: it surprise you? Why didn't it, you know, tell us
Speaker 1: about it. My first thought is, you know, thank god,
Speaker 1: thank god that's tape was released, right, Like, It's not like,
Speaker 1: how dare they? It's like, of course they, you know,
Speaker 1: the Latina Latin, Latin XE, whatever people's preferred, you know,
Speaker 1: identity pronoun is Latinos have so much racism and colonization
Speaker 1: and white supremacy. Deep deep, deep, deep, deep, deep deeply
Speaker 1: braided into that it didn't surprise me because white supremacy
Speaker 1: is not an American thing. It is a global thing.
Speaker 1: But Latini that is one of the bigger sufferers of it,
Speaker 1: and what does that mean. I'll started my own story
Speaker 1: before I speak about someone else's Dominicans there's people on
Speaker 1: the same land, the same island, similar dark skin. Right.
Speaker 1: My grandma's black, y'all, but she ain't black. God forbid
Speaker 1: you call her black, but she's black. Right, No, they're black.
Speaker 1: I'm Dominican, right, that's in my blood. And they're they're
Speaker 1: being that those Haitians is when you say they are
Speaker 1: they or anyone black black people are black, I'm Dominican,
Speaker 1: you know. And so you have to do hero who
Speaker 1: is Haitian, has Haitian ancestry, baby powdering his face, you know,
Speaker 1: identifying with himself with whiteness, killing the black people that
Speaker 1: he's associated with. So I'm just gonna speak to my
Speaker 1: own blood. Yeah, man, I hadn't. I hadn't even thought
Speaker 1: about your hero and his Haitian background. Yeah. So's he's
Speaker 1: the president of the Dominican Republic for like thirty one years,
Speaker 1: from like nineteen thirty to nineteen sixty one, and massacres
Speaker 1: something like an estimated twelve to thirty thousand Haitians under
Speaker 1: his rule. It's just it's just unbelievable. So that's your
Speaker 1: Dominican side. What about your Colombian side? Colombians have one
Speaker 1: of the largest slave trades in the world that don't
Speaker 1: come up a lot, like a lot came to America,
Speaker 1: a lot went to Colombia, and you know, and so
Speaker 1: you go to places like even now at Adina, Mexico,
Speaker 1: Costa Rica. Who's on the hats It's white people. You know,
Speaker 1: it's white it's white lavinos, but it's white people, like
Speaker 1: it's white people selling you products. It's white people on
Speaker 1: the shows. It's white people on the del novelas's white
Speaker 1: people on the news. I just did an event for
Speaker 1: you know, NBC Telemundo and a woman genuinely asked me,
Speaker 1: how can we how can we show it better for
Speaker 1: our community? And I said, yo, you know, you don't
Speaker 1: have one alf for Latino on your staff. And where
Speaker 1: was their response? You know, I don't. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: just nothing like I was like I asked it. The
Speaker 1: guy who hired me was like, you're talking about colorism
Speaker 1: right like you're you're talking about it deeply, deeply rooted
Speaker 1: and lots of Latino cultures. And that's what you feel
Speaker 1: was sort of at the root of going on in
Speaker 1: this conversation that was outed between these city councils. Ye,
Speaker 1: that's what was happening in la and none of them
Speaker 1: you deserve to sort of be in places of power.
Speaker 1: But also what they're associated with power is their whiteness
Speaker 1: or their non dirtiness, you know, or they're closer to whiteness,
Speaker 1: so they're better. And no, they don't deserve to be
Speaker 1: in places of power. But you know, thank God that
Speaker 1: we know how these people are moving through the world
Speaker 1: and thinking, this is why you're thankful this came Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what you mean. Yeah, that's why I'm thankful this
Speaker 1: came out so we can have these conversations and hold
Speaker 1: these people accountable. But I care less about holding them
Speaker 1: accountable and more about people listening to it and holding
Speaker 1: themselves accountable, asking do I think this, How have I
Speaker 1: participated in this? How am I participating daily in white
Speaker 1: supremacy and in anti blackness because we all have a
Speaker 1: hand in it. Yeah, that's one of the things I think.
Speaker 1: I mean. To your credit in the book is such
Speaker 1: a powerful personal story about your own journey, because you
Speaker 1: don't pull any punches in terms of how you yourself
Speaker 1: have come to see your own grandmother's scolding you for
Speaker 1: bringing home a black girlfriend at some point and recognizing
Speaker 1: the obvious and subtle ways that all around you people
Speaker 1: were saying, get closer to whiteness, Get closer to whiteness,
Speaker 1: that's where power rests. When I heard about this story
Speaker 1: of a Latino council members and the labor leader in
Speaker 1: LA and I even brought it up in class, you know,
Speaker 1: teaching this semester in a class called race and Racism
Speaker 1: and the United States as a Global Power. I was
Speaker 1: also hoping my students would appreciate that honorary whiteness is
Speaker 1: driving our electoral politics. What do you mean, Yeah, honorary
Speaker 1: whiteness meaning people who are not European descendant, but who
Speaker 1: either have the category bestowed upon them. But in this
Speaker 1: moment of our midterm elections, partly what we're seeing is
Speaker 1: that this large Latino population, which is the largest at
Speaker 1: least by census demographic of non white people in America
Speaker 1: and will be the majority population, and something like a
Speaker 1: generation is also at war in a sense with itself
Speaker 1: over whether it's going to choose to follow the path
Speaker 1: to power laid by white people or it's going to
Speaker 1: come up with something different. Do I have that right
Speaker 1: or do you have a different take on it? Because
Speaker 1: I'm really interested in these ideological and political divisions within
Speaker 1: Latino communities. Your parents are in Miami, it's Cuba an
Speaker 1: American based. I mean, it's like, this is some real
Speaker 1: stuff we're wrestling with, Chris politically. I mean the words
Speaker 1: you said that I really love is the war with ourselves.
Speaker 1: There is some serious, serious awakening and radical honesty and
Speaker 1: transparency that needs to take place. But inside of the
Speaker 1: Latino community. And I want to share something that I
Speaker 1: had just learned this recently. So for the Brown Enough podcast,
Speaker 1: we recently interviewed doctor Saudi Garcia. She said something I'd
Speaker 1: never heard before. She said, if you Latina xe whatever,
Speaker 1: you know, if we use the word Latin before anything,
Speaker 1: we are identifying with whiteness. We are all Afro Caribbean
Speaker 1: or Afro Latino, like we need to identify with the
Speaker 1: other half before we identify with the whiteness. We are
Speaker 1: indigenous beings of the land. And then all of this
Speaker 1: sort of colonization in Spain and this and this other
Speaker 1: things happen, you know, that sort of separated us in slavery, right,
Speaker 1: bringing you know, slaves in and adding all this to
Speaker 1: the mix. Every time we put in Latin anything, regardless
Speaker 1: of what you put on the end of that you
Speaker 1: are identifying with that whiteness in you, adding more to
Speaker 1: that internal struggle that I don't think people even know
Speaker 1: they're fighting. They're trapped inside of you know. I do.
Speaker 1: I quote it because it's it holds up. We've all
Speaker 1: seen the matrix, like it's hard to wake up. You
Speaker 1: mean the movie star in keantle Reaves and Larry Fishburn
Speaker 1: who went to your high school, right Talented unlimited, right
Speaker 1: your community. It's hard to wake up, y'all, It's hard
Speaker 1: to wake up. And Chris, this is amazing. I'm listening
Speaker 1: to you and thinking about a sort of term monology.
Speaker 1: And it also, like in electoral politics, it also cuts
Speaker 1: the other way, like Khalil asked you about your your
Speaker 1: parents who moved from Queens to Miami, and you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of us think sort of like Latino or
Speaker 1: Latin X, like as a monolith like here at least
Speaker 1: this group of people. And part of this conversation is
Speaker 1: we're talking about within it it also being so varied
Speaker 1: and so different. And then you're also sort of spinning
Speaker 1: it another way and saying like and the term is
Speaker 1: also sort of a kind of forgetting but yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I mean, can you talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about like Khalil sort of talking about the differences within
Speaker 1: it and even like an electoral way like your parents
Speaker 1: are in this now sort of Cuban Republican stronghold of
Speaker 1: Latino politics. In Miami, we got Democrats and Republicans, okay,
Speaker 1: and for a long time Republicans have really been power.
Speaker 1: We can call it power, and then we can call everything,
Speaker 1: you know, democrat everything else. And you take a place
Speaker 1: like Miami, it's little Cuba. They're the ones in power there.
Speaker 1: They run a show, and so they are Republican because
Speaker 1: they are white. They are the white ones. They are
Speaker 1: the powerful ones. Right, that's why you have you go
Speaker 1: to Miami. Right now, you'll see to this day converted
Speaker 1: ice cream trucks, you know, yelling Trump, screaming it down
Speaker 1: the street. Right, they're the ones in power. And so
Speaker 1: Miami's are I mean, don't like, we can't even get
Speaker 1: started on place like Miami. They're they're so lost in
Speaker 1: the sauce, you know, like they're they're too far gone.
Speaker 1: You come to a place like Los Angeles, so many
Speaker 1: Latinos here don't even realize that they have power. They're
Speaker 1: not even voting. They don't realize how much space they
Speaker 1: take up in the conversation. And I've been having this
Speaker 1: conversation a lot, and this is why I think the
Speaker 1: city comes with conversation is actually important. I'm so glad
Speaker 1: you turn it that way. And I've been thinking about
Speaker 1: the scandal at the last counsel in exactly those terms
Speaker 1: and trying to make sense of it. And it was
Speaker 1: enough of a scandal, like on the local level that
Speaker 1: even Biden felt like he had to weigh in and
Speaker 1: demand that they resign. I mean, the President of the
Speaker 1: United States had to step in, and maybe if the
Speaker 1: mid terms weren't coming up, he wouldn't have done that.
Speaker 1: But I think I'm hearing what you're saying. On you
Speaker 1: both of you could correct me if I'm wrong about this.
Speaker 1: But in some ways, the racism that was exposed, which
Speaker 1: was really ugly, also sort of masked the other thing
Speaker 1: that was going on that was revealed is that these
Speaker 1: four powerbrokers didn't really give a fuck about people in
Speaker 1: the community and especially working class people. I mean, they
Speaker 1: were talking about holding power and retaining power, and you're
Speaker 1: talking about like from the bottom up. They were figuring
Speaker 1: out ways to negotiate to keep themselves in power. But
Speaker 1: they were dismissing people from Wahaka as you said, like
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know what village they're from. They
Speaker 1: just showed up here, and you know, and they were
Speaker 1: willing even to seed certain districts to keep a black
Speaker 1: council member in place so that they could stay in power,
Speaker 1: and that kind of like coalition building just for itself.
Speaker 1: This is what a political machine does. A machine, a
Speaker 1: political machine reproduces itself and isn't about sort of lifting
Speaker 1: anybody up that might be an offshoot of it. Is
Speaker 1: that right? Like like is that what you're saying? Like
Speaker 1: this is uh, it was exposed that they didn't care
Speaker 1: about about the people in the community. They are self serving,
Speaker 1: you know, like that the conversation literally proves their self serving.
Speaker 1: But I do think that that conversation is happening in
Speaker 1: more rooms than a than a record has been. Hell yeah,
Speaker 1: hell yeah. You write about this in your book, you know,
Speaker 1: about like actual progressive politics, you know, because I don't know,
Speaker 1: I mean clear, we could we could hash this out
Speaker 1: a little bit, like you know, here we have this
Speaker 1: Democratic Party. It's like, what does it actually stand for.
Speaker 1: And so I mean, you write in your book about
Speaker 1: student debt, and you write about, you know, healthcare debt.
Speaker 1: You write about these issues that are affecting real people
Speaker 1: who like can't afford the country in the way it's
Speaker 1: set up. And Democrats are the worst storytellers in the
Speaker 1: world right now, in the world. That's huge there. They're
Speaker 1: horrible story tellers. And Republican Party is an unbelievable storyteller.
Speaker 1: And something I want to recommend that every human read
Speaker 1: is by Josse Orga said, oh yeah, The Revolt of
Speaker 1: the Masses. He wrote this in the twenties Homeboy. He
Speaker 1: did some prophesizing. He separated the world into two people,
Speaker 1: minorities and masses. Minorities had nothing to do with ethnicity
Speaker 1: or race. Minority was if you are a surgeon, you
Speaker 1: are a minority. You needed training, like that's legit, Like
Speaker 1: not everybody can come in and cut out your kidney.
Speaker 1: He was like, there are things where you need training,
Speaker 1: and then there are masses. And he said, one day
Speaker 1: something will come along that will allow the masses to
Speaker 1: have a microphone and they will start to think they
Speaker 1: are a minority. And he said that will be the
Speaker 1: most dangerous day in the world, because people will start
Speaker 1: gathering around the things they disagree on more than the
Speaker 1: things they agree on. There will be so much power
Speaker 1: around what we don't agree on versus what we agree on.
Speaker 1: The Republican Party is so good at gathering around disagreements,
Speaker 1: like they push it, push it, push that agenda so hard,
Speaker 1: and it galvanizes, it galvanizes more than any democratic event
Speaker 1: or party has ever galvanized anything. Right, because they're just
Speaker 1: like no, no, no, no, that's wrong, that's wrong, that's wrong.
Speaker 1: They're trying to take from you. Yeah, I have I
Speaker 1: have genuine issues with the storytelling of politics right now.
Speaker 1: The Republican Party is really good at convincing them that
Speaker 1: they're actually working for the people. Sure, yeah, we are
Speaker 1: going to take another quick break. We'll be right back.
Speaker 1: I want to come back to brownness, where we started
Speaker 1: this conversation as a metaphor for reimagining how we should
Speaker 1: think about what we owe each other. And in a way, Chris,
Speaker 1: I'm really just I'm taking what I took from your
Speaker 1: book and putting it back to you, trying to say, like,
Speaker 1: this is how I understand how you want us to
Speaker 1: reconsider who's in this conversation, and you use that as
Speaker 1: a really powerful insight into why me the black guy
Speaker 1: needs to pay closer attention to you, Chris, your story
Speaker 1: and the millions of other stories like it, And why
Speaker 1: Ben the white guy is in a way in a
Speaker 1: position to bestow power on the rest of us by
Speaker 1: virtue of the privileges that come with a whiteness. So
Speaker 1: what you also tell us in this story of brownness
Speaker 1: is that the grasp of power grows out of the
Speaker 1: development of capitalism, and that capitalism has created austerity for everybody.
Speaker 1: Austerity for the quality of life you live, Austerity for
Speaker 1: your access to life saving treatments or just regular checkup
Speaker 1: at the doctor called healthcare, austerity for the affordability of
Speaker 1: a fricking education that everyone deserves, austerity, or, as Robert Reich,
Speaker 1: the former Clinton labor secretary said, inequality for all. That's
Speaker 1: what you get with capital. That is the story you tell,
Speaker 1: And so so round us out with how appropriating brownness
Speaker 1: for ourselves is also about reclaiming what we owe each
Speaker 1: other in a society that should no longer be about austerity.
Speaker 1: I'm going to round you out by using the donut metaphor,
Speaker 1: and donut economics says, the world right now is an arrow.
Speaker 1: The arrow must go up. The arrow must go up
Speaker 1: by any means necessary in our world. Right, Yes, I
Speaker 1: talk a lot about capitalism, and capitalism is dangerous, you know,
Speaker 1: like it has been dangerous ever since. You know. We
Speaker 1: took land from people and then then made them work
Speaker 1: on the land we took and then paid them a
Speaker 1: living that they could only spend that money at our stores,
Speaker 1: so that we never lost any money. We have an
Speaker 1: arrow that must go up at any means necessary, by
Speaker 1: any means necessary means, at the cost of Khalil, Chris
Speaker 1: and even Ben by any means necessary means. Like there
Speaker 1: is a cost, except that cost is often taken from
Speaker 1: bodies of culture more than other bodies. But the arrow
Speaker 1: must move up. The stock market must rise. We must right.
Speaker 1: The people who created the system of power must stay
Speaker 1: in power, and the arrow must move up. Also it
Speaker 1: relates to Republicans, right, they've sold that the arrow is
Speaker 1: shifting down, and I will keep it up. I will
Speaker 1: keep the arrow up me right. Donut economics says, we
Speaker 1: want to stay in the in the flesh of the donut.
Speaker 1: If you go towards the inside of the donut, you're
Speaker 1: going to steal from the land and from the people.
Speaker 1: If you go to the outside of the donut, you're
Speaker 1: also going to steal from the land and the people.
Speaker 1: Like what does it look like to stay in the flesh,
Speaker 1: to think in a more reciprocal way? And so when
Speaker 1: I think of brownness, I think of the I think
Speaker 1: you know, we're in the we're in the meat. We're
Speaker 1: thinking in a more ciprocal, more expansive way. We're thinking
Speaker 1: of a less this that a less more and more
Speaker 1: and more and a less. I get more breath, like
Speaker 1: I wanted to take a deep breath there. I think
Speaker 1: we heard it. When we think in a more expansive,
Speaker 1: generous way, we realize, like I get to take a nap.
Speaker 1: I don't got to be on this race for more
Speaker 1: and more and more, this race that was sold to
Speaker 1: me by whiteness. I don't have to be the arrow.
Speaker 1: I get to be here having these conversations, these generous conversations,
Speaker 1: like I don't keep it, get to meditate, I don't
Speaker 1: have to keep proving it. I don't have to hustle, hustle,
Speaker 1: hustle on a race that I was told like I
Speaker 1: had to work extra hard just to even start. Nah,
Speaker 1: screw your race. I'm hopping off the wheel like so so.
Speaker 1: Brownness to me is a more expansive, delicious way of
Speaker 1: living because it includes more of us, not less of us.
Speaker 1: And it's less fighting for the arrow because an arrow
Speaker 1: skinny hell, and only a couple of people are going
Speaker 1: to get it. But the donut is fat, and we
Speaker 1: can all eat from the donut. Fat Donuts. Hey, listen,
Speaker 1: this is this is gonna be our new show spin
Speaker 1: off Fat Donuts, the three of us. I love donuts.
Speaker 1: I would I would eat donuts. Y'all love once a
Speaker 1: month because metaphorically literally, we're gonna start a new show.
Speaker 1: We're gonna have a franchise. We're gonna in New York, Chicago.
Speaker 1: Fat Donuts gonna be yoga and donuts. Well, listen, Chris,
Speaker 1: you've taught me a lot. I just own it for myself.
Speaker 1: Really appreciate same here, Same here, man. How well you've
Speaker 1: told your own story. The book is really great, and
Speaker 1: you know, we just look forward to you telling us
Speaker 1: more stories and teaching us more about a different way
Speaker 1: to live with each other in the future. Thank you.
Speaker 1: I'm really I'm really grateful for y'all appreciate. Thank you, Chris,
Speaker 1: thank you so much, thank you, thank you, Chris. I'm
Speaker 1: so glad Khalil that we got to talk about Los
Speaker 1: Angeles today. You know, Mike Davis, the urban historian, died
Speaker 1: in October. His City of Courts about about the city
Speaker 1: definitely shaped my way of thinking about how we think
Speaker 1: about cities. Yeah, yeah, and about America and writing about it.
Speaker 1: It was a nineteen eighty story about like hyper surveillance.
Speaker 1: He had a chapter called Fortress America. It was really
Speaker 1: about a kind of dystopic vision of fear and the
Speaker 1: other and how you know, white elites were just locking
Speaker 1: it down for their own benefit and privilege. So prescient,
Speaker 1: so prescient. And you know, we're talking about Los Angeles
Speaker 1: today and we're talking about this scandal with the local officials,
Speaker 1: and it feels like we're also talking about the Democratic Party, right,
Speaker 1: we are the Democratic Coalition on this recording today, you know, black, brown,
Speaker 1: and progressive white, and we are the Rainbow coalition at well,
Speaker 1: and Los Angeles showed this, you know, in this scandal,
Speaker 1: like how precarious this coalition is, how like how much
Speaker 1: in fighting and how we don't really know how to like,
Speaker 1: you know, hold it together. I really love you coming
Speaker 1: back to this point because here we are on election
Speaker 1: day and the future is uncertain and the point of
Speaker 1: Chris's whole story, his life as he's lived it, his
Speaker 1: commitment to the arts as a way to express his ideas,
Speaker 1: and this book that he's written as a kind of
Speaker 1: call to action for all of us, is to recognize
Speaker 1: that living in a world that has been defined by
Speaker 1: color as a way to hoard power for some at
Speaker 1: the expense of others is the moment that we're living in. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it is a moment of white replacement theory.
Speaker 1: I mean it is a moment where our political parties
Speaker 1: cannot separate themselves from this existential threat. And uh, you know,
Speaker 1: we don't know what the future holds, but we know
Speaker 1: that every day matters at this moment, and having Chris
Speaker 1: help us make sense of this is really valuable. And
Speaker 1: you're right. So here we have this amazing storyteller on
Speaker 1: the show, and you know, some story about a deeper
Speaker 1: mission for equity which is escaping us, which we're not
Speaker 1: talking about, and you know, and Chris brings that up
Speaker 1: that came up in this recording in Los Angeles, and
Speaker 1: you know, it's what we talked about today. I think
Speaker 1: that no matter what comes in the not too distant future,
Speaker 1: we have the right people to help us figure it out.
Speaker 1: And uh, and I know I'm gonna be good because
Speaker 1: I got you, man. I got you, man. Do you
Speaker 1: mean to figure out how to do this podcast? Yeah?
Speaker 1: We were whatever. All right, I'll see you on the
Speaker 1: other side, all right, Love you, Yeah, love you man.
Speaker 1: Some of My Best Friends Are is a production of
Speaker 1: Pushkin Industries. The show is written and hosted by me
Speaker 1: Khalil Gibrama and my best friend Ben Austin. It's produced
Speaker 1: by John Asante and Lucy Sullivan. Our editor is Jasmine Morris,
Speaker 1: our engineer is Amanda Kwang, and our executive producer is
Speaker 1: mia Lebelle. At Pushkin, Thanks Selita Mullad, Julia Barton, Heather Faine,
Speaker 1: Carly Migliori, John Schnars, Gretta Cone, and Jacob Weisberg. Our
Speaker 1: theme song, Little Lily, is by fellow chicagoan the brilliant
Speaker 1: Avery R. Young, from his album Pubman. You definitely want
Speaker 1: to check out his music at his website. Avery R.
Speaker 1: Young dot com. You can find Pushkin on all social
Speaker 1: platforms at pushkin pods, and you can sign up for
Speaker 1: our newsletter at pushkin dot fm. To find more Pushkin podcasts,
Speaker 1: listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: like to listen. And if you like our show, please
Speaker 1: give us a five star rating and a review, and
Speaker 1: listen even if you don't like it, give it a
Speaker 1: five star rating and a review, and please tell all
Speaker 1: of your best friends of about it. Thank you. I
Speaker 1: don't know if I put this in the book, but
Speaker 1: but I referenced it a lot. You know Howard is
Speaker 1: in and like People's History of America, says the biggest trick.
Speaker 1: Not in the book. Oh, not in the book. Not
Speaker 1: in the book. Khalil has memorized the book. He knows
Speaker 1: there's nothing you can you can't get anything past them.
Speaker 1: Not in the book. Third printing. You almost wrote it
Speaker 1: on page seventeen, but put it in the third printing.