#264: Paperwork Part 3: Paperwork at every financial stage

I Barely Know How to Dress Myself
from Paperwork by Swordplay
Download Song

Season 2 of the Brunch & Budget podcast will share 3 part arcs of big topics:
Part 1 is KNOW - what are the key things you need to understand about the topic, the bigger systemic picture around it, and where the racial wealth divide fits in
Part 2 is FEEL - how do you integrate the topic into your personal relationship with money and unpack the behaviors, reactions, and habits around it
Part 3 is DO - we take you through Brunch & Budget’s 5 Stages to Financial Legacy so you have clear action steps for what to do at every stage of your finances

Hosts - 

Pamela Capalad is a Certified Financial Planner™ and Accredited Financial Counselor™ and has been in financial services since 2008. She founded Brunch & Budget to help people who felt ashamed or embarrassed about money have a safe place to make real financial progress.  Pam has been featured in the Washington Post, Teen Vogue, Huffington Post, Vice Magazine, and was named New York Magazine’s Best financial planner of New York 2019.

Brian "Dyalekt" Kushner has been a hip-hop MC, theater maker, and educator for nearly 20 years. He’s the director of pedagogy at Pockets Change, where he uses hip-hop pedagogy to demystify personal finance and help students take control of their relationship with money. He is the recipients of Jump$tart’s 2022 Innovation in Financial Literacy award. He’s rocked (performed/taught/keynoted) everywhere from conferences like AFCPE and Prosperity Now, to stages like SXSW and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, to classrooms that range from Yale to your cousin’s living room.

Pam & Dyalekt host the Brunch & Budget podcast and cofounded Brunch & Budget's group financial planning program for POC called See Change. They regularly keynote on how art, culture, and media are used to perpetuate racial wealth inequality.

For services check out our website 

https://brunchandbudget.com/seechange/
Follow us on Instagram @brunchandbudget

Thanks for listening to the Brunch and Budget podcast. Please feel free to rate us, debate us, hate us, on Apple podcasts or anywhere that lets you subscribe. Add us to your archives and feel free to share an episode you think can help somebody out. If you've got questions, corrections or a song about money financial systems or how you feel about either please send it to letsbrunch@brunchandbudget.com We'd love some indie artists. Don't forget to SUBSCRIBE to our newsletter by texting BRUNCH to 33777. 

Transcript

Dyalekt: 0:01

But what what would you say? Oh, you're saying like, yeah, there was that thing there was a CEO I forgetting we were talking about the access to children, it was something they were going to need. That was why that they were anti abortion. It's like, we're gonna need access to the populace to a younger populace for the workforce. They were like, We need to make sure that we have workers and consumers and that's you. They don't actually want you to have a good life. They just need you your body to fill up a space. Yes, I missed that. But I'm glad

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 0:28

you mean prison. Like, what are we talking about? Yeah, yeah.

Dyalekt: 0:32

Definitely. That you know,

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 0:33

I mean, well, cuz that's, oh, anti abortion.

Dyalekt: 0:36

I will say anti abortion stuff. But when you're talking about prisons, like that's also like, kind of in the same space, because we had government officials telling private companies that don't worry the recidivism rate is going to remain high in this state so that we can fill up the beds because you have a quota for your beds. That's capitalism. Yeah, that sounds like a good show to capitalism.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 1:05

Are we rolling?

Dyalekt: 1:05

We're rolling. These are just grunts and groans we started. We started we're talking. Oh, welcome, Nick. Welcome to the budget budget podcast.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 1:13

Coming in hot, you know,

Dyalekt: 1:16

y'all, y'all listen to us. You know, the illustrious Willie green is our is our engineer, producer, sound maker of us. Good. wordiness. And, you know, we'd be talking about stuff as we're getting going and rolling. But I think that maybe we were talking about like what a spin off show would be the spin off show would be just us doing remember the old guys from the Muppets.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 1:38

Oh, my God. I would actually watch the two of you do that. I'm ready for that.

Dyalekt: 1:45

That would be a good we're dressed

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 1:47

for Title of the podcast. Angry Men shaking fists. That sky. Yeah. Done. Dude.

Dyalekt: 1:53

I would watch that. I would say it was. That's a great visual as we're if you're looking at any visuals of us. We're in our Halloween costume. We

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 2:00

are. I am a fire hydrant. And I know you're probably listening to this in like December or something. But oh, yeah, no, remember the time Halloween happened? filmed it during that you filmed it. I'm a fire hydrant.

Dyalekt: 2:10

And I'm fired. Because our son is a firefighter.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 2:13

Yeah, you know,

Dyalekt: 2:14

family themes, family themes. Hi,

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 2:17

everyone. We are at part three of our paperwork arc. And we're gonna be talking about what to do about all this bucket paperwork.

Dyalekt: 2:26

I think that's why we're procrastinating. Well, that's why we're procrastinating for the start.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 2:30

Just like you procrastinate on doing your paperwork. I feel you don't want to do.

Dyalekt: 2:36

Yeah, super duper trigger warning at the beginning of all of this. I'm just gonna mention that we're gonna go over the I don't know if this is the paperwork thing. But like one of the most emblematic of all American paperwork things and why paperwork is in Huntly a bad thing and how it's been used to explicitly discriminate. We're gonna take at least part of a literacy tests, these were the literacy tests that black Americans had to take to prove that they were worthy of being allowed to vote. Yeah,

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 3:08

this is what this is the test they were given when they went to register to

Dyalekt: 3:12

vote the paperwork. Yes, yeah. Yeah.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 3:15

Okay. Everyone take a deep breath, because I've seen this test. And we all need to

Dyalekt: 3:20

start with it, right? No. Oh, no. Just was mentioning that. Okay,

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 3:24

good. Okay, everyone, we can continue to procrastinate.

Dyalekt: 3:28

But no, but really, though, Pam, what do you what are we going to do about all this paperwork? Yeah, talking about all of this stuff. And yeah, it was made to discriminate and made to hold us down. But one, it's not going away and not going away to as people who run businesses. Some degree of paperwork is necessary. It

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 3:46

is it is. And I think that I've I've seen people be more mindful of it. Especially when trying to make things more accessible. I think you're right, paperwork is not going away. We have to give people paperwork, especially when you're collecting financial information or any information where you need to collate things, when things are when you have to collect quantitative information, often paperwork is involved. Whenever you're filling out applications or things like that, it it is technically more efficient, right. And so the thing about paperwork to keep in mind when you have to do it, is that it is not a indictment of your intelligence or your abilities, or your self worth. And I think that we put a lot of a lot of these emotions on paperwork, because it makes us feel stupid, you know?

Dyalekt: 4:43

Yeah, it makes us feel stupid. It makes us feel not together. I was musing something in my head, excuse me from pulling you down the wrong path. I'm use away when we're talking about paperwork and the necessity of some of it. I think a lot of us we let go of paperwork because of the heavy attraction to capitalism. Um, the discrimination and specific anti blackness about it. Those of us with African lineage, you know, you think about the oral tradition of how things were passed down your family sharing, and you're like, you want to run counter to that and these kinds of things. And I think about how in this capitalist society, people work sometimes is the only thing that protects you. Mm hmm.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 5:21

Right. Having your receipts in a way, right?

Dyalekt: 5:23

It's why you get yelled out about paperwork, even by by people who love you. Yeah, it's receipts. I mean, receipts is a slang term, right? Yeah, and your proof about stuff, but also literally having your receipts literally having your papers so people can't pull you up off the street, right? People can't take the things away from you that you say you own and they say you don't. So that if you, you know, thinking about us, people who have businesses, so you can have records you have so you can remember, I mean, I have been pretty anti paperwork in my time. And that has led to me not giving paperwork to other people are feeling weird about it, like, Oh, I'll make the post survey. And I'll be in class, like, I don't want to give them extra homework or more of a thing. So I'll stop from doing that. And then when I do that, I get home, I may have done my invoices. I may have followed up on them. But I don't know. Because I look back at my records for the past two years. And I don't have those things.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 6:16

You know, you know, I just thought of two. We are terrible at asking for people to leave reviews about this Podcast, the podcast, like another thing. Oh, you have to go and click on this thing and fill out the comment box and put in the stars and all this stuff. Like, feels like an extra step that we're asking people for? Yeah,

Dyalekt: 6:35

I mean, honestly, you're listening. Like, I guess I want you to have done it. Because that would be nice. It looks nice on the thing. Yeah. For stuff. But like, I don't even I don't I don't want you to do it. On a real y'all. If you can, like program a bot to do it for you just give us a bunch of comments or something. But I don't want y'all going through that. Yeah, what to say in the right words and all of that.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 6:58

But yeah, no, but you're right, though, because paperwork does protect you when it's done, right. And a lot of ways there's like proof. There's like this proof of this moment in time, there's proof of this existence. Well, I'm this relationship that's happening you

Dyalekt: 7:11

can be it's a thing, I've talked about this with my students all the time, you can be like, I'm not going to do no paperwork, right, like I had in my head, and then you need to move somewhere where that's not a thing. Yeah. You know, for me, I lived in the islands, and there was, you know, that inkling of possibility that you could just go sleep on the beach and you know, fish for a living and you know, go rainforest, get your fruits and stuff. You know, like, you could do it, you could go do that there were places it's not like it's impossible to do that. But something that's really real, that just y'all take a deep breath and feel is if you haven't gone there, you've made your decision. Yeah, if you're here and you want to be here, this paperwork will protect you as contradictory as that sounds.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 7:54

Yeah, yeah. And you know, it exists for a reason even though it has denied people access in the past and is currently denying people access now.

Dyalekt: 8:02

Today's episode is sponsored by us buckets change at pockets change we offer in person and virtual workshops for students from grade school to grad school professional development for educators and administrators and jams for the whole family to learn, unlearn, and unpack. We use Hip Hop pedagogy in the classroom to meet students where they're at and hip hop performance in the communities to dispel myths and create new common sense around money. For some free resources. Go to pocket change.com/toolkit and sign up for our newsletter. Let's change the way we talk about finance.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 8:31

I want to talk about really like paperwork at every stage. I do you think it's time for us to take the literacy test.

Dyalekt: 8:39

We do the stages before the test or the test before we can test first. Okay, let's do this. Let's do this. Okay, let's do the

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 8:45

chests. Let's do the test. I was gonna say let's do the stages. We want to keep procrastinating but we

Dyalekt: 8:50

clearly didn't outline this. We looked at him and we're like, I don't know which one we're gonna feel it out. We feel Yeah, we're

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 8:56

feeling it out. Well, that's the thing too. I feel like that. When it comes to something like paperwork, one of the things that I do recommend is like scheduling time to do it. You know, dialect and I've recently started get having more formal money dates, where we actually take care of a lot of life admin, that happens right? And a lot of life admin has to do with paperwork. I've heard this term recently. I don't remember from who I think another financial planner but this concept of like, you have to do some administration for your life. Right.

Dyalekt: 9:25

I think we need to we'll up and coming in real quick because you're talking about money dates, and I don't think everybody knows Yeah, talking about when it comes to money dates where we're married. I don't know if you know, we we have decent chemistry. We were a couple a pair a duo.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 9:40

We do life together. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So

Dyalekt: 9:43

we go on dates, but we also we came up with this idea called Money dates. And this is something that you can do if you are in a couple if you're in a throttle, big poly group situation. Or if it's just you and a friend or even maybe by yourself. Yeah, well

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 9:57

that's the thing about money day is you're really Going on a date with your money, right. And part of that is doing this paperwork stuff. And part of that is taking care of bills or making phone calls or like things like that. Because you

Dyalekt: 10:09

know, you got to put in the work if we want your money to put out.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 10:12

Exactly. So we started scheduling time to do paperwork, straight up, fill out applications,

Dyalekt: 10:19

that's the majority of what our money days are right now is someone next to you while you fill a thing out. Think about when you go on a road trip, right? It's a lot easier when there's someone else saying the directions and you have to look and check and you just typing and filling out stuff that you know and already have access to if you're doing the typing, and your partner can be the one to go and reach for the license or the

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 10:41

account number out loud to you. And it doesn't have to be your life partner. It can totally be a friend, you could have a money buddy to have a money date with

Dyalekt: 10:48

and Yeah, and if you would rather do this kind of stuff solo because you don't like sharing with folks, then what is your snack? What is your drink? What is the thing that will make you feel calm and feel like you so you have the ability to go through this with minimal emotions involved?

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 11:01

Yeah, and I think that's the advice we would give to everyone at every stage. And you know, one of the key parts of brunch and budget services is to be financial advocates for our clients. And a big part of being a financial advocate for our clients is literally helping them fill out paperwork, we filled out so many applications for people we've been on the phone, listening to people fill out applications with like other institutions and things like that, because it honestly does help if someone else is there. And if someone else is there to like be the professional, right. And so as you think about paper, your paper is something that really does cause you a lot of anxiety and a lot of fear. Consider bringing someone else into the mix. It feels counterintuitive, because we work feels like something you should do on your own. But it is also something where you probably have a friend who is kind of good at it or doesn't mind. And I think that really is something that to think about and consider when it comes to actually doing it. So I want to Should we go through the stages here, let's go through let's go through the stages. Stages are five stages, once again, are financial safety, financial stability, financial sustainability, financial independence and financial legacy. Financial safety looks like you're unsure where your money is going your bills who out of control, your debt feels unmanageable, and you have little to no savings, financial

Dyalekt: 12:20

stability looks like you have a savings cushion, you have debt, but it's not increasing. You're learning about investing, but you're still one paycheck away from financial trouble.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 12:28

financial sustainability looks like you have establish habits and savings, you're comfortable auto paying your bills, your debt is decreasing. And your retirement investments are increasing

Dyalekt: 12:37

financial independence looks like you're not working because you want to you you're working because you want you're not working because you have to. It looks like you've got no credit card debt, like you have enough savings to fund extended time off, you're getting in control.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 12:52

Yeah, and financial legacy looks like your investments are fun to your lifestyle, you're contributing significantly to your community, and you don't need a credit score,

Dyalekt: 13:02

or credit score. So when it comes

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 13:05

to paperwork, and each of these stages in the first stage, financial safety, the first thing I think about in financial safety is this is paperwork is a great time to practice figuring out how you can advocate for yourself, right? Because there are plenty of institutions where you can call customer service, and have them help you fill out the paperwork. And it feels like something you don't have access to it feels like something that could be really expensive. But there are there are banks, credit card companies where you can like do your application over the phone. And I feel like that we've become like theoretic it's become theoretically accessible to do everything online and not have to talk to a person but like, take the time to talk to a person and know that you got it right. And if you didn't get it right that someone is there to help you figure out what went wrong.

Dyalekt: 13:51

Also, financial safety is the stage where you're filling out all the paperwork. Oh, my so much paperwork. So this is the stage where you're going to need the most help. It's going to be daunting. A lot of people don't get out of the financial safety stage in a lot of areas. Because of the paperwork. Yeah. So ask for help to get on out of these. Yeah, we've already talked about how it's silly, it's arbitrary. And it often is not made for you to understand it. So you're not dumb for not knowing how to do it or for being too stressed or too tired to just do it on your own?

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 14:23

Yeah. Yeah. In the financial stability stage. If this is you continuing to advocate for yourself, you may actually when you get into the stage be a little more comfortable with filling out paperwork. You've done it enough. And hopefully you've advocated for yourself enough that like you either know who to call, you have a money buddy, or you have a set time set aside to actually do your paperwork.

Dyalekt: 14:48

I mean, I think that's what happens from you getting from stability into sustainability is creating that time and that place that you do it, and it depends a lot on your money personality. Maybe You're the type of person where it needs to be on your calendar, you need to have it all together, or it can be less formal. But when you're transitioning in those stages, I think that's one of the big markers, I will

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 15:09

say, as someone who is complicated and could technically be in the mood to do paperwork at any point. I know it's terrible. But you know, and when I say be in the mood, it's like, oh, I'm thinking about it now. So let me just stop everything I'm doing and get it done. Right? Because you've seen me do that. To do paperwork,

Dyalekt: 15:34

the phrase and of itself, I was just, you know, for further reference,

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 15:37

no, no, but that I mean, it's funny that I said in the mood, but what I really meant was like, urgency and panic,

Dyalekt: 15:44

seem to the main difference.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 15:51

Oh, my goodness. But yeah, so I think that having a time with you, for instance, to do paperwork is very, has been very helpful, and has given me a time and place so that I'm not, I don't feel like I'm constantly thinking about it.

Dyalekt: 16:10

I love this because you know, it's up in your head, and you might be in the mood, but you must also be comfortable and emotionally available.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 16:18

Yes. To paperwork, paperwork. Exactly. Exactly. And that's how you get from financial sustainability to financial sustainability. Now, I love that jump, though, because really like sustainability is where it feels like you have a system. Right? I feel like that for us. That is the missing piece of us feeling financially sustainable. If things aren't systematized, right, in terms of our own journey through these stages. Well,

Dyalekt: 16:43

I mean, oh, give us a little credit. I think we're doing okay, in that we have systems. Yeah, one thing about these systems, y'all I've found at least and maybe professionally you feel a little different, is that they are going to change a lot. Yes, you have to address them, and you have to evaluate them and go through them. And just because you're changing your system a lot doesn't mean that you're not doing it, right.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 17:04

That's a very important thing for all of us to hear, including complicated and paper chasers in particular, because I think that I'm the type of person who's like, Well, if the system didn't work the first time, then I'm a failure. Yeah, but

Dyalekt: 17:15

you've also tried like every bank. So you like flipping around from neural systems? All right. I'm not that cat. Usually, I if I get one, even if it's a broken system, I'll sit and hold on to it, and be in with you where you've like wanting to change the systems a lot. I started out this is I guess, more like couples who have differing money personalities. At first, I was mad nervous about it. I was like, Wait, why are we doing it differently? Oh, man, I, in my head, I'm thinking three systems ago and right, you're doing this whole other thing. And I'm confused. And I'm stressed about it. And now it's taken me a while to get there. But I feel better about it. Because I realized you're just optimizing. And the things that I like about systems, I can vocalize that myself and be more of an advocate. Because, you know, in the early times, Pam would be like, I'm not feeling this, let's do it differently. And I'd be like, I guess I don't know. And now if you're like, I want to change to using something else, I think we recently had this we're changing from a spreadsheet kind of thing to more of the documents. And I was like, Can we do that? Because it's easier for me to navigate that. And yeah, showed me a trick on this. Right? And I was like, Oh, I'll never mind

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 18:27

mapping text, y'all this kind of game changer. Pam taught me rapping.

Dyalekt: 18:35

How to Rap text.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 18:36

So in the financial independence stage, this is where you probably have other people filling out paperwork for you.

Dyalekt: 18:45

Yeah. Well, folks, I you know, I know,

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 18:49

you spent all this time learning how to do it yourself? Well,

Dyalekt: 18:51

there are a number of people who are in the independent stage listening to us party on y'all. But for the rest of us who are still trying to get there, I want you to think about the paperwork you don't want to do. Yeah, think about the ones you don't want to do. Because I don't think we have to be fully in the independent stage to start letting go of some of the paperwork. And think about what you need to do, how much money you need to make and what position you need to be in to let go of it. Because I don't know about you. But that makes it easier for me to do stuff when I know that eventually I'm not going to have to do this stuff.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 19:24

I also think to the thing to think about, you know, even in the financial independence stage, but with paperwork in general is when you are in the financial independence stage, you can have a true like private banking relationship, probably where someone will fill out the paperwork for you. I feel like that one of the things that I I think I mentioned this before, one of my first jobs was to actually like, fill out a bunch of paperwork for a bunch of wealthy clients, right? Because we weren't going to have them do it themselves. And so like when you start to have those like more private banking relationships in the financial independence stage, you can let go Oh, potentially have a lot of the financial institution paperwork,

Dyalekt: 20:03

private banking relationship, I know, sexiest show, hey, don't do as a private bank, private banking relationship that sounds like you got locked in the vault?

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 20:18

They might do may you have to be in legacy to do that stage as a legacy booth right there? Well, yeah. And financial legacy, too is very similar in terms of, you know, it's so interesting to think back to my time in wealth management as an associate, because so much of it was just like, doing admin for people. Right? A lot of family offices, when you're in the financial legacy stage are like people just doing your admin for you, and giving you the form and saying, Just sign right here. You know,

Dyalekt: 20:47

do you think as someone who's gone through all of those, is it better to have understood? What would the paperwork was when you're letting go of it? Rather than I'm sure you have clients who've, like, never looked at any of the paperwork they've ever done?

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 21:01

I think it's particularly important to have people who you trust putting paperwork in front of you. So I'm someone who would want to know, everything that is involved in the paperwork, I have plenty of clients were like, just tell me what to do. Right. And I think it's so interesting. I remember one of the workshops. Someone asked us, like, what do rich people do? And I was like, oh, other people fill out paperwork for them. They're like, did they just master the paperwork? And I'm like, no, no, they didn't master the paperwork. They just like paid someone else to do it.

Dyalekt: 21:31

I love the idea that only did rich people not master a thing. But that you don't, because I asked you, it's like, well, should you have it right? You know? And it's more than like the virtue of right hard work and hardscrabble folks. And you're like, Nah, you should trust the cat, because you don't want to get done dirty. But

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 21:49

yeah, exactly. There's nothing virtuous about being good at filling out paperwork. Yeah, let's be clear, right?

Dyalekt: 21:56

No, that's really dope before we get into this, like, you know, virtue advice kind of stuff about it. Really all. It's okay that you have the skills to pay the bills. And it's okay to not have to be proud of those skills that pay the bills. Yeah, it's alright, you did it. And you can do it. And you can decide to hang your hat on the things that really fill you up as a person, rather than this stuff. Just because you've decided, well, I'm good at it. So I guess I better be happy about it.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 22:25

Yeah, exactly. Today's episode is sponsored by us, French and budget, French and budget is not just a podcast, it's a financial planning practice with a team of certified financial planners, and accredited financial counselors, ready to work with people who need a safe space to talk about your finances. Many of our clients come to us because someone or something made them feel bad about their money. We are the antidote to that. We do all our financial planning and coaching through a racial wealth equity lens. And we'll use our very own five stages to financial legacy to show you how far you've come and where you're headed. go to brunch and budget.com. To learn more.

Dyalekt: 23:05

Those y'all, you shouldn't you should know this, if you don't know this, even if you're not from this country, you should know this. But hey, maybe you didn't learn about this. Voting is not a fair and equal thing in this country, and really hasn't been. And even the amount of fair and equal us we have now is much better than what we had before. So there was a time when only white men could vote. And you know, white is a shifting target. So you know, other ethnicities started being accepted into the white canon. And then this that and women's suffrage and what was only white women then so then women could vote. And now we eventually got to the point where they were like, well, maybe, maybe some black people should vote, which is like seemed like a novel idea. Shout out to great poet novel idea. And people were resistant to this. And similarly to what you see nowadays, with welfare stuff, right to work all that people say, well, they got to earn it, they got it. We don't think they deserve it. So Ill like people that have earned something. If you think they don't deserve it, they're not inherently good enough. But black people were told that we are inherently bad. We are inherently stupid. We are inherently in service. We talked about that many episodes ago talking about the whole why servers get tips and don't get paid well. So they made up a test. And they wanted you to be literate. It's funny, because outside all the context, it feels like it's not a bad idea like oh, you know, stupid people shouldn't vote, you should be smart to be able to

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 24:38

vote right? You should be able to read and understand the issues and be

Dyalekt: 24:41

informed about stuff. Yeah, even though if you try to vote for your local elections, I don't know if you've really tried to look online, but there is no simple centralized place for you to find all that information to figure it out based on who's calling you and knocking on your door and texting you and all the other random stuff. So while none of this has ever been solid or free, They made up this test. And this test this one in specific is from 1964. In Louisiana, my mother was born in in 1957. She was a seven year old. So she was just 11 years away from being a voting age. And if she lived in Louisiana, this is the test they would have given her just like, just as we get into, you'll be like, Wow, living people took this. So it's 30 questions, and you got to finish it in 10 minutes. We're not gonna get through all 30 questions. Pam, I'm gonna ask if you would like to try to answer some of these three questions

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 25:41

a minute.

Dyalekt: 25:42

Flying, we're gonna get through all of them. We're gonna do just

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 25:46

like That's fast. That's a fast test.

Dyalekt: 25:48

This is gonna be paperwork thing. We're gonna see how quickly this breaks our soul. Okay. All right. So this, it says this test is to be given to anyone who cannot prove a fifth grade education do what you're told in each statement. Nothing more. Nothing less. Be careful as one wrong answer denotes a failure. One Wow, you

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 26:07

have to be 100%. Right.

Dyalekt: 26:09

First question. Question one. Draw a line around the number or letter of the sentence. What? Yeah, draw a line.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 26:20

Wait, draw a line around round. Okay, I'm stumped right there.

Dyalekt: 26:24

Right. Is it a circle? Around around the number or letter of this sentence? Which sentence

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 26:32

says once? But there's lots of letters in that sentence? The number or letter?

Dyalekt: 26:38

Yeah, this is this is why I don't like crossword. Oh, my God.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 26:41

Has it been a minute already? Yeah. I don't know how to answer that question.

Dyalekt: 26:45

So just to let you answer, it's you draw a line or a circle around the number one that is

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 26:51

leading this, but why does it say number or letter? Well, because it could have started

Dyalekt: 26:55

with an A, B, or C. Right? Yeah. Let's keep it going. Number two, draw a line under the last word in this line.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 27:07

Draw a line under. Okay. So it'd be the word line.

Dyalekt: 27:10

Right? Right. At this point, now you get it right. Oh, shit. It's

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 27:14

kind of tricky. It's trick questions.

Dyalekt: 27:16

Right. But like,

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 27:18

Oh, my God, I just understood the first question. Okay. Go ahead. Do what do you want to say what your well, because it's the you're circling number one, because it's referencing that it's the first question. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I know. He's read this literacy test to me, like multiple times. I was like, Yeah, okay, let's

Dyalekt: 27:36

Yeah, we prepared for this.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 27:38

I literally just got it. Oh, and

Dyalekt: 27:41

imagine you're like, stressed out. It's, you know, anyway. Cross out the longest word in this lie. Its longest is the longest word final. Wow. Okay. But

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 27:57

you know, yeah,

Dyalekt: 27:58

we're a trick question. Circle the first first letter of the alphabet in the lot in this line. Sir, first comma, first letter of the alphabet in this line.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 28:12

I'm happy to read this. Y'all Hold on.

Dyalekt: 28:14

Circle. The first I should just let you know, the first letter will have this in the show notes that you can check it out if you want.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 28:21

So they want you to circle the first time the letter A shows up. Yeah, it's the first one it is yes,

Dyalekt: 28:25

it's the first instance of the letter A but it says circle. The first comma first letter of the alphabet in this line is like,

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 28:32

my brain is like hurting right now. We're only on Question five, y'all. Yeah, no, I think we can be much, it doesn't really been 10 minutes. It doesn't

Dyalekt: 28:41

get any better. It doesn't get any easier. These are questions that like you can get right or wrong, but they don't denote anything. No,

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 28:49

they show that you're like good at taking a test.

Dyalekt: 28:53

That's what tests are. Y'all know this, y'all know that tests aren't anything, that tests are not good things that show that we're smart, and can prove anything at all. This is why I'm a hip hop educator. This is why I'm a hip hop MC. This is why I love this hip hop stuff. We were talking about it before we started recording, but there are inherent evaluations in life in the way that we do our thing. And what I love about hip hop as a mode of education, method of communication culture, is that it has these tests in a way that I think are pretty equitable, to just about can you get down? Sometimes they're direct one on one challenges these battles, right? But even these battles don't mean that you have to leave the space unless that's what the battle is about, you know, whether or not you're safe to be in the space. These battles are challenges of your efficacy and your dedication and your rehearsal. And to see whether you care about this enough to be a part of this in school, if you can show that you You have education, that you have efficacy that you care about this stuff, you're gonna continue to use the things that you're learning in that class. This isn't discovered through rote evaluation. This isn't discovered through multiple choice questions that have some trickery involved. This isn't discovered through asking somebody to write an essay about something that they've just been introduced to. There is no learning in trickery.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 30:27

Well, and that's the tricky thing about paperwork, right? We were talking right before the show, and I was like, paperwork is kind of like tests for adults. And a lot of it is right, we were talking about how paperwork is necessary, it's not going to go away. But there is plenty of paperwork. And there plenty of tests, you have to take as an adult, where they're literally just trying to say, got you

Dyalekt: 30:46

the more important part, it's not that paperwork or tests for adults, it's that tests are people where for kids I'm getting on my like my team is that a lot of these tests that we have it I'm sorry, at all, like young folks who are listening to this, and you're still gonna have to take a test because again, these things do govern a lot of what we do, and I'm sorry grown folks who have to, you know, take a test to get into this other thing that you want to get. But really what this is created for is to make sure that we can jump through hoops

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 31:14

in the midst of talking about paperwork in the midst of kind of unraveling, the systemic like issues and barriers because of paperwork. Addressing the fact that testing is has become such a pervasive like indicator of, Hey, you're good at something because you pass this test, when in reality, we know that's not true, right?

Dyalekt: 31:34

I mean, really the whole thing incenses me, I'm only not yelling, because these are nice microphones. You want to blow them out, right? Yeah. So do it, you didn't do the test, I think

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 31:44

going back to what we were saying about paperwork, you are not any more or less virtuous, because you're able to pass a test because your will fill out a form, right. And I think that when we can start to separate our own self worth, and our own value from the systems that exist to make this run, then we can really go through them. Right, then we can, then we can remove a lot of the shame and fear and really start to get shameless about all this stuff.

Dyalekt: 32:12

Yeah, I think that's where we need to go from here. How can we get shameless about this? Because yeah, it doesn't matter. These are tests made by people who don't like you.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 32:19

Yeah. So take them if you have to, and then fuck it. Let's go.

Dyalekt: 32:24

It reminds me of the whole like when Oprah went into like some store and they were treating her like she couldn't afford anything. Yeah, she went, like bought up a bunch of stuff. And I was like, oh, Oprah. Don't buy nothing from them. You don't got nothing to prove to them. Remember, your you ain't got nothing to prove to them. I mean, you might literally have to prove to them and then fill out the paperwork. But like in your heart emotionally? Yes. Let's get real about being shameless about this paperwork. So we know a they don't care about us. The people who made the paperwork, we know be that there is

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 32:57

paperwork is not objective paperwork is subjective. Tests are subjective,

Dyalekt: 33:02

but like our position and paperwork is objective. Yes, we don't love it. We don't hate it. There's no virtue in it. There's no failure. And it just is, right. We know that this is a barrier to us getting the stuff that we want and or to us being safe in our homes in our communities. So how can we let go of any of the shame about it? What's like the first thing that we can do to let go of the shame of caring about paperwork so that we can stop?

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 33:29

I want you to have this paperwork, Mantra, y'all. It's not me, it's the paperwork.

Dyalekt: 33:34

About me. It's the paperwork. It's not me. It's the paperwork. Yeah, that works for me. I like mantras, mantras are the thing that really helped us remember where we're at? I think, especially for us neurodiverse type of folks. I've been told neurodivergent and if people don't like that, because I don't know. But um, for neurodiverse, or neuro divergent folks, people who think differently, people often have to take medication and people who don't build habits, right for and I'm one of those cats for those of us like that we don't know what we're doing. And we need to remind ourselves that we actually do know what we're doing. I'm saying all this to preface this, artists that we got to definitely friend of the family dope hip hop or sword play out of Cali. I don't know what part of Kelly's where players from. But he's got an album just dropped called paperwork. And this song that I thought is apropos for what we're talking about. It's called I barely know how to dress myself. So just stuff together so you can figure out how to adjust yourselves, your mantras and all those other things and remember, it ain't you. It's the paperwork. Check next time peace

Unknown: 34:55

show me what you find in the tiny water over here. Interested in a silk road so it's time because the laces cases come into the product cold that was soon to become traces of resistance to me know cash money and live on the wall I'm sorry I can't help you. I would have really no interest myself Ashok to OCI in 2010 but I don't know interval time urgency I think the public inches behind me personally I'm more interested in 181 90 pocket one to 25 bucks benefited from privilege at the top of the economy and I've spoken to those below me back in the colonies and work in the next icon me with him disappear inside scary for me European philosophy. Geography of being in these three languages are human everything DRAM and champion they get paid to make sandwiches of swinging syntax back with the MC next to me, complexity doesn't even bother me. I just barely know how to dress myself. I make a pretty good refrigerator poetry nonsense. And I can think in abstract concepts of undefeated and Mortal Kombat 24/7 contact customer service expert just seeking to apply myself a split infinitives whoever Rob please. I mean compassion is the type of complexity to pop your mind but to find it inadequate to effectively demonstrate my skill I still barely know how to dress myself I thank God and I released it with a prayer for myself when he sucked into my pocket take a picture and crop it passed away loved one to do my little locket attach that necklace Limited Edition Nexus six spermatocytes We have been trained to wreckfish executed and practice your drive away and Alexis you might be exactly what you lack might mess with the bucket rock barely know how to dress myself. My cognitive capacity long time was the last neuron to Creek small run dry. I'm swimming in the ocean. None amount of regret in my body and the water is frozen. A swell in the wrong dosage. recast metamorphosis performances no attention no resemblance of courses or hearing is fine. Publishing like an MSc satellite in orbit are still 64 bit just barely know how to dress myself. In an international airports I observe convention the jetlag does not affect me because I'm making a point to not malfunction barely know how to dress myself I barely know how to dress myself

Dyalekt: 38:23

thanks for listening to the brunch and budget podcast please feel free to rate us debate us hate us. Data's in love infatuate us something that means you'd like us but Ryan's with eight. Say what's up tell us we make great stuff on Apple podcasts or really anywhere that lets you come at Reddit YouTube, I don't know just tell somebody like just knock on your neighbor's door. Subscribe, add us to your archives feel free to share any episodes that you think will help somebody out help us expand our circle so we can bring the real to more communities. If you got a song about money financial systems are how you feel about either please send a link or mp3 to dialect dialect.com. Figuring out how to spell it is your only real obstacle. We love some informational intentional, influential songs from indie artists.