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Speaker 1: Yo, I don't have anything that goes with this episode.

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Speaker 1: If the beats coming on, I'm just I can't hear you.

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Speaker 1: I'm just gonna wrap. I'm just gonna wrap. Fucking I'm wrapping. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I can't say that I'm a dog and I bust

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Speaker 1: much loves, but I get legally insane and I've done

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Speaker 1: much drugs. No, dude won't see me with a change.

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Speaker 1: There's no punch drunk love. Because when I'm not rapping dog,

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Speaker 1: I used to run bust um. Then the brothers started servant,

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Speaker 1: thought the cash and start turning, started getting determined. I

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Speaker 1: tell that I started learning with all the effort I

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Speaker 1: am served, thinking that it might just work. Broke my leg.

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Speaker 1: They made me off. This fucking stage is right to

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Speaker 1: work now that the unemployment they nobody noticed. I can't

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Speaker 1: even get my check on times. Motherfucking COVID and these

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Speaker 1: kids all in the house. And you know the ship

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Speaker 1: is not the dopest. I've passed it off to link

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Speaker 1: with Franker. She gonna drop some mo ship workers ship

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Speaker 1: the boxes they Slipper and Chipper whenever talking and whipping

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Speaker 1: the shock of carts. It's active beer in the walkings

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Speaker 1: and tact them with legal cart and to keep our

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Speaker 1: king at him for the stock and not financial market solvent.

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Speaker 1: They're clocking for fifty fitty bucks in there, the coping

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Speaker 1: of like sixty fifty chucks and gets spit on my

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Speaker 1: sitting ducks. And they are sick getting fucked. So if

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Speaker 1: you ever wanted to honor them, he has not asked

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Speaker 1: for all mohammedans. We boy Cotton, Amazon and Target and

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Speaker 1: FedEx and Walt Martin and Cicario Hope Foods until the

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Speaker 1: fucking boss's bargaining workers won the company. That is in

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Speaker 1: any arguments, So argue with them, are you with a alright, alright, alright, alright,

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Speaker 1: welcome back. I'm dope nice, I'm lingua franca. We're waiting

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Speaker 1: on reparations. Hurr. Yeah. We're here to talk about a

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Speaker 1: little bit of politics from the lens of hip hop.

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Speaker 1: Hip hop from the lens of politics, and particularly today

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Speaker 1: we are talking about the labor movement in America, the

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Speaker 1: way it affects black people, the way it affects rappers

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Speaker 1: or doesn't uh. And we're gonna have of my good

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Speaker 1: friend ironmy o s from Pong, a community organizer, host

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Speaker 1: of the YouTube show The Black Athenians and a PhD

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Speaker 1: student in philosophy at the University of Georgia here to

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Speaker 1: talk to us today about the labor movement's history, it's importance,

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Speaker 1: and the promise of a federal job guarantee. And I

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Speaker 1: want to start off talking about some shitty jobs that

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Speaker 1: we've had, our own personal experiences with the necessity of

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Speaker 1: workers coming together to organize for better working conditions and

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Speaker 1: better pay, because I've definitely had some jobs are just

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Speaker 1: like what the fun So wait before you we get

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Speaker 1: into what the jobs have been, what was your first job?

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Speaker 1: My first job ever? I was a I worked at Sonic.

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Speaker 1: I was one of those people that brought you the

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Speaker 1: tray out to your car. I did not wear the

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Speaker 1: roller skates, yet I could not keep this movies from

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Speaker 1: hitting the parking lot pavement even just standing. No, no,

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Speaker 1: I would routinely drop things like on my own two

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Speaker 1: feet sands like wheels beneath me. So I never got

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Speaker 1: to that level of like skating around. But uh yeah,

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Speaker 1: just like sat in the back ate a bunch of

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Speaker 1: fried macaroni and cheese nuggets. I was there for like

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Speaker 1: a couple of months. Yeah, yeah, I got I got

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Speaker 1: sick one time and I couldn't come in and they

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Speaker 1: and they fired me and that was it. I was sixteen, Yeah, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: my first job was I was sixteen as well. I

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Speaker 1: wish it was like something like Sonic Goes for the

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Speaker 1: State Department. It was that the the US for the

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Speaker 1: embassy in Singapore when my father was stationed there. It

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Speaker 1: was like a summertime thing. They just had me doing

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Speaker 1: like clerk stuff. Okay, that was like my first experience

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Speaker 1: in the job market. You know what I was thinking

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Speaker 1: when I was looking at the notes for this and

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Speaker 1: you were saying that we should talk about like shitty jobs.

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Speaker 1: It's gonna be hard for me just because like being

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Speaker 1: like sitting down there and like really recollected. I haven't

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Speaker 1: had many jobs, just a couple for a long time,

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Speaker 1: you know. So we worked on the service and straight

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Speaker 1: from yeah, I was always bartending and serving off and on.

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Speaker 1: Whenever music was slow, that was what was paying the bills.

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Speaker 1: So it's like, you know, that was always my steady

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Speaker 1: thing that I had while I was pursuing, you know,

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Speaker 1: other creative artistic ventures and ship. But as I was

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Speaker 1: touring and releasing music and stuff, that was I must

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Speaker 1: have split a ten year span between like two different

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Speaker 1: places as a bartender or waiter, and it wasn't shitty

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Speaker 1: Like I liked it. I like the people that I

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Speaker 1: worked with. For the most part, it was like you know,

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Speaker 1: it was. It was a lot of work in very

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Speaker 1: high demand. But over the years, the grind of it

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Speaker 1: made it shitty. Yeah, you know what I'm saying. So

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Speaker 1: it's not like it grinds, it grounds you down, you

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Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, and you start getting that, what

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Speaker 1: then am I doing with my life type ship? You know? Yeah? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I've worked all kinds of jobs. I was like a

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Speaker 1: door attended at the cafeteria in college. Also in college,

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Speaker 1: I was in the summertime somewhat of a carney. I

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Speaker 1: worked at a ball toss booth at the Asheville Tourist

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Speaker 1: Baseball Stadium. So I pretty much just stood in the

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Speaker 1: hot sun um with people that drunk, unamused white people

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Speaker 1: trying to throw balls at this thing for hours and

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Speaker 1: hours as a clown or something. Did not have a

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Speaker 1: dress up like a clown. I have this little polo

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Speaker 1: I had to wear in like khakis. It was chill.

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Speaker 1: I pretty I think they've hired me for the job

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Speaker 1: because I looked somewhat like a clown, and my brother like, oh,

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Speaker 1: sounds great, she'll be perfect. Um. Yeah, I've always worked

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Speaker 1: multiple jobs. Worked in a print shop here, I worked

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Speaker 1: as a bouncer at a bar in town. I worked

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Speaker 1: as a wedding caterer. Like, I've consistently had multiple jobs

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Speaker 1: just to like get it all together rant wise and everything.

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Speaker 1: And I'm still work like three or four jobs, like

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Speaker 1: and then like this is the first time in my

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Speaker 1: life I'm like above like the median income for like

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Speaker 1: the area. Like you know, it's still taking you know,

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Speaker 1: being on the commission, working on this podcast, freelance music stuff,

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Speaker 1: teaching it's teach to the University of Georgia, all this stuff.

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Speaker 1: Like I still and I probably, oh, I feel like

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Speaker 1: I always will because I have that, like say, on

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Speaker 1: your grind mentality of like you have to always hustle,

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Speaker 1: you have to have multiple things going on in order

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Speaker 1: to like to live. And I just think it's it's

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Speaker 1: part of that capitalist mentality of like your worth is

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Speaker 1: measured by your productivity. It's the grind of life. It's

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Speaker 1: it's the grind of life. Yeah, but I mean it

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Speaker 1: doesn't have to be this way? How do we get here?

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Speaker 1: The Wagner Act, officially the National Labor Relations Act, established

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Speaker 1: the legal right for most workers most workers to organize,

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Speaker 1: enjoy labor unions, and bargain collectively with their employers, which

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Speaker 1: was a huge deal. You know, finally people could negotiate

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Speaker 1: with their employers about health insurance, about pensions, about working

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Speaker 1: conditions you know, we don't have we like, we have

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Speaker 1: hours that are too long. We you know, work in

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Speaker 1: the heat, we work in the snow. We don't like that.

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Speaker 1: So people are actually able to like collectively come together

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Speaker 1: to say, like, yo, without us, without the people running

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Speaker 1: this shop, y'all don't have a paycheck either, So let's

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Speaker 1: come together and decide what's going to be best for

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Speaker 1: everybody who's actually running this whole place. It was also

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Speaker 1: a huge deal that predominantly black workers in the farming

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Speaker 1: and domestic sector, like our cultural people the help you know,

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Speaker 1: like your your nurses aids, your people, like that your

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Speaker 1: housekeepers were accepted from coverage under the Wagner Acts. So

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Speaker 1: while people in mainly white professions unionized and collectively bargained

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Speaker 1: for better working concisions, pensions, medical insurance, job security, better pay,

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Speaker 1: and without this bargaining power, black workers were trapped working

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Speaker 1: grueling hours for next to nothing at the whims of

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Speaker 1: the season. When it comes to you know, they're determining

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Speaker 1: their economic security. In the beginning of labor in this country,

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Speaker 1: there was this racial divide which has expected. They always

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Speaker 1: want to divide and conquer when it comes to the

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Speaker 1: working class. Like, okay, if black and white people come

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Speaker 1: together to negotiate, we're but like, if we can make

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Speaker 1: it so that, oh, the white the poor whites are

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Speaker 1: just a little bit better than the poor blacks, and

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Speaker 1: they can like have this reason to be like, oh,

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Speaker 1: we're not so bad and none of us actually take

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Speaker 1: on the big money interests that are screwing everyone, screwing everyone. Yeah, so,

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Speaker 1: speaking in big money interests. A number of bills have

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Speaker 1: passed since then, notably the Taft Hardly Act in n

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Speaker 1: and the land Rum Griffin Act of that we can

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Speaker 1: the Wagner Act establishing right to work laws, banning secondary boycotts,

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Speaker 1: and limbering the right to pick it. In February nineteen

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Speaker 1: sixty eight, during a violent rain storm, to black sanitation

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Speaker 1: workers in Memphis, Tennessee, were killed when heavy rain caused

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Speaker 1: barrels of heavy garbage to crush them. That sounds like

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Speaker 1: a fucking terrible way to die, it really does. It

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Speaker 1: sounds like some fucking final destination ship. Their death jump

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Speaker 1: started the most important civil rights and labor rights campaign

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Speaker 1: in US history. In response, sanitation workers went on strike

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Speaker 1: and took to the streets and with signs bearing familiar

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Speaker 1: phrase of civil rights struggle, I am a man. They

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Speaker 1: went without pay for the duration of the strike and

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Speaker 1: faced the wrath of the mayor, Henry Loeb, who had

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Speaker 1: declared the strike illegal, and sick racist cops on them

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Speaker 1: in mass for sixty five days. Hundreds of black sanitation

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Speaker 1: workers demanded safer working condition in fair pay. Martin Luther

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Speaker 1: King Jr. Was actually in Memphis supporting that strike when

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Speaker 1: they shot him on the balcony. And it's been positive

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Speaker 1: that like when he was talking about rights for black people,

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Speaker 1: like he was hated and he was feared and the

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Speaker 1: FBI was trying to get him to kill himself and

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Speaker 1: all that ship. But it was when he started to

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Speaker 1: turn his campaign towards okay rights for workers, like labor

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Speaker 1: rights for all people, the poor wife as well as

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Speaker 1: the black. So that's when they were like, Yo, we

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Speaker 1: got to stop this motherfucker. We needed to, yeah, take

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Speaker 1: him out because this is getting really really dangerous. One

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Speaker 1: of the things when like you go back and actually

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Speaker 1: like watch a lot that stuff to read a lot

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Speaker 1: of stuff is like how much of the your communist

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Speaker 1: attack was used against m Okay specifically because he was,

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Speaker 1: you know, I mean working on behalf of like working

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Speaker 1: people and stuff like that. But you would think that

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Speaker 1: It's almost like at some point they started realizing that

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Speaker 1: just simply going at him under like the racial you

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Speaker 1: know side of it wasn't going to be enough. That

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Speaker 1: they started like throwing it, Oh, he's a communist, he

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Speaker 1: wants to say, you know what I mean, he wants

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Speaker 1: to bring him Yeah, they had to bring him labor.

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Speaker 1: They had to bring in economic policy in order to

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Speaker 1: like make him are true threat. Yeah. Yeah. So ultimately

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Speaker 1: the sanitation workers were successful, achieving unionization, say if we're

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Speaker 1: working conditions, some of them gaining promotions at their jobs,

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Speaker 1: and for many Black Americans, unions have ever since been

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Speaker 1: a life changing ladders to the middle class. Working unionized

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Speaker 1: black women, according to the Economic Policy Institute, or paid

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Speaker 1: just nine point nine percent of what their black male

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Speaker 1: counterparts make, while non union black women make just of

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Speaker 1: their counterparts. Yeah, and this is according to the Economic

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Speaker 1: Policy Institute, which also showed in a separate study that

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Speaker 1: unions helped raise the wages of women in black and

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Speaker 1: Hispanic workers, whose wages have been historically lagging behind those

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Speaker 1: of white men. As well. They showed that black union

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Speaker 1: workers more likely to have employer provided health insurance and

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Speaker 1: roughly more likely to have employers sponsored retirement plans. So

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Speaker 1: unions work, and the benefits are even greater. For black

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Speaker 1: union workers who haven't completed high school. The study shows

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Speaker 1: that they have nineteen point six wage advantage over their

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Speaker 1: non union union peers, and are more likely to have

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Speaker 1: health insurance and tent more likely to have retirement plan, respectively.

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Speaker 1: So if y'all niazeta make it through high school, join

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Speaker 1: a union or organizing workplace for real. Even in the

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Speaker 1: right to work state like Georgia, I mean, like so

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Speaker 1: here in Athens, we have a chapter are a local

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Speaker 1: of the Communication Workers of America that represents everyone that

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Speaker 1: works at the University of Georgia. I say everyone loosely,

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Speaker 1: because in a right to work state, you can't be

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Speaker 1: forced to pay dues to a union that is still

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Speaker 1: organizing on your behalf, even if you're not a member UM.

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Speaker 1: But nonetheless they've been working on stuff like fairer health

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Speaker 1: insurance conditions, even down to small things like the fact

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Speaker 1: that employees have to pay to park at their place

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Speaker 1: of work. It's like forty bucks a month, which like,

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Speaker 1: if you're not making ship is a big deal. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and it is. It matters because the University of Georgia

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Speaker 1: is the biggest employer and Athens UM, which has a

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Speaker 1: nearly it is it is, and it has our town

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Speaker 1: has a nearly poverty rate. Of course, they have all

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Speaker 1: these statistics on like the students and how well the

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Speaker 1: students do, but when it comes to the quality of

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Speaker 1: life and other such facts regarding the folks that actually

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Speaker 1: work there and keep the campus running, not as easily

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Speaker 1: found UM. So there's a lot of discussion of like

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Speaker 1: there has to be some sort of connection between the

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Speaker 1: fact that the largest employer in Athens is the University

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Speaker 1: Georgia and we have one of the highest poverty rates

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Speaker 1: in the state and in the country for a city

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Speaker 1: of our size, So like, what what is that link?

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Speaker 1: What is that link. Is it possibly that they're not

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Speaker 1: paying people in I mean that's the argument recently movement

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Speaker 1: that grew out of a controversy related to slave graves

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Speaker 1: that were desecrated in the in the renovation process of

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Speaker 1: one of the academic buildings. They claimed so some of

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Speaker 1: the demands made by the group that was raising awareness

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Speaker 1: about that issue, it was like living wages for all

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Speaker 1: the employees of the University of Georgia. I think of

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Speaker 1: whom are like black. Like if you if you look at, um,

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Speaker 1: the maintenance workers, the lawn workers, the custodians, like the

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Speaker 1: folks working at the bottom. The folks working at the bottom, um,

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Speaker 1: So those are the those people are the descendants of

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Speaker 1: the slaves that they found under the fucking building when

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Speaker 1: they were renovating it, right, you know, if they have

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Speaker 1: lived here generationally, and this all getting paid pretty much

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Speaker 1: slave wages to maintain the University Georgia, just like slaves

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Speaker 1: used to be least to the University of Georgia to

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Speaker 1: like maintain their campus and work for the faculty, etcetera.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not an economist or anything like that,

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Speaker 1: but if it's the largest employer and they're still afforded.

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Speaker 1: I mean, there's something weird about that. I mean, but

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Speaker 1: I've definitely heard that like dynamic described when when people

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Speaker 1: are talking about like Walmart or something like that, where

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Speaker 1: it's like, oh, well, Walmart, um, all of their employer,

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Speaker 1: you know, a large percentage of their employees are on food.

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Speaker 1: As a result, then the taxpayers ends up paying for

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Speaker 1: the employee instead of Walmart giving them a living wage, right, yeah,

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Speaker 1: exactly exactly. And it's like if they're keeping people in

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Speaker 1: poverty with the wages that they pay, that the onus

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Speaker 1: of dealing with that poverty then falls on the local government,

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Speaker 1: which I work in, and so then that's our problem.

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Speaker 1: And then why that why that is additionally interesting is

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Speaker 1: that the University of Georgia owns the land and Athens

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Speaker 1: and they don't pay any fucking property tax on it.

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Speaker 1: And so not only are they keeping people in poverty

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Speaker 1: with the wages, they are also not paying into the

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Speaker 1: solutions for poverty through taxes to the local government. So

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Speaker 1: it's like doubly on us to racket. It is a racket.

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Speaker 1: It's completely racket. I mean, at the end of the

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Speaker 1: what the fund is the point of working if you're

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Speaker 1: not going to get paid enough to even live, you

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Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. I mean, is that part of

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Speaker 1: the plan, you know, because because it's obviously not like

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Speaker 1: this is just like some coincidental works out. It's warfare,

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Speaker 1: it's class warfare. It's like, we hate you that you live,

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Speaker 1: so we're gonna make it so you can't live because

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Speaker 1: we just despise your existence, gonna make your life as

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Speaker 1: hard and uncomfortable as possible. So I'm proud. I'm proud

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Speaker 1: member of c w A Local three two oh three,

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Speaker 1: you know, organizing for better conditions, better for folks at

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Speaker 1: the University of Georgia, because it's been theorized that like

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Speaker 1: if they were to raise there is that organizing Is

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Speaker 1: that something specific to UM so I think they organized

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Speaker 1: for University System of Georgia employees all across Georgia. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: But like it's tricky us being a right to work

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Speaker 1: state and everything, you know, right to work laws like

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Speaker 1: we live under in Georgia have been a rallying point

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Speaker 1: for the right wing throughout the twentieth century. Who we

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Speaker 1: can work or power and the interests of big business.

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Speaker 1: And as I stated, and I will continue to state,

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Speaker 1: motherfun class warfare, white supremacy, and rights to work clause

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Speaker 1: have gone in hand in hand for a long time.

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Speaker 1: In fact, Vance Muse, who is often credited with popularizing

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Speaker 1: the term right to work, probably told the Senate Committee

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Speaker 1: here in I am a Southerner, and I am for

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Speaker 1: a white supprescy. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the games made by the

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Speaker 1: black labor movement in places like Memphis of Kundor under

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Speaker 1: attacked by Donald Trump, who in two thousand and eighteen

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Speaker 1: signed a series of executive of orders that stifled the

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Speaker 1: ability of federal employees to organize. So, nonetheless, there's been

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Speaker 1: renewed interests in labor strikes since the pandemic and racial

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Speaker 1: justice uprise and began. It's more and more working class

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Speaker 1: folks realize how essentially they are to keep the economy

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Speaker 1: running and consider the way that work stoppages and labor

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Speaker 1: disruptions can distruct the economy and draw attention to issues

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Speaker 1: and important ways that can't be done through mass mobilizations

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Speaker 1: like marches protests on their own. In April, Amazon workers

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Speaker 1: were reporting crowded spaces required rate of work that does

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Speaker 1: not allow for proper sanitizing of workspaces of empty containers

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Speaker 1: that are meant to whole sanitizing wipes and workers who

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Speaker 1: were testing positive but told by human resources to keep

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Speaker 1: it on the down though, and they got fed up,

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Speaker 1: so said an Island Amazon fulfillment center worker, Christian Smalls,

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Speaker 1: but a group of colleagues from the building during lunch

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Speaker 1: hour to call for the building to be temporarily closed

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Speaker 1: and for it to be stringently sanitized, as well as

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Speaker 1: for workers to be paid during the hiatus. Several had

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Speaker 1: become sick and he was pretty immediately fired for standing

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Speaker 1: up to them, which is a very real outcome when

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Speaker 1: people organized in their workplaces like this. If you're not

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Speaker 1: under a contract that permits UM organization, if you're not

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Speaker 1: represented by a union, this the thing cantially happen. And

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Speaker 1: for example, when we were organizing the strike for Black

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Speaker 1: Lives here in Athens, there were some very real concerns

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Speaker 1: among some of my fellow organizer. It's about what protections

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Speaker 1: would we put in place to make sure striking workers

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Speaker 1: UM would not be retaliated against what happens if they

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Speaker 1: get fired and they lose their income. Especially during a pandemic,

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Speaker 1: there's so many UH people looking for work that they're

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Speaker 1: very easily replaced. We all just really regardless ultimately expendable.

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Speaker 1: But we have to kind of put this in the

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Speaker 1: context of the massive amounts of unemployment that we're having

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Speaker 1: this country right now. Unemployment is jumped into the double

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Speaker 1: digits since February when it was around I think like

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Speaker 1: three and a half percent, with now about three About

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Speaker 1: thirty million or so people plucked the unemployment betterments and

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Speaker 1: state governments struggling to keep up with all the payments

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Speaker 1: given a glutted and overrun unemployment benefits system as well

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Speaker 1: as state revenue shortfalls. And on top of that, six

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Speaker 1: hundred a week boost unemployment benefits expired on July. So

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Speaker 1: between essential workers agitating for better protections to pay and

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Speaker 1: those who have been laid off and left out to

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Speaker 1: drive by Congress that can't seem to pass or dude benefits,

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Speaker 1: it wouldn't surprise me if we see even more people

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Speaker 1: in the streets in the coming weeks and months. But

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Speaker 1: at a time when we have so many unemployed, it

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Speaker 1: puts workers at it in an even more precarious situation,

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Speaker 1: it is arguably, and they could be easily replaced by

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Speaker 1: the many who are currently unemployed if they rise up

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Speaker 1: to demand better from their employers. And so while some

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Speaker 1: have responded to underair working conditions and unfair pay by

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Speaker 1: taking the streets and demanding them, others have turned to

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Speaker 1: wrapping truck as responses to the economic exterity of times

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Speaker 1: like the Reagan era. And I bring us up because

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Speaker 1: it was really interesting when we were doing research for

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Speaker 1: the music portion of our show. You were looking for

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Speaker 1: songs that pertained a labor that pertained to the nine

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Speaker 1: to five that we could discuss. It was interesting that

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Speaker 1: most of the work that is discussed within hip hop

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Speaker 1: culture pertains to like street corner work, like night night jobs,

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Speaker 1: like you know, running running things. Yeah. But anyway, we'll

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Speaker 1: come back to that in a moment. First, we're going

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Speaker 1: to bring in our guests. My friend I ro M

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Speaker 1: e O s a Frompong, labor activist and hosted the

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Speaker 1: YouTube show The Black Athenians. Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Hello, Hello,

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Speaker 1: student of philosophy, I do study philosophy at u g

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Speaker 1: A Yeah, and general Rabble rouser, host of The Black

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Speaker 1: Athenians on YouTube every Friday. I have been known from

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Speaker 1: time to time to raise rabble Yeah he does, yes,

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Speaker 1: he does yes. So how are you today. I'm doing well.

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Speaker 1: I'm doing well. We're gonna talk about freedom and music.

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Speaker 1: How's that time? Yeah, that's that's great to me. That's

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Speaker 1: all I want to talk about. Yeah, so let's start big.

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Speaker 1: We've been talking about, um, the history of labor movement.

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Speaker 1: But why why should labor issues matter the black folks

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Speaker 1: of the hip hop and post hip hop generations? Well,

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Speaker 1: black people work for a living. I don't know. There's

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Speaker 1: this great staple singer song when when we get paid

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Speaker 1: for the work we've done, like, we work for a living.

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Speaker 1: Working people. Everybody in the United States works, but Black

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Speaker 1: people have always been working, and a lot of the

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Speaker 1: Black experience is a work in person's experience. So to

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Speaker 1: pretend that we don't work for a living and we

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Speaker 1: don't work hard, whether we're hustling or like working for

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Speaker 1: some man, is just a lie. So we need to

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Speaker 1: figure out honestly, as black people, we need to know

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Speaker 1: what it means to both be free and work, and

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Speaker 1: especially be free and work for somebody who's not us, right,

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Speaker 1: because we don't get treated like employees in these United States,

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Speaker 1: We're still gonna getting treated like slaves. And there's a difference.

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Speaker 1: There's a difference. Employees get big cation time, they get weekends,

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Speaker 1: they get time off, they can clock out, they get

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Speaker 1: sick days, they get they get healthcare of the employed.

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Speaker 1: Being an employee isn't a bad thing. We want employees

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Speaker 1: in the United States, like we have an advanced economy.

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Speaker 1: I want Amazon, I want grocery stores, and all of

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Speaker 1: that takes employees. I don't want to be growing my

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Speaker 1: own food, like not all the time. I want to

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Speaker 1: be able to go to store, buy an avocado, have

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Speaker 1: money in my pocket because I work and get a

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Speaker 1: paycheck like I want, we need. This is a nation

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Speaker 1: of employees in the United States. A small business, according

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Speaker 1: to the government, is five hundred employees or a fewer,

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Speaker 1: which means most people work for other people. So how

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Speaker 1: can you both be free and be an employee at

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Speaker 1: the same time, and especially if you're black, how can

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Speaker 1: you both be free and an employees because quite white

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Speaker 1: employees get plaid. Fine, they got four one kids. I want,

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Speaker 1: but I want all of that stuff too, I want,

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Speaker 1: I want, I want, I want all too. So the

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Speaker 1: idea is that America has made it so hard for

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Speaker 1: black people to be employees that we just assumed that

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Speaker 1: will I guess we've got to start our own business

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Speaker 1: and then right, And I really want to talk about

429
00:23:10,160 --> 00:23:12,359
Speaker 1: that because especially with the hip hops emphasis on being

430
00:23:12,400 --> 00:23:15,520
Speaker 1: an entrepreneur, because the hustle being like I am my own,

431
00:23:15,800 --> 00:23:18,240
Speaker 1: my own, my own boss, because I'm out here on

432
00:23:18,280 --> 00:23:21,400
Speaker 1: the street corner, I'm not here hustling, and so like

433
00:23:21,760 --> 00:23:23,560
Speaker 1: why like where why do you where do you think

434
00:23:23,600 --> 00:23:26,120
Speaker 1: that came from? Well, the problem is being a black

435
00:23:26,119 --> 00:23:28,560
Speaker 1: employee is so bad in the United States. It's just

436
00:23:28,600 --> 00:23:30,560
Speaker 1: taking the shine off of work. I can taking the

437
00:23:30,560 --> 00:23:32,720
Speaker 1: shine off being employed like we go. It's so the

438
00:23:32,800 --> 00:23:36,960
Speaker 1: question is being a slave or um being out there hustling,

439
00:23:37,200 --> 00:23:40,199
Speaker 1: you know, and hustling you you're just a slave to

440
00:23:40,200 --> 00:23:42,080
Speaker 1: the market. It's just another form of slave, another form

441
00:23:42,119 --> 00:23:44,080
Speaker 1: of tunity because if you don't hustle, you don't need

442
00:23:44,160 --> 00:23:46,399
Speaker 1: but you're also eating risk because what you're doing might

443
00:23:46,440 --> 00:23:50,080
Speaker 1: be quasi illegal. So um, black people actually start more

444
00:23:50,200 --> 00:23:53,679
Speaker 1: businesses than our white counterparts. They just go under faster.

445
00:23:54,480 --> 00:23:58,320
Speaker 1: But because we live in a capitalist economy, which means

446
00:23:58,400 --> 00:23:59,920
Speaker 1: that in order to start a business and have it

447
00:24:00,040 --> 00:24:05,960
Speaker 1: actually succeed, you need investment capital, right, and you can't

448
00:24:06,160 --> 00:24:07,960
Speaker 1: we don't have the investment capital. We just don't have

449
00:24:07,960 --> 00:24:09,960
Speaker 1: it like that, and our cousins don't have it like that.

450
00:24:10,240 --> 00:24:14,119
Speaker 1: So um, we start more businesses, but they go wonder

451
00:24:14,400 --> 00:24:17,360
Speaker 1: because we actually don't have a labor floor that one

452
00:24:17,359 --> 00:24:19,760
Speaker 1: can purchase our wares too, that can float us the

453
00:24:19,800 --> 00:24:22,600
Speaker 1: investment capital you need. I see, I spent time in

454
00:24:22,840 --> 00:24:25,720
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley. I did my undergrad out in Berkeley, spent

455
00:24:25,760 --> 00:24:29,360
Speaker 1: a lot of time Silicon Valley. UM, And you gotta understand,

456
00:24:29,440 --> 00:24:32,600
Speaker 1: those guys are funded for their fourth business. That means

457
00:24:32,720 --> 00:24:35,040
Speaker 1: the people who give them money expect them to lose

458
00:24:35,840 --> 00:24:39,040
Speaker 1: three times. So like, do you have thirty k black Man,

459
00:24:39,200 --> 00:24:42,200
Speaker 1: or anybody who's watching this video, do you have thirty

460
00:24:42,280 --> 00:24:45,840
Speaker 1: k to just try something and then lose and then

461
00:24:45,920 --> 00:24:49,800
Speaker 1: go back to that same source since it were I

462
00:24:49,840 --> 00:24:54,280
Speaker 1: guess you'll never believe it. You'll never believe it happened.

463
00:24:54,320 --> 00:24:56,600
Speaker 1: But I tried, real heart, Just give me another thirty

464
00:24:56,680 --> 00:25:00,359
Speaker 1: kye and and I think this time I'll do it again.

465
00:25:00,560 --> 00:25:03,680
Speaker 1: So when you're fine, when you're really serious about getting

466
00:25:03,680 --> 00:25:07,159
Speaker 1: in the business, you need money to lose and to

467
00:25:07,280 --> 00:25:10,320
Speaker 1: try stuff. If it's just well, I got this, you know,

468
00:25:10,359 --> 00:25:12,200
Speaker 1: I saved up about five K and I think I

469
00:25:12,240 --> 00:25:14,960
Speaker 1: could try something. And then when you get wiped out

470
00:25:15,080 --> 00:25:17,040
Speaker 1: because you needed to try and you took a chant

471
00:25:17,040 --> 00:25:22,080
Speaker 1: and it didn't work, it takes you ten years to

472
00:25:20,560 --> 00:25:23,880
Speaker 1: get to scrap up another five k to try it again.

473
00:25:23,920 --> 00:25:25,960
Speaker 1: You're not gonna grow that way. Are you gonna try

474
00:25:25,960 --> 00:25:28,560
Speaker 1: it again even the first time around? Like, if it's

475
00:25:28,600 --> 00:25:30,920
Speaker 1: gonna take you ten years, if it just wiped everything out,

476
00:25:30,960 --> 00:25:35,480
Speaker 1: you can't date because you're too busy saving. So we

477
00:25:35,560 --> 00:25:40,120
Speaker 1: need an employment floor where like you can work, save

478
00:25:40,240 --> 00:25:42,280
Speaker 1: up money, have a steady job, be black on the

479
00:25:42,359 --> 00:25:45,200
Speaker 1: job because a lot of people might think that's the thing, right,

480
00:25:45,240 --> 00:25:48,600
Speaker 1: So a lot of people might not know this, but

481
00:25:48,720 --> 00:25:50,960
Speaker 1: you can be fired for being black and caring about

482
00:25:51,000 --> 00:25:53,200
Speaker 1: black people. I'm sure a lot of people who might

483
00:25:53,280 --> 00:25:56,400
Speaker 1: listen to this podcast might have been fired or having

484
00:25:56,440 --> 00:25:58,200
Speaker 1: a talking to you for standing up for black people.

485
00:25:58,400 --> 00:26:00,280
Speaker 1: Because standing up for black people is day us in

486
00:26:00,280 --> 00:26:04,199
Speaker 1: this private market. So if you so, you have to

487
00:26:04,240 --> 00:26:06,560
Speaker 1: also you have to do the job, but then do

488
00:26:06,600 --> 00:26:08,960
Speaker 1: the job in the way that makes your white boss comfortable.

489
00:26:09,680 --> 00:26:13,600
Speaker 1: And that's an extra whole job. So on top of

490
00:26:13,600 --> 00:26:15,480
Speaker 1: that job. And that's why you know, we die a

491
00:26:15,520 --> 00:26:19,639
Speaker 1: stress because that second job is a lot of job. Um,

492
00:26:19,680 --> 00:26:22,119
Speaker 1: but you have to understand that that is a second

493
00:26:22,200 --> 00:26:24,440
Speaker 1: job that we shouldn't have to do. We should just

494
00:26:24,480 --> 00:26:26,840
Speaker 1: be able to do the first job. Right. So we

495
00:26:26,880 --> 00:26:28,560
Speaker 1: need a world where we can just do the first

496
00:26:28,640 --> 00:26:31,480
Speaker 1: job and not the second job of making white people

497
00:26:31,520 --> 00:26:34,159
Speaker 1: on white white people comfortable. And then that way we

498
00:26:34,160 --> 00:26:35,800
Speaker 1: could sustain the job. And the job needs to be

499
00:26:35,840 --> 00:26:38,359
Speaker 1: paid so much that we could work the job for

500
00:26:38,359 --> 00:26:41,560
Speaker 1: a while, save up and then like do a project, right,

501
00:26:41,640 --> 00:26:44,360
Speaker 1: you know, going a nice vacation'll save up for a business.

502
00:26:44,480 --> 00:26:46,080
Speaker 1: But that means it can't be at like nine dollars

503
00:26:46,119 --> 00:26:48,720
Speaker 1: an hour. You're ten dollars an hour. You're just working

504
00:26:48,720 --> 00:26:50,720
Speaker 1: to work and then you die, You stroke out and

505
00:26:50,760 --> 00:26:52,800
Speaker 1: die and at the end, and that's not freedom, that's

506
00:26:52,800 --> 00:26:56,360
Speaker 1: not self determination. You're still and you can't clock out

507
00:26:56,400 --> 00:26:58,480
Speaker 1: like you got a bad back because it's nine dollar

508
00:26:58,520 --> 00:27:00,639
Speaker 1: an hour. Job is bad for your back. So I

509
00:27:00,680 --> 00:27:04,720
Speaker 1: heard I read this great book by Elizabeth Anderson. She

510
00:27:04,760 --> 00:27:08,040
Speaker 1: wrote a book called Private Government, and in it she

511
00:27:08,080 --> 00:27:13,440
Speaker 1: has a story about Amazon, this Amazon warehouse where uh,

512
00:27:13,520 --> 00:27:15,879
Speaker 1: they had a choice, right, they had a choice to

513
00:27:16,000 --> 00:27:20,080
Speaker 1: either have an HVAC system installed or for heating and

514
00:27:20,080 --> 00:27:24,160
Speaker 1: cooling to keep the workers you know a lot, or

515
00:27:24,280 --> 00:27:29,840
Speaker 1: they could just park um emergency vehicles outside so when

516
00:27:30,040 --> 00:27:32,960
Speaker 1: like now and then and pass out, they could just

517
00:27:33,040 --> 00:27:36,040
Speaker 1: rush them to the hospital. Right, so let me guess,

518
00:27:36,160 --> 00:27:39,959
Speaker 1: let me guess what happened. You can imagine how that happened. Right,

519
00:27:39,960 --> 00:27:41,760
Speaker 1: So they were just like, well, we'll just have emergency

520
00:27:41,800 --> 00:27:45,520
Speaker 1: vehicles outside so like we can just rush them. That's

521
00:27:45,560 --> 00:27:48,600
Speaker 1: not that's not like I'm I don't want to get

522
00:27:48,680 --> 00:27:50,439
Speaker 1: rid of Amazon because I like clicking on things and

523
00:27:50,480 --> 00:27:52,919
Speaker 1: having it delivered. But I need to know that the

524
00:27:52,960 --> 00:27:57,560
Speaker 1: people in Amazon as workers are treated with dignity. So

525
00:27:57,600 --> 00:28:00,840
Speaker 1: I'm not against big businesses. I just don't organize them

526
00:28:00,840 --> 00:28:03,919
Speaker 1: so that they can um come together and negotiate their

527
00:28:03,920 --> 00:28:07,680
Speaker 1: conditions about uh, you know, how much to set the

528
00:28:08,240 --> 00:28:13,119
Speaker 1: HVAC system, Like it doesn't I like sixty eight, but

529
00:28:13,200 --> 00:28:17,680
Speaker 1: I can negotiate up to seventy two. That's fine, but

530
00:28:17,840 --> 00:28:19,760
Speaker 1: this hundred and four and just wait till I pass out.

531
00:28:19,760 --> 00:28:21,399
Speaker 1: Then you get it just a new Negro to come

532
00:28:21,480 --> 00:28:23,679
Speaker 1: take my place. I don't want that. I don't want

533
00:28:23,720 --> 00:28:25,520
Speaker 1: that to be our life. And then the idea that

534
00:28:25,560 --> 00:28:27,080
Speaker 1: well you can just quit that job and get another

535
00:28:27,160 --> 00:28:33,000
Speaker 1: job with the same conditions conditions. That's not that's not

536
00:28:33,200 --> 00:28:36,360
Speaker 1: a success. That's not freedom. Right. So freedom means being

537
00:28:36,400 --> 00:28:40,520
Speaker 1: able to work your job, work, have like some sort

538
00:28:40,560 --> 00:28:43,160
Speaker 1: of say in your working conditions, be able to clock out,

539
00:28:43,440 --> 00:28:45,840
Speaker 1: be able to be stacked in cash as you're working

540
00:28:46,280 --> 00:28:48,800
Speaker 1: to then do something else. If you want to do

541
00:28:48,880 --> 00:28:51,880
Speaker 1: something else, I'll hop to another job. But try a business.

542
00:28:51,920 --> 00:28:54,120
Speaker 1: You've saved up because you don't make nine dollars, you

543
00:28:54,200 --> 00:28:57,080
Speaker 1: can actually save because you make twenty two. Um, you

544
00:28:57,200 --> 00:29:00,600
Speaker 1: saved up. You try something, it fails, you have another

545
00:29:00,680 --> 00:29:04,520
Speaker 1: job to go to. UM, you can fail and try things.

546
00:29:04,560 --> 00:29:07,320
Speaker 1: And that that's that's what self determination looks like. And

547
00:29:07,320 --> 00:29:09,560
Speaker 1: I just want to say real quickly that you have

548
00:29:09,560 --> 00:29:12,040
Speaker 1: to understand that when the Constitution of these United States

549
00:29:12,160 --> 00:29:16,880
Speaker 1: was organized, in mind the founders had when they said, like, well,

550
00:29:16,920 --> 00:29:20,800
Speaker 1: you know, we're gonna restrict suffrage to UH to property

551
00:29:20,840 --> 00:29:25,400
Speaker 1: owning white men. That's both racist and sexist. But more importantly,

552
00:29:25,520 --> 00:29:29,160
Speaker 1: in their mind, they had the idea that everyone was

553
00:29:29,200 --> 00:29:32,880
Speaker 1: going to be self employed except for slaves. Everyone was

554
00:29:32,920 --> 00:29:36,200
Speaker 1: going to be self employed employee like employment was seen

555
00:29:36,240 --> 00:29:38,200
Speaker 1: as a season right, you do it when you're young

556
00:29:38,240 --> 00:29:41,280
Speaker 1: for a little bit. Then eventually this is pre industrial Americas,

557
00:29:41,320 --> 00:29:43,800
Speaker 1: the seventeen seventy six industrial the Continent and all. That's

558
00:29:43,840 --> 00:29:46,240
Speaker 1: not until the early eight hundreds, right, So they were

559
00:29:46,400 --> 00:29:49,680
Speaker 1: organizing the United States for a nation of people who

560
00:29:49,680 --> 00:29:52,800
Speaker 1: are self employed. The problem is these United States that

561
00:29:52,840 --> 00:29:57,600
Speaker 1: we currently live in, the workforce works for somebody. So

562
00:29:57,640 --> 00:29:59,440
Speaker 1: we need to understand what freedom looks like in a

563
00:29:59,480 --> 00:30:02,120
Speaker 1: world when most people work for other people. And that's

564
00:30:02,120 --> 00:30:06,320
Speaker 1: why you need labor law. That's why you need, um uh,

565
00:30:06,840 --> 00:30:08,360
Speaker 1: just a sense of freedom. I think you need a

566
00:30:08,360 --> 00:30:11,200
Speaker 1: federal job guarantee. Let's talk about that because I mean,

567
00:30:11,560 --> 00:30:14,080
Speaker 1: we have a culture here within hip hop where like

568
00:30:14,120 --> 00:30:15,920
Speaker 1: people are people are working nine to five, So we're

569
00:30:15,920 --> 00:30:17,200
Speaker 1: gonna derectly we're gonna have to talk to you you. They

570
00:30:17,200 --> 00:30:18,520
Speaker 1: don't want to talk about it in their music, and

571
00:30:18,560 --> 00:30:21,080
Speaker 1: so it's obscured. It seems like everybody's out on the street.

572
00:30:21,200 --> 00:30:23,360
Speaker 1: But it's like, nah, I know you're working over at

573
00:30:23,480 --> 00:30:25,760
Speaker 1: Very Queen when you do the studio. So we're not

574
00:30:25,800 --> 00:30:28,120
Speaker 1: talking about the fact that we're all working. We're all working.

575
00:30:28,160 --> 00:30:30,440
Speaker 1: We're all working, and so we need to shift that culture.

576
00:30:30,480 --> 00:30:32,640
Speaker 1: But I think a federal job guarantee could be a

577
00:30:32,720 --> 00:30:36,080
Speaker 1: huge boon to black Oh yeah, because before that, and

578
00:30:36,120 --> 00:30:37,400
Speaker 1: I wondered if you could tell us a little bit

579
00:30:37,440 --> 00:30:39,240
Speaker 1: about that, why, why it works, what it be. So

580
00:30:39,240 --> 00:30:41,720
Speaker 1: a federal job guarantee just understands that you can't be

581
00:30:41,760 --> 00:30:44,280
Speaker 1: free in a market society unless you have one a valued,

582
00:30:44,320 --> 00:30:49,080
Speaker 1: recognized place in the market society, and two you have

583
00:30:49,160 --> 00:30:51,600
Speaker 1: money in your pocket. America's got to drink minimum. Like,

584
00:30:51,640 --> 00:30:54,040
Speaker 1: if you don't have money, you're always you spend half

585
00:30:54,120 --> 00:30:55,960
Speaker 1: your time in these United States trying to get away

586
00:30:55,960 --> 00:30:58,720
Speaker 1: from the bouncer, trying to pretend that you've already have

587
00:30:58,760 --> 00:31:01,680
Speaker 1: two drinks, just taking you're taking up and pretending edit yours.

588
00:31:02,080 --> 00:31:05,800
Speaker 1: So um, you have to understand that America cost money.

589
00:31:05,840 --> 00:31:09,120
Speaker 1: We have loitering laws in Georgia made four black people

590
00:31:09,120 --> 00:31:11,880
Speaker 1: pretty much because America costs money. And if you don't

591
00:31:11,880 --> 00:31:15,960
Speaker 1: have money, you don't belong here, So we need you

592
00:31:15,960 --> 00:31:19,400
Speaker 1: shouldn't exist. There was no place for you here. So

593
00:31:19,520 --> 00:31:21,959
Speaker 1: we need if we're going to have a market society,

594
00:31:22,000 --> 00:31:24,040
Speaker 1: which I think we should, we need a way to

595
00:31:24,120 --> 00:31:28,120
Speaker 1: secure people the means to actually make money and not

596
00:31:28,160 --> 00:31:31,480
Speaker 1: just money so that you know they can live, but money.

597
00:31:31,480 --> 00:31:33,760
Speaker 1: That's so that they can actually determine what they do

598
00:31:34,280 --> 00:31:40,560
Speaker 1: money so that they can have hobbies and make moves. Yeah,

599
00:31:40,640 --> 00:31:44,160
Speaker 1: the extra money right. So, um, so this federal job

600
00:31:44,200 --> 00:31:48,760
Speaker 1: guarantee would be a job doing the market infrastructure. Um,

601
00:31:48,800 --> 00:31:52,720
Speaker 1: that's not being that's not being taken care of by

602
00:31:53,080 --> 00:31:55,120
Speaker 1: the private market as it is. For example, right now,

603
00:31:55,200 --> 00:31:57,760
Speaker 1: to get into an elder care facility, some people might

604
00:31:57,800 --> 00:32:00,840
Speaker 1: know at home, it's anywhere between like three eight thousand

605
00:32:00,920 --> 00:32:05,520
Speaker 1: dollars a month. So are you telling me that everyone

606
00:32:05,560 --> 00:32:09,920
Speaker 1: who grows old has access to three and eight thousand

607
00:32:09,960 --> 00:32:12,600
Speaker 1: dollars a month, or it's the case that the only

608
00:32:12,600 --> 00:32:15,120
Speaker 1: people who get to grow old with dignity are people

609
00:32:15,160 --> 00:32:17,240
Speaker 1: with access to three and eight thousand dollars a month.

610
00:32:17,360 --> 00:32:19,240
Speaker 1: So what happened that the black people? That's at us?

611
00:32:19,280 --> 00:32:23,240
Speaker 1: So that's not us, right, So what I'm saying is like,

612
00:32:23,400 --> 00:32:25,880
Speaker 1: you need a federal job guarantee to secure the rights

613
00:32:25,880 --> 00:32:29,880
Speaker 1: and the dignity that's afforded to everybody else for everyone.

614
00:32:29,920 --> 00:32:34,120
Speaker 1: So you're talking about having Okay, let's elder care, yes,

615
00:32:34,200 --> 00:32:36,880
Speaker 1: other care wellness checks because people are growing old alone

616
00:32:36,920 --> 00:32:40,520
Speaker 1: with their house growing around them, like elder care deferred maintenance.

617
00:32:40,840 --> 00:32:44,920
Speaker 1: In the American South, we have a hookworm problem. Hookworms

618
00:32:45,440 --> 00:32:48,120
Speaker 1: hookworms because you know what, it turns out that if

619
00:32:48,120 --> 00:32:51,600
Speaker 1: you're living out and renting a trailer and someone's and

620
00:32:51,680 --> 00:32:56,520
Speaker 1: someone's um spot and the septic system breaks, Yeah, that

621
00:32:56,560 --> 00:32:58,760
Speaker 1: ships coming up. That ship literally is coming up to

622
00:32:58,840 --> 00:33:02,000
Speaker 1: you're playing and ship like and so you pick up

623
00:33:02,000 --> 00:33:03,920
Speaker 1: with hook and the American South has a hookworm problem.

624
00:33:04,040 --> 00:33:09,720
Speaker 1: Is just google it and um and your landlords in Atlanta,

625
00:33:09,800 --> 00:33:13,400
Speaker 1: so they don't care. And so it's twelve thousand, twelve

626
00:33:13,480 --> 00:33:19,320
Speaker 1: K to fix the um septic system. And if you're

627
00:33:19,360 --> 00:33:21,280
Speaker 1: living in a trailer, you might not have access to

628
00:33:21,400 --> 00:33:26,360
Speaker 1: an extra twelve k. Yeah, would you believe you might

629
00:33:26,360 --> 00:33:28,040
Speaker 1: not have access to that extra twelve k to fix

630
00:33:28,040 --> 00:33:30,480
Speaker 1: a sective system. So pretty much people are like walking

631
00:33:30,480 --> 00:33:34,200
Speaker 1: around in their own poop. And this is all over

632
00:33:34,240 --> 00:33:38,040
Speaker 1: the American South. Lead pipes like that's like people just

633
00:33:38,080 --> 00:33:44,680
Speaker 1: talk about leaded water and flint. Now, no, look anyway,

634
00:33:44,720 --> 00:33:47,720
Speaker 1: you see a congregation of black people check the water

635
00:33:48,400 --> 00:33:50,960
Speaker 1: because like, these public services haven't made it to the

636
00:33:51,000 --> 00:33:54,000
Speaker 1: neighborhoods that can't pay the property taxes or for some reason,

637
00:33:54,160 --> 00:33:56,120
Speaker 1: like we just decided not to give them the goods.

638
00:33:56,560 --> 00:33:59,680
Speaker 1: So we need these federal jobs that will rip out

639
00:33:59,680 --> 00:34:02,880
Speaker 1: the pipes, that will fix the septic system, that will

640
00:34:02,920 --> 00:34:04,920
Speaker 1: do all this deferred Maybe we have, like I don't,

641
00:34:05,360 --> 00:34:08,360
Speaker 1: We have about sixty years with a deferred maintenance in

642
00:34:08,400 --> 00:34:10,360
Speaker 1: the American South. And the South is actually a pretty

643
00:34:10,400 --> 00:34:14,040
Speaker 1: great if you give me a cultural and material infrastructure.

644
00:34:14,360 --> 00:34:16,320
Speaker 1: The South is a pretty great place to live because

645
00:34:16,360 --> 00:34:18,759
Speaker 1: the weather is nice. Yeah yeah, but I need a

646
00:34:18,760 --> 00:34:21,280
Speaker 1: cultural and material infrastructure I don't want. I don't want hookworms,

647
00:34:21,320 --> 00:34:23,520
Speaker 1: I don't want leaded water. I don't want to live

648
00:34:23,520 --> 00:34:26,800
Speaker 1: around black people who will also don't have hookworms and

649
00:34:26,880 --> 00:34:29,960
Speaker 1: leaded water. So like I need an infrastructure, and that

650
00:34:30,000 --> 00:34:32,200
Speaker 1: means we need like this work done. So there's work

651
00:34:32,200 --> 00:34:35,120
Speaker 1: to be done, and the federal job untee would provide

652
00:34:35,160 --> 00:34:38,000
Speaker 1: the material and cultural infrastructure, not just material about the

653
00:34:38,000 --> 00:34:41,879
Speaker 1: cultural infrastructure. For example, in order to have this fantastic podcast,

654
00:34:42,239 --> 00:34:45,640
Speaker 1: you can't just be someone with great ideas. You need

655
00:34:45,719 --> 00:34:51,000
Speaker 1: like a studio and an engineer and a distribution network

656
00:34:51,040 --> 00:34:55,080
Speaker 1: and nice microphones and someone to maintain all of the

657
00:34:55,080 --> 00:34:57,920
Speaker 1: information and then and then someone to process this when

658
00:34:57,920 --> 00:35:01,759
Speaker 1: it's all done. Those are all good jobs. Um, and

659
00:35:01,800 --> 00:35:04,520
Speaker 1: those are all good jobs that will actually sustain that

660
00:35:04,520 --> 00:35:08,000
Speaker 1: that makes places livable, that makes places livable. An you

661
00:35:08,000 --> 00:35:09,839
Speaker 1: think of federal jobs are and he comes into play

662
00:35:09,880 --> 00:35:13,959
Speaker 1: with a cultural infrastructure. The only reason we know who

663
00:35:14,400 --> 00:35:17,520
Speaker 1: Arthur Miller is or Orson Wells is if you do

664
00:35:17,560 --> 00:35:19,600
Speaker 1: know who those guys are is because they got their

665
00:35:19,640 --> 00:35:22,719
Speaker 1: start in a w P A theater and writing. Arthur

666
00:35:22,760 --> 00:35:24,640
Speaker 1: Miller is a playwright, wrote Death of a Salesman and

667
00:35:24,760 --> 00:35:27,319
Speaker 1: some other things. Orson Wells its Citizen Kane. You might

668
00:35:27,360 --> 00:35:30,000
Speaker 1: have heard of it. It was in all the papers. Um.

669
00:35:30,040 --> 00:35:35,200
Speaker 1: But they were both w P A Works Progress Administration. Um,

670
00:35:35,280 --> 00:35:37,600
Speaker 1: there's a big government jobs program. And the thirties started

671
00:35:37,600 --> 00:35:41,360
Speaker 1: by uh FDR and the guy started like three point

672
00:35:41,400 --> 00:35:44,920
Speaker 1: five million jobs over the course of two months. And

673
00:35:44,920 --> 00:35:48,800
Speaker 1: that's when they had information technology was was it rotary

674
00:35:48,840 --> 00:35:51,839
Speaker 1: phones and like carving copies? Right, So like we could

675
00:35:51,920 --> 00:35:55,560
Speaker 1: get an infrastructure, a cultural infrastructure, because culture is how

676
00:35:55,600 --> 00:35:57,440
Speaker 1: you learn how to what to do with your freedom. Right.

677
00:35:57,560 --> 00:36:00,239
Speaker 1: Nature teaches you what to do through biology and its think.

678
00:36:00,560 --> 00:36:04,120
Speaker 1: Culture is what teaches you how to manage your freedom,

679
00:36:04,120 --> 00:36:07,200
Speaker 1: how to make choices in a responsible way and in

680
00:36:07,200 --> 00:36:11,360
Speaker 1: a way that actually like supports the people around you

681
00:36:11,440 --> 00:36:13,799
Speaker 1: and treats people like people, because people who are uncultured

682
00:36:14,000 --> 00:36:17,360
Speaker 1: have a hard time treating other people like people. So like,

683
00:36:17,480 --> 00:36:20,960
Speaker 1: culture is what teaches us how to use our freedom responsibly.

684
00:36:21,000 --> 00:36:23,719
Speaker 1: So you need cultural artifacts, not just clean water, but

685
00:36:23,960 --> 00:36:27,919
Speaker 1: also music studio is a community music studio right now

686
00:36:27,960 --> 00:36:30,400
Speaker 1: and Athens is this great space called Newtie Space is

687
00:36:30,440 --> 00:36:32,560
Speaker 1: great if you can pay, but you can only pay

688
00:36:32,840 --> 00:36:36,320
Speaker 1: Newti spaces. I've never actually been there. You have, you's

689
00:36:36,320 --> 00:36:40,080
Speaker 1: been there space. It's got music studios there. Nonprofit. They

690
00:36:40,120 --> 00:36:43,000
Speaker 1: fund uh, they take the money they get from running

691
00:36:43,040 --> 00:36:45,200
Speaker 1: up the space for on equipment and they fund mental

692
00:36:45,200 --> 00:36:48,040
Speaker 1: health care for musicians, um and so. But yeah, you

693
00:36:48,080 --> 00:36:49,759
Speaker 1: need money in order to come in and get the

694
00:36:49,800 --> 00:36:52,400
Speaker 1: rehearsal space, get the recording space. That would be great

695
00:36:52,560 --> 00:36:56,200
Speaker 1: if that would like a library, so like we had,

696
00:36:56,280 --> 00:36:59,239
Speaker 1: it would be like the equivalent of what this great

697
00:36:59,320 --> 00:37:03,040
Speaker 1: nonprofit us. But for people who can't rent space, for

698
00:37:03,080 --> 00:37:06,040
Speaker 1: people who just because who mind doesn't need it, because

699
00:37:06,040 --> 00:37:09,640
Speaker 1: you know what, Apparently people who don't have the resources

700
00:37:09,680 --> 00:37:11,880
Speaker 1: to rent space sometimes have ideas that might need to

701
00:37:11,920 --> 00:37:15,840
Speaker 1: be expressed and could use the space and then to

702
00:37:15,960 --> 00:37:18,520
Speaker 1: rent practice rooms for musicians, because sometimes you don't want

703
00:37:18,520 --> 00:37:20,560
Speaker 1: to rent your practice in your apartment it might be

704
00:37:20,600 --> 00:37:24,520
Speaker 1: a loud so. Um, so the idea is that something

705
00:37:24,520 --> 00:37:28,120
Speaker 1: like new t space shouldn't just be available for people

706
00:37:28,440 --> 00:37:32,600
Speaker 1: who can pay a prohibitive amount of money. And people say, well,

707
00:37:32,640 --> 00:37:34,239
Speaker 1: you're talking about giving these goods away from free, And

708
00:37:34,239 --> 00:37:37,400
Speaker 1: I'm like saying, like, look, man, if we already didn't

709
00:37:37,520 --> 00:37:42,439
Speaker 1: have public libraries, do you know how hard it would be?

710
00:37:42,560 --> 00:37:47,359
Speaker 1: What do you mean? So I got this idea, so like,

711
00:37:47,600 --> 00:37:49,799
Speaker 1: hear me out hear me outright, So if we're gonna

712
00:37:49,800 --> 00:37:51,680
Speaker 1: be in a democracy, we all need to be able

713
00:37:51,680 --> 00:37:54,279
Speaker 1: to like get information. So I think we should like

714
00:37:54,440 --> 00:37:57,399
Speaker 1: have this building and then pay people to call them

715
00:37:57,440 --> 00:37:59,480
Speaker 1: librarians to sit in this building and have like all

716
00:37:59,520 --> 00:38:02,000
Speaker 1: the books so that people can get But then how

717
00:38:02,000 --> 00:38:04,200
Speaker 1: do you make profit? Now? Okay, so wouldn't be for profit.

718
00:38:04,280 --> 00:38:06,719
Speaker 1: It would just be like a cultural infrastructure, but you're

719
00:38:06,760 --> 00:38:09,520
Speaker 1: just giving it away for free. But like, for sustaining

720
00:38:09,520 --> 00:38:12,560
Speaker 1: our democracy in a responsible way, you need people to

721
00:38:12,560 --> 00:38:16,840
Speaker 1: actually get information. And so yeah, so like these ideas

722
00:38:16,840 --> 00:38:20,080
Speaker 1: sound radical, but um, also I'm gonna I'm gonna mention

723
00:38:20,120 --> 00:38:22,719
Speaker 1: one one great book that just came out called They

724
00:38:22,719 --> 00:38:27,880
Speaker 1: Were Her Property, by um professor out in in Berkeley,

725
00:38:28,560 --> 00:38:31,799
Speaker 1: and uh, she was like, look, we have all of

726
00:38:31,840 --> 00:38:36,960
Speaker 1: these histories of you know, postbellum South, like you know,

727
00:38:37,000 --> 00:38:41,280
Speaker 1: early twentieth century South, but they're all the only histories

728
00:38:41,320 --> 00:38:43,960
Speaker 1: we have for women are from like the elite diaries

729
00:38:43,960 --> 00:38:47,120
Speaker 1: of white women. So it's possible we're getting a skewed

730
00:38:47,239 --> 00:38:50,040
Speaker 1: view of the story because all we have is like

731
00:38:50,080 --> 00:38:55,480
Speaker 1: Scarlett O'Hara like. So she went back into the archives

732
00:38:55,520 --> 00:38:57,600
Speaker 1: and went to a w p A project because in

733
00:38:57,640 --> 00:39:00,680
Speaker 1: the thirties one of the cultural products was taking all

734
00:39:00,920 --> 00:39:04,480
Speaker 1: histories from people who used to be slaves or were

735
00:39:04,480 --> 00:39:07,160
Speaker 1: born right and the right at the aftermath of the

736
00:39:07,200 --> 00:39:10,239
Speaker 1: Civil War. So she got all of their domestic help.

737
00:39:11,760 --> 00:39:15,320
Speaker 1: So she had access to the archive, the old archives

738
00:39:15,320 --> 00:39:17,480
Speaker 1: of the domestic help of these women. And it turns

739
00:39:17,520 --> 00:39:20,040
Speaker 1: out that some of these white women were lying about themselves.

740
00:39:20,400 --> 00:39:25,200
Speaker 1: They were they were not the best bosses, and would

741
00:39:25,239 --> 00:39:28,520
Speaker 1: you believe what do you believe? You believe? And they

742
00:39:28,520 --> 00:39:31,240
Speaker 1: didn't mention that in their little diaries, but you talked

743
00:39:31,239 --> 00:39:34,080
Speaker 1: to their domestic help and they told all the stories.

744
00:39:34,120 --> 00:39:36,120
Speaker 1: So she wrote this whole book called they were Her Property,

745
00:39:36,280 --> 00:39:37,640
Speaker 1: because it turns out a lot of these white women

746
00:39:38,200 --> 00:39:41,560
Speaker 1: slaves were were owned by women, so like so they

747
00:39:41,640 --> 00:39:44,640
Speaker 1: talked about it was it was the story of life

748
00:39:44,680 --> 00:39:49,960
Speaker 1: in America from the viewpoint of you know, slaves. And

749
00:39:50,000 --> 00:39:53,040
Speaker 1: the only reason this happened was because of this w P,

750
00:39:53,120 --> 00:39:57,920
Speaker 1: a project that was providing a public cultural infrastructure. That

751
00:39:57,920 --> 00:40:00,120
Speaker 1: book just came out last year. So a project that

752
00:40:00,160 --> 00:40:04,560
Speaker 1: happened in the thirties provided the subject material for us today.

753
00:40:04,600 --> 00:40:07,480
Speaker 1: Like if you're up to me, I think every person

754
00:40:07,520 --> 00:40:10,240
Speaker 1: as soon as they hit seventy years old, you get

755
00:40:10,280 --> 00:40:12,879
Speaker 1: three people. You get a knock on the door with

756
00:40:13,320 --> 00:40:17,399
Speaker 1: a sound gat, a sound person, a videographer, and like

757
00:40:17,640 --> 00:40:22,520
Speaker 1: you know, a mixer. Three people that come to your place,

758
00:40:23,000 --> 00:40:26,400
Speaker 1: and for one hour you get to tell your side,

759
00:40:26,880 --> 00:40:29,479
Speaker 1: every single American. And then it's just putting a digital

760
00:40:29,600 --> 00:40:32,720
Speaker 1: archive stored at the Library of Congress, every single American.

761
00:40:32,760 --> 00:40:34,600
Speaker 1: Because now we just get the side of the people

762
00:40:34,600 --> 00:40:37,959
Speaker 1: who can afford to have their story told. I want

763
00:40:38,200 --> 00:40:41,600
Speaker 1: every person. You earned it because you hit seventy you

764
00:40:41,719 --> 00:40:43,160
Speaker 1: just tell and you just tell them and we just

765
00:40:43,200 --> 00:40:45,560
Speaker 1: walked through the day. All right, tell me about the sixties,

766
00:40:45,920 --> 00:40:48,440
Speaker 1: Tell me about the seventies, tell me about the eighties,

767
00:40:48,600 --> 00:40:50,239
Speaker 1: tell me about the nineties. You just walk through the

768
00:40:50,280 --> 00:40:52,000
Speaker 1: decades and you get an hour, and you I want

769
00:40:52,040 --> 00:40:54,440
Speaker 1: three hours, right, So they come back the next week.

770
00:40:54,760 --> 00:40:59,239
Speaker 1: All right, we just and and we do it exactly

771
00:40:59,560 --> 00:41:01,920
Speaker 1: and that person just gets to tell their side, and

772
00:41:01,920 --> 00:41:05,879
Speaker 1: then it's archived, stored at the Library Congress anybody who wants.

773
00:41:05,920 --> 00:41:08,279
Speaker 1: It's just a part of public archive. That's an interesting idea.

774
00:41:08,360 --> 00:41:10,120
Speaker 1: I think it's a great idea, and we actually have

775
00:41:10,239 --> 00:41:11,759
Speaker 1: the resources to do it, and that would be one

776
00:41:11,800 --> 00:41:14,600
Speaker 1: of the public jobs, being a videographer. So from nine

777
00:41:14,600 --> 00:41:16,680
Speaker 1: to five, you just drive around to old people's houses,

778
00:41:16,920 --> 00:41:19,160
Speaker 1: you set up the microphone, and you get their side.

779
00:41:19,440 --> 00:41:21,200
Speaker 1: So this is actually an interesting take that I had

780
00:41:21,239 --> 00:41:23,439
Speaker 1: not thought of with the Federal Jobs Guarantee before because

781
00:41:23,440 --> 00:41:26,400
Speaker 1: I was thinking about like public utilities and like infrastructure

782
00:41:26,400 --> 00:41:29,040
Speaker 1: that can cultural infrastruct So like these people who are

783
00:41:29,040 --> 00:41:31,360
Speaker 1: currently working at Dairy Queen and who have these videography

784
00:41:31,400 --> 00:41:33,200
Speaker 1: skills but don't have the money and perhaps by the

785
00:41:33,239 --> 00:41:36,439
Speaker 1: equipment and all of that kind of stuff. Now they

786
00:41:36,480 --> 00:41:39,640
Speaker 1: have a job with the federal government going around recording

787
00:41:39,640 --> 00:41:43,000
Speaker 1: the life stories of yes, And I think that's a

788
00:41:43,120 --> 00:41:45,680
Speaker 1: very important job. I think that's a very that's at

789
00:41:45,719 --> 00:41:47,839
Speaker 1: least as important as whatever you're doing at dairy Queen.

790
00:41:48,080 --> 00:41:50,719
Speaker 1: I think that like that archive will actually sustain our

791
00:41:50,719 --> 00:41:53,080
Speaker 1: culture in a way and kind of tell us about

792
00:41:53,080 --> 00:41:55,359
Speaker 1: who we are in a way that maybe we don't know. Yeah,

793
00:41:55,719 --> 00:41:58,359
Speaker 1: and and while also giving this guy a good job,

794
00:41:58,440 --> 00:42:00,839
Speaker 1: I want Bernie sand does it. Talking about a federal

795
00:42:00,880 --> 00:42:03,799
Speaker 1: job guarantee at fifteen are very up to me would

796
00:42:03,800 --> 00:42:07,920
Speaker 1: be twenty two. I have reasons for that. Well, okay,

797
00:42:07,960 --> 00:42:12,799
Speaker 1: so up until nineteen seventy three. Um, and I don't

798
00:42:12,800 --> 00:42:15,799
Speaker 1: know why. I mean, there's there's the hypothesis and why

799
00:42:15,840 --> 00:42:19,400
Speaker 1: this is the case. But if wages match productivity from

800
00:42:19,480 --> 00:42:23,600
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy three on, we'd be at an hour, right right,

801
00:42:23,640 --> 00:42:26,640
Speaker 1: But at twenty two, I mean, but in nineteen seventy

802
00:42:26,680 --> 00:42:29,399
Speaker 1: three the productivity skyrocketed, Well, we just stayed the same.

803
00:42:29,960 --> 00:42:37,480
Speaker 1: So like now we're just making more and just getting paid. Left. Yeah,

804
00:42:33,440 --> 00:42:39,719
Speaker 1: it's so maybe it workers are not more productive, like

805
00:42:39,760 --> 00:42:42,200
Speaker 1: they get lesser share of the profity. So I would

806
00:42:42,239 --> 00:42:44,120
Speaker 1: have this federal job guarantee be at twenty two doll

807
00:42:44,239 --> 00:42:46,040
Speaker 1: an hour and that would be a job. So you

808
00:42:46,120 --> 00:42:49,160
Speaker 1: do that, you get the skills of like you know,

809
00:42:49,280 --> 00:42:51,640
Speaker 1: going around, you're useful part of the community. You have

810
00:42:51,680 --> 00:42:54,200
Speaker 1: a dignified job, and you had at twenty two dollars

811
00:42:54,200 --> 00:42:57,040
Speaker 1: an hour. You can save, you can you can buy

812
00:42:57,040 --> 00:43:01,759
Speaker 1: your own equipment, your own studio album. Yeah. And if

813
00:43:01,760 --> 00:43:04,640
Speaker 1: it doesn't and if it goes south, it's a job guarantee,

814
00:43:04,680 --> 00:43:06,719
Speaker 1: which means you just go back to the office and

815
00:43:06,760 --> 00:43:18,360
Speaker 1: you get Yeah. So talk to me a little bit

816
00:43:18,360 --> 00:43:20,960
Speaker 1: about the impact that the Federal Jobs Guarantee has on

817
00:43:21,000 --> 00:43:23,719
Speaker 1: the private market. Well, it would be jobs. It would

818
00:43:23,719 --> 00:43:28,000
Speaker 1: be doing jobs at the private market currently isn't doing. Right, So,

819
00:43:28,320 --> 00:43:31,920
Speaker 1: the private market currently isn't providing elder care for people

820
00:43:32,160 --> 00:43:34,880
Speaker 1: who can't pay between three and eight thousand dollars an

821
00:43:34,880 --> 00:43:37,960
Speaker 1: hour a month, three and eight thousand dollars a month, right,

822
00:43:38,080 --> 00:43:40,200
Speaker 1: So the job would be that it would be like

823
00:43:40,280 --> 00:43:43,640
Speaker 1: you're working an elder care facility because apparently poor people

824
00:43:43,640 --> 00:43:47,720
Speaker 1: grow old sometimes too. From time to time, they do age.

825
00:43:48,880 --> 00:43:51,480
Speaker 1: So it would be doing jobs that i wouldn't necessarily

826
00:43:51,520 --> 00:43:54,719
Speaker 1: compete with the market, but would extend market services to

827
00:43:54,800 --> 00:43:57,960
Speaker 1: people who can't afford it because like they can't afford

828
00:43:58,000 --> 00:44:02,200
Speaker 1: what it is on the private market, right, so um yeah,

829
00:44:02,239 --> 00:44:07,200
Speaker 1: and the like I said, wealthy people have the disposable

830
00:44:07,239 --> 00:44:10,400
Speaker 1: income to get their septic system fixed. If you don't,

831
00:44:10,960 --> 00:44:14,280
Speaker 1: then either we have in America where people live in poop,

832
00:44:14,440 --> 00:44:18,680
Speaker 1: or we have a federal job guarantee that includes like

833
00:44:18,920 --> 00:44:23,280
Speaker 1: someone going to your place and ripping out your septic system,

834
00:44:23,480 --> 00:44:25,840
Speaker 1: right Sam, with elther cants and with lead and water.

835
00:44:25,960 --> 00:44:27,680
Speaker 1: Right because right now there was no plan for flint.

836
00:44:27,840 --> 00:44:29,359
Speaker 1: And like I said, it's not just flint. We both

837
00:44:29,360 --> 00:44:34,000
Speaker 1: know it's not just flint. It's not just flint. I think, well,

838
00:44:34,080 --> 00:44:37,680
Speaker 1: we know it's in Baltimore too, It's in Baltimore. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

839
00:44:37,719 --> 00:44:40,560
Speaker 1: so it's not just flint. Like everywhere there's leading pipes

840
00:44:40,560 --> 00:44:42,480
Speaker 1: that should be ripped out. But right now, the only

841
00:44:42,520 --> 00:44:45,200
Speaker 1: people who can afford to get their pipes swipp out

842
00:44:45,200 --> 00:44:47,440
Speaker 1: of people who can afford plumbers, right, who had it

843
00:44:47,560 --> 00:44:53,000
Speaker 1: ripped out already you know, gave their child like brain cancer.

844
00:44:53,200 --> 00:44:56,000
Speaker 1: Yeah like wait wait wait wait, So like one of

845
00:44:56,000 --> 00:44:58,919
Speaker 1: the federal job guarantee would be like you know this

846
00:44:59,040 --> 00:45:02,000
Speaker 1: kind of work, right, So what JO is doing back there?

847
00:45:04,120 --> 00:45:08,000
Speaker 1: You'd be producing like podcast for the people. So we

848
00:45:08,040 --> 00:45:10,520
Speaker 1: need to think about what kind of services are already

849
00:45:10,560 --> 00:45:13,200
Speaker 1: available to the Mike Bloomberg's of the world, and think, well,

850
00:45:13,239 --> 00:45:17,000
Speaker 1: maybe they should be available to nanny's. Also childcare, child

851
00:45:17,239 --> 00:45:19,400
Speaker 1: chalthcare needs to be universal and this is a childcare

852
00:45:19,400 --> 00:45:23,520
Speaker 1: and Nathens, Georgia right now. Yeah, you because like people

853
00:45:23,560 --> 00:45:25,520
Speaker 1: like to have kids and they shouldn't have And I think, honestly,

854
00:45:25,560 --> 00:45:27,840
Speaker 1: if you get rid of some of these other impediments,

855
00:45:27,880 --> 00:45:29,480
Speaker 1: like the abortion rate will go down because a lot

856
00:45:29,520 --> 00:45:32,480
Speaker 1: of people have to choose between living in abject poverty

857
00:45:32,600 --> 00:45:34,839
Speaker 1: or having a kid. So suddenly if you have all

858
00:45:34,880 --> 00:45:36,920
Speaker 1: the services you need, is like, I'll have this job,

859
00:45:37,239 --> 00:45:41,520
Speaker 1: you know, raise this childishment when we punished for having

860
00:45:41,520 --> 00:45:44,200
Speaker 1: this job. So if we like, if we make having

861
00:45:44,200 --> 00:45:46,799
Speaker 1: a child be less punishing, you'll, I think you'll see

862
00:45:46,800 --> 00:45:48,480
Speaker 1: the abortion might go down, and I think you'll have

863
00:45:48,560 --> 00:45:50,759
Speaker 1: better parents because like you know, it turns out then

864
00:45:50,800 --> 00:45:55,560
Speaker 1: when your parents twenty two jobs, they fight less. But

865
00:45:56,800 --> 00:45:59,080
Speaker 1: going to vacation to Disneyland every year, that's lots of

866
00:45:59,080 --> 00:46:01,719
Speaker 1: pictures and you can bring back in mouse ears. And

867
00:46:02,520 --> 00:46:03,960
Speaker 1: if you have a twenty two dollar now a job

868
00:46:03,960 --> 00:46:05,720
Speaker 1: that you can clock out of that means you can also,

869
00:46:05,800 --> 00:46:07,520
Speaker 1: like when you're off the job, you can go coach

870
00:46:07,560 --> 00:46:11,200
Speaker 1: your kid's team. Right, So there is a quality of

871
00:46:11,200 --> 00:46:14,760
Speaker 1: infrastructure that I think that we just need to extend

872
00:46:14,960 --> 00:46:18,200
Speaker 1: to everybody. American has a matter of right. Because the Founders,

873
00:46:18,200 --> 00:46:19,880
Speaker 1: and I'll bring this back to the Founders before we

874
00:46:20,160 --> 00:46:23,719
Speaker 1: tied this up, the Founders understood that tyranny because they

875
00:46:23,719 --> 00:46:26,320
Speaker 1: were thinking about the tyranny of King George, the tyranny

876
00:46:26,360 --> 00:46:29,280
Speaker 1: of a foreign parliament. I don't want some foreign body

877
00:46:29,400 --> 00:46:33,120
Speaker 1: telling me what to do, so I want to govern myself.

878
00:46:33,920 --> 00:46:36,040
Speaker 1: But that's not the tyranny most people feel like in

879
00:46:36,040 --> 00:46:38,600
Speaker 1: their in their in their day to day life as Americans,

880
00:46:38,680 --> 00:46:41,839
Speaker 1: right now, we're under the tyranny of our bosses. Like, well,

881
00:46:41,960 --> 00:46:44,399
Speaker 1: that's the same, it's the same kind of tyranny. It's

882
00:46:44,440 --> 00:46:46,319
Speaker 1: just not King George. It's like, what do I have

883
00:46:46,360 --> 00:46:48,720
Speaker 1: to I have to worry about my boss? Like, weren't

884
00:46:48,840 --> 00:46:51,280
Speaker 1: like feeling some sort of way and getting into mood

885
00:46:51,280 --> 00:46:53,680
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden I'm fired. That's another

886
00:46:53,760 --> 00:46:58,000
Speaker 1: kind of tyranny. That definitely is a tyranny. So what

887
00:46:58,120 --> 00:46:59,920
Speaker 1: do you need to get rid of that kind of tyranny?

888
00:47:00,000 --> 00:47:02,720
Speaker 1: Like I said, this book Private Government by Elizabeth Anderson.

889
00:47:02,840 --> 00:47:04,480
Speaker 1: I think it's really good on this score, but we

890
00:47:04,520 --> 00:47:06,719
Speaker 1: need to understand that as a form of tyranny, and

891
00:47:06,719 --> 00:47:08,520
Speaker 1: if we're going to be free and self determining in

892
00:47:08,560 --> 00:47:11,440
Speaker 1: these United States, we need to get rid of the

893
00:47:11,480 --> 00:47:14,279
Speaker 1: tyranny of the boss. That doesn't mean get rid of employers.

894
00:47:14,640 --> 00:47:21,840
Speaker 1: That just means empowering employees and democratizing power, like on

895
00:47:22,080 --> 00:47:24,640
Speaker 1: the job. Well, how do you feel about like cooperative

896
00:47:24,640 --> 00:47:29,040
Speaker 1: development and actually having no bosses? Well, the thing is,

897
00:47:29,800 --> 00:47:32,319
Speaker 1: I actually like I don't mind big companies. I don't

898
00:47:32,320 --> 00:47:37,880
Speaker 1: mind Walmart, I don't mind Amazon, I don't mind Kroger Um.

899
00:47:38,120 --> 00:47:40,279
Speaker 1: I maybe I don't want to be a boss. That

900
00:47:40,320 --> 00:47:41,719
Speaker 1: should be a place for people who don't want to

901
00:47:41,719 --> 00:47:43,640
Speaker 1: be bosses either, and don't want that boy, they just

902
00:47:43,640 --> 00:47:46,080
Speaker 1: want to work them, They just want to work. I

903
00:47:46,880 --> 00:47:49,480
Speaker 1: think there are efficiencies that you get from bigger companies.

904
00:47:51,520 --> 00:47:55,319
Speaker 1: I just don't want the people who work for these

905
00:47:55,320 --> 00:47:58,160
Speaker 1: bigger companies, the black people who work for these bigger companies,

906
00:47:58,400 --> 00:48:01,319
Speaker 1: to be treated like slaves. Right, So I think co

907
00:48:01,400 --> 00:48:03,400
Speaker 1: ops are fun. I don't think they work in a

908
00:48:03,400 --> 00:48:06,320
Speaker 1: modern industrial economy. And like I said, I don't. I

909
00:48:06,320 --> 00:48:09,000
Speaker 1: don't want to get rid of Amazon. I don't want

910
00:48:09,000 --> 00:48:11,120
Speaker 1: to get rid of big grocery stores. I think they're efficient.

911
00:48:11,160 --> 00:48:15,480
Speaker 1: The scale issues that like, for example, I don't want

912
00:48:15,560 --> 00:48:20,319
Speaker 1: small farms necessarily. I don't mind big agriculture. We just

913
00:48:20,360 --> 00:48:23,640
Speaker 1: need sustainable big agriculture. We just need to agriculture that

914
00:48:23,680 --> 00:48:29,080
Speaker 1: doesn't also damage the environment. Right. So, um, we we

915
00:48:29,200 --> 00:48:31,400
Speaker 1: just need to get if we're going to understand that

916
00:48:31,440 --> 00:48:34,279
Speaker 1: we live in a world within our heart media, we

917
00:48:34,400 --> 00:48:38,040
Speaker 1: just need to make sure that everyone has access and

918
00:48:38,080 --> 00:48:41,440
Speaker 1: that the employees of these big companies are treated with

919
00:48:41,480 --> 00:48:45,920
Speaker 1: dignity and they're not punished for for working. Yeah, a

920
00:48:45,920 --> 00:48:48,080
Speaker 1: couple more things before we go. Um, I feel like

921
00:48:48,120 --> 00:48:49,680
Speaker 1: I've heard you say before, and excuse me if I

922
00:48:49,719 --> 00:48:54,360
Speaker 1: get this wrong, but something like, um, the reactionary attention

923
00:48:54,400 --> 00:48:57,240
Speaker 1: that's paid within black culture and within hip hip hop culture,

924
00:48:57,280 --> 00:49:01,680
Speaker 1: in my view, especially um to police brutality and criminal

925
00:49:01,719 --> 00:49:05,120
Speaker 1: despers perform kind of takes away from attention that we

926
00:49:05,120 --> 00:49:09,120
Speaker 1: could be spending on jobs. So why is so, Like,

927
00:49:09,239 --> 00:49:11,200
Speaker 1: how does that happen? First of all, how do we

928
00:49:11,239 --> 00:49:14,480
Speaker 1: get caught up on like reeling in the aftermath of

929
00:49:14,880 --> 00:49:19,640
Speaker 1: police brutality? Incidents is rather than creating sustaining conversation about labor.

930
00:49:20,360 --> 00:49:24,360
Speaker 1: I mean, we have such a confused labor discourse that, um,

931
00:49:24,440 --> 00:49:27,080
Speaker 1: it just kind of gets overwhelmed by the spectacular. I

932
00:49:27,080 --> 00:49:29,399
Speaker 1: mean I was, I was in Los Angeles and two

933
00:49:29,719 --> 00:49:32,240
Speaker 1: were at you know, and at five o'clock, seven o'clock,

934
00:49:32,239 --> 00:49:34,239
Speaker 1: and nine thirty you saw Wadney King just get to

935
00:49:34,560 --> 00:49:36,160
Speaker 1: the ship be out of him. Like I was in

936
00:49:36,280 --> 00:49:38,960
Speaker 1: l A when that, Like, when that happened, um and

937
00:49:40,920 --> 00:49:46,000
Speaker 1: the riots have in nine I think I was maybe

938
00:49:46,440 --> 00:49:50,560
Speaker 1: I thought it was after No, No, you're right, yeah, yeah,

939
00:49:51,040 --> 00:49:52,719
Speaker 1: it was in the late eighties, still in l A.

940
00:49:52,800 --> 00:49:54,920
Speaker 1: And then I remember when the verdict got kicked out

941
00:49:54,800 --> 00:49:57,319
Speaker 1: in the vertict So anyway, yeah, but anyway, it was

942
00:49:57,360 --> 00:49:59,640
Speaker 1: on it was on television all them. So there's something

943
00:49:59,680 --> 00:50:01,920
Speaker 1: spect occular about that kind of violence. And this is

944
00:50:01,960 --> 00:50:04,600
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why, UM, pret last brutality was

945
00:50:04,640 --> 00:50:06,600
Speaker 1: such an important part of the civil rights movement, Like

946
00:50:06,640 --> 00:50:09,120
Speaker 1: we needed to dramatize the terrorism that black people are

947
00:50:09,160 --> 00:50:12,640
Speaker 1: living under. So the conversation doesn't end there in terms

948
00:50:12,719 --> 00:50:15,480
Speaker 1: of what sorts of violence we're experiencing. No, no, it's

949
00:50:15,480 --> 00:50:19,640
Speaker 1: a terrorism and depression actually of just being a disposable population,

950
00:50:20,120 --> 00:50:22,560
Speaker 1: we are a disposable population. And here's what happens. I

951
00:50:22,600 --> 00:50:25,520
Speaker 1: think Los Angeles is actually a great example of what happens.

952
00:50:25,719 --> 00:50:31,520
Speaker 1: If you just kind of handle the um mass incarceration

953
00:50:31,600 --> 00:50:33,880
Speaker 1: part but don't do the economic part. You end up

954
00:50:33,880 --> 00:50:37,120
Speaker 1: with a blood of black homelessness because they're still kicked

955
00:50:37,120 --> 00:50:39,160
Speaker 1: out of the economy. The silly they might not be

956
00:50:39,160 --> 00:50:43,720
Speaker 1: in jailable, they're not in jail anymore, they're still extra negros.

957
00:50:44,080 --> 00:50:46,760
Speaker 1: We just have superfluous negroes because the private market doesn't

958
00:50:46,760 --> 00:50:49,040
Speaker 1: want In New York, they put him in jail. In

959
00:50:49,120 --> 00:50:51,160
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, maybe they don't put him in jail, but

960
00:50:51,239 --> 00:50:53,640
Speaker 1: they have no other place in the economy for them.

961
00:50:53,680 --> 00:50:57,040
Speaker 1: So that's your your homelessness population. It's black in the nation,

962
00:50:57,239 --> 00:51:00,200
Speaker 1: and I think in l A it's eight A mean,

963
00:51:00,600 --> 00:51:03,880
Speaker 1: California is about eight percent black. But the homeless population,

964
00:51:03,920 --> 00:51:05,920
Speaker 1: I want to say it's like fourty or fiftt so,

965
00:51:06,760 --> 00:51:09,719
Speaker 1: so homelessness United States is black. There was because there

966
00:51:09,880 --> 00:51:14,200
Speaker 1: is no place for us in the productive economy. Yeah,

967
00:51:14,440 --> 00:51:16,120
Speaker 1: so you know, if you're going to secure us freedom,

968
00:51:16,160 --> 00:51:18,680
Speaker 1: you need to secure us a place in the productive economy.

969
00:51:18,719 --> 00:51:20,680
Speaker 1: This is what credit Scott King was talking about when

970
00:51:20,760 --> 00:51:23,040
Speaker 1: he was on like after Martin Luther King died and

971
00:51:23,080 --> 00:51:24,759
Speaker 1: he was talking about a federal job guarantee and byod

972
00:51:24,760 --> 00:51:26,960
Speaker 1: Wrestling was talking about one, and Martin Luther King was

973
00:51:27,000 --> 00:51:30,279
Speaker 1: talking about one in his great speech, uh showdown for

974
00:51:30,320 --> 00:51:32,480
Speaker 1: non violence instead of in this Black History Month of

975
00:51:32,520 --> 00:51:35,440
Speaker 1: whenever you guys watch, listen to this instead of reading

976
00:51:35,480 --> 00:51:38,080
Speaker 1: the I have a dream speech, look for showdown for

977
00:51:38,160 --> 00:51:40,160
Speaker 1: non violence. That's where he lays all of this out

978
00:51:40,200 --> 00:51:42,800
Speaker 1: and in the need for a federal job guarantee because

979
00:51:43,080 --> 00:51:46,640
Speaker 1: the homelessness is it's black because there's no place for

980
00:51:46,719 --> 00:51:49,280
Speaker 1: us to actually work to get enough money to sustain

981
00:51:50,400 --> 00:51:52,600
Speaker 1: you know, a house, so like you get a house,

982
00:51:52,960 --> 00:51:55,040
Speaker 1: but then the property taxes get you because you still

983
00:51:55,040 --> 00:52:01,520
Speaker 1: don't have money. So the spectacular nous of of police

984
00:52:01,520 --> 00:52:05,279
Speaker 1: brutality kind of masks the fact that there is no

985
00:52:05,400 --> 00:52:08,080
Speaker 1: place in the economy for us because I know, I

986
00:52:08,200 --> 00:52:11,200
Speaker 1: know a lot of drug dealers and I and they

987
00:52:11,200 --> 00:52:15,400
Speaker 1: don't like the risk. They would rather be working a

988
00:52:15,440 --> 00:52:17,439
Speaker 1: good job, not a job they're not working. They don't

989
00:52:17,440 --> 00:52:18,880
Speaker 1: want to work nine dollars an hour and break their

990
00:52:18,880 --> 00:52:20,719
Speaker 1: back for that, But they would take. They would take

991
00:52:20,719 --> 00:52:22,600
Speaker 1: a federal job guarantee of twenty two dollars an hour

992
00:52:22,719 --> 00:52:26,840
Speaker 1: doing public works rather than sling Kane or whatever. So like,

993
00:52:27,000 --> 00:52:30,919
Speaker 1: I don't, I like a lot of people get into

994
00:52:31,000 --> 00:52:34,600
Speaker 1: that life because there's no other place for us in

995
00:52:34,640 --> 00:52:40,319
Speaker 1: the productive account and productive economy where that's not abjectly degrading. Because,

996
00:52:40,360 --> 00:52:41,680
Speaker 1: like I said, these guys are gonna work for nine

997
00:52:41,719 --> 00:52:43,680
Speaker 1: dollars an hour, but if you give if you offer

998
00:52:43,719 --> 00:52:45,960
Speaker 1: them a twenty two dollar an hour job that's actually

999
00:52:46,000 --> 00:52:50,480
Speaker 1: like providing material or cultural infrastructure, they would much rather

1000
00:52:50,560 --> 00:52:53,879
Speaker 1: do that than eat the risk, right, And so we

1001
00:52:53,880 --> 00:52:56,200
Speaker 1: were we were debating whether or not the risk of

1002
00:52:56,280 --> 00:52:58,600
Speaker 1: slaying Kane or whatever, like if that is a part

1003
00:52:58,600 --> 00:53:02,720
Speaker 1: of the appeal. I was like, it was like, exactly

1004
00:53:02,719 --> 00:53:06,759
Speaker 1: agree with you that the prospects of being an employee

1005
00:53:06,840 --> 00:53:10,360
Speaker 1: and how terrible that is has pushed people into the streets.

1006
00:53:10,680 --> 00:53:15,360
Speaker 1: And that's it. That's the only appeal, Like being a

1007
00:53:15,400 --> 00:53:19,080
Speaker 1: black employee is so bad that we end up like

1008
00:53:19,160 --> 00:53:22,480
Speaker 1: doing these awful things to make ends meet, because it's

1009
00:53:22,480 --> 00:53:25,120
Speaker 1: either you work for some man at nine dollars an

1010
00:53:25,120 --> 00:53:27,840
Speaker 1: hour who still treat you like garbage and you're still vulnerable,

1011
00:53:29,120 --> 00:53:31,480
Speaker 1: and you're still vulnerable because like that white boss comes

1012
00:53:31,520 --> 00:53:33,319
Speaker 1: in is in a bad mood and then there you go,

1013
00:53:33,360 --> 00:53:37,440
Speaker 1: your job's gone, yeah, or or you you end up

1014
00:53:37,480 --> 00:53:38,960
Speaker 1: on the street, like doing what you can on the

1015
00:53:39,000 --> 00:53:41,360
Speaker 1: street to make money and there's a little bit more flexibility,

1016
00:53:41,400 --> 00:53:43,680
Speaker 1: but you're eating a lot of risk. So like that's

1017
00:53:43,680 --> 00:53:47,920
Speaker 1: not white life. Yeah, that's not like there's no uncle

1018
00:53:48,000 --> 00:53:50,560
Speaker 1: who's gonna get you on a job, like no, like

1019
00:53:50,719 --> 00:53:54,320
Speaker 1: at a good wage. That's like that's white life. But

1020
00:53:54,320 --> 00:53:56,279
Speaker 1: the black life, that's just not the case for black life.

1021
00:53:56,320 --> 00:53:59,560
Speaker 1: So you end up like taking these incredibly risky like

1022
00:54:00,200 --> 00:54:03,719
Speaker 1: positions and then you end up in jail or you

1023
00:54:03,760 --> 00:54:06,839
Speaker 1: look like someone you look like someone that might be

1024
00:54:06,880 --> 00:54:10,960
Speaker 1: in a risky position because yeas to every black president

1025
00:54:10,960 --> 00:54:13,279
Speaker 1: is under that in the private economy, that means that

1026
00:54:13,640 --> 00:54:16,880
Speaker 1: you look like the other black people on the street. Right,

1027
00:54:17,000 --> 00:54:20,839
Speaker 1: So I think, as I want to say, seven years ago,

1028
00:54:20,880 --> 00:54:23,000
Speaker 1: I haven't seen the most recent number. I think ten

1029
00:54:23,040 --> 00:54:27,239
Speaker 1: percent of black men between nineteen and thirty nine, those

1030
00:54:27,280 --> 00:54:33,279
Speaker 1: are prime working age are in jail. I got this pervision. Yeah,

1031
00:54:33,280 --> 00:54:36,520
Speaker 1: that's ten percent of nineteen thirty nine. Ten percent. That's

1032
00:54:36,520 --> 00:54:40,279
Speaker 1: a chunk. That's like, yeah, that's a lot of people.

1033
00:54:40,280 --> 00:54:42,200
Speaker 1: That's so much that it screws up the entire economy.

1034
00:54:42,200 --> 00:54:48,759
Speaker 1: We can't get labor statistics. That's so much of like

1035
00:54:48,800 --> 00:54:52,560
Speaker 1: the working classmen are in jail. And so the question

1036
00:54:52,600 --> 00:54:53,799
Speaker 1: is do you let him out of jail but still

1037
00:54:53,800 --> 00:54:55,480
Speaker 1: out of the economy, which means you're on the street

1038
00:54:56,480 --> 00:54:59,400
Speaker 1: like homelessness or intensely that's Los Angeles, or do you

1039
00:54:59,480 --> 00:55:01,040
Speaker 1: just round them up and put him in a cage,

1040
00:55:01,360 --> 00:55:03,160
Speaker 1: because at least in the cage are out of sight

1041
00:55:03,160 --> 00:55:06,200
Speaker 1: and out of mind. Right, geographical solution to socio economic problem.

1042
00:55:06,440 --> 00:55:08,600
Speaker 1: But and you know, if there was a great the

1043
00:55:08,600 --> 00:55:12,799
Speaker 1: movie what you call it, Sorry to Bother, that was

1044
00:55:13,120 --> 00:55:15,960
Speaker 1: very well done. He was like, we haven't talked about it,

1045
00:55:16,000 --> 00:55:17,880
Speaker 1: Yett in this podcast. Well I'm just thinking that, Like

1046
00:55:17,880 --> 00:55:20,239
Speaker 1: there was a one scene one of the characters is like, look,

1047
00:55:20,440 --> 00:55:22,920
Speaker 1: it's so stressful trying to keep this house and live

1048
00:55:22,960 --> 00:55:27,080
Speaker 1: in Oakland that I don't know, jail doesn't look so bad.

1049
00:55:27,840 --> 00:55:29,919
Speaker 1: There are three hots and a cot, but I don't

1050
00:55:30,000 --> 00:55:34,200
Speaker 1: like insta bill and like it's very stressful. I like Oakland, California,

1051
00:55:34,239 --> 00:55:35,840
Speaker 1: if I grew up in I mean I went to

1052
00:55:35,880 --> 00:55:37,560
Speaker 1: college in Berkeley, so like I always a weird and

1053
00:55:37,600 --> 00:55:39,600
Speaker 1: I would live around there. But now that I'm in

1054
00:55:39,640 --> 00:55:42,440
Speaker 1: Athan Georgia, you know, I moved out and I can't

1055
00:55:42,480 --> 00:55:46,359
Speaker 1: really move back. It's not for me, so because like

1056
00:55:46,480 --> 00:55:48,479
Speaker 1: I can't afford everything costs and I don't have money,

1057
00:55:48,520 --> 00:55:52,880
Speaker 1: so like that's not for me. But the idea that

1058
00:55:52,960 --> 00:55:56,279
Speaker 1: it's less stressful in jail, why do not go to

1059
00:55:56,600 --> 00:56:00,640
Speaker 1: Yeah that that yeah, exactly, not an extraneous negro outside

1060
00:56:00,640 --> 00:56:05,840
Speaker 1: of jail. So it's not like it's not like what

1061
00:56:05,920 --> 00:56:07,640
Speaker 1: I'm You're like, well, if you go to jail, you

1062
00:56:07,640 --> 00:56:08,920
Speaker 1: can't take care of your family. It's not like I

1063
00:56:08,920 --> 00:56:13,279
Speaker 1: can take care of my family anyway. Yeah, this is

1064
00:56:13,280 --> 00:56:15,680
Speaker 1: what I'm thinking. So like that that I thought that

1065
00:56:15,719 --> 00:56:18,480
Speaker 1: was dramatized pretty well and so bother you and it's

1066
00:56:18,520 --> 00:56:21,600
Speaker 1: just like it's really a problem. And the way do

1067
00:56:21,680 --> 00:56:24,920
Speaker 1: we secure people their dignity and secure them a value

1068
00:56:24,920 --> 00:56:28,359
Speaker 1: place in life is to create this infrastructure, a job

1069
00:56:28,400 --> 00:56:30,759
Speaker 1: guarantee that says, like, you know what you get out

1070
00:56:30,800 --> 00:56:32,480
Speaker 1: of jail. We got to twenty two dollars an hour

1071
00:56:32,960 --> 00:56:35,719
Speaker 1: show up and strengthened labor unions and strength of labor

1072
00:56:35,840 --> 00:56:38,200
Speaker 1: unions and like these jobs will be unionized, so like yeah,

1073
00:56:38,239 --> 00:56:41,520
Speaker 1: you just get to negotiate your working conditions or else

1074
00:56:41,960 --> 00:56:44,920
Speaker 1: some some mid level upper manager will look at a

1075
00:56:44,960 --> 00:56:48,160
Speaker 1: spreadsheep or higher consultant from McKenzie or whatever to look

1076
00:56:48,200 --> 00:56:49,200
Speaker 1: at the spread team and say like, well, you know,

1077
00:56:49,239 --> 00:56:50,440
Speaker 1: we can save a little bit of money if we

1078
00:56:50,520 --> 00:56:53,640
Speaker 1: just have like medical vehicles outside and didn't get rid

1079
00:56:53,680 --> 00:56:55,239
Speaker 1: of the air condition because we're losing a lot of

1080
00:56:55,239 --> 00:56:58,400
Speaker 1: money and keeping the warehouse cool. Like like, no, you

1081
00:56:58,400 --> 00:56:59,960
Speaker 1: want to be able to negotiate that. You don't want

1082
00:57:00,000 --> 00:57:03,359
Speaker 1: that decision to come down top down. But so we

1083
00:57:03,400 --> 00:57:05,839
Speaker 1: want black employment in the United States to actually be

1084
00:57:06,000 --> 00:57:09,200
Speaker 1: like a dignifying experience because we want to embrace the

1085
00:57:09,280 --> 00:57:13,839
Speaker 1: fact of our advanced industrial economy. So we're gonna have employees.

1086
00:57:14,200 --> 00:57:17,960
Speaker 1: Let's pay employees, and the interesting ways you could do this, right,

1087
00:57:18,000 --> 00:57:21,800
Speaker 1: So we subsidize farmers um with farm subsidies. That's if

1088
00:57:21,840 --> 00:57:24,160
Speaker 1: anybody knows anything about American oak culture, the only reason

1089
00:57:24,200 --> 00:57:26,560
Speaker 1: we got food is because of farm subsidies. It's right.

1090
00:57:26,560 --> 00:57:28,440
Speaker 1: It gets rid of a lot of inefficiencies and just

1091
00:57:28,480 --> 00:57:31,160
Speaker 1: we just wouldn't have food um without farm subsidies. So

1092
00:57:31,200 --> 00:57:33,560
Speaker 1: we subsidize farmers to either grow or not grow food.

1093
00:57:34,920 --> 00:57:39,480
Speaker 1: Maybe we should. We could also subsidize farm workers, right,

1094
00:57:39,560 --> 00:57:44,800
Speaker 1: So farm workers get paid twenty dollars an hour, but um,

1095
00:57:45,000 --> 00:57:49,240
Speaker 1: the employer, the farmer only pays like you know seven. Right,

1096
00:57:49,560 --> 00:57:53,800
Speaker 1: So it's it's a direct subsidy too, is proposing right now?

1097
00:57:54,640 --> 00:57:59,480
Speaker 1: I don't not really, But we were so comfortable subsidizing owners.

1098
00:57:59,720 --> 00:58:02,880
Speaker 1: Were it's not comfortable with subsidizing workers. Subsidizing workers, all right,

1099
00:58:02,960 --> 00:58:05,080
Speaker 1: So you need these many workers to fulfill this farm.

1100
00:58:05,080 --> 00:58:06,840
Speaker 1: We want your food. That's great, this is a public

1101
00:58:06,880 --> 00:58:10,160
Speaker 1: good that like we're gonna allow you to have as

1102
00:58:10,200 --> 00:58:12,560
Speaker 1: a farm. That's good. It's still your farm. But I'm

1103
00:58:12,560 --> 00:58:14,919
Speaker 1: gonna need your workers to be paid you know, twenty

1104
00:58:14,960 --> 00:58:16,400
Speaker 1: dollars an hour. Well, you don't want to pay twenty

1105
00:58:16,400 --> 00:58:17,880
Speaker 1: dolls an hour because they drive you out of business,

1106
00:58:18,120 --> 00:58:20,880
Speaker 1: that's fine, you pay seven. We'll get the other third team,

1107
00:58:21,360 --> 00:58:24,400
Speaker 1: and we'll tax Bloomberg for it. Right, And people say,

1108
00:58:24,440 --> 00:58:26,400
Speaker 1: well that might lead to inflation. First of all, why

1109
00:58:26,440 --> 00:58:28,920
Speaker 1: is every time nobody ever talks about inflation when you're

1110
00:58:28,920 --> 00:58:34,160
Speaker 1: talking about like me, like wealthy people getting right? Uh? Second,

1111
00:58:34,200 --> 00:58:37,680
Speaker 1: all Trump nobody about also talks about the deficit when

1112
00:58:37,680 --> 00:58:41,600
Speaker 1: Trump cuts taxes for their wealthy. Right, so Trump is

1113
00:58:41,640 --> 00:58:46,240
Speaker 1: ballooning deficits. Yet ballooning deficits, we still don't hit inflation

1114
00:58:46,240 --> 00:58:49,800
Speaker 1: targets because like we haven't hit max productivity and you

1115
00:58:49,840 --> 00:58:52,400
Speaker 1: know as well as I do, we are under producing

1116
00:58:52,400 --> 00:58:55,640
Speaker 1: in the American South. You get the hookworms out and

1117
00:58:55,680 --> 00:58:59,520
Speaker 1: the water out and get everybody internet to and like

1118
00:58:59,560 --> 00:59:01,680
Speaker 1: I'm I'm in Athens right now, and people like, well

1119
00:59:01,760 --> 00:59:04,880
Speaker 1: doesn't everybody have internet? Now you go about six miles

1120
00:59:04,880 --> 00:59:09,120
Speaker 1: in any direction, I've minute driving like you're back on

1121
00:59:09,160 --> 00:59:16,320
Speaker 1: dial up and you've got like modem shah. So so

1122
00:59:16,400 --> 00:59:19,320
Speaker 1: we are like you get those people clean water, you

1123
00:59:19,360 --> 00:59:23,880
Speaker 1: get them a cultural infrastructure, some newspapers and internet in

1124
00:59:24,400 --> 00:59:26,320
Speaker 1: the internet, and you know, and you know what they have,

1125
00:59:26,640 --> 00:59:30,720
Speaker 1: the productivity goes up, right, So right now we can

1126
00:59:31,080 --> 00:59:34,000
Speaker 1: like we've been ballooning the deficit, but since we haven't

1127
00:59:34,000 --> 00:59:40,400
Speaker 1: maxed out productivity, the costs haven't gone up because of UM,

1128
00:59:41,000 --> 00:59:45,120
Speaker 1: supplier diversity and supplier UM. Yeah, supplier diversity is keeping

1129
00:59:45,120 --> 00:59:48,320
Speaker 1: brought the prices down, right, So we don't have to

1130
00:59:48,360 --> 00:59:51,040
Speaker 1: worry about inflation until we have to worry about inflation,

1131
00:59:51,120 --> 00:59:53,960
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of There are a ton of indicators,

1132
00:59:54,120 --> 00:59:58,120
Speaker 1: and it's not generalized. Inflation is good specific because right now,

1133
00:59:58,200 --> 01:00:00,520
Speaker 1: like the press of most things is either staying stead

1134
01:00:00,520 --> 01:00:02,920
Speaker 1: you are going light me down, like like microphones, it's

1135
01:00:02,920 --> 01:00:06,959
Speaker 1: actually going down, yeah because I'm going yeah yeah, yeah.

1136
01:00:07,080 --> 01:00:11,840
Speaker 1: But the price of healthcare, college tuition, those are going up.

1137
01:00:11,840 --> 01:00:14,640
Speaker 1: But those are that's that inflation is a matter of

1138
01:00:14,680 --> 01:00:19,600
Speaker 1: bad politics. That's not like that. Yeah, that's that's not

1139
01:00:19,640 --> 01:00:22,160
Speaker 1: more money in people's pocket. That's just bad politics. We

1140
01:00:22,200 --> 01:00:25,280
Speaker 1: have bad health care policy. So like healthcare costs of

1141
01:00:25,320 --> 01:00:28,240
Speaker 1: going up because like their private industry has taken our

1142
01:00:28,280 --> 01:00:32,080
Speaker 1: government so um. So the idea that if you pay

1143
01:00:32,080 --> 01:00:36,760
Speaker 1: workers sometimes like if you pay workers, prices of things

1144
01:00:36,800 --> 01:00:40,680
Speaker 1: will go up, like assumes that all of the people

1145
01:00:41,520 --> 01:00:45,800
Speaker 1: are as productive as they couldn't be, or they wouldn't

1146
01:00:45,840 --> 01:00:48,360
Speaker 1: be making new things that will compete with the old

1147
01:00:48,400 --> 01:00:51,000
Speaker 1: things that will bring the whole price down for like

1148
01:00:51,040 --> 01:00:55,280
Speaker 1: all goods, which is which has attested to happen, it happens.

1149
01:00:55,360 --> 01:00:58,000
Speaker 1: And and and if you agree with me listening at home,

1150
01:00:58,360 --> 01:01:02,200
Speaker 1: that America's under producing in the South is underproducing, and

1151
01:01:02,240 --> 01:01:05,240
Speaker 1: that if you give people clean water and clean air

1152
01:01:06,040 --> 01:01:09,960
Speaker 1: and um, you know internet, they will actually be more

1153
01:01:10,000 --> 01:01:14,400
Speaker 1: productive than they are right now with their hookworm infest itself.

1154
01:01:14,920 --> 01:01:19,720
Speaker 1: Then then like for example, if you actually forgive student

1155
01:01:19,680 --> 01:01:22,080
Speaker 1: and just wipe it, wipe it clean, wipe it clean,

1156
01:01:23,360 --> 01:01:26,959
Speaker 1: clean the economy, it will people be more productive. People

1157
01:01:27,000 --> 01:01:28,920
Speaker 1: will be more Productivey'll be able to start businesses, our

1158
01:01:29,000 --> 01:01:31,240
Speaker 1: chances taking like they'll be able to actually produce things

1159
01:01:31,280 --> 01:01:34,000
Speaker 1: as opposed to like, well, I was gonna buy this

1160
01:01:34,000 --> 01:01:36,520
Speaker 1: this microphone and start a podcast, but I gotta pay

1161
01:01:36,520 --> 01:01:41,240
Speaker 1: Sally May like, that's a decision. I was gonna get

1162
01:01:41,240 --> 01:01:44,919
Speaker 1: married and then like married, so business. I was gonna

1163
01:01:44,920 --> 01:01:46,880
Speaker 1: start a contracting business, but like you know that thousand

1164
01:01:46,920 --> 01:01:49,560
Speaker 1: dollars a month to Sally May like, so you wipe

1165
01:01:49,560 --> 01:01:51,880
Speaker 1: that away and like that will like take the chain

1166
01:01:52,360 --> 01:01:55,760
Speaker 1: off of an entire generation who's under producing right now

1167
01:01:55,800 --> 01:01:58,560
Speaker 1: because like they have to all their money goes over

1168
01:01:58,920 --> 01:02:01,880
Speaker 1: to like the a half million dollars debt or quarter.

1169
01:02:02,880 --> 01:02:09,600
Speaker 1: You know what's your name, Uh, Stacy Abams. That's Stacy Abram.

1170
01:02:09,680 --> 01:02:11,120
Speaker 1: I bet her a few times one on one we

1171
01:02:11,160 --> 01:02:14,840
Speaker 1: had he like a t She is smart. She's smarter

1172
01:02:14,920 --> 01:02:17,680
Speaker 1: though she's as smartest of us. She's the best of us.

1173
01:02:17,720 --> 01:02:21,680
Speaker 1: Like Stacy Abams is smart two d K and it's

1174
01:02:21,680 --> 01:02:23,040
Speaker 1: not like, well, you know, if she just tried harder

1175
01:02:23,040 --> 01:02:28,080
Speaker 1: in school, she went yeah, yeah, yeah, get out of here.

1176
01:02:29,240 --> 01:02:32,800
Speaker 1: Well she just tried harder, you know, she would like

1177
01:02:32,840 --> 01:02:34,760
Speaker 1: she spent all the money helping out her parents and

1178
01:02:34,840 --> 01:02:39,560
Speaker 1: like things the un expensive. So like Stacie Abams, the

1179
01:02:39,600 --> 01:02:42,640
Speaker 1: best of us, better than I am is two hundred

1180
01:02:42,720 --> 01:02:45,640
Speaker 1: k and debt because like black life kind of sucked

1181
01:02:45,640 --> 01:02:49,360
Speaker 1: it in and like and then being if you're related

1182
01:02:49,400 --> 01:02:52,280
Speaker 1: to black people, it's expensive. It's not as expensive being black.

1183
01:02:52,280 --> 01:02:55,360
Speaker 1: It's expensive being related to black people because like you know,

1184
01:02:55,400 --> 01:02:57,520
Speaker 1: maybe you gotta cover cover your friends dead, or maybe

1185
01:02:57,560 --> 01:03:01,160
Speaker 1: you got it, like something something happened bailing people out

1186
01:03:01,200 --> 01:03:03,640
Speaker 1: of jail. Someone got a heart palpitation, so they went

1187
01:03:03,680 --> 01:03:05,919
Speaker 1: to jail. But then they got an ambulance and oh

1188
01:03:05,960 --> 01:03:09,080
Speaker 1: they got that ambulance. So now, how much is an

1189
01:03:09,080 --> 01:03:12,840
Speaker 1: ambulance bill? At least I want to say it's higher

1190
01:03:12,920 --> 01:03:18,760
Speaker 1: than that. So you got people going to uber, Yeah,

1191
01:03:19,000 --> 01:03:24,600
Speaker 1: I don't know it's gonna be now now yeah, because

1192
01:03:24,680 --> 01:03:27,080
Speaker 1: like that's no way to live. That's the way to live.

1193
01:03:27,320 --> 01:03:31,560
Speaker 1: So so the idea that, um, if you take away

1194
01:03:31,640 --> 01:03:34,960
Speaker 1: that kind of stress, people won't be more productive is

1195
01:03:35,040 --> 01:03:36,920
Speaker 1: ridiculous because it's it's not proven out and coming to

1196
01:03:37,040 --> 01:03:40,680
Speaker 1: economics and and so yeah, we pay people, they'll be

1197
01:03:40,720 --> 01:03:44,120
Speaker 1: more productive. And anytime there's an inflationary good, we can

1198
01:03:44,160 --> 01:03:45,680
Speaker 1: have a policy that takes care of that, just like

1199
01:03:45,720 --> 01:03:48,560
Speaker 1: we did with with food. Right, So like we shouldn't

1200
01:03:48,600 --> 01:03:51,960
Speaker 1: have to, we shouldn't. This is like the inflation argument,

1201
01:03:52,000 --> 01:03:53,920
Speaker 1: a bad argument. We need to pay black people for

1202
01:03:53,920 --> 01:03:56,040
Speaker 1: the work they do, because it's not as everyone can't

1203
01:03:56,040 --> 01:03:57,960
Speaker 1: be a boss. Because sometimes I want someone else doing

1204
01:03:57,960 --> 01:04:01,479
Speaker 1: my childcare, someone else's. I have three kids. I can't

1205
01:04:01,480 --> 01:04:04,520
Speaker 1: both have three kids watching them while doing this podcast.

1206
01:04:04,800 --> 01:04:07,800
Speaker 1: I need someone else doing that I want and I

1207
01:04:07,880 --> 01:04:11,000
Speaker 1: want else And if they're paid very well, that makes

1208
01:04:11,040 --> 01:04:14,040
Speaker 1: me happy. Yeah, because they've taken better care of my kids. Yeah.

1209
01:04:14,200 --> 01:04:16,840
Speaker 1: But so I wanted to ask you two quick questions.

1210
01:04:16,880 --> 01:04:19,640
Speaker 1: We're getting over time. So do you do you need

1211
01:04:19,680 --> 01:04:22,600
Speaker 1: to go? No? No, no, go? Okay. So, um, we

1212
01:04:22,680 --> 01:04:25,320
Speaker 1: talked a little about the Wagner Act and subsequent tippings

1213
01:04:25,360 --> 01:04:27,360
Speaker 1: away at it. We talked about black sputation workers for

1214
01:04:27,640 --> 01:04:30,280
Speaker 1: Memphis and do you guys talk about how that started

1215
01:04:30,280 --> 01:04:32,160
Speaker 1: with the with the guy who got killed in the

1216
01:04:32,160 --> 01:04:37,959
Speaker 1: trash compattor got die What a fucking terrible way to die.

1217
01:04:38,120 --> 01:04:41,400
Speaker 1: I found out about that two years I was shocked. Shocked.

1218
01:04:41,560 --> 01:04:43,560
Speaker 1: That's how that whole thing got started. They were trying

1219
01:04:43,600 --> 01:04:46,360
Speaker 1: to get out of the rain, yeah, in a trash

1220
01:04:46,400 --> 01:04:48,760
Speaker 1: compactor that wasn't working right, and as a result of

1221
01:04:48,760 --> 01:04:50,440
Speaker 1: the strikes, didn't have to work in the rain anymore.

1222
01:04:51,440 --> 01:04:53,320
Speaker 1: So I was wondering, I was any other tidbits from

1223
01:04:53,320 --> 01:04:56,400
Speaker 1: black labor history that people ought to know. There's a

1224
01:04:56,400 --> 01:04:59,200
Speaker 1: great movie called ten Thousand Black Men Named George. Just

1225
01:04:59,280 --> 01:05:02,040
Speaker 1: find it. I got, I got my copy, and I

1226
01:05:02,080 --> 01:05:04,760
Speaker 1: like I had to get like a DVD turned out

1227
01:05:04,800 --> 01:05:07,959
Speaker 1: the Black Men Named George. It's about a Philip Randolph

1228
01:05:08,160 --> 01:05:14,000
Speaker 1: and uh him starting the Pullman workers union, right, and

1229
01:05:14,520 --> 01:05:17,160
Speaker 1: just what it actually captured very well. It's like normal

1230
01:05:17,240 --> 01:05:20,600
Speaker 1: ray for black people, right, So it's it's it's it

1231
01:05:21,040 --> 01:05:25,480
Speaker 1: captures very well about the stresses of actually like organizing

1232
01:05:25,520 --> 01:05:28,200
Speaker 1: for worker justice and what that looks like because like

1233
01:05:28,240 --> 01:05:30,320
Speaker 1: it's not like we don't want pullman port Pullman where

1234
01:05:30,320 --> 01:05:32,040
Speaker 1: the people who got your uggage and all of that stuff.

1235
01:05:32,080 --> 01:05:33,880
Speaker 1: And when you're traveling sometimes you want people to get

1236
01:05:33,920 --> 01:05:36,520
Speaker 1: your luggage. That's that's great, right, But we also want

1237
01:05:36,560 --> 01:05:39,160
Speaker 1: those people to get paid. Right, So it was just

1238
01:05:39,200 --> 01:05:41,960
Speaker 1: a ten thousand black men named George. It's a great

1239
01:05:42,000 --> 01:05:45,440
Speaker 1: movie and I think it really just dramatizes what it

1240
01:05:45,880 --> 01:05:50,880
Speaker 1: is like to go from like not having dignity do

1241
01:05:50,920 --> 01:05:55,200
Speaker 1: you work on your workplace to having dignity on your workplace. Yeah,

1242
01:05:55,440 --> 01:05:58,080
Speaker 1: and they'll be helpful for people watching who are for listen,

1243
01:05:58,120 --> 01:06:01,480
Speaker 1: who are listening who have no idea how this works. Right, Okay,

1244
01:06:01,520 --> 01:06:03,840
Speaker 1: I'm pissed about everything you've said, and I feel you.

1245
01:06:03,880 --> 01:06:07,600
Speaker 1: But now what do I do? Well, what does that

1246
01:06:07,640 --> 01:06:09,600
Speaker 1: even mean? Well, the funny thing is like shell Samberg

1247
01:06:09,640 --> 01:06:11,560
Speaker 1: came out with that book a few years ago, lean In, Right,

1248
01:06:12,440 --> 01:06:17,280
Speaker 1: I got so many black people fired. The tried to

1249
01:06:17,320 --> 01:06:23,000
Speaker 1: lean in by themselves and then well it wasn't for me.

1250
01:06:23,440 --> 01:06:25,919
Speaker 1: You try to negotiate you with your boss one on one,

1251
01:06:26,160 --> 01:06:27,920
Speaker 1: it turns out like, well, you're not good fit for

1252
01:06:27,920 --> 01:06:31,720
Speaker 1: the company anymore. So like you can't lean in one

1253
01:06:31,760 --> 01:06:34,160
Speaker 1: on one. You need to lean in as a group.

1254
01:06:35,080 --> 01:06:36,840
Speaker 1: You need to lean in as a group because that's

1255
01:06:36,880 --> 01:06:39,000
Speaker 1: why you bounce a power, and that's why you can negotiate,

1256
01:06:39,200 --> 01:06:42,560
Speaker 1: because the rule of thumb is unless you could shut

1257
01:06:42,640 --> 01:06:46,520
Speaker 1: it down, you don't have negotiating power. So you need

1258
01:06:46,600 --> 01:06:51,000
Speaker 1: just enough power to be able to stop the machine.

1259
01:06:51,320 --> 01:06:54,040
Speaker 1: You don't need more than that, but you need that.

1260
01:06:54,600 --> 01:06:58,080
Speaker 1: So if you get enough people to just be able

1261
01:06:58,120 --> 01:07:02,560
Speaker 1: to stop the services, then you have um bargaining power

1262
01:07:02,960 --> 01:07:05,000
Speaker 1: to go get it, to go get it. Get it, folks,

1263
01:07:05,080 --> 01:07:08,360
Speaker 1: you'll get it. It's been great having you. Where do

1264
01:07:08,440 --> 01:07:10,440
Speaker 1: we find your work? All right? So I have a

1265
01:07:10,520 --> 01:07:13,240
Speaker 1: podcast I run doing local politics out of Athens. It's

1266
01:07:13,320 --> 01:07:15,480
Speaker 1: so just go on YouTube and you put in Funky

1267
01:07:15,520 --> 01:07:18,640
Speaker 1: Academic or the Black Athenians. I'll be there. Or you

1268
01:07:18,640 --> 01:07:20,640
Speaker 1: can just go to funky academic dot com. Well do

1269
01:07:20,680 --> 01:07:23,480
Speaker 1: you got cash at PayPal? How do they send you money?

1270
01:07:23,480 --> 01:07:26,240
Speaker 1: Funky academic dot com. You'll find a nice little panel

1271
01:07:26,360 --> 01:07:29,240
Speaker 1: on the left side and you could scroll down and

1272
01:07:29,240 --> 01:07:33,200
Speaker 1: give me five, fifteen, or fifty dollars a month would

1273
01:07:33,200 --> 01:07:35,280
Speaker 1: be great, Or give me a one time huge donation.

1274
01:07:35,600 --> 01:07:37,480
Speaker 1: Or you can leave me. Just go ahead and email

1275
01:07:37,520 --> 01:07:40,400
Speaker 1: me and leave me in your will. Yeah, yeah, I

1276
01:07:40,400 --> 01:07:42,440
Speaker 1: could get a piece of that inheritance because you know what,

1277
01:07:42,560 --> 01:07:44,760
Speaker 1: given money to me to spread the word would be

1278
01:07:44,760 --> 01:07:49,320
Speaker 1: good for America. And maybe your kids have enough, so

1279
01:07:49,320 --> 01:07:51,960
Speaker 1: so and like maybe you want your better kids friends,

1280
01:07:52,000 --> 01:07:53,960
Speaker 1: so you give you just leave me, just leave me

1281
01:07:54,000 --> 01:07:56,680
Speaker 1: your inheritance, that would be nice too. Appreciate you being

1282
01:07:56,720 --> 01:08:10,680
Speaker 1: hire man. Thanks thanks so As a Lingua Franco was

1283
01:08:10,720 --> 01:08:13,600
Speaker 1: saying earlier, when we were doing like the initial research

1284
01:08:13,680 --> 01:08:17,240
Speaker 1: to try to find songs that had labor as the

1285
01:08:17,280 --> 01:08:19,800
Speaker 1: topic or were about the topic of working at nine

1286
01:08:19,840 --> 01:08:23,479
Speaker 1: to five or that working man's grind, we're having a

1287
01:08:23,479 --> 01:08:26,160
Speaker 1: hard time finding it because, Um, for the most part,

1288
01:08:26,200 --> 01:08:29,840
Speaker 1: when we searched for it, most of the references to

1289
01:08:29,920 --> 01:08:34,600
Speaker 1: working we're either broad or vague concepts of hustle or

1290
01:08:34,640 --> 01:08:37,360
Speaker 1: working hard, or I'll put in the work in general

1291
01:08:37,520 --> 01:08:39,879
Speaker 1: like ethic. Yeah, it is general, like almost like gatorade

1292
01:08:39,880 --> 01:08:44,120
Speaker 1: commercial type ship. You know what I'm saying. Um, whenever

1293
01:08:44,320 --> 01:08:48,120
Speaker 1: jobs were reference, it was never in any sort of

1294
01:08:49,280 --> 01:08:54,760
Speaker 1: positive sense. So I think that's why, well, yeah, like

1295
01:08:54,800 --> 01:08:56,840
Speaker 1: I think that's why it's hard. It was hard for

1296
01:08:56,920 --> 01:09:00,679
Speaker 1: us to find like examples of rap songs that were

1297
01:09:00,840 --> 01:09:05,120
Speaker 1: for or about working men and women, just because that's

1298
01:09:05,160 --> 01:09:07,559
Speaker 1: like a topic that like people literally don't give a

1299
01:09:07,560 --> 01:09:10,120
Speaker 1: funk about in hip hop, like people people get it

1300
01:09:10,120 --> 01:09:12,960
Speaker 1: into hip hop to not have a regular shop, you know,

1301
01:09:13,240 --> 01:09:16,679
Speaker 1: Like people people do rap so that their mother doesn't

1302
01:09:16,680 --> 01:09:18,479
Speaker 1: have to work anymore, you know what I mean, so

1303
01:09:18,520 --> 01:09:21,080
Speaker 1: that their family and their friends are straight. Yeah, quote

1304
01:09:21,160 --> 01:09:24,840
Speaker 1: unquote straight and nobody has to you know. So with that,

1305
01:09:24,960 --> 01:09:28,840
Speaker 1: it makes it it makes it kind of expected that

1306
01:09:28,880 --> 01:09:32,000
Speaker 1: you wouldn't find a lot of m c s dedicating

1307
01:09:33,000 --> 01:09:37,800
Speaker 1: a song topic to their job, right, right, at least

1308
01:09:37,800 --> 01:09:42,280
Speaker 1: not in the mainstream sense, um right, because it's aspirational.

1309
01:09:42,360 --> 01:09:44,519
Speaker 1: Even if somebody is working at nine to five and

1310
01:09:44,720 --> 01:09:47,040
Speaker 1: like on quote unquote on the side of their like

1311
01:09:47,120 --> 01:09:50,360
Speaker 1: wrap aspirations. They're not gonna wrap about that. They want

1312
01:09:50,360 --> 01:09:52,599
Speaker 1: to wrap about like something that is inspiring to them,

1313
01:09:52,680 --> 01:09:55,040
Speaker 1: something that is like where they want to go, who

1314
01:09:55,080 --> 01:09:57,519
Speaker 1: they want to be, fashioning themselves as a different kind

1315
01:09:57,520 --> 01:09:59,160
Speaker 1: of person in their music, so they don't have to

1316
01:09:59,200 --> 01:10:01,400
Speaker 1: deal with they're not too ship And let's be real,

1317
01:10:01,479 --> 01:10:04,760
Speaker 1: I mean, like getting a nine to five isn't attractive,

1318
01:10:05,400 --> 01:10:08,559
Speaker 1: you know, based on these the weakening of like labor

1319
01:10:08,680 --> 01:10:10,920
Speaker 1: unions and stuff like that that we talked about earlier.

1320
01:10:11,120 --> 01:10:13,640
Speaker 1: If you have to work fourteen hour days and a

1321
01:10:14,120 --> 01:10:16,880
Speaker 1: boiling hot kitchen getting screamed at by your sous chef

1322
01:10:17,280 --> 01:10:19,960
Speaker 1: about you know, you gotta flip the burgers quicker or

1323
01:10:20,000 --> 01:10:22,040
Speaker 1: whatever if you have to be on the back of

1324
01:10:22,040 --> 01:10:25,599
Speaker 1: that sanitation truck in the rain with getting garbage juice

1325
01:10:25,600 --> 01:10:28,160
Speaker 1: spilled on you, and like you're only making you know,

1326
01:10:28,880 --> 01:10:34,000
Speaker 1: an hour, Like why why, Yeah, it's not anybody's like dream,

1327
01:10:34,400 --> 01:10:37,320
Speaker 1: it's not anybody's dream. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean the

1328
01:10:38,720 --> 01:10:43,240
Speaker 1: line that epitomizes how I think the j O. B

1329
01:10:43,560 --> 01:10:46,280
Speaker 1: Has been like dealt with in hip hop. It's from

1330
01:10:46,280 --> 01:10:49,400
Speaker 1: a Eminem song eight Mile Road, was on the eight

1331
01:10:49,439 --> 01:10:59,040
Speaker 1: Mile soundtrack, but regular, and it's like it's it's in

1332
01:10:59,360 --> 01:11:00,920
Speaker 1: the middle of the song, you know what I mean.

1333
01:11:00,920 --> 01:11:02,960
Speaker 1: There's a bunch of stuff that he says before, but

1334
01:11:03,040 --> 01:11:06,160
Speaker 1: it's like the whole song is about you know, it's

1335
01:11:06,200 --> 01:11:09,160
Speaker 1: it's eight miles on the eight Miles soundtracks. I'm going

1336
01:11:09,200 --> 01:11:12,559
Speaker 1: to battles, grinding them right every day and all that ship.

1337
01:11:12,840 --> 01:11:15,880
Speaker 1: So when he gets to that line, it's kind of like, damn, yeah,

1338
01:11:16,280 --> 01:11:23,000
Speaker 1: it would suck if you just it would all that hustle. Yeah,

1339
01:11:23,240 --> 01:11:25,880
Speaker 1: And it's early as early as Grandmaster Flash and the

1340
01:11:25,920 --> 01:11:29,640
Speaker 1: Furious Five on the message they're talking about. Uh, my

1341
01:11:29,680 --> 01:11:31,439
Speaker 1: son said, Daddy, I don't want to go to school

1342
01:11:31,439 --> 01:11:33,479
Speaker 1: because the teachers are jerky, must think I'm a fool,

1343
01:11:33,520 --> 01:11:35,320
Speaker 1: and all the kids smoke reeper, And I think it

1344
01:11:35,320 --> 01:11:37,439
Speaker 1: would be cheaper if I just got a job learned

1345
01:11:37,439 --> 01:11:40,320
Speaker 1: to be a street streeper. So like already they're talking

1346
01:11:40,360 --> 01:11:45,799
Speaker 1: about like school, like you know, I just it's probably

1347
01:11:45,840 --> 01:11:48,200
Speaker 1: more lucrative if I just get a job. It's one

1348
01:11:48,240 --> 01:11:51,400
Speaker 1: of the few I guess positive reversences to getting a

1349
01:11:51,520 --> 01:11:55,519
Speaker 1: job that it's out there. Well, I mean it's positive,

1350
01:11:58,240 --> 01:12:03,560
Speaker 1: it's dark, it's um, it's realistic, it's realistic, it's realistic.

1351
01:12:03,800 --> 01:12:06,200
Speaker 1: But I mean, do you you know that I kind

1352
01:12:06,200 --> 01:12:12,719
Speaker 1: of feel that somehow the Fox school aspect and Funk

1353
01:12:12,760 --> 01:12:17,720
Speaker 1: a regular job or connected, Yeah, totally. Yeah, it's like

1354
01:12:17,720 --> 01:12:21,880
Speaker 1: an anti establishment push on both sides. Both of these institutions.

1355
01:12:21,880 --> 01:12:26,679
Speaker 1: Fun a corporation, UM government job and fuck the public

1356
01:12:26,680 --> 01:12:29,439
Speaker 1: school system. All of these ship is run by white people.

1357
01:12:29,520 --> 01:12:31,400
Speaker 1: So I don't want to do it. Word. So what

1358
01:12:31,520 --> 01:12:35,559
Speaker 1: we got next? Oh? Great, Kanye? Yeah, I want to

1359
01:12:35,560 --> 01:12:38,920
Speaker 1: talk about spaceships by Kanye, which I feel like has

1360
01:12:38,960 --> 01:12:41,760
Speaker 1: the most one of the most interesting anti labor, not

1361
01:12:41,800 --> 01:12:47,040
Speaker 1: anti one of the most interesting commentaries on labor in

1362
01:12:47,920 --> 01:12:50,800
Speaker 1: the In in hip Hop, he talks about work in

1363
01:12:50,800 --> 01:12:53,000
Speaker 1: this grave ship and I made ship. Wish I could

1364
01:12:53,200 --> 01:12:55,679
Speaker 1: buy me a spaceship and fly. And then he says,

1365
01:12:55,720 --> 01:12:58,040
Speaker 1: you know, if my manager insults me again, I will

1366
01:12:58,080 --> 01:13:02,639
Speaker 1: be assulting him after the manager and I'm going to shorten.

1367
01:13:03,720 --> 01:13:05,479
Speaker 1: Let's go back back to the gap. Look at my check.

1368
01:13:05,560 --> 01:13:08,240
Speaker 1: Wasn't those scratch So if I stole it wasn't my fault. Yeah,

1369
01:13:08,320 --> 01:13:10,880
Speaker 1: Stoll never got caught. Take me to the back and

1370
01:13:10,920 --> 01:13:13,320
Speaker 1: pat me asking me about some khakis. But let some

1371
01:13:13,360 --> 01:13:15,599
Speaker 1: black people walk in. I bet you they'll show off.

1372
01:13:15,640 --> 01:13:19,720
Speaker 1: They're talking black. Oh now they love car. Put them

1373
01:13:19,720 --> 01:13:21,920
Speaker 1: all in the front of the stone. So I'm on

1374
01:13:22,040 --> 01:13:24,080
Speaker 1: break next to the no smoking sign with a blunting

1375
01:13:24,080 --> 01:13:26,920
Speaker 1: them all. So we're talking about literally working at the gap,

1376
01:13:27,479 --> 01:13:29,960
Speaker 1: working at the gap and how much that sucks, and

1377
01:13:30,000 --> 01:13:33,680
Speaker 1: the manager getting on you and then tokenization dragging you

1378
01:13:33,760 --> 01:13:35,880
Speaker 1: out of black people come in the store, So how

1379
01:13:35,920 --> 01:13:38,120
Speaker 1: do how do you feel? Like, how do you feel

1380
01:13:38,120 --> 01:13:42,280
Speaker 1: about just that string? They're like it sounds like in

1381
01:13:42,400 --> 01:13:46,439
Speaker 1: your voice that that hits that hits that hits. I mean,

1382
01:13:46,479 --> 01:13:49,640
Speaker 1: I think it's critical for like the very beginnings of

1383
01:13:49,680 --> 01:13:53,439
Speaker 1: developing class consciousness. I'm like, yo, like we shouldn't have

1384
01:13:53,479 --> 01:13:55,240
Speaker 1: to live like this. We shouldn't have to work under

1385
01:13:55,280 --> 01:13:57,639
Speaker 1: these conditions. We don't shouldn't have to like put up

1386
01:13:57,640 --> 01:13:59,880
Speaker 1: with this ship from our managers. I should be able

1387
01:13:59,880 --> 01:14:03,439
Speaker 1: to smoke weed in them all, like I steal because

1388
01:14:03,439 --> 01:14:06,200
Speaker 1: they're not paying me enough. Like this is this is

1389
01:14:06,240 --> 01:14:08,760
Speaker 1: the reality. This is the reality we live under right now.

1390
01:14:09,240 --> 01:14:13,560
Speaker 1: And so um, it doesn't get into like a critique

1391
01:14:13,560 --> 01:14:19,400
Speaker 1: of like labor, you know, to a like technical extent,

1392
01:14:19,600 --> 01:14:22,240
Speaker 1: but like it's got the it's got the bait, the blaze,

1393
01:14:22,320 --> 01:14:25,120
Speaker 1: the bones, you know, just like oh yeah, don't you

1394
01:14:25,439 --> 01:14:28,800
Speaker 1: doesn't resonate with you that like this nine to five suck,

1395
01:14:28,880 --> 01:14:31,760
Speaker 1: these managers sucked, these hours, suck this paycheck. I think

1396
01:14:31,760 --> 01:14:35,479
Speaker 1: this is kind of almost you know, like indicative of

1397
01:14:35,560 --> 01:14:40,679
Speaker 1: like a lot of the examples that we found where

1398
01:14:40,680 --> 01:14:45,519
Speaker 1: it's not necessarily that anyone is dedicating the entire song

1399
01:14:45,680 --> 01:14:49,080
Speaker 1: or even the entire verse, but it's just like little

1400
01:14:49,120 --> 01:14:53,720
Speaker 1: commentaries about jobs and labor and just the condition, you know,

1401
01:14:53,800 --> 01:14:55,800
Speaker 1: I mean of working and what that's like that you

1402
01:14:55,880 --> 01:14:59,960
Speaker 1: hear throughout rap music and yeah, yeah. The next example

1403
01:15:00,000 --> 01:15:02,120
Speaker 1: what I want to talk about was mad City by Kendrick,

1404
01:15:02,560 --> 01:15:04,960
Speaker 1: which maybe like probably wouldn't jump out to you as

1405
01:15:05,040 --> 01:15:07,599
Speaker 1: like a labor song, but it says my pop said

1406
01:15:07,600 --> 01:15:11,040
Speaker 1: it needed a job, but did you already going for

1407
01:15:11,600 --> 01:15:14,000
Speaker 1: He ended up leaving back. I got fired because that

1408
01:15:14,120 --> 01:15:17,960
Speaker 1: was just fired. My friends stay Robbery the third Saturday

1409
01:15:17,960 --> 01:15:21,200
Speaker 1: at Clacton. So it's like, do I hold this job

1410
01:15:21,240 --> 01:15:23,280
Speaker 1: down or do I engage in a lista ship that

1411
01:15:23,400 --> 01:15:26,519
Speaker 1: like we'll get you pay quicker and harder and also

1412
01:15:26,600 --> 01:15:30,240
Speaker 1: to your point, like has that illicit like that dangerous

1413
01:15:30,840 --> 01:15:35,360
Speaker 1: bad boy element to it that is appealing arguably to

1414
01:15:35,520 --> 01:15:38,800
Speaker 1: people within hip hop. Yeah, I mean because I've you know,

1415
01:15:39,120 --> 01:15:42,639
Speaker 1: everybody knows somebody, you know what I'm saying. But it's

1416
01:15:42,640 --> 01:15:45,519
Speaker 1: like I've got the family and friends you know what

1417
01:15:45,520 --> 01:15:47,960
Speaker 1: I'm saying, who are doing show who are like yo,

1418
01:15:48,120 --> 01:15:52,080
Speaker 1: there's certain aspects of this ship where it's like you

1419
01:15:52,160 --> 01:15:55,160
Speaker 1: might as well just get when you weigh out, like

1420
01:15:55,439 --> 01:16:00,479
Speaker 1: the risk, like you're you're working like hard, harder than

1421
01:16:00,520 --> 01:16:03,200
Speaker 1: you would Yeah, you're working in fast food and if

1422
01:16:03,200 --> 01:16:04,840
Speaker 1: you get caught you going to jail for like twenty

1423
01:16:04,880 --> 01:16:08,760
Speaker 1: seven of life, So it's like, what am I doing? Right? Um? Uh?

1424
01:16:08,960 --> 01:16:12,040
Speaker 1: The next one, this one kind of shifts in a

1425
01:16:12,080 --> 01:16:15,760
Speaker 1: bit because this one actually is about working in the

1426
01:16:15,800 --> 01:16:18,840
Speaker 1: corporate environment. But that's because it was made for the

1427
01:16:18,840 --> 01:16:21,559
Speaker 1: soundtrack of a movie. We're talking about the Cannabis and

1428
01:16:21,640 --> 01:16:25,240
Speaker 1: Bismarckie song Shove This j O B. It was on

1429
01:16:25,320 --> 01:16:38,240
Speaker 1: the soundtrack to a very funny movie, Office Space. It's

1430
01:16:38,360 --> 01:16:41,080
Speaker 1: hard to almost pick out a single line from this one,

1431
01:16:41,120 --> 01:16:43,360
Speaker 1: just because that's the whole song is about that. It's

1432
01:16:43,400 --> 01:16:46,360
Speaker 1: just about pretty much the plot of Office Space, the

1433
01:16:46,400 --> 01:16:49,519
Speaker 1: grind of going the job every day, the repetition being

1434
01:16:49,560 --> 01:16:53,360
Speaker 1: in a cubicle, um, not being treated right, not even

1435
01:16:53,400 --> 01:16:56,160
Speaker 1: being considered as like a person or a commodity. You're

1436
01:16:56,200 --> 01:16:58,160
Speaker 1: just like they're you know what I'm saying, all that

1437
01:16:58,160 --> 01:17:00,960
Speaker 1: sort of stuff. My favorite session is it is um

1438
01:17:01,479 --> 01:17:04,519
Speaker 1: Cannabis says, you wonder why your workload is so enormous

1439
01:17:04,600 --> 01:17:06,880
Speaker 1: because the boss just laid off the quarters of the

1440
01:17:06,920 --> 01:17:10,720
Speaker 1: whole office. You get depressed and get also stressed by

1441
01:17:10,800 --> 01:17:14,559
Speaker 1: what the corporate environment causes. Pretty much the whole song

1442
01:17:14,680 --> 01:17:16,679
Speaker 1: is about that. It's so it's a lot more comedic.

1443
01:17:16,800 --> 01:17:20,360
Speaker 1: It's not really somber critique of ship, but even that

1444
01:17:20,439 --> 01:17:22,640
Speaker 1: makes it effective in the point that it's trying to

1445
01:17:22,640 --> 01:17:25,400
Speaker 1: make that it brings levity into it, and that it's funny,

1446
01:17:25,520 --> 01:17:28,679
Speaker 1: and the beats really quirky, and you got bis Markey

1447
01:17:28,720 --> 01:17:32,680
Speaker 1: on the hook. Take this job, Yeah, yeah, yeah, I

1448
01:17:32,720 --> 01:17:35,040
Speaker 1: like these lines later on the song. You have some occupations.

1449
01:17:35,120 --> 01:17:37,320
Speaker 1: It's like slave gigs. The boss is favored and get

1450
01:17:37,320 --> 01:17:39,880
Speaker 1: placed in some spacious all the most hated get placed

1451
01:17:39,880 --> 01:17:42,880
Speaker 1: in some small s people, well, the most hated get

1452
01:17:42,880 --> 01:17:45,479
Speaker 1: placed in some small cubical spaces or get thrown down

1453
01:17:45,479 --> 01:17:50,040
Speaker 1: in the base. When get to just Stapler confiscating, that's

1454
01:17:50,040 --> 01:17:54,280
Speaker 1: like directly, I love it. No, that's good, that's good ship.

1455
01:17:54,560 --> 01:17:56,479
Speaker 1: It's fun. It's hard to find songs that are about

1456
01:17:56,560 --> 01:18:00,240
Speaker 1: like picketing, about striking, about coming together. It's where girls,

1457
01:18:00,280 --> 01:18:04,240
Speaker 1: because let's be honest, most rappers, like most every day

1458
01:18:04,360 --> 01:18:08,160
Speaker 1: or nary rappers on the level of like Mac and

1459
01:18:08,240 --> 01:18:11,960
Speaker 1: I have other jobs. They have other jobs, and there's

1460
01:18:12,080 --> 01:18:14,600
Speaker 1: very few. I mean, like you might occasionally find a

1461
01:18:14,640 --> 01:18:16,880
Speaker 1: song like Spaceships, or find a song like Shove This

1462
01:18:17,000 --> 01:18:20,320
Speaker 1: j Ob, or find snippets like from Kendricks Mad City

1463
01:18:20,360 --> 01:18:22,679
Speaker 1: where people are like critiquing, like, man, that's what sucks.

1464
01:18:23,120 --> 01:18:26,320
Speaker 1: But really do you hear someone actually say like, well,

1465
01:18:26,400 --> 01:18:30,439
Speaker 1: let's do something about it. And so, um, well, I'm

1466
01:18:30,680 --> 01:18:35,479
Speaker 1: of the Jacobin article that I was going to reference.

1467
01:18:35,560 --> 01:18:39,559
Speaker 1: Um it was just talking about how there's a there's

1468
01:18:39,600 --> 01:18:44,599
Speaker 1: like a long tradition of strike strikes from going from

1469
01:18:44,640 --> 01:18:46,759
Speaker 1: the eight hundreds up till now, you know what I'm saying,

1470
01:18:46,840 --> 01:18:52,479
Speaker 1: And it's just it's just like none of them are

1471
01:18:52,520 --> 01:18:57,439
Speaker 1: really rap songs. Say, granted, absolutely been around since like,

1472
01:18:58,880 --> 01:19:01,960
Speaker 1: but that's a seventy nine. It's not exactly like we've

1473
01:19:02,000 --> 01:19:05,000
Speaker 1: been living in a utopia since nineteen seventy nine. But again,

1474
01:19:05,040 --> 01:19:07,920
Speaker 1: that's not necessarily a critique on hip hop. That's just

1475
01:19:09,439 --> 01:19:11,680
Speaker 1: it's it's where the music is coming from. You know

1476
01:19:11,680 --> 01:19:15,440
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. The music is just not coming from

1477
01:19:15,479 --> 01:19:18,240
Speaker 1: a point of view that is like, yo, I'm trying

1478
01:19:18,280 --> 01:19:22,639
Speaker 1: to work work within an establishment system. And it's also

1479
01:19:22,760 --> 01:19:25,240
Speaker 1: I think the case that like white labor unions have

1480
01:19:25,320 --> 01:19:28,400
Speaker 1: a much longer history than black ones. To just give

1481
01:19:28,479 --> 01:19:30,800
Speaker 1: him the way the Wagner Act work, and so you

1482
01:19:30,880 --> 01:19:39,080
Speaker 1: have within white culture more like artistic offerings that rose

1483
01:19:39,160 --> 01:19:42,040
Speaker 1: out of the labor movement, whereas our you know what

1484
01:19:42,200 --> 01:19:45,400
Speaker 1: was it nine sixty eight where we had the black

1485
01:19:45,560 --> 01:19:50,439
Speaker 1: sanitation workers striking like we we gotta catch up, We

1486
01:19:50,520 --> 01:19:54,759
Speaker 1: gotta catch up still. And I think also the way

1487
01:19:54,880 --> 01:19:59,360
Speaker 1: is that economic austerity during the Reagan era affected black communities.

1488
01:19:59,640 --> 01:20:03,240
Speaker 1: It put us behind in terms of engaging in labor

1489
01:20:03,880 --> 01:20:08,040
Speaker 1: and and either way that the ship. What did I

1490
01:20:08,040 --> 01:20:10,760
Speaker 1: just do? I just hurt my ear m. Yeah, I

1491
01:20:10,800 --> 01:20:13,080
Speaker 1: don't know what I just did. Sorry, I don't know. Yeah,

1492
01:20:13,200 --> 01:20:16,599
Speaker 1: just like here for a second, um, the way that

1493
01:20:17,600 --> 01:20:20,640
Speaker 1: labor rights have been chipped away at since then, just

1494
01:20:20,720 --> 01:20:24,960
Speaker 1: the combination those factors has put us behind as a

1495
01:20:25,000 --> 01:20:28,160
Speaker 1: culture in terms of engaging labor stuff in the music.

1496
01:20:28,400 --> 01:20:30,280
Speaker 1: So I think that's another reason why we don't have

1497
01:20:30,280 --> 01:20:31,880
Speaker 1: a lot of strike songs. But do you think that

1498
01:20:31,920 --> 01:20:35,800
Speaker 1: in two thousand twenty that like a rapper could could

1499
01:20:35,880 --> 01:20:39,320
Speaker 1: emerge who is like a like a Bob Dylan of

1500
01:20:39,439 --> 01:20:41,519
Speaker 1: rat you know what I mean, just like some sort

1501
01:20:41,520 --> 01:20:45,519
Speaker 1: of like champion of the working man, but like become

1502
01:20:45,600 --> 01:20:49,200
Speaker 1: like the biggest thing in the world, the biggest thing

1503
01:20:49,240 --> 01:20:54,560
Speaker 1: in the world. NA have a mainstream have a mainstream platform. Yeah.

1504
01:20:54,680 --> 01:20:56,120
Speaker 1: I mean, we're gonna end up talking about him a

1505
01:20:56,120 --> 01:20:58,479
Speaker 1: lot in this podcast, but I feel like Killer Mike

1506
01:20:58,600 --> 01:21:03,160
Speaker 1: is like a working class hero that yeah, yeah, and

1507
01:21:03,200 --> 01:21:05,639
Speaker 1: that champions working class causes and has a pretty big

1508
01:21:05,680 --> 01:21:08,240
Speaker 1: mainstream platform. That's a good example. Yeah, that's a really

1509
01:21:08,280 --> 01:21:10,040
Speaker 1: good example. And took him a long time to get there.

1510
01:21:10,080 --> 01:21:13,639
Speaker 1: So maybe we have some some current talents bubbling under that,

1511
01:21:13,800 --> 01:21:15,679
Speaker 1: you know, in the next decade or so, or could

1512
01:21:15,680 --> 01:21:18,080
Speaker 1: it blow up and like bring those causes to the fore,

1513
01:21:18,720 --> 01:21:21,640
Speaker 1: especially as we have a political revolution in this country.

1514
01:21:22,400 --> 01:21:25,080
Speaker 1: But there are some strike songs. One notably a GMAC

1515
01:21:25,360 --> 01:21:29,280
Speaker 1: Detroit rapper has the song on Strike where he stands

1516
01:21:29,280 --> 01:21:33,160
Speaker 1: in solidarity solidarity with union auto workers striking against general

1517
01:21:33,200 --> 01:21:35,679
Speaker 1: mortors who took grievance with the fact that they planted

1518
01:21:35,680 --> 01:21:38,160
Speaker 1: and have air conditioning, that they were there so called

1519
01:21:38,200 --> 01:21:41,360
Speaker 1: permit temp workers who didn't qualify for full wages or

1520
01:21:41,479 --> 01:21:43,880
Speaker 1: benefits and didn't have a clear path to being hired

1521
01:21:43,920 --> 01:21:46,479
Speaker 1: full time. And in the video it's set on a

1522
01:21:46,479 --> 01:21:49,240
Speaker 1: picket line with a rapper joint striking autoworkers by hoisting

1523
01:21:49,240 --> 01:21:51,120
Speaker 1: the picket signs and mugging with them. On the camera.

1524
01:21:51,240 --> 01:21:53,080
Speaker 1: Let's listen to a little bit of that. We go,

1525
01:21:53,920 --> 01:21:56,599
Speaker 1: so he's better listen. We ain't about to keep working

1526
01:21:56,640 --> 01:22:01,280
Speaker 1: under the terms working like, so get I gotta like

1527
01:22:01,439 --> 01:22:06,360
Speaker 1: it more now the second again, Yeah, actually, because before

1528
01:22:06,479 --> 01:22:10,040
Speaker 1: my my critique of it was I was I was saying,

1529
01:22:10,240 --> 01:22:12,439
Speaker 1: I like the verses, but I don't like the hook

1530
01:22:12,520 --> 01:22:15,160
Speaker 1: or the beat, and I think that it's so simple

1531
01:22:15,240 --> 01:22:18,960
Speaker 1: we're going on strike, and this was just like, this

1532
01:22:19,160 --> 01:22:20,880
Speaker 1: wasn't anything that I was even going to mention, you

1533
01:22:20,920 --> 01:22:22,479
Speaker 1: know what I mean, Like in all honesty, I was

1534
01:22:22,479 --> 01:22:24,959
Speaker 1: just like, oh, that's what I thought, But the sentiment

1535
01:22:25,080 --> 01:22:27,840
Speaker 1: of it is important. So it's like I've kind of

1536
01:22:27,880 --> 01:22:30,360
Speaker 1: let that slide. But just like critiquing it from like

1537
01:22:30,400 --> 01:22:32,960
Speaker 1: my rapper nerd side, I've got like critiques in the song,

1538
01:22:33,040 --> 01:22:36,519
Speaker 1: and I feel that that affects the effectiveness of the

1539
01:22:36,600 --> 01:22:38,880
Speaker 1: message if the song isn't on point. But listening to

1540
01:22:38,920 --> 01:22:41,360
Speaker 1: it just now, I mean that beat, it's kind of hot,

1541
01:22:42,479 --> 01:22:45,439
Speaker 1: like the simplicity of the rhyme schemes, and like it's

1542
01:22:45,439 --> 01:22:49,599
Speaker 1: not super densely like lyrically rhythmically, it doesn't need to be,

1543
01:22:49,600 --> 01:22:52,120
Speaker 1: because like it gets the point. Clock cross really clearly

1544
01:22:52,120 --> 01:22:54,519
Speaker 1: what their demands are. They're working in plant with no

1545
01:22:54,600 --> 01:22:58,320
Speaker 1: air conditioning, these tempts, working like slaves and never get higher.

1546
01:22:58,880 --> 01:23:03,000
Speaker 1: Like it's really like it it comes through crystal clear. What.

1547
01:23:03,479 --> 01:23:05,160
Speaker 1: I don't care whatever your ship is about. I do

1548
01:23:05,280 --> 01:23:07,400
Speaker 1: not like hooks or motherfucker's just say the same thing

1549
01:23:07,439 --> 01:23:09,840
Speaker 1: over and over again. Hey, it's not for me. It's

1550
01:23:09,880 --> 01:23:12,519
Speaker 1: like it's like it's like a protest. It's like a rally, chap.

1551
01:23:12,600 --> 01:23:17,120
Speaker 1: I'm not going on strike. We're going on strike, like

1552
01:23:17,360 --> 01:23:21,400
Speaker 1: just filling the spots. It's more easier to say that

1553
01:23:21,560 --> 01:23:23,240
Speaker 1: ain't no power like the power of the people, because

1554
01:23:23,240 --> 01:23:25,200
Speaker 1: the power of the people don't stop. Like, let's be real,

1555
01:23:25,280 --> 01:23:26,960
Speaker 1: if we were going to go to a picket rally,

1556
01:23:27,280 --> 01:23:31,679
Speaker 1: a picket line like that ship, catchy, that ship say

1557
01:23:31,680 --> 01:23:34,680
Speaker 1: it all day, I feel you. I look, I'm not

1558
01:23:34,840 --> 01:23:37,840
Speaker 1: saying that it's not catchy. I just think there could

1559
01:23:37,840 --> 01:23:39,920
Speaker 1: be more to it. I don't know if there were

1560
01:23:39,920 --> 01:23:42,559
Speaker 1: more to it, would it be as mass appealing. That's

1561
01:23:42,560 --> 01:23:44,760
Speaker 1: a kind of rapule you like ship that it is

1562
01:23:44,760 --> 01:23:46,880
Speaker 1: a little more dense, a little more technical. That's I

1563
01:23:46,920 --> 01:23:50,800
Speaker 1: didn't say anything else. Then that's what I like, all right,

1564
01:23:52,560 --> 01:23:55,200
Speaker 1: So the next example we wanted to talk about was

1565
01:23:56,080 --> 01:24:00,400
Speaker 1: Astbrox Labor, which is almost twenty years old now um

1566
01:24:00,439 --> 01:24:03,439
Speaker 1: asad Rock. It's a hip hop recording artist, a producer

1567
01:24:03,479 --> 01:24:06,320
Speaker 1: who resides in Portland, Oregon. He was at the forefront

1568
01:24:06,320 --> 01:24:08,439
Speaker 1: of a new wave of underground and alternative hip hop

1569
01:24:08,479 --> 01:24:11,719
Speaker 1: accent emerged during the ninety nineties and nine In early

1570
01:24:11,760 --> 01:24:18,559
Speaker 1: two thousand's Thank You Wikipedia Wow this album Labor Day.

1571
01:24:18,640 --> 01:24:20,960
Speaker 1: This is a concept album involving around the life of

1572
01:24:20,960 --> 01:24:23,519
Speaker 1: the working class in the United States. He was one

1573
01:24:23,520 --> 01:24:25,360
Speaker 1: of the best, some would say one of the best

1574
01:24:25,400 --> 01:24:28,719
Speaker 1: albums in hip hop in two thousand one, and rightly

1575
01:24:28,760 --> 01:24:31,360
Speaker 1: regarded as one of the most important records of the deaf.

1576
01:24:31,479 --> 01:24:35,760
Speaker 1: Jux Era was a indie hip hop label early two

1577
01:24:35,760 --> 01:24:38,799
Speaker 1: thousands run by LP and I want to look particularly

1578
01:24:38,840 --> 01:24:40,920
Speaker 1: at the song nine to five is Anthem and which

1579
01:24:40,920 --> 01:24:44,200
Speaker 1: he has this kind of like spoken wordy outro or

1580
01:24:44,280 --> 01:24:47,559
Speaker 1: hook rather um where he says, now we are the

1581
01:24:47,600 --> 01:24:54,200
Speaker 1: American working population hate the fact that hate our job.

1582
01:24:56,920 --> 01:24:59,320
Speaker 1: So like he's got it's kind of like this manifestoe.

1583
01:24:59,680 --> 01:25:04,080
Speaker 1: The the way that the the vocals are layered, it

1584
01:25:04,120 --> 01:25:06,479
Speaker 1: sounds like a like a like a like a chance,

1585
01:25:06,520 --> 01:25:09,840
Speaker 1: Like there's like many voices coming together to proclaim this,

1586
01:25:10,040 --> 01:25:12,960
Speaker 1: like we the American working population hate the nine to

1587
01:25:13,040 --> 01:25:14,879
Speaker 1: five day and day out, and we'd rather be supporting

1588
01:25:14,880 --> 01:25:17,000
Speaker 1: ourselves by being paid to perfect the past times that

1589
01:25:17,000 --> 01:25:18,519
Speaker 1: we have harv but based solely on the fact that

1590
01:25:18,520 --> 01:25:21,160
Speaker 1: it makes a smile and it sounds dope, which I've

1591
01:25:21,160 --> 01:25:23,280
Speaker 1: always loved. I've always loved that line. I mean, that's

1592
01:25:23,320 --> 01:25:26,360
Speaker 1: pretty much is that's that's that's the thing right there,

1593
01:25:26,800 --> 01:25:30,160
Speaker 1: that is that is like, that is the hip hop

1594
01:25:30,280 --> 01:25:35,080
Speaker 1: relationship with the work I think right there, although you know,

1595
01:25:35,200 --> 01:25:37,840
Speaker 1: going back to my last critique, I think that he

1596
01:25:37,880 --> 01:25:41,200
Speaker 1: could with that hook could use a little bit of

1597
01:25:41,280 --> 01:25:49,599
Speaker 1: the simplicity, Yeah, simplicity of going on a little bit

1598
01:25:50,680 --> 01:25:52,599
Speaker 1: to get in the studio. Yeah, we need to link

1599
01:25:52,680 --> 01:25:56,320
Speaker 1: these two and they need to make the BA strike

1600
01:25:56,439 --> 01:26:00,719
Speaker 1: protest working. Yeah. Yeah. And then he has this interesting

1601
01:26:00,720 --> 01:26:04,280
Speaker 1: critique of like of the working class and how they

1602
01:26:04,320 --> 01:26:07,040
Speaker 1: get sucked into the prison, the how they get sucked

1603
01:26:07,040 --> 01:26:10,519
Speaker 1: into the military industrial complex. In the second verse, he says,

1604
01:26:10,840 --> 01:26:12,960
Speaker 1: it's the year the land shark, dry, sand parched down.

1605
01:26:13,000 --> 01:26:14,840
Speaker 1: Get these men some water. They're out here being slaughtered,

1606
01:26:14,840 --> 01:26:16,200
Speaker 1: and the meaning its war, so you don't have to

1607
01:26:16,240 --> 01:26:17,960
Speaker 1: bother so you can sit and soak the idiot box

1608
01:26:18,000 --> 01:26:21,320
Speaker 1: trying to funk their dollars. So it's like this relationship

1609
01:26:21,320 --> 01:26:22,680
Speaker 1: between the people at the top and the people at

1610
01:26:22,680 --> 01:26:26,559
Speaker 1: the bottom, where we have these generals, these politicians, these

1611
01:26:26,920 --> 01:26:29,519
Speaker 1: folks that like fucking Raytheon or whatever, that are getting

1612
01:26:29,520 --> 01:26:32,479
Speaker 1: all the money for war, and then these working class

1613
01:26:32,479 --> 01:26:34,479
Speaker 1: folks that are getting sucked into it so that they

1614
01:26:34,520 --> 01:26:36,439
Speaker 1: can send and soak the idiot box and trying to

1615
01:26:36,439 --> 01:26:40,920
Speaker 1: sunk their dollars. I was interesting. The whole album though

1616
01:26:40,960 --> 01:26:45,040
Speaker 1: in general, like has like the theme of Yeah. One

1617
01:26:45,120 --> 01:26:47,360
Speaker 1: quick thing though that I think is so that I

1618
01:26:47,400 --> 01:26:50,519
Speaker 1: wanted to mention for heads that maybe didn't notice this

1619
01:26:50,640 --> 01:26:55,280
Speaker 1: for the outro samples Dolly's Partners nine to five, Yeah,

1620
01:26:55,880 --> 01:26:58,559
Speaker 1: cup of Ambition and yawn, It's runch and my life

1621
01:26:58,600 --> 01:27:01,320
Speaker 1: is a medicine anyway. Another thing. I never knew that

1622
01:27:01,360 --> 01:27:04,799
Speaker 1: before I looked at it recently. The thing is my mom,

1623
01:27:04,800 --> 01:27:08,520
Speaker 1: who is the weirdest thing, like born and raised in Liberia,

1624
01:27:10,040 --> 01:27:14,040
Speaker 1: huge country music fan, like like old country, like Conway

1625
01:27:14,080 --> 01:27:16,880
Speaker 1: Twitty ship like that, you know what I'm saying, Like

1626
01:27:16,880 --> 01:27:18,800
Speaker 1: like she and she got into it while living in

1627
01:27:19,080 --> 01:27:23,719
Speaker 1: living Yeah, like so growing up, I've heard the song

1628
01:27:23,880 --> 01:27:27,160
Speaker 1: nine to five like a million times. I didn't even notice.

1629
01:27:27,240 --> 01:27:30,400
Speaker 1: That's like a perfect sample for the song because she's

1630
01:27:30,439 --> 01:27:33,840
Speaker 1: pretty much on the same themes that he is. All Right,

1631
01:27:33,920 --> 01:27:36,879
Speaker 1: well that's it for us today. Thank you for listening,

1632
01:27:37,080 --> 01:27:40,519
Speaker 1: and please go watch Irony's show, The Black Athenians. It's

1633
01:27:40,520 --> 01:27:43,960
Speaker 1: on YouTube live every Friday, I think like four or

1634
01:27:44,000 --> 01:27:46,559
Speaker 1: five pm. And yeah, I think we should end this

1635
01:27:46,640 --> 01:27:56,880
Speaker 1: the way we end everything. Let's wrap Huh going on strike?

1636
01:27:56,960 --> 01:28:04,080
Speaker 1: What what shout out to go on strike? Going on strike?

1637
01:28:04,200 --> 01:28:10,160
Speaker 1: Hey st Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're going on Yeah. I'm

1638
01:28:10,160 --> 01:28:12,719
Speaker 1: representing for my neighbors and all the other people trying

1639
01:28:12,720 --> 01:28:15,120
Speaker 1: to get that paper. All the late birth that we

1640
01:28:15,240 --> 01:28:17,640
Speaker 1: get to our employeers is really really getting kind of

1641
01:28:17,640 --> 01:28:19,920
Speaker 1: motherfucking annoying, and I'm geting kind of over it. I

1642
01:28:20,040 --> 01:28:22,000
Speaker 1: need to get a lawyer. I need to bury these

1643
01:28:22,000 --> 01:28:24,479
Speaker 1: employers I love in the soil because I'm tired of it.

1644
01:28:24,520 --> 01:28:26,840
Speaker 1: I need to get strike it. Other people know that

1645
01:28:26,880 --> 01:28:28,840
Speaker 1: we'll be striking lights some light lights and lighting and

1646
01:28:28,920 --> 01:28:30,959
Speaker 1: you know what's about to go and hear the huge surprise.

1647
01:28:31,040 --> 01:28:33,680
Speaker 1: I need to tell everybody going union noise. You need

1648
01:28:33,760 --> 01:28:35,880
Speaker 1: to go and just get up and harp again. Then

1649
01:28:35,960 --> 01:28:38,599
Speaker 1: you need to go and make collective bargainness. You could

1650
01:28:38,640 --> 01:28:41,200
Speaker 1: get a huge new contracting if they want to let

1651
01:28:41,240 --> 01:28:43,280
Speaker 1: you down lay your moll flat because you don't want

1652
01:28:43,320 --> 01:28:46,280
Speaker 1: a regular job. Don't want that. We're just screaming at

1653
01:28:46,320 --> 01:28:49,040
Speaker 1: the sky like a tom cat, skipping up the sky

1654
01:28:49,160 --> 01:28:51,719
Speaker 1: like a tomcat. I'm up the picket line asking where

1655
01:28:51,720 --> 01:28:55,040
Speaker 1: my mom's Everybody come here. We're about to be bombast,

1656
01:28:55,080 --> 01:28:57,280
Speaker 1: about to have those bomb blast against the employers that

1657
01:28:57,320 --> 01:28:59,560
Speaker 1: don't have that contract in my fucking name with the

1658
01:28:59,640 --> 01:29:01,479
Speaker 1: pen on the paper. Yet this ship might be so

1659
01:29:07,840 --> 01:29:11,080
Speaker 1: we are waiting on reparations. We got one Cosby on

1660
01:29:11,120 --> 01:29:12,880
Speaker 1: the beats. He did the beats for this episode to

1661
01:29:13,240 --> 01:29:18,280
Speaker 1: check them out. Um see you guys next week. Waiting

1662
01:29:18,280 --> 01:29:21,800
Speaker 1: on Reparations as a production of I Heart Radio. Listen

1663
01:29:21,840 --> 01:29:24,479
Speaker 1: to Waiting on Reparations on the I Heart Radio app,

1664
01:29:24,680 --> 01:29:27,280
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.