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#247: PREACH: Has the Racial Wealth Divide Been Co-Opted?

May 10, 2021 Brunch & Budget
Get Shameless About Money
#247: PREACH: Has the Racial Wealth Divide Been Co-Opted?
Show Notes Transcript

Has talking about the racial wealth divide become conversational quicksand, where we think that people talking about it are considering the problem in its totality and actually trying to solve it but they're actually applying a band aid to a gaping wound by saying the right words so we keep buying their products(looking at you Apple)?This week we're joined by Dedrick Asante-Muhammad for another PREACH episode and we took a deep dive into corporations and the racial wealth divide. We talked about authenticity, what systemic racism actually means, and how the feeling of being personally racist factors into all of this.

Music Featured in This Episode:
False Leadership by Knowlegin
Bandwagon by A-Roy
Real Recognize Real by Aleya

Dyalekt:

Well the cops this killer does the politicians a feeling of celebrities just trying to win a bag and get a ring but if you really want to break up the police like think you got to preach to the choir so they know what to sing, to preach to the choir podcast to about personal finance, racial economic inclusion, about the racial wealth divide how it affects culture, how culture affects formation by your host

Unknown:

accredited financial

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC:

counselor

Dyalekt:

someday Muhammad to achieve a membership policy and equity at MC RC and you just wrote an article for Teach for America you can go check it out. I'm the director of pedagogy at pockets change and we're here to do our thing preaching the choir is part of the racial wealth network.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC:

Hello, everybody. Thank you all for tuning in.

Diedrich Asante Mohamad:

Is my age but I love that break up the police like sting. That's beautiful

Dyalekt:

for younger folks. Staying the singer you may have heard of put up red light box down and all that he was part of a group of music called the police when they broke up so that he could do a solo

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC:

deep dive. Yeah, no. Yeah, right. Do that. Wow. Oh, man, how's it gonna preach? Welcome back Diedrich. It's been a while since we've had you know, a whole different

Dyalekt:

title.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC:

Yeah, you have a whole different title. a whole different title

Diedrich Asante Mohamad:

have been in my house for about a year straight. You know, we got a new shirt, you know, so I can you know, new out.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC:

So here we go. I know. I'm like, okay, focus from the, from the let the shoulders up now.

Dyalekt:

Yo, because people are trying to start flexing by going outdoors. Again. I put on a pair of jeans for the first time in months, and it felt weird.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC:

It's like, wait, it's not stretch. So

Dyalekt:

when someone described that as hard pants, I was like, Yeah, I know. really long time. Yes. I

Unknown:

am wearing my pajama bottoms right now.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC:

Oh my god. Okay, so today because Diedrich is here, you know, we're talking about the racial wealth divide.

Dyalekt:

Yeah, he's digging deeper, and we're

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC:

digging deeper and deeper. Well, and the thing is, so so much has happened in the last year with the racial wealth divide, you've had the huge black lives matter uprisings, we've had the movement being pushed forward. And today we want to talk about has the racial wealth divide been co opted?

Dyalekt:

Yeah, cuz it's become a little more popular. Politicians a lot.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC:

A lot more popular. Part of like presidential campaigns, there's committees about the racial wealth gap, people just throw that phrase around, like everybody knows what it means now, right?

Dyalekt:

It's always funny, because you can tell the difference between someone who really researched it and someone who looked at first page of Google because they'll say the racial wealth gap still, instead of the racial wealth divide, a reminder for folks, the reason why it was renamed the divide instead of the gap is that the gap implies that this was something that was natural. That's just like a phenomenon. It's like, Oh, it's a gorge that just happened in the middle of, yeah, fill in. Yeah, but it's a divide. Because divide is an active verb we push.

Diedrich Asante Mohamad:

A lot of people still most people, I think, still use the whole racial wealth gap language. But you know, one thing I found interesting is, you know, back in the day, when I was looking up, racial economic inequality, everything that would come up would be about income. If anything came up, it would be about eight.

Dyalekt:

And now I'm even I was

Diedrich Asante Mohamad:

like, Oh, you know, what is the income inequality right now, blacks and whites, Latinos and whites, and I put in a racial income gap, what comes up is a series of articles on the racial wealth gap, the racial wealth divide, it's just like shows how much things have shifted into what's popular in the press.

Unknown:

Right wing, it's

Diedrich Asante Mohamad:

like this whole, you know, not saying those are kind of different things that are related to racial economic inequality. But

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC:

that's actually really I feel like that's progress. Well,

Dyalekt:

it's such a double edged sword, though. Well, I guess that's what we're here to wrap about today.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC:

Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah. Because the thing about income, the focus on income before, just like, people just need to make more money. If you give people more money, then they'll be able to like, you know, build wealth and things like that. And I think all the stats around the racial wealth divide, prove that income doesn't lead to low, because it doesn't take into account all these factors. And so the fact that people are understanding that there's a difference between the two, and one doesn't lead to the other is a big move forward, I think.

Diedrich Asante Mohamad:

But I think you're giving them more credit, because what is that they're just conflating they're still conflating income and wealth. Bouncing Well, before they said income and forgotten. Well, right off the bat.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC:

Well, yeah, got it. Yeah. So there, they just they didn't connect the two. They just replaced one with the other Well,

Dyalekt:

one of the argument against it also has not really changed too much materially. It used to be, well, what are you talking about? People of color black people in particular, though, they can make the Unlike other people, they're just bad at money. So that's why that they're not seeming to do well. Right now, when we share the racial wealth divide stuff, they're like, Oh, see, it's that they're historically bad at money.

Diedrich Asante Mohamad:

There's really good point like, people use new language to continue. They're saying physician, right? Because the system works it just black or Latino people doing something bad with income or wealth, you want to say, Well, fine, blacks and Latinos do something bad with wealth. Right. But you know, I think London's I have also is that, you know, it's on my friends in the racial wealth gap, virtual divide field, or like, you know, let's not focus on income, so much just focus on wealth. But the income inequality hasn't really bridged either, right? I want to still make about 60 something cents on every dollar that white makes in terms of income right now, they have much less in terms of wealth. But I also, you know, and we'll get into this a little bit, as I'm concerned, as everybody's embracing the racial wealth divide racial wealth gap, but they will do what they did with racial income inequality and think it's like a magic word. It's like Abracadabra, like, if you say it enough, that means the magic happened in in salt verse that it actually is, you know, getting a dress. And so, you know, I didn't want people just to talk about the racial wealth divide, I wanted to talk about it so we can bridge it. And that's the really hard part.

Dyalekt:

Yeah, I'm really blanking on who the thing is. I forget if this was an article or just social media, but there was this mentioned about how politicians are using the phrase, well, the word systemic, and just being like the phrase systemic, anything, systemic racism, and all that, but without actually referring to the systems themselves, systems themselves. Because, like, You or me, you're much more involved in the policy that we've been, but like, you know, as lay people, we can be like, hey, these systems, and we mean like simple things, and it's cool and all but when you're a politician, like that's your you're in the system, your job is to do that. You can't just like these day, it's a it's

Diedrich Asante Mohamad:

an important point that they're talking about systemic racism, these people have the system that is maintaining systemic racism. I like saying yes, and we're gonna solve systemic racism, like it's an outside thing versus we are representatives of the system. So we have to change the system we are in right. It's, it's a really good point. Yeah, it was,

Dyalekt:

it was just this is a Ric related thing. It's scary, because people will try to say that we're living in idiocracy. And now more and more, I'm like, the Hunger Games. I

Unknown:

think it's fun or games. Yeah,

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC:

yeah. Well, and I think too, when it comes to things like co opting a phrase like the racial wealth divide, it's, and politicians like putting themselves outside of the thing they're actually in, it does feel like oh, now we all have this common enemy that's over here. It's the racial wealth divide. It's income inequality. It's whatever the light jujhar of the day is right? To your vision of the day of the day. And yeah, but it is whatever that that phrase is, it's like, no, this is our big enemy over here. And this is the enemy that is going to galvanize like PLC to vote for me. So I'm going to say it above right. And is this really where the CO opting

Dyalekt:

happens? Well, I agree with you Although I blanked out a little bit because as you're saying, Do ga I started thinking what would be a good thing and maybe and business people out there if you want to start a business Dijon, do joar it would be a different atmosphere today,

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC:

my students today new business

Diedrich Asante Mohamad:

what are these examples of connotation that you all brought me to awareness of? And I'm going to forget how we got into the conversation. I think you're brought awareness to this right was this apple black unity

Dyalekt:

unboxing videos and when those tech unboxing videos were trying to do I hadn't seen the ones where they open up at boxes before what is the deal with this guy who was doing a tech unboxing video? And it was I think it was supposedly like, who knows what's inside your lines? Yeah,

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC:

it was it was it was the first thing they open it was like at the bottom of the file. He was like this one yeah. And he pulls it out and he was like, Apple has this black beauty watch they put out for black history. The black dude the YouTuber so it wasn't

Dyalekt:

like a random person who's like oh, I'm not black but I got a black beauty watch like I'm pretty sure it's

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC:

like big black unboxing influencer and they sent him to black

Diedrich Asante Mohamad:

I would love to be the big black boxing influencer the big black boxing influencer.

Dyalekt:

Yeah, yes. Yes. We have all sorts of business ideas here, reach for the prior please go out there and start your LLC.

Diedrich Asante Mohamad:

But again, I think you know, it does show the kind of shift in and least in framing things right where like the biggest I think I was the biggest Corporation in the world right now in terms of money or something like that. has a black unity watch, right? Well, you know, years ago that'd be considered too divisive to have and they use the money Is Garvey kind of saying red black and green flag that when I was growing up was a real symbol of black radicalism right only like real black radicals would have the Reds the black and the green up and now Apple is putting this up a black unity watch that you know, I guess supposed to be something about the towards Floyd moment that they said we're going to give some money to the not really clear what percentage of the money is going to go to some mostly black nonprofits, but it did cause a reaction that I thought was pretty funny on Twitter, but, you know, what's your all's opinion on kind of corporate black radicalism?

Dyalekt:

Well, I like it. You're like it's going to mostly black nonprofits. I was like, What do you mean something that's like run by you and me your profits? Are

Diedrich Asante Mohamad:

they gonna get this money from from Apple?

Dyalekt:

No, it messed me up that they were like we put the inscription on it. They like to have the like, the red is for the blood. Green is for the man like the man think I was like,

Unknown:

y'all get off.

Dyalekt:

I didn't even know. I didn't even know that it was okay to tell white people that was like, you know, for that was like reading, I don't know. But it's another reminder of how much black stuff are really all people of color stuff that used to be intragroup. It used to be stuff where like, only if you were down only, like if you were not of the ethnic group, you grew up in the neighborhood. And that's why you knew now it is completely out there. And these corporate folks can speak as woke as possible, like having the real inscription and having the real colors and all that sounds like you're being pretty real. So it's like a scarier Okey doke. Because especially like older folks who are older generation than us, they're like, wow, Apple really stepping up. Right,

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC:

right. Well, and it is, it looks kind of fly.

Dyalekt:

Design. That was the whole thing was, they were like, hey, what if computers had color? And that was like,

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC:

right? No, for sure. Well, and I think it is a scary thing. I remember a couple years ago, we did a show on like to do our annual boycotting show. And I think a lot of the things that we talked about were these corporations like standing up, right for Black Lives Matter like Nike featuring Colin Kaepernick, and Serena Williams, and you know, money and putting lots of money into them and that end, and like what does that mean? Right? What does that mean? When a corporation like Nike does that? Does that mean they're part of the movement? Or does that mean they're like following a trend? You're like, Oh, we need to like get this market.

Dyalekt:

Well, don't forget when Pepsi ended racism, so you

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC:

Oh, there you go.

Diedrich Asante Mohamad:

forgot about that. was, was that the last black lives matter? Like, like, like,

Dyalekt:

some years ago at this point?

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC:

Yeah, yeah, the Pepsi thing. 2016

Dyalekt:

I forget who the celebrity was. But Kylie Jenner? What she's like a grizzled veteran now. You've been doing this a long time.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC:

That was a rookie mistake she made in that commercial.

Diedrich Asante Mohamad:

Good point that like, I mean, again, I think we all recognize appropriation isn't new, but that like they did this kind of Black Lives Matter. Black rebellion against police brutality, appropriation, it blew up in their face a little bit in 2016, the Pepsi commercial, but now we have a much broader one that you know, is, yeah, that's bigger. I mean, you know, the design the red black redesign to me, in your mind, you've crossed colors, right? Because like 80s and 90s. Like, if only a black company would have a red, black and green, you know, design on it. And even then, it was like, sometimes people were like, why are they selling out by getting corporate dollars to do this red, black and green stuff, but at least so you know, it was a symbol of black owned companies. I think even I remember hearing the late 60s Riot song black business owners would put up red, black and green on their stores, they would put on there put up a sign like sold brother to like, so when there were rebellions after King's assassination, he would say, Oh, this is a black store, I'm not going to burn this down, I'm going to burn the oppressor stores down. So it's interesting to me, and something that you know, could be so radical. And now, you know, Apple is is has been trying to use to kind of show their, you know, quote unquote, people for cheap wokeness. Right.

Dyalekt:

Let me talk real quick about how authenticity is a thing about money. We're, before we started doing the show, we're just chopping it up and talking about this. And I mentioned how I found a record that I was on a CD of mine that we used to sell for $10 out on the street was in Europe, and cats are selling it for $75. And it's like bigger money than the stuff. I don't have any connection to these people. And I don't know what they like my music. I don't think that they care about my music. I think they care about the fact that I'm super indie, which makes my thing super rare, which makes my thing super authentic. And if something is super authentic, then you can sell it to the people you really want money from. The thing about these watches in particular is like it's not about black people. It's not about us. That's why I'm like I don't even think it matters to them, how many of them they sell or when it becomes a thing. They send it out to these influencers who do this unboxing stuff and do other things. They were at the events, and then the white people, the general public, they want to buy stuff go, wow. And then the black influence is like, wow, they they have the colors that are very radical and the inscription that is very real. And they say, wow, this is I'm in the presence of your blackness, I'm gonna buy Apple Watch, but I'll buy apple.

Diedrich Asante Mohamad:

I was looking at some of the Twitter reactions. And you know, one of them I like so much as they show a picture of the watch, and then under it to show a picture of Pelosi and Schumer and mother kneeling with their kids, right? That's exactly right. It's like now the Democratic establishment, you can take breaks out of it, that has helped maintain racial inequality, but can't take class on we'll do a Kaepernick meal. Same thing with the Apple Watch. And then another thing that I like to think a little bit more the politics of it, he said, do we get these in our reparations gift back? It's a picture of the pot. And it's got like, yeah, like we're gonna get this and some actual justice isn't just kind of a mean spirited one that I thought was funny. It said epic or the watch and said, Steve Jobs did not go to hell for you all to do this, you know. I just do find it you're kind of taking corporate responsibility out bad apple is insane. You know, you all want about this. So I thought that was funny.

Dyalekt:

really tough because these things go all over the place. I mean, I was thinking about what's your name? Amanda Gorman, the poet, the poet laureate, who did this cover talking about Kente cloth which she's dressed in Kente cloth, but it was a Louie baton can tell. I was like, I'm not quite sure. I know. I kind of feel about that. I mean, like, good for the young poet to be able to get all lubicon to consider these things. But now I'm scared that a you know, the local businesses who start creating their own can take both pieces and using African patterns that they're gonna get bought up. And I want

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC:

to go to a song and I want to come back I want to talk about Captain America. I want to talk about Falcon in the winter soldier. I want to talk autonomy Sea coast right and Captain America I want to talk about the art and media that is, you know, making these stories personal making these stories, both mainstream and relatable. And what does that mean for all of this? Right?

Dyalekt:

Yeah, let's talk about these things are most mainstream, they're relatable. For our first song we're going to Portland, Oregon, for an artist called knowledge ng, and his song which is false leadership, and we'll check you in a minute to preach to the choir podcast.

Unknown:

Around the crowd I know the games I don't know who goes in who should say this should look in like the damn parade automatic fire gun playing I've been dreaming about this my whole life bullets flying right between the side conversation No, nobody speaks same outfits every week. I'm gonna do something different. I'm gonna put it down best on my fucker. I'm a goddamn threatened I'm gonna shoot up the chest now my fucking Hey, wait wait let me explain I got this shit in my veins I want the money to power to fame. I want the Blood to be spilled in my name. Hey, what do you think on my hostage fucking I'm right where I want to be. I just put the mask on and a third of flashout and my team rolls up and unloads like we empty in a pod Enough said I'm sick to the playbook Hey rookie once you come with me let's take this over become a family don't stand on the shoulders of who might believe maybe maybe I'm just diagnosed with the same damn shape as my own opponents my enemies might take shots at me but if they do I can swear they will live to own it but we live in a place divided by sections history says if it caused an attention to God might come in clean and wipe you out like a damn infection what I'm done trying to live by these fucking terms I've got a whole family that's so concerned I might step back once the building burn but across the street there's something else out where he's saying no cash no cash and even right now right now right now right now put it in the bag and everybody fucking gets down screw with I'm not done I pull up the shotgun and fly to the left creep up in the top one I'm picking a dumb shit I wanted to watch it I'm taking all the money that you stole headed off to the gunship but I don't want to say I did it because of money but as soon as I saw an opportunity I was running you can label me a fake a fraud a thief I'm the only one who stood for your beliefs to look around the crowd that know the games. I don't know who goes and who's to say this should look in like the damn parade automatic fire gunplay. I've been dreaming about this my whole life bullets fly and right between the sides conversation. No nobody speaks same outfits every week. I'm gonna do some different modifications. I'm gonna put it down best on I'm a goddamn threat now. I'm gonna shoot up the chest now my fucking Hey, wait, wait, let me explain. I got the shit in my veins. I want the money to power to fame. I want the Blood to be spilled in my name. Hey. You think I'm a hostage fucking All right, well, I want to be one of the one of the one of the one of the one of the

Dyalekt:

Yeah, that was knowledge in from Portland, Oregon. And you could tell he's one of them cats, that is activists is out there in the streets. And it's like, I'm seeing all these cats running and like trying to pull up these movements. So I figured that was the appropriate jam for what we're talking about here. Thank

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC:

you. Yes. Welcome back, everybody we are talking about has the racial wealth divide being co opted, we are talking about how corporations have co opted the movement or have tried to be a part of the movement or capitalize on the movement. And, you know, when we were preparing for this show, something that came up was Tommy's he codes writing Captain America now and, you know, putting in the Tuskegee experiment, you know, analogs and things like that. And then well,

Dyalekt:

that was a creative. Oh, that was that was some years ago, the whole black Captain American thing that was brought up. And this the thing of that, I mean, it's fairly recent. It's not like they wrote it in the 60s when it actually happened. Yeah, well wouldn't happen in the comics. Also, that's where they set it. Yeah, it's a recent comic, which is also, I think, partially a product of this. And this is part of the good thing of like, people have been seeding these things, these natural things into our heart. It's one of those things where our superhero stuff in particular, right, it doesn't have to parallel us, but it needs to parallel some of the ways that things happen, right. And we naturally think about Captain America and how things get down in the 40s. Pretty easy explanation. Like Yeah, I'm sure they would have experimented on black people then and not said anything.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC:

Yeah, exactly. Like a green.

Diedrich Asante Mohamad:

Right, since they actually did write

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC:

stories. Well, I think too, I wanted to bring up Falcon and Winter Soldier, because it like goes hard and directly addresses a lot of this systemic stuff with these personal scenes of you know, Falcon, a literal superhero, a literal Avenger, trying to get a loan in a bank, and the banker wanting to take a selfie with him and be like, Oh, my God, it's you with you. And then saying, I'm sorry, I can't help you.

Dyalekt:

And mind you.

Diedrich Asante Mohamad:

I haven't seen it yet. Like,

Unknown:

Oh, boy.

Diedrich Asante Mohamad:

That's a great clip. For you to be doing Falcon. This is what to bring out to attend. You're saying I don't even talk to them about it. But the origins of power man from power man and iron fist. That origin wants to be tested on prisoner, black man in prison, you know, test it on any race out of prison. He doesn't do any liberation movement type thing he just kind of is a gun for hire, because that would be too because I think we talked about in the past, if black people really had superpowers in the 40s 50s 60s 70s, probably today, and we really have some vigilante justice, there'd be some really radical things where like, police officers can finally be attacked, right? Like the institution would be overthrown. And they don't want to go that deep in it. But I find that fascinating of using Falcon as kind of the superheroes still can't get a loan.

Dyalekt:

Can I also throw some old school stuff in there talking about times and how times don't change when power man Luke Cage as he's known Now, first came out, that was also part of another cultural movement where people were trying to be more real about talking about these people like doing Black Panther who was created by you know, Stan, and jack, like most of the characters, they were like, I want to be more diverse. I want to see the lives of people who have been oppressed, like my people, US folks have been oppressed for like in other ways, so they were reaching out in his origin was a reformed.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC:

Yeah, this storyline

Dyalekt:

was a pimp that was his original origin.

Diedrich Asante Mohamad:

No, because like his power man, you could tell the way he was dressed was so much of that blaxploitation era. And you know, and again, the Black Panthers, we might have mentioned this previously, it is interesting that at one point they wanted to call Black Panther the something leopard or something like

Dyalekt:

the black leopard.

Diedrich Asante Mohamad:

Yeah. Wow. Does the Black Panther Party emerge just coincidentally, as the same time as the Black Panther comic book hero and Black Panther Party was way too radical for something that Marvel and then wanted associated with one of their superhero

Dyalekt:

if I if I recall correctly. Now we get really like some comic nerdy people from you don't read comics and stuff like that podcast to come on. But if I recall correctly, for like five or six issues, they did call him the black leopard.

Unknown:

Yeah. Oh, wow.

Dyalekt:

People were like, that's not a

Diedrich Asante Mohamad:

friend of mine. Todd burrows wrote a book on the Black Panther. And its origin right before the big movie came out. That is one of the better politically properly politically oriented books on Black Panther. You can Google that Todd barrows Black Panther and see what those writings on that

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC:

Yeah, but I The reason I wanted to bring up Falcon and Winter Soldier in in the sense of like, has the racial wealth divide been co opted is is it a good thing that stories are being told like this or is this another Okey doke. Like, hey, we're addressing it. We're bringing up now, and everyone's aware of it and good. That's it. Right? Yeah.

Dyalekt:

I mean, there's like the there is the Malays of information that Yeah, part of the information age is like, we're gonna and this is why a lot of your activity type folks get educated because it's like, well, we're gonna make everybody aware of it. And it's like, how much awareness? Can

Unknown:

we do?

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC:

Yeah, we all have like Breast Cancer Awareness. Like how many times can you walk and run for people and be aware of breast cancer before we try and like eradicate,

Diedrich Asante Mohamad:

yeah, but you see at least Breast Cancer Awareness. Like if everybody was doing it, maybe yes. And some people argue it's happening now, the breast cancer awareness, you know, all the running, running, this stuff was released to raise money to do research. I was gonna say the answer, right. Like, you know, we don't really need to do much research. If people are raising a whole bunch of money to actually bridge the racial wealth divide. I think that would be a more interesting thing. Now,

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC:

the reason I bring up Breast Cancer Awareness is because there have been critiques that the movement is just about awareness and not actually about

Dyalekt:

well, and you're talking a lot about like Susan G. Komen, who are grifters who spend a lot of their time suing people and being very proprietary. And that is also what's happening within the racial justice movement. I mean, aside from just like these bigger thing, things that we talked about, we see you're like this rise of new celebrity activists, and there are a lot of people who have concerns and problems with the stuff they're doing being like, hey, how many times can you get paid five G's to walk on a stage in front of white people and say, Hey, white people, you're treating black people bad, and then they all clap, and then we all go home? Right?

Diedrich Asante Mohamad:

Right. Yeah. And again, I mean, I think all of that can be an avoidance of the issue, right? Because like, you know, whatever, you know, some, some activist is making some money doing a Nike commercial talking about racial equality, I mean, whatever, like, critique it, but you know, my primary thing is, is the issue being addressed. These corporations who are saying we're gonna give $10 million are a billion dollars somewhere, but even in your own company, like, are you do you have like hirings at all levels that are racially equitable? Like how about you know, like, just the most basic thing that you really easily could do?

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC:

Right? Are all your rights in the diversity and inclusion department, right?

Dyalekt:

I had a homie hit me up, a friend of mine who worked for an advertising company was like, hey, so I'm talking to my company. And we're trying to see what we can do racial equity, black folks, you know, any organizations of people that we would like to do, and I was like, Sure, I can give you a list of folks and tell you some things that they can do. And then he said, I went to the diversity meeting, and it was all white people there. And then we talked about it, and then they decided not to spend any money.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC:

They probably felt really good talking about it.

Dyalekt:

Know, it sucks. Because as an educator, and with the work that we do with brunch and budget, I feel like we do a lot of awareness making. And I acknowledge, and I understand that it's important. It is real. Yeah, to get an understanding of stuff to get deeper understanding just all of that this is all important stuff. It's part of the process. And one of the things that I think is the real Okey doke is that doing this one step thing and not the rest of the steps, makes it look like all of the steps stuff. And it makes it look like you have to do is window dressing. When we're saying well, what we're doing is actually window dressing come and look at the stuff under the window, we have to clean the windows where we get under that.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC:

Well, the trickiest part.

Diedrich Asante Mohamad:

This reminds me of I applied to critical discharging when I was working with sharks and like you would highlight the important point that the protests is not meant to solve a problem. It's meant to bring light to a problem that still needs to be resolved. So like, you know, you shouldn't be just celebrating, yes, we have so many protests, and that's good. It was bringing right and then making action, a term that addresses the problem. So it's not that like, oh, protests are bad. No protests are good. It's just one small step of you know, a larger process of addressing something and that kind of thing. You know, it's one small step to start everybody say racial wealth divide. And now you take further steps and getting a better understanding going, are people really willing to take action? Are people really willing to do the redistribution of resources that is required to address this racial economic inequality? That's the foundation of our political economy. And that's harder work. It doesn't mean we shouldn't be the beginning but we just got to keep working to the end.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC:

Well, I think that one of the reasons why we are stuck at the beginning is actually address and dialect show these human dead words, right? It is yes, well, racism and the word racism and however

Dyalekt:

we looked at your face and everything you've just mentioned,

Diedrich Asante Mohamad:

everything is dumped into the dress, it is a dead bird show, but we're gonna put

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC:

it on as a testimonial. You know, just see your example right about like a bunch of white people on Diversity Committee sitting in a room and addressing racism and talking about it. Your whole thing about racism where it's gone from this like racism, and this is systemic thing. Two, racism is an indictment on me as a person, right? So people don't want to be racist, white people in particular don't want to feel like they're racist, or have any implication that they personally are racist. And so we keep staying at the beginning, because the awareness part of it is the part that they're like, Oh, I feel good. Now, I feel good about it. I don't feel racist, personally, because I talked about it, I address it. I'm on the Diversity Committee. I have all the optics around this. And I'm still benefiting from the systemic racism that exists. So what do you change

Diedrich Asante Mohamad:

your mind you also add in, that's also the co optation, because they're co opting a challenge to a racist capitalist system that maintains and continues racial economic inequality. And they're co opting into a individual personal thing, right, like so that racism is not a change of a whole political economy. But it's a change of my personal attitude, or how I individually behave, which is a very liberal, mainstream thing that like your individual goodness, reflects right beside you versus No, you have systems Second Great, great evil, even if there's, like, you know, a nice person at the top of it, because the system is itself exploited and decides, okay,

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC:

and then all of a sudden, it becomes about their feelings and like how they feel about it versus actually changing things. And this is why we keep rotating back to the beginning until we get past that

Dyalekt:

I have a question that may be a little bit out there for you think that it's possible when we're talking about you know, making awareness and not really changing things. I wonder how much of this co-opting is kind of accidental in that it follows because we're talking a lot about art right? And we talk a lot about activists and artists and everybody and putting it all together Falcon Winter Soldier in art that has been commodified. Right, it's all about catharsis. At the end of Falcon in the Winter Soldier, we're gonna get some catharsis. What's gonna happen? It's gonna be good. It's gonna be cathartic, and it's gonna feel good as

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC:

it is. I think we need to complete the story

Dyalekt:

right, then yeah, I think that we have set up or they have set up expectations, will folks have expectations about these things, where when we go into the room, and we talked about this, the expectation is catharsis. So they get what they want out of it, right, but they don't have an understanding that in the real world, things are more messy. You know, when you talk about how parts of the thing are co opted, I was thinking about hip hop and how rapping has become a very popular thing. People talking about the power of rap, there's a lot of power in rap. As someone who's been a practitioner for nearly 20 years, there is way more power in the connectivity of hip hop, where we have all of the elements working together all the learning styles, all the different viewpoints and perspectives. But when it comes to that single lens, you can be like, above my head to the beat, and I listened to the rep and I agreed and that was that, right?

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC:

Yeah, yeah. And you can just yeah, you can just be done with it. Well, that that the catharsis thing that you bring up, I think is such a key part of why we have a hard time changing things right? Because one people don't want to give up the things they already have. We've also been told that everything we have has been earned right? And that's been the narrative here is like individuals have bootstrap everything that I have I earned I'm self made like for like people like Kylie Jenner to like, be on a cover as the first self made billionaire, right. That's the narrative that we all want to hear. And that's the thing we all want to believe. And so this catharsis that we're looking for this like completion is something that also allows people to like keep what they have and feel good about it.

Diedrich Asante Mohamad:

Keep what they have, and even if you don't have much keep at least a dream that you have a system that promotes something I think there's so even speaking spend a whole show on and it was brought up before but Kylie Jenner being the first self made billionaire like why like, what does that even mean? Like if that's the model that is the first self made Millionaire?

Dyalekt:

One it's a marketing thing. Like Okay, you know, I get it, but like, too, as we're talking about comedy kind of stuff. I remember there was a self made billionaire wasn't Batman or Iron Man, they both inherited their wealth. It was Lex Luthor. Lex Luthor was a poor kid who had I think, lazy, possibly drug addled parents, and that enraged him. So he murdered them, and then went off on his entrepreneurial path to become a billionaire and eventually President of

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC:

the United States. Okay, so you have to be a psychopath is what? It helped him out. He became a resident of the United

Unknown:

States. Wow. Yeah.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC:

So I guess in terms of like, whoa.

Dyalekt:

He brought to the beat Atlanta was married to Pete Ross, who was the host. Yeah, we're talking in the comments.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC:

So in terms of CO opting the racial Divide and just all of this is this all was this, this all happened so that white people could feel better about all of these systems existing life

Dyalekt:

is about feeling better than you think about it's I mean, to me, it seems like quality is what you mean by feeling better feeling unrest and allowing commerce to continue as it goes,

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC:

there was this like peak of awareness, right? We're like diversity and inclusion. consultants were overbooked. They like couldn't handle their books. I'm so curious. Now.

Dyalekt:

We got more,

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC:

we got more calls, we got more calls, we got more followers, we got more people being like, Oh, my God, thank you for all the work you've been doing all

Dyalekt:

of that kind of stuff that we would have to not have in our proposal, but would pull out during the

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC:

racial wealth divide is like, no, they're asking for it, right? And I'm curious, like if those DNI consultants are still getting these calls, and you know, if that peak happens, like at these movements, and then kind of dies down again, we were listening to a podcast the other day about a black sex worker advocate. And she straight up said, the money is dry until another black lives movement thing happens for us. And then we get money. And then

Dyalekt:

we don't just look at the Asian stuff that happened. But yeah, like that was like

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC:

that really stopped Asian hate and

Dyalekt:

learned AAPI API for the

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC:

stories and like shared names and all of this stuff. And I feel

Dyalekt:

like in terms of the money and support for that, that's kind of dried up already. Yeah.

Diedrich Asante Mohamad:

I mean, I get the feeling that it's still probably higher than then where it was a year and a half ago.

Unknown:

I mean, I

Diedrich Asante Mohamad:

also think, I think there has been more money in racial equity stuff more and more with Trump in office period. People, liberals establishment didn't like the way Trump was talking about race. He was an easy person to highlight racial inequality wasn't like having Obama in the White House, hard for people to gel with this idea that we have deep racial inequality. And we have a black president. So I think I think the money's increased, it's not as high as it was at the height of post George Floyd murder. What have you, you know, there is some increases Russell and highlights a little bit, the conspiracy kind of type thing about, you know, is is just being used to quell a disturbance. I mean, honestly, like people in a room are necessarily deciding that, I think that's how the system works. It's like, people see, okay, this is a hot topic, whatever it is, which patriotism during the war rabbit, right? If it's some type of, if we correct white nationalism, we'll kind of grab it right? If it's feminism, you know, corporatize it, we'll grab it, we use it to sell a product, but then the people who are interpreting it are going to interpret it in a way that doesn't make you deal with the roots of the system, how deeply unequal society is the radical changes toward, they're going to make it something that can be solved at the end of a commercial, or at the end of a 30 minute show, you know, it's what helps maintain the system, even if people aren't conspiring in the back. That's what they're doing. They're part of a system that does that. I wonder

Dyalekt:

if this is as we're talking about how good or bad this thing is, I wonder if the big good thing of this is his like, there's an awareness stock market? You know, we've talked a lot about we talked about money and how the stock market fell mad hard in 2008. But if you left the money in there, it's even better because the stock market like it's for always increases over time. And I wonder if you know, and this is something I find when I talk to young people now of all backgrounds, it used to be just, you know, when I talk to black kids who are in a certain area where they've certain educators or you know, communities where they have a lot of different backgrounds. But now I can go into a college, I taught at the college the other day, where it was predominantly white kids there, and I started talking about the systemic issues. And they're like, yeah, and this thing, too. And the other thing, so there is part of me, the heart and part of me this, like maybe the whole awareness, stock market is rising. And it makes it so that even though people corporatized because like Yo, the reality is in America with capitalism having the stranglehold it does, it's gonna latch on to everything. It's that kind of parasite, right? But if they have to latch on to this now, is that a good thing? If it means that the general person is now aware of a lot of the baseline issues, and doesn't have to be dragged to step two, where he talks about how step one is becoming a dog and pony show, but if that has them there, and they're ready, and they're now like, Okay, I'm open to that, does that mean that we have the opportunity now, to really get them ready for step two and step back that

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC:

they can be critical of step one, instead of having to have it explained to them, right, where they it's already part of them? And they're like, Okay, I know, step one. I know how to critique it. And now I can move on to the next thing. That is, I mean, you're right there, lots of young people who just like get it.

Diedrich Asante Mohamad:

But again, like I look for measures of material change, to really just look at consciousness raising, I think so. So rights movement, right. It's the mid 20th century civil rights movement did a lot to raise the consciousness around racial inequality, but we've seen in a lot of them Material weighs. It hasn't done nearly as much as people would have expected.

Unknown:

Yeah. Well, let's

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC:

go to a song Come to our conclusions.

Dyalekt:

Yeah, let's go to a song and then come back and then drop off final statements about where we were going to Fort Worth, Texas for a song from an artist named a Roy and it's about where everybody is jumping on the bandwagon.

Unknown:

Bounce, bounce, bounce. Let me show you how sweat whatever the hell that means. Take a look at hip hop, and I'm fed up with is supposed to be about music not this sucker. I ain't a hipster, a gangster or backpacker. I ain't even a rapper. I just get it cracking on most of these MCs man. whacker they keep my homies laughing. We're still we met on cash. We ain't the gatekeepers is the best in this bitch. I've been listening since I learned to take a piss. And I've been studying since Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince. I've seen the cycles from bass to bounce on any word you plan to name the movement It ain't a movement just a bunch of dues is dressing Joshua stayed in school got a degree like me. So when you fall off and more happy to go back home to sleep back to your mama's couch you right then life by seeing the things you're trying to do you ain't even on the right route. I hear the same old song same old styles if one Mohawk is gonna come after you right is to break the band. I swear to you right is about to break the band width and same two songs and the same old styles it's one mo hop labs to work out because I swear you buy this stuff the breaker bandwagon. I swear to you by this doctor breaker band personalities among rappers today also with me most of y'all are finicky so I just tend to let up at times I'm critically acclaimed but feeling criminally insane because I don't recognize nobody Yeah, you really see rap is my religion guess I take it too serious I get this as a business but it needs some criteria. Tired of people getting rap points so being fooled it's like assuming the dude is smart just because he wears a suit I try not to address these blades unless they step into my space talk that shit up in my face then I'll put you in your place on his Twitter feed this week I ain't even from the street but if somebody's got an issue be a grown up move the tissue while we supply man we like to drink from the writer we can inspire him insanely to build our business with the right people dr Lisle snakes and weasels because they're hot Don't be salty because I call them like I see salty no I wouldn't I want to be yourself I hear the same old same old styles if one is gonna collapse to work wow cuz I swear I swear to you I just about to break up with insane motor SOS and one low High It's Gonna collapse to you by this bout to break I swear you just got to break and don't be mad cuz you see me doing my thing nobody told you watching will put you at the top of the game you measure success by your wife or rocks in your chain. I measured my my how many copies I got in the game, or how many girls they love the way I match my polos with my peers. Who wins it? That's it so nikka gifty he make a conscious record sound so cool the way he spit it and he also got them man really deployed so he bounced them making a killing but that's where homie for me. I'm never ever willing to sell my soul along with the show tickets back to this for my for my friend at TCU for all the ladies who are funkytown his music whatever your flavor we can do with why you think we call it that we will round it so I hear the same old same old styles if one is gonna collapse to break the band wagon. I swear you bite is about to break the band wagon with them same old song and same ourselves. It's one mojado it's gonna collapse. Because I swear you write is bound to break. I swear to you by this bout to break the band. Out of the band wagon.

Diedrich Asante Mohamad:

I didn't know we were adding a dance segment. I should have brought my girls up here.

Dyalekt:

It felt like it's not like a dance joint and he's so serious on it. But it's always fun to notice when bamm bamm is not one of the people who loses the lyrics first always. But when they catch her then she's like get this writer face is like listen, you can listen intently. So thank you a Roy from your bed. listen intently to that. Okay. That hip hop thing, right? Um, the one problem with the bandwagon of like, oh, everybody is just doing this one part of it is it makes it look rote, it makes out obvious, it makes it look boring and makes it look like something you don't even want necessarily get into. And as I know, before the break, it was like, oh, maybe there's good things. But my realest concern is that folks are gonna think it's ineffective. As a hip hop educator, I've seen a lot of people use hip hop, I don't know, a cuccia Ma, to make the class more exciting. Like, a lot of times people will add a rap thing to it. And be like, I made a rap song for you to learn about the 50 states. And that's

Unknown:

not hip hop education. That's

Dyalekt:

a rhyming mnemonic. Right? Using rhyme is useful in small ways. But hip hop pedagogy, hip hop education is actually much deeper and does a lot more for you. But what's shown is that you do this thing, it's mildly effective, it's fine. Throw a couple of bucks at it, and then leave it alone. Don't let it do more so that you can actually change things. Yeah, yeah.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC:

Well, okay, that's the end of the show. Are we gonna have some catharsis? Are we gonna? Is that what's next? Like? What do we do?

Diedrich Asante Mohamad:

Yeah, man. And I think our conversation has been getting at this whole thing about that. A lot of this is catharsis, you know, for the system to, you know, make ourselves feel better about, even with the conviction of Derek Casey's last name, Shaaban Shogun actually kills George Boy, you know, I think that made some people feel better. But, you know, I think activists are out there, but what's really going to change in our criminal justice system? And I think, you know, what's next is what was next, you know, last year or, you know, tomorrow or yesterday is that now really going to bridge the unemployment and equality right, that racially occurs? homeownership, a wealth inequality? You know, what does it take? You know, there's, you know, we did two or three years ago with Institute for Policy Studies, 10 policy solutions to help bridge the racial wealth divide, right, like, so, you know, we need to continue doing that hard work. And if Apple is going to have an apple unity watch, I would love for some listener to let us know, I can't tell if Apple actually shut down the watch, because so many people protect it, or they actually released it. So if anyone has that information, please. dialect, and let us know if it was cancelled to see different blog posts on that, but but the work is the same. And I think you know, what we have to be motivated to do is actually see the material concrete changes, and not just have cool red, black and green cross colored inspired watches and shirts, but we actually see some black, you know, liberation occurring, or Latino liberation or Native American or whatever the case may be. So

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC:

how do we get to the point then, where cuz I think that the reason why a lot of this happens, goes back to what people are and are not willing to give up materially, right? Well, it's

Dyalekt:

about all what you give up the thing you just said about the cop getting convicted and thrown in jail. We've been talking about mass incarceration and the enforcer movement for a minute now. And now it's like, oh, it's okay, if we just shove a cop in there too, right? So it's an example so that he can be sacrificed so that the system keeps on going. And that's the thing. It's like, materially, it'll look like something's happening, because we took someone and gave them some accountability, but all we do is process them through the same process. And

Diedrich Asante Mohamad:

it's interesting like, because, again, to materially to me, with me, not a individual example of me as a whole, just like there are more individual examples of high income black people are, you know, whatever the issue is, but overall, do we see that material change occur?

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC:

Well, the biggest thing that I see people most upset by or just like most resistant to is, like just giving people things you can't have universal basic, and you can't just give people money, you can just give people housing, you can't just give people these things, people are so enraged by even the concept of welfare, like how do you get people over that hump of everything needs to be earned, you need to work hard for everything that you have

Diedrich Asante Mohamad:

written, we turn our corner a little bit with COVID I don't know how long we're gonna keep that. But where we are, we're sending out we have sent out a few $1,000 checks at different times throughout the year to help people during COVID just people recognize there was something that was affecting people's ability to you know, provide for themselves, and that the government should support them get through this, if we can have that same understanding that we have deep racial economic inequality, we have great concentrations of wealth, and that government needs to also help the average person get through these things and actually make this more of a redistribution of resources. So we don't have to trade well so much, you know, that's we're pushing for, you know, and we've got to keep doing the work we have been doing and hopefully people think of new innovative ways to do some new work that can help push things forward.

Dyalekt:

I got a little bit of a conclusion. It's only for one face in the shadows,

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC:

With this ad, okay, so

Dyalekt:

artists, because, you know, those are the who we can really talk to about this thing. Artists, I have a question and inspiration for y'all. When you are making your art, you know that metaphor plays heavily into the thing that you do. What is your metaphor intended to make happen? What is the end result from your metaphor? Not what is it revealing not what is it referencing, but what is the end result. And as we were talking about, like Marvel stuff, I think about how the Black Panther movie and the Thor Ragnarok movie came out around the same time. And they were trying to do very different things. Black Panther was trying to show powerful, sustainable, some ethical black people in a place in Africa. And they wanted to show images, they were willing to let go of a lot of the policy movement type of stuff where they're kind of like fizzle out ending with the stem, right? Their metaphor was empowerment through imagery, versus Thor Ragnarok, which I think affected me even deeper, because their metaphor was about these people who had been oppressors learning that they can be refugees to, you know, there's a line that said like an Asgard is, is a people not a plane, right? And you know, the the Maori director who made that I'm like, sure that that's something that his Auntie or whoever told him growing up about his people. And I felt the metaphor in the there was so much active stuff going on there that I saw the parallels for me and my community and what I could do about it, so I asked you, I'm not saying one of those is worse than the other. I just was making an example of something that related to what we're talking about. So artists, I want you all to be very specific, very intentional about what is the metaphor, not what does it highlight, but what does it do? What is the verb?

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC:

All right? Yeah, preach to the choir. So they know to sing

Unknown:

now

Dyalekt:

was part of the racial wealth network. We're on the bunch of budget podcasts as well. Feel free to hate us, read us debate us get us on all of the stuff. We're going to get out of here. Thank you so much for listening.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC:

Thank you, everybody.