December 3, 2024 • 45 mins
Is the American Dream a myth we've all bought into, or is there a glimmer of truth hidden beneath its layers? Join us as we dissect the illusion of success and equality tied to this dream, especially relevant after Thanksgiving. Together, we challenge the narrative of individual achievement and underscore the often-overlooked impact of generational wealth and systemic barriers like racism and sexism on one's journey to success. Through the lens of a recent study on immigrant perceptions of American identity, we reveal a stark cognitive dissonance between the country's founding principles and its lived reality.
Our conversation takes a poignant turn as we spotlight the historical and current treatment of Native Americans . We take a critical look at political landscapes, such as in Rhode Island, where gender pay gaps persist despite progressive branding. The societal emphasis on colorblindness from past decades is reexamined, pointing to the necessity of recognizing and valuing diverse identities beyond mere tokenism.
Finally, we delve into the societal norms and systemic pressures affecting communication, education, and identity. Reflecting on personal experiences, I recount how my once-criticized talkativeness became a career strength, illustrating how narrow educational norms can limit potential. We scrutinize cultural narratives perpetuated by Disney and rom-coms that set unrealistic ideals and lack diverse representation. As we discuss the mounting financial stress faced by Americans and the shrinking middle class, we stress the importance of collective action to dismantle entrenched social and economic barriers. Join us as we challenge these myths and work towards a more unified and equitable society.
The Story Behind “Fitch the Homeless” | The New Yorker
What Is the Average Student Loan Payment? | Student Loans | U.S. News
5 facts about student loans | Pew Research Center
Average Utility Costs by State Breakdown – Forbes Home
Childcare Costs By State: 2023 Statistics | Self.inc
Salary: Entry Level College Grads (Dec, 2024) United States
“The question is not whether the American Dream contains room within it for all those who wish to play a part, but whether the United States can tolerate within its midst those who have a radically different dream, and grant them the freedom to pursue that dream on their own terms.” Stephen Cornell, 1987, UCLA American Indian Culture and Research Journal
Immigrant Perceptions of U.S. - Born Receptivity and the Shaping of American Identity
M. Jones-Correa, H. B. Marrow, D.G. Okamoto, and L. R. Tropp, Russell Sage Foundation, 2018
(Study from the Federal Justice Statistics, 2021)
Black prisoners released in 2021, spent an ave
Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):
https://uppbeat.io/t/hartzmann/no-time-to-die
License code: S4CEQWLNQXVZUMU4
Artwork and logo design by Misty Rae.
Special thanks to Joanna Roux for editing help.
Special thanks to the listeners and all the wonderful people who helped listen to and provide feedback on the episode's prerelease.
Please feel free to email Matt topics or suggestions, questions or feedback.
Matt@unitedstatesofPTSD.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
This podcast is not intended to serve as therapeutic
advice or to replace anyprofessional treatment.
These opinions belong to us anddo not reflect any company or
agency.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Hello everybody and welcome back to another episode
of the United States of PTSD.
I have Cora back with me todayand we are going to be
discussing the illusion of theAmerican dream, which is so
apropos for the holiday we justhad, thanksgiving.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Hi everyone, it's good to be back we just had
Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Hi everyone, it's good to be back.
Cora, do you want to give?
Speaker 1 (00:53):
a little information about the background, sure, so
there are a bunch of differentideas about what the American
dream is, but most peoplerecognize the American dream as
two things it's an individualspirit we're a country that has
a lot of potential, a lot ofindividual possibilities and
(01:14):
that idea is really based on oneperson's ability to
economically climb that ladderof success, and that really
means without any help.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
When you say without any help, you're referring to
social welfare systems.
Yeah, you're not referring tothings like money being handed
down in generations, or is thatincluded in there?
Speaker 1 (01:36):
I think the idea is that you can be a self-made
person without havinggenerational wealth.
Okay, in reality, generationalwealth plays a big role in
whether or not you can succeedas an individual.
Most people have this idea thatyou can come to America, you
can get a new, fresh start andyou can make a lot of money.
(01:58):
And then the other part of theAmerican dream is related to the
Constitution and America'shistory of ideas of equality,
independence, individualism isprobably the biggest point
within the Constitution that youhave all these rights that are
ensured.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
To be perfectly honest with you, I wonder if you
stop the average American andask them what's in the
Constitution.
If the average American wouldeven know, I'm sure that there
were no snippets of it, becausewe have a tendency to just know
things that are relevant to us.
However, we also have atendency to edit things too, so
we may misinterpret stuff andsay here's what the Constitution
(02:42):
says.
I mean, we've seen people dothis very frequently, where they
will cite something and it'sreally not accurate.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Right, right, and you know the way the constitution
was originally written.
It was all men are createdequal, but that was really
written for white people, notfor African-American people.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Well, and it was also written for men Right, because
women certainly didn't have theright to vote.
I mean, there's lots of thingswomen didn't have as well, so we
are talking specifically whitemen.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Right, yeah, and so I looked at a study by Jones,
correa, marrow, akamoto andTrapp and we can have a link to
that study.
But it was looking at howimmigrants view American
identity and what they found isthat most people see Americans
(03:38):
through identity, throughascriptive characteristics, so
that's being native, born,having a religion, that's
Christian, white skin color andEnglish as a first language.
But most Americans actuallydefine American identity through
the principles of theConstitution, but they actually
(03:59):
in practice, in dailyface-to-face interactions with
people, will point out Americansthrough characteristics such as
skin color.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Yes, and this goes back to what we've talked about
on many, many of the differentepisodes about cognitive
dissonance.
What people think they're doingand what they're actually doing
are two different things.
There was a study and I don'thave it with me because I didn't
think I was going to actuallyreference it today there's a
study, particularly withtherapists and mental health
providers, where they had themobserved by other providers and
(04:32):
the person who was beingobserved would then talk about
the theories they used.
So they would say I used CBT orI used motivational
interviewing with my client, andmost of the time they were
wrong.
The observer would say that'sactually not the theory you're
using.
You're using this theory.
So there is this um level ofcognitive dissonance that
(04:53):
happens, I think, all over theplace in in different things.
We see it in religion all thetime, particularly with what's
happening right now with thegenocide which I've talked about
numerous times.
You can't say you're for humanrights and you're for love and
respecting everybody and thenturning a blind eye to people
being massacred.
But we do it every day.
(05:13):
We did it at Thanksgiving.
I mean.
You think about again howapropos that is.
You have a holiday that's basedin this lie, lie, and I'm sure
you were fed the same lie whenyou were growing up.
That absolutely you know.
The white, non-native americanscame here as immigrants,
ironically, because of how muchwe our country loathes
(05:34):
immigrants, but anyway, we camehere as immigrants seeking
refuge and there's this picturethat's painted about the native
americans and how welcoming theywere and we all sat down and
broke bread and had this greatmeal when, when, in reality, we
were slaughtering them,committing genocide, spreading
disease, breaking down their wayof living, and we continue to
do that today and now they'reall relegated to reservations
(05:56):
and we make very littlereparations as a society, and we
see this pretty much in everynon-dominant group.
So the fact that here we arecelebrating, giving thanks to
each other, while we're bombingother countries and slaughtering
people is again it's this biglevel of cognitive dissonance it
happens.
I almost think it's.
The basic tenant of the Americanculture is to live in a fantasy
(06:17):
world that doesn't exist.
You had mentioned the study forother people coming here and I
remember I had a student oneyear and I don't remember where
in Africa she was coming from Ireally don't because this was
probably about a decade ago butshe said that she literally
believed the American streetswere paved with gold, because
that's what she was told growingup.
And when she got here and gotout of the airplane, she talked
(06:40):
about how hostile everybody wasto her.
Almost immediately, I think,she landed in New York and she
talked about how overwhelming itwas, and it was.
You know, it's like realizingsomething you believe in doesn't
exist anymore.
And it's actually.
Not only does it not exist, butit's the exact opposite of
everything you ever believedexisted.
That's quite a level of shock.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Yeah, absolutely, quite a level of shock.
Yeah, absolutely.
What the study that I wasreferencing was talking about
was that when US born Americansare receptive and welcoming to
people who are first enteringour country, those immigrants
have better positive feelingsabout the country.
They're more likely to stay inAmerica and go through the
(07:25):
process of actually becoming aUS citizen, and it just creates
positive feelings on both sides.
So that's like a positive.
If you are welcoming towardsimmigrants, it helps you and it
helps them.
I think it's really hard that alot of people come here
thinking that they willautomatically be accepted, when
(07:46):
the reality is that's not true.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
If we were to look at all of the different countries
on paper, there were certainlycountries that the United States
would consider good countriesfor people to be coming from,
and then there are the badcountries that people are coming
from, and I'm certain that theyare treated differently.
So the American dream does not.
(08:09):
It's not for everybody, right,it's?
You have to have a lot ofprivilege to begin with.
You know it's interesting whenyou're talking about people
coming here.
When I went to Italy, I waspracticing Italian.
I did it for three months and Ican't tell you how many people
said to me repeatedly why areyou doing that?
They speak American over there.
(08:30):
Well, I'm doing that becauseit's not America and the native
language of Italy is Italian.
So I am not going to go toanother language.
I mean to go to another countryand expect them to know how to
talk to me.
That's my job.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Right right.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
The attitude, though, from people here was really
disheartening.
Just with this why are youbothering?
Like don't do that, use this,use that, like you don't have to
do that.
The level of respect that I wasshown just from trying to speak
Italian was really huge.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
I mean that's awesome that that was your reception in
a different country.
But yeah, I think justindividually we take ownership
that we're like the best countryand that other countries learn
how to speak English so thatthey can interact with tourists,
but that absolutely shouldn'tbe the case.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Cora has the research related to where I came from.
I have the research related towhat it's like to live in
America financially.
You had brought up people seeAmerica as the happiest country
On the World Happiness Index.
We're actually 23.
We're 23rd in line, I will say.
Ironically, israel, where wesend all our money, is number
five, so I'm not surprised bythat, but we are 23.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Wow, yeah, and I think the reason for that is a
lot of what you were talkingabout with the numbers, and we
can go through some of thosenumbers.
So many people right now arejust facing financial hardship
and that creates a lot ofdisparity within our culture and
our society.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Sorry I had to mute, but not again.
I'm curious, what we?
There was an age differencebetween us, so I'm curious when
you were growing up, what wereyou taught about the American
dream?
What kind of propaganda wereyou given?
Speaker 1 (10:22):
I didn't learn anything about Native Americans
when I was growing up.
They were Indians.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Did they talk about them in all of them, or was it
just?
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Just we sang a really racist Indian song around
Thanksgiving like the fivelittle Indians and things like
that.
Yeah, just really bad.
I don't remember ever talkingabout them in positive ways at
all was a huge part in the slavetrade and how the manufacturing
(11:10):
of whiskey in Bristol was andselling slaves created like this
town that I visited all thetime I had no idea there was any
sort of history about that.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
To reflect on that, when we went to do the Mystic
tour, was there a lot ofsimilarity between the way you
heard in Bristol as how theytreated the Native Americans and
what you heard in Mystic,because it was also a port town.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Yeah, absolutely.
There's this weird thing thathappens in Bristol, where you
have some of the big roads thatare named after Indian tribes or
Native American tribes.
Excuse me, I didn't realize.
You know a bunch of like someof the major war battles
happened in Bristol.
They actually took Metacomet,who was one of the chief how do
(11:54):
we say it?
He was a very powerful tribe,tribal person and they actually
tore his body into pieces andthen put parts of his body on
display throughout America.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Well, that's disgusting and very typically
American.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
It's horrible.
It's just so disgusting.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Actually I should say it's very typical European,
yeah.
You know that's a very Europeanthing, white European thing.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Yeah, Some of the stuff my parents didn't know
until I was grown up.
I don't remember havingconversations with my parents
about this stuff as I got olderand my dad got more into history
and you know, learning aboutthat area, and he was really
disgusted.
He was upset that he neverheard anything like that.
(12:44):
It is interesting.
This is like an American thing.
I think that if you find outthat you have Native blood
throughout your ancestry, a lotof people kind of like broadcast
that and own it and feel proudof that, Whereas people who
discover that they have Blacklineage in their ancestry tend
(13:07):
to hide it and don't talk aboutit at all.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
I wonder if that I mean.
I think that happens in lots ofdifferent things.
I remember growing up I had anaunt who told me that we were
Irish and when I told my momthat we are not Irish, Like, she
was very much like against thefact that we were Irish and
didn't believe it whatsoever atall and we were like 100% French
, Canadian and I thought, well,I don't know if that's true, but
(13:32):
you know, having the DNAtesting, I did the DNA testing
and I'm like, look, I'm 34%.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Which is awesome, because I personally love
Ireland.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
So certainly depends on what point of history that
we're in when people look backat their lineage or their DNA
and they either feel shame orthey feel pride, based on what
they identify with.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
But that is very relevant to what's happening in
the media or like current eventsnow you know, at the time, yeah
, well, it's just, it's sodisturbing to me that we'll, you
know, tell these like familystories and be like, oh yeah, we
(14:13):
definitely have Native Americanblood in our family, but then
there's no, nothing further Like, yeah, researching to see if
that's true or not, but thenalso, you know, supporting or
learning more about where thatblood comes from, or just
supporting people in general.
You know, native Americans inAmerica are treated extremely
(14:35):
poor.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
I would also wonder if you're looking at a typical
American, non-native Americanand they do their DNA testing
and they find out that they dohave Native American in their
blood, if that's the product ofrape.
Because that was prolific backthen, so I mean, you can say
(14:58):
you're proud to have it as partof your identity, but where did
that actually come from?
That would be what I would beconcerned about.
Not that we have any controlover what our ancestors did, but
still, you know, we do have atendency to whitewash everything
and make everything sound likegreat and wonderful and the
American dream.
You just try hard enough andeverything is going to be great.
(15:19):
But we know that that's nottrue.
You and I were having aconversation the other day about
Rhode Island and how RhodeIsland and most of New England
tends to be very democratic andvery much about human rights,
and part of the whole politicalplatform that was going on
recently was this fear thatyou're going to get your rights
taken away.
And it's so super importantthat you vote this particular
(15:40):
way because otherwise you're notgoing to have your rights,
particular way, becauseotherwise you're not going to
have your rights.
Then why is it that RhodeIsland, which has been a
democratic state for decades anddecades and decades, women
still only make 85 cents perdollar than men do in this state
?
And I said to you when I wastalking about it you know, clean
your own side of the streetbefore you start running around
preaching to everybody aboutwhat they should be doing,
because there's no reason whyany state in this country,
(16:03):
particularly those that claim tobe democratic and all about
human rights, that women shouldbe making less money than men
ever.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Yeah, and I think I was telling you a little bit.
Just, you know, I grew up inthe 80s, so the way to teach
kids during that time was to becolorblind and that women and
men are equal blind, and thatwomen and men are equal.
So I really, until a few yearsago, still kind of believed that
(16:31):
women were equal to men andshould be paid the same amount.
I definitely have taken thatfor granted.
I don't do that anymore and Ithink that it was really
damaging for me in terms ofbeing able to understand people
of other colors, being able tomake friends with people.
I was taught that we're allequal, so maybe I wasn't
(16:51):
empathetic toward other peoplebecause I didn't understand
where they were coming from.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense what I have
started to see more as I getolder.
Both sides can be superproblematic.
Obviously, being colorblind,everybody's aware of how
problematic that can be, but Ialso think going to the opposite
extreme is just as damaging.
We need to find some way thatwe can recognize people's
identities, understand what thatidentity means and what
(17:20):
barriers or what privileges thatcreates for them, without
making that their whole identity, just like we do with mental
health.
I remember being at oh God, whatwas it?
It was like a forum at theschool one year where I had a
former student of mine, man ofcolor, great student.
He was really one of the beststudents I had, just like you
and Mike, and he was talkingabout I forgot where he's from.
(17:47):
He's from South County,somewhere like East Greenwich or
one of the more affluentcommunities in Rhode Island, and
he was talking about beingpulled over and what it's like
for him when he gets pulled over.
And then he asked everybody howmany people there suffered from
white guilt.
And when I tell you, everybodyraised their hands and I almost
vomited because talk aboutvirtue signaling.
I guarantee not one person inthere left that thinking about
(18:10):
the white guilt they had.
I mean, that's performative.
When we start making thingsperformative, they lose value
instead of saying like, okay,how do we address this?
And a lot of the times, what weend up seeing is we end up
seeing people who are not evenpart of the community giving
lessons and giving trainings onhow to be inclusive.
(18:34):
Well hello, could we, I don'tknow, be any more ironic about
the whole thing?
Right, absolutely.
That's another problem.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
I would say that's, you know, possibly problem
number one Right now.
What does scare me and I don'twant to get too scared and
overwhelmed yet, because Trumpisn't in office yet, but that
was one of the things he talkedabout in the campaign quite a
bit was just getting rid of allprograms that teach ethnic
diversity and inclusion, because, you're right, we don't need
(19:09):
white people schooling masses,masses of people about how to be
inclusive, but we do needreally good educators to be out
there doing the work in theright way.
And they're out there, you knowthey're, they're doing hard
work right now.
It's just a matter of findingthem and giving them credit.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
I obviously cannot speak for racism as a white male
I can't do that but I can speakto homophobia and being gay and
having gone the whole gamut, Imean I know, when I was in my
twenties I was convincedeverybody was homophobic and I
was on this need to correcteverybody.
As I've gotten older, I'verealized that actually not as
many people as I thought werehomophobic were actually
(19:49):
homophobic.
A lot of that was created by myown experiences and what I was
being told was homophobia, and Icertainly do not want my entire
identity linked to being a gaymale.
When it's relevant, sure we cantalk about it.
If it's about me beingdiscriminated against,
absolutely let's talk about that.
But I think that's really theonly time it needs to be talked
(20:12):
about.
Like anybody else, I'm aculmination of lots of different
things.
That isn't just the wholeidentity of who I am.
It's part of who I am andthat's why I think we run the
risk of swinging.
When one side gets crazy, theother side gets crazy, and
that's part of the pendulum.
So much as we want to advocatewhen it gets to a point of
(20:35):
absurdity, we can't then look atthe other side and be angry
that they're getting just asabsurd.
I mean, there's an equilibriumto things In life.
Everything tries to findbalance.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Yeah, no, definitely, and I think you know identity
is a very personal, individualthing.
It drives me crazy when peoplemake big, sweeping
generalizations about peoplebased on one aspect of one part
of who you are.
Every person should be able toidentify as whoever they are, in
whatever way they want to, aslong as it's not hurting other
(21:10):
people.
Which actually, if you want,brings me to a really good quote
that I found while I wasresearching.
The quote comes from StephenCornell, 1987.
And this was an article in theAmerican Indian Culture and
Research Journal, and the quoteis the question is not whether
the American dream contains roomwithin it for all those who
(21:32):
wish to play a part, but whetherthe United States can tolerate
within its midst those who havea radically different dream and
grant them the freedom to pursuethat dream on their own terms.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
That's a great quote, because freedom is an illusion.
Freedom means that you stay inthe confines of what you're
supposed to do, which is notfreedom.
There's a satirical comic, andI don't even know who it is.
I just happened to see it oneday on media.
Didn't write it down so I can'treference it, unfortunately,
(22:04):
but it showed a picture of kidsin a classroom with their heads
open and there was like a lightbulb, like a really bright light
bulb, and the teacher was likesmashing the light bulb as they
were walking down the aisles.
And I think I jokingly saidthis to somebody recently when I
was growing up.
Surprise, surprise.
One of the comments I got on allmy report cards in elementary
(22:25):
school was talks too much, butlook what I do for a living.
That was shot down the wholetime I was going through school.
That was actually what I endedup making an entire career out
of was my ability to communicate.
However, I was told over andover and over again bad, bad,
bad, bad, bad.
Stop talking, stop talking,stop talking.
(22:50):
And that's just my personalexperience.
I would imagine that I haveanother friend.
I haven't talked to her in along time, but I remember she
struggled through through highschool and middle school she
came.
She had a very difficultupbringing and I remember she
went to her guidance counselorwho told her to drop out of
school and become a prostitute,because that's all she'd ever be
good at.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
Oh my gosh, that's terrible.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Right.
So you think about again.
There's a certain normativitythat we have to fall within.
That's not freedom, that's acookie cutter mold of what we're
supposed to look like.
You see how many people getcanceled now when they speak out
against genocide.
Andrew Garfield just gotthey're trying to cancel him
(23:29):
because he made a comment aboutwhat was happening in Gaza.
If you don't match the statusquo, if you don't fit what the
real leaders of this countrywant, they try to cancel you in
many different ways.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Yeah, and I think what you're talking about,
especially with schools, is theway that culture defines
American identity and the ideaof an American dream.
You know where the schoolsthemselves teach things that
just aren't true.
Yeah, and they ignore hugetracks of you know, part of our
(24:00):
history, and then it becomeslike this big political
conversation on the news aboutwhat's right or not right to
teach kids.
You know.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
It's funny that history becomes so controversial
when it's just history and I'mnot trying to minimize it, I
mean there's no, you can'tchange history.
It is what it is and we canpretend that it's something else
.
The problem is that it justkeeps repeating itself and
anybody who understands historycan predict where everything is
(24:32):
going to go, because it alwaysends up in the same way.
When you talk about theAmerican dream, I think of what
I learned growing up.
You go to college, you getmarried, you get the big house
with the white picket fence, the2.5 kids and you live happily
ever after with your greatretirement Boy.
(24:53):
What a lie.
That is Many different ways.
That that's a lie.
Growing up as somebody whocouldn't get married, you know
that obviously was not true forme.
I mean, you know now that's notthe case, but back then it
certainly was.
And again, that's just one ofmy experiences.
But talk about other, likeracial disparity, being a woman,
(25:14):
poverty, like all of thoseNative American, all of those
other things that impact peoplegrowing up, and what that
American dream looks like whenit's not true to begin with, I
mean we're all chasing somethingthat doesn't exist.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Right, and you know, when I think about my childhood
specifically, I think about howbig a part Disney played in my
childhood, yeah, and, and theDisney princess, and what a
crack of baloney that was, youknow.
But I do think that's anotherarea, you know, like we didn't
have a black princess until like10 or 15 years ago.
(25:50):
Like that's ridiculous, that'sabsolutely ridiculous.
So not only do we have thesevery distorted ideas of like
these dreams that were neverpossible, but then we have just
pure racism in the midst of ittoo I have to tell you I was
never a disney kid, but I was adisney adult for many years,
(26:10):
from like 2015 to 2021, I think.
I went three to four times ayear well, I could say the same
thing about rom-coms.
Right, true from the 80s and90s.
How many gay rom-coms are there?
Speaker 2 (26:25):
either.
The great part I have to saythis is the funny I think I even
mentioned this on one of theother episodes the great part of
seeing the first gay hallmarkmovie, for, like the holiday, I
watched it.
I'm like god.
It's just as bad as thestraight ones.
They certainly did give usequality, because it's garbage
like the rest of them.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
You know, actually, I think the funny thing about
that is the two men that wereactually actors are husbands in
real life.
So I mean, how much were theyreally acting to begin with?
I mean, it's just, it's such, a, such a lie.
You know, hollywood sells usand I will say that I do not
support disney anymore becauseof their political stances and
what they fund, but I used to betheir biggest advocate.
I do.
You know how many people I gotto go to disney?
(27:06):
Oh my god, I probably got like15 people to go to disney and I
I spent.
I added up how much money Ispent and it was more than my
mortgage, like what I had lefton my house wow, in that amount
of time, and now they're notgetting another dime from me
ever again.
So, speaking of money, I do wantto talk about some of the
(27:26):
financial stuff, because this isthe stress that Americans feel.
I did a lot of looking atnumbers, and I did not.
You would ask me earlier if Ilooked at racial disparity on
this.
I did not.
I do think it's important interms of how much worse it would
be.
I think what I wanted tohighlight, though, is that it's
(27:46):
bad all around, so it justbecomes worse and worse.
Understanding how bad it is isjust the umbrella, and then, if
people want to look at how itimpacts them, they certainly can
.
The average salary in thiscountry this is according to
ZipRecruiter of a person whogoes to college and immediately
(28:06):
gets hired outside of college isabout $50,000.
It's $49,574, which, if you askme, is really low.
The median rent in the UnitedStates is $1,634, which is
$19,000 a year just in rent.
According to HUD, no more than30% of your income should be
(28:30):
spent on rent.
That is, 4,000 more than 30% ofthe income based off the
$49,000 that I gave you soalready.
There, you're a little bitscrewed the $49,000 that I gave
you.
So already there you're alittle bit screwed.
The average credit card debt inthis country is $9,000.
That's for the average singleperson.
The average student loan debtand this is from the Federal
Reserve and Census Bureau is$38,000 per year.
(28:54):
The average payment for thatstudent loan, according to US
News, is $352 a month, whichtranslates to $4,030 a year.
The average cost of child carefor one child ironically the
highest in the country isConnecticut, where I live is
$27,000 a year for one child.
(29:15):
Now the lowest was South Dakota, I believe, and that was
$14,800 annually.
So if you average it out, thatis $1,708 a month for child care
.
As a national average, 64% ofAmericans this is according to
(29:35):
Forbes who do not have healthcare insurance have it because
they can't afford it.
According to Forbes, who do nothave health care insurance have
it because they can't afford it.
The average cost of utilities inthis country and that is
according to InvestGuiding is$429 a month, which breaks down
to $5,148 annually.
The average cost of groceriesagain this is according to
(29:57):
Forbes for one person is $336 amonth, which averages out to
$4,032 a year.
According to Experian, theaverage car payment in the
United States is $734, and theaverage insurance is $158.
I did actually lower this justfor the math, because most
people, I'm sure, are not paying$734 for the car insurance.
(30:22):
I dropped that down to about$600.
The average insurance is aboutright.
That comes out to $9,696 peryear.
Now, when you add all of that upand I don't think I missed
anything Let me go through thenumbers Now.
Keep in mind this is notincluding things like cell phone
bill, gas utility I mean no, itisn't killing utilities like
(30:43):
expenses, other things you might, clothing, things you would buy
for yourself, things you wouldbuy for your kids.
Once that is deducted from thatnumber, I gave you a 49 000.
That leaves 5 760 left fromyour annual salary, which
equates to $480 of expendablemoney a month.
Oh, quite the American dream.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Which most of that money would go to things like
cell phone, wireless, thingslike that.
And Matt, just to clarify, didthat include healthcare or not?
Speaker 2 (31:20):
No, that actually did not include healthcare.
The only thing healthcare costsare wildly different depending
on if you work for an employerthat matches it or if you are
self-employed like me, who hasto go through the healthcare
exchange against the shittiestinsurance possible for like
super high money.
That does not include that.
So if we were to take that out,I mean obviously the number
(31:42):
would be a lot lower.
I mean, I pay almost $500 amonth for healthcare insurance,
so that would wipe that out forme if I made that number.
But then again, if I made thatnumber, there would actually be
a subsidy for healthcare, soit'd probably be less than that,
but we could say definitivelyit would cut that number in half
.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
So I mean we're looking at a family or an
individual that can't survive.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Yeah, and then what we do as a country is we look at
these people and we call themlazy and we say, god, they're
just, they're living with theirparents and they can't get out.
Well, of course they can't getout.
It's impossible.
It is like statistically andfinancially impossible.
You can't get out.
It's impossible.
It is like statistically andfinancially impossible.
You can't get blood from astone.
(32:27):
And if you're already coming outof college in this incredible
debt from student loans oh,there was a number I had about
that, by the way According toI'm sorry, I forgot about this
According to the Pew ResearchCenter, americans had $1.6
trillion in student debt as ofJune 2024, which is 42% more
than it was 10 years ago.
Wow, that's so much.
(32:48):
That's almost.
I mean.
Think about that.
In 10 years it's almost doubled.
And, of course, the cost theannual salary, has not doubled,
right, by any means.
Why are we?
This is the average, this iswhat the average American.
Of course, the annual salaryhas not doubled by any means.
Why are we?
This is the average, this iswhat the average American.
I would actually say this isprobably what the average
privileged American looks like.
(33:08):
Getting out of college, yeah,so if you are not privileged.
Again, it's worse.
Why are we all fighting amongstourselves when there's clearly
a bigger issue here?
The bigger issue is these costsare not sustainable.
They're outrageous and they'repredatory and they affect the
(33:30):
large majority of Americans,regardless of what your identity
is, unless you're in that 1%.
This affects everybody.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
Especially for housing.
These days.
That used to be one of the fewthings that Americans could
count on to create wealth for afamily over time, but now most
people can't afford basicmortgage or down payments.
After COVID, so much cash wentinto the housing market.
Average people just couldn'tafford things anymore.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
I can tell you even here I mean, I bought my house
two and a half years ago mymortgage has gone up a hundred
dollars every year because oftaxes.
Wow, I mean, that's a lot,that's a lot I've never seen it.
I've never seen it go up thatmuch.
When I lived in Rhode Island itnever went up that much.
I was shocked, I was veryshocked.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
Another number I found that was kind of crazy is
to be considered poor in America.
For one person you have to make$15,480 or less.
So if you make, less.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
That's not poor, that's homeless.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Because you couldn't even afford to live basic rent
at that point.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
Right, right.
So you have to earn that amountor less to actually receive any
sort of federal money orMedicaid and things like that.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
When I tell you it's an absolute trap.
For those of you that maybe arenot in the United States, I
know we have a lot ofinternational listeners.
This may surprise you.
I don't know how much you knowabout it.
I'm sure it's not going tosurprise anybody in this country
, but I had a client that Iworked with for a really long
time.
They made $11 an hour and shemade $11 an hour for a good I
(35:17):
don't know seven, eight years.
She could not get a raisebecause if she did get a raise I
did the math on paper with herat the time and I think the
number was 13,000, if I remembercorrectly she would have lost
her child care subsidy, shewould have lost her health care
subsidy, she would have lostfood stamps, she would have lost
utility subsidies.
She would have lost utilitysubsidies when you looked at
(35:38):
everything she lost as opposedto how much she gained from
making a dollar extra an hour.
She ended up having to pay$13,000 more after making a
dollar more an hour, whichcreates a trap because she can't
get out of it.
At the time this was like Isaid.
(35:59):
This was probably like seven oreight years ago In order for
her to get out of that trap, shehad to make $23 an hour or more
, wow, otherwise she would bestuck.
Yeah, and unfortunately, that'sthe large majority of Americans
, and that is a 100% testamentto all of the special interest
(36:21):
groups that actually own ourcountry.
Again, it doesn't matter ifyou're Republican, democrat,
independent.
It doesn't matter where youfall on the political spectrum.
All of the politicians that wehave caused this.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
And I think one other thing that we can sort of talk
about when we're talking aboutthe American dream is quality of
health of life.
I'm sorry, when we're talkingabout the American dream is
quality of health of life.
I'm sorry.
Right now or in 2019, we had1.36 million people in prison.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
Um, I'm assuming the large majority of them are for
drug-related crimes as well.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Yes, yep.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
Not surprised by that , because you have to be high in
this country to seriously todeal with half this shit.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
So you know, as a country, we imprison a huge
population of people.
People of color tend to havelonger sentences and not to be
Debbie Downer, but in 2022, wehad 49,000 people die by suicide
.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
I don't have the numbers in front of me now, but
I do know I talked about this onanother episode.
The numbers of suicide in thiscountry have been going up every
year as have the numbers ofdepression, anxiety, ptsd, adhd,
autism, every mental healthdisorder you can possibly think
of, including interpersonalviolence.
Everything in this country isgoing up Everything Postpartum
(37:47):
depression, everything, which isno surprise that we are number
23.
Because you can only pushpeople down so far, right before
they break.
Yeah, absolutely, that's what'shappening.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
it's all by design, all of it and I think I don't
have no like exact numbers, butum, you know that we're seeing
that with children too, childrenwho need mental health services
.
Younger and younger childrenare considering suicide.
That is insane to me that youngpeople feel so terrible and are
(38:21):
so depressed that this issomething that's happening to
them.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
Yeah, so the American dream is a fallacy.
I think we can all agree tothat.
It's actually more like theAmerican nightmare.
Do you see it ever changing inour lifetime?
Speaker 1 (38:41):
I don't think so just because we've had such a long
history of it, you know.
But you know, I do always seeglimmers of hope and I try to
hold on to those.
You know, whenever we seesomebody else who is
marginalized get more rights, orwhen we see people showing more
compassion or, you know, doingreally excellent jobs.
(39:03):
There's glimmers, you know.
But I think the main problem offinancial disparity is really
disconcerting and it worries me.
It definitely worries me.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
Yeah, I mean.
It certainly is going tocollapse at some point in time.
There is no.
This is not sustainable by anymeans.
And the illusion of the middleclass is disappearing as well.
So we're starting to see moreand more people who can't afford
to live on a day-to-day basis,while we have major CEOs and
companies getting billion dollarraises every year and we wonder
(39:39):
.
But we keep supporting them.
You know, you think aboutthings like recycling like as,
as as dumb, as that is the firsttime I ever saw the trash
company picking up both therecycles and the trash and
putting them in the same in thesame like truck container.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
Was when I started to realize how much of an illusion
that is too, because the largemajority of recyclable problems
does not come from the averageconsumer.
It comes from these bigcorporations that get waivers on
all that stuff and don't haveto recycle.
But you know, the averageAmerican feels that.
Remember that stupid thing theydid in Rhode Island and I don't
know if it's still there where,in order to attempt to decrease
(40:22):
pollution and straws, they madeit so that Dunkin' Donuts and
any sort of restaurant likeMcDonald's, they couldn't give
you a straw unless youspecifically asked for it.
Well, all that led was to theservice people being abused by
the customers, because thecustomers realized how
ridiculous it was and then woulddisplace their anger on the
(40:44):
service workers, when in reality, those straws are doing less
damage than major companies whoare dumping toxins all over the
place.
But again, let's blame theaverage consumer, let's blame
the average person and turn themagainst each other.
That is not an American dream.
That is creating chaos.
That's dystopia.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
Right, yeah, yeah.
Unfortunately, during thesummer I pick up a lot of trash
on the beach and number oneproduct I do pick up on the
beach in Rhode Island is straws.
I don't think that measure hadany effect at all on the amount
of straws that are out there.
Of course it didn't, but it'sdefinitely disheartening to be
(41:25):
blamed as an individual forsomething when you know that
carbon, like large industrialcarbon emissions, causes so much
more problems.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
Yeah, it's disturbing .
I mean, the whole thing is anillusion, and I think more and
more people need to wake up tothat and change the way they not
only spend money, but reallystart to analyze what type of
country we live in and how wefix it, because we don't fix it
by turning against each otherright that is certainly not the
(41:59):
solution.
There's strength in numbers,there's strength in unity, but
it's easier to control peoplewhen you divide them, keep them
fighting against each other,keep them in poverty, keep them
fighting over resources, whenthere's plenty of resources to
go around for these people, youthink, think about those extreme
shoppers, the couponer, peoplewho would go in and get like 67
(42:21):
things of toilet paper and it'slike you don't need that, or the
ones that I guess that's a badexample 67 boxes of cereal
because they're never going toeat it, all it's going to expire
.
So you think about they'redoing it because it's like a
high, it's like this hoardermentality, but there's plenty of
resources.
Had you not done that?
And I know that that's verysmall scale, but you look at
(42:44):
that on a bigger scale.
Sure, and that's what happensis we don't.
We have the resources, we justchoose who we're giving them to.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
Yeah, I mean you see that with clothing all the time,
right Like right now, thereprobably exists enough cloth in
the United States to clotheeveryone.
You can either go to a thriftstore and get like a perfectly
fine sweater, or you can pay alot of money from a designer and
be, you know, culturallyaccepted.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
Was there one time in history I think I'm remembering
this correctly where somebodywas donating abracadabra clothes
to the homeless people and likeabracadabra was like flipping
out over?
It is that oh, I don't rememberthat I think that that I could
be making that up, but I vaguelyremember that because there's
such a you you know a nicheclothing store that likes to
(43:36):
market sex.
Speaker 1 (43:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:41):
Wow, that was a fun topic and forgive Cora and I,
both struggling with colds, sothat's why we are coughing and
sound nasally, but we do have.
Oh, I do want to say, core, Idon't know if you had a chance
to listen to the episode withdonna, but I did get tumblers
that I'm giving away tolisteners and I did have one
(44:02):
listener email me, so I'msending them a tumbler.
Why?
There's a couple, there's fourleft.
If people want to emailthoughts or ideas, I will
certainly send you a tumblerwith our logo on it, and we have
quite a few guest speakerscoming up right, quite a few
that we have some great topicscoming up.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
Yeah, yeah, I don't know if, uh, if, you want to go
into it, but we do have a lot ofguests trying to schedule for
the next month or two, so lotsof exciting stuff coming.
Speaker 2 (44:31):
I don't know, I I have this thing that every time
I mention a specific, it fallsthrough.
So I'm not mentioning specificsanymore.
I like that we just have a lotof guest speakers lined up with
some pretty good topics thatwe're going to be discussing,
and we are still open to topicsfrom listeners or having other
people on the show.
If you know anybody that wantsto guest speak, certainly we are
(44:55):
open to that.
So, everybody, thank you onceagain for tuning in to the
United States of PTSD and wewill see you.
Well, you'll hear us, I shouldsay, in a couple of weeks.
Thank you again.
Speaker 1 (45:08):
Bye, take care.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
Hello everybody and thank you again for listening.
(45:31):
This is just a reminder that nopart of this podcast can be
duplicated or copied withoutwritten consent from either
myself or Wendy.
Thank you again.
This podcast is not intended to serve as therapeutic
advice or to replace anyprofessional treatment.
These opinions belong to us anddo not reflect any company or
agency.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Hello everybody and welcome back to another episode
of the United States of PTSD.
I have Cora back with me todayand we are going to be
discussing the illusion of theAmerican dream, which is so
apropos for the holiday we justhad, thanksgiving.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Hi everyone, it's good to be back we just had
Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Hi everyone, it's good to be back.
Cora, do you want to give?
Speaker 1 (00:53):
a little information about the background, sure, so
there are a bunch of differentideas about what the American
dream is, but most peoplerecognize the American dream as
two things it's an individualspirit we're a country that has
a lot of potential, a lot ofindividual possibilities and
(01:14):
that idea is really based on oneperson's ability to
economically climb that ladderof success, and that really
means without any help.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
When you say without any help, you're referring to
social welfare systems.
Yeah, you're not referring tothings like money being handed
down in generations, or is thatincluded in there?
Speaker 1 (01:36):
I think the idea is that you can be a self-made
person without havinggenerational wealth.
Okay, in reality, generationalwealth plays a big role in
whether or not you can succeedas an individual.
Most people have this idea thatyou can come to America, you
can get a new, fresh start andyou can make a lot of money.
(01:58):
And then the other part of theAmerican dream is related to the
Constitution and America'shistory of ideas of equality,
independence, individualism isprobably the biggest point
within the Constitution that youhave all these rights that are
ensured.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
To be perfectly honest with you, I wonder if you
stop the average American andask them what's in the
Constitution.
If the average American wouldeven know, I'm sure that there
were no snippets of it, becausewe have a tendency to just know
things that are relevant to us.
However, we also have atendency to edit things too, so
we may misinterpret stuff andsay here's what the Constitution
(02:42):
says.
I mean, we've seen people dothis very frequently, where they
will cite something and it'sreally not accurate.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Right, right, and you know the way the constitution
was originally written.
It was all men are createdequal, but that was really
written for white people, notfor African-American people.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Well, and it was also written for men Right, because
women certainly didn't have theright to vote.
I mean, there's lots of thingswomen didn't have as well, so we
are talking specifically whitemen.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Right, yeah, and so I looked at a study by Jones,
correa, marrow, akamoto andTrapp and we can have a link to
that study.
But it was looking at howimmigrants view American
identity and what they found isthat most people see Americans
(03:38):
through identity, throughascriptive characteristics, so
that's being native, born,having a religion, that's
Christian, white skin color andEnglish as a first language.
But most Americans actuallydefine American identity through
the principles of theConstitution, but they actually
(03:59):
in practice, in dailyface-to-face interactions with
people, will point out Americansthrough characteristics such as
skin color.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Yes, and this goes back to what we've talked about
on many, many of the differentepisodes about cognitive
dissonance.
What people think they're doingand what they're actually doing
are two different things.
There was a study and I don'thave it with me because I didn't
think I was going to actuallyreference it today there's a
study, particularly withtherapists and mental health
providers, where they had themobserved by other providers and
(04:32):
the person who was beingobserved would then talk about
the theories they used.
So they would say I used CBT orI used motivational
interviewing with my client, andmost of the time they were
wrong.
The observer would say that'sactually not the theory you're
using.
You're using this theory.
So there is this um level ofcognitive dissonance that
(04:53):
happens, I think, all over theplace in in different things.
We see it in religion all thetime, particularly with what's
happening right now with thegenocide which I've talked about
numerous times.
You can't say you're for humanrights and you're for love and
respecting everybody and thenturning a blind eye to people
being massacred.
But we do it every day.
(05:13):
We did it at Thanksgiving.
I mean.
You think about again howapropos that is.
You have a holiday that's basedin this lie, lie, and I'm sure
you were fed the same lie whenyou were growing up.
That absolutely you know.
The white, non-native americanscame here as immigrants,
ironically, because of how muchwe our country loathes
(05:34):
immigrants, but anyway, we camehere as immigrants seeking
refuge and there's this picturethat's painted about the native
americans and how welcoming theywere and we all sat down and
broke bread and had this greatmeal when, when, in reality, we
were slaughtering them,committing genocide, spreading
disease, breaking down their wayof living, and we continue to
do that today and now they'reall relegated to reservations
(05:56):
and we make very littlereparations as a society, and we
see this pretty much in everynon-dominant group.
So the fact that here we arecelebrating, giving thanks to
each other, while we're bombingother countries and slaughtering
people is again it's this biglevel of cognitive dissonance it
happens.
I almost think it's.
The basic tenant of the Americanculture is to live in a fantasy
(06:17):
world that doesn't exist.
You had mentioned the study forother people coming here and I
remember I had a student oneyear and I don't remember where
in Africa she was coming from Ireally don't because this was
probably about a decade ago butshe said that she literally
believed the American streetswere paved with gold, because
that's what she was told growingup.
And when she got here and gotout of the airplane, she talked
(06:40):
about how hostile everybody wasto her.
Almost immediately, I think,she landed in New York and she
talked about how overwhelming itwas, and it was.
You know, it's like realizingsomething you believe in doesn't
exist anymore.
And it's actually.
Not only does it not exist, butit's the exact opposite of
everything you ever believedexisted.
That's quite a level of shock.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Yeah, absolutely, quite a level of shock.
Yeah, absolutely.
What the study that I wasreferencing was talking about
was that when US born Americansare receptive and welcoming to
people who are first enteringour country, those immigrants
have better positive feelingsabout the country.
They're more likely to stay inAmerica and go through the
(07:25):
process of actually becoming aUS citizen, and it just creates
positive feelings on both sides.
So that's like a positive.
If you are welcoming towardsimmigrants, it helps you and it
helps them.
I think it's really hard that alot of people come here
thinking that they willautomatically be accepted, when
(07:46):
the reality is that's not true.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
If we were to look at all of the different countries
on paper, there were certainlycountries that the United States
would consider good countriesfor people to be coming from,
and then there are the badcountries that people are coming
from, and I'm certain that theyare treated differently.
So the American dream does not.
(08:09):
It's not for everybody, right,it's?
You have to have a lot ofprivilege to begin with.
You know it's interesting whenyou're talking about people
coming here.
When I went to Italy, I waspracticing Italian.
I did it for three months and Ican't tell you how many people
said to me repeatedly why areyou doing that?
They speak American over there.
(08:30):
Well, I'm doing that becauseit's not America and the native
language of Italy is Italian.
So I am not going to go toanother language.
I mean to go to another countryand expect them to know how to
talk to me.
That's my job.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Right right.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
The attitude, though, from people here was really
disheartening.
Just with this why are youbothering?
Like don't do that, use this,use that, like you don't have to
do that.
The level of respect that I wasshown just from trying to speak
Italian was really huge.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
I mean that's awesome that that was your reception in
a different country.
But yeah, I think justindividually we take ownership
that we're like the best countryand that other countries learn
how to speak English so thatthey can interact with tourists,
but that absolutely shouldn'tbe the case.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Cora has the research related to where I came from.
I have the research related towhat it's like to live in
America financially.
You had brought up people seeAmerica as the happiest country
On the World Happiness Index.
We're actually 23.
We're 23rd in line, I will say.
Ironically, israel, where wesend all our money, is number
five, so I'm not surprised bythat, but we are 23.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Wow, yeah, and I think the reason for that is a
lot of what you were talkingabout with the numbers, and we
can go through some of thosenumbers.
So many people right now arejust facing financial hardship
and that creates a lot ofdisparity within our culture and
our society.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Sorry I had to mute, but not again.
I'm curious, what we?
There was an age differencebetween us, so I'm curious when
you were growing up, what wereyou taught about the American
dream?
What kind of propaganda wereyou given?
Speaker 1 (10:22):
I didn't learn anything about Native Americans
when I was growing up.
They were Indians.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Did they talk about them in all of them, or was it
just?
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Just we sang a really racist Indian song around
Thanksgiving like the fivelittle Indians and things like
that.
Yeah, just really bad.
I don't remember ever talkingabout them in positive ways at
all was a huge part in the slavetrade and how the manufacturing
(11:10):
of whiskey in Bristol was andselling slaves created like this
town that I visited all thetime I had no idea there was any
sort of history about that.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
To reflect on that, when we went to do the Mystic
tour, was there a lot ofsimilarity between the way you
heard in Bristol as how theytreated the Native Americans and
what you heard in Mystic,because it was also a port town.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Yeah, absolutely.
There's this weird thing thathappens in Bristol, where you
have some of the big roads thatare named after Indian tribes or
Native American tribes.
Excuse me, I didn't realize.
You know a bunch of like someof the major war battles
happened in Bristol.
They actually took Metacomet,who was one of the chief how do
(11:54):
we say it?
He was a very powerful tribe,tribal person and they actually
tore his body into pieces andthen put parts of his body on
display throughout America.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Well, that's disgusting and very typically
American.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
It's horrible.
It's just so disgusting.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Actually I should say it's very typical European,
yeah.
You know that's a very Europeanthing, white European thing.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Yeah, Some of the stuff my parents didn't know
until I was grown up.
I don't remember havingconversations with my parents
about this stuff as I got olderand my dad got more into history
and you know, learning aboutthat area, and he was really
disgusted.
He was upset that he neverheard anything like that.
(12:44):
It is interesting.
This is like an American thing.
I think that if you find outthat you have Native blood
throughout your ancestry, a lotof people kind of like broadcast
that and own it and feel proudof that, Whereas people who
discover that they have Blacklineage in their ancestry tend
(13:07):
to hide it and don't talk aboutit at all.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
I wonder if that I mean.
I think that happens in lots ofdifferent things.
I remember growing up I had anaunt who told me that we were
Irish and when I told my momthat we are not Irish, Like, she
was very much like against thefact that we were Irish and
didn't believe it whatsoever atall and we were like 100% French
, Canadian and I thought, well,I don't know if that's true, but
(13:32):
you know, having the DNAtesting, I did the DNA testing
and I'm like, look, I'm 34%.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Which is awesome, because I personally love
Ireland.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
So certainly depends on what point of history that
we're in when people look backat their lineage or their DNA
and they either feel shame orthey feel pride, based on what
they identify with.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
But that is very relevant to what's happening in
the media or like current eventsnow you know, at the time, yeah
, well, it's just, it's sodisturbing to me that we'll, you
know, tell these like familystories and be like, oh yeah, we
(14:13):
definitely have Native Americanblood in our family, but then
there's no, nothing further Like, yeah, researching to see if
that's true or not, but thenalso, you know, supporting or
learning more about where thatblood comes from, or just
supporting people in general.
You know, native Americans inAmerica are treated extremely
(14:35):
poor.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
I would also wonder if you're looking at a typical
American, non-native Americanand they do their DNA testing
and they find out that they dohave Native American in their
blood, if that's the product ofrape.
Because that was prolific backthen, so I mean, you can say
(14:58):
you're proud to have it as partof your identity, but where did
that actually come from?
That would be what I would beconcerned about.
Not that we have any controlover what our ancestors did, but
still, you know, we do have atendency to whitewash everything
and make everything sound likegreat and wonderful and the
American dream.
You just try hard enough andeverything is going to be great.
(15:19):
But we know that that's nottrue.
You and I were having aconversation the other day about
Rhode Island and how RhodeIsland and most of New England
tends to be very democratic andvery much about human rights,
and part of the whole politicalplatform that was going on
recently was this fear thatyou're going to get your rights
taken away.
And it's so super importantthat you vote this particular
(15:40):
way because otherwise you're notgoing to have your rights,
particular way, becauseotherwise you're not going to
have your rights.
Then why is it that RhodeIsland, which has been a
democratic state for decades anddecades and decades, women
still only make 85 cents perdollar than men do in this state
?
And I said to you when I wastalking about it you know, clean
your own side of the streetbefore you start running around
preaching to everybody aboutwhat they should be doing,
because there's no reason whyany state in this country,
(16:03):
particularly those that claim tobe democratic and all about
human rights, that women shouldbe making less money than men
ever.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Yeah, and I think I was telling you a little bit.
Just, you know, I grew up inthe 80s, so the way to teach
kids during that time was to becolorblind and that women and
men are equal blind, and thatwomen and men are equal.
So I really, until a few yearsago, still kind of believed that
(16:31):
women were equal to men andshould be paid the same amount.
I definitely have taken thatfor granted.
I don't do that anymore and Ithink that it was really
damaging for me in terms ofbeing able to understand people
of other colors, being able tomake friends with people.
I was taught that we're allequal, so maybe I wasn't
(16:51):
empathetic toward other peoplebecause I didn't understand
where they were coming from.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense what I have
started to see more as I getolder.
Both sides can be superproblematic.
Obviously, being colorblind,everybody's aware of how
problematic that can be, but Ialso think going to the opposite
extreme is just as damaging.
We need to find some way thatwe can recognize people's
identities, understand what thatidentity means and what
(17:20):
barriers or what privileges thatcreates for them, without
making that their whole identity, just like we do with mental
health.
I remember being at oh God, whatwas it?
It was like a forum at theschool one year where I had a
former student of mine, man ofcolor, great student.
He was really one of the beststudents I had, just like you
and Mike, and he was talkingabout I forgot where he's from.
(17:47):
He's from South County,somewhere like East Greenwich or
one of the more affluentcommunities in Rhode Island, and
he was talking about beingpulled over and what it's like
for him when he gets pulled over.
And then he asked everybody howmany people there suffered from
white guilt.
And when I tell you, everybodyraised their hands and I almost
vomited because talk aboutvirtue signaling.
I guarantee not one person inthere left that thinking about
(18:10):
the white guilt they had.
I mean, that's performative.
When we start making thingsperformative, they lose value
instead of saying like, okay,how do we address this?
And a lot of the times, what weend up seeing is we end up
seeing people who are not evenpart of the community giving
lessons and giving trainings onhow to be inclusive.
(18:34):
Well hello, could we, I don'tknow, be any more ironic about
the whole thing?
Right, absolutely.
That's another problem.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
I would say that's, you know, possibly problem
number one Right now.
What does scare me and I don'twant to get too scared and
overwhelmed yet, because Trumpisn't in office yet, but that
was one of the things he talkedabout in the campaign quite a
bit was just getting rid of allprograms that teach ethnic
diversity and inclusion, because, you're right, we don't need
(19:09):
white people schooling masses,masses of people about how to be
inclusive, but we do needreally good educators to be out
there doing the work in theright way.
And they're out there, you knowthey're, they're doing hard
work right now.
It's just a matter of findingthem and giving them credit.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
I obviously cannot speak for racism as a white male
I can't do that but I can speakto homophobia and being gay and
having gone the whole gamut, Imean I know, when I was in my
twenties I was convincedeverybody was homophobic and I
was on this need to correcteverybody.
As I've gotten older, I'verealized that actually not as
many people as I thought werehomophobic were actually
(19:49):
homophobic.
A lot of that was created by myown experiences and what I was
being told was homophobia, and Icertainly do not want my entire
identity linked to being a gaymale.
When it's relevant, sure we cantalk about it.
If it's about me beingdiscriminated against,
absolutely let's talk about that.
But I think that's really theonly time it needs to be talked
(20:12):
about.
Like anybody else, I'm aculmination of lots of different
things.
That isn't just the wholeidentity of who I am.
It's part of who I am andthat's why I think we run the
risk of swinging.
When one side gets crazy, theother side gets crazy, and
that's part of the pendulum.
So much as we want to advocatewhen it gets to a point of
(20:35):
absurdity, we can't then look atthe other side and be angry
that they're getting just asabsurd.
I mean, there's an equilibriumto things In life.
Everything tries to findbalance.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Yeah, no, definitely, and I think you know identity
is a very personal, individualthing.
It drives me crazy when peoplemake big, sweeping
generalizations about peoplebased on one aspect of one part
of who you are.
Every person should be able toidentify as whoever they are, in
whatever way they want to, aslong as it's not hurting other
(21:10):
people.
Which actually, if you want,brings me to a really good quote
that I found while I wasresearching.
The quote comes from StephenCornell, 1987.
And this was an article in theAmerican Indian Culture and
Research Journal, and the quoteis the question is not whether
the American dream contains roomwithin it for all those who
(21:32):
wish to play a part, but whetherthe United States can tolerate
within its midst those who havea radically different dream and
grant them the freedom to pursuethat dream on their own terms.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
That's a great quote, because freedom is an illusion.
Freedom means that you stay inthe confines of what you're
supposed to do, which is notfreedom.
There's a satirical comic, andI don't even know who it is.
I just happened to see it oneday on media.
Didn't write it down so I can'treference it, unfortunately,
(22:04):
but it showed a picture of kidsin a classroom with their heads
open and there was like a lightbulb, like a really bright light
bulb, and the teacher was likesmashing the light bulb as they
were walking down the aisles.
And I think I jokingly saidthis to somebody recently when I
was growing up.
Surprise, surprise.
One of the comments I got on allmy report cards in elementary
(22:25):
school was talks too much, butlook what I do for a living.
That was shot down the wholetime I was going through school.
That was actually what I endedup making an entire career out
of was my ability to communicate.
However, I was told over andover and over again bad, bad,
bad, bad, bad.
Stop talking, stop talking,stop talking.
(22:50):
And that's just my personalexperience.
I would imagine that I haveanother friend.
I haven't talked to her in along time, but I remember she
struggled through through highschool and middle school she
came.
She had a very difficultupbringing and I remember she
went to her guidance counselorwho told her to drop out of
school and become a prostitute,because that's all she'd ever be
good at.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
Oh my gosh, that's terrible.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Right.
So you think about again.
There's a certain normativitythat we have to fall within.
That's not freedom, that's acookie cutter mold of what we're
supposed to look like.
You see how many people getcanceled now when they speak out
against genocide.
Andrew Garfield just gotthey're trying to cancel him
(23:29):
because he made a comment aboutwhat was happening in Gaza.
If you don't match the statusquo, if you don't fit what the
real leaders of this countrywant, they try to cancel you in
many different ways.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Yeah, and I think what you're talking about,
especially with schools, is theway that culture defines
American identity and the ideaof an American dream.
You know where the schoolsthemselves teach things that
just aren't true.
Yeah, and they ignore hugetracks of you know, part of our
(24:00):
history, and then it becomeslike this big political
conversation on the news aboutwhat's right or not right to
teach kids.
You know.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
It's funny that history becomes so controversial
when it's just history and I'mnot trying to minimize it, I
mean there's no, you can'tchange history.
It is what it is and we canpretend that it's something else
.
The problem is that it justkeeps repeating itself and
anybody who understands historycan predict where everything is
(24:32):
going to go, because it alwaysends up in the same way.
When you talk about theAmerican dream, I think of what
I learned growing up.
You go to college, you getmarried, you get the big house
with the white picket fence, the2.5 kids and you live happily
ever after with your greatretirement Boy.
(24:53):
What a lie.
That is Many different ways.
That that's a lie.
Growing up as somebody whocouldn't get married, you know
that obviously was not true forme.
I mean, you know now that's notthe case, but back then it
certainly was.
And again, that's just one ofmy experiences.
But talk about other, likeracial disparity, being a woman,
(25:14):
poverty, like all of thoseNative American, all of those
other things that impact peoplegrowing up, and what that
American dream looks like whenit's not true to begin with, I
mean we're all chasing somethingthat doesn't exist.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Right, and you know, when I think about my childhood
specifically, I think about howbig a part Disney played in my
childhood, yeah, and, and theDisney princess, and what a
crack of baloney that was, youknow.
But I do think that's anotherarea, you know, like we didn't
have a black princess until like10 or 15 years ago.
(25:50):
Like that's ridiculous, that'sabsolutely ridiculous.
So not only do we have thesevery distorted ideas of like
these dreams that were neverpossible, but then we have just
pure racism in the midst of ittoo I have to tell you I was
never a disney kid, but I was adisney adult for many years,
(26:10):
from like 2015 to 2021, I think.
I went three to four times ayear well, I could say the same
thing about rom-coms.
Right, true from the 80s and90s.
How many gay rom-coms are there?
Speaker 2 (26:25):
either.
The great part I have to saythis is the funny I think I even
mentioned this on one of theother episodes the great part of
seeing the first gay hallmarkmovie, for, like the holiday, I
watched it.
I'm like god.
It's just as bad as thestraight ones.
They certainly did give usequality, because it's garbage
like the rest of them.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
You know, actually, I think the funny thing about
that is the two men that wereactually actors are husbands in
real life.
So I mean, how much were theyreally acting to begin with?
I mean, it's just, it's such, a, such a lie.
You know, hollywood sells usand I will say that I do not
support disney anymore becauseof their political stances and
what they fund, but I used to betheir biggest advocate.
I do.
You know how many people I gotto go to disney?
(27:06):
Oh my god, I probably got like15 people to go to disney and I
I spent.
I added up how much money Ispent and it was more than my
mortgage, like what I had lefton my house wow, in that amount
of time, and now they're notgetting another dime from me
ever again.
So, speaking of money, I do wantto talk about some of the
(27:26):
financial stuff, because this isthe stress that Americans feel.
I did a lot of looking atnumbers, and I did not.
You would ask me earlier if Ilooked at racial disparity on
this.
I did not.
I do think it's important interms of how much worse it would
be.
I think what I wanted tohighlight, though, is that it's
(27:46):
bad all around, so it justbecomes worse and worse.
Understanding how bad it is isjust the umbrella, and then, if
people want to look at how itimpacts them, they certainly can
.
The average salary in thiscountry this is according to
ZipRecruiter of a person whogoes to college and immediately
(28:06):
gets hired outside of college isabout $50,000.
It's $49,574, which, if you askme, is really low.
The median rent in the UnitedStates is $1,634, which is
$19,000 a year just in rent.
According to HUD, no more than30% of your income should be
(28:30):
spent on rent.
That is, 4,000 more than 30% ofthe income based off the
$49,000 that I gave you soalready.
There, you're a little bitscrewed the $49,000 that I gave
you.
So already there you're alittle bit screwed.
The average credit card debt inthis country is $9,000.
That's for the average singleperson.
The average student loan debtand this is from the Federal
Reserve and Census Bureau is$38,000 per year.
(28:54):
The average payment for thatstudent loan, according to US
News, is $352 a month, whichtranslates to $4,030 a year.
The average cost of child carefor one child ironically the
highest in the country isConnecticut, where I live is
$27,000 a year for one child.
(29:15):
Now the lowest was South Dakota, I believe, and that was
$14,800 annually.
So if you average it out, thatis $1,708 a month for child care
.
As a national average, 64% ofAmericans this is according to
(29:35):
Forbes who do not have healthcare insurance have it because
they can't afford it.
According to Forbes, who do nothave health care insurance have
it because they can't afford it.
The average cost of utilities inthis country and that is
according to InvestGuiding is$429 a month, which breaks down
to $5,148 annually.
The average cost of groceriesagain this is according to
(29:57):
Forbes for one person is $336 amonth, which averages out to
$4,032 a year.
According to Experian, theaverage car payment in the
United States is $734, and theaverage insurance is $158.
I did actually lower this justfor the math, because most
people, I'm sure, are not paying$734 for the car insurance.
(30:22):
I dropped that down to about$600.
The average insurance is aboutright.
That comes out to $9,696 peryear.
Now, when you add all of that upand I don't think I missed
anything Let me go through thenumbers Now.
Keep in mind this is notincluding things like cell phone
bill, gas utility I mean no, itisn't killing utilities like
(30:43):
expenses, other things you might, clothing, things you would buy
for yourself, things you wouldbuy for your kids.
Once that is deducted from thatnumber, I gave you a 49 000.
That leaves 5 760 left fromyour annual salary, which
equates to $480 of expendablemoney a month.
Oh, quite the American dream.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Which most of that money would go to things like
cell phone, wireless, thingslike that.
And Matt, just to clarify, didthat include healthcare or not?
Speaker 2 (31:20):
No, that actually did not include healthcare.
The only thing healthcare costsare wildly different depending
on if you work for an employerthat matches it or if you are
self-employed like me, who hasto go through the healthcare
exchange against the shittiestinsurance possible for like
super high money.
That does not include that.
So if we were to take that out,I mean obviously the number
(31:42):
would be a lot lower.
I mean, I pay almost $500 amonth for healthcare insurance,
so that would wipe that out forme if I made that number.
But then again, if I made thatnumber, there would actually be
a subsidy for healthcare, soit'd probably be less than that,
but we could say definitivelyit would cut that number in half
.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
So I mean we're looking at a family or an
individual that can't survive.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Yeah, and then what we do as a country is we look at
these people and we call themlazy and we say, god, they're
just, they're living with theirparents and they can't get out.
Well, of course they can't getout.
It's impossible.
It is like statistically andfinancially impossible.
You can't get out.
It's impossible.
It is like statistically andfinancially impossible.
You can't get blood from astone.
(32:27):
And if you're already coming outof college in this incredible
debt from student loans oh,there was a number I had about
that, by the way According toI'm sorry, I forgot about this
According to the Pew ResearchCenter, americans had $1.6
trillion in student debt as ofJune 2024, which is 42% more
than it was 10 years ago.
Wow, that's so much.
(32:48):
That's almost.
I mean.
Think about that.
In 10 years it's almost doubled.
And, of course, the cost theannual salary, has not doubled,
right, by any means.
Why are we?
This is the average, this iswhat the average American.
Of course, the annual salaryhas not doubled by any means.
Why are we?
This is the average, this iswhat the average American.
I would actually say this isprobably what the average
privileged American looks like.
(33:08):
Getting out of college, yeah,so if you are not privileged.
Again, it's worse.
Why are we all fighting amongstourselves when there's clearly
a bigger issue here?
The bigger issue is these costsare not sustainable.
They're outrageous and they'repredatory and they affect the
(33:30):
large majority of Americans,regardless of what your identity
is, unless you're in that 1%.
This affects everybody.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
Especially for housing.
These days.
That used to be one of the fewthings that Americans could
count on to create wealth for afamily over time, but now most
people can't afford basicmortgage or down payments.
After COVID, so much cash wentinto the housing market.
Average people just couldn'tafford things anymore.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
I can tell you even here I mean, I bought my house
two and a half years ago mymortgage has gone up a hundred
dollars every year because oftaxes.
Wow, I mean, that's a lot,that's a lot I've never seen it.
I've never seen it go up thatmuch.
When I lived in Rhode Island itnever went up that much.
I was shocked, I was veryshocked.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
Another number I found that was kind of crazy is
to be considered poor in America.
For one person you have to make$15,480 or less.
So if you make, less.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
That's not poor, that's homeless.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Because you couldn't even afford to live basic rent
at that point.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
Right, right.
So you have to earn that amountor less to actually receive any
sort of federal money orMedicaid and things like that.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
When I tell you it's an absolute trap.
For those of you that maybe arenot in the United States, I
know we have a lot ofinternational listeners.
This may surprise you.
I don't know how much you knowabout it.
I'm sure it's not going tosurprise anybody in this country
, but I had a client that Iworked with for a really long
time.
They made $11 an hour and shemade $11 an hour for a good I
(35:17):
don't know seven, eight years.
She could not get a raisebecause if she did get a raise I
did the math on paper with herat the time and I think the
number was 13,000, if I remembercorrectly she would have lost
her child care subsidy, shewould have lost her health care
subsidy, she would have lostfood stamps, she would have lost
utility subsidies.
She would have lost utilitysubsidies when you looked at
(35:38):
everything she lost as opposedto how much she gained from
making a dollar extra an hour.
She ended up having to pay$13,000 more after making a
dollar more an hour, whichcreates a trap because she can't
get out of it.
At the time this was like Isaid.
(35:59):
This was probably like seven oreight years ago In order for
her to get out of that trap, shehad to make $23 an hour or more
, wow, otherwise she would bestuck.
Yeah, and unfortunately, that'sthe large majority of Americans
, and that is a 100% testamentto all of the special interest
(36:21):
groups that actually own ourcountry.
Again, it doesn't matter ifyou're Republican, democrat,
independent.
It doesn't matter where youfall on the political spectrum.
All of the politicians that wehave caused this.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
And I think one other thing that we can sort of talk
about when we're talking aboutthe American dream is quality of
health of life.
I'm sorry, when we're talkingabout the American dream is
quality of health of life.
I'm sorry.
Right now or in 2019, we had1.36 million people in prison.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
Um, I'm assuming the large majority of them are for
drug-related crimes as well.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Yes, yep.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
Not surprised by that , because you have to be high in
this country to seriously todeal with half this shit.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
So you know, as a country, we imprison a huge
population of people.
People of color tend to havelonger sentences and not to be
Debbie Downer, but in 2022, wehad 49,000 people die by suicide
.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
I don't have the numbers in front of me now, but
I do know I talked about this onanother episode.
The numbers of suicide in thiscountry have been going up every
year as have the numbers ofdepression, anxiety, ptsd, adhd,
autism, every mental healthdisorder you can possibly think
of, including interpersonalviolence.
Everything in this country isgoing up Everything Postpartum
(37:47):
depression, everything, which isno surprise that we are number
23.
Because you can only pushpeople down so far, right before
they break.
Yeah, absolutely, that's what'shappening.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
it's all by design, all of it and I think I don't
have no like exact numbers, butum, you know that we're seeing
that with children too, childrenwho need mental health services
.
Younger and younger childrenare considering suicide.
That is insane to me that youngpeople feel so terrible and are
(38:21):
so depressed that this issomething that's happening to
them.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
Yeah, so the American dream is a fallacy.
I think we can all agree tothat.
It's actually more like theAmerican nightmare.
Do you see it ever changing inour lifetime?
Speaker 1 (38:41):
I don't think so just because we've had such a long
history of it, you know.
But you know, I do always seeglimmers of hope and I try to
hold on to those.
You know, whenever we seesomebody else who is
marginalized get more rights, orwhen we see people showing more
compassion or, you know, doingreally excellent jobs.
(39:03):
There's glimmers, you know.
But I think the main problem offinancial disparity is really
disconcerting and it worries me.
It definitely worries me.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
Yeah, I mean.
It certainly is going tocollapse at some point in time.
There is no.
This is not sustainable by anymeans.
And the illusion of the middleclass is disappearing as well.
So we're starting to see moreand more people who can't afford
to live on a day-to-day basis,while we have major CEOs and
companies getting billion dollarraises every year and we wonder
(39:39):
.
But we keep supporting them.
You know, you think aboutthings like recycling like as,
as as dumb, as that is the firsttime I ever saw the trash
company picking up both therecycles and the trash and
putting them in the same in thesame like truck container.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
Was when I started to realize how much of an illusion
that is too, because the largemajority of recyclable problems
does not come from the averageconsumer.
It comes from these bigcorporations that get waivers on
all that stuff and don't haveto recycle.
But you know, the averageAmerican feels that.
Remember that stupid thing theydid in Rhode Island and I don't
know if it's still there where,in order to attempt to decrease
(40:22):
pollution and straws, they madeit so that Dunkin' Donuts and
any sort of restaurant likeMcDonald's, they couldn't give
you a straw unless youspecifically asked for it.
Well, all that led was to theservice people being abused by
the customers, because thecustomers realized how
ridiculous it was and then woulddisplace their anger on the
(40:44):
service workers, when in reality, those straws are doing less
damage than major companies whoare dumping toxins all over the
place.
But again, let's blame theaverage consumer, let's blame
the average person and turn themagainst each other.
That is not an American dream.
That is creating chaos.
That's dystopia.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
Right, yeah, yeah.
Unfortunately, during thesummer I pick up a lot of trash
on the beach and number oneproduct I do pick up on the
beach in Rhode Island is straws.
I don't think that measure hadany effect at all on the amount
of straws that are out there.
Of course it didn't, but it'sdefinitely disheartening to be
(41:25):
blamed as an individual forsomething when you know that
carbon, like large industrialcarbon emissions, causes so much
more problems.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
Yeah, it's disturbing .
I mean, the whole thing is anillusion, and I think more and
more people need to wake up tothat and change the way they not
only spend money, but reallystart to analyze what type of
country we live in and how wefix it, because we don't fix it
by turning against each otherright that is certainly not the
(41:59):
solution.
There's strength in numbers,there's strength in unity, but
it's easier to control peoplewhen you divide them, keep them
fighting against each other,keep them in poverty, keep them
fighting over resources, whenthere's plenty of resources to
go around for these people, youthink, think about those extreme
shoppers, the couponer, peoplewho would go in and get like 67
(42:21):
things of toilet paper and it'slike you don't need that, or the
ones that I guess that's a badexample 67 boxes of cereal
because they're never going toeat it, all it's going to expire
.
So you think about they'redoing it because it's like a
high, it's like this hoardermentality, but there's plenty of
resources.
Had you not done that?
And I know that that's verysmall scale, but you look at
(42:44):
that on a bigger scale.
Sure, and that's what happensis we don't.
We have the resources, we justchoose who we're giving them to.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
Yeah, I mean you see that with clothing all the time,
right Like right now, thereprobably exists enough cloth in
the United States to clotheeveryone.
You can either go to a thriftstore and get like a perfectly
fine sweater, or you can pay alot of money from a designer and
be, you know, culturallyaccepted.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
Was there one time in history I think I'm remembering
this correctly where somebodywas donating abracadabra clothes
to the homeless people and likeabracadabra was like flipping
out over?
It is that oh, I don't rememberthat I think that that I could
be making that up, but I vaguelyremember that because there's
such a you you know a nicheclothing store that likes to
(43:36):
market sex.
Speaker 1 (43:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:41):
Wow, that was a fun topic and forgive Cora and I,
both struggling with colds, sothat's why we are coughing and
sound nasally, but we do have.
Oh, I do want to say, core, Idon't know if you had a chance
to listen to the episode withdonna, but I did get tumblers
that I'm giving away tolisteners and I did have one
(44:02):
listener email me, so I'msending them a tumbler.
Why?
There's a couple, there's fourleft.
If people want to emailthoughts or ideas, I will
certainly send you a tumblerwith our logo on it, and we have
quite a few guest speakerscoming up right, quite a few
that we have some great topicscoming up.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
Yeah, yeah, I don't know if, uh, if, you want to go
into it, but we do have a lot ofguests trying to schedule for
the next month or two, so lotsof exciting stuff coming.
Speaker 2 (44:31):
I don't know, I I have this thing that every time
I mention a specific, it fallsthrough.
So I'm not mentioning specificsanymore.
I like that we just have a lotof guest speakers lined up with
some pretty good topics thatwe're going to be discussing,
and we are still open to topicsfrom listeners or having other
people on the show.
If you know anybody that wantsto guest speak, certainly we are
(44:55):
open to that.
So, everybody, thank you onceagain for tuning in to the
United States of PTSD and wewill see you.
Well, you'll hear us, I shouldsay, in a couple of weeks.
Thank you again.
Speaker 1 (45:08):
Bye, take care.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
Hello everybody and thank you again for listening.
(45:31):
This is just a reminder that nopart of this podcast can be
duplicated or copied withoutwritten consent from either
myself or Wendy.
Thank you again.
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.