September 2021 Meeting Transcript: Having and Being Had

Brandon’s note: In the past couple months, I’ve shed light on some of the stories in Book Club’s community. The post below is what actually happens when the Club meets to share their thoughts, feelings and experiences about and around a given month’s selection. This transcript of our September 2021 meeting is lightly edited, only to give the reader more of the rhythm of the room’s speech.

Yahdon:

Welcome to the Book Club. I'm your host and founder of the Book Club, Yahdon Israel. I usually open up with the background and the history of the Book Club, but today, this month is always a special month for us simply because this is the month that Book Club was founded. Brandon, who is the Head of Content over here at Literaryswag Book Club did a post. And one of the ironies of like something that we built six years ago is I'm at a place where it's like, I’ve said yes, to so many things. I can't say yes to everything, even the things I want to do.

Yahdon:

One of the things I wanted to highlight today is that this September 24th, marks, six years of Literaryswag Book Club. So we have read over 65 books in 6 years. So we're in about like close to like tens of thousands of pages, hundreds of thousands of words. And this month, a year and a half going into a pandemic. And the thing I constantly want to just highlight is, when I started this Book Club six years ago, it wasn't, this was not what I envisioned, but it's what I had in mind. I'm gonna say that again. This is what I had envisioned, but it's not what I had in mind by that. I mean, I would have never thought when I was thinking of a community that it would take place online.

Yahdon:

I did not, like anyone else see a pandemic or anything else. What I knew at the heart of it when I collaborated with Strand six years ago, when they asked about what could we do together, I immediately thought about the people who get thought about the least in publishing, which are readers, people who read books, people who buy books. A lot of this experience that I cultivated, which some of the people who are new here are going to experience for the first time and the people who return here, return here for, I believe is the fact that like in the literary space where the readers should be the most important person in terms of how we cultivate these experiences. They’re usually the afterthought of these experiences. So even as a person, who's just a fan of books, I would go to literary events and I would watch two people who I know, knew each other, talk for an hour and a half, of an hour and 45 minute event.

Yahdon:

And they will leave the last 15 minutes to the audience. And it was all these rules about how we interacted. It was almost like you can't do this. You can't, everything has to be a question they'll like. Well, maybe I just want to tell this person, I think their writing is fly. And so by the time we would get to the point where the reader can interact with the writer, the event was usually over. And so I wanted to create a unique experience where the reader got to engage and talk to people about the books. Because what I also noticed is that one of the hardest things, this is from somebody who reads a lot of books. But at one point, when I realized why I stopped reading books, it was because oftentimes when I read a book, the hardest thing to find was somebody who read the book at the same time as me.

Yahdon:

So I've gone through every iteration of letting someone hold my book and following up with them to see if they read the book, they forgot it, they lost it. And so it was just in many ways an alienating experience. So what the Literaryswag Book Club is, is like a beacon of light and a community in which if there's nothing else you can count on in a Literaryswag Book Club meeting, is that the people in this book club read the same book as you and giving people that month allows us to discuss these books in a way where it's like all the energy and effort that you've put into the reading of these books is not in vain as it would be if you didn't have a community. So what the book club is, is a reading community. People with whom we can build with, we can chop it up with.

Yahdon:

We can talk to, we can, you know, we can interrogate and we can explore ideas with, and we've been doing that for six years. So the Literaryswag Book Club is monthly. We've been doing it for that long. We used to be in person before the COVID. I am looking forward to the day when we get, I don't know, like, I don't know what I'm looking for, but I know we ain't getting back in person until next year, at least. But I'm looking forward for the day we back in person. I don't know what that looks like with the people who are out of state, but believe me, I hope the technology will support whatever iteration that looks like, because it supported us to get to this. So I'm gonna have the faith in saying, this is going to take us forward. That being said, um, there's very little rules if any, in Book Club, but there's the principle of it is that this Book Club is cultivated on community transparency and curiosity, meaning, what I think many of you come to this space for, return to this space for, that this is a space in which I don't police or tell anybody what they should and shouldn't say, or what they should and shouldn't think.

Yahdon:

Anything you say in here, anything you think in here is valid, as long as you're comfortable with being interrogated about what you mean by what you say. And so this is a space that unlike a lot of internet spaces that are cultivated, where everything is about a binary oppositional sort of debate, this is really about dialogue. And I think that at the center of any dialogue is curiosity. What I mean by that is questioning and asking. What you're going to notice in this club. And what many of you probably may or may not know, I disagree with a lot of what people say in here, but I never allowed that the fact that I might think differently from somebody keep me from being curious about why a person thinks the way they do. And I try to model that so that other members in here can listen to what everyone has to say with the, with the lens of compassion and nuance and go, well, why do you think that way?

Yahdon:

So you will never get told. I will never tell you what you can and can't say, but I will always ask you why you think the way you think. And as long as you can handle that, this is the space for you. If this ain't the space for you, you're going to find out real soon. So that being said, last month we read, what did we read last month? Oh, we read "The Secret Lives of Church Ladies." Deesha came through, pulled up super fire, amazing discussion. This month, you know, this whole year has been a challenge for me as a person who picks the books, because what I challenged myself to do this year was think about what types of books we haven't read, what voices we haven't heard from, what conversations have we not been able to have? In Book Club we talk about everything from politics to media, to sports, to history, to personal anecdotes. And that's another tenant that I'm proud of in Book Club we've been able to sustain. And one of the central tenants have been me telling people, you do not have to read the book to attend the meetings because it's my belief that everybody must look different. So some people are able to finish a book. Some people are only able to read 10 pages if that, but I did not want to create the barrier of entry to a community to be reading. Because what I believe is if you came to a Book Club meeting and you didn't read the book, you was damn sure going to try to read it after, because when you hear a conversation and you're like, "damn, all that was in the book? I mean, let me, let me just at least read one of those stories. At least let me read one of those chapters." And so I just really believe that community is the thing that motivates any of us to participate in actions we probably wouldn't do alone. That's why like the gym is, you know, you go to the gym and you get motivated. Like everybody else is doing something. Let me do a few sit-ups or something. So I think that this is like an intellectual gym and emotional and spiritual way in which we, you know, we, we do all lifting. On the subject of "Having and Being Had," Brandon, you can correct me if I'm wrong, homie, but I think that Eula Biss marks, the fourth person and Literaryswag has three others for whom we've read two books from. I know Margot Jefferson, we read "Negro Land" and "On Michael Jackson."

Yahdon:

Claudia Rankine, we read "Citizen" and, Just Us" and Jess Row, we read "White Flights" and "Your Face in Mine." So this is another book where we've read two books from Eula Biss. The first book we read was in 2016, when I brought the Book Club back.This was the first book club pick after being on hiatus for five months after the Strand connection, was "On Immunity." And it was her non-fiction book about the ironically enough, right? The question of whether to get her children vaccinated or not. And the ethics around vaccination, the history of vaccinations, which ironically is a timely conversation to have at this point in time was so much of that being the center of our discourse in the country. But this book "Having and Being Had" was inspired by many of the conversations we have in Book Club, because usually, and often our conversations because of the politics and the leanings, and the lifestyles of people in this club, we typically talk about capitalism in some way or another, and I'll never forget one particular meeting we had where the word "capitalism" was getting thrown around so much, and everyone was using it in a certain way that I had to stop the meeting and just ask, "what do y'all mean when y'all use the word?" And it was interesting. And when I say it was fast, it was illuminating to me how so many people were using the word with confidence. But then when I asked them what it meant, very few people could describe it. And I'm like for us to have such a particular position with a system that we all identify is harmful in ways, but to not be able to define the actual harm that we're describing, a book club, if nothing else, is to give us language for the things that we talk about. So I wanted to pick a book that would give us a way to talk about and think through, capitalism and the impact it has on our lives. And one of the things I appreciated about Eula Biss, which is why this is a Book Club pick, was a book that gave us the exercise of being able to cultivate language that's just about processing what we experience as opposed to condemning it, praising it or anything, or anything else. How do we exist in between a system that while we may not agree with it, we still live in it, right? And so how do we become conscientious about our participation in capitalism? So that is part and parcel. What is going to inform our prompt for this evening, for the people who are new, we do a prompt every month that allows everybody to engage at least once. What you'll notice in a Book Club meeting, is that usually we'll get the same 10 or 13 voices that talk, but the prompt introduced by my man Randy, who's off camera right now, what we do is we open with the prompt, everybody, you say your name, where you're based, and then you answer the prompt. Then we have a open forum discussion about the book and we can talk out whatever we talk about until about 9:30. Then I award the littest member. Littest members are people who talk about the book in connection with the conversation, they found a way to always keep the conversation about the book. Then I announce the book for next month. We have a little segment at the end where members share, which is up to you. Good news, that you've had.

Yahdon:

And then we end the meeting. We take a group picture, we share good news. Then we go about our business. All right. So the prompt for this month, in terms of like, thinking about one of her quotes in here, which I thought was interesting was a distinction between like value and cost or no, no, no, no. I'm bugging I'm bugging. I'm sorry. So the prompt this month is...this book explores all the different ways in which capitalism showed up which was fascinating. But the illest was when she talked to that chapter or that section, when she talked about monopoly and about the history of monopoly in a way like it teaches us capitalist values, competition, all these things. And it's a game that children learn from a young age.

Yahdon:

And what this book mainly allowed me to do is to think about ways in which I learned about capitalism that I had taken for granted that seemed in many ways, hard, not hard. I don't want to color the language of values, but I did not know that what I was learning was capitalist values and an exchange, but that is exactly what I was learning. So what the prompt is, what is an experience that you can look back on and realize informed you about how to navigate in a capitalist society and experience a game? What taught you? What gave you a sense of what capitalism was without you knowing what capitalism was? Cause when we were playing monopoly, we were being a little capitalist. I did not know that, but this book gave me a lens to see that.

Yahdon:

So, I always start these things. So my name is Yahdon out here in Bedstuy Brooklyn, and one of the first experience in capitalism, not one of the first, but one of the most identifiable was anytime, I would ask my pops for money. He immediately asked for my labor, meaning what he would ask me to do is "what are you willing to do for what you want?" And that was the first thing that I always like. One of the things that I can say I learned in my relationship with him is that he cultivated in me a way to think through what I was willing to pay in labor for that, which I wanted. So I was always able to translate. So if I want it $10, $10, wasn't worth the dishes. My understanding was what I had to do, had to equate in labor, what I wanted in money. So I had to think through how do I assign value to my labor? So if I wanted to go to the movies, I had to find something that I could do that would equate the amount of money I would need for the movies. So whether it was selling lemonade to get $15 or doing things that was a lot outside the scope of what I was supposed to do as a child, I learned from a young age that labor had a value. And that framework of my father, just by asking me, what am I willing to do for what I want gave me a sense that everything I did had a price. Okay. So that's one of my earliest experiences with capitalism. Thank you, daddy.

Yahdon:

I'm going to go around the room. Abby, it's on you.

Abby:

Maybe my mom set up a little checking account to saving my babysitting money.

Yahdon:

Um, Agatha, welcome to the booklet.

Amber:

Thanks Y'all. My name is Agatha. I am on a road trip on my way to move to the Hudson valley in upstate New York, currently in Ohio. I was hoping you wouldn't call on me first because I haven't really thought of a good example. Um, from my childhood, my earliest things I did.

Yahdon:

It don't have to be from childhood. It could just be anything that you, I'm sorry. Y'all it don't have to be from childhood. It could just be anything

Amber:

Yeah. Um, just one experience that came to mind is one of my first jobs was working in the backstock of Abercrombie and Fitch and I was making $7 and 25 cents an hour. And I just thought that wow, work in this job is almost not worth my time because I could barely, if I didn't come prepared with a packed lunch that I had spent less money on grocery shopping or whatnot. And I had to buy lunch at the food hall in the shopping mall, just paying for my lunch for that day, the gas to get to the job, and then the clothes that they made you wear, they made you wear Abercrombie and Fitch clothes. I barely made any money. And I was like, this is terrible. And it just felt very unfair. Um, that minimum wage would be so low or it just felt weird to value people in that way where you could spend a whole day working and really not make any cushion from that.

Amanda:

I'm also new. So, I'm Amanda, I'm in Brooklyn. I feel like the example from my childhood is I was in Girl Scouts and we had to sell Girl Scout cookies. Yeah. And I like, I just remember being like, wow, trying so hard to sell these cookies. And I was really good at it. And I remember being like, I feel like special because I was good at this thing that like made money for Girl Scouts. And like, it just goes to show now with capitalism, how, if you make a lot of money, you could be considered special when it really is just part of the system and it's all part of the game.

Amina:

Hey everybody I'm from Philly. I think that, really understanding the idea of capitalism, like what it really is and how it influenced my life would probably be in college. Because before that, you know, your parents always take care of you and then you don't really have a sense ... We know that we were like struggling, but when you really have like that tuition and back then, I'm kinda old. So, Pell grants covered Temple University's, tuition. And then you would have, like, I had like maybe $500 only to pay up my tuition because I didn't have undergrad student loans at all. And that $500 I had to go and sit in the restaurant crying, like, where am I going to get $500 from I'm just a student. I don't have no money. I have to ask somebody for $500 to pay for the whole semester. And then, I mean, that was probably sitting there like, I got to pay for an education so that I can later on make more money. Like, that was just the point of education. It wasn't to like, be knowledgeable. It's about to just be a worker.

Yahdon:

Benita

Benita:

Hi everybody. It's my first meeting here. I am located in Riverdale and the Bronx. It's funny that you picked that chapter, the monopoly and the landlord, because I took pictures of the entire chapter and sent it to someone and had a whole discussion about it. I think the experience that I had and that I ended up speaking on was I'm the child of immigrants. And I clearly recall being like eight years old translating for my parents, with our landlord, every single situation that ever happened in that apartment. To the point, and it just stuck with me and the thought that as a child, I was responsible for at times making decisions because my parents didn't know what was going on at times. Yeah, we'll pay, or we're not paying until you fix this. When I came across that monopoly chapter, it triggered that memory for me. Um, and that's what stuck out to me is just so pointed that that's what you picked as a conversation piece today. Thank you.

Yahdon:

Well welcome. Welcome, welcome. Brandon. You muted. You would think you would be good at Zoom by now...

Brandon:

:Tries to interrupt..unsuccessfully: you really were going to get that sentence off, huh? Um, oh, do pizza parties count?

Yahdon:

If you got it? If you can explain it, sure.

Brandon:

Cause we didn't just get them for good behavior. We had to earn them by..well I made a deal to do things around the classroom in order to get the little stars that translated to dollars that would equal a whole pie. It was just being gracious that I did enough that it would afford the whole class a pie, but that should have just been a part of good behavior. If you get what I'm saying, it shouldn't have had to translate into, into some monetary type of situation. But I digress. :Turns off camera:

Yahdon:

: laughs: I thought there was more coming, but that was really funny. Christie.

Christie:

Okay. I'm Christie. I'm from Pennsylvania, just outside of Philadelphia in a place called Perkasie. Um, I'm thinking maybe my first confusion with capitalism was maybe when I was going to college in my end of my junior year, my dad lost his job, IE, he was fired because he was difficult and hard to get along with. And I thought like I panicked and I was being kind of nasty and like cranky about it. And my mom said, what what's wrong with you? Do you think you're not gonna be able to go to college? And I said, yeah, that's what I think. And she said, there's loans for that. You're fine. But I was confused cause we weren't the kind of family that did loans. My mom was the kind of person who we'd be like, mom, get us Applejacks and she'd say, I can't, they're not on sale this week. I'm not going to get out Apple Jacks and I have a coupon for that. So the thought of like borrowing all that money versus coupon queen kind of led to some confusion, I think.

Yahdon:

Okay. Connor on you.

Connor:

Hey, what's up everybody? My name is Connor I'm from Stanton, California. Um, so while I wouldn't say this was my first experience with capitalism, one particular experience that came to mind, uh, when I was in high school. Um, so my dad and I were both car enthusiasts, uh, been enthusiasts our whole lives. And around the time that I was a junior in high school, we decided that we wanted to get a car that we could work on together. The main objective of like getting the car was so that we could like learn the skills to work on it. But I remember having this discussion about, well, whatever car we choose to get, let's make sure it's something that down the line might be collectible. Right? And I didn't even realize that at the time, but after reading this book and, um, the theme that came up a few times about like hoarding capital in order to build more capital later down the line, really made me think about how like, wow, that, why did that have to be part of the conversation? You know? Like why was that so important to us? I guess why did my dad feel like, this has to like serve some value, but beyond just like building the skills right now, like it has to serve value for you. You being me when I'm older. So this, I don't know. I didn't even think about that until reading this book.

Yahdon:

That's why I'm excited to have this conversation. Diana on you,

Amber:

Hey, y'all I'm in Bedstuy Brooklyn. I mean from childhood would be, I'm a younger sibling. And so there was that point where my sister had license and I actually could not drive and whenever I needed to do something, she'd be like, well, if you go get me an apple from the fridge, then I'll take you to your friend's house. You know, like whenever I want to do anything or leave the house, or like, even if she like, had to take me like practice for something, she'd be like, uh, but I need a massage, you know, like something that like my mom said, she had to do like to be responsible because she wasn't home. So my sister had to take me, I still had to do something in order to like, get a ride or get something out of her. And I was like, oh, like, it's never just like, I'm going to get a ride. You know,

Yahdon:

That's the definition of capitalizes a little do you know, I got to take you to this ride anyway, but you don't know that.

Amber:

And I was like, you know, you can't do that. You know, you're 12, you got, uh, you can't get there any other way. You're a victim of the situation. Um, but she's a great sister.

Yahdon:

Fair enough. Fair enough. Uh, who's next Errol on you, homie.

Errol:

Hey, I'm Errol. I'm in Brooklyn. I don't know if this is cheating, but the first thought that I had is I'm actually playing monopoly as a kid. Our house rules and the dynamics of the...cause I have, um, my mom was one of 11, so I have a ton of cousins. So we would have just a full, it would be like eight people playing. Um, and I, and reading that chapter made me think back about, um, how, the way we played really reflected, like capitalism now, where there's like to get ahead, you had deals under the table. And it was like conniving. We would remember, like there was always be like these two cousins who would end up kind of like teaming up. And at the beginning of the game we would ask them like, no, you're not teaming up, that's going against the rules, but at some point in the game, like you would see them go, Hey, can I buy that from you?

Errol:

You know, how much you want to give me? How bout A dollar? And then you see like, oh, here comes that bullshit. So then, you know, they would just build their monopolies very quick and not collect rent from each other, but collect rent from everyone else. They were bankrupt everyone and they would just say, all right, cool game over. So it would just, it would just be, and when they started doing that, then everyone else will start pairing off trying to get ahead. And I had one cousin, an older cousin of ours who would like sell. He somehow would sell insurance. And this is before iPhone. So we just had like a Texas instrument thing. And he said, all right, I'll sell this to you. Um, and if you land on something, you have to pay me a certain amount. Every time you go around. And if you land on the I'll cover it with whatever. So it just reminded me of, of that.

Yahdon:

The only thing I knew in monopoly for my family is when the deals had nothing to do with the game. And it was like, yo, I'll take you to...Monopoly gets wild after awhile, George, on you big homie.

George:

So yeah, Yahdon, you go in and out a little sometimes. I just want to give you a heads up on that.

Yahdon:

Let me move

George:

My name is George. I live in Bedstein my pronouns. Are he/him. Um, it's interesting. Cause Amina made a very interesting point in her explanation of cap, how she understood capitalism. And from my perspective, it was always lacking, never having this is how I came to realize, understand capitalism, because I grew up in a single family house, my mom, four/five kids and just, it was just never having anything. And it was like, this is, and seeing other people that may have had, and I'm like, this can't be how things are meant to be for the rest of my life is probably how I thought about it. Um, but it was just never having, you know, even going off to college. Like my mom was like, well, the first year, cause my aunt did a loan for me, a plus loan.

George:

And it was like, okay, after that you're done. But just having to hustle to get through that and just having to like always think about, okay, what can I do to make sure I have something in my pocket? I don't think that's a good way to be honest, the see capitalism, because it has screwed me up in so many ways. Hopefully we won't get into the details around all that, but you know, I remember like if I sold candy through like a school, like you bring home, those up, um, whatever the thing where you okay, buy this candy, this pastry candy and all the money would be spent by the time I needed to turn the money in because my mom had.. And you guys don't know my mom or my family. So that's why I can say all this, but it was just those things just did not make sense to me. And so fast forward to today, my daughter doesn't know those things. I would never tell her those things about me. Cause I just, I mean, I just don't see the reason why I would, but her, her world versus mine is very, very different. But lacking is how I understood capitalism. Never really having the opportunity to like be all I want it to be. And that's it. I'm done speaking.

Yahdon:

Thank you. Am I coming through clearer now?

George:

Yup. Yup.

Yahdon:

You know, when you live in those railroad type apartments in the wifi boxes on the other side....

George:

Yeah, no one else said anything, but I was like, I gotta let Yahdon know like, you in and out, brother.

Yahdon:

Thank you brother. I appreciate that. Good Looking out, Good looking out

George:

If you have a booger hanging out your nose, I gotta let you know.

Yahdon:

I appreciate that. Um, Forest it's on you homie.

Forest:

Um, I can't think back to the first experience with capitalism, I thought back to when you mentioned your dad giving you money to do stuff. I remember my mom who was, I would guess not a capitalist, um, in belief, uh, would, would actually give me, um, allowance and it had nothing to do with what I did in the house. You know, she said, well, we have, then you can have, and uh, you know, that the chores around the house are part of you being part of this family, which was me and her. And um, yeah, I've since, uh, I don't know. I, I I've thought about it a lot. Never completely understood it. And um, I've taken that practice with my kids without fully understanding it. And now, just hearing you in the way that you equated, oh, you do a chore, you do something, you get paid for it. And how you learn from that or do something to get paid from. And I was thinking, oh, with my mom was, it was sort of, you know, no, you, as part of this family, you, um, get, you know, get money if we have money right.

Yahdon:

I appreciate you bringing it up. Cause I want to clarify, I could not do things that I was already doing for free to get money that would undermine my whole.... So I had to invent work that was valuable to get the thing I wanted. Okay. So that's the difference? It's like, oh, like dishes was not something that I could leverage. I had no leverage with dishes. Like you do em or I'm going to beat your ass. That was I had, so I had to make something to do, but I appreciate you bringing that point up. Um, is it Jake, Jake is on you homie.

Brandon:

Yeah. One of the things that when you mentioned that I was thinking of this, I remember growing up and I got a job, like my first job when I was 12. And I remember one of my friends asking, why would you get a job when your parents could just pay for everything? Like your parents have money, they can take care of everything. And it was like the first time I had to think about the idea of like, I don't know if wealth is the right term, but this idea of like getting money from someone else versus getting money from your own labor and like, which is right. That there's dynamics that people don't think in terms of just like using your own labor to, to get money and pay for your life. So, yeah, that was kind of one of the first times when I realized that there were different ways to get ahead or to view kind of worth and in the world,

Yahdon:

Jumi, on you.

Jumi (and Clement):

Jumi: (Clement, you want to go first?) Clement: Yeah. I can start, uh, I'm Clement. I'm in Las Vegas right now. Um, the thing I thought of was like, I remember in elementary school, there was this picture book that was called the little red hen and it's about a hen who wants to make bread. And then all her animal friends, like she asked them to help to like grind it, pick the weed and grind it and make flour and bacon. And like at each step they don't help her. And then at the end they all want to eat her bread, but she's like, no, I'm the only one who cooked it. So I'm going to eat the bread and then she doesn't let them eat the bread

Yahdon:

The way you ended that. It's just like, that's it, that's capitalism.

Jumi (and Clement):

Clement: I thought about it. Like I remember that story. I was like, I don't agree with that at all. That moral, but anyways, yeah. That's what I had.

Jumi:

All right. I was actually like really nodding to Benita's um, when she was she, is it she or they? Okay. I apologize that she, I was just trying to,

Yahdon:

That's why I told y'all put your pronouns in the thing so we can,

Jumi:

Uh, anyways, I was just like really resonating with what you were saying, because I'm a first-generation American and you know, something that I feel like not a lot of folks talk about is like, um, getting is like changing your class really quickly and like feeling that, that tension. So like my family, I mean, my dad grew up on a goat farm in Western Nigeria and migrated here, like in his late twenties. And I didn't really, like, I always grew up feeling like he knew everything because he was working this high power business job. But then when it was time for me to apply to college, suddenly it was like, my father didn't know anything and didn't know about any of the schools and was just like, you need to go to Harvard, you know, you need to go to Princeton. Okay. Ivy league. And I was like, why?

Jumi:

And was, I was always kind of like fighting it. And then when it was time to fill out FAFSA, and I wonder if we'll talk about FAFSA in this conversation, um, which is a financial aid, um, application, you have to fill out to get federal government assistance for education. My father didn't fill those out because he didn't know how. And then he pretended like, it was my fault. Um, and I remember being really angry at that time. Why can't you fill these out? Like these other parents know how to, why? Like, why do I have to teach you what a W2 is? Why do I have to do all of this when you're technically making all this money and all this stuff, but then like, you don't have the knowledge that I need you to have for me to be successful.

Jumi:

And then it's kind of like, I felt like a hypocrite in that moment. And at the same time was like, no, I have the right to feel this way because I can't work and show my W2's. I need you to do it. Cause you're my parent. And I'm dependent on you. And at the same time, I was like, nah, like as I'm older, I'm like understanding that. But that was one of the first real moments that I felt. I felt like this breach of contract that I had with the world, you know, of like what my life was supposed to be like and what it actually was.

Yahdon:

Thank you. That was that's that's layered. I appreciate that Kirsten.

Kirsten:

Hey I'm yeah, I'm Kirsten. I'm in New York. My pronouns are she her can't figure out how to change it, but I will.

Yahdon:

I got you. If it's trying to figure it out, it's the little three dots in the upper right-hand corner of your picture and you go to rename. I did it for you. I did it for you. Good.

Kirsten:

Um, so, you know, similar to Jumi and Benita, um, my, I am a first generation American. My dad grew up poor dirt, poor immigrant, who became a financial advisor. Um, and I grew up hearing of his secondhand stories nonstop. Um, and so some of what George was saying also is resonating those, uh, the, the hand-me-downs, uh, intentional and unintentional. Um, but a, uh, something that really comes to mind for me is when I was around fourth grade, my dad had left his job in order to become an independent financial advisor. He didn't want to, to work for another company, but with that, obviously there was a lot of, um, turmoil, uh, lack of funds. And my mom at the time was a public school teacher and she was coming down with a, a disability, um, that, that they knew about they knew was, was genetic and was possible, but it kind of was hitting a little bit early.

Kirsten:

And I came home from school one day, knowing things were happening, she was starting to fall, um, maybe going to have to use a cane. She wasn't tenured yet. And I remember being sat down and told that I could not say anything to anyone in town about my mom's potential condition, because she was going up for tenure and we needed her health care. We needed her insurance policy, which we were all underwritten on, um, in order for any of us to have insurance and for the potential for her to ever have a caregiver or, you know, anything along those lines with treatment. Um, and that was when I realized, cause I had always, uh, my dad is a very, you know, domineering figure, very sure of himself, um, and was in the finance world. So I, and, and we grew up fairly comfortable. I didn't really worry about any of those things. It wasn't until that moment that I really realized, oh, there's a hierarchy here. There is a, there's a power structure and we don't exist where I thought we did. We will not be taken care of. Um, so that, that was probably the starkest memory for me.

Yahdon:

That's some real shit coming out of here. . This is, I always appreciate when we, when we get here, this is what Book Club is about. Courtney it's on you.

Kourtney:

I am Courtney I'm from crown Heights. Um, I think my first foray into capitalism was the Scholastic book fair. And I, because that was my first experience of pioneering something that I've wanted and exchanging money for it on my own. But it was also like my first experience of seeing the homeys that didn't get anything like seeing who, I guess who had it and who didn't, like you finally seeing that he stratification of class amongst your classmates and then as it only gets more apparent as you get older, when you see who has, which sneakers who has what school supplies who has, what winter coat. But so, yeah, that was my first forray into capitalism.

Yahdon:

Thank you for that. That, that I got, like, I got flashbacks from that. Um, Kristin, it's on you.

Kristin:

I missed you guys reading church ladies last month

Kristin:

Month by myself was just not the same, so sad I missed out. Um, but, uh, yeah, I think I'm very similar. I'm seeing like a theme with first-generation Americans cause definitely, uh, felt like my dad came here from south America and I, at the same time that I was starting to earn money at like 12 or 13 from my babysitting jobs, my dad's business was just like liquidating basically. And I felt like I lost him kind of to capitalism because after that he just was not the same, I think, because it was such a big trauma to him. And so it was a lot of shame. He turned really inward. I couldn't access him anymore. Um, and I kind of made me feel trapped, you know, home and uh, cause it was the same thing going on with my mom, but then I could go out and buy like CDs to listen to. And then I felt like the sense of freedom kind of. So it was like this thing that was like also making me feel trapped with my parents, but then making me feel free with, you know, with like these, these escapes, like if I had money, I could escape kind of. Um, so yeah, it's two opposing ideas.

Maggie:

Hi, I'm Maggie, I'm in Seattle. My pronouns are she and her. And um, I grew up, my parents got divorced when I was really young and my mom, uh, bartended to make ends meet she'd sent us to our grandparents. And uh, then when I went away to college to not have loans, um, I was 19, I got a fake ID, so I could bartend and I was working in nightclubs in Chicago, in the nineties. That's my autobiography right there. Um, and I was taken right away. I had a new found respect for what my mom did as we were growing up. But also it didn't take me long, maybe a month to AB test my persona to maximize my tips. Right. And I stayed in the business and worked, um, fine dining, hotels and still some of the best people I've ever met, um, come from that business. And when we talk about capitalism, that's the business I think of that's the backbone of capitalism and uh, and the most of that backbone are single mothers, uh, frankly, restaurant workers. So, um, I, I had a real problem with the narrative voice in this book, but it was very thought provoking. I also live in Seattle, so I'm surrounded by this narrator all the time.

Maggie:

I'll just leave it at that. Um, but yeah, I'd just like us to think about when we're thinking about capitalism, think about, um, the people, you know, the twenty something percent of, uh, hourly wage workers that work in the restaurant business.

Yahdon:

Thank You, Eunice. I don't know why your name comes up at the top and not alphabetically, but I'm going to call on you Eunice. It's on you.

Ricca:

Okay. Wait a minute. Oh, I'm muted. Oh, okay. So I'm kinda like you, my dad is, uh, he's always been my rock, but if you wanted something, this is his famous word. If you want to eat, you got to work. You know? So, um, you know, trying to buy some of the clothes I want in high school, as well as going to concerts. So I got a job. So I get to do what I want to do. And my sisters got upset with me. I said, well, like he said, you want to eat, you got to work. So if I get to go where I want to go. So that was my story. My dad, you got to work as well as that, you know, my dad had a farm, oh, you had to work. He went out there, got corn peas and we had to clean that stuff up. You didn't get anything for it, But you got to eat

Yahdon:

So he was very literal about eating. Like, no, you're going to shuck some peas. Thank you. MiwA that's all you.

Miwa:

Oh God. Well, um, as the daughter of a real estate developer, my entire life was paid for by capitalism. Um, yeah. Wow. There's so many examples. But, um, actually I was taught to play monopoly as a tiny person by a real estate developer. So I've never actually just casually played monopoly in my life and was playing with friends in the country over the weekend and destroyed them both. And they were making fancy deals and everything else. And I was like, you just, I'm going to destroy you. It's been 20 years since I played monopoly, but I'm going to destroy you anyway, because I was taught to play monopoly as a six year old by a real estate developer. So, you know, I mean, I, I don't know when I wasn't around it, you know, all of the opportunities I've had, all of the school I had, like, everything I had was because my parents had access to capital

Miwa:

I'm not sure there's anything else to say beyond the fact that I've always been extremely aware that I have access to things because my parents had access. You know.

Yahdon:

The only question I was going to ask is like being taught at six years old by a real estate developer. What did you, what was like one of the earliest things you learned

Miwa:

Buy everything, as soon as you land on it and go from there

Miwa:

No, like my brother, my adult brother has a story about how I clocked him with one of the first property. Like it was probably Baltic avenue or something. He'll tell this story now. And he was a child when it happened, but apparently I destroyed him in a game of monopoly because I was a bad older sister. Cause I don't like to lose and I wouldn't let my little brother win and he still remembers. And I'm just like, are you kidding me? I don't even know what to do with that. He told the story over the summer when I saw him, I was just like, okay, sorry. And he was probably like six when it happened.

Yahdon:

So you done passed it down. Six is a special age, your household.

Nuratu:

Hi everyone. My name's Nuratu to my pronouns. Are she and her. I too am in Brooklyn. Um, I think definitely the the book fair was an early capitalism memory. But I remember in junior high school, I used to hustle all the kids who didn't know about the corner store. So I would buy all of this candy from the corner store and then shuck and sell it at school. I would borrow my friend Gia's lunch card and buy lunch for a dollar and then sell it to everyone for three. And the lunch ladies would be like, "Didn't you just come for lunch?" I'm like, no, that wasn't me. I'm just here to get the chicken sandwich because I didn't like the Turkey hero today. So I would do stuff like that to earn the pocket money that my momma wouldn't give me

Randy:

Nuratu's cheatin' folks. Um, I, um, I'm going to go with video games. So back in the day, you could, there were websites you can go to and you could enter cheat codes and get like different, let's say you were playing NBA2K or something. You could get different types of shoes. You could unlock shoes in a sneaker store or whatever. Or if you were playing like an adventure game, you could unlock different uniforms or weapons or whatever, and get them before you got to a point in the game when you earned them. And now, um, you can't do any of that because they basically set up systems. They have systems in place where you have to pay, um, for those things. So you can either go play the game and invest time and effort and unlock those things along the way.

Randy:

Or you can pay for like 2000 VC, which are digital dollars or digital. Like it's the money, the currency that they use. And then you can buy those things. So there's no way around it now. Um, so they basically taken the fun out of playing the game. You spend 60 to $70 on a game, and then you have to turn around and spend upwards of a hundred dollars more if you don't want to invest the time in the game. So you ain't winning you ain't winning. So that's why I play, I play all those games on rookie because you know, if I'm having a hard day at work, I'm losing at life. I ain't about to lose on my video games. That's how we doing it.

Yahdon:

Oh man. Ricca all you.

Ricca:

Um, so when I was in elementary school, my grandparents insisted that I go to a private school and I hated every minute of it. Um, because I was acutely aware of the fact that I didn't have as much as my classmates. Um, and there were a couple of like really specific ways that I could tell. One was the snacks. Um, everyone had like dunkaroos and I really wanted those. My mom wouldn't get them. And I always had like, like snacks that she put together herself, like, you know, just, and usually healthier. But the other one was I would go to people's houses and they had two things that I didn't have. One was cable. And the other was a living room full of fancy furniture that no one sat on. And I never could understand why people had all of this fancy furniture that they would never sit on because we did not have a room like that in my house. And I didn't understand why people had had that. Like, who sits there, like on what occasion do you sit on your fancy couches? I don't get it. We would always be in some den or something hanging out. And you know, they all had video games and I didn't have them. So I'd get, I get creamed on the video games too, but it was just so interesting. Like that room was so fascinating to me. I thought about it a lot.

Yahdon:

Syreeta on you.

Syreeta:

First of all, please. Never, nobody ever mention the Sims ever again. Just, just throwing that out there. Um, I love this conversation already. I have, I was about to go in with like buying the books and get into pizza hut, but I'm not going to do that. I'm going to swerve to the left because that was the whole thing and ate mad pizza. Right? All the goosebumps books. Um, but I remember growing up and going to my grandmother's house and I would say I'm from a family of hustlers. Like my grandmother sold Mary Kay and Coach bags. I have uncles that have done a, B, C, D, and E. Everybody was always selling something. So I remember I was working at Jones beach. I felt like I was balling and had mad money. I go to my grandmother's house and we were talking about something.

Syreeta:

She was like, yeah, I don't have any money. So I'm like peel off a couple hundred boom, boom, boom, grandma "hold that." She sends me to the store. The back of the back of an envelope, a list of numbers. Go play these numbers, give me some pork grinds and a Pepsi. Of course I do what she says. My grandmother, a few hours later hits the number. She gives me all my bread back plus some money on top of that. So I've learned a few things from that situation. One scared money don't make no money.

Syreeta:

I think that the idea around having access to money, right? So even when "you're broke," like grandma, you a whole nurse, SIS, like you have money. And also I realized that children's money or teenagers money also spends because the fact that my grandmother took my bread and then sent me to the store to get lotto tickets, like you are not broke. I could've kept my whole situation. So I've learned a few things about capitalism because of my grandmother. Also you need to, similar to your situation. My grandmother was a sharecropper born in 1926 from North Carolina. So SIS was really in the trenches picking things out of the ground. Maybe she bought it to New York. I don't know what happened. That's my capitalism story. Shout out to my grandmother one time for the one time.

Yahdon:

Best story so far. Best story. Tanya, it's on you.

Tonya:

Hey, well, mine was, um, my first official job at 11. I was on an ice cream truck in the neighborhood and managed to make a lot of friends, of course. And the one thing that I came away from it was the protection of money because the, um, the guy Billy who had the truck had a machete that he used to make sure people didn't try to rob him. And that came, came to, um, even more significant when I took the money that I earned and went to the bank. You saw the guard with the gun. So that made me think about money in a different way. I think it made me realize the value of money is necessary for some people to the death. I guess, of other people, because I never had the experience where someone has to defend or protect money in that way, but just the fact that it was necessary for them to, well in their minds to do that. It gave me a relationship with money that just to this day, I don't, I'm not a fan of money, just say that.

Yahdon:

No, I appreciate this. I love this Book Club, Valentina.

Valentina:

Um, Hey guys, I'm out of Dallas. Um, and my pronouns, are she her, the early experiences I can think of about, um, capitalism are probably when I was in like middle score. So, or probably since I was young, my mom always told me, like, you have to go to college, you have to graduate high school and you have to go to college so that you don't work like me and both my parents are, um, immigrants from Mexico. And I think they told me that at such an age, like before I realized, like what spectrum of like jobs that their work. So I didn't get it that I was like, okay. Yeah. Like, um, I, I didn't have plans like to do otherwise. And I think it was still pretty early. I wasn't even thinking about college yet. Um, but middle school, high school, and like just really, um, emphasizing, uh, not getting a job like hers.

Valentina:

And, um, when I learned more about capitalism, like, especially in college, uh, that really kept ringing to me because her job as a assembly line worker, and she stands on her feet all day with like, they ring a bell for her, like 15 minute break and you know, another ring, a bell and everyone's back at the assembly line has really worn on her body. And I think that wear and tear on her body that I see now. And like, I see the different ways. Like she responds to it, um, really gave me, I don't know, made me see what capitalism was not when you're like reading about it or whatever, but like you're seeing it's there, on the day to day. Uh, so that's, that's my experience.

Yahdon:

Thank you. And Amber, we going to end with you, and then we going to open this discussion up.

Amber:

Hey, y'all hear me. Cool. I'm Amber, uh, pronouns. She, her, um, my first capitalism story, I will tell the story of like capitalism always with my family. It's like something like I'm set up against. Uh, but for the first time I thought I could like utilize capitalism was when I was like 15. I wanted to go on this like international trip. And, um, an older person said I could raise the money. And I was like, I've never thought of that. Told my parents, I was going to raise some money and they're like, ha, you can't do that. And I'd sold things. I had parties. I had a gofund me, I raised $7,000. And, um, my parents were like, oh, so you're really going to Europe. And I was like, yeah, I, so I felt like I like took control. So like, up until that point, um, capitalism was like just the enemy for me and my family.

Yahdon:

I got it. We got it. Thank you. I appreciate that. So let, now we're going to open this discussion up for a broader framework. Once again, I wanted to just highlight, um, George I think you touched on this a bit earlier about like one of the things I'm being mindful when talking about this large subsuming economic system that informs every corner of our lives is like how to talk about it without judging it. How do we talk about things without praise or condemnation? Right? Because through either lens there's things that we prevent ourselves from seeing, because we want to filter it through a way in which we already understand it. And one of the things I appreciated about what Eula Biss modeled in the book was just like, what does a book look like that's not necessarily making any particular statement about the thing, but just has all these thoughts about something and like, what could that sort of framework even do in terms of how we think through, um, the system that governs our lives. And one of the things I wanted to start with was, one of the most profound things and I'll open it up after I make this comment was when she was talking about talking to the cab driver about what she teaches and that she taught, like students, things that in her definition didn't value much. And it made me think differently about what I did as a teacher.

Yahdon:

Um, and I think it shows up, I think on page, um, hold on one second, I'll come back to the actual quote, but I just, I just never forget that like the whole idea that she was a teacher who was teaching something that she herself could not be sure was valuable to the people she taught it to made me think about my role as a teacher at a university. And it was this book, ironically, that informed my decision to stop teaching at universities like a New School and Saint Francis, because I realized that the way in which my labor was contextualized in a university setting is that the value of my teaching was realized in the degree, which wasn't what my contribution to the classroom setting was because I had a role to teach them something that they could use.

Yahdon:

At least the way I think about education is what can I teach somebody in a span of a four month semester that they can use after that four months, which is even if they were not to get a degree, they had a skill that I taught them in that four months semester that they took my class, that was valuable. And before I read this book, I had not thought about my teaching in a framework of am I teaching these students something that they can use, that's a value to them immediately versus relying on a larger institution, that's giving them a degree that ultimately is not in itself a skill. So that was like, this book really helped me just think through things, which was not like, oh, capitalism sucks or capitalism is great. It's like, oh, what is my role in the system? And what decisions can I make from where I am that shift the way I operate within it, which is not the same as like getting rid of the system, but interrogating my role in it. So I'll open it up for everybody else who wants to speak. The decorum of how we do it. You can raise your hand. Uh, there's the reactions button. If you're on your laptop in a lower, you know, on the low bar, you can raise your hand or you can type a exclamation point in the chat. If you can't find that, raise your hand function and I'll call on you. George, it's on you homie.

George:

So the varying times in the book, when she was talking to her son, Jay, as Jay was asking all these questions, you know, I, I thought about myself because you know, it's been intentional and, and anyone on this, on this call, they always know that I talk about my daughter and those moments when we have the meetings and I don't, it's, it's probably, it's highlighted more so than not, but she's never seen a world where like, okay, things have just.. And even if I had to deal with stuff that I won't bore you with the details on, she's never seen where like things have just not been there for her to be all that she can be. And people that spoke as we did the opening, talked about parents, exposing them to so much at a young age. That's how I felt. I felt like my mom and my life too much was placed on me as a kid, not allowing me to be a kid and to develop.

George:

And so fast forward to today, I mean, my daughter is a healthy, prosperous will contribute to society in so many ways as an adult, because these are things that did not cross her mind. So if she's in this call, like, I don't even know how she would respond to that, how she saw capitalism other than through her dad. And she's anti-capitalism, but that's why she is where she is today because I've worked in the things I've had to do for her, but there's a great video. And I don't know if you guys have seen it, it's called "the race about white privilege." And I'm such an emotional wreck, to be honest, if you knew me. So when I saw that video for the first time, it was disheartening because it was like, you know, step up if you come from a two-parent household or if you've had tutors all those things.

George:

So I guess in the book, when she was talking to her son, he was asking about like, okay, you know, am I middle-class or am I living luxury and how she could explain to him how he understood it. He won't see the world the same way she saw it because she knows what, and she talks about discomforts and comforts. So I was very moved by this book. And I'm looking forward to this discussion about those who are anti-capitalist, those who may have experienced some of that in their household. But now they're anti it is just going to be interesting, the perspectives from the various people on the call right now. Thank you. And I'm done speaking.

Yahdon:

You make everything sound like a damn Ted Talk. You have like an opening, and you have like, a farewell.

George:

That's how I did it on Clubhouse, even though I'm not a member, I don't do that any longer, but it's like how you end it when you know you're done.

Yahdon:

That there, you damn sure brought a Clubhouse feel to this. Um, Ricca then Eunice, then Amina.

Ricca:

I just wanted to mention that, um, I'd actually heard that monopoly story at, um, have you ever been to a nerd night? So it's an event that I've, they've had them in various things. It's just like, people give like lectures or talks, at like a bar type place. And, um, you know, people go to like, listen. It's usually like kind of random topics all over the place, but somebody did a talk on that once when I went and it was interesting. So it was interesting to see that story again. Um, but the chapter that I like got really stuck on today when I was sort of like reading towards the end of the book was the on blood and women in particular, I'm on page 244 specifically. And it says, she's talking about cannot be regulated and free market capitalist. There's talk about some article at some event she's going to, um, where is it?

Yahdon:

Read the section so we know..

Ricca:

Okay. Where should I start?

Yahdon:

Uh, where do you, where does it begin for you? Is it the whole thing or is it like a particular moment?

Ricca:

Yeah, I guess I'll start on 243, the last paragraph. "So at the suggestion of my host, I moved to the other end of the table where a man mentions that I might be interested in an essay titled the tragedy of the commons. I've just read that essay I tell him yesterday, he hesitates and then explains it to me. The tragedy he says is that everyone will always take as much as they can from the commons. This isn't my sense of the tragedy. The tragedy is that by the time that essay was written, the commons had already been lost. And the regulations that once prevented everyone from taking as much as they could from the commons have been forgotten. But the idea that the commons cannot be regulated, I know is the interpretation of that essay favored by free market capitalists. And that's what has made it so enduring despite the fact that it was written as an argument for limiting the breeding of the poor and is riddled with an inaccuracies and outright falsehoods, its veracity is less important than its influence.

Ricca:

One of my colleagues once said of that essay, meaning," and this was the part that just like killed me. "The lies We want to believe, tell us something about ourselves." And then at the end of the chapter, she talks about, or the next paragraph is about women. "It still bothers me to see only women doing unpaid work. It reminds me of the word Ivana translated for me as mandatory volunteer work." And then at the end is, "I look around and see it everywhere." I pause the second paragraph on the last page of the chapter. Oh wait, no, sorry. "We are the means of production. I had three children. She says, I have, I've been the means of production. Now I want to own the means of production. "So like we as women who, or people, I guess like who can have children, we are creating people who have children are creating the workers that will continue to like drive the system forward. Um, and it's with like the blood of the people who bear those children just sort of, it was a lot.

Yahdon:

Yeah. Hold on, wait, hold up. So Eunice then Amina

Eunice:

Really, I want to speak to her what you were talking about when you were teaching. I taught at a two-year college and what's so important is you're teaching this class and they are looking to have employment after, even though this was a, a five core certification. So I try to teach each course where they can go back out and find them employment. So it was called a database programming class. And so in order to have favor amongst the other three instructors, I brought some mad skills. And so everybody load up in my classroom, 45 people. And then I had to have three different classes because afterwards they will come to me. Can I get a recommendation for a job? And they got the job. So I'm just speaking toward, you know, but, but in the end, let me just say this in the end, I was like, this is too much work. It's just too much work because the rest of the instructors weren't doing shit, they wasn't doing shit. But that, I mean, for them, they were looking for, um, the result of what they can get out that class, which is money, you know?

Yahdon:

Right, right, right. Nah, I appreciate that. I'm going to touch, I'm going to go deep into that. Amina, it's on you.

Amina:

So, um, I've gone back to work after 18 months of no students in a classroom and doing virtual in the kids are like in a really weird place in, I think we're at like the epitome of capitalism right now, um, where people are refusing to work and, um, our system wants us to work really badly. And so there's shortages of bus drivers, and it's just a lot, it's very chaotic and it's trickling down to our education system and in our children. And so she says on page 47, "we shouldn't ask our wish to be good. In other words, we should ask our economic system to be better." And I feel like right now, like day-to-day like, I'm like every day is like a day of crying because like, um, everybody, all the parents are like distraught because they went from having this, um, all this pandemic money to losing it.

Amina:

Now they're all fighting each other. Like parents are fighting each other. They're fighting their children. They're coming to school, fighting children. And there's like so much violence and killing and death because all for the sake of money and it was, it was something that Farrakhan kind of said a long time ago. He said he ripped up a dollar and he was like, "I can get rid of this and I can, I can make that back again. But when you take a life that life can't come back and that's what people are killing each other for. Like we're working ourselves to death we're, um, we're killing each other for this capital that doesn't even care for us at all." And so I really feel like, uh, I do believe there are, we should ask the rich to be good, but I also think the economic system does need to be better.

Yahdon:

So let me, let me jump to, cause I think what you brought up...page 93. Um, I'm going to just read both page 94 95 capitalism. Because I think that it was, I don't know what it was about just seeing the language so starkly, but there's an earlier part in this book where her and her husband are talking and she asks him if he knows what capitalism is and he goes, no. And he asked her, do you know what capitalism? They both agree that they don't know what it is and they have to go figure out what it is and before they can continue to talk about it. And that lays at the heart of this whole this whole discussion and whole conversation. But this chapter here like really laid out for me, like it's simplified a lot of complex systems that capitalism informs.

Yahdon:

Like when I think like it helped me think about at the root of capitalism lies this particular premise and foundation. And it happens "So at a dinner for work, I'm sitting between a botanist and an economist, and we're talking about kudzu. This isn't work, but it isn't leisure either. The economist mentions the pigouvian tax, a tax that's added to the price of a thing because of the social cost of that thing. Like the tax on cigarettes. How would one would calculate the tax, the economist muses or an invasive plant like kudzu? How much should it cost if someone wanted to plant it in their garden? As he says, I'm thinking that if the price of every item reflected its social cost, then a lot of things should be much more expensive.

Yahdon:

Bottled water, online shopping, bullets. The social cost of some things is their very cheapness. Chicken McNuggets, made cheap at the expense of the birds, bred so that they can barely walk at the expense of the workers, who gut and cut them on factory lines moving at the rate of 40 birds per minute. We will eventually be buried with those chickens. The fossilized trace of a trillion birds will outlast and mark the passage of the humans who made them," Raj Patel and Jason Moore, write in A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things. What about capitalism? I wonder, could we tax capitalism itself? I ask the economist, if he can explain to me what capitalism is. The botanist leaves to get a drink. Capital, he begins, is a means of production. That much I already know. And capitalism is a system in which one builds wealth by owning a means of production. Like a factory, he says, or a cow. Or land? I asks. Yes, land

Yahdon:

Or another person. Even a sharpened stick is capital. Capitalism has been around a long time, he says, it's as old as ownership." And so something I thought about immediately was even in context of what you said, Amina about people renegotiating and what some, one of the things that the pandemic has done is it has put people in a space where we can interrogate who owns the means to produce what they have. Right. And it was arguably one of the first times in this country, because everything stopped for a minute. It gave people the time, which is like another section in his book where like, what she said was like, when money buys her time, that's what she's really working for is the enough money to buy her time back.

Yahdon:

And when I think about like hourly labor, um, somebody, I think, I forget who said they worked at like, you know, uh, I think it was Agatha. I think you talked about working at Abercrombie and Fitch when you are, when you grow up from an early age and you learn not only that your time has your time is money, but then because of the amount of money you make in your time that it's minimal, you learn that your time, if you make minimum wage, isn't valuable, you learn in many ways that your life isnt valuable. And I think because what this pandemic upended was people thinking about who owns the means to make their work matter. And so it's like for me as a professor, one of the first things I did was think about my labor in a context to a university to think about what does the university actually do that I either don't do or am not doing that justifies my working here.

Yahdon:

So if I'm working at a university in which the classes I teach, because I'm an adjunct or, and I thought about it this way on the subject of talking about FAFSA and universities, to know that a university like the New School charges, like $65,000 a year for students to attend. And 65% of that faculty is taught by adjuncts, which means that they're part-time teachers who teach at other universities. You're statistically more likely to be taught by somebody who teaches at another university that's cheaper. So you're not actually paying for the teacher to teach you, you're paying for the name of the brand of the school, to which case I don't exist in that value proposition. So it was like, oh. Now the question for me had become, so what do I do, knowing what I know. And I think that like one of the difficulties about the critiques about capitalism or any systems is like, what do we do with the information we now have. My thing was like, I'm still going to teach at City college because it's predominantly black and brown. And even like the white students, there are coming from communities that are more like the ones I come from, but like, I'm not working at new school. So I'm saying like, what this book enabled me to do. And the last thing I'll leave people with is that distinction she makes between work and labor. Um, and I wanted to see if that moment in the book struck y'all. If it made y'all think about anything when she says, on page 99, "Work, Lewis Hyde writes is distinct from labor. Work is something we do by the hour and labor sets its own pace. Work, If we are fortunate is rewarded with money, but the reward for labor is transformation. "Writing a poem," Hyde writes, "raising a child, developing a new calculus, resolving a neurosis, invention in all forms.These are labors." This list reveals to me my problem. I want to give my life to labor, not work." And that coupled with the definition of capitalism made me think about, what is the labor that I uniquely provide that is transformative for the students who take a class of mine and how do I develop a framework of value that's set around it. That's not premised on the relationship between a university and a student. What I was going to ask is, did that statement "work is distinct from labor", make y'all think about your relationship to the jobs you do versus like the reason why you do your job. Like, when I think about editing, I love the conversations with writers. I hate writing, you know, doing the P and L statements. There's the labor then there's the work. So I just was curious about that. But, um, Jumie it's on you.

Jumi:

I was just thinking a lot about her husband, John, um, and his, his whole persona, because, so the book, like one of the things that really stayed with me throughout the book was this idea. When he says you can read class on people's bodies. Like I know that guys from the south side, I'm from the south side and he's, and she's constantly like, how do you know, like who's from the south side? And I just felt, I've been thinking about that question, that idea, a lot of like what class you identify with versus what class others identified you as being a part of. Um, and sometimes they can match, but sometimes they don't, like, I was thinking also about that section of the book called rich, because I kind of resonate with that a bit where,

Yahdon:

Because she, she names like different sections, the same titles. So it is like, that's why I like getting lost in the

Jumi:

Yea i know. On page 81. "I'm compiling evidence that we're rich." She texted to John and, um, you know, so much of the book felt like John was the intended audience for this whole book. Like unintentionally. Like she speaking to John, like constantly, like in an argument with him of how we are not what we think we are. Right. Um, and one of the reasons that I think a lot about this, this, because I feel like my family and myself have transcended like certain classes hold up. Um, but what I was going to say was like, when I was growing up, I didn't think about class. And I think we don't think about class. I think that people who have, don't think about what we don't have a lot of times, like this is this perpetual blind spot.

Jumi:

And even though I grew up with things that I had, there were things that I didn't have that made me feel like I was being misunderstood. My father made a lot of money when I was growing up, but something that money can't, um, like I was just thinking about what are the great equalizers? And there are certain things that are great equalizers, like illness. Like, I mean, maybe some of you might send the answer to that. The answer to that is health insurance, but health insurance can't like take away cancer and it can't cure. It can, and it can't, right? You can go through chemotherapy and it can still like, not work out. But then there's also like if you have depression or anxiety, these things are not things that can be solved with dollar signs. I mean, people might try, but they're the great equalizers. And I'm just thinking a lot about the relationship between Eula and her husband, because there's something that's equalizing them. So what is it?

Yahdon:

Let me ask you a question. Something you brought on that maybe not just you, but anybody who would want to think about it. Does, does the money system automatically indicate a capitalist system?

Jumi:

No, technically not. I mean, there's countries in this world that don't, or were not founded on capitalism

Yahdon:

That have money? The reason why I brought that up is because something that this book has helped think through is the common discourse that I've heard is that any system with money is automatically a capitalist system. And something that to connect this book to a previous reading we had, which was on "Braiding Sweetgrass" was when we think about capitalism, I think about that chapter, the strawberries chapter, where she talked about picking strawberries when they were "free" not because they didn't cost money or time, like time or labor, but because no one owned the strawberries versus what happened when she was older. And then that woman owned the strawberries and like determined what could and couldn't be. And so like, thinking about, like, to your point of like, what becomes the differences, what's the equalizer between them? I think it's a level of ownership they have in their relationship. Like, I think that the fact that they're married to one another means by definition, they each have claim to each other. So if nothing else, their ownership is the fact that they're married and they equally share ownership in this house. So they're like they're equally vested in terms of theoretically, like that would be the great equalizer between them.

Jumi:

Can I push back a little bit though? I feel like class runs so deep. I mean, I'm married and in my marriage, I grew up with a very different class identity than my husband did. And that never stops wearing its face when we are talking about life plans that involve money because psychology of money, like there's a reason why people in this country don't talk about what they earn, because we've been taught that what we earn is who we are, that identity is intrinsic to our production. Right. And so then what happens when you get into a partnership with someone who comes from a totally different background? I'm not saying that it's not possible, obviously I'm making that work. But I have to make it work. Okay. The natural evolution of, oh, like, like we both love each other, but we still have to like translate for each other a lot.

Yahdon:

Right. My question then becomes then what do you mean by equalizer? Like what's the definition of how equal appears is like, how are you imagining equal?

Jumi:

The chance. So for me, the equalizer is about possibility and chance. The chances for a better outcome is equal for parties regardless of class. Because when it comes to matters of the body, I mean, some people might be out here doing cosmetic surgery until the end of time and they will still die a thousand deaths before they die because of aging. So there's like certain things that none of us can run from, regardless of how much money we have. Right. Is that answering the question or am I like

Yahdon:

Kinda not, but I'm gonna come back to it. Cause I want to make sure we hit everybody else though, but I'm gonna come back to it. So Kirsten then Amina, then, then Amber, and then I'm gonna come to you, George. Cause you spoke. I want to make sure I get some other people.

Kirsten:

Oh gosh, I just had like so many different tangential conversations in my head based on everything Jumi was saying. Um, I'll go to the beginning. There was, one of the sections on it was rich and poor. And I love the ending of that first section of the book. This is 83 page 83 paperback. Um, and she says, she's talking about a friend of hers who grew up on Madison avenue, um, who grew up really wealthy and gave away all of her money. And, um, she goes back to the friend's father's apartment after he passes. And uh, she says in her father's apartment on the table next to his bed was a bowl of beautiful glass cherries. I secretly coveted them. Molly found them ridiculous, emblematic of wealth, fruit that can't be eaten. And I thought, I just, that was one of the lines in the book that stuck with me so much.

Kirsten:

Um, because I think everyone has those memories. I remember being younger and uh, a friend of mine whose parents, were well off, seem to me, like bought us all those G baby watches. They were like 90 bucks at the time. And, uh, and me and another girlfriend went to her house for a sleepover. And we each got a watch. I was like in fifth grade, I got like this $90 watch and my parents made me give it back. Um, but I think everyone can probably have those. Everybody has those memories of what's something that suddenly you see another class.

Yahdon:

I had a hater my mother too, she used to make me give back expensive gifts. I'm like, why are you hating on me? I didn't steal it.

Kirsten:

I know blue is my favorite color, but I understood like, you know, they wanted to instill a certain value. Um, but there was another thing too that I really wanted to talk about or at least bring up with this book, you know, and it's the structure, the form, because this book is about capitalism or it's at least about money and the power dynamics and structures that come from that, whether they are social, physical or intellectual. And so it's a very triggering topic, I think for most, certainly for me. And so I was waiting, I was waiting for an argument to be, to be brought up. I was waiting for and quickly I realized that was not how she was writing. And I, and I personally appreciated it, enjoyed that because in a capitalist society, generally there's a binary and so you're doing something or you're against it.

Kirsten:

And so I'm waiting for the academic essay or, you know, that sort of structure to take place. And instead you got these, this like the slice of life vignettes, this sort of money diary, um, but also a form of art, which I thought was, was very clever and beautiful. Um, in how she did that. And, and I think the way that she did that, you know, Jumi was talking about how it almost seems like is she talking to her husband in the book? Is she talking to John? And I thought about that too. And I also thought, is she talking to her husband? And is she talking to all these other people out there who may have a guarded stance on this topic, which is most, but particularly those who are on the having side, as well. And, I think that the form that she chose, in being able to speak to both sides because in ways, at times it reads almost as like a deposition, I mean, a really beautiful, poetic deposition, but the argument never comes.

Kirsten:

It's just like, she's stating these facts. She has this collage of experiences that she's tying together through like an infinity diagram of experience. And that, let me in it personally, let my guard down a little, cause I was like, well, where's the argument? When are we gonna, you know, eviscerate capitalism through the first few pages, but it also made me realize, oh, well, why am I so gung ho about taking this side because of the insecurities I have on either side of the argument, so to speak, uh, why am I so quick to want to see an argument be made? Um, and I thought it allowed for more exploration.

Yahdon:

Yeah. I mean, we got like a lot of hands done shot up. So I'm, I'm excited about that. So, Amina then George than Amber three at a time. So if I don't call your name is not because I'm skipping you, I'm just doing three at a time as not to lose my place. Amina

Amina:

Yeah. I just wanted to answer your question about money and capitalism. So I was going to say yes. Um, I feel like, after imperialism, colonialism, I think capitalism has been ....

Yahdon:

You saying yes to the fact that money inherently operates in a capitalist system.

Amina:

Yes. But then I'm also, I'm also speaking with the very American mindset of a colonized person, you know what I mean? So, um, I'm not like the global response, you know, I can't, but I just see that as like going hand in hand, I feel like the system has been created once imperialism, colonialism happened. All of like our economy of the world has been based on a capitalist idea. I just feel like they go hand in hand, like, just looking at how, um, imperialists, like, have taken over Africa and India and all the resources stolen from all these lands were based on capital and you know, which in turn, I feel like becomes capitalism, um, and wordplay. But also, there's a question that the students always ask, um, our civics teacher, they say, why do they always want to kill us?

Amina:

And she's like, what do you mean by they? And who are they? And so the kids go well, the government, she said always remember that the most important, color is not black or white it's green. She says, she always tells them, she's like, they will never get rid of their largest, labor force and the largest consumer of this country. So she tells the kids that most of the time, they don't want to kill black people. They just want to make sure that they control their money. So that is just how our government, and I feel like just globally, it's just how it is.

Yahdon:

So it means like part of production is what you're saying is controlling the means of production is not just controlling how people work and where people work, but also how they spend, like, it's like controlling, actual how people operate.

Amina:

Yeah. I mean, we, that's, all we think about is like buying, buying even like we work just to buy even every day that I go to work. I'm just like, this is such a waste of time of life. Like I can just be living on an island somewhere, eating fruit, but no, instead the world has taxes and credit.

Yahdon:

That's amazing how your mind straight went straight to the taxes. Like damnit these taxes. I could be eating coconuts right now, but taxes. Um, yo George, let me hit you. And then who was it? Who was next? Amber and then Valentina.

George:

So, so real quick, a couple of points. So on the point, Jumi made about health and wealth, on page 271. The first full paragraph said "health is a mark of money. In our time when a longer lifespan can be bought. The rich of this country are living to be older and older now while everyone else is dying younger. Perhaps the starkest measure of the failure of our economic policies," Binyamin Appelbaum writes, "is that the average American's life expectancy is in decline, as inequalities of wealth have become inequalities of health." Meanwhile, life remains the ultimate privilege, the living lording over the dead." My next point in this book, there's a section which talks about how the rich somewhat feel guilty about being rich. And they talk about, oh, like "I'm buying something from Marshalls at a discount." Like they speak that language.

George:

And, and trust me, I've been on both. I've been where like I've had nothing and I've I interact with the .00001% or not even a 1%. So my only point is, and that's why I'm glad this discussion because I think the comment was made, she's not being argumentative in the book, but my thing is she's presenting the comforts and the discomforts. And depending on how you perceive them, you can say there's a push pull on both sides of that, uh, in this area. And the last point I want to make is on page 88, second paragraph, we no longer have about all..

Yahdon:

I love how all your points is what she said. It's like, you know, something, I think? I'ma quote her

George:

Well, yeah, I mean, I read this book, this book had me written all over it, to be honest, but this last point, uh, on page 88, "we no longer have a leisure class in America. Galbraith argues in 'The Affluent Society." Our rich work, or at least act busy. While leisure has gone out of fashion. A new class has emerged--a class of people who don't work for money. They are paid, but payment is not the point. They work for a sense of fulfillment for the rewards of the work itself." And I tell you, that is my daughter all day. That was not me. That was not me. My thing was I have to get a job. I have to make an income. So my only point is, you know, if you've always come from, if it's a different perspective than if you come from nothing and then you've seen something.

George:

So it's just interesting to perspective, but I'm going to say she's created a lot of push pull, a lot of tension in this book between her having certain comforts, getting to that point and remembering the discomforts. I mean, I know I go through that. You know, people who like my daughter may not see that, but I see that. So my only, I guess the last point on this point is, you know, we all have a different perspective and I respect everyone's views, but I, I still say this is a society where the have, will always have an advantage over the have nots. And there are certain situations where yes, it is mental illness and cancer. All those things touch every asset class. I mean every class of society. But I'm telling you people that have, have a better chance at survival, than people that don't have. We saw that with Covid. If we did not see that during this pandemic, then we were not awake to what was happening, As things unfolded across this country, across different asset classes, different ethnic groups, you know, and that's my point. And I'm done speaking.

Yahdon:

This is going to keep ending that way. Um, Amber then Valentina, then Benita.

Amber:

Hey, uh, I actually share some of the thoughts of George, like Jumie kind of talked about this great equalizer. Um, and I think, I just want to like, like pose a question. It's like, I wonder why, um, people are so focused on finding this great equalizer. I think it doesn't exist. I think every aspect of our lives, capitalism and money, whether the same thing or not like are effected by the, you could say sickness with like, that's not true. Like I just had a friend tell me, like in a different country, their aunt, brought a breathalyzer or something. The, the, what is it called? The thing you need, once you have COVID she bought one and let an older family member die. Like money can also affect you living or dying when you have sickness. So like, or even climate change is affected by like America is getting the effects of climate change after poor parts of the world. So like money is just like, it matters. Um, so I wonder why some people are so concerned with finding this great equalizer, it doesn't exist. Um, and I wonder if it relieves some guilt

Yahdon:

I'm going to let you respond to that Jumie. After, if you want to, but I want to make sure I call on all these hands. This is the discussion only difference is, is that in person, this, this happens way more sporadically. Um, Valentina, it's on you.

Valentina:

Um, I was just going to say,

Yahdon:

Sorry.

Valentina:

Oh, no, no, my bad. Um, I was just going to say really quick, uh, an earlier point we were talking about like capitalism existing with money or not, and then work versus labor. Um, I was just thinking, I think other pieces that make capitalism, what it is is the, uh, what you guys are talking about right now, like the, the exploited at these that, um, maybe a marriage works because you both value each other in the same way, but once you start valuing people at lower, higher, and then we attach a dollar value to it, but once you start valuing people as lower or higher than the others, I think that's where a lot of the ugly comes out. And then my quick note about labor versus work is I really loved that. It made me think about "All About Love by Bell Hooks." And they made me think about labors of love. Um, and I thought about like, I really appreciate when, like my mom makes my coffee, just how I, like, I recently moved to an apartment. My whole family helped me like assemble my furniture. Like those are like labors of love for me, um, that don't have a dollar value associated to it, but I loved the question that was just asked too, so, um, I'm going to lower my hand, but that was, that was it for me.

Yahdon:

I appreciate you appreciate that Benita then Amanda then Diana.

Amanda:

Oh yeah. there've been so many points made that I like kind of forgot, but I kind of also wanted to pose a question just because I'm new here. And also, I know we've been talking a lot about capitalism, but I'm curious what people think about like other types of economic systems. Cause she kind of brings them up a bit in the book and there was just one line that I kept on thinking about and I was telling everyone about it, but it's on page 24 and she quotes marks and essentially says, "One of the main things Marx noticed about capitalism," she writes "is that it really encourages people to have relationships with things instead of with other people." Which like is really depressing. I'm just curious, compared to like other economic systems and just that quote in general, like what it brings up for everyone.

Yahdon:

I know for me learning about the biography of Karl Marx was really fascinating to reconcile with his philosophy. That was a man who was living on, what he lived, He was burning through in weeks, What people in the village he wrote, the manifesto was living on in a year. He was like a spin thrift. He was like really bad with money. And so like, I've been even trying to reconcile Marxism against understanding that this man was like one of those friends who complained about his friends with money while borrowing money from his friends. So I say that to say like, because I have not lived in any of these other systems, I know personally I can't speak to how to think through them because they're completely different frameworks of how to live. So there are certain frameworks that I can't even fathom.

Yahdon:

Like I know like in certain villages in west Africa, if someone complimented you on something, you had to give it to them because the concept of like ownership doesn't really exist. So like, if someone says, I like your sweater or I like that sweater. Cause they wouldn't even say your sweater. They say, I like that sweater because it does not belong to anybody. You would give it to them. But the language they even have for that is not that you would give it to them. It would be that it already belongs to the village. And I'm in my head with my like 30 plus pairs of shoes and all the shit that I like. And I'm like, I'm not giving shit to somebody cause they complimented me on it. So I say all that to say, that like as much as I can recognize moments where I am critical of capitalism, there is also moments when I'm like, you know, like that meme when Dave Chappelle is holding the money to his chest and that like sketch about Oprah when it's just like, no, not my stuff. Like take their stuff, not mine. So I say that to say like this, like I've never, I can't even fathom other systems, but has anyone else lived in another system to see or speak to like differences anyone here even for a week?

Yahdon:

Like has anyone like, like live somewhere else that had a different economic system to like see what the differences are?

Benita:

I can speak on that.

Yahdon:

Oh, okay. So Jumi, let me go to Benita since she was already, her hand was already up Benita and then you could transition it to what you wanted to say.

Benita:

Sure. Um, so my parents as I had already mentioned, they were immigrants and I was born and raised here, but my parents made sure to ship us off to Dominican Republic every summer. So while we're living here in New York, we're, um, you know, using food stamps, using Medicaid, um, even though my mom has a full daycare that she's running, she still needs these support systems to help her be able to manage and take care of her family. But when we reached Dominican Republic, we reached an area where my dad's family is in the Capitol and this huge house and anything that we need, anything that we want there's even servants there. Right. Um, and it's still within the means of what my parents can afford outside of what they have here in New York. Um, so it was kind of weird to transition from being in New York and living in like a four floor walk-up, um, throughout most of the year. But then in the summer time, we're living in Dominican Republic in this huge house with people taking care of us and everything catered to us. Um, so living in between those two different worlds.

Yahdon:

But what my question is, is does, does the DR have a different economic system than America? Like is it a socialist, is it, is it a communist or is it a capitalist country? It's just that. Where are you? Like, is it, does it run on like, is it a capitalist society though?

Benita:

I would say it is.

Yahdon:

Okay. So like that was what I was asking

Benita:

Oh i don't think I understood the question.

Yahdon:

It's okay. It's okay. But what was the other thing?

Benita:

the book, um, kind of brought up so many different thoughts for me because my background is, you know, the struggle of going from, a household where we've benefited from public services. Right. And now I have kids that are in an independent school, going to school with one percenters and I still, I got to figure out a way to, yes. Um, you know, you're going to strive and you're going to do everything you can to meet and be within this different class that I didn't grow up in. Right. Um, but at the same time, I want to teach you all the different things that, um, made me who I am and taught me all the different values that I feel that my parents ingrained in me to work for and to strive for that are outside some of those things that their classmates just, I don't think they'll be able to grasp those concepts and those thoughts that came to mind.

Benita:

And in reading it, there was a portion. And I don't remember exactly where it was, where she felt that guilt in that struggle between being the person that at some point had to roll up a mat that she used to sleep on. And then thinking about that chapter where she's thinking about all these different white paint that she's going to pick for this new house and all this furniture that she's gonna bring into her house. And you kind of still saw a little bit of that guilt of her transition and her moving from, from rolling up that mat into where she's living now and how she's interacting with different people throughout all the different storylines that she provides in the story.

Yahdon:

Thank you for that. Um, Diana and Maggie and then Jumi

Diana:

I guess this is a combination of a few things in regards to like economic systems and how people identify themselves with money. Um, so like I'm also first generation. My parents came from the former Soviet union, so they grew up in communism and they experienced communism to almost the age of 30. Um, and even within that system of communism though, like my father grew up like the poor side of communism you could say. My mom grew up on the side of communism where she was doing good. Like her father worked a hustle in textiles and was able to do like the black market to get money for the family. So like she grew up with almost like a lot of things that she needed, almost everything she needed. Meanwhile, my dad, like, you know, his mom was making soup from peas.

Diana:

My dad, he was more of a single family home, so it's a bit more difficult too, but, and then they came to America and it was like, scratch everything. So my mom's life actually went to a lower level much more so, when she came to America, then the good life she was living in former Soviet Union. Um, but the funny thing is that, not the funny, interesting thing is that the way that my parents identified themselves with money and how they value money is so different, even though they grew up in this communist system, which in essence is like, it's meant to like equalize and no one should value money because my mom had when she was younger and she understood what it gave and didn't and what she had. And my father never had growing up really. And when they came here to America, this capitalist system, like the difference was very stark, I think more so for my mom than for my father.

Diana:

And I think the dissonance between that has translated over the years throughout their lives, in regards to how they value money in both a very practical sense, but also a very emotional, mental sense as well. Um, and stupid. It just made me think even when, like, like to your point of like, when you hear Marx's story about his biography of how you just got all this cash and he's like, no one should have money, but I mean, he was getting all this money every week and you're like, this is such a fallacy of like the system that's meant to be an equalizer, but everyone they're getting cash, but just in different ways, you know, like, and this is not a support of either system either way, but in essence, like the lies that were told about each system and how it actually marks ourselves through this capitalist system, how money is identification with money and how it's attached to a system, obviously through the lens of capitalism is all I have growing up in this system.

Diana:

But by seeing my parents difference, I was like, oh, the way they understand money is not only because of the system of how money and a system and freedom are integrated. And by coming here, how capitalist system in essence, there is a lot more freedom for them to actually live their lives in a way that they were not allowed back in the former Soviet union. Um, so just all those ruminations of, of how those three integrate, um, and how like through yourselves, the lies we tell ourselves the way we value money might necessarily always be upon the system we live in, but more so about how we identified the value of ourselves, um,

Yahdon:

Heavy, heavy Maggie, and then Jumi,

Maggie:

I kind of changed what i was gonna say, there's just, there's so much, everybody has such amazing points. And it started with Kirsten talking about the format of this book. And also when we talked about how to read poetry and books of poetry, I felt like that's what we were getting. We were almost getting prompts more than essays. You know, you could have this in a in-person book club, you could do this for like three months straight. Um, but this book was also I'm from Chicago. And this book was also very Midwest to me. There was something very suburban about it. Um, and I want to throw out, we're talking about capitalism and other structures. And I feel like I live in a different economy in Seattle, which is sort of the Medina to San Francisco's Mecca of tech. And there is a word that's being thrown around.

Maggie:

It's called techno feudal feudalism, um, as becoming the next step from capitalism. And it is kind of wild around here because you have everything is tech, everything is apps, everything, um, which is not that so much in some cities in the Midwest. And there's a, I think it was George who brought up the affluent. Aren't the leisure class anymore. It's almost like a badge of honor around here. You can swing a rock and hit a millionaire, like a tech millionaire. Right. And they're all very proud of how they work themselves to the bone. And it's like an understood dot, dot dot. Well, I worked very hard. I learned how to code dot, dot, dot, you know, like I'm rich, but I work hard. What's your problem is kind of the thing. But then you have at the other end of the spectrum, you have the gig economy that everybody got sold, which is the modern feudalism, basically where people work very hard, you know, driving cars, delivering food, packing your groceries, they don't get anywhere. And I feel like it's a weird wave I see here that I don't see fully hitting the Midwest yet. I can't speak to other places in the country, but I do feel like I'm somewhere different and I'm somewhere that's becoming post-capitalist in a very weird, like dystopian JG Ballard way

Yahdon:

Right now to the literary references. Jumi, it's on you girl.

Jumi:

So you want me to respond?

Yahdon:

No, I don't. I don't necessarily want you to respond, but, uh, I know Amber asked that question. I didn't know if you want it to address the question.

Jumi:

Can I hear ambers question again? oh yeah. The equalizer question. So I was, as I was like listening to you guys, I was using, oh, like the impact of what I said matters just as much as like what I was trying to say. And for me, like, yes, COVID has shown us that. So it's shown us that it's not the great equalizer, but when I was talking about health, I was actually talking about mental health. Um, because I'm someone who's grown up with a lot of money. And I've also been someone who has struggled with mental health. I've been committed to a psychiatric ward more than once in my life. And let me tell you something that inside a psychiatric ward class is different because there's only two classes. Those are out and those who are in, and

Jumi:

When thinking about wealth and mental health, I've seen a lot of people come from families that are really well to do that have still committed harm or committed harm against themselves. No matter the access to services they had. And so when I was thinking, saying those things, I was thinking about my experience within the healthcare industry, when it comes to mental health care. Even if you have access, the access to the service is it's still not meeting the demand or the need. And so there's a failure there in my perspective,

Yahdon:

Right. And to build off your point, um, we goin to score a little bit over because we started late. So if you got to leave, I understand. But, um, we, we could rock out to like 9 45. Um, one of the things I wanted to ask George, which is like connected to what you're saying, Jumie, cause what I've been trying to do and cultivating new language to talk about how I function in the capitalist system. I've been really mindful of like, when I say, you know, that whole Horatio Alger, rags to riches narrative, that is the premise of the foundation of the American dream. Right. You were here and then you're there. Right? Which treats class even like there are these fixed positions in the world. So because you have this degree, it means X because you have this much money, it means Y and it's like,

Jumi:

But there are certain things that, that like cancel all of that out.

Yahdon:

No, and that's what I'm saying is like having that conversation or how to articulate that. Because when we talk about like, you know, when you say you have nothing, what exactly are you saying you're missing? Which is not to say you're not missing something that you yourself Jumi, but like,

Jumi:

I want to answer this because like, I think about this question as someone who has a psychiatric disorder and has lived in inside institutions that have robbed me of my freedoms. Like there's no, like I couldn't offer any amount of money to be let out. And that is something that is wildly dehumanizing. And when thinking about, oh my God, Yahdon, I'm like losing track of what you said, it's very emotional. I'm like very like charged. Cause I was thinking within the world of mental health care, there is so much, okay. So this is a conversation I talk about purely in terms of masculinity, but there's so much emasculation related to capitalism within the world of mental health care because when people are trying to get well, um, I'm trying to understand Nuratu's(comment in the chat).

Yahdon:

Yeah. Yeah. Uh, what do you mean by that Nuratu?

Nuratu:

Um, like in agreeance with what Jumi said, there's no amount of money that you can offer to anyone when they've deemed you in competent to care for yourself, they just don't care what your economic standing is or how you arrived, where you're at. It's just, you become a charge of someone else.

Jumi:

Like when you go to the rehab centers, these people, I mean, yeah. I'm sorry, Y'all but um, I think a lot about the emasculation that happens to people when they come out of mental health industries, it's no longer what do you do? Cause people who come out who are on the recovery path, who've just come out. They don't want to answer that question.

Yahdon:

Like, what do you do professionally? Yeah.

Jumi:

Because that's a common ask. I'm like, what do you do now? And that it's so alienating to people who are within the process of recovery, because they don't always want to have to say, I just spent a year of my life in a psychiatric ward, or I spent six months in rehab. You know? And imagine if you're a CEO, you're some kind of white collar worker. Maybe you went to Harvard, you had a descent. you sort of descent. And then when you come out or your peers or people who graduated from Harvard and you have to answer to them, I'm not saying that's the situation, but I'm saying that this is a one lens in which I see the world not understanding.

Yahdon:

And what, what you're saying is really about what I appreciated about this book, because I think about the irony of what it means to live in a capitalist society where money controls so much of what we do. And yet there are so many ways in which we do not talk about money at all. We're not taught it in school, primary, secondary, if you're not going to study finance. And it's funny how even funny, I mean, it's ironic how even people who work in the industries of finance and accounting still may not really know about money because you're not necessarily being taught about money. You're being taught about markets and systems, which is not necessarily the same thing, which is like, I thought that the whole like value of a conversation like this and what I thought that the EULA Biss book was doing was trying to get to something that wasn't material about value.

Yahdon:

And that whole notion of like, there's all these ways in which money plays out in very tangible ways. But how do we think of money that plays itself out in intangible ways? Right? So like the whole function of aware does that, you know, the whole thing of like the distinction between work and labor, one of the hardest things to do when talking about like money, can't buy you happiness. So follow your passion. It's like, I'm not trying to discredit the economic and material realities of the stark contrast with people who have money and people who don't. But what I'm also trying to do, is point to the fact that there's a power that money does not have that we give it. And that power that we give money says more about the person who gives that value to money, more than what the actual money has access to doing. So what I meant only by my question, George, anybody else wants to answer, like, particularly you, because you said "nothing", like, what was your definition of nothing? Was your definition of nothing particularly informed by that which had to be bought by money or was it other things which didn't

George:

Well, from my perspective, you know, when I'm going to the movie to the drive-in movie theater and we have to go to the convenience store and I have to pull out food stamps just to like, get a snack or hide in the back of the trunk, just because they can't see the number of people in the car to go to the drive in. I mean, those are not the realities that I want anybody to experience, to be honest. But being at that point that has shaped everything about how I see money. I've made so many mistakes with money because I didn't have it and didn't have anyone to teach me how to manage it. Like I needed to, even with all I've made, but coming and having nothing in at an early age where my mom was expecting my part-time job to be able to still help pay bills.

George:

And even to this day, like, okay, there are certain level of responsibilities required of me, you know, as you know, as a significant, I guess, breadwinner, if you think about the context of my family. And so having all those things at a young age, to me, those are the things that are troubling and that I would wish on no one at a young age who they can grow and develop and be all they want and can be. And on the one point, Jumi made the only other point, I want to make on mental health. Cause my daughter had a mental health breakdown. She was in boarding school at a very prominent boarding school, but I tell you, there was a psychologist. We had therapy, the things she could get being in that environment versus my family back in rural South Carolina, very different. I mean very different. I'm not taking anything away from mental health. I'd had mental health issue, but I'm saying there still, if you have resources, I don't care if it's mental, physical, whatever the case may be. And again, my views are so screwed up. I will be the first to say, Hey, but the fact that I came from nothing. It's just how I see the world. And I'm just glad my daughter doesn't see it the same way because she's anti-capitalist

Yahdon:

Once again. My question is, what is the "nothing" like I'm just wanting to understand, like how do you define "nothing"? Not for any reason besides to understand what your definition of nothing is. So a way to give you a sense of it is like one of the things that the Braiding Sweetgrass book gave me, what helped me continue to articulate is how to subvert the narratives. Like what is that quote that you brought up Christie? What the lies we tell ourselves, what was it, what was the quote? Do you remember? Please tell you remember, did she leave? I don't know. She said, oh, I'm sorry, Ricca. What was that Quote? It was page, but

Ricca:

Hold on

Yahdon:

On one second, because I think that, like not, I think one of the reasons why I even pick the books that we read that really focused on language and how we think through things is not taken for granted how the language we have to describe things informed the way we see things.

Ricca:

It's 244, the lies we want to believe, tell us something about ourselves

Yahdon:

Right. So that narrative of the "nothing", um, when I was describing nothing, I was describing not having timb(erland)s, not being, not having money for like book fairs, not having like things..was it traumatic in a context around people who had it? Yes. But to define the absence, to view my life through the lack of that, which could be like manifested and replaced with money. Versus when I looked at the framework of what did I have an abundance of? It just changed my narrative of "what I had," because part of what I'm identifying is what's valuable to possess is also identifying what do other people value versus what is really in line with my core value. That's what I mean.

George:

Ah, I got you. I got you. Yeah. Yeah. I would say for me being young and not being able to have a childhood, like not being able to experience being youthful, all the things that one should have as a, as a young person, because I always have to think about adult type things at a young age. So the "nothing" for me in that aspect, the "nothing" for me is a lack thereof. Like as a child always being on the hustle.

Yahdon:

So a lack of a childhood

George:

A lack of a childhood.

Yahdon:

What you afforded your daughter was a childhood. You didn't have. Okay. Now we got language. That's, that's all I'm saying.

George:

Now, you and I are BFFS

Yahdon:

All right, cool. So let me just, I'm going to go to Amber and Diana then I'm, uh, you know, gonna end the meeting for this evening, we're going to wrap it up. We coming up on that time.

Amber:

Uh, I'm all over the place. Everyone's saying some really great things. When we were talking about, um, the great equalizer, again, you mentioned Britney Spears. I think that for me kind of also is a situation where money is still affecting her situation, but she certainly is having her civil rights violated. But if she has, for me, "nothing" is, you can't eat, you can't wash yourself. Your needs, aren't taken care of. Now, is she in a position where her needs aren't taken care of? I've had a friend, tell me about what their experience with mental health, getting access to mental health resources in New York city. you would think that we're a city of so much money. Um, but it's still, it's still not equal. So like even there, I'm trying to say, I wrote down a note, but like, does, does having this great equalizer believing that it exists, you know, make you feel like, oh, like I could be less guilty because it exists. Um, but I do have, I'm sorry if that doesn't make any sense.

Yahdon:

Yeah. What do you mean by less guilty? I feel guilty of what, like, what would be the crime committed?

Amber:

I feel like people bring it up when the conversation of privilege comes up, not to say that Jumi brought it up for that reason. I feel like, like I went to the new school

Yahdon:

Basically saying that everything is everybody's is the same for everybody.

Amber:

Yeah. Like, oh, so you're saying that life was hard for you, but it's the same for everybody. It's hard for everybody. So I don't have to pay attention to how capitalism is affecting the world. I don't know.

Yahdon:

Okay. I think you also talking about a very specific kind of argument that wasn't raised, like that particular argument you're bringing up is like people who are particularly using that as a way to align any sort of critical self-reflection about their role in something versus like, when we're talking about this particular way in which, what are the things that money can't necessarily buy, which is what I think this book is really trying to articulate is that there are things that money cannot buy. Does it not mean that money having money doesn't afford you a different life? Absolutely. But still based on that premise, if we're saying that there is money, things that money can afford you, to what extent does recognizing the value of money end? Cause there has to be a limit in how we value money, even if money is something you recognize has a tangible difference on your life.

Yahdon:

There was a study about people's happiness is impacted at $75,000, $150,000, but then after that, it levels out. And so there's like a whole study done about like the fact that like money that enables you to not worry about your basic needs provides a happiness. But anything after that, like, it doesn't really change how you navigate in your body and stuff like that. So that I say that to address your question of what this particular conversation was, is more so about, like, or at least what I understood this book at the heart to be about was just about like, what's the limits of money, which is not saying that because money has limits it doesn't matter. It's like, what are the ways in which no matter how much it matters, there are things that still can't afford you.

Yahdon:

And how do you responsibly reconcile when money has value? And when it doesn't, as opposed to saying money is everything or money means nothing because those are usually the books I've seen. Ways in which you try to demonize money. But then it's very hard to reconcile the fact that we need it or things that like applaud money, which undermine the ways in which we don't. And I just thought that this book was a good reconciliation of how to think through it. Because whether we like it or not, it's like, we use it even if you don't need it, you still use it. So it's just like, how do you make sense of your relationship with it? And how does it help you understand values, Diana then we're going to end for the evenings.

Diana:

Well, yeah, just to sort of flow off your query of Why would you give things that are both intangible and tangible. Another big point that really resonated with me in this book was her idea about home and, you know, she has a home, she can't find things for a home. And then in essence, it made me realize how capitalism created this myth of home as a way to commodify it as a way to like, make a simple, it's only through a location, a permanence, a house. And then once you get land, the myths of that, you get taxes. And so by creating this myth, then people are in essence, like forced to stay in one location. And that's the only way to really run like an efficient economy, right? Is if there's not this constant migration, but like when you think about it, all of humanity evolves through, like a migratory lifestyle through migration, through moving, even if like the gypsies or, you know, the tribes that've moved around this world.

Diana:

And like home was never actually founded in simply the land that I own. Right. Many indigenous peoples don't qualify a home is something that they pay taxes on or like a house they put furniture into. And so just maybe think about how I conceive of home and how the like actual organic sense of the feeling of home has sort of been stripped through capitalism and for us to not, or I think at times capitalism makes through marketing people, or we feel sometimes that if you don't have certain conditions or a certain location or certain place, then a home is not for you. Like, I don't feel that way. I've moved around a lot in my life. So I've never identified home with one house or one location or one space. I, for me, I find home through my friendships and my relationships and the interactions and the familiarities that I find along the way through my travels, through my own personal experiences, but to the point of what we give value through our money and what the intangibles have. That was a point that she brought up that was also a language she brought of how to actually decipher that. That was great.

Yahdon:

All right. Well, thank you all for a wonderful meeting. Another good chop up. One of the heaviest, one of the heavier heavier meetings got to talk about money in a way I've never gotten to talk about before. So thank you for providing that. Um, want to shout out and highlight that, you know, let us some of the littest members, you know, Amber, Diana Jumie, George, uh, Kirsten, with your story. The prompt to Amina, it was a lot of people who really tapped in, in terms of like, just bringing out some of, and Syreeta with the grandmother story. Of course like that, that your grandmother is just, OG. So what I want to do is like, let's get these, uh, if this, if no, at no point during the evening, this, this is the one point to do it, uh, get your cameras on so we can take this group photo. Uh, we go on, put your cameras, put your book in the, in the what's his name. All right. Nuratu you going to be with us, you got two devices up

Yahdon:

All right. 1, 2, 3. He's been, hold on, let me go over everybody's on page one. All right. We good. So, uh, are y'all ready for the next book? So for next month, month of October, I wanted to go back back in time because I'm looking and we were doing books that are like contemporary. So like in the last 10, 20 years, and I wanted to go back, reach back into the archives. And I also thought about like looking at our list and while we've read books that include the queer experience, we never read a book that was centered in queerness. So I wanted to pick a book, somebody who not only is rooted in that experience, but can teach us how to think through that. And so for that reason, we gonna read, Audre Lorde's, Zami a new spelling of my name, the biomythography.

Yahdon:

So, uh, one of the things that like the biomythography is like, what I love about Audre Lorde is the way in which she approaches deconstructing constructions. So even as she's building something, she's deconstructing, what is being built as she builds it. Which is a way of like interacting. What I think these two books do together well is, um, how do you conscientiously do something even as you recognize how it fails to achieve what you're trying to accomplish. So just because something is inherently flawed does not mean you can't always try to build it better. And I think that the biomythography points to the fact that every story we tell about ourselves is at the heart, Some sort of myth, which connects us to that quote that Ricca brought up, which is like, what is it?

Yahdon:

The lies we want to believe, tell us something about ourselves. So I just want to read, y'all like the thing that made me pick this book, I was like, oh, we got to read this as a group. And we got to discuss it. So in the beginning she does this like, sort of like this book is like these intimate portrayals of the women she has in her lives. And the women who mean a lot to her. There's her mother, different women like her lover and aunts and friends. But this particular section, the beginning, it was page five. I was like, God, we got to read this. So there's these different dedications of people who shaped her for better, for worse for always. And one of the sections she writes "to the pale girl who ran up to my car on a Staten island, midnight with only a night gown and bare feet, screaming and crying lady, please help me.

Yahdon:

Please take me to the hospital lady. Her voice was a mixture of overripe peaches, and door chimes. She was the age of my daughter running along the Woody curves of Van Duzer street. I stopped the car quickly and leaned over to open the door. It was high summer. Yes. Yes. I'll try to help you. I said, get in. And when she saw my face in the street lamp, her own collapsed in terror. Oh no, she wailed not you then whirled around and started to run again. What could she have seen in my black face that was worth holding onto such horror, wasting me in the Gulf between who I was and her vision of me left with no help. I drove on. In the rear view mirror, I saw the substance of her nightmare catch up with her at the corner, leather jacket and boots, male and white.

Yahdon:

I drove on knowing she would probably die stupid." I was like, God like the ability to capture this dynamic, where you are literally fleeing someone who is going to murder you. And my blackness is scarier to you than the eminent and pragmatic and concrete threat, the way she was able to do that, the way I read it was like, this is a woman who has been capable. And the reason why I think Audre Lorde has become who she is in terms of like how we think about systems, that quote, that is constantly attributed to her. "You can't dismantle the master's house with the master's tools." Um, so much of her work. I think even when she is critiquing someone, she is always instilling some level of empathy and compassion into how she read that.

Yahdon:

Like the fact that she could say you would probably die stupid. She's like, oh, you could be so afraid of the idea of someone that the reality of someone else seems safer than you, the real dangers become safer than you than the imagined threat. And I thought about what could we learn from somebody who thinks through their lives, seeing other people all the time. And I think that like, to be both black and woman and queer and a thinker and poor, placed her at so many margins. It enabled her to see so much of other people that she's able to see where she shows up in each of these people. So I just want thought that like so much of the memoir and the autobiography is so centered on the self, but I wanted to us to read them a book about a self that is able to see the self through others. All right. So this is the book that we are reading this month.