June 3, 2021 • 24 mins
With the season behind us, Rebecca Greenfield and Jackie Simmons sat down during the Bloomberg Businessweek conference to go inside the making of The Pay Check. They talked about how the series came together, high points, challenges and reactions -- and even teased what might be coming from the Pay Check team in the future.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey Jackie, Hey Rebecca. So, now that it's been a
few weeks since we wrapped the season, how are you feeling. Yeah,
so I am still digesting everything we did over eight episodes.
You know, it was a lot of work, but we're
not quite done yet. Last week at the Bloomberg Business
Week conference, you and I sat down and talked about
(00:28):
the making of the season, everything from how it came together,
the high points, the challenges, and the reactions. Yeah, we
really went behind the scenes about our thought process, favorite
episodes and moments, and we ended on what's bubbling up
now that could maybe even be potential for a fourth season.
It was fun and we figured we'd turned it into
(00:49):
a bonus episode for you, So here it is. We
hope you enjoy the conversation. Um. So, for the first
two seasons of The Paycheck, I did it solo, and
we started the very first season with a personal story
(01:11):
of mine. The first season was about the gender pay gap,
and my mom actually fought a gender discrimination lawsuit. So
when we decided we wanted to switch gears to the
racial wealth gap, I wanted to bring on a co host,
and I wanted someone who could bring something personal to it.
And I certainly couldn't do that on my own. So
(01:32):
immediately her name came up, as you know, a very
impressive high ranking journalist in the news room. Um, but
I didn't know if you would be into it. You're
very busy. I didn't know if you wanted to get
into the weeds of a podcast. So I want to
know how you felt when we reached out to you
to take on the show. Honestly, it felt like you
(01:53):
were all asking for my hand in marriage. But it
took me literally a nano second to reply salute, let's go.
I mean, I didn't really give it a lot of
thought because to me, in spite of how busy I
am and we're all busy, um, this is a deeply
important topic. It's a topic that was really sort of
sweeping the country, the world, and you know, just the
(02:17):
idea of being involved in it in the minute, Um,
it made a lot of sense. So yeah, in a heartbeat,
the answer was yes. I thought that was really cool
and everyone should know that Jackie like took this incredibly
seriously and I mean really did so much work and
it was amazing to work with you on it. Yeah,
And so I mean, Becca, have the fact that you've
(02:38):
done three seasons and you know, as you explained, the
first two focused on the gender gap. Can you just
give views a little bit of a sense of why
we decided to go to the racial wealth gap this time. Yeah.
So we had actually planned a third season on the
gender pay gab and we had started production and then
(02:58):
the pandemic happened, so we put that on hold. And
when we went to revisit the series and you know,
get back going again, we just looked back at what
we thought we were going to do and it just
didn't make sense. It didn't work. The world had changed,
you know, pandemic revealed inequalities, it created new inequalities, and
it was also the summer and the country was in
(03:20):
the middle of these massive racial justice protests, and it
just made complete sense to us to look at a
different inequality statistic. And the racial wealth gap was, you know,
demanding our attention at that time, so we decided to
dive into that and I think it I think it
worked really well. Yeah. So the beginning of season three
(03:41):
starts with a really power full personal story that you
tell about your family. My dad talked less and less
about the land, but he never gave up on it,
and one email I got from him, he says, I'm
(04:01):
certain of one thing. If that property ever pays off
in Texas, we are out of here to someplace other
than Mexico. I have no idea what he meant by Mexico,
and I never got a chance to ask. He got cancer,
and while sick, a cousin reached out to see whether
I could get him to sell some of the land.
(04:21):
How did you decide that you wanted to explore your
own history and passed as part of the show. Yeah,
so we talked about it um a bit, and I
think actually you remembered it better than I do. But
it was one of the planning sessions and one of
the calls we were doing. I mentioned, by happenstance that
my family owned land in East Texas that we no
(04:44):
longer own, and that this land was acquired in the
late eighteen hundreds and passed on in a very sort
of messy way that black families in that era acquired land.
So a little bit of slice here, liver there, and
that's basically how it came together. And you know, ultimately
we lost that land, but you know, just knowing that
(05:07):
the how wealth in America is a mass. It's usually
through inheritance, and a big part of that equation is
land and property. So it did make sense, make sense
when I thought about it, to pull in my family's
history and my family's story and sort of tie it together.
But you know, to be honest, I needed to push Um,
(05:29):
it's really hard to kind of think about unraveling your
own family history. It's very complicated. Record Keeping isn't what
it was what it is now, especially for that demographic
back then. Um. But ultimately, once I got into it,
I got into it. Yeah. I remember we were just like, oh,
I've just reported up, Like it'll work out. I knew
(05:50):
that you would get something good and useful if you
just used your reporter skills. But I do want to know, like,
how was that process for you as a journal as
kind of trying to dig things up versus you know,
a person who's digging into and learning about your family's
really difficult past. Yeah. Well, I mean I think that
you know the history of black people in America, it's
(06:14):
a it's an ugly history, and it's one of the
reasons why people have a hard time, you know, like,
let's just move on you know, we don't really want
to talk about this. It's ugly, it's messy, and it's personal.
And I didn't mention this earlier, but you know, one
of the reasons I was so compelled by the project
is that I knew we would look at this and
sort of the way we do at Bloomberg. So we
(06:34):
would look at it with facts and data and statistics
and numbers and sort of you know, like really had
that lead the narrative versus sort of a purely emotional
one that said, it's very emotional. So I found out
things about my family I did not know about, you know,
family members who you know, died in childbirth, plowing fields
(06:56):
and sort of losing land and losing you know, sort
of racist incidents that they would come across. And yeah,
I mean there were times I was doing my research
and I burst out in tears, you know. So it's
it's it is deeply personal, and you know that combined
with the fact that you know, you're looking at your
own country's history and through this optic and with the family, Yeah,
it was a bit kind of overwhelming at times, but
(07:18):
I'm still glad I did it. What did you, Becka?
You know, again, given the fact that you've seen us
through three seasons, what did you find was the most
challenging part of digging into this theme. Yeah, I come
out of from a really different place, um, and I think,
you know, I consider myself an expert on the gender
pay gap at this point, having done all this reporting
(07:39):
and then we were just switching gears into something. Definitely
I feel a little bit less comfortable with as a
reporter a journalist, so having to definitely feeling like, you know,
I could be an expert for the listener. I really
wanted to make sure we got this right. So that
was the first challenge, And then the other challenge is that,
of course racism at any quality exists in lots of
(08:01):
different forms all over the world, but it is a
very specific to the u S story what we were telling,
and so making sure that people who were outside the
u S could understand it. But then when we also
did episodes that were global, we had an episode in
the UK, like trying to understand the way racism manifests
there and explain it to a US audience. I think
(08:22):
that was one of the most challenging parts for for me,
just like as an editor and a journalist, What would
you say was something that you UM learned through the
(08:43):
show that you you know, had never learned before, Like
that was something new that we had dug up. So
there's there's a lot of things I learned because you
know a lot of this is not UM taught in
history books. But the thing I took away amongst many things,
but was the unsung heroes that appeared in the in
the different narratives. So for instance, episode three features a
(09:06):
black farmer who struggled to obtain credit to keep his
farm going, and he experienced racism in that process and
challenged a federal agency basically set up to help aid farmers,
you know, from which he and his demographic had been excluded.
Fifty dollars to struggling in farmer who has no money
(09:27):
is a real shot in the arm up. So it
did help. Did he give the land back? No? Was
it enough settlement to to make all of the discrimination
go away from U SDDA to answer is no? But
did it help the people who got the money? Absolutely?
You know, he took a legal challenge and I learned
about that. I learned about I was very touched by UM.
(09:49):
A character we bring into the season CALLI House. You know,
a black woman in the late eighteen hundreds who had
multiple children was seemed stress and she was one of
the first people to put the idea of reparations on
the table. She was jailed for it. Um. She ultimately
died without seeing sort of the outcome of that initiative.
(10:12):
But you know, all the things that she did are
still ringing true today if you look at some initiatives
going on right now around reparations and just acknowledging our past.
So the real thing that I took away and learned
from it was just the things I didn't learn as
a as a as a school child about my own
history and the people who were unsung heroes in it. Yeah.
(10:33):
I think John Boyd the Farmer, actually talked about that
in the episode how he won this really huge racial
discrimination case but feels like it's really overlooked. Um. And
that's something that came up in the finale too, with
Claire Setteth who talks about not learning about any anything
in school. And so I hope the other listeners get
(10:54):
that out of it too. Well. What about you, I mean,
what was your what did you learn that you didn't know? Yeah?
Mine's like definitely wonk here. Um. I was really like
enlightened by just the learning. You know, I think I
understood that slavery made people very rich. I understood that,
but um, hearing that Marsha Bratra and talk about it
(11:16):
as a system of capital that you could you know,
you could take out loans on it and make yourself
richer if you own slaves. That was an asset on
which you could gain leverage to buy more stuff. And
that's how you get rich, is you have assets that
produce wealth and then you can get more credit based
(11:36):
on those assets. And I just had never really thought
about it in that way. And then we also talk
about housing in the same way about I think one
of the people we talked to said, I hope that
is right. Most people start their own business by taking
out collateral on their houses, and so it's not just
like your house is gaining in value and you have
that security, but it's like this ability to build something
(11:58):
more and how black people have you know, we're first
their bodies were used that way, and then later we're
left out of other ways. So that was that was
probably the most enlightening thing to me, right, And it
was there, I mean was there anything that really shocked
you that you were like, wow, I mean, I mean
(12:19):
that's a good question. I don't know if I don't
know what the right answer is to that, because it's
also this is a cop out, but it's all really shocking.
It's very um and it's just shocking, like how it
perpetuates itself. It's like, again, I think people think of
slavery is something that happened a long time ago, and
that is true, but it just continues to perpetuate on itself.
(12:41):
And I think that was something you season one with
the gender bag up too. It's like these little seeds
get planted and then you can't just forget that that happened.
They grow and you know, create new any qualities. What
about you? Um, everything shocked me from start to finish.
(13:02):
I think when we did the math uh An episode two,
and we actually you add up the value of human
life and human capital, I think that when you think
of the you know how the system is basically built
on the backs of people. The economic value of the
four million slaves was an average of a thousand dollars
(13:26):
per person, or about four billion dollars altogether. The banks, railroads,
and factories in the United States all put together well
worth about three and a half billion dollars. It's something
that you have to actually pause, you know, many many
times over and then you see how that sort of
(13:47):
perpetuates itself across history and over the different episodes, and
you know, when you're looking at you know, the question
of reparations, or you're looking at what happened in England
with wind Russian immigration and how that you know had
an packed you know in a different, similar but different way. Um,
it's sort of that self perpetuating and you know, kind
(14:08):
of knock on effect that this basic you know, event
of enslaving people. That's that's the thing that it's just
it never really leaves you. I have to ask, um,
but what was your favorite episode? I don't like to
pick favorites among my children, as I say, but um,
episode one, I just loved it. I felt like episode
(14:30):
first episodes always the hardest because it needs to be gripping,
but also set the scene and do a lot of work.
And also I think you get in your head about it.
I do. I got mad about it, but I think
we got there and I think your story was so
well done. It just was very subtle in a way
(14:51):
for people who haven't listened that I think is difficult
to pull off and effective, and then just set us
up for the rest of the season. We weave Jackie's
store right in and other episodes, so I also really
liked that we did that, um so episode one, and
then the other episode I really stayed with me and
I really liked was episode six, which was our first
(15:13):
reparations episode about reparations in the US, and I liked
that for a lot of reasons, but one reason I
liked that we looked at this reparations scheme and Evans
still Illinois. That's happening right now, and I think a
lot of our episodes are historical or look back, and
I thought it was really cool that we had something
going on right now that, you know, as we were
(15:33):
making the show, news was happening, and I think that's
always really cool. And it also I think changed, you know,
I think my perspective on reparations was changed a little bit,
like the solutions to all these things were made more
complicated for me after doing the show, which, um you know,
nuance is a hard thing to accept, but it's there.
So those were my my two favorites. What about you. Yeah,
(15:55):
I mean, like you, Um, we love all our children equally, right, Um,
But I mean it would be kind of strange advice
that I didn't like my own family's story, even though,
like you said, it was very subtle, um, And it
was sometimes frustrating because there are things I just didn't
figure out in the end, Like I don't know exactly
how my family ultimately got the land. I mean, I
(16:18):
got the d thanks to a listener who sent it
to me. But you know, there were so many like
pockets of holes in this story that that said, Um,
you know, like it very much was the context of
what we were trying to achieve to explain the gap,
and so it really did, I feel set the scene.
The other thing I think, um, is I really liked
(16:39):
the Claire's story the finale, and I thought it was
the perfect sort of juxtaposition to my story. So you know,
you've got you know, the black family, UM coming out
of slavery trying to build wealth, and you've got her
family UM discusses from the perspective of a descendant of
a slave owner. Um. I I love. I thought that
(17:00):
was a perfect you know bookend to the entire series
because you know, you have these different perspectives. And what
I really liked about her episode, because I had the
pleasure of interviewing her multiple times for it, was, you
know that she could really articulate, you know, this process
of understanding how her you know family owned slaves, and
(17:23):
you know, even the idea that potentially her great great
great grandfather, you know, impregnated as slave. And she goes
through that process of sort of discovering like all of
these nuances and historical moments and and sort of relating
it back to the present. And so someone that I'm
connected to today is connected to someone is connected to
(17:46):
someone who did love someone who owned slaves. And I
think that is something that I've actually never really articulated
before and also something that I think is necessary for
us to understand. There seems to be this feeling that
(18:10):
in admitting your past wrongs here somehow admitting that everything
about you in the past, or everything about your family
in the past is bad and terrible. You know, when
she talks about her ancestor you know, writing you know,
(18:31):
the Mississippi Constitution to basically forbid blacks from taking part
in voting. Well, there's some remnants of that sort of
happening in and she sort of connects the dots. She
also talks about history and the fact that she never
learned like me, I didn't learn a lot of these
these historical facts, a lot of these unsung heroes. So
(18:53):
I think that there was a lot of connectivity between
the two stories, and it's two American women sort of,
you know, basically having a voice on the topic. I
thought it was those are I have to say my
probably my two favorites. We have some questions to we
(19:14):
take some questions, you know, let's do other people's questions.
The first question asked is in a single parent household,
is it more difficult to create and retain generational wealth.
I mean I would say yes. And one of our
episodes does hit that when we talk about the tax
code and we have, you know, a character in the
series who basically a woman who owned her home and
(19:37):
she happens to be a single parent um who's now
having to rent her home because she lost that property
because of you know, basically the tax system was not
even an equal Yeah, I feel left behind. I feel
left behind. And then and then well last year to
learn that I was over taxed by five thousand. It
(19:59):
makes me s it, it makes me depress, it makes
me feel like a failure. I mean, that's one example,
but it does not help you don't have different partner
or people to to to help you, um in that situation.
For sure. It's one example. What do you think? Yeah,
I think the thing we learned or I learned through
(20:20):
this was that wealth is something that builds over time.
And so you know, your circumstances right now certainly can
help you. But also it really matters what circumstances you
came from. So it's kind of hard to answer that
question because there could be a single parent who inherited
a lot of wealth, or a single parent whose family
helped them put them through school, or you know, I
(20:41):
think it's more it is generational. Um, So that's my answer.
All right. This one's for Jackie. What did your family
think about this series? That's a really good question. There's
a good question. What did my family think? You know,
it actually took them, some of them a bit of
time to sit down and listen to it, you know. Um,
(21:01):
But when they did, I think that they, like me,
were pretty emotional about it, because again, you know, it's
part of the reason why I can't watch films like
Mississippi Burning or documentaries about civil rights era. It's painful
to watch, you know, any demographic, you know, one from
(21:21):
which you sprang to have that kind of hard look discussion.
You know, it's easier to turn on like a comedy
series or something. But so I think they put it off.
But their reaction ultimately was, um, joy again, you always should,
when possible, put a voice to your narrative. Um, you know,
(21:42):
just speak up again, make it fact based, you know,
teach and and basically you know, have a voice. So
ultimately they were the reaction was pretty positive. So our
final question was actually going to be our final question
to each other. So I'm glad you guys asked it.
Which is what topic will you explore for your next season?
I can take this one. We don't know yet, um,
(22:04):
but I think having now shifted away from this idea
of the gender pay gap as being what we focus
on for this year's we've opened ourselves up to exploring
any wealth inequality or any inequality statistic, and so I
think that's really exciting and freeing because we can go
a lot of directions with us. One idea that I
(22:25):
was discussing with Jackie is maybe we've been very US focused. Um,
maybe there's some sort of global inequality statistic we can
look at. But um, we just finished the season, so
I'm going to need a little bit of a break
to think about it and rest up. Yeah. I agree.
I want to go global um to the degree we can.
(22:47):
I think it's important, particularly in a recovery year and
looking at the annemus of the recovery around the world.
Thanks so much for for being here, and please listen
to the show you haven't already rate, subscribe, Thank you
(23:12):
if you want even more paycheck. Bloomberg's Quick Take team
made a video adaptation of our series, which you can
find at bloomberg dot com slash qt. Some people they
just got fired and they have no idea why some
people were detained losing access to healthcare. How many have
been detained as prisoners in their own culture? The historical
(23:36):
injustice has never been addressed. Ending an injustice is not
the same thing as making up for its enduring effects.
Factors and millions of negroes as a result of centuries
of denial and neglect then left. I feel this the travesty.
I want to leave my children something that I earned
(23:57):
and I put my bloods with tears into. If I
stabbed you, you may suffer complications along after that initial
actual stabbing. That's the case with African Americans. There are
people well within the living memory of this country, there's
still suffering from the actor. In facts of the Motherland,
that's what Britain was called the motherland, and then the
(24:18):
mother just rejected their children for what reason. We didn't
do anything, Bro, thanks again for listening and we hope
to be in your ears again soon. I
Hey Jackie, Hey Rebecca. So, now that it's been a
few weeks since we wrapped the season, how are you feeling. Yeah,
so I am still digesting everything we did over eight episodes.
You know, it was a lot of work, but we're
not quite done yet. Last week at the Bloomberg Business
Week conference, you and I sat down and talked about
(00:28):
the making of the season, everything from how it came together,
the high points, the challenges, and the reactions. Yeah, we
really went behind the scenes about our thought process, favorite
episodes and moments, and we ended on what's bubbling up
now that could maybe even be potential for a fourth season.
It was fun and we figured we'd turned it into
(00:49):
a bonus episode for you, So here it is. We
hope you enjoy the conversation. Um. So, for the first
two seasons of The Paycheck, I did it solo, and
we started the very first season with a personal story
(01:11):
of mine. The first season was about the gender pay gap,
and my mom actually fought a gender discrimination lawsuit. So
when we decided we wanted to switch gears to the
racial wealth gap, I wanted to bring on a co host,
and I wanted someone who could bring something personal to it.
And I certainly couldn't do that on my own. So
(01:32):
immediately her name came up, as you know, a very
impressive high ranking journalist in the news room. Um, but
I didn't know if you would be into it. You're
very busy. I didn't know if you wanted to get
into the weeds of a podcast. So I want to
know how you felt when we reached out to you
to take on the show. Honestly, it felt like you
(01:53):
were all asking for my hand in marriage. But it
took me literally a nano second to reply salute, let's go.
I mean, I didn't really give it a lot of
thought because to me, in spite of how busy I
am and we're all busy, um, this is a deeply
important topic. It's a topic that was really sort of
sweeping the country, the world, and you know, just the
(02:17):
idea of being involved in it in the minute, Um,
it made a lot of sense. So yeah, in a heartbeat,
the answer was yes. I thought that was really cool
and everyone should know that Jackie like took this incredibly
seriously and I mean really did so much work and
it was amazing to work with you on it. Yeah,
And so I mean, Becca, have the fact that you've
(02:38):
done three seasons and you know, as you explained, the
first two focused on the gender gap. Can you just
give views a little bit of a sense of why
we decided to go to the racial wealth gap this time. Yeah.
So we had actually planned a third season on the
gender pay gab and we had started production and then
(02:58):
the pandemic happened, so we put that on hold. And
when we went to revisit the series and you know,
get back going again, we just looked back at what
we thought we were going to do and it just
didn't make sense. It didn't work. The world had changed,
you know, pandemic revealed inequalities, it created new inequalities, and
it was also the summer and the country was in
(03:20):
the middle of these massive racial justice protests, and it
just made complete sense to us to look at a
different inequality statistic. And the racial wealth gap was, you know,
demanding our attention at that time, so we decided to
dive into that and I think it I think it
worked really well. Yeah. So the beginning of season three
(03:41):
starts with a really power full personal story that you
tell about your family. My dad talked less and less
about the land, but he never gave up on it,
and one email I got from him, he says, I'm
(04:01):
certain of one thing. If that property ever pays off
in Texas, we are out of here to someplace other
than Mexico. I have no idea what he meant by Mexico,
and I never got a chance to ask. He got cancer,
and while sick, a cousin reached out to see whether
I could get him to sell some of the land.
(04:21):
How did you decide that you wanted to explore your
own history and passed as part of the show. Yeah,
so we talked about it um a bit, and I
think actually you remembered it better than I do. But
it was one of the planning sessions and one of
the calls we were doing. I mentioned, by happenstance that
my family owned land in East Texas that we no
(04:44):
longer own, and that this land was acquired in the
late eighteen hundreds and passed on in a very sort
of messy way that black families in that era acquired land.
So a little bit of slice here, liver there, and
that's basically how it came together. And you know, ultimately
we lost that land, but you know, just knowing that
(05:07):
the how wealth in America is a mass. It's usually
through inheritance, and a big part of that equation is
land and property. So it did make sense, make sense
when I thought about it, to pull in my family's
history and my family's story and sort of tie it together.
But you know, to be honest, I needed to push Um,
(05:29):
it's really hard to kind of think about unraveling your
own family history. It's very complicated. Record Keeping isn't what
it was what it is now, especially for that demographic
back then. Um. But ultimately, once I got into it,
I got into it. Yeah. I remember we were just like, oh,
I've just reported up, Like it'll work out. I knew
(05:50):
that you would get something good and useful if you
just used your reporter skills. But I do want to know, like,
how was that process for you as a journal as
kind of trying to dig things up versus you know,
a person who's digging into and learning about your family's
really difficult past. Yeah. Well, I mean I think that
you know the history of black people in America, it's
(06:14):
a it's an ugly history, and it's one of the
reasons why people have a hard time, you know, like,
let's just move on you know, we don't really want
to talk about this. It's ugly, it's messy, and it's personal.
And I didn't mention this earlier, but you know, one
of the reasons I was so compelled by the project
is that I knew we would look at this and
sort of the way we do at Bloomberg. So we
(06:34):
would look at it with facts and data and statistics
and numbers and sort of you know, like really had
that lead the narrative versus sort of a purely emotional
one that said, it's very emotional. So I found out
things about my family I did not know about, you know,
family members who you know, died in childbirth, plowing fields
(06:56):
and sort of losing land and losing you know, sort
of racist incidents that they would come across. And yeah,
I mean there were times I was doing my research
and I burst out in tears, you know. So it's
it's it is deeply personal, and you know that combined
with the fact that you know, you're looking at your
own country's history and through this optic and with the family, Yeah,
it was a bit kind of overwhelming at times, but
(07:18):
I'm still glad I did it. What did you, Becka?
You know, again, given the fact that you've seen us
through three seasons, what did you find was the most
challenging part of digging into this theme. Yeah, I come
out of from a really different place, um, and I think,
you know, I consider myself an expert on the gender
pay gap at this point, having done all this reporting
(07:39):
and then we were just switching gears into something. Definitely
I feel a little bit less comfortable with as a
reporter a journalist, so having to definitely feeling like, you know,
I could be an expert for the listener. I really
wanted to make sure we got this right. So that
was the first challenge, And then the other challenge is that,
of course racism at any quality exists in lots of
(08:01):
different forms all over the world, but it is a
very specific to the u S story what we were telling,
and so making sure that people who were outside the
u S could understand it. But then when we also
did episodes that were global, we had an episode in
the UK, like trying to understand the way racism manifests
there and explain it to a US audience. I think
(08:22):
that was one of the most challenging parts for for me,
just like as an editor and a journalist, What would
you say was something that you UM learned through the
(08:43):
show that you you know, had never learned before, Like
that was something new that we had dug up. So
there's there's a lot of things I learned because you
know a lot of this is not UM taught in
history books. But the thing I took away amongst many things,
but was the unsung heroes that appeared in the in
the different narratives. So for instance, episode three features a
(09:06):
black farmer who struggled to obtain credit to keep his
farm going, and he experienced racism in that process and
challenged a federal agency basically set up to help aid farmers,
you know, from which he and his demographic had been excluded.
Fifty dollars to struggling in farmer who has no money
(09:27):
is a real shot in the arm up. So it
did help. Did he give the land back? No? Was
it enough settlement to to make all of the discrimination
go away from U SDDA to answer is no? But
did it help the people who got the money? Absolutely?
You know, he took a legal challenge and I learned
about that. I learned about I was very touched by UM.
(09:49):
A character we bring into the season CALLI House. You know,
a black woman in the late eighteen hundreds who had
multiple children was seemed stress and she was one of
the first people to put the idea of reparations on
the table. She was jailed for it. Um. She ultimately
died without seeing sort of the outcome of that initiative.
(10:12):
But you know, all the things that she did are
still ringing true today if you look at some initiatives
going on right now around reparations and just acknowledging our past.
So the real thing that I took away and learned
from it was just the things I didn't learn as
a as a as a school child about my own
history and the people who were unsung heroes in it. Yeah.
(10:33):
I think John Boyd the Farmer, actually talked about that
in the episode how he won this really huge racial
discrimination case but feels like it's really overlooked. Um. And
that's something that came up in the finale too, with
Claire Setteth who talks about not learning about any anything
in school. And so I hope the other listeners get
(10:54):
that out of it too. Well. What about you, I mean,
what was your what did you learn that you didn't know? Yeah?
Mine's like definitely wonk here. Um. I was really like
enlightened by just the learning. You know, I think I
understood that slavery made people very rich. I understood that,
but um, hearing that Marsha Bratra and talk about it
(11:16):
as a system of capital that you could you know,
you could take out loans on it and make yourself
richer if you own slaves. That was an asset on
which you could gain leverage to buy more stuff. And
that's how you get rich, is you have assets that
produce wealth and then you can get more credit based
(11:36):
on those assets. And I just had never really thought
about it in that way. And then we also talk
about housing in the same way about I think one
of the people we talked to said, I hope that
is right. Most people start their own business by taking
out collateral on their houses, and so it's not just
like your house is gaining in value and you have
that security, but it's like this ability to build something
(11:58):
more and how black people have you know, we're first
their bodies were used that way, and then later we're
left out of other ways. So that was that was
probably the most enlightening thing to me, right, And it
was there, I mean was there anything that really shocked
you that you were like, wow, I mean, I mean
(12:19):
that's a good question. I don't know if I don't
know what the right answer is to that, because it's
also this is a cop out, but it's all really shocking.
It's very um and it's just shocking, like how it
perpetuates itself. It's like, again, I think people think of
slavery is something that happened a long time ago, and
that is true, but it just continues to perpetuate on itself.
(12:41):
And I think that was something you season one with
the gender bag up too. It's like these little seeds
get planted and then you can't just forget that that happened.
They grow and you know, create new any qualities. What
about you? Um, everything shocked me from start to finish.
(13:02):
I think when we did the math uh An episode two,
and we actually you add up the value of human
life and human capital, I think that when you think
of the you know how the system is basically built
on the backs of people. The economic value of the
four million slaves was an average of a thousand dollars
(13:26):
per person, or about four billion dollars altogether. The banks, railroads,
and factories in the United States all put together well
worth about three and a half billion dollars. It's something
that you have to actually pause, you know, many many
times over and then you see how that sort of
(13:47):
perpetuates itself across history and over the different episodes, and
you know, when you're looking at you know, the question
of reparations, or you're looking at what happened in England
with wind Russian immigration and how that you know had
an packed you know in a different, similar but different way. Um,
it's sort of that self perpetuating and you know, kind
(14:08):
of knock on effect that this basic you know, event
of enslaving people. That's that's the thing that it's just
it never really leaves you. I have to ask, um,
but what was your favorite episode? I don't like to
pick favorites among my children, as I say, but um,
episode one, I just loved it. I felt like episode
(14:30):
first episodes always the hardest because it needs to be gripping,
but also set the scene and do a lot of work.
And also I think you get in your head about it.
I do. I got mad about it, but I think
we got there and I think your story was so
well done. It just was very subtle in a way
(14:51):
for people who haven't listened that I think is difficult
to pull off and effective, and then just set us
up for the rest of the season. We weave Jackie's
store right in and other episodes, so I also really
liked that we did that, um so episode one, and
then the other episode I really stayed with me and
I really liked was episode six, which was our first
(15:13):
reparations episode about reparations in the US, and I liked
that for a lot of reasons, but one reason I
liked that we looked at this reparations scheme and Evans
still Illinois. That's happening right now, and I think a
lot of our episodes are historical or look back, and
I thought it was really cool that we had something
going on right now that, you know, as we were
(15:33):
making the show, news was happening, and I think that's
always really cool. And it also I think changed, you know,
I think my perspective on reparations was changed a little bit,
like the solutions to all these things were made more
complicated for me after doing the show, which, um you know,
nuance is a hard thing to accept, but it's there.
So those were my my two favorites. What about you. Yeah,
(15:55):
I mean, like you, Um, we love all our children equally, right, Um,
But I mean it would be kind of strange advice
that I didn't like my own family's story, even though,
like you said, it was very subtle, um, And it
was sometimes frustrating because there are things I just didn't
figure out in the end, Like I don't know exactly
how my family ultimately got the land. I mean, I
(16:18):
got the d thanks to a listener who sent it
to me. But you know, there were so many like
pockets of holes in this story that that said, Um,
you know, like it very much was the context of
what we were trying to achieve to explain the gap,
and so it really did, I feel set the scene.
The other thing I think, um, is I really liked
(16:39):
the Claire's story the finale, and I thought it was
the perfect sort of juxtaposition to my story. So you know,
you've got you know, the black family, UM coming out
of slavery trying to build wealth, and you've got her
family UM discusses from the perspective of a descendant of
a slave owner. Um. I I love. I thought that
(17:00):
was a perfect you know bookend to the entire series
because you know, you have these different perspectives. And what
I really liked about her episode, because I had the
pleasure of interviewing her multiple times for it, was, you
know that she could really articulate, you know, this process
of understanding how her you know family owned slaves, and
(17:23):
you know, even the idea that potentially her great great
great grandfather, you know, impregnated as slave. And she goes
through that process of sort of discovering like all of
these nuances and historical moments and and sort of relating
it back to the present. And so someone that I'm
connected to today is connected to someone is connected to
(17:46):
someone who did love someone who owned slaves. And I
think that is something that I've actually never really articulated
before and also something that I think is necessary for
us to understand. There seems to be this feeling that
(18:10):
in admitting your past wrongs here somehow admitting that everything
about you in the past, or everything about your family
in the past is bad and terrible. You know, when
she talks about her ancestor you know, writing you know,
(18:31):
the Mississippi Constitution to basically forbid blacks from taking part
in voting. Well, there's some remnants of that sort of
happening in and she sort of connects the dots. She
also talks about history and the fact that she never
learned like me, I didn't learn a lot of these
these historical facts, a lot of these unsung heroes. So
(18:53):
I think that there was a lot of connectivity between
the two stories, and it's two American women sort of,
you know, basically having a voice on the topic. I
thought it was those are I have to say my
probably my two favorites. We have some questions to we
(19:14):
take some questions, you know, let's do other people's questions.
The first question asked is in a single parent household,
is it more difficult to create and retain generational wealth.
I mean I would say yes. And one of our
episodes does hit that when we talk about the tax
code and we have, you know, a character in the
series who basically a woman who owned her home and
(19:37):
she happens to be a single parent um who's now
having to rent her home because she lost that property
because of you know, basically the tax system was not
even an equal Yeah, I feel left behind. I feel
left behind. And then and then well last year to
learn that I was over taxed by five thousand. It
(19:59):
makes me s it, it makes me depress, it makes
me feel like a failure. I mean, that's one example,
but it does not help you don't have different partner
or people to to to help you, um in that situation.
For sure. It's one example. What do you think? Yeah,
I think the thing we learned or I learned through
(20:20):
this was that wealth is something that builds over time.
And so you know, your circumstances right now certainly can
help you. But also it really matters what circumstances you
came from. So it's kind of hard to answer that
question because there could be a single parent who inherited
a lot of wealth, or a single parent whose family
helped them put them through school, or you know, I
(20:41):
think it's more it is generational. Um, So that's my answer.
All right. This one's for Jackie. What did your family
think about this series? That's a really good question. There's
a good question. What did my family think? You know,
it actually took them, some of them a bit of
time to sit down and listen to it, you know. Um,
(21:01):
But when they did, I think that they, like me,
were pretty emotional about it, because again, you know, it's
part of the reason why I can't watch films like
Mississippi Burning or documentaries about civil rights era. It's painful
to watch, you know, any demographic, you know, one from
(21:21):
which you sprang to have that kind of hard look discussion.
You know, it's easier to turn on like a comedy
series or something. But so I think they put it off.
But their reaction ultimately was, um, joy again, you always should,
when possible, put a voice to your narrative. Um, you know,
(21:42):
just speak up again, make it fact based, you know,
teach and and basically you know, have a voice. So
ultimately they were the reaction was pretty positive. So our
final question was actually going to be our final question
to each other. So I'm glad you guys asked it.
Which is what topic will you explore for your next season?
I can take this one. We don't know yet, um,
(22:04):
but I think having now shifted away from this idea
of the gender pay gap as being what we focus
on for this year's we've opened ourselves up to exploring
any wealth inequality or any inequality statistic, and so I
think that's really exciting and freeing because we can go
a lot of directions with us. One idea that I
(22:25):
was discussing with Jackie is maybe we've been very US focused. Um,
maybe there's some sort of global inequality statistic we can
look at. But um, we just finished the season, so
I'm going to need a little bit of a break
to think about it and rest up. Yeah. I agree.
I want to go global um to the degree we can.
(22:47):
I think it's important, particularly in a recovery year and
looking at the annemus of the recovery around the world.
Thanks so much for for being here, and please listen
to the show you haven't already rate, subscribe, Thank you
(23:12):
if you want even more paycheck. Bloomberg's Quick Take team
made a video adaptation of our series, which you can
find at bloomberg dot com slash qt. Some people they
just got fired and they have no idea why some
people were detained losing access to healthcare. How many have
been detained as prisoners in their own culture? The historical
(23:36):
injustice has never been addressed. Ending an injustice is not
the same thing as making up for its enduring effects.
Factors and millions of negroes as a result of centuries
of denial and neglect then left. I feel this the travesty.
I want to leave my children something that I earned
(23:57):
and I put my bloods with tears into. If I
stabbed you, you may suffer complications along after that initial
actual stabbing. That's the case with African Americans. There are
people well within the living memory of this country, there's
still suffering from the actor. In facts of the Motherland,
that's what Britain was called the motherland, and then the
(24:18):
mother just rejected their children for what reason. We didn't
do anything, Bro, thanks again for listening and we hope
to be in your ears again soon. I
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