September 18, 2025 • 42 mins
Welcome To The Oddity Shop, Where The Bizarre is Always on Sale. This week, your Curator Kara is telling us all about Sundown Towns.
We delve into the disturbing reality of sundown towns across America, exploring how these racially exclusive communities didn't just disappear with the Civil Rights movement but continue to exist in both explicit and implicit ways today.
• Sundown towns were communities where Black people and other minorities weren't allowed after dark
• These towns existed (and some still maintain these attitudes) across all regions of the U.S., not just the South
• Redlining and housing discrimination worked alongside sundown policies to create lasting segregation
• Personal accounts from Reddit show people experiencing sundown town hostility in recent months
• Truck drivers share stories of being warned to leave certain areas before dark for their safety
• The impact of these policies continues through wealth gaps, housing segregation, and cultural attitudes
• Even when laws change, the mindsets and practices often remain in more subtle forms
Please share our episode about sundown towns on your social media. This isn't just history—it's happening now, and spreading awareness is one way we can work toward change.
Refs
https://www.reddit.com/r/blackladies/comments/1dnp7zs/considering_sundown_towns_while_on_road_trips/?utm_source=chatgpt.com- https://www.reddit.com/r/blackmen/comments/1j306ig/have_you_ever_had_an_experience_being_caught_in_a/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minden%2C_Nevada?utm_source=chatgpt.com
- https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1iw4ppe/serious_white_people_of_reddit_who_have_lived_in/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
- https://www.reddit.com/r/illinois/comments/1j0xw42/megathread_recording_the_his
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
I want to dance with the mothman At the ID shop,
baked in the moonlight At the IDshop.
Creep through the graveyard Tothe ID shop.
The door's always open At theID shop.
(00:29):
Welcome back to the Oddity Shop, our little oddballs, the
podcast, where we tell youstrange, odd, weird, bizarre
stories from around the globe.
I am your curator, zach,sitting here with the other
lovely, wonderful trapped-lippedcurator, kara.
(00:52):
Sorry, I had to draw that out.
She was putting on her trapstick still.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
They are a little bit trapped, you can tell fall is
coming.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
I you know, I'm usually not one who wants to let
go of summer by any means.
I am so ready for fall.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
The crisp air felt really good yesterday and today.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
I will say I did before we recorded.
Tonight I sat out on the backporch.
I didn't have to put theumbrella up or anything.
It's just that like coolness inthe air, do you know?
What I did, and it's not 90fucking degrees anymore in
Michigan.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Well, you know what's ?
Do you know what the thingabout our summer is?
Hmm, and that we're ready forit to be over, because you and I
never want summer to be over.
It has been too miserably hotthat we actually haven't even
been able to enjoy most of it.
That's what it is.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
This is not our typical summer.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
On my lunch I went out to my car, as I usually do,
and I literally just rolled thewindows down and it was so nice
and breezy and I fell asleep forlike 45 minutes and it was like
a nice crisp air nap.
It was beautiful.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Nothing beats a little lunch nap.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
I take one almost every day.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
I used to, but now I have filled my lunch break.
But every once in a while Istill take one.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Well, I'm not home, though, Like if I was home I
wouldn't, because I would fillit with stuff too.
But what am I going to do?
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Yeah, no.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
If I was just like at work, I would definitely try to
nap through it, yeah, well,like at work, I'm at work, but
I'm not like physically.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Okay, you know what I mean.
All right, um, so what what'snew?
Speaker 2 (02:16):
with you, oh, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
That's it, chris bear .
Well, I know something new.
Okay, uh, I hear you're goingto get possessed because kara
has given in to the gosh.
Darn labubu craze.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
You do know that that is the dumbest thing ever.
People saying it's demonic isliterally an egregore.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
I love the fact that there's like it's like.
I imagine it's the Christianmoms that I went to school with,
not that I went to school withthe moms, but like the mom, I
went to a Christian school.
I imagine it's them.
Oh my God, these little thingsare demonic.
I still don't understand them.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
There's nothing to understand, they're just cute.
They're not that cute thoughthey are.
If you OK, did you like wherethe wild things are?
Yeah, they look like.
They literally kind of looklike the monsters from that book
.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
But like and I know you didn't spend this much on
them but the fact that peopleare putting like a hundred
dollars into these things thatjust hang off your stupid
fucking purse, it's like I.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Well, so to be fair, like the Well, yes, if you're
trying to get a certain one, butthe big plushies, yeah, those
are just a hundred dollars.
Little keychains are normallyjust 20, but you can't get them.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Not for the real ones .
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Yes, they are.
I guess through like becauseyou can't get them.
It's the people who are doingthe resale correct they're like
27.99, but I can never get in tobuy one.
I knew this one was fake.
The guy lied to me too.
He's like they're real.
I'm like no, it's not.
And I should have took out mypop mart app and scan the qr
code in front of him to be likebro, I know this is fake, but
I'm gonna buy it for 20 dollarsanyway.
But I didn't.
The most tragic part about mylafufu is that the whole fucking
(03:40):
, fucking head spins, which doesmake it demonic yeah, yours is
more demonic than most.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
I will say it's feet spin was it, uh sarah who
commented was like you got likea, like a rough like I know, but
I couldn't even get fake ones.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
So when I saw him I said okay, let me, let me get
you, I love it, I love it.
I love the people that.
So, hello, I did this onpurpose.
But on our story, all I put wasthe clip, like I got scammed
and like me like looking at it,and so people were like, oh my
god, and I'm like I love how youguys think that I really
fucking didn't know.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
It just proves that they did not watch the video
also did you see that you?
Got your first tiktok stitchtoday.
No, no, oh yeah, so you knowhow people can cut some of your
video and put their story.
Yeah, the one you made of likedo you know that you've walked
past a killer?
And now people are sharingtheir stories when they realize
they've walked past killers.
So you just got your first one.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
See when you open the notifications.
I don't ever go back.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
It was only like 15 minutes ago.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Oh, I don't know, I don't ever go back.
It was only like 15 minutes ago, oh really no, I didn't tell
you purposely until we wererecording.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
I was very proud of you.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Oh, my God.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
I'm putting all the work into making our TikTok.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Do we know the person ?
Speaker 1 (04:50):
that did it.
Yes, it is Weird Web Radio onTikTok.
And he had a great story aboutserving murderers when he was a
bartender.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
OK, ok, ok, that's so fun.
No, I'll have to go and look atit.
That's exciting.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
You definitely do.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Oh, my God.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
What else is new?
I feel like I haven't done muchof anything since we got back
from Kentucky.
Me either.
I'm just still recovering fromGreek Fest, where I ate way too
much food.
That's it, all right?
Do you have a question for me?
Darn, shop up.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
So my question is since we're in the future, do
you know what today is?
Speaker 1 (05:26):
I do for once.
It is September 18th and I'mnot confused on what day this
episode comes out.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Okay, but do you know what today is?
Speaker 1 (05:33):
September 18th, which is, oh God.
I feel like I'm about to getrazzed for not knowing what it
is, what is it?
Speaker 2 (05:42):
No?
I mean, I wouldn't really care.
It's Aaron's 40th birthday,what?
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Ta-da, he's officially old.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
I think Should we move it now.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Is 40 the new or 50 the new?
I think it is to be honest.
Yeah, he's got plenty more.
He's officially young.
He's entering his 20s period ofhis adult era.
Yeah, because 20s period of hisadult era?
Yeah, well, you just.
I always said, like in my 20swere my toddler adult era.
So now he's like he's past teen, he's a young adult adult.
All right, go on.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
A young adult adult, Was that?
That's the question.
That was your question, Allright well happy birthday Erin.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Happy 40th you loser.
To Kara's actual husband,because every time we go out for
any sort of event, people justassume I'm your husband.
So there is a real husband.
His name is Aaron.
I'm just the fun husband, theparanormal fun husband.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Whatever, okay.
So you and I had kind of a deepconversation recently, okay,
and we were kind of discussinghow actively there are, I guess,
supposedly people trying tobuild, uh, non-black communities
or towns and which at first youwere kind of like that
(06:58):
shouldn't be allowed.
And then I was kind of like,yeah, but then we don't want to
be around those people anyway,so let them be secluded by
themselves.
And then it was kind of like wekind of went back and forth
where it was like either way,this, this option, is fucking
miserable and wrong.
And I will say that we usuallyuse our platform for an escape
for us and for our listeners,and I will just set in the alarm
(07:20):
bells right now, or warningbells.
This is a heavy episode, so Iunderstand if you leave, um, but
I think you should say oh, I'mexcited.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
I feel like we're gonna get up on some soap boxes.
Well, I know what you mean, I'mexcited that we're going to uh,
move away from our usualentertainment and maybe voice
some rage so today, tonight,whenever you're listening, we
are talking about sundown towns.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
So you've probably heard the phrase sundown town
before, or maybe you haven't.
Either way, I really need youto hear this.
So again, if you have to dropout, I understand, but I really
urge you to stay and maybe wecan learn something.
Maybe we can change people'sminds.
I don't know, I doubt it, butwho knows?
Speaker 1 (08:05):
We could try.
If we get one, we get one man.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Okay, so these were places where, if you were black,
or sometimes another minority,you couldn't be there after dark
, and I don't mean justshouldn't be there, you could
not be there.
And the consequences weren'tjust fines.
We're talking harassment,violence and even sometimes
death.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Insane.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
The part that's going to stick with you.
I would hope the most is thatthis isn't just something in
ancient history, and in somecases, the signs came down but
the attitudes never really leftthese towns, which is kind of
how you and I got on this topic.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Well, yeah, because you can.
You can change a rule or law orwhatever, but that doesn't
immediately fix people'smindsets, no matter how
absolutely wrong they are.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Yes.
So what is a sundown town?
If we're not really familiar, asundown town is exactly what it
sounds like.
Like I said, there are townswhere people of color, most
often black people, were bannedafter sunset.
Sometimes there were actualsigns at the city limits and
other times it was just a veryunspoken rule that everybody in
the area knew, which I find Idon't know.
(09:12):
Which one is worse to me, Idon't know.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
I mean, can they just be equally bad?
Yeah it is.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
So police would enforce it, neighbors would
enforce it, and the message wasclear You're not welcome here
after dark.
And I want to be super clear.
This wasn't just a Southernthing, because I feel like a lot
of people just might assumethat.
But we're talking about townsin Illinois, indiana, ohio,
california, oregon, and the listjust goes on.
And sundown towns happened justbasically all over the United
(09:40):
States.
So this isn't just like asegregated area or the South,
like I said.
Yeah, no, it's happeningeverywhere.
Yeah, and so a little bit ofhistory about it.
They started popping up heavilyafter the reconstruction in the
late 1800s, so when BlackAmericans were starting to gain
some political power and buildcommunities, white residents,
(10:00):
politicians and business ownersin certain areas wanted to keep
their towns white only, and theywent to extreme lengths to make
it happen.
Right, they'd put into cityordinances or they would just
make it so dangerous that no onewould even dare be caught
around after dark.
So imagine traveling in, likethe 1920s, and seeing a sign at
(10:22):
the edge of town that says don'tlet the sun set on you here.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
That isn't just a warning, that's just so ominous.
Yeah, no, that's an obviousthreat.
Oh, I'm going to get angry.
Okay.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
I cried at Starbucks while doing research on this and
I tried to keep it as to thepoint as I could without it
being too hard, because I alsodon't want to make us all like
depressed after this.
But there's really not a way.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
I'll think of something light to end us on.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
It's fine so can I be honest?
Speaker 1 (10:53):
yes.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
I was gonna put something at the end to end us
like on a lighter note, but thenI was like if we change our
mindset to just forget about it,then what's the point of
talking about it?
Speaker 1 (11:03):
We're going to let people ponder.
All right, I know, I see whereyou're coming from, yeah, no,
all right, buckle up everyone.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
So how it kind of worked is enforcement wasn't
always about it like an officiallaw.
It could be police pulling youover for nothing, neighbors
chasing you out or a mob showingup at your door.
It was about fear, and itworked because people avoided
those towns, even if they werejust passing through.
Travelers would sometimes stopat a gas station miles away and
(11:34):
be warned hey, don't go intothat town after dark.
Just like think about howterrifying it would be to know
that your safety depended on yougetting out of somewhere before
sunset.
And that's where I get to checkmy privilege right when I
haven't had to think about that.
Well, think about you and Ijust like the last couple of
times we've just gone on ourlittle road trips and stuff
Sometimes we don't even have tothink about it.
(11:56):
Yeah, we don't have to, but andwe just wouldn't like it didn't
matter what time we popped intosomewhere.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
Right, we're not really thinking about that.
Like, yeah, obviously latenight anywhere it can be
dangerous, but yeah, you keep aguard up, but you're not like,
yeah, it's our privilege forsure.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Yeah, yeah, okay.
So this is kind of like what Iwas saying.
I really want people tounderstand that sundown towns
didn't just disappear.
Some of them still carry thatreputation today and and the
signs, like I said, may be gone,but that culture and the police
practices, the housingdiscrimination in some places
that has never stopped.
So modern versions can looklike racial profile profiling,
(12:34):
pulling people over for drivingwhile black, or making it
impossible for people of colorto buy or rent homes in certain
neighborhoods.
Like it's the same idea, justwithout the sign on the highway,
like it Right, it's, it didn'tchange.
No, it's just, it's justbecause that's not in your face
or I don't know, frowned uponLike it's just.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
I think the distinction is is it's not legal
anymore, but the mindset isstill there?
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Yeah, I mean it's.
It's literally just like racism.
Yeah, one hundred percent.
Oh my God, all right.
So have you heard of, and I'msure maybe you have because of,
like the profession that you'rein but have you heard of
redlining?
Speaker 1 (13:17):
That was on the test to even get into the profession
I'm in.
Yes, I have, okay.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
So for those of you that don't know, redlining
started in the 1930s.
Federal agencies like theHomeowners Loan Corporation
created color-coded maps ofcities.
So neighborhoods were gradedfrom A green equals best, to D,
red equals hazardous, and areaswith Black residents, immigrants
(13:43):
and or just like that were tooclose to non-white neighborhoods
were almost always marked red.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
So banks and lenders then refused to give loans or
mortgages in those redlined,which, for people who don't know
, covenants are what's like onthe title?
That runs with the land aboutwhich colors and cultures could
even buy in there to strike thatlanguage.
(14:20):
So it's been deemed illegal andunenforceable.
But because these things runwith the land, the language is
still there and the scary partabout that is much like some of
the rights we've seen rolledback for women's reproductive
rights or Obergefell going backto the Supreme Court, all it
takes is an overturning of thelaws that are in place that
(14:42):
currently protect that for thosecovenants to go right back into
effect.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Right, and so thank you for that input or that
knowledge.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Sorry, my real estate is showing.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Your real estate?
Yes, it is, but no, I knew youwould have some insight.
So, basically, the fact ofredlining was that Black
families were locked out ofbuying homes in desirable areas,
obviously including sundowntowns and white suburbs, and
they were forced.
And then this forced them intolimited, segregated
neighborhoods which then becameovercrowded, underfunded and
(15:13):
without access to mortgages.
Black families couldn't buildintergenerational wealth through
homeownership like whitefamilies did, so sundown towns
explicitly kept black familiesout of thousands of communities
across the US, not just in theSouth, but in the Midwest, west,
north, and this meant thatblack people moved North and
West during the Great Migration,so like 1910, 1970.
(15:36):
And they had very few places tosettle.
And then whole regions wereclosed off, funneling people
into certain neighborhoods.
And basically this is how quoteunquote ghettos emerged.
Because so many towns wereclosed, black families, like
often had to choose, had nochoice but to overcrowd into
specific cities, like it's soridiculous.
(15:59):
And these neighborhoods werefaced with redlining and urban
renewal projects and destroyedhousings and, as a result, black
communities became concentratedin underfunded areas that we
now call ghettos.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
And to top that off, I'm sorry, no keep going.
If you're going to coveranything, Then we over-policed
those areas and put them infurther disadvantage with a
criminal record.
So now you couldn't buy houses,you couldn't create
generational wealth and youcouldn't.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
I didn't want to get into that part, so I'm glad you
bring it up.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
And I'll do it really quickly because we could.
There's so much you could talkabout on that, but about the
over-policing of minoritycommunities, but for years and
years you've set them at adisadvantage and now you know so
many racist people are like oh,they don't want to work, they
do.
It is so frustrating to ignorethe extreme disadvantage that
groups have been placed inthrough literally no fault of
(16:51):
their own, but the color of theskin they were born into, born
into.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
No choice.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
First soapbox, let's go.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
So, basically, sundown towns didn't directly
create ghettos, but they forcedsegregation by exclusion and,
instead of separating out acrosscities and suburbs, black
populations were again funneledinto a handful of neighborhoods
that concentrated, combined withracist housing and lending
policies, cemented theboundaries of urban ghettos.
So it's not directly, but itplayed a big effect into still
(17:25):
now.
So, um, talking about thisstuff isn't just about, you know
, shaming a single town.
It's about recognizing howdeeply racism was built into the
structure of our communitiesand how it's still showing up.
It's systemic.
Yeah, if we don't face history,it's a way that you like it's,
we're just easily pretend, like,just pretend it's over, it's,
(17:46):
it's just I'm getting flusteredbecause I'm getting mad.
So here's the thing If you'venever been on the receiving end
of that kind of fear, it'stempting to think, well, that
was part of the past or thatdoesn't happen here, but it does
.
And if it doesn't where you are, it's happening somewhere else,
and that's why we need to kindof keep talking about it.
(18:07):
So in the show notes we haveall of our links.
I'll have it linked so you cando some research of your own.
But just to give you an exampleand I'm going to go through
this so fast because it's long.
So, but just to give you anexample, according to the
historical database of sundowntowns, these are sundown towns
of Michigan.
(18:27):
Not necessarily right now, buthow many were in Michigan?
Okay, let me take a drink realquick.
Are you ready?
Yes, elginac, allen Park,alpena, bad Axe, bassamer, big
(18:56):
Star Lake, birmingham, brighton,brown City, cadillac.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Is none of that shocking.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Harbor Beach, hartford, holland, howell,
hudson, ironwood, is it?
Ipshaming, whatever?
Kalamazoo, lathart Village,lexington, linden, livonia,
manistique, marine City,marlette, marquette, marshall,
Marysville, manson, menominee,menominee County, munising New
Baltimore, antinagan, whatever.
(19:21):
Antinagan yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
You've actually done really well with all the UP
names.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Portland, reese, richmond, rockford, rockwood,
royal Oak, seboing, south Lyons,southgate, spring Lake, st
Clair, st Clair Shores, sterlingHeights, taylor, traverse City,
trenton, troy, upper Peninsula,utica, vicksburg, warren,
westland, white Pigeon, wixom,wyandotte, and that's just
Michigan.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
Okay, now you did great, but before they come for
us, charlotte, what did I say?
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Charlotte, oh, I was just going so quick.
No you did good on the rest ofthem, though I was pretty
impressed, all right.
So anyway, I'll have it linkedand you can look wherever you
like it.
You can pick your state andit'll tell you all, and then it
also give you a link with likestars, and I'll say these
necessarily weren't sundowntowns, but they were also
problematic for differentreasons, and then you can read
(20:11):
up on that.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
The thing is, too, for people who aren't from
Michigan, is that there is not asingle region of our state that
you didn't mention, in that.
You had the entire UpperPeninsula, north Michigan, you
had Southeast, southwestMichigan, central Michigan.
I mean, there's not a.
I guess it's not geographicallyenclosed to one area, that is
(20:33):
the entire state.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
Which that's even more alarming.
All right, so we are going tomove to my favorite place, even
though this is the place thatmade me cry in Starbucks when I
was doing this.
Reddit r slash road trip is asubreddit where you can
literally ask questions andstuff about road trips, and this
was posted four months ago andit was by Gurella Black Dog and
(20:59):
the caption or the question onthe subreddit was does anyone
else worry about sundown townswhen on a road trip, or am I
just overthinking things?
And the subcategory was tripplanning.
So has anyone ever experiencedanything to do with the sundown
towns when on a road trip?
I remember as a kid, sometimearound the early to mid 2000s,
(21:20):
one time my family and I were ona road trip and we went into a
diner.
It got kind of quiet and manyheads turned and it just felt
weird.
Only until I was older did Irealize what happened and where
and where we were.
So that is the question andthen the basically story of this
Redditor Gotcha.
(21:41):
This is one of the comments onthat thread and it's from tang
boy five million.
Uh, and it was also four monthsago.
We were on a work assignment inwest virginia.
Our crew went into a bar andgrill for lunch.
We had a black dude on our crewand when we walked in there
might as well have been a recordscratch Every head turned and
(22:03):
stared at us.
It made everyone prettyuncomfortable.
The black guy I'm going tostart crying again.
The black guy said he was justgoing to eat his lunch in the
truck.
This is where I broke down inStarbucks and a couple of the
other guys went with him.
Notice our Redditor here.
Writer doesn't say he went withhim.
Yeah, a local came up andstarted peppering us with
(22:26):
questions, but in a friendly andcurious manner.
The conversation ended with himtelling us that we should
probably be gone by nightfall ifwe knew what was good for us,
and a bunch of the other folksin the place nodded in agreement
.
We just kind of stared at eachother in disbelief and this shit
was still going on in this dayand age.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Again checking my privilege, because when I
learned about some downtowns, itwas something that was in
history and disgusting.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
But you don't think about it right now.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
No, you don't think.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
And like, granted, you think that there's still
segregated places where, but youdon't think it's this overt
well, I think you and I think,yeah, there's racist people, you
know racist people, right, butwe don't think it's necessarily.
Or we do now, but we didn'tthink it was necessarily to this
, but like this just made mejust like melts and just cry
(23:20):
because I'm like I.
My ass would have been likefirst off, we're not ordering
food from this fucking place.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
No, not when you have the just straight up macro
aggression.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Second of all him just saying I'm just going to go
eat lunch in the truck.
Obviously this happens to himoften.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Yeah, it's not the first time.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
And for your dumb ass to not be like yeah, I'm going
to fucking come with you.
I'm glad that some of thoseother people went with him.
Ass fuck, absolutely Okay.
So this is also another commenton the same thread from
Grounded Satellite again fourmonths ago.
My mom lives in West Virginiaso I go there occasionally.
I'm white, but I'm trans.
I used to take the shortestroute to get to her place, which
(24:01):
involved going through somesmall towns on a non-interstate
highway.
That was until I stopped at asmall gas station down in a
hauler to fill up and got somevery hard stairs and saw a lot
of whispering between the otherpeople filling up on the gas and
gas station hanging out.
I got the fuck out as fast as Icould and I now take the long
way that keeps me on theinterstate and only stop at
larger gas station.
(24:21):
Truck stops going through there.
So that didn't have anything todo with anybody that was black,
but it's still the same concept, is that?
Speaker 1 (24:30):
it's just that you're not welcome here, which is
insane, because we're all humanbeings.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Yeah, it's so disturbing and fucking weird.
Again, same subreddit andcomment off of here, which is
from Sugar Sweet Sunny.
Four months ago, long long ago,we had to stop for gas Creepy
station, went inside and the guyin there seemed startled and
terrified, kept looking aroundat us.
He kept saying he was closingto rush us.
Not that it mattered, there waslike only a handful of things
(24:57):
inside to buy.
He also told us it would bebetter if we not stop by on the
way back.
If we came that way, the fearhe had and the way he acted was
just some scary movie shit.
We got the fuck out of there assoon as we got our gas.
While we were getting our gas,he actually waited outside,
watching us and looking in everydirection you almost have to
(25:18):
question the.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Is he trying to help them?
Warn that, like I.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
But that actually makes me feel like he's scared,
that he's serving these peoplelike that.
He's letting them buy stufffrom his store and getting less
about protect them, more aboutlooking up for himself.
To me, when reading that, likeI'm thinking of the movie
version of it, like him freakedout and like looking around like
I don't know just the way it'swritten to me.
(25:42):
That's how I take it either way.
Okay, let's say he was a personthat's like you guys really
need to protect yourself and getout of here.
If I'm that person that'ssaying that I wouldn't fucking
live anywhere, that I have totell somebody they need to get
out of here to protectthemselves, I wouldn't be living
there no way so, either way, Idon't really care about that guy
.
I hope he gets what he deserves.
(26:03):
All right, so this uh is fromthe subreddit r truckers, which
is what it sounds like.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
People, you know some truckers, this is a wild, I
might have more industryknowledge for you oh yeah, so
this is when I pulled this eightdays ago.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Oh my god.
And this, his, isn't user.
Her user is redditoralcoholzado alcoholizado.
All right, all right.
The question is, have youexperienced a sundown town and
then redline m5 posted in thatas a comment seven days ago made
(26:40):
a delivery in in Vitter?
I think it's Vitter or Vider,texas?
Speaker 1 (26:44):
Do you know?
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Okay, well, this comes up a lot, so we are never
fucking going here, okay.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Perfect.
It doesn't matter what the nameis Piece of shit Texas.
Hopefully we're saying it wrongyeah.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
I didn't know and dispatch didn't say anything to
me.
The receiving office looked atme and then the clock asked me
if I had hours left on my clockand I told them I had three left
.
They were like oh, we need toget you out of here quick, gave
me a dock right away andunloaded me.
The moment I bumped the dock,came out and gave me my
(27:17):
paperwork and explained and toldme how far I needed to go to be
safe.
Wow, which you're more familiarwith trucking, because you did
like the, not dispatch.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
Trucking logistics yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
Thank you Logistics, but I know a decent amount of
trucking, about trucking.
But basically, for those thatdon't know, when you get to your
dock to load and unload, youcould sit there for hours.
You don't just pull up like itcould be hours and hours and
hours.
You don't just pull up and getunloaded or loaded Like that's
just not how it works.
So the fact that he's likepulling up, but he's probably
(27:48):
like actually he's probably likeOK, cool, it's literally so
common.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
They have an overtime pay for you called detention
for being stuck at a spot.
Now the fact that theirreceivers typically do not care
how much time you have left onthe clock.
They will let you run it downand if you get stopped by the
police that's an automaticticket.
It's like nurses or flightattendants working over their
allotted hours because it's justnot safe to keep driving.
The fact that they were likehere's how far you need to go
(28:14):
and knew the clock, that'sintense.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
That's terrifying.
I have goosebumps.
Okay, so then another commenteron that.
I believe the username is raikoraiko eight days ago, um, and
he also has an award top onepercent commenter.
I just realized that.
Okay, so, no, but I experiencedsome hills, have eyes shit.
Before first six months oftrucking, I ended up on some
(28:38):
weird two-lane back road in westVirginia nothing around for
hours of driving and needed totake 30 minutes to get a drink.
So I found a small town gasstation that had truck parking
and I stopped.
When I went to walk insidethere were two men standing on
their pickup trucks.
You know, when folks lean onthe bed next to the back window,
(28:59):
that were watching me veryintently.
When I went inside, the fewpeople that were in there were
doing the same thing At thecounter after I'd gotten my
items.
The cashier asked if I've everbeen here before, replied no,
just stopped in for a fewminutes.
He nodded, said good and toplease be past the county line
50 miles to the west beforesundown.
(29:21):
I asked why and he said thelocals don't like outsiders much
.
I said okay and went back tothe truck and locked the doors.
Several more pickups with oneor two men arrived within my
30-minute break and two followedme until I got to the county
line.
Weirdest shit I've everencountered.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
The fact that you have nothing better to do with
your time than to harasssomebody.
It just, it's astounding.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
But not even just harass somebody.
Harass somebody that just ispassing through and is just not
from around these parts.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
Not trying to move in , not that that would make it
okay, right, not trying, butliterally just doing their damn
job that is so fuckingunsettling listen.
I know this is a differentepisode.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
We usually cover creepy, but this is creepy this
is so odd, so to me this issometimes this is the most
oddest thing than more than weever talk about.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
This is the oddity I will never understand kind of
like you always say right, Likethe dead, don't scare me.
People do this is why.
This is absolutely why.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Yes, and to be quite frank, like when we came up with
our podcast concept, yes, itwas more to be, you know,
paranormal and aliens and thingslike that.
But the reason that we landedon like Oddity Shop is because
oddities are so many differentthings to so many different
people and that we were able tocover such a broad conversation
topics or whatever so, and if wecan shed light on these
(30:46):
monsters that live and breatheand exist hell.
we're not done so.
There is a subreddit um, we'removing on from the truckers one,
it's r slash blackman, and sixmonths ago, and the user is lynn
uh, and the subtopic, orwhatever, is verified black man.
Have you ever had an experiencebeing caught in a sundown town?
(31:09):
I have multiple times.
It was interesting to say theleast.
I keep it to me, though, so Idon't be worried about the
bullshit.
I had one instance where thecops followed me throughout the
whole town until I got outsidethe town line.
I don't know if they weretrying to secretly tell me it
was a sundown town or not, but Ialready knew and 100% ran my
plates.
(31:29):
You know how they do.
Also, just recently I walkedinto a bar at lunch to get
something to eat.
It was a pickup order.
As soon as I walked in, all thewhite guys stared me down like
I had just called everybody acrack.
When I walked in, it was likein the movies.
You know how they play the DJscratch.
(31:51):
What did you remember?
The first one I read said theexact same thing.
When they walked in, or one ofthe first ones, it was like a DJ
scratch.
It's crazy.
I swear that it was like that.
Then one of the guys proceedsto come up to me and asking me
where I'm from, if I'm newaround the area, etc.
He had to keep it cordial, I'msure, because it was the middle
of the day.
If it was after sunset, though,I'm sure it would have went a
(32:15):
lot differently.
My blood is just boiling, Iknow.
So here we're gonna move, moveon from some Reddit stories,
because I can't take no mo.
But towns with visible or likelike a recent reckoning, yeah,
kentucky Surprise has somereports.
I know Reports indicate atleast 60 towns in the state
(32:39):
historically practiced sundownpolicies and the legacy can
still affect local culture today.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
Culture.
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
Indiana and Illinois.
These two states have thehighest number of confirmed
sundown towns according to theTugaloo College database, which
I do have that listed.
I'm not saying anything, butI'm just saying there are
certain areas and it's like whenwe were just in louisville
people said we don't say we'refrom kentucky, we're from
louisville because it'sdifferent, and then specific
(33:09):
communities still noted in therecord.
So these towns may not beactive sundown towns today.
But uh, you know, vider texaswe talked about, known for
refusing black residents evenafter uh, forced discretionation
discretionation, discriminationdesegregation.
Oh 1993, black family.
(33:33):
I'm not laughing at this, butblack families reported
harassment and threats.
1993, uh, midden andGardnerville, nevada, both
enforced exclusion via sundownsirens, signals that Native
Americans were to leave bysunset.
I cannot assure you that thatstill happens now.
But some people say sirens arestill go off, but maybe they're
(33:56):
said for different reasoningsnow.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
Air quotes around the different reasonings A lot of
these places.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
that's kind of like the thing um, these practices
continued symbolically,symbolically until only recently
abolished in 2023, jesus.
So we're also not going tothose places.
In nevada, harrison, arkansas,the site of violent racial
(34:22):
explosions in the early 1900s,harrison is still widely
associated with a legacy ofwhite supremacist dominance and
resistance to change, so weain't going there.
Jay Florida experienced a mass.
Is it exodus?
Yes, thank you Of its Blackpopulation in the 1920s.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
as of recent censuses , it still has very few Black
residents, which I wonder whyyou can make all the rules
around redlining and lendingpractices and
anti-discrimination laws youwant, but people are still
finding creative ways to do it.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
Mm-hmm, creative ways to do it.
So even though, again, thesundown signs came down decades
ago, the impact is still felt.
Many of those towns remainoverwhelmingly white because
families of color avoid them forgenerations and in some cases
they still do.
The reputation lingers.
People talk, and if a town wasunsafe once, the memory doesn't
(35:21):
just vanish, and if a town wasunsafe once, the memory doesn't
just vanish.
And economically, these placesoften kept wealth concentrated
in white families, while peopleof color were locked out of
property ownership andopportunities.
That ripple effect shows uptoday in housing gaps, school
funding differences and incomeinequality.
Socially, there's still just somuch mistrust.
(35:42):
So, again, this is a very heavyepisode.
So I do apologize, but I hopethat you did listen, and so our
call to action is obviously, wecan't change the past, but we
can make sure that we're notrepeating it.
So I encourage you to learnyour local history.
If you live in a place that wasa sundown town once, acknowledge
it and teach it.
(36:03):
Don't just ignore it or pretendthat it's not wasn't.
Challenge the people around youto be better.
Racism doesn't, you know, punchin a time clock.
It doesn't just punch in andout right, so it doesn't just
end at sunset and neither shouldour commitment to stopping it.
So these places that you knowwant to potentially be only
(36:25):
white communities or potentialquote unquote sundown towns.
It's almost stupid or crazy tosay, but those are the places
that us we need to move intoright, like we need to go there,
we need to infiltrate so thatwe can make them safe for other
people, because we need to bethe voice in those areas.
So if you do live in one ofthese towns that I talked about,
(36:47):
don't take offense to that.
I'm sorry but it's facts.
But you need to start changingthose places.
Be that voice, be that person.
That is the change in thoseplaces.
Or, if you lived in a sundowntown, that's not anymore, talk
about it, don't shy away from it, like teach people.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
Can I get back up on my soapbox?
Absolutely At the same time.
You're doing this and you mightbe thinking your voice isn't
enough.
There are two states on theEast Coast right now that are
moving to strike all of the antinot anti all of the language in
their covenants or in theirlaws that have been deemed
(37:25):
unenforceable but were neverremoved to remove them right.
So I'm talking about wherecertain races can and can't live
.
We need to realize right now,in the time and space that we
live in, that things that wetook for granted as laws being
passed that protected any sortsof people are not as solid as we
thought they were right.
Write to your legislators if youknow this language still exists
(37:47):
in your area and have them makea stance to remove it.
You might not feel like yourvoice can be heard, but we can
always write to legislators.
We can always be a voice online.
We can always stand up for theperson we see being belittled in
a store or whatnot.
One person might not make thesystemic change, but a hundred
(38:08):
people doing things daily,whether it's changing the
outlook on one person's day oractually changing a law.
We have the ability to do that,and this goes past so many
things going on right now,whether it's racism, women's
rights, gay rights, human rights, let's just call it what it
fucking is and don't lose thehope, because the voices of some
(38:30):
of those who are bigoted, justcalling it straight out, are
louder than ours right now andthey're being amplified, but we
can still create that change,okay.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
No, that was really it.
And that, you know, just kindof made me think, while you're
talking about that, like I feellike at one point in everybody's
lives we've been like picked onin some aspect or bullied, even
if it was just for a smallportion.
So take those feelings of youbeing bullied or picked on.
So, like for me, in high schoolI was kind of bullied and
picked on quite a bit.
Take those feelings that youhad and try to multiply that by
(39:03):
a million about people that youknow thinking, about people that
live like this on a daily basis, right, so they're, they're
bullied, they're picked on orwhatever it is, whatever you
want terminology wise to use.
Try to maybe understand andyou're never going to fully
understand, and maybe thatdoesn't matter if you need to
understand or not, but justthink of that.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
I think what you're trying to say is have empathy,
put yourself in somebody else'sshoes and your experiences you
can kind of at least at abaseline level understand.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
Yeah, but then I was going to say we can't even say
put ourselves in these people'sshoes, because we just don't
have.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
We have the privilege that we haven't had to Right.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
But you get what I mean.
So let's just try to you know,learn, teach.
I very much, very muchappreciate you.
If you listen to this.
I tried to make it as not heavyas possible.
I try to stick to just you know.
I think you did a great job.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
So here's the words.
I'll leave you with an articleto action on this one.
Whenever you can use your voiceto lift up those who are
voiceless, in whatever situationthey're in, because it does
make a difference whether it'sjust on one individual or an
entire group.
We can't be silent.
Yes, all right.
I don't think it's appropriateto ask for an emoji for this
episode.
Speaker 2 (40:16):
No, but what I will ask for you guys for this
episode that I really, reallywould ask is any social media
posts that we post about this.
Please share those Absolutely.
If you could share the episode,if you could share any of the
social media, share the TikToksor whatever, because that's the
only way we can get this outthere is to talk about it, and
if you guys don't feelcomfortable talking about it,
share our fucking voices, wewill.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
We ain't afraid.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
We ain't afraid of no ghosts.
All right, we're afraid ofpeople.
Yeah, all right, that's my callto action.
Is everything we said, shareeverything that we posted about
this, and the most importantthing you could do for us is to
creep it real, my littleoddballs.
Speaker 1 (40:55):
Goodbye.
Speaker 2 (41:15):
Bye.
Guitar solo Closed in theshadows At the Irish shop At
home with the eyeballs At theIrish shop.
The door's always open At theIrish shop.
I want to dance with the mothman At the ID shop,
baked in the moonlight At the IDshop.
Creep through the graveyard Tothe ID shop.
The door's always open At theID shop.
(00:29):
Welcome back to the Oddity Shop, our little oddballs, the
podcast, where we tell youstrange, odd, weird, bizarre
stories from around the globe.
I am your curator, zach,sitting here with the other
lovely, wonderful trapped-lippedcurator, kara.
(00:52):
Sorry, I had to draw that out.
She was putting on her trapstick still.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
They are a little bit trapped, you can tell fall is
coming.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
I you know, I'm usually not one who wants to let
go of summer by any means.
I am so ready for fall.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
The crisp air felt really good yesterday and today.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
I will say I did before we recorded.
Tonight I sat out on the backporch.
I didn't have to put theumbrella up or anything.
It's just that like coolness inthe air, do you know?
What I did, and it's not 90fucking degrees anymore in
Michigan.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Well, you know what's ?
Do you know what the thingabout our summer is?
Hmm, and that we're ready forit to be over, because you and I
never want summer to be over.
It has been too miserably hotthat we actually haven't even
been able to enjoy most of it.
That's what it is.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
This is not our typical summer.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
On my lunch I went out to my car, as I usually do,
and I literally just rolled thewindows down and it was so nice
and breezy and I fell asleep forlike 45 minutes and it was like
a nice crisp air nap.
It was beautiful.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Nothing beats a little lunch nap.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
I take one almost every day.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
I used to, but now I have filled my lunch break.
But every once in a while Istill take one.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Well, I'm not home, though, Like if I was home I
wouldn't, because I would fillit with stuff too.
But what am I going to do?
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Yeah, no.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
If I was just like at work, I would definitely try to
nap through it, yeah, well,like at work, I'm at work, but
I'm not like physically.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Okay, you know what I mean.
All right, um, so what what'snew?
Speaker 2 (02:16):
with you, oh, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
That's it, chris bear .
Well, I know something new.
Okay, uh, I hear you're goingto get possessed because kara
has given in to the gosh.
Darn labubu craze.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
You do know that that is the dumbest thing ever.
People saying it's demonic isliterally an egregore.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
I love the fact that there's like it's like.
I imagine it's the Christianmoms that I went to school with,
not that I went to school withthe moms, but like the mom, I
went to a Christian school.
I imagine it's them.
Oh my God, these little thingsare demonic.
I still don't understand them.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
There's nothing to understand, they're just cute.
They're not that cute thoughthey are.
If you OK, did you like wherethe wild things are?
Yeah, they look like.
They literally kind of looklike the monsters from that book
.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
But like and I know you didn't spend this much on
them but the fact that peopleare putting like a hundred
dollars into these things thatjust hang off your stupid
fucking purse, it's like I.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Well, so to be fair, like the Well, yes, if you're
trying to get a certain one, butthe big plushies, yeah, those
are just a hundred dollars.
Little keychains are normallyjust 20, but you can't get them.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Not for the real ones .
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Yes, they are.
I guess through like becauseyou can't get them.
It's the people who are doingthe resale correct they're like
27.99, but I can never get in tobuy one.
I knew this one was fake.
The guy lied to me too.
He's like they're real.
I'm like no, it's not.
And I should have took out mypop mart app and scan the qr
code in front of him to be likebro, I know this is fake, but
I'm gonna buy it for 20 dollarsanyway.
But I didn't.
The most tragic part about mylafufu is that the whole fucking
(03:40):
, fucking head spins, which doesmake it demonic yeah, yours is
more demonic than most.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
I will say it's feet spin was it, uh sarah who
commented was like you got likea, like a rough like I know, but
I couldn't even get fake ones.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
So when I saw him I said okay, let me, let me get
you, I love it, I love it.
I love the people that.
So, hello, I did this onpurpose.
But on our story, all I put wasthe clip, like I got scammed
and like me like looking at it,and so people were like, oh my
god, and I'm like I love how youguys think that I really
fucking didn't know.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
It just proves that they did not watch the video
also did you see that you?
Got your first tiktok stitchtoday.
No, no, oh yeah, so you knowhow people can cut some of your
video and put their story.
Yeah, the one you made of likedo you know that you've walked
past a killer?
And now people are sharingtheir stories when they realize
they've walked past killers.
So you just got your first one.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
See when you open the notifications.
I don't ever go back.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
It was only like 15 minutes ago.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Oh, I don't know, I don't ever go back.
It was only like 15 minutes ago, oh really no, I didn't tell
you purposely until we wererecording.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
I was very proud of you.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Oh, my God.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
I'm putting all the work into making our TikTok.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Do we know the person ?
Speaker 1 (04:50):
that did it.
Yes, it is Weird Web Radio onTikTok.
And he had a great story aboutserving murderers when he was a
bartender.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
OK, ok, ok, that's so fun.
No, I'll have to go and look atit.
That's exciting.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
You definitely do.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Oh, my God.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
What else is new?
I feel like I haven't done muchof anything since we got back
from Kentucky.
Me either.
I'm just still recovering fromGreek Fest, where I ate way too
much food.
That's it, all right?
Do you have a question for me?
Darn, shop up.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
So my question is since we're in the future, do
you know what today is?
Speaker 1 (05:26):
I do for once.
It is September 18th and I'mnot confused on what day this
episode comes out.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Okay, but do you know what today is?
Speaker 1 (05:33):
September 18th, which is, oh God.
I feel like I'm about to getrazzed for not knowing what it
is, what is it?
Speaker 2 (05:42):
No?
I mean, I wouldn't really care.
It's Aaron's 40th birthday,what?
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Ta-da, he's officially old.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
I think Should we move it now.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Is 40 the new or 50 the new?
I think it is to be honest.
Yeah, he's got plenty more.
He's officially young.
He's entering his 20s period ofhis adult era.
Yeah, because 20s period of hisadult era?
Yeah, well, you just.
I always said, like in my 20swere my toddler adult era.
So now he's like he's past teen, he's a young adult adult.
All right, go on.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
A young adult adult, Was that?
That's the question.
That was your question, Allright well happy birthday Erin.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Happy 40th you loser.
To Kara's actual husband,because every time we go out for
any sort of event, people justassume I'm your husband.
So there is a real husband.
His name is Aaron.
I'm just the fun husband, theparanormal fun husband.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Whatever, okay.
So you and I had kind of a deepconversation recently, okay,
and we were kind of discussinghow actively there are, I guess,
supposedly people trying tobuild, uh, non-black communities
or towns and which at first youwere kind of like that
(06:58):
shouldn't be allowed.
And then I was kind of like,yeah, but then we don't want to
be around those people anyway,so let them be secluded by
themselves.
And then it was kind of like wekind of went back and forth
where it was like either way,this, this option, is fucking
miserable and wrong.
And I will say that we usuallyuse our platform for an escape
for us and for our listeners,and I will just set in the alarm
(07:20):
bells right now, or warningbells.
This is a heavy episode, so Iunderstand if you leave, um, but
I think you should say oh, I'mexcited.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
I feel like we're gonna get up on some soap boxes.
Well, I know what you mean, I'mexcited that we're going to uh,
move away from our usualentertainment and maybe voice
some rage so today, tonight,whenever you're listening, we
are talking about sundown towns.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
So you've probably heard the phrase sundown town
before, or maybe you haven't.
Either way, I really need youto hear this.
So again, if you have to dropout, I understand, but I really
urge you to stay and maybe wecan learn something.
Maybe we can change people'sminds.
I don't know, I doubt it, butwho knows?
Speaker 1 (08:05):
We could try.
If we get one, we get one man.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Okay, so these were places where, if you were black,
or sometimes another minority,you couldn't be there after dark
, and I don't mean justshouldn't be there, you could
not be there.
And the consequences weren'tjust fines.
We're talking harassment,violence and even sometimes
death.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Insane.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
The part that's going to stick with you.
I would hope the most is thatthis isn't just something in
ancient history, and in somecases, the signs came down but
the attitudes never really leftthese towns, which is kind of
how you and I got on this topic.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Well, yeah, because you can.
You can change a rule or law orwhatever, but that doesn't
immediately fix people'smindsets, no matter how
absolutely wrong they are.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Yes.
So what is a sundown town?
If we're not really familiar, asundown town is exactly what it
sounds like.
Like I said, there are townswhere people of color, most
often black people, were bannedafter sunset.
Sometimes there were actualsigns at the city limits and
other times it was just a veryunspoken rule that everybody in
the area knew, which I find Idon't know.
(09:12):
Which one is worse to me, Idon't know.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
I mean, can they just be equally bad?
Yeah it is.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
So police would enforce it, neighbors would
enforce it, and the message wasclear You're not welcome here
after dark.
And I want to be super clear.
This wasn't just a Southernthing, because I feel like a lot
of people just might assumethat.
But we're talking about townsin Illinois, indiana, ohio,
california, oregon, and the listjust goes on.
And sundown towns happened justbasically all over the United
(09:40):
States.
So this isn't just like asegregated area or the South,
like I said.
Yeah, no, it's happeningeverywhere.
Yeah, and so a little bit ofhistory about it.
They started popping up heavilyafter the reconstruction in the
late 1800s, so when BlackAmericans were starting to gain
some political power and buildcommunities, white residents,
(10:00):
politicians and business ownersin certain areas wanted to keep
their towns white only, and theywent to extreme lengths to make
it happen.
Right, they'd put into cityordinances or they would just
make it so dangerous that no onewould even dare be caught
around after dark.
So imagine traveling in, likethe 1920s, and seeing a sign at
(10:22):
the edge of town that says don'tlet the sun set on you here.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
That isn't just a warning, that's just so ominous.
Yeah, no, that's an obviousthreat.
Oh, I'm going to get angry.
Okay.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
I cried at Starbucks while doing research on this and
I tried to keep it as to thepoint as I could without it
being too hard, because I alsodon't want to make us all like
depressed after this.
But there's really not a way.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
I'll think of something light to end us on.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
It's fine so can I be honest?
Speaker 1 (10:53):
yes.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
I was gonna put something at the end to end us
like on a lighter note, but thenI was like if we change our
mindset to just forget about it,then what's the point of
talking about it?
Speaker 1 (11:03):
We're going to let people ponder.
All right, I know, I see whereyou're coming from, yeah, no,
all right, buckle up everyone.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
So how it kind of worked is enforcement wasn't
always about it like an officiallaw.
It could be police pulling youover for nothing, neighbors
chasing you out or a mob showingup at your door.
It was about fear, and itworked because people avoided
those towns, even if they werejust passing through.
Travelers would sometimes stopat a gas station miles away and
(11:34):
be warned hey, don't go intothat town after dark.
Just like think about howterrifying it would be to know
that your safety depended on yougetting out of somewhere before
sunset.
And that's where I get to checkmy privilege right when I
haven't had to think about that.
Well, think about you and Ijust like the last couple of
times we've just gone on ourlittle road trips and stuff
Sometimes we don't even have tothink about it.
(11:56):
Yeah, we don't have to, but andwe just wouldn't like it didn't
matter what time we popped intosomewhere.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
Right, we're not really thinking about that.
Like, yeah, obviously latenight anywhere it can be
dangerous, but yeah, you keep aguard up, but you're not like,
yeah, it's our privilege forsure.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Yeah, yeah, okay.
So this is kind of like what Iwas saying.
I really want people tounderstand that sundown towns
didn't just disappear.
Some of them still carry thatreputation today and and the
signs, like I said, may be gone,but that culture and the police
practices, the housingdiscrimination in some places
that has never stopped.
So modern versions can looklike racial profile profiling,
(12:34):
pulling people over for drivingwhile black, or making it
impossible for people of colorto buy or rent homes in certain
neighborhoods.
Like it's the same idea, justwithout the sign on the highway,
like it Right, it's, it didn'tchange.
No, it's just, it's justbecause that's not in your face
or I don't know, frowned uponLike it's just.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
I think the distinction is is it's not legal
anymore, but the mindset isstill there?
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Yeah, I mean it's.
It's literally just like racism.
Yeah, one hundred percent.
Oh my God, all right.
So have you heard of, and I'msure maybe you have because of,
like the profession that you'rein but have you heard of
redlining?
Speaker 1 (13:17):
That was on the test to even get into the profession
I'm in.
Yes, I have, okay.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
So for those of you that don't know, redlining
started in the 1930s.
Federal agencies like theHomeowners Loan Corporation
created color-coded maps ofcities.
So neighborhoods were gradedfrom A green equals best, to D,
red equals hazardous, and areaswith Black residents, immigrants
(13:43):
and or just like that were tooclose to non-white neighborhoods
were almost always marked red.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
So banks and lenders then refused to give loans or
mortgages in those redlined,which, for people who don't know
, covenants are what's like onthe title?
That runs with the land aboutwhich colors and cultures could
even buy in there to strike thatlanguage.
(14:20):
So it's been deemed illegal andunenforceable.
But because these things runwith the land, the language is
still there and the scary partabout that is much like some of
the rights we've seen rolledback for women's reproductive
rights or Obergefell going backto the Supreme Court, all it
takes is an overturning of thelaws that are in place that
(14:42):
currently protect that for thosecovenants to go right back into
effect.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Right, and so thank you for that input or that
knowledge.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Sorry, my real estate is showing.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Your real estate?
Yes, it is, but no, I knew youwould have some insight.
So, basically, the fact ofredlining was that Black
families were locked out ofbuying homes in desirable areas,
obviously including sundowntowns and white suburbs, and
they were forced.
And then this forced them intolimited, segregated
neighborhoods which then becameovercrowded, underfunded and
(15:13):
without access to mortgages.
Black families couldn't buildintergenerational wealth through
homeownership like whitefamilies did, so sundown towns
explicitly kept black familiesout of thousands of communities
across the US, not just in theSouth, but in the Midwest, west,
north, and this meant thatblack people moved North and
West during the Great Migration,so like 1910, 1970.
(15:36):
And they had very few places tosettle.
And then whole regions wereclosed off, funneling people
into certain neighborhoods.
And basically this is how quoteunquote ghettos emerged.
Because so many towns wereclosed, black families, like
often had to choose, had nochoice but to overcrowd into
specific cities, like it's soridiculous.
(15:59):
And these neighborhoods werefaced with redlining and urban
renewal projects and destroyedhousings and, as a result, black
communities became concentratedin underfunded areas that we
now call ghettos.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
And to top that off, I'm sorry, no keep going.
If you're going to coveranything, Then we over-policed
those areas and put them infurther disadvantage with a
criminal record.
So now you couldn't buy houses,you couldn't create
generational wealth and youcouldn't.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
I didn't want to get into that part, so I'm glad you
bring it up.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
And I'll do it really quickly because we could.
There's so much you could talkabout on that, but about the
over-policing of minoritycommunities, but for years and
years you've set them at adisadvantage and now you know so
many racist people are like oh,they don't want to work, they
do.
It is so frustrating to ignorethe extreme disadvantage that
groups have been placed inthrough literally no fault of
(16:51):
their own, but the color of theskin they were born into, born
into.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
No choice.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
First soapbox, let's go.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
So, basically, sundown towns didn't directly
create ghettos, but they forcedsegregation by exclusion and,
instead of separating out acrosscities and suburbs, black
populations were again funneledinto a handful of neighborhoods
that concentrated, combined withracist housing and lending
policies, cemented theboundaries of urban ghettos.
So it's not directly, but itplayed a big effect into still
(17:25):
now.
So, um, talking about thisstuff isn't just about, you know
, shaming a single town.
It's about recognizing howdeeply racism was built into the
structure of our communitiesand how it's still showing up.
It's systemic.
Yeah, if we don't face history,it's a way that you like it's,
we're just easily pretend, like,just pretend it's over, it's,
(17:46):
it's just I'm getting flusteredbecause I'm getting mad.
So here's the thing If you'venever been on the receiving end
of that kind of fear, it'stempting to think, well, that
was part of the past or thatdoesn't happen here, but it does
.
And if it doesn't where you are, it's happening somewhere else,
and that's why we need to kindof keep talking about it.
(18:07):
So in the show notes we haveall of our links.
I'll have it linked so you cando some research of your own.
But just to give you an exampleand I'm going to go through
this so fast because it's long.
So, but just to give you anexample, according to the
historical database of sundowntowns, these are sundown towns
of Michigan.
(18:27):
Not necessarily right now, buthow many were in Michigan?
Okay, let me take a drink realquick.
Are you ready?
Yes, elginac, allen Park,alpena, bad Axe, bassamer, big
(18:56):
Star Lake, birmingham, brighton,brown City, cadillac.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Is none of that shocking.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Harbor Beach, hartford, holland, howell,
hudson, ironwood, is it?
Ipshaming, whatever?
Kalamazoo, lathart Village,lexington, linden, livonia,
manistique, marine City,marlette, marquette, marshall,
Marysville, manson, menominee,menominee County, munising New
Baltimore, antinagan, whatever.
(19:21):
Antinagan yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
You've actually done really well with all the UP
names.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Portland, reese, richmond, rockford, rockwood,
royal Oak, seboing, south Lyons,southgate, spring Lake, st
Clair, st Clair Shores, sterlingHeights, taylor, traverse City,
trenton, troy, upper Peninsula,utica, vicksburg, warren,
westland, white Pigeon, wixom,wyandotte, and that's just
Michigan.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
Okay, now you did great, but before they come for
us, charlotte, what did I say?
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Charlotte, oh, I was just going so quick.
No you did good on the rest ofthem, though I was pretty
impressed, all right.
So anyway, I'll have it linkedand you can look wherever you
like it.
You can pick your state andit'll tell you all, and then it
also give you a link with likestars, and I'll say these
necessarily weren't sundowntowns, but they were also
problematic for differentreasons, and then you can read
(20:11):
up on that.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
The thing is, too, for people who aren't from
Michigan, is that there is not asingle region of our state that
you didn't mention, in that.
You had the entire UpperPeninsula, north Michigan, you
had Southeast, southwestMichigan, central Michigan.
I mean, there's not a.
I guess it's not geographicallyenclosed to one area, that is
(20:33):
the entire state.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
Which that's even more alarming.
All right, so we are going tomove to my favorite place, even
though this is the place thatmade me cry in Starbucks when I
was doing this.
Reddit r slash road trip is asubreddit where you can
literally ask questions andstuff about road trips, and this
was posted four months ago andit was by Gurella Black Dog and
(20:59):
the caption or the question onthe subreddit was does anyone
else worry about sundown townswhen on a road trip, or am I
just overthinking things?
And the subcategory was tripplanning.
So has anyone ever experiencedanything to do with the sundown
towns when on a road trip?
I remember as a kid, sometimearound the early to mid 2000s,
(21:20):
one time my family and I were ona road trip and we went into a
diner.
It got kind of quiet and manyheads turned and it just felt
weird.
Only until I was older did Irealize what happened and where
and where we were.
So that is the question andthen the basically story of this
Redditor Gotcha.
(21:41):
This is one of the comments onthat thread and it's from tang
boy five million.
Uh, and it was also four monthsago.
We were on a work assignment inwest virginia.
Our crew went into a bar andgrill for lunch.
We had a black dude on our crewand when we walked in there
might as well have been a recordscratch Every head turned and
(22:03):
stared at us.
It made everyone prettyuncomfortable.
The black guy I'm going tostart crying again.
The black guy said he was justgoing to eat his lunch in the
truck.
This is where I broke down inStarbucks and a couple of the
other guys went with him.
Notice our Redditor here.
Writer doesn't say he went withhim.
Yeah, a local came up andstarted peppering us with
(22:26):
questions, but in a friendly andcurious manner.
The conversation ended with himtelling us that we should
probably be gone by nightfall ifwe knew what was good for us,
and a bunch of the other folksin the place nodded in agreement
.
We just kind of stared at eachother in disbelief and this shit
was still going on in this dayand age.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Again checking my privilege, because when I
learned about some downtowns, itwas something that was in
history and disgusting.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
But you don't think about it right now.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
No, you don't think.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
And like, granted, you think that there's still
segregated places where, but youdon't think it's this overt
well, I think you and I think,yeah, there's racist people, you
know racist people, right, butwe don't think it's necessarily.
Or we do now, but we didn'tthink it was necessarily to this
, but like this just made mejust like melts and just cry
(23:20):
because I'm like I.
My ass would have been likefirst off, we're not ordering
food from this fucking place.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
No, not when you have the just straight up macro
aggression.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Second of all him just saying I'm just going to go
eat lunch in the truck.
Obviously this happens to himoften.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Yeah, it's not the first time.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
And for your dumb ass to not be like yeah, I'm going
to fucking come with you.
I'm glad that some of thoseother people went with him.
Ass fuck, absolutely Okay.
So this is also another commenton the same thread from
Grounded Satellite again fourmonths ago.
My mom lives in West Virginiaso I go there occasionally.
I'm white, but I'm trans.
I used to take the shortestroute to get to her place, which
(24:01):
involved going through somesmall towns on a non-interstate
highway.
That was until I stopped at asmall gas station down in a
hauler to fill up and got somevery hard stairs and saw a lot
of whispering between the otherpeople filling up on the gas and
gas station hanging out.
I got the fuck out as fast as Icould and I now take the long
way that keeps me on theinterstate and only stop at
larger gas station.
(24:21):
Truck stops going through there.
So that didn't have anything todo with anybody that was black,
but it's still the same concept, is that?
Speaker 1 (24:30):
it's just that you're not welcome here, which is
insane, because we're all humanbeings.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Yeah, it's so disturbing and fucking weird.
Again, same subreddit andcomment off of here, which is
from Sugar Sweet Sunny.
Four months ago, long long ago,we had to stop for gas Creepy
station, went inside and the guyin there seemed startled and
terrified, kept looking aroundat us.
He kept saying he was closingto rush us.
Not that it mattered, there waslike only a handful of things
(24:57):
inside to buy.
He also told us it would bebetter if we not stop by on the
way back.
If we came that way, the fearhe had and the way he acted was
just some scary movie shit.
We got the fuck out of there assoon as we got our gas.
While we were getting our gas,he actually waited outside,
watching us and looking in everydirection you almost have to
(25:18):
question the.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Is he trying to help them?
Warn that, like I.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
But that actually makes me feel like he's scared,
that he's serving these peoplelike that.
He's letting them buy stufffrom his store and getting less
about protect them, more aboutlooking up for himself.
To me, when reading that, likeI'm thinking of the movie
version of it, like him freakedout and like looking around like
I don't know just the way it'swritten to me.
(25:42):
That's how I take it either way.
Okay, let's say he was a personthat's like you guys really
need to protect yourself and getout of here.
If I'm that person that'ssaying that I wouldn't fucking
live anywhere, that I have totell somebody they need to get
out of here to protectthemselves, I wouldn't be living
there no way so, either way, Idon't really care about that guy
.
I hope he gets what he deserves.
(26:03):
All right, so this uh is fromthe subreddit r truckers, which
is what it sounds like.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
People, you know some truckers, this is a wild, I
might have more industryknowledge for you oh yeah, so
this is when I pulled this eightdays ago.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Oh my god.
And this, his, isn't user.
Her user is redditoralcoholzado alcoholizado.
All right, all right.
The question is, have youexperienced a sundown town and
then redline m5 posted in thatas a comment seven days ago made
(26:40):
a delivery in in Vitter?
I think it's Vitter or Vider,texas?
Speaker 1 (26:44):
Do you know?
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Okay, well, this comes up a lot, so we are never
fucking going here, okay.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Perfect.
It doesn't matter what the nameis Piece of shit Texas.
Hopefully we're saying it wrongyeah.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
I didn't know and dispatch didn't say anything to
me.
The receiving office looked atme and then the clock asked me
if I had hours left on my clockand I told them I had three left
.
They were like oh, we need toget you out of here quick, gave
me a dock right away andunloaded me.
The moment I bumped the dock,came out and gave me my
(27:17):
paperwork and explained and toldme how far I needed to go to be
safe.
Wow, which you're more familiarwith trucking, because you did
like the, not dispatch.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
Trucking logistics yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
Thank you Logistics, but I know a decent amount of
trucking, about trucking.
But basically, for those thatdon't know, when you get to your
dock to load and unload, youcould sit there for hours.
You don't just pull up like itcould be hours and hours and
hours.
You don't just pull up and getunloaded or loaded Like that's
just not how it works.
So the fact that he's likepulling up, but he's probably
(27:48):
like actually he's probably likeOK, cool, it's literally so
common.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
They have an overtime pay for you called detention
for being stuck at a spot.
Now the fact that theirreceivers typically do not care
how much time you have left onthe clock.
They will let you run it downand if you get stopped by the
police that's an automaticticket.
It's like nurses or flightattendants working over their
allotted hours because it's justnot safe to keep driving.
The fact that they were likehere's how far you need to go
(28:14):
and knew the clock, that'sintense.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
That's terrifying.
I have goosebumps.
Okay, so then another commenteron that.
I believe the username is raikoraiko eight days ago, um, and
he also has an award top onepercent commenter.
I just realized that.
Okay, so, no, but I experiencedsome hills, have eyes shit.
Before first six months oftrucking, I ended up on some
(28:38):
weird two-lane back road in westVirginia nothing around for
hours of driving and needed totake 30 minutes to get a drink.
So I found a small town gasstation that had truck parking
and I stopped.
When I went to walk insidethere were two men standing on
their pickup trucks.
You know, when folks lean onthe bed next to the back window,
(28:59):
that were watching me veryintently.
When I went inside, the fewpeople that were in there were
doing the same thing At thecounter after I'd gotten my
items.
The cashier asked if I've everbeen here before, replied no,
just stopped in for a fewminutes.
He nodded, said good and toplease be past the county line
50 miles to the west beforesundown.
(29:21):
I asked why and he said thelocals don't like outsiders much
.
I said okay and went back tothe truck and locked the doors.
Several more pickups with oneor two men arrived within my
30-minute break and two followedme until I got to the county
line.
Weirdest shit I've everencountered.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
The fact that you have nothing better to do with
your time than to harasssomebody.
It just, it's astounding.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
But not even just harass somebody.
Harass somebody that just ispassing through and is just not
from around these parts.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
Not trying to move in , not that that would make it
okay, right, not trying, butliterally just doing their damn
job that is so fuckingunsettling listen.
I know this is a differentepisode.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
We usually cover creepy, but this is creepy this
is so odd, so to me this issometimes this is the most
oddest thing than more than weever talk about.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
This is the oddity I will never understand kind of
like you always say right, Likethe dead, don't scare me.
People do this is why.
This is absolutely why.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Yes, and to be quite frank, like when we came up with
our podcast concept, yes, itwas more to be, you know,
paranormal and aliens and thingslike that.
But the reason that we landedon like Oddity Shop is because
oddities are so many differentthings to so many different
people and that we were able tocover such a broad conversation
topics or whatever so, and if wecan shed light on these
(30:46):
monsters that live and breatheand exist hell.
we're not done so.
There is a subreddit um, we'removing on from the truckers one,
it's r slash blackman, and sixmonths ago, and the user is lynn
uh, and the subtopic, orwhatever, is verified black man.
Have you ever had an experiencebeing caught in a sundown town?
(31:09):
I have multiple times.
It was interesting to say theleast.
I keep it to me, though, so Idon't be worried about the
bullshit.
I had one instance where thecops followed me throughout the
whole town until I got outsidethe town line.
I don't know if they weretrying to secretly tell me it
was a sundown town or not, but Ialready knew and 100% ran my
plates.
(31:29):
You know how they do.
Also, just recently I walkedinto a bar at lunch to get
something to eat.
It was a pickup order.
As soon as I walked in, all thewhite guys stared me down like
I had just called everybody acrack.
When I walked in, it was likein the movies.
You know how they play the DJscratch.
(31:51):
What did you remember?
The first one I read said theexact same thing.
When they walked in, or one ofthe first ones, it was like a DJ
scratch.
It's crazy.
I swear that it was like that.
Then one of the guys proceedsto come up to me and asking me
where I'm from, if I'm newaround the area, etc.
He had to keep it cordial, I'msure, because it was the middle
of the day.
If it was after sunset, though,I'm sure it would have went a
(32:15):
lot differently.
My blood is just boiling, Iknow.
So here we're gonna move, moveon from some Reddit stories,
because I can't take no mo.
But towns with visible or likelike a recent reckoning, yeah,
kentucky Surprise has somereports.
I know Reports indicate atleast 60 towns in the state
(32:39):
historically practiced sundownpolicies and the legacy can
still affect local culture today.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
Culture.
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
Indiana and Illinois.
These two states have thehighest number of confirmed
sundown towns according to theTugaloo College database, which
I do have that listed.
I'm not saying anything, butI'm just saying there are
certain areas and it's like whenwe were just in louisville
people said we don't say we'refrom kentucky, we're from
louisville because it'sdifferent, and then specific
(33:09):
communities still noted in therecord.
So these towns may not beactive sundown towns today.
But uh, you know, vider texaswe talked about, known for
refusing black residents evenafter uh, forced discretionation
discretionation, discriminationdesegregation.
Oh 1993, black family.
(33:33):
I'm not laughing at this, butblack families reported
harassment and threats.
1993, uh, midden andGardnerville, nevada, both
enforced exclusion via sundownsirens, signals that Native
Americans were to leave bysunset.
I cannot assure you that thatstill happens now.
But some people say sirens arestill go off, but maybe they're
(33:56):
said for different reasoningsnow.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
Air quotes around the different reasonings A lot of
these places.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
that's kind of like the thing um, these practices
continued symbolically,symbolically until only recently
abolished in 2023, jesus.
So we're also not going tothose places.
In nevada, harrison, arkansas,the site of violent racial
(34:22):
explosions in the early 1900s,harrison is still widely
associated with a legacy ofwhite supremacist dominance and
resistance to change, so weain't going there.
Jay Florida experienced a mass.
Is it exodus?
Yes, thank you Of its Blackpopulation in the 1920s.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
as of recent censuses , it still has very few Black
residents, which I wonder whyyou can make all the rules
around redlining and lendingpractices and
anti-discrimination laws youwant, but people are still
finding creative ways to do it.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
Mm-hmm, creative ways to do it.
So even though, again, thesundown signs came down decades
ago, the impact is still felt.
Many of those towns remainoverwhelmingly white because
families of color avoid them forgenerations and in some cases
they still do.
The reputation lingers.
People talk, and if a town wasunsafe once, the memory doesn't
(35:21):
just vanish, and if a town wasunsafe once, the memory doesn't
just vanish.
And economically, these placesoften kept wealth concentrated
in white families, while peopleof color were locked out of
property ownership andopportunities.
That ripple effect shows uptoday in housing gaps, school
funding differences and incomeinequality.
Socially, there's still just somuch mistrust.
(35:42):
So, again, this is a very heavyepisode.
So I do apologize, but I hopethat you did listen, and so our
call to action is obviously, wecan't change the past, but we
can make sure that we're notrepeating it.
So I encourage you to learnyour local history.
If you live in a place that wasa sundown town once, acknowledge
it and teach it.
(36:03):
Don't just ignore it or pretendthat it's not wasn't.
Challenge the people around youto be better.
Racism doesn't, you know, punchin a time clock.
It doesn't just punch in andout right, so it doesn't just
end at sunset and neither shouldour commitment to stopping it.
So these places that you knowwant to potentially be only
(36:25):
white communities or potentialquote unquote sundown towns.
It's almost stupid or crazy tosay, but those are the places
that us we need to move intoright, like we need to go there,
we need to infiltrate so thatwe can make them safe for other
people, because we need to bethe voice in those areas.
So if you do live in one ofthese towns that I talked about,
(36:47):
don't take offense to that.
I'm sorry but it's facts.
But you need to start changingthose places.
Be that voice, be that person.
That is the change in thoseplaces.
Or, if you lived in a sundowntown, that's not anymore, talk
about it, don't shy away from it, like teach people.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
Can I get back up on my soapbox?
Absolutely At the same time.
You're doing this and you mightbe thinking your voice isn't
enough.
There are two states on theEast Coast right now that are
moving to strike all of the antinot anti all of the language in
their covenants or in theirlaws that have been deemed
(37:25):
unenforceable but were neverremoved to remove them right.
So I'm talking about wherecertain races can and can't live
.
We need to realize right now,in the time and space that we
live in, that things that wetook for granted as laws being
passed that protected any sortsof people are not as solid as we
thought they were right.
Write to your legislators if youknow this language still exists
(37:47):
in your area and have them makea stance to remove it.
You might not feel like yourvoice can be heard, but we can
always write to legislators.
We can always be a voice online.
We can always stand up for theperson we see being belittled in
a store or whatnot.
One person might not make thesystemic change, but a hundred
(38:08):
people doing things daily,whether it's changing the
outlook on one person's day oractually changing a law.
We have the ability to do that,and this goes past so many
things going on right now,whether it's racism, women's
rights, gay rights, human rights, let's just call it what it
fucking is and don't lose thehope, because the voices of some
(38:30):
of those who are bigoted, justcalling it straight out, are
louder than ours right now andthey're being amplified, but we
can still create that change,okay.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
No, that was really it.
And that, you know, just kindof made me think, while you're
talking about that, like I feellike at one point in everybody's
lives we've been like picked onin some aspect or bullied, even
if it was just for a smallportion.
So take those feelings of youbeing bullied or picked on.
So, like for me, in high schoolI was kind of bullied and
picked on quite a bit.
Take those feelings that youhad and try to multiply that by
(39:03):
a million about people that youknow thinking, about people that
live like this on a daily basis, right, so they're, they're
bullied, they're picked on orwhatever it is, whatever you
want terminology wise to use.
Try to maybe understand andyou're never going to fully
understand, and maybe thatdoesn't matter if you need to
understand or not, but justthink of that.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
I think what you're trying to say is have empathy,
put yourself in somebody else'sshoes and your experiences you
can kind of at least at abaseline level understand.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
Yeah, but then I was going to say we can't even say
put ourselves in these people'sshoes, because we just don't
have.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
We have the privilege that we haven't had to Right.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
But you get what I mean.
So let's just try to you know,learn, teach.
I very much, very muchappreciate you.
If you listen to this.
I tried to make it as not heavyas possible.
I try to stick to just you know.
I think you did a great job.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
So here's the words.
I'll leave you with an articleto action on this one.
Whenever you can use your voiceto lift up those who are
voiceless, in whatever situationthey're in, because it does
make a difference whether it'sjust on one individual or an
entire group.
We can't be silent.
Yes, all right.
I don't think it's appropriateto ask for an emoji for this
episode.
Speaker 2 (40:16):
No, but what I will ask for you guys for this
episode that I really, reallywould ask is any social media
posts that we post about this.
Please share those Absolutely.
If you could share the episode,if you could share any of the
social media, share the TikToksor whatever, because that's the
only way we can get this outthere is to talk about it, and
if you guys don't feelcomfortable talking about it,
share our fucking voices, wewill.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
We ain't afraid.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
We ain't afraid of no ghosts.
All right, we're afraid ofpeople.
Yeah, all right, that's my callto action.
Is everything we said, shareeverything that we posted about
this, and the most importantthing you could do for us is to
creep it real, my littleoddballs.
Speaker 1 (40:55):
Goodbye.
Speaker 2 (41:15):
Bye.
Guitar solo Closed in theshadows At the Irish shop At
home with the eyeballs At theIrish shop.
The door's always open At theIrish shop.
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