Speaker 1: You are listening to you waiting on reparations at production
Speaker 1: of My Heart Radio. Somebody helped me. I'm depressed because
Speaker 1: when Daddy gets to try to plant and sends it's
Speaker 1: all the way to holiday and then exotic plates always
Speaker 1: in the blowing lines, doesn't any kid? And Marla Candon
Speaker 1: Planet ended all the rays of places. I'm probably not okay,
Speaker 1: cart but not restating the far away from where the
Speaker 1: Hiltons live and the headling Bill the crabs butter because
Speaker 1: my will to live is minimal. Should gold the twenty
Speaker 1: six years old? Isn't it pitiful? But because just truly
Speaker 1: the cruel squiler, if you did it right, could at
Speaker 1: truth to be something beautiful. I don't have nothing this week,
Speaker 1: yo yo, I just I just want to spit though,
Speaker 1: make you feel ship walking in my big black boots.
Speaker 1: That's the steel tip was a wooden puppet. I just
Speaker 1: want to be a real kid or whatever. As long
Speaker 1: as I boy being and Neil lived like Neil did,
Speaker 1: I'll be moving faster than you see. You don't know
Speaker 1: if his computers are a master in my cheek. Keep
Speaker 1: guessing I'll be sweating like the pastor when he preached
Speaker 1: and got him pay attention like his I'm a teacher.
Speaker 1: Now you kids, don't pass or I'll whip your at
Speaker 1: and know my white friends sack because the crypto crash.
Speaker 1: All right, dad, Hey, what's good? What's good? People? I'm
Speaker 1: dope knife lingua franca. We are waiting on reparations. Man, Harry,
Speaker 1: that ship up, so it's good with you, yo? Nothing.
Speaker 1: I mean I heard there's some wild ship going up
Speaker 1: in Athlete. So I think I've spoken in recent episodes
Speaker 1: about the uptick and gun violence. He had a recent shooting.
Speaker 1: I may have referenced that suspect it's fifteen years old.
Speaker 1: I suspected who have killed a thirty eight year old
Speaker 1: man with an a R fifteen. Um, I'm getting calls
Speaker 1: like every day from people who like mothers whose houses
Speaker 1: got shot up in them and their seven kids are
Speaker 1: now homeless as they're seeking to move somewhere safer. And
Speaker 1: then Sunday, UM, I got a uh. It was informed
Speaker 1: that there was a an attempted robbery at a local
Speaker 1: pool UM the like a splash pad like aquatic recreational
Speaker 1: facility UM about a ten minute walk from my house.
Speaker 1: UM where a guy showed up with a rifle and
Speaker 1: trying to steal the cash box and then upon leaving
Speaker 1: h car jack someone at gunpoint. Um. And then when
Speaker 1: the police arrived, um, they shot him. They shot him
Speaker 1: to death. And so that is like that all transpired
Speaker 1: in the park where I walk every day, UM, Sunday
Speaker 1: and so. And you know, I've been speaking with people
Speaker 1: who work in the like with the homeless community also
Speaker 1: very near my house. They believe this man may have
Speaker 1: been a part of that community. Um. Um his he
Speaker 1: went by, his name has been released, but he but
Speaker 1: but in the like a homeless community, like he went
Speaker 1: by like a um, like a moniker. Until they're trying
Speaker 1: to confirm that this was the person they think it
Speaker 1: was because they haven't they hadn't seen this guy around,
Speaker 1: you know, he wasn't around yesterday. They won't really where
Speaker 1: is he? And so um you know, I I uh
Speaker 1: kind of issued a statement about the situation. UM. You know,
Speaker 1: there's two ways to answer the question did this have
Speaker 1: to happen? And if you look at the facts of
Speaker 1: the immediate context that he was armed with the rifle
Speaker 1: that he you know, assaulted several people, um and had
Speaker 1: a standoff with the police, the short answer would be yes,
Speaker 1: if you look at the fact that he may have
Speaker 1: been homeless, and you know, look at all of the
Speaker 1: all of the things in his life that led him
Speaker 1: to that point that he's gonna rob the cash box
Speaker 1: from a children's like uh like uh, pool and steal
Speaker 1: a car like you know, you're not living your best
Speaker 1: life if you got to that point, and that everything
Speaker 1: every support he may have had or lacked is a
Speaker 1: matter of public policy, like you know, And any opportunity
Speaker 1: he may have had her lacked, any stability he may
Speaker 1: have had her lacked, are all choices that governments make.
Speaker 1: And imagine it's going to be pretty hard for them
Speaker 1: to put together exactly what what when we're wrong. And
Speaker 1: that's really a broader policy prescription that I've argued previously
Speaker 1: for and I feel like I'm or just from this
Speaker 1: scenario as well, is that we do not have a
Speaker 1: comprehensive system of reporting on collecting information about the folks
Speaker 1: that end up in our jails or end up interacting
Speaker 1: in the criminal justice system, about the life circumstances that
Speaker 1: brought them to the point of criminal activity. And imagine
Speaker 1: what we could do with that information if we had
Speaker 1: a quantifiable if we had a database of like, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, interviews with every person that ends up getting
Speaker 1: picked up by the cops and so is sitting in
Speaker 1: jail and and say, huh, we have a remarkable pattern
Speaker 1: of people that dropped out of high school, or of
Speaker 1: people that had substant abuse issues, or people that were homeless,
Speaker 1: like and could like use that data to say maybe
Speaker 1: we should invest in house thing so that yeah, you're
Speaker 1: stopping for you even get to that point. And so
Speaker 1: I've just had that. Really it's been waiting on me
Speaker 1: a lot, and and then and it comes and it
Speaker 1: actually comes to them. It brings us to the topic
Speaker 1: of this episode. UM interview that I did a few
Speaker 1: weeks ago with my friend and journalist and writer pal
Speaker 1: Matt Polver, we talked about neoliberalism and the fact that
Speaker 1: every like every other part of the social safety net
Speaker 1: underneoliberalism gets the ax, housing gets the accent. You know,
Speaker 1: um uh, well, you know the various for benefit programs
Speaker 1: is up for grabs, up for privatization, except or and
Speaker 1: even not even except and even um uh security forces.
Speaker 1: You know that that that's that's the last standing I
Speaker 1: guess social safety net, if you game call it that
Speaker 1: safety net for so long though, does it even necessarily
Speaker 1: qualify as the safety net anymore? And so fucking tight rope. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like thinking that it's it's tight together like band
Speaker 1: aid bandages, right right right? Yeah? And so I, um,
Speaker 1: you know, everyone thinks I'm a compaiter and stuff, and
Speaker 1: that might you know, be accurate sometimes, but in this
Speaker 1: regular scenario, going back to the scenario, this dude, I
Speaker 1: feel I feel terrible for the police officer that had
Speaker 1: to shoot this man. Are unraveling of a social safety
Speaker 1: net put him in the position where he had to
Speaker 1: kill someone. Like no, but I don't want that for anybody.
Speaker 1: Then I'd of doubt they want that for themselves. And
Speaker 1: so um. In this episode we kind of talk about
Speaker 1: the the like what neoliberalism is, how we see it
Speaker 1: manifest particularly in Atlanta and in Atlanta hip hop and
Speaker 1: so um, I'm just also reflecting, uh, the last couple
Speaker 1: of days on how we're seeing it here in Athens,
Speaker 1: how we see that, how we see it everywhere, um,
Speaker 1: and and how it directly impacts you know, you think
Speaker 1: very sister systemically about you know, these systems of power
Speaker 1: and like capital, etcetera. But like the way it impacted
Speaker 1: what man's life that ended on Sunday because he was
Speaker 1: so desperate he stole forty bucks out of a cash
Speaker 1: box at a children's playground. Yeah, and it's like nobody,
Speaker 1: nobody really is going to ever get to know, like
Speaker 1: what his full story was. No, no one will ever
Speaker 1: know his his whole story. I doubt that you know, GB.
Speaker 1: I will do an investigation determined, the Georgia Verreau Investigation
Speaker 1: will do an investigation determined the shooting was justified to
Speaker 1: close the book on it and walk away, because context,
Speaker 1: like the idea of like, oh, the context of which
Speaker 1: this thing happened is so limited to like the the
Speaker 1: the immediate contacts and what happened, and and loses all
Speaker 1: of the full context that actually explains both why it
Speaker 1: happened and how it could be prevented. So well, ladies
Speaker 1: and gentlemen, we're going to be back with that interview
Speaker 1: with Matt Polver right after the jump. So we are
Speaker 1: here with uh Matt pulverum a writer that's based here
Speaker 1: in Athens, Georgia. Um. So not thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1: Tell us a little bit about who you are, Matt Pulver.
Speaker 1: I'm a writer and UH researcher here in Athens, Georgia.
Speaker 1: I'm happy to have you on here. UM. I've loved
Speaker 1: a lot of the work that you've done, both on
Speaker 1: you know, local pieces of history, but then particularly this
Speaker 1: piece UM you wrote in two Douz sixteen I believe
Speaker 1: UM Empire State of the South, UM, which talks a
Speaker 1: little bit about neoliberalism, talks a lot about neoliberalism and
Speaker 1: the ways that it's impacted in Lennon hip Hop and
Speaker 1: so usually on the show we look at specific pieces
Speaker 1: of policy, housing policy, policing, labor, but this week we're
Speaker 1: gonna be looking at sort of a bundle of policy
Speaker 1: choices made under the common framework of neo liberals liberalism.
Speaker 1: And how have you seen that impact Atlanta and then
Speaker 1: UM consequently consequently UM Atlanta and hip Hop. But to
Speaker 1: start out to make sure we and our listeners are
Speaker 1: beginning from a similar foundation, let's talk about what neoliberalism
Speaker 1: is before discussing some of its manifestation manifestations in the
Speaker 1: city Atlanta. So, how would you define neoliberalism? Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm okay, so neo liberalism, what ner? What neoliberalism isn't
Speaker 1: uh for me? Is UM new liberalism, like liberal like
Speaker 1: the way in the States we talked about you know,
Speaker 1: the Democrats are liberals and and and the neoliberal would
Speaker 1: be just like a new liberal right the way to
Speaker 1: the segment the words you would just be like oh sure,
Speaker 1: like if you are new and you are to the left.
Speaker 1: Actually more specific than that, confusingly, it's it's a conservative
Speaker 1: raft of policies. I mean it's it's basically, you know,
Speaker 1: it's hyper capitalism. Um. You know, it's liberal liberalism in
Speaker 1: the in the old school uh sense, the more sort
Speaker 1: of European sense of the word, where you know, the
Speaker 1: liberalization of of markets, um, making basically the extension of
Speaker 1: of of capitalist logic two virtually anything and everything. So
Speaker 1: typically how I think about it, you know, in the
Speaker 1: last thirty years, you can think of it as maybe
Speaker 1: like you know, Reaganomics or or Faturism, um that didn't
Speaker 1: gets adopted by uh liberals so called you know the
Speaker 1: Clinton I sort of democratic party, but it begins, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a conservative project. It's you know, it's uh, it's
Speaker 1: the encroaching or or the sort of the devouring of
Speaker 1: the nation state and the functions of the nation state
Speaker 1: by capital. So you know what does that mean. It
Speaker 1: means like you know, privatizing uh in fort rupture privately
Speaker 1: you know, water, privatizing education, public housing. UM, it's the
Speaker 1: you know, ultimately what it is is sort of the
Speaker 1: erasure or at least the dinution of national sovereignty, uh
Speaker 1: at the behest of of you know, globalized capital um,
Speaker 1: you know, after neo liberalism. Mean you know, so so
Speaker 1: what you know does two things you know, sort of
Speaker 1: inside the country. What it does is it it's it's
Speaker 1: Welfairer form under Clinton. It's it's attempts to privatize education,
Speaker 1: privatized infrastructure, privatized prisons, private size, privatize the military, all
Speaker 1: these big uh huge federal outlays that that investors look at,
Speaker 1: uh all the you know the world overlook at and
Speaker 1: and just you know, lick their chops that you know,
Speaker 1: there's so much money to be made if you if
Speaker 1: you made every student a a customer basically, So you
Speaker 1: do that sort of internally and then externally sort of
Speaker 1: on the global scale, you now have uh multinational you
Speaker 1: know or even sort of post national sort of corporate
Speaker 1: entities and banks and flows a capital that uh that
Speaker 1: that override national sovereignty, you know, so then you have
Speaker 1: things like the NAFTA zone, and then you had you know,
Speaker 1: the Transpacific Partnership that was you know scuttled, but you know,
Speaker 1: we'll probably come back in some form. Uh. But but yeah,
Speaker 1: but simply it's it's it's the shrinking of government, um
Speaker 1: and the sort of the ultimate devouring of government. And
Speaker 1: it's and it's uh, you know, and it's actions by capital.
Speaker 1: It's hyper capitalism to put it, to put it in
Speaker 1: a sort of a word. And so if yeah, totally,
Speaker 1: totally And in the piece you talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about how, for example, with like free enterprise zones, which
Speaker 1: um Clinton I Democrats termed empowerment zones to kind of
Speaker 1: give it more by fire, sup by in and it
Speaker 1: sometimes has the sheen of like, oh, expanding liberties, giving
Speaker 1: people more options, lifting people up by like giving more
Speaker 1: people access to markets, when really it's it seems like
Speaker 1: it's giving markets more control over human lives than um
Speaker 1: than like enduring you know, uh, ensuring rights through how
Speaker 1: like strong strong forms of government, right, because I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, you know, capital is not beholden to you know,
Speaker 1: say what you want about about the state of you know,
Speaker 1: American democracy and the ability to to alter its course.
Speaker 1: You know, citizens, Uh, there's still an avenue for that.
Speaker 1: Capital doesn't doesn't have to give two ships about you
Speaker 1: and doesn't you know. So it's it's a it's an
Speaker 1: entirely different arrangement, um when you when you invite capital
Speaker 1: and to be uh more and more the sort of
Speaker 1: the sole arbiter of people's fates. That's you know, where
Speaker 1: they have no say whatsoever, you know in the end. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So in your in your PSU, you say that, um,
Speaker 1: neoliberal globalization doesn't make the many nations into one, but
Speaker 1: each into many, which I found really interesting because by
Speaker 1: the definition just gave it sounds like, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: it's with like NAFTA or like TPP like globalization. It's
Speaker 1: like you know, raising borders making us all uh citizens
Speaker 1: of this one global like community. So can you talk
Speaker 1: us a little bit about this idea of actually the
Speaker 1: way that neal liberal neoliberal globalization sort of creates more
Speaker 1: borders and because further fragments and segments society in certain ways. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I think this is I feel like this
Speaker 1: is an under studied, under analyzed uh component of of
Speaker 1: neoliberal globalization because yeah, I mean I think we have
Speaker 1: this sort of you know John Lennon utopia is sort
Speaker 1: of in our minds. Uh yeah, yeah right. And it
Speaker 1: does do that. I mean, it does connect you know
Speaker 1: that it does connect London to New York, to Rio
Speaker 1: to Beijing. There are nodes um of capital that do
Speaker 1: exist in in in a large sort of global apparatus
Speaker 1: or or a network. You know that that is real
Speaker 1: um and and it and it does erase um the
Speaker 1: the power of borders in a lot of ways, especially
Speaker 1: for capital, not not not for people, um, ask anybody
Speaker 1: on the southern border of this country. But um. But
Speaker 1: it it either you might think of it as a
Speaker 1: sort of replacing or moving the those sort of earthtwhile
Speaker 1: national borders um into into the nation state itself. So
Speaker 1: um it starts to bisects and segment um nation states
Speaker 1: that that used to be more whole or unitary um.
Speaker 1: While simultaneously connecting um nodes of of capital power metropolis
Speaker 1: is you know uh uh and and the various sort
Speaker 1: of capital flows and supply chains. You know it does.
Speaker 1: There is this connecting of the world, but then also
Speaker 1: this simultaneous um dividing of of you know, cities and
Speaker 1: and and cities from rural areas. Um. You know, there's
Speaker 1: a oh God, I forgive his name, but there's a
Speaker 1: there's a British thinker who or writer who has this
Speaker 1: conception of of the anywheres in the sumwhares then anywhere
Speaker 1: is are sort of the cosmopolitans um who you know
Speaker 1: might live in or near a big metropolis in the
Speaker 1: States or or anywhere across the world, and they are
Speaker 1: in a way more connected to each other than they
Speaker 1: are to their um sort of countrymen, for lack of
Speaker 1: a better way of saying, fellow citizens. UM. And I
Speaker 1: think that's uh, that's honestly, I think that's that's how
Speaker 1: we partially diagnosed the political crisis here in the States
Speaker 1: and in Britain, Brexit, uh, India, you know, all over
Speaker 1: the world, these you know, these anywhere's, these sort of
Speaker 1: people who um are um you know, engaged in you know,
Speaker 1: the knowledge economy and can sort of could could easily
Speaker 1: plug themselves into London or Beijing or or Lapoor or someplace,
Speaker 1: and and the somewheeres who who are who are still
Speaker 1: rooted in place, um in anyway. And so in Atlanta,
Speaker 1: we we you know, we see m UM, especially during
Speaker 1: the nineties, we see a heightened a manifestation of this
Speaker 1: where you see these UM borders that are that are
Speaker 1: increasingly determinative, you know, of of of someone's fates or
Speaker 1: people's fates UM inside the old nation state. If that,
Speaker 1: if that, if that makes any sense. Yeah, let's get
Speaker 1: into specifically how we see this manifest physically and like
Speaker 1: the geography of Atlanta, perhaps starting off with thinking around
Speaker 1: UM like housing policy. UM. So in the piece, you
Speaker 1: speak a little bit about back when they were preparing
Speaker 1: for the Olympic Games, uh, things they needed to make
Speaker 1: the city look nice for all those influx of people
Speaker 1: that were coming, and what some of the impacts were
Speaker 1: on what that then meant for the way in the
Speaker 1: city got redeveloped UM in that time. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it's Atlanta provides a really interesting way to look at,
Speaker 1: you know, the twentieth century where you have in FDR
Speaker 1: comes to Atlanta to commemorate Techwood Homes right there in
Speaker 1: the in the middle of Atlanta at the first public
Speaker 1: housing for for Atlanta and white white Americans at the
Speaker 1: time UM and then in UM Techwood Homes becomes the
Speaker 1: first public housing uh project demolished by the City of
Speaker 1: Atlanta on their way to demolishing all all public housing
Speaker 1: stock in the city of Atlanta. Atlanta becomes the first
Speaker 1: major American city two demolish all housing UM to pursue
Speaker 1: uh what you know, to replace it with what they
Speaker 1: called a diversified real estate company. The head of the
Speaker 1: U Atlanta Housing at Thorne talked about uh connecting the
Speaker 1: projects with quote the world of modern real estate, capital
Speaker 1: and finance, UM, privatizing thing basically or semi privatizing, right exactly,
Speaker 1: the idea of like with like empowerment. So I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: we're modernizing, you know they of Atlanta. It sounds so
Speaker 1: like like grand and like uplifting in a certain sense.
Speaker 1: But it's like, who was it lifting ultimately living capital?
Speaker 1: It's not it's not really like looking at the people
Speaker 1: are living in these homes, etcetera. Yeah, I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a it's a pretty story that they
Speaker 1: can they can tell UM. But I mean if you look,
Speaker 1: if you look at where you know tech what Holmes
Speaker 1: used to be, Uh, it was right smack dab there
Speaker 1: next to Georgia Tech, right where Centennial Park is right
Speaker 1: against the edge of it. Uh that was just fantastically
Speaker 1: valuable real estate that was right in the middle of
Speaker 1: of their little Olympic stuff they wanted to do. Uh.
Speaker 1: It was also uh you know, it's where uh poor
Speaker 1: folks lived. And then they didn't They wanted to, you know,
Speaker 1: get the city all gussied up for for their little
Speaker 1: twirl on the international stage. So it served these you know,
Speaker 1: these multiple purposes. We get get rid of those uh
Speaker 1: that blight of of of the poor people who have
Speaker 1: been left behind by the city. Um, and also clear
Speaker 1: the way for for capital. Um also turns it turns
Speaker 1: each of those public housing residents into you know, they
Speaker 1: either get a voucher or just have to make it
Speaker 1: on their own. And it turns into uh profit bearing
Speaker 1: customers now and and and listen, no one saying that
Speaker 1: that the the twentieth century public housing model was perfect. Um.
Speaker 1: There were certainly things that probably you know, they needed
Speaker 1: to be done, but uh, you know it was. I
Speaker 1: think it's honestly its best to think of it. It's
Speaker 1: like urban renewal. It's the there's no less there's no
Speaker 1: less trauma in demolishing every single home of people in
Speaker 1: public housing in Atlanta. That's no less traumatic than than
Speaker 1: what happened in the you know, forties fifty sixties during
Speaker 1: urban renewal. Um. It's it was actually perhaps even on
Speaker 1: a larger scale. Yeah. I mean, you say what you
Speaker 1: want about public housing and like its quality and what
Speaker 1: um having these condensed pockets of poverty than me and
Speaker 1: for the quality of life people living there with regards
Speaker 1: to crime, etcetera, qualities of schools, But like displacing those
Speaker 1: folks and mass it's certainly gonna be traumatic, no matter
Speaker 1: no matter how well they're living where they are. For sure. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean because it's not it's not done. The residents
Speaker 1: are not the ones with agency. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's one thing. If you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: a it's done from above, just like urban renewal was.
Speaker 1: You know, there have been renewal that that bill uh
Speaker 1: a lot of those projects. Um returned again and said,
Speaker 1: you know, like you know, we need this land over here. UM,
Speaker 1: so here, we're gonna put you all over We're gonna
Speaker 1: take your houses, uh, knock them down, burn them down,
Speaker 1: put you in this public housing over here. Fifty years later,
Speaker 1: Oh no, we need that land over there. We need
Speaker 1: that public housing land. Sorry about that. We're gonna push
Speaker 1: you out, you know, and now give you Section A
Speaker 1: vouchers or whatever, and uh, good fucking luck. Like they did.
Speaker 1: They didn't, they didn't track anybody they you know, for years.
Speaker 1: I used to I talked to some researcher at Georgia
Speaker 1: State back when I was writing this and you know,
Speaker 1: and asked, does anybody know where those people ended up? No,
Speaker 1: because that wasn't that wasn't even an afterthought. They don't care.
Speaker 1: They needed the length and then and they needed those
Speaker 1: folks out of the way until they did it, you know, period.
Speaker 1: That that's what happened. So how do we see the
Speaker 1: impacts of particularly neo liberal housing policy manifest like in
Speaker 1: hip hop music from Atlanta as particularly in the PC
Speaker 1: speak about a number of music videos that, like in
Speaker 1: the visuals that are presented kind of tell the tell
Speaker 1: the story of of um of a lot of the
Speaker 1: impacts of policies such as these. Yeah, I mean, you
Speaker 1: know you'll see it in in in visuals um where
Speaker 1: you have, you know, because when you what you end
Speaker 1: up with are these little, you know, smaller and smaller
Speaker 1: sort of pockets of you know, especially as the sort
Speaker 1: of the wealthy infill has happened in cities like Atlanta,
Speaker 1: where everybody's come back in the upperly mobile, you know,
Speaker 1: folks have come back in and throwing their weight around.
Speaker 1: You have these you know, smaller and smaller pockets of
Speaker 1: intense wealth and intense poverty, and they're sort of, you know,
Speaker 1: very close to each other. It's it's very um uh
Speaker 1: a sort of a chaotic patch work of you know
Speaker 1: of of and you see it also in places like Detroit. Um.
Speaker 1: I think Danny Brown, Detroit rapper uh has wrapped about this. Um.
Speaker 1: Is this a song called like field House, I think.
Speaker 1: And it's like field field House house House, field House
Speaker 1: field that Nika muff Thick like where you know where
Speaker 1: there's fields where they used to be houses and and
Speaker 1: it's just this um, it's this sort of Mike grow
Speaker 1: rearrangement of the geography. UM. When it's when it's when
Speaker 1: it's not macro, but like you know, it's it's it's
Speaker 1: very it's strange there. You know, there their walls in
Speaker 1: between like um, you know really really uh upscale condos
Speaker 1: and like Edgewood and then like affection eight housing separated
Speaker 1: by this like big you know, border wall sort of
Speaker 1: thing with cameras and and you know, spikes or whatever. Um.
Speaker 1: And and then and then you have rappers who who
Speaker 1: grew up uh you know, in the in the projects
Speaker 1: and those those were their homes. And you know, so
Speaker 1: there's a there was a rapper pill. There is a
Speaker 1: rapper pill Um not as big as he was a
Speaker 1: few years ago. He was with Killer Mike for a
Speaker 1: little while and I think may back music and um,
Speaker 1: you know, he he talks a lot about that, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean he he speaks on that that utter powerless,
Speaker 1: the people struggle to the streets, sent them calling them
Speaker 1: hall that got out the people preaching column of phone
Speaker 1: of calling a place home but you know, and not
Speaker 1: the not the best home in the world, but it
Speaker 1: was it was your home. You you know, you live
Speaker 1: your life. You you you know, I mean you just
Speaker 1: have that to have that taken from you, um and
Speaker 1: on mass you know, with with no with no with
Speaker 1: no argument or agency on your on your part. Um.
Speaker 1: So yeah, pill is a is a rapper talked a
Speaker 1: lot about that. Um. There's been some others um, you know,
Speaker 1: and and you know it could be argued, and I can't. Um.
Speaker 1: It could be argued that, you know, the stuff you
Speaker 1: see by the end of the nineties plase thousands in
Speaker 1: Atlanta hip hop um sort of reflects this darker mood. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, like by the time you get to like
Speaker 1: outcast Stankonia, UM, it's got a darker, more political vibe.
Speaker 1: UM Killer Mike Uh drops his first album somewhere in
Speaker 1: the early those first years of of of the two
Speaker 1: thousand's UM Goody mob was you know, speaking on some
Speaker 1: of this stuff during the nineties. Um. But if things
Speaker 1: get there's this weird paradox right where you have you know,
Speaker 1: and and thinking more broadly to step to to zoom
Speaker 1: out from from Atlanta during the nineties, Uh, when Atlanta
Speaker 1: is experimenting with this hyper capitalism. More broadly, you have
Speaker 1: this uh sort of capitalist triumphalism. Right, that's the end
Speaker 1: of the Cold War. Communism has been vanquished, and so
Speaker 1: in the political elite you have this this I mean,
Speaker 1: they're they're fucking giddy. It's this this triumphalism, this imperial
Speaker 1: and capitalistic triumphalist spirit. It's the end of history, right,
Speaker 1: says Fukiyama. UM. But on the on the on society's
Speaker 1: um edges. Let's say, Um, you and certainly in youth
Speaker 1: culture you've across the board, Um you find uh that
Speaker 1: is not shared at all. There's a there's a there's
Speaker 1: there's a sort of a darkness that that is, I
Speaker 1: would argue recognized by uh youth culture broadly her hip
Speaker 1: hop for sure. UM, that's saying, you know, things aren't
Speaker 1: so sweet, right, I mean like Clinton is is printing
Speaker 1: about you know, with the with you know, the the
Speaker 1: doal is going through the roof, and you know the
Speaker 1: stock market is is incredible. Uh. Um, but you know
Speaker 1: folks like Killer Mike and dead Press and all these
Speaker 1: people that are coming coming around in the into the
Speaker 1: nineties early two thousands or saying Na, she ain't sweet
Speaker 1: like that, like um and and and and I think
Speaker 1: in Atlanta you see that you see a real pronounced
Speaker 1: um case of of this sort of disconnect between the
Speaker 1: elite spirit of of triumphalism and and and capitalism will
Speaker 1: solve everything, markets will solve everything, every social ill um
Speaker 1: and and folks on the bottom or or on the edges,
Speaker 1: however you want to say, are uh providing a counter
Speaker 1: narrative to that. I was thinking about a little bit
Speaker 1: about what the relationship is between because we talked a
Speaker 1: little bit about like the way impacts geographies and then
Speaker 1: the peace you talk about the way that then geography
Speaker 1: is in Atlanta, it kind of gets split up in
Speaker 1: then in Atlanta, hip hop gets split up into these
Speaker 1: police zones, which is actually something I've I'm familiar with
Speaker 1: through like the uprising last summer and like organizing around
Speaker 1: like where different protests we're gonna be like people talk about,
Speaker 1: Yo're gonna be in Zone wanting only in Zone three,
Speaker 1: like these these like the police states sort of like
Speaker 1: delineating these neighborhoods in a way that actual community a
Speaker 1: sense of community cohesion or like or um or continuity
Speaker 1: of like landscape with regards to like actual physical neighborhoods
Speaker 1: and people living to get there together do um. And
Speaker 1: so I wonder if you could speak some to the
Speaker 1: with the relationship between neoliberalism and like the rise in
Speaker 1: policing in it and yeah, yeah, that's that's a good question. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, the only the only part of the state
Speaker 1: that really survives intact um when when the liberalism makes
Speaker 1: its way in is you know, is is police powers
Speaker 1: is the monopoly on violence. And yeah, I mean it's
Speaker 1: such a it's I mean, we all know if you
Speaker 1: if if you've grown up listening to Atlanta hip hop,
Speaker 1: I mean you know, you know which rappers are from
Speaker 1: which police zone, and so we're it's kind of a
Speaker 1: natural things like Gucci is from Zone six, you know, Like,
Speaker 1: but but what a dystopian fucking geography like you know,
Speaker 1: not like you know, you're not from you know in
Speaker 1: New York. You know you're from uh you know, um,
Speaker 1: Spanish Harlem, you're from bed Sty, You're from you know,
Speaker 1: they at least they they it's got a name. It's a.
Speaker 1: It's a. It's a in Atlanta, it's a. Yeah. The
Speaker 1: it's it's drawn by the power of the police, in
Speaker 1: the jurisdiction of of the police. Um, which is which
Speaker 1: is just so fitting in in in the first you know,
Speaker 1: American neoliberal city. That that would be how geography comes
Speaker 1: to be marked um by police zone. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: free enterprise zones. No, no, I mean, no rapper ever
Speaker 1: you know shouting out free interprise zone. But that's another
Speaker 1: you know, these these strange zones where you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's all about the presence or absence of governmental power
Speaker 1: in in in the various ways that it can manifest,
Speaker 1: whether through you know, regulation and taxation or or or
Speaker 1: or the means of violence or you know, and coercion.
Speaker 1: You know, it's it's it's just, um, it's it's it's
Speaker 1: extremely neoliberal to me. Yeah, and so I guess why
Speaker 1: I hear you're saying what I hear from Like when
Speaker 1: as now thinking about the music through this lens, it's
Speaker 1: like you might hear people talk about the under investment
Speaker 1: in their communities around areas like housing or education, or
Speaker 1: the struggles to get a job because you know, capital
Speaker 1: slowing into the hands of the of of you know,
Speaker 1: elite corporations and not necessarily being channeled from the government
Speaker 1: into communities that need uplift. But the only thing that
Speaker 1: gets left that like the government is funding is the police.
Speaker 1: And so if you you know, fun the police. You've
Speaker 1: got people out here, you have like Rich Holdmy Kwan
Speaker 1: and his music video you reference to the in the East, Um,
Speaker 1: you know, tussling with the cops, because that's the that's
Speaker 1: the last direction that's the left between government and the
Speaker 1: people that people even have under the policy paradigm. Yeah right,
Speaker 1: I mean and yeah, I mean you you know, you
Speaker 1: you end welfare, you you start tearing down people's homes,
Speaker 1: and so people are in more and more precarious states.
Speaker 1: So you know, so the feeling by you know, government
Speaker 1: leaders and the elite is that we well, we need more,
Speaker 1: more cops, more uh, you know, more cells, more, more prisons,
Speaker 1: more you know, um, and and there's and there's never uh,
Speaker 1: there's never a hesitation to to drop money on that. Um.
Speaker 1: But you know, housing, you know, and and and and
Speaker 1: the rest of it, um, you know, is neglected. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's it's sort of the that's the
Speaker 1: last sort of you know, residue of of the state,
Speaker 1: you know, under under increasing neoliberalism. I think and and
Speaker 1: and Supercommandante marcos Um, the Tapatista spokesman. Yeah, I didn't
Speaker 1: know about this until I read to a piece and
Speaker 1: I was like, Yo, that's crazy, that's super cool. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I talked to something about like their reaction to some
Speaker 1: newliberal policies. I guess it was in the early nineties. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so so they yeah, so they they kick off their
Speaker 1: rebellion against the Mexican state and on January one the
Speaker 1: day that NAFTA went into effect. Um and Supercommandante Marcos
Speaker 1: was sort of the spokesman for the group and end
Speaker 1: up ended up sort of becoming the for a while.
Speaker 1: They're the sort of the premier voice on on on neoliberalism.
Speaker 1: And as he hypothesizes, Uh, you know what it does
Speaker 1: is that it doesn't It doesn't you know, unite the
Speaker 1: world into into one big, shiny happy place. But you know,
Speaker 1: place starts placing borders, um inside you know, the erstwhile
Speaker 1: nation states and uh and and leaves only the sort
Speaker 1: of the residual power of of the police, and and
Speaker 1: I guess the military, um, but certainly the police, the
Speaker 1: sort of the the internal you know, armed apparatus of
Speaker 1: the state. Um. Yeah, you know Marcos is is helpful, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, to think about, to think through you know,
Speaker 1: what happened in the nineties and and ship was happening now.
Speaker 1: But um, he has some really uh some really good
Speaker 1: insights on on sort of what what happened in that
Speaker 1: really crucial moment of the nineties when basically the entire
Speaker 1: world becomes for the first time in human history, Uh,
Speaker 1: the entire world becomes a a fully capitalist space. Um.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I can't say enyhing about Marcos. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I feel like I hear echoes in that, like they
Speaker 1: were rising up in their own way. And then you've
Speaker 1: got like Killer Mike um who in Reagan and other
Speaker 1: songs kind of talked about like rebelling against the state,
Speaker 1: like being surveilled, being under this constant valence um and
Speaker 1: having to like kind of fight back like you know,
Speaker 1: who's that people in my window strapped, etcetera. Uh, perhaps
Speaker 1: not through as like crystallized of you or like as
Speaker 1: you know, with that like sort of the clarity of
Speaker 1: framework of like Howell and things have come together to
Speaker 1: create the situation, but still the same sort of like
Speaker 1: e those of like no man they say, right and
Speaker 1: like I'm gonna fight back. The only have to take
Speaker 1: me a lat yeah right right, yeah, yeah yeah that
Speaker 1: in that surveillance piece to right like um yeah you
Speaker 1: know goody mob has you know, self therapy from sometime
Speaker 1: in the in the mid to late um. You know.
Speaker 1: Then Mike uh sort of interpolates that um and and
Speaker 1: you know, and then you also have in Atlanta you
Speaker 1: have these sort of public private partnerships or or just
Speaker 1: the entrance of capital into policing where you know, they're
Speaker 1: they're just this this proliferation of cameras everywhere, um, private
Speaker 1: you know, but but then they're sort of commandeered by
Speaker 1: the cops UM through various you know, arrangements where you know,
Speaker 1: the cops can and I'm not sure exactly how it happens,
Speaker 1: but they get they can get on the back end
Speaker 1: of private, private sector cameras that the police have access to.
Speaker 1: And so it's this way of like privatization. But but
Speaker 1: as long as the police still have controls and like
Speaker 1: uh are well funded too, like uh take advantage of
Speaker 1: you know, the ways that capital marginalizes effectively. Yeah right, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean yeah, I mean, and like I was saying earlier,
Speaker 1: you know where you have that sort of weird paradox
Speaker 1: of of that triumphalism among the elite and then and
Speaker 1: anger and desperation at the edges you see. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: whether it's Killer Mike or or UM Immortal Technique, Dead Preys,
Speaker 1: most Deaf, you know, all these all these folks Um
Speaker 1: the Roots their album UM and that comes out in
Speaker 1: what maybe two thousand something like that things fall apart,
Speaker 1: you know, everything is I think there's just a either
Speaker 1: a darker tone that that starts to emerge or a
Speaker 1: revolution and you know and and and with folks like
Speaker 1: dead pres and and more technique and people like that,
Speaker 1: I mean a revolutionary Um, a revolutionary stance. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, the pres um and well and our you
Speaker 1: know socialist black nationalists, um, and who provided just you know,
Speaker 1: such such a counter narrative to you know, that Clintonite
Speaker 1: Reaganite again triumphalism, that that that that glorious victory that
Speaker 1: the American empire had had achieved. Yeah. Um. In wrapping up, UM,
Speaker 1: I had one last question. We kind of talked about,
Speaker 1: but when neoliberalism manifest and housing policy with the displacement
Speaker 1: of UH communities in public housing. We talked a little
Speaker 1: bit about the way it feeds into economic development with
Speaker 1: empowerment zones. Talked about the way it's sort of how
Speaker 1: the police stayed ends up being the only thing left
Speaker 1: of the state. UM. As all these things get privatized,
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk a little bit about the privatization
Speaker 1: they attempted privatization of water in Atlanta, because this is
Speaker 1: actually something that most step touches upon someone in New
Speaker 1: World water Off of both sides, UM, so talk to
Speaker 1: us a little bit about that and then UM, uh yeah,
Speaker 1: I might like bring up the song the most step
Speaker 1: song and like kind of related to them. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean yeah, it's it's it's it's it's not as UM,
Speaker 1: it's not as sexy maybe UM as you know, the
Speaker 1: privatization of police or the military or whatever. But you know,
Speaker 1: at at the time when when Mayor Campbell privatizes Atlanta's water,
Speaker 1: it was the largest UH public infrastructure privatization and you
Speaker 1: us history it still might be I'm not I'm not sure,
Speaker 1: but I mean it was. You know, that was one
Speaker 1: of those last frontiers for UM global capital. So you
Speaker 1: know this, this this multinational UH meta national conglomerate Suez
Speaker 1: UH buys this this hefty chunk of Atlanta infrastructure, the
Speaker 1: provision of water UM at the same time that another
Speaker 1: UH big multi national conglomerate had done the same in Bolivia.
Speaker 1: Now in Bolivia it ends up sparking and uprising UH
Speaker 1: in coach Obamba, which then eventually gives us UH abl Morales,
Speaker 1: who as a leader in that in that rebellion, UH
Speaker 1: he was a cocoa farmer union leader, and then becomes
Speaker 1: of course the president, very popular president of of Olivia
Speaker 1: for years after that. But in Atlanta, UM, it's it's
Speaker 1: a it's quieter um it. It goes off without a
Speaker 1: hitch for a while until it hits the fan. Uh
Speaker 1: because because corporations so't hefty business vessing with our water UM,
Speaker 1: and it showed and uh that thing that I mean
Speaker 1: it was only a few years and that plan went
Speaker 1: belly up and in Atlanta had to figure out a
Speaker 1: new way to do it. But uh, yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it's um Like I said, it's it's it's not the
Speaker 1: it's not the sort of sexist it's not of of
Speaker 1: neoliberalisms um conquests. But you gotta think like these are
Speaker 1: these huge apparatus is where you know, at the city, state,
Speaker 1: federal level that that corporations look at and they're thinking,
Speaker 1: you know what, why is this, why is this? Why
Speaker 1: is this being publicly why is this publicly owned? You know? Uh,
Speaker 1: when when we could be making money for investors and shareholders. Well,
Speaker 1: I actually think like the privatization of something is basic.
Speaker 1: It's water is like sexier perhaps even then when we
Speaker 1: talk about privatization of housing or or um channeling government
Speaker 1: funds into um um projects in the private sector around
Speaker 1: economic development. Because water is so basically we can argue,
Speaker 1: like I don't want to have to argue, but I
Speaker 1: will argue someone over whether housing is a human right,
Speaker 1: whether the government has a duty to economically empower people. Oh,
Speaker 1: you literally can't argue that. Like everyone like you need water,
Speaker 1: like you can be without everything else in your life.
Speaker 1: If you don't have water, you cannot live. And so
Speaker 1: like the fact that it's so basic actually makes it
Speaker 1: more insidious and more interesting potentially than like squabbling over
Speaker 1: like well should the public housing, you know, we should
Speaker 1: public housing even exists conversation I don't want to have
Speaker 1: to have, but do have to have other times of
Speaker 1: bossing making Yeah, that that's a good point. Like in Bolivia, um,
Speaker 1: there was a they would say that, I forget the
Speaker 1: big corporation that that bought Olivia's water, but somehow, per
Speaker 1: the agreement or the contract they owned the Oblivians would
Speaker 1: say that that that this company owned the rain, which
Speaker 1: is a really fucking dystopian way of thinking about these
Speaker 1: because apparently like any rain that would fall into cisterns
Speaker 1: or something that would be collected was was was property,
Speaker 1: was a commodity owned by some multinational, faceless corporation. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean to own the rain is fucking dark. So yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're right. I mean it's it's it's at the basis
Speaker 1: of human life and for it to be commodified. And
Speaker 1: again in the in the case of Bolivia, they they
Speaker 1: they buy the rain and then uh dramatically hike the prices.
Speaker 1: I want to say, like they tripled the price of
Speaker 1: water something for you know, for for some desperately poor people.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's why you get that's how that's
Speaker 1: how you get a revolution real quick, revolution real quick.
Speaker 1: And that's why it's perhaps more like scintilating than like, oh,
Speaker 1: if the government is not providing housing like we're used
Speaker 1: to that suddenly we don't got the water. Yeah no,
Speaker 1: people about to be at the streets. Yeah right, yeah, no, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think you're right. Yeah. Word, well, thank you for talking.
Speaker 1: We're talking with us, are talking with me. Um, where
Speaker 1: can people keep up with your writing and other projects
Speaker 1: we're going on? Um, you know, I'm not doing a
Speaker 1: ton of writing right now, but you can certainly check
Speaker 1: out my page on medium. That's where you can find, uh,
Speaker 1: this article that we were talking about um um and
Speaker 1: a handful of others. Uh yeah, Matt Pulver on on
Speaker 1: medium would be the place to go. So that was dope. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was Matt Pulver. Where do you say that we
Speaker 1: could find him again? He said, check out out his
Speaker 1: page on medium. Yeah, he's got a medium. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: like Matt Pulver Medium, he's on that ship. I think
Speaker 1: he's like Matt Pulver on Twitter. He's got funny tweets.
Speaker 1: I mean, like, but they're pretty it's pretty low key.
Speaker 1: I know that whole conversation was bad. You know, he's
Speaker 1: a funny motherfucker. Yeah, yeah, and very smart, very smart.
Speaker 1: Educated me a lot about people to throw around the
Speaker 1: term new cano liberalism a lot um what like what
Speaker 1: do we what do we really mean when we say that?
Speaker 1: It's one of those like you can make fun of
Speaker 1: it by saying something something neoliberal because people use it
Speaker 1: so much, right, but like really understanding like the transferences
Speaker 1: of capital and power that it entails and how it
Speaker 1: like all those things come together. It's like a uniform system.
Speaker 1: And I'm all about you know, definitions, you know, definitions
Speaker 1: of words and meanings of words. So that's that was
Speaker 1: useful for me, so now I won't misuse that ship.
Speaker 1: Next week, we're going to be speaking about District Attorney
Speaker 1: Larry Krasner's reelection UM as disert attorney in Philadelphia. He
Speaker 1: was going up against the um you know, police unions
Speaker 1: and has been very progressive and kind of one of
Speaker 1: the leaders of the progressive prosecutor movement across the country. UM.
Speaker 1: And so we're gonna talk about what it means that
Speaker 1: he got re elected last week. We'll also we'll also
Speaker 1: talk about hip hop's connection or relationship with various district
Speaker 1: attorneys as in real life and threw her in rhyme too.
Speaker 1: Hey Joe, Joe, Joe, can you please drop a beat
Speaker 1: for us? Oh yeah, float like a butterfly, thing like
Speaker 1: a B. I don't wrap like these other guys to
Speaker 1: sing R and B if you wack us some other lines.
Speaker 1: Bring out a street when you smoke to the crime.
Speaker 1: See all the seeds on the streets. They know me,
Speaker 1: calling me the dope one. We lingual Frank and we
Speaker 1: both roam like show guns the feet, hordes and sheets
Speaker 1: swords and go dump hi, y'all save in the world
Speaker 1: to smoke lunch, No dunch, put a knife and the
Speaker 1: ship room for my elbows. You know who cipher it
Speaker 1: is comes made to fire like a vendomou spiper. Spit
Speaker 1: marry to this hip hop. Get doing life for a bit.
Speaker 1: So I'm never waiting and I'm looking for some reparations.
Speaker 1: Republicans are trying to put his back in segregation. This
Speaker 1: is just a taste of just a little demonstration. While
Speaker 1: you hate it. I'm like Franca, I'm dope night and
Speaker 1: we are waiting on reparations. Yes, damn, that was off
Speaker 1: as fune. Listen to Waiting on Reparations on the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.