February 18, 2021 • 24 mins
In the premiere episode, Erika and Whitney ‘show us the money’, as they travel to the American crossroads of business and slavery, Wall Street. They get personal when they unearth the pain and shame of human bondage, hidden at the site of New York City's notorious African slave market and lost burial ground. The duo makes their argument in Black and White, when they crash a congressional hearing for Reparations Bill HR 40 and introduce the Rosa Parks of the reparations movement - Evanston, IL Alderwoman Robin Rue Simmons. This groundbreaking episode concludes with a reimagining of a post-reparations America, that would allow for new possibilities, new leadership, and a new direction.
For more info about this episode, please visit https://reparationsbigpayback.com
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to reparations, the big payback, the production of Color
Farm Media, I Heart Radio and the Black Effect podcast network.
I'm Erica, Alexander and I Whitney out. There's no reason
reparations what we are. The ones that were injured were solos,
(00:26):
were solos. Enslavement is stuff. The people who are owed
for slavery are no longer here. I want to check.
I don't think reparations is a good idea. Everyone should
be given the damage that was done to their family
cash payment. I don't want no government and though reparations
(00:47):
should be welcomed by all, some folks may want checks,
but what we're really talking about is closing that wealth
gap and making people whole. Let me tell you justice.
It's just uh. Here we are on the corner of
Wall and Broad Street, one of the most like famous
(01:10):
corners in America. Right, it's the seat of capitalism. We're
standing at the feet of George Washington, founder of our country,
who's looking across Wall Street at the New York Stock Exchange.
It this is it. It's smaller than I thought. It
looks more impressive than pictures. I was doing a little
(01:33):
research before we came down here. Erica, and you know
the value of the company's contained in the New York
stock has changes over thirty trillion dollars. That's ten trillion
dollars more than the nation's GDP every year thirty Amazon,
(01:54):
and the value and the amount of trading that is
done every day about of money that passes through there
is I think, over a hundred and sixty billion dollars
every day. When you think of Wall Street, what do
you think of I think of this. I mean, it's
a little a lot of stone. There's all these really
beautiful polished bronze doors with sparkling glass and a lot
(02:19):
of really decorative iron work around, and it's kind of
telling everybody, well, if you're a white man, you can
come in, but everybody else stay out. Meant to intimidate,
and it does. It's not only intimidating to New Yorkers,
but I think it's meant to be intimidating to the world.
What I didn't realize is that directly across the street
(02:39):
is Federal Halls. Walk up there a little bit America.
We're standing in front of Federal Hall Memorial and that's
another Gothic building, and out in front of it, there's
a statue of George Washington, and it really struck me
when I saw us. Here's the founder of our country,
and he's looking across the street at the stock exchange
(03:00):
age as if he's looking at the capitalist foundation of
the country. But this is where he took the oath
of office upstairs in this building. Wow, they really did
a nice job on the bronze work near his crutch,
and it matters because you're looking up at him and
you're meant to see his penis first and then go
up to his face and follow his eyes to the
(03:22):
stock exchange. At least that's not what I see at
our back is George Washington. If we look to our right,
we can see Trinity Church, the oldest church I think's
one of those churches in the country, all these church
in New York. If you look across the street directly
in front of us as a stock exchange, and then
(03:45):
if you look down the street to the water, do
you know what's down that street The location of New
York's first slave market that was founded in seventeen eleven.
So if we're should have like the four points of
the compass in America, we have politics, money, religion, slavery.
(04:08):
That sounds right. Black people will always make up the
four points. And in fact, none of these things could exist,
these politics, that religion, or that money without slavery. And
that's the unfortunate part. For them to have white freedom
and white success, they needed black bodies. You know, when
(04:30):
I met you, Whitney, I had no idea that I
would be stuck with you for this long. We've been
talking about reparations for two years. It's only been two
years for us, but it's been a hundred and fifty
years for our country. Did you ever imagine yourself making
a project about reparations with a guy named Whitney Burton
Dow from the colony of Cambridge, Massachusetts, Like you often
(04:51):
point out a look the drawing of a wasp or
a colonist. Well, yeah, I guess if you come from Cambridge,
Massachusetts in your name Mats Whitney Burton Dow, you look
a little whitish. So yeah, but who better than you
represent for your people if you're talking about white people, Yes, yes,
white people. Yeah, you're the guy white people in America.
(05:12):
That's you. Well, Hams Hollywood, you know you're no pauper.
I've seen your house. If you did, you wouldn't be
saying that I need reparations just as much as anybody.
I am no Cambridge Whitney Dow and I didn't just
pop into people's movie screens and on stages and in
theaters all over the world. I have an origin story.
(05:34):
We all have origin stories, and origin stories are how
you live. They don't hopefully determine who you are. It's
about the stories we tell ourselves, and I guess story
shape our present reality, and I think that's where every
story starts. Every good story is between reality and myth, Like,
(05:54):
what's possible telling the truth? Well, you're setting a pretty
high bar that you and I are going to get
to the truth. Everybody loves different truths, and I think
your truth is mixed with a lot of lies. Thanks
for that. Are you talking about me personally, Erica, or
collectively as the white guy here? Both reparations. It's a
(06:17):
complicated issue, and I'm not sure if I'm the right
person to tell the story with you, Erica. Yeah, I
might be too white. Well I'm extra black, I'm extra
crispy black. Does that offset some of my whiteness? Is
that what you're saying no, No, you're white. You white,
you gotta live with it, any of my problem. I'm
gonna coattail on your blackness here. By the way, this
(06:39):
is a conversation. If we're going to go on this
journey about reparations, it ain't about you. Know, you would
say it is about you, But I'm Harry, it's child
you hear me. I'm here to rescue my people. And
the last time I checked, we just got a new
black woman VP. So right now I'm feeling like, ain't
nothing too big for me? And if not you Whitney,
then who step up? If we're gonna do this, We've
got to make a plan. We gotta find experts. We
(07:01):
gotta you know, find people who actually know what they're
talking about. Just goose your eyes and make a wish
count to three. Yeah, that's come on, that's Sheila Jackson Lee.
That's Congressional hearing on hrd. America is a place and
welcomes the diversity of thought. We even welcome the diversity
(07:23):
of thought among the multi colored chocolate people that are
African Americans. Did you hear that multi colored chocolate? Do
you see how she got down old old girl as
a warrior if we were to pay reparations today, we
would only divide the country further about to turn on
him like Mr Colored Purpose. Reparations by definition, are only
(07:48):
given to victims. Victims had no consent. What you're supposed
to say? I give you permission to rid Maddin me
massa who here comes down? Mr Wakanda buck up. We
recognize our lineage as a generational trust as inheritance, and
the real dilemma posed by reparations is just that, a
(08:09):
dilemma of inheritance. Yep, that's what's happening in d C.
I guess that's why HR forty, a built to discuss reparations,
has been stuck in committee for thirty years. Meanwhile, on
these mean streets here we are out here, man, it's crazy.
The remnants of this history is all around us. Oh snap,
(08:36):
the New York's Municipal slave market. There's a sign here
are we less than two feet across and just over
one ft high. It's drawing on it and has a
green New York Parks emblement. It says our Wall Street
(08:57):
between Pearl and Water Streets and market that auction enslave
people of African ancestry is established by a Common Council
law on November thirtieth, sev eleven. This is the New
York's municipal slave market sign. But you can look up
from this site and see Trinity Church, and you can
see the New York Stock Exchange and the foundation of
(09:19):
it all. American slavery gets a two by two plaque.
You know, I've been here before, but this is the
first time I'm seeing this. Some I'm a little piste off.
I don't know why it's not more prominent. I don't
know why it's just a sign. Look, there's a big
old statue George Washington over there. Big buildings that we
talked about with stones look like it should be here,
(09:42):
and this looked like it'd be. It could be knocked
over by a hard wind. How does it make you
feel thinking about all this? You're visibly upset, You're shaking,
you know much shaking. I'm upset. I mean, I really
wish I could rip that sucker out. It's not even
worth it being there. And then also I'm kind of
(10:03):
mad because I have been here before, I didn't see it.
There are people walking through, their immigrants, got their children,
they've got all their families, They should be able to
see it. There should be the stain of it in
New Yorkers should have to live with it, they should
have to learn about it, they should be confronted with it.
I want them to really acknowledge slavery. I want them
(10:25):
to give us justice. Black people want justice. We deserve it.
We should have it by any means necessary. And part
of that justice is that you should not be able
to come and walk by a slave market marker and
not be moved by it, or at least have to
reckon with it or see it. That was so brutal.
(10:48):
Being there with you, Erica, someone who I care about,
and seeing the vistal reaction, the pain that it caused
you to be there, it left me feeling kind of helpless.
And I know that if I've been alone, if I
had been there by myself, I would have find some
way to push myself away from it and the absurdity
of it and just kind of intellectualize it. Where being
(11:09):
there with you forced me to own it a bit.
But that's my problem, not yours. It is your problem
and black people's burden to bear. I mean, we gave
you money and paid the big on your loan. Who
needs bootstraps when they've got friends like you, Whitney. That's
what I mean earlier when I said your truth is
(11:30):
filled with a lot of lies. These realities, they show
it for me every day. Meanwhile, you're underwater thinking your
real estate has value. What I'm thinking about is solutions.
And I really believe the only way towards a true
reconciliation is to create a funded reparations program. And white
(11:51):
Americans you have to decide if they want to rise
with Black Americans or fall with them. I see you,
Whitney down you're doing something. I mean, you're here, you're
working on it, you're talking about it. But don't expect
the parade or props are shown up to clean up
the mess you've made. Yeah, it is a big mess.
And Erica, you've told me in the past that you
(12:14):
feel like James Baldwin or Tattenhassi Coates has said that
you don't really believe, you don't really have faith that
white people of the ability to change. And I totally
understand that if I were black, I imagine I would
feel the exact same way, and especially looking at the
events the last you know, a few weeks and we've
had three or four thousand white people storming the Capitol
(12:36):
and it looks horrible. Those images were just like atrocious.
But at the same time, we've also had millions of
white people in the street marching alongside black and brown
people protesting police violence. So that does make me a
little optimistic. I hope it doesn't sound corny that I
do believe we can change, right, Maybe I feel like
(12:57):
I kind of have to believe we can change. Like
in Evanston, Illinois, things are changing. I've known his reparation
robbin and rolls of parks now, so that's different. How
about that she's a rock star. Four hundred years after
the first enslaved Africans got off the boat, Alderman Robin
(13:18):
Ruth Simmons passes the first reparations bill in America. Oh Man,
talk about the long arc. We gotta keep an eye
on her. We will. But I want to show you
something first. So Erica, tell me what do you see here?
What are we? What were you walking up to? Oh?
(13:39):
We're Duyne in Elk Street and it says African burial
ground a way. So they're building a federal building at
two hundred fifty six million dollar building and when they
broke ground on they discovered this burial ground. What does
this say here? Changing landscape obscures the past. The African
burial ground was labeled Negroes Burial Ground on the seventeen
(14:02):
fifty five map at right. Colonial New York laws banned
African funerals and officially consecrated graveyards, prohibited gatherings of large
numbers of enslaved Africans, and decreed that funerals had to
be held during daylight. Nonetheless, Africans and their descendants held
burial ceremonies in a cemetery outside the city wall, near
(14:23):
a ravine. As New York City expanded northeast, the burial
ground was closed in seventeen nine and eventually divided into
lots for sale. The land was filled in and buildings
were constructed on top. For almost two centuries. New York
City's growth obscured the graves and the African burial ground
was nearly forgotten. So we tried to put a Starbucks
(14:43):
on it. It's a metaphor, right, The foundation is African
Americans Americans both on top of it. They turned their
barrel ground into real estate, but that foundation wasn't paid
for it was paid for in blood, guts and suffering.
I think of the people buried here were children. So
(15:07):
we talk about reparations for work and value created, but
what about reparations for all the people that were destroyed
by it? It as children, the people who actually never
had a life. So this is showing the levels of
different centuries and what they built on top of those coffins.
(15:29):
It's a diagram. We're ground level, right, Yeah, we're ground level.
So the on top there's three different centuries. In the
lowest right, or at least, is the seventeen hundreds. People
were buried in individual coffins up to three deep. But
that looks exactly like the slave ship diagrams coming across.
That's interesting from Africa. So they went out like they
(15:52):
came in. That's a cold, cold thought. Let's walk up
to the next marker. This one is says Africans in
early New York before the American Revolution, York had more
enslaved Africans. It's most valuable commodity than any other colony
(16:15):
in the North. You're leaving out the most important thing here.
It's not that these people were just here, they say,
and they give an account of their work. Women sewed,
cooked harvests, didn't care for owners children. Labors tore up
cobblestone streets, dug trenches late and joined the pipe sections,
and filled in the trenches. Pay one dollar a day
in slave workers wages went to their owners. That's real,
(16:38):
and you know the real One of the reasons why
the slave market was established down on Wall Street was
because there were so many enslaved Africans here and the
actual way the labor pool was structured wasn't really structured.
There to sending people out in the street to like
earn money, and they wanted to sort of like codify
into something more structural. By the way, this whole thing
(16:59):
is about white fear. Yeah, you should be fucking afraid
because if we ever get what we deserve and if
we ever start to balance those books, there ain't no
stopping us, and it's over. It's not just the rebrowning
of America, it's the black nation coming into its own.
So yeah, they try to bury us too black, too strong.
(17:21):
From eighteen nineties and estimated fifteen thousand enslaved in free
Africans were laid to rest in African fifteen thousand bodies
are here seven burial mounds mark the locations of the
re internments. Here. They are over here, So this is it.
Look at the mounds here. Oh my god. Now to me,
(17:43):
this is significant. My god, look at that. What does
it make you feel to stand here and look at this? Well,
I'm very proud. I'm glad to see them. And I
don't know I gained comfort from them being here. I'd
come out here and eat my lunch with them. What
do you think? It's funny because you know, you look
(18:03):
over at the stone and it's all representational. This is
so much more concrete. These are real burial mounds. And
knowing that the remains lie underneath it, and knowing that
they're aligned in a certain way with their heads facing Africa.
I think it's beautiful. It's beautiful and they shall rise again.
(18:29):
Oh hey, you know they give tours of this stuff.
M Black Gotham, thirty books, Totally worth it. Definitely buy
several tickets. I gotta take my mom and show her
all these hidden gyms, because she's the greeno in the family.
Oh man, it's a shame because no matter how hard
she worked with me, it wasn't enough, and she won't
(18:53):
live to see a new world that's created through the
application of reparations. So like the Africans, underneath those buildings,
it's going to be beyond her flesh and bone. But
that means it's fertile ground. It's very fertile. My mother's
in it. It's blessed and highly favored. What really strikes
(19:13):
me about it, Eric because that it's called the African
burial ground. But it's not just African history. It's white
history too, and it's history that's layered across generations. And
it's not just about what happened before it happened hundreds
of years ago. You can also see in it how
it's impacted what's happening today and how you and I
(19:34):
how our own families are living within the legacy of slavery. Yeah, no,
I get it. I mean my brother is a Philly
copp and my sister is a social worker, and they
worked within the racist system that we're talking about every day.
You know, that's how they make their living. And the
weird part is if systematic reformation is needed and reparations
is part of the cure, we have to get ready
(19:55):
because there's a whole lot of black folks that are
baked into the current architecture and they ain't gonna get out. So,
I mean, it's a rough ride. It would disrupt everything.
So we got to be careful what we wish for first,
do no harm. Maybe we need to step out of
our current reality from all Reven Barber says that we're
(20:21):
in the third reconstruction. So Whitney, this is our opportunity
to map out a blueprint, to chart a new destiny,
to decide who our builders are. Our architects are machinists.
You would probably need a few arsonists. We're gonna have
to tear some things down along the way. But first
we need vision. Imagination, you mean a reimagination. That's a
(20:50):
little change. Oh, it's amazing what a good composition can
do to carry us away. Okay, I'm ready. I think. Well,
let's be real. You always feel your best at the
beginning of the marathon. I hope, I'm ready, Yeah, I hope.
I bought a black power bar this season on Reparations,
(21:11):
the Big Payback. I didn't have a lot of skills.
I was a bad student. That was kind of this
histof Charlie got thrown out of schools. I was always
getting good fights. So that's why you got into race work,
because you were a mediocre white man anywhere anywhere, exactly
what you're saying. I failed everywhere else, So race took
me in it. I made a career out of it
because that's what we needed. This business. We need to
(21:34):
rejects awesome. Look, we have to define reparations. Some people
want to define reparations as a give me a check.
That's not reparations. They treat us like animals more or
less than like human beings. And we are the ones
who lost our lives building this country and got paid
(21:54):
not one dime for it. But everybody else is reaping
the benefits. That's album money. My life revolves primarily around
my discovery that my ancestors were the largest slave trading
family in US history. When I looked at you, Wikipedia,
my god brother, you're not playing you like the John
Lewis of the Aristocrats, the inspiration for me and reparations.
(22:18):
I know that the injustice and the discrimination in the
racism is a shared problem, but which has to be
confronted if we're gonna move on successfully together. My life
would have been any different if I was black, because
it's the core of who you are. Everyone has a burden.
It's how you handle the burden, and so I truly
(22:39):
don't feel that there was a privilege. Absolutely not. Mom.
What happened was we were standing in there and suddenly
the window shatters. The policeman told me that he was
trying to kill some blackbirds, meaning my children, who were
standing at the window at and not been for a
(23:02):
double pain windows, probably I would have that morning lost
two of my children. If I had enough money to
ease the disparities and enough programs directed run by black
people to help us, then I would even be willing
not to have Chambel Harris Speed Vice President. What goes
(23:24):
on your playlist? The reparations playlist? Well, what I play
for my students at the end of the semester is
um when will we get paid? This podcast is produced
by Eric Alexander, Dan Arnon and Whitney daw The executive
producers are Charlomagne the God and Dolly s. Bishop, The
supervising producers Nicole Childers and the lead producers Devin Madock Robins,
(23:47):
the producer writer Serres Castle, and the associate producers Kevin
fan With additional research support provided by Nile Blast original
music by dj d t P Reparations. The Big Payback
is a production of color Farm Media, I Heart Radio,
and The Black Effect Podcast Network in association with Best
(24:10):
Case Studios. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit
the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to reparations, the big payback, the production of Color
Farm Media, I Heart Radio and the Black Effect podcast network.
I'm Erica, Alexander and I Whitney out. There's no reason
reparations what we are. The ones that were injured were solos,
(00:26):
were solos. Enslavement is stuff. The people who are owed
for slavery are no longer here. I want to check.
I don't think reparations is a good idea. Everyone should
be given the damage that was done to their family
cash payment. I don't want no government and though reparations
(00:47):
should be welcomed by all, some folks may want checks,
but what we're really talking about is closing that wealth
gap and making people whole. Let me tell you justice.
It's just uh. Here we are on the corner of
Wall and Broad Street, one of the most like famous
(01:10):
corners in America. Right, it's the seat of capitalism. We're
standing at the feet of George Washington, founder of our country,
who's looking across Wall Street at the New York Stock Exchange.
It this is it. It's smaller than I thought. It
looks more impressive than pictures. I was doing a little
(01:33):
research before we came down here. Erica, and you know
the value of the company's contained in the New York
stock has changes over thirty trillion dollars. That's ten trillion
dollars more than the nation's GDP every year thirty Amazon,
(01:54):
and the value and the amount of trading that is
done every day about of money that passes through there
is I think, over a hundred and sixty billion dollars
every day. When you think of Wall Street, what do
you think of I think of this. I mean, it's
a little a lot of stone. There's all these really
beautiful polished bronze doors with sparkling glass and a lot
(02:19):
of really decorative iron work around, and it's kind of
telling everybody, well, if you're a white man, you can
come in, but everybody else stay out. Meant to intimidate,
and it does. It's not only intimidating to New Yorkers,
but I think it's meant to be intimidating to the world.
What I didn't realize is that directly across the street
(02:39):
is Federal Halls. Walk up there a little bit America.
We're standing in front of Federal Hall Memorial and that's
another Gothic building, and out in front of it, there's
a statue of George Washington, and it really struck me
when I saw us. Here's the founder of our country,
and he's looking across the street at the stock exchange
(03:00):
age as if he's looking at the capitalist foundation of
the country. But this is where he took the oath
of office upstairs in this building. Wow, they really did
a nice job on the bronze work near his crutch,
and it matters because you're looking up at him and
you're meant to see his penis first and then go
up to his face and follow his eyes to the
(03:22):
stock exchange. At least that's not what I see at
our back is George Washington. If we look to our right,
we can see Trinity Church, the oldest church I think's
one of those churches in the country, all these church
in New York. If you look across the street directly
in front of us as a stock exchange, and then
(03:45):
if you look down the street to the water, do
you know what's down that street The location of New
York's first slave market that was founded in seventeen eleven.
So if we're should have like the four points of
the compass in America, we have politics, money, religion, slavery.
(04:08):
That sounds right. Black people will always make up the
four points. And in fact, none of these things could exist,
these politics, that religion, or that money without slavery. And
that's the unfortunate part. For them to have white freedom
and white success, they needed black bodies. You know, when
(04:30):
I met you, Whitney, I had no idea that I
would be stuck with you for this long. We've been
talking about reparations for two years. It's only been two
years for us, but it's been a hundred and fifty
years for our country. Did you ever imagine yourself making
a project about reparations with a guy named Whitney Burton
Dow from the colony of Cambridge, Massachusetts, Like you often
(04:51):
point out a look the drawing of a wasp or
a colonist. Well, yeah, I guess if you come from Cambridge,
Massachusetts in your name Mats Whitney Burton Dow, you look
a little whitish. So yeah, but who better than you
represent for your people if you're talking about white people, Yes, yes,
white people. Yeah, you're the guy white people in America.
(05:12):
That's you. Well, Hams Hollywood, you know you're no pauper.
I've seen your house. If you did, you wouldn't be
saying that I need reparations just as much as anybody.
I am no Cambridge Whitney Dow and I didn't just
pop into people's movie screens and on stages and in
theaters all over the world. I have an origin story.
(05:34):
We all have origin stories, and origin stories are how
you live. They don't hopefully determine who you are. It's
about the stories we tell ourselves, and I guess story
shape our present reality, and I think that's where every
story starts. Every good story is between reality and myth, Like,
(05:54):
what's possible telling the truth? Well, you're setting a pretty
high bar that you and I are going to get
to the truth. Everybody loves different truths, and I think
your truth is mixed with a lot of lies. Thanks
for that. Are you talking about me personally, Erica, or
collectively as the white guy here? Both reparations. It's a
(06:17):
complicated issue, and I'm not sure if I'm the right
person to tell the story with you, Erica. Yeah, I
might be too white. Well I'm extra black, I'm extra
crispy black. Does that offset some of my whiteness? Is
that what you're saying no, No, you're white. You white,
you gotta live with it, any of my problem. I'm
gonna coattail on your blackness here. By the way, this
(06:39):
is a conversation. If we're going to go on this
journey about reparations, it ain't about you. Know, you would
say it is about you, But I'm Harry, it's child
you hear me. I'm here to rescue my people. And
the last time I checked, we just got a new
black woman VP. So right now I'm feeling like, ain't
nothing too big for me? And if not you Whitney,
then who step up? If we're gonna do this, We've
got to make a plan. We gotta find experts. We
(07:01):
gotta you know, find people who actually know what they're
talking about. Just goose your eyes and make a wish
count to three. Yeah, that's come on, that's Sheila Jackson Lee.
That's Congressional hearing on hrd. America is a place and
welcomes the diversity of thought. We even welcome the diversity
(07:23):
of thought among the multi colored chocolate people that are
African Americans. Did you hear that multi colored chocolate? Do
you see how she got down old old girl as
a warrior if we were to pay reparations today, we
would only divide the country further about to turn on
him like Mr Colored Purpose. Reparations by definition, are only
(07:48):
given to victims. Victims had no consent. What you're supposed
to say? I give you permission to rid Maddin me
massa who here comes down? Mr Wakanda buck up. We
recognize our lineage as a generational trust as inheritance, and
the real dilemma posed by reparations is just that, a
(08:09):
dilemma of inheritance. Yep, that's what's happening in d C.
I guess that's why HR forty, a built to discuss reparations,
has been stuck in committee for thirty years. Meanwhile, on
these mean streets here we are out here, man, it's crazy.
The remnants of this history is all around us. Oh snap,
(08:36):
the New York's Municipal slave market. There's a sign here
are we less than two feet across and just over
one ft high. It's drawing on it and has a
green New York Parks emblement. It says our Wall Street
(08:57):
between Pearl and Water Streets and market that auction enslave
people of African ancestry is established by a Common Council
law on November thirtieth, sev eleven. This is the New
York's municipal slave market sign. But you can look up
from this site and see Trinity Church, and you can
see the New York Stock Exchange and the foundation of
(09:19):
it all. American slavery gets a two by two plaque.
You know, I've been here before, but this is the
first time I'm seeing this. Some I'm a little piste off.
I don't know why it's not more prominent. I don't
know why it's just a sign. Look, there's a big
old statue George Washington over there. Big buildings that we
talked about with stones look like it should be here,
(09:42):
and this looked like it'd be. It could be knocked
over by a hard wind. How does it make you
feel thinking about all this? You're visibly upset, You're shaking,
you know much shaking. I'm upset. I mean, I really
wish I could rip that sucker out. It's not even
worth it being there. And then also I'm kind of
(10:03):
mad because I have been here before, I didn't see it.
There are people walking through, their immigrants, got their children,
they've got all their families, They should be able to
see it. There should be the stain of it in
New Yorkers should have to live with it, they should
have to learn about it, they should be confronted with it.
I want them to really acknowledge slavery. I want them
(10:25):
to give us justice. Black people want justice. We deserve it.
We should have it by any means necessary. And part
of that justice is that you should not be able
to come and walk by a slave market marker and
not be moved by it, or at least have to
reckon with it or see it. That was so brutal.
(10:48):
Being there with you, Erica, someone who I care about,
and seeing the vistal reaction, the pain that it caused
you to be there, it left me feeling kind of helpless.
And I know that if I've been alone, if I
had been there by myself, I would have find some
way to push myself away from it and the absurdity
of it and just kind of intellectualize it. Where being
(11:09):
there with you forced me to own it a bit.
But that's my problem, not yours. It is your problem
and black people's burden to bear. I mean, we gave
you money and paid the big on your loan. Who
needs bootstraps when they've got friends like you, Whitney. That's
what I mean earlier when I said your truth is
(11:30):
filled with a lot of lies. These realities, they show
it for me every day. Meanwhile, you're underwater thinking your
real estate has value. What I'm thinking about is solutions.
And I really believe the only way towards a true
reconciliation is to create a funded reparations program. And white
(11:51):
Americans you have to decide if they want to rise
with Black Americans or fall with them. I see you,
Whitney down you're doing something. I mean, you're here, you're
working on it, you're talking about it. But don't expect
the parade or props are shown up to clean up
the mess you've made. Yeah, it is a big mess.
And Erica, you've told me in the past that you
(12:14):
feel like James Baldwin or Tattenhassi Coates has said that
you don't really believe, you don't really have faith that
white people of the ability to change. And I totally
understand that if I were black, I imagine I would
feel the exact same way, and especially looking at the
events the last you know, a few weeks and we've
had three or four thousand white people storming the Capitol
(12:36):
and it looks horrible. Those images were just like atrocious.
But at the same time, we've also had millions of
white people in the street marching alongside black and brown
people protesting police violence. So that does make me a
little optimistic. I hope it doesn't sound corny that I
do believe we can change, right, Maybe I feel like
(12:57):
I kind of have to believe we can change. Like
in Evanston, Illinois, things are changing. I've known his reparation
robbin and rolls of parks now, so that's different. How
about that she's a rock star. Four hundred years after
the first enslaved Africans got off the boat, Alderman Robin
(13:18):
Ruth Simmons passes the first reparations bill in America. Oh Man,
talk about the long arc. We gotta keep an eye
on her. We will. But I want to show you
something first. So Erica, tell me what do you see here?
What are we? What were you walking up to? Oh?
(13:39):
We're Duyne in Elk Street and it says African burial
ground a way. So they're building a federal building at
two hundred fifty six million dollar building and when they
broke ground on they discovered this burial ground. What does
this say here? Changing landscape obscures the past. The African
burial ground was labeled Negroes Burial Ground on the seventeen
(14:02):
fifty five map at right. Colonial New York laws banned
African funerals and officially consecrated graveyards, prohibited gatherings of large
numbers of enslaved Africans, and decreed that funerals had to
be held during daylight. Nonetheless, Africans and their descendants held
burial ceremonies in a cemetery outside the city wall, near
(14:23):
a ravine. As New York City expanded northeast, the burial
ground was closed in seventeen nine and eventually divided into
lots for sale. The land was filled in and buildings
were constructed on top. For almost two centuries. New York
City's growth obscured the graves and the African burial ground
was nearly forgotten. So we tried to put a Starbucks
(14:43):
on it. It's a metaphor, right, The foundation is African
Americans Americans both on top of it. They turned their
barrel ground into real estate, but that foundation wasn't paid
for it was paid for in blood, guts and suffering.
I think of the people buried here were children. So
(15:07):
we talk about reparations for work and value created, but
what about reparations for all the people that were destroyed
by it? It as children, the people who actually never
had a life. So this is showing the levels of
different centuries and what they built on top of those coffins.
(15:29):
It's a diagram. We're ground level, right, Yeah, we're ground level.
So the on top there's three different centuries. In the
lowest right, or at least, is the seventeen hundreds. People
were buried in individual coffins up to three deep. But
that looks exactly like the slave ship diagrams coming across.
That's interesting from Africa. So they went out like they
(15:52):
came in. That's a cold, cold thought. Let's walk up
to the next marker. This one is says Africans in
early New York before the American Revolution, York had more
enslaved Africans. It's most valuable commodity than any other colony
(16:15):
in the North. You're leaving out the most important thing here.
It's not that these people were just here, they say,
and they give an account of their work. Women sewed,
cooked harvests, didn't care for owners children. Labors tore up
cobblestone streets, dug trenches late and joined the pipe sections,
and filled in the trenches. Pay one dollar a day
in slave workers wages went to their owners. That's real,
(16:38):
and you know the real One of the reasons why
the slave market was established down on Wall Street was
because there were so many enslaved Africans here and the
actual way the labor pool was structured wasn't really structured.
There to sending people out in the street to like
earn money, and they wanted to sort of like codify
into something more structural. By the way, this whole thing
(16:59):
is about white fear. Yeah, you should be fucking afraid
because if we ever get what we deserve and if
we ever start to balance those books, there ain't no
stopping us, and it's over. It's not just the rebrowning
of America, it's the black nation coming into its own.
So yeah, they try to bury us too black, too strong.
(17:21):
From eighteen nineties and estimated fifteen thousand enslaved in free
Africans were laid to rest in African fifteen thousand bodies
are here seven burial mounds mark the locations of the
re internments. Here. They are over here, So this is it.
Look at the mounds here. Oh my god. Now to me,
(17:43):
this is significant. My god, look at that. What does
it make you feel to stand here and look at this? Well,
I'm very proud. I'm glad to see them. And I
don't know I gained comfort from them being here. I'd
come out here and eat my lunch with them. What
do you think? It's funny because you know, you look
(18:03):
over at the stone and it's all representational. This is
so much more concrete. These are real burial mounds. And
knowing that the remains lie underneath it, and knowing that
they're aligned in a certain way with their heads facing Africa.
I think it's beautiful. It's beautiful and they shall rise again.
(18:29):
Oh hey, you know they give tours of this stuff.
M Black Gotham, thirty books, Totally worth it. Definitely buy
several tickets. I gotta take my mom and show her
all these hidden gyms, because she's the greeno in the family.
Oh man, it's a shame because no matter how hard
she worked with me, it wasn't enough, and she won't
(18:53):
live to see a new world that's created through the
application of reparations. So like the Africans, underneath those buildings,
it's going to be beyond her flesh and bone. But
that means it's fertile ground. It's very fertile. My mother's
in it. It's blessed and highly favored. What really strikes
(19:13):
me about it, Eric because that it's called the African
burial ground. But it's not just African history. It's white
history too, and it's history that's layered across generations. And
it's not just about what happened before it happened hundreds
of years ago. You can also see in it how
it's impacted what's happening today and how you and I
(19:34):
how our own families are living within the legacy of slavery. Yeah, no,
I get it. I mean my brother is a Philly
copp and my sister is a social worker, and they
worked within the racist system that we're talking about every day.
You know, that's how they make their living. And the
weird part is if systematic reformation is needed and reparations
is part of the cure, we have to get ready
(19:55):
because there's a whole lot of black folks that are
baked into the current architecture and they ain't gonna get out. So,
I mean, it's a rough ride. It would disrupt everything.
So we got to be careful what we wish for first,
do no harm. Maybe we need to step out of
our current reality from all Reven Barber says that we're
(20:21):
in the third reconstruction. So Whitney, this is our opportunity
to map out a blueprint, to chart a new destiny,
to decide who our builders are. Our architects are machinists.
You would probably need a few arsonists. We're gonna have
to tear some things down along the way. But first
we need vision. Imagination, you mean a reimagination. That's a
(20:50):
little change. Oh, it's amazing what a good composition can
do to carry us away. Okay, I'm ready. I think. Well,
let's be real. You always feel your best at the
beginning of the marathon. I hope, I'm ready, Yeah, I hope.
I bought a black power bar this season on Reparations,
(21:11):
the Big Payback. I didn't have a lot of skills.
I was a bad student. That was kind of this
histof Charlie got thrown out of schools. I was always
getting good fights. So that's why you got into race work,
because you were a mediocre white man anywhere anywhere, exactly
what you're saying. I failed everywhere else, So race took
me in it. I made a career out of it
because that's what we needed. This business. We need to
(21:34):
rejects awesome. Look, we have to define reparations. Some people
want to define reparations as a give me a check.
That's not reparations. They treat us like animals more or
less than like human beings. And we are the ones
who lost our lives building this country and got paid
(21:54):
not one dime for it. But everybody else is reaping
the benefits. That's album money. My life revolves primarily around
my discovery that my ancestors were the largest slave trading
family in US history. When I looked at you, Wikipedia,
my god brother, you're not playing you like the John
Lewis of the Aristocrats, the inspiration for me and reparations.
(22:18):
I know that the injustice and the discrimination in the
racism is a shared problem, but which has to be
confronted if we're gonna move on successfully together. My life
would have been any different if I was black, because
it's the core of who you are. Everyone has a burden.
It's how you handle the burden, and so I truly
(22:39):
don't feel that there was a privilege. Absolutely not. Mom.
What happened was we were standing in there and suddenly
the window shatters. The policeman told me that he was
trying to kill some blackbirds, meaning my children, who were
standing at the window at and not been for a
(23:02):
double pain windows, probably I would have that morning lost
two of my children. If I had enough money to
ease the disparities and enough programs directed run by black
people to help us, then I would even be willing
not to have Chambel Harris Speed Vice President. What goes
(23:24):
on your playlist? The reparations playlist? Well, what I play
for my students at the end of the semester is
um when will we get paid? This podcast is produced
by Eric Alexander, Dan Arnon and Whitney daw The executive
producers are Charlomagne the God and Dolly s. Bishop, The
supervising producers Nicole Childers and the lead producers Devin Madock Robins,
(23:47):
the producer writer Serres Castle, and the associate producers Kevin
fan With additional research support provided by Nile Blast original
music by dj d t P Reparations. The Big Payback
is a production of color Farm Media, I Heart Radio,
and The Black Effect Podcast Network in association with Best
(24:10):
Case Studios. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit
the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
Popular Podcasts
1. The Podium
The Podium: An NBC Olympic and Paralympic podcast. Join us for insider coverage during the intense competition at the 2024 Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games. In the run-up to the Opening Ceremony, we’ll bring you deep into the stories and events that have you know and those you'll be hard-pressed to forget.
2. In The Village
In The Village will take you into the most exclusive areas of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games to explore the daily life of athletes, complete with all the funny, mundane and unexpected things you learn off the field of play. Join Elizabeth Beisel as she sits down with Olympians each day in Paris.
3. iHeartOlympics: The Latest
Listen to the latest news from the 2024 Olympics.