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The Income Class Chart Is WRONG & America Is Mike Tyson
27 Plays7 days ago
Bruce and Jay are back for one more Sibling Happy Hour! Bruce drops an analogy he came up with that reframes the whole conversation about American power: America is Mike Tyson. Still muscular, still capable of hurting you, still living off an aura built decades ago. The two of them dig into what that reputation is actually built on and why the rest of the world may be reading it very differently than Americans do.
From there the conversation turns personal and infuriating with a Target gift card saga that spirals into a month long customer service nightmare, plus a real talk about boycotts, celebrity disappointment, and where loyalty actually lands.
Then the brackets come out. That viral 2026 income class chart making the rounds gets taken apart piece by piece, from median income by race to the net worth gap to whether anybody can really survive at the federal poverty line. Bruce and Jay get into why income and security are not the same thing and why some families have been starting from the bottom by design.
The back half is a reaction to the new Netflix crack cocaine documentary, and it goes deep. The economics of how crack opened a brand new market, the Contras and the convenient blind eye, the 100 to 1 sentencing disparity that Bruce once wrote a college paper fighting, and the crack baby myth that stripped real people of their humanity. It all builds to one question worth sitting with: when does America finally decide whether its story still matches its reality.
#UnsolicitedPerspectives #BlackPodcast #IncomeInequality #BlackWealthGap #CrackCocaine #SystemicRacism #MikeTyson #USMilitary #PovertyLine #BlackHistory #PoliticalCommentary #WealthGap #CrackEpidemic #blackexcellence
Chapters:
00:00:00 Welcome to the Sibling Happy Hour and a holiday break heads up 🎙😎📅
00:02:12 Bruce explains why America is becoming the Mike Tyson of nations 🥊🌎🤔
00:05:03 Mike Tyson's reputation outlived the dominance that built it 🥊⏳😳
00:07:14 Why America's military reputation may be living on past glory 🦅📉⚔
00:15:31 Target turned one gift card into a month long customer nightmare 🎁💳😤
00:23:35 The viral 2026 income class chart gets almost everything wrong 📊💵❌
00:25:57 Median income by race and the brutal truth of the net worth gap 💰📉⚖
00:27:42 Can anybody really survive on the federal poverty line today 💸🏚😩
00:34:27 Why Black families start at the very bottom and it is by design 🏠🚫📉
00:38:13 Geography, debt, and why income is not the same as security 🗺💳🛟
00:47:15 Reacting together to the new Netflix crack cocaine documentary 📺💊🎬
00:51:22 How a cheaper crack rock opened up a brand new mass drug market 💊💵📈
00:54:35 The CIA, the Contras, and Reagan's very deliberate blind eye ✈🌎🙈
00:56:53 The 100 to 1 sentencing law and Bruce's college paper fight ⚖📄😤
01:01:08 The crack baby myth and how those labels strip away humanity 👶📺💔
01:08:16 America must finally decide if reality still matches the story 🪞💭🔥
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Unsolicited Perspectives'
00:00:00
Speaker
What happens when the rulers say anybody can succeed, but the pathways to success keep disappearing? We gonna get into it. Let's get it.
00:00:21
Speaker
Welcome. First of all, welcome. This is Unsolicited Perspectives. I am your host, Bruce Anthony, here to lead the conversation in important events and topics that are shaping today's society. Join the conversation and follow us wherever you get your audio podcasts. Subscribe to our YouTube channel for our video podcasts, YouTube exclusive content, and our YouTube membership.
00:00:39
Speaker
Rate, review, like, comment, share. Share it with your friends, share it with your family, hell, even share
Sibling Happy Hour and Upcoming Topics
00:00:46
Speaker
with your enemies. On today's episode is the Sibling Happy Hour. I'm here with my sis, Jay Andrea. We're going to be dilly-dadding a little bit. Then we're going be talking about income classes. And then we're going talking about crack cocaine.
00:00:59
Speaker
But that's enough of the intro. Let's get to the show.
00:01:09
Speaker
What up, sis? What up, brother?
Podcast Break Announcement
00:01:12
Speaker
I can't call it. I can't call it. Before we get into the show, we get into dilly-daddling, I got to give the people an update. We're going to be taking a little break.
00:01:21
Speaker
Mm-hmm. The holidays is coming up, and we are taking a break now. We will not be releasing episodes next week. That's the week leading up to the 4th of July. We will be back that Tuesday after the 4th of July with this really dope interview that I did. So we'll be back in...
00:01:40
Speaker
in full effect then, but we're taking a week off. this is This will be the last episode until I believe the... seventh I think it's that Tuesday. Yes, the 7th. So enjoy this, ladies and gentlemen.
Exclusive YouTube Content
00:01:53
Speaker
But also, we got plenty of content on our YouTube. Plenty content that y'all don't... If you only listen to the podcast, I don't know why you only listen to podcast. Because if you're on our YouTube channel, there's a lot of stuff that's on the YouTube that isn't on the podcast. So you can go check that out. A lot nice videos of Bruce pissing me off. So please go on the YouTube and check that out.
00:02:16
Speaker
Well, I seem, some reason, you all seem to like that. So if that's, if you like seeing me get pissed off, watch our YouTube exclusives because I...
America's Intimidating Aura and Military Might
00:02:30
Speaker
Definitely get pissed off during those. Yeah, I tend to pick stories that are going to agitate my sister because i know that's good content. So yeah that's that's just the way it is. Yeah, I'm not sure.
00:02:41
Speaker
Jay, you asked me Rest in blood pressure.
00:02:46
Speaker
Look, rest in peace to both of our blood pressures on For Real, For Real. ah You asked me a question because you read the Rant Rundown and you were like, America is Mike Tyson. Bruce, what the hell does that mean? Yeah.
00:02:56
Speaker
Yeah. All right, so I came up with this dope analogy. To date, I was talking to somebody. And they were talking about this conflict with Iran.
00:03:08
Speaker
Mm-hmm. And they basically said something that that was just like, you know, we'll wipe the floor with Iran. And I was like, okay, explain to me how do you feel like we'll wipe the floor with Iran. They don't have the infrastructure to to handle us. We got more artillery, more bombs and anything like that. Do we?
00:03:27
Speaker
ah Well, we do. No, we absolutely do. We've been using a lot of them. Yeah. yeah The majority of them. But I said, okay, you're right, but I don't think that automatically equals us just rolling over them. I was like... Vietnam.
00:03:44
Speaker
ah Well, that's the point I was going to get to. i was like, if anything, history has proven that we just don't roll over people. And then I asked them a so ah a simple question. When was the last war that we won? War or conflict? War conflict?
00:03:59
Speaker
Yeah. And they were like, uh... And I was like, exactly, it's World War II. They tried to say Vietnam, and I was like, nope, that was a stalemate. Then they said, well, Korea. I was like, no, that was a stalemate. I was like, the last order we won was ah World War II. Now, some people out there are going to come out and say, what about Desert Storm?
00:04:18
Speaker
Okay. Saddam was still in power after... after just a storm. So... So what about the war? What what about the Iraq War in 2003? Okay, yeah, no. I mean, like, military, like, like we toppled that regime, but...
00:04:33
Speaker
Did we win? We didn't really accomplish the the goals that we set out to accomplish right after we toppled the regime. So I can't claim that as a victory. But if you want to claim that as a victory, okay, cool. So you go all the way back to 1945 to had a lot of conflicts in between there that we haven't won. And they were like, what are you trying to say? was like, America is Mike Tyson. They're like, what do you mean by that?
00:04:59
Speaker
When you look at Mike Tyson's career, what somebody's, I saw somebody telling a story. It was on Juvenile and Manny Fresh's podcast. And they were telling the story. ah Juvenile and Manny Fresh have a podcast. Yes, they do. I don't know the name of it, but ladies and gentlemen, Juvenile and Manny Fresh have a podcast. Boy, oh boy. All right. right Everybody got a podcast. Yeah. Tongue in cheek here.
00:05:22
Speaker
And they were talking about, yeah, Mike Tyson came in the hood with no socks, Timberlands on, just taking people's weed. And everybody was like, that's Mike Tyson. Nobody's messing with Mike Tyson. And I was like, yeah.
00:05:33
Speaker
But then I thought to myself, no, it's the aura. It's the myth of Mike Tyson. Because Mike Tyson hasn't won a significant fight.
00:05:44
Speaker
against a quality opponent since 1995. Yeah. yeah We just saw him fight Jake Paul. Jake Paul and look like a very old man. Well, he is.
00:05:59
Speaker
I mean, he is. But if you ask people about Mike Tyson, they say, man, I ain't messing with no Mike Tyson. I ain't messing with Mike. Because we've seen him knock people out. Not recently. That's the point trying to make. Yes. Not recently. We've seen him knock people out. Not recently. But if he even has a little bit of that left in the tank,
00:06:22
Speaker
That aura is enough where we're just like, no, we're not going mess with him. Okay. So I get it. But he's proven that he doesn't have that little bit left in the tank. Right. doesn't. So then you get small fries like Jake Paul challenging you. Who still win the fight. And this is the point I'm trying to make, right? Yeah. To ordinary people...
00:06:42
Speaker
that have that grew up watching Mike Tyson knock people out. He still has this aura that even though when we've seen him getting beat consistently in fights, brutalized in fights, we still have this idea that he's big and bad and we're scared of him. yeah But fighters aren't scared of him because they see he's not what he was. And I said, compare that to Iran when they was like, what about if the U.S. does an invasion, a ground invasion? And they were like, we welcome it.
00:07:12
Speaker
And then Americans was like, are they stupid? No, because they i wasn't and well they're looking at history and they're saying, when has america America been that mighty thing that they once were? It's been a very, very long time. So America has this aura, especially for Americans, that we're this big, mighty thing, when in reality, it's all a bunch of window dressing.
00:07:40
Speaker
yeah Mike's still got the muscles. Mike's still got muscles. When he spawn, he still looks dangerous. We have the military might. We got all the bombs and and and missiles and planes and all that stuff.
00:07:54
Speaker
It will hit you. Mike can still hit you, and it will hurt. But don't mean it's gonna knock you out. It will hurt. It will hurt, but don't mean it'll knock you out. So that's why I said America is Mike Tyson. And people need to start to realize, people like China,
00:08:09
Speaker
Don't fear us. People like Iran don't fear. And there's a big difference in nations between China, who we look at as a real threat, and Iran, who we don't look at as a real threat, generally speaking, as Americans, but who see themselves as a threat.
00:08:27
Speaker
Yes. So America is Mike Tyson. They can honestly make AI Lego rap songs about us and bring us to our knees, to to be honest. like They didn't bring us to our knees. Look, I felt it. It hurt.
00:08:44
Speaker
all ah And ah people are going to be like, so what? You you don't love America? i didn't Those words didn't come out of my mouth. so You can be critical of something and still love it, y'all. like Those things can coexist. I can love my country and still be like, it needs work.
00:09:03
Speaker
And they're like, well, you're not a patriot. Yo, I feel like I'm more patriot. The highest patriot. Yeah, because I'm like, hey, I don't want to risk...
00:09:14
Speaker
these great American soldiers lives off of an ego trip. Right. Thinking that we just going to run people over. Right. That's not, that's not the case. And that's honestly the mentality of this administration. They think they can, they think, Oh, this America and our military might. and they think that they can just go in places and run, run things. But we have, do we don't have a history of that going well. Right.
00:09:42
Speaker
For over 80 years, i had to do the math real fast, it's 80 years. 80 years. World War two ended in 1945.
00:09:52
Speaker
1945. It was a stalemate in Korea. It was a stalemate in Vietnam. Korea was shorter. Vietnam was longer. It was a stalemate. The whole war on terror, the war in Afghanistan, stalemate.
00:10:04
Speaker
ah Stalemate. Yeah. so this and And this, with Iran, first of all, we went in and made a problem where there was none. So of about the closing of the strait.
00:10:20
Speaker
Yeah, there was. And they weren't. They were not a nuclear threat. Oh, well, ah yes and no. Yes and no. Did they have the capability? No.
00:10:33
Speaker
Do they want a nuclear weapon? Yes. People in hell want ice water. That don't mean that they're a threat. Well, people in can get ice water, but Iran can maneuver to get a nuclear weapon. so that's But not without the world seeing.
00:10:48
Speaker
True. the True. You know, that they can't do it. and then we step in. Them wanting something, that's great. When we see actual movement towards you getting that thing, then we step in. But he went in On on some or some nonsense, there wasn't a problem.
00:11:11
Speaker
it So the outcome the outcome of this conflict, regardless of what it is, is all is going to be a loss because there wasn't a problem in the first place and we wasted a lot of money and resources on a conflict that didn't need to happen. All right, there was a problem.
00:11:27
Speaker
they They just didn't go in for that problem. Had they... this administration stated, yo, y'all are killing people who are protesting you, your own people, at an alarming rate. This is a humanitarian crisis. You either end this or we're standing up for them, that's a totally different ballgame. That would have been justified to in. This administration not humanitarian. Well, OK.
00:11:57
Speaker
I'm just saying there are there were there are reasons to fight Iran. I'm not defending Iran at all. It is a regime that needs to be toppled. Yes. and i'm not And I didn't want to get into a debate about the administration. i know you like to, if you could dig at them.
00:12:15
Speaker
I'm talking about our perception of ourselves. Yes, yes. And how some people just don't realize, hey, that right hook ain't right hooking like it used to.
00:12:26
Speaker
It's not. You looking real Chuck Norris and Walker, Texas Ranger. Everything's in slow motion. Well, Walker was still whooping ass. them kicks was a slow motion because Chuck ain't have it. No, God rest his soul. I think they slowed it down because he was so fast. Chuck was maca.
00:12:49
Speaker
At the end, at the end. I'm going to say he had dementia or something. We caught him slipping toward the end. That's all I'm doing. they didn't slow down his kicks because his kicks were too fast. The man was 60 years old. His kicks were slow. Let's go this way.
00:13:09
Speaker
I still wouldn't mess with them. And in case of point, that's what I'm talking about with aura, right? It's that aura. You can't mess somebody that'll throw a roundhouse and some
Cultural Perceptions and Controversies
00:13:20
Speaker
Jabot jeans like that. Not Jabot jeans! And cowboy boots. that thing me No, I wouldn't mess with somebody like that.
00:13:30
Speaker
Jabot jeans! That's hilarious. All right, that's what I meant with America is Mike Tyson. Yeah. think I think that a lot of people still think that we live in it. And they want to go back in 1945, 41 to 45 when we enter in war. and the The generation that they dubbed the greatest generation, that wasn't. But I'm not going to get into that because I've already talked about that. But this perception of what you say you will... that says so I said, also, go back to that time and ask them people how happy they were.
00:14:03
Speaker
Well, I'm sure a certain segment of the population was was very happy during that time. Rich people, as they always are. why That wasn't the segment I was talking about. But, I mean, look, not all rich people are happy, too, by the way. Let's not...
00:14:21
Speaker
We're going to get into money in the second segment. But look, hey, let me ask you a personal question. You're making a hell of a lot more money than you used to. Are you happier than you were before? Hey, you mother... you our I almost cussed. You absolutely right.
00:14:37
Speaker
Yes, I am. But wait a minute. You got so many more things that's been happening that's been making you spend your money. I know, but I got it to spend. True.
00:14:47
Speaker
So... True. True. even Even when disaster strikes, I'm like, all right, well, at least I can take care of this disaster, whereas before I could not. All right. I mean, it is a little bit nicer with some money in your account. You'd be like, yes.
00:15:03
Speaker
I think our brother said, no money can't buy happiness, but it's much more comfortable to cry in the Benz. toyota Speaking of money, did I tell you about my gift card story?
00:15:21
Speaker
No. I have bought, purchased e-gift cards from Target before and sent it to people and never had an issue. Yeah.
00:15:33
Speaker
I bought an e-gift card for a person. a Celebration of something. I'm not going to get specifics.
00:15:42
Speaker
And it was ah it was a hefty gift card. It was $200 that I sent to this person. you know yeah And when they went to use it, they said, hey, I went on to the little My Balance Now thing, and it's saying there's a hold. I said, what?
00:15:56
Speaker
So that's embarrassing to me that I sent somebody a gift that they can't use. So I contact the customer service at Target. And they said, oh, well, sometimes this happens when somebody clicks on a link to go access their card and there are cookies involved and they'll lock up the card because hackers try to steal people's gift cards. And I said,
00:16:17
Speaker
Okay, it would have been cool if somebody had contacted any one of us, because you got yeah my email address and their email address. But but okay, how do we unblock this? This is me, I have my order ID number, here's my credit card number that I used to buy the gift card. Let's go ahead and get this block off. Oh, um we can't do that? We have to escalate it to technical services?
Frustrations with Corporate Policies
00:16:41
Speaker
All right, well, let's escalate it. Let's get this taken care of. What do you mean? Right. Do ask do the next step. It gets worse.
00:16:49
Speaker
It gets worse. I bought this on May 31st. As we're filming right now, it is June 24th. hu I contacted them that day and they said, okay, well, there's no block that we could take off, but we could issue you a refund. I said, cool, go ahead and credit the money back to my account. I'll just buy a new gift card, but I'm going to just go get the physical gift card and go meet this person and give them the gift card. But just go ahead and refund the money. Oh, we're going to have to send you a check.
00:17:18
Speaker
What? Okay. How long will it take for this check to get here? Seven to 10 days. Oh, excuse me. Business days. Business days is a lot different than seven to 10 days. Yes. Okay.
00:17:31
Speaker
I was like, so so let me just get this clear. And please forgive my... angst as I describe what I think you're telling me. Yeah.
00:17:43
Speaker
You're saying I just spent $200 for person's gift that I can't give to them. That I won't give my $200 back for two weeks. That if I want to give them a gift right now, I'm going to have to spend another $200, so I'm going to be out of $400 today to give them gift, and other won't get back for two weeks yes And this is all your fraud process. Their fraud process. Yeah.
00:18:11
Speaker
And this is the thing that get on my nerves about corporations. who's Who's running y'all? Because you would think you would think you would try to make processes as easy as possible for your customers because that's less of a headache for you.
00:18:31
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. You're right. If you could just credit and it's 2026, you can get stuff on a debit card instantly. You can instantly transfer money from your Apple pay. You can instantly transfer money from your cash. You can sell. So don't tell me something to get my money back. going to take seven to 10 business days. Don't tell me that when I know I can move money around instantly. Mm hmm.
00:19:00
Speaker
In a minute. In um and a minute. So you want to know when I finally got my $200? When? where Yesterday. I had to call them again. That more than 7 to 10 business days. Yep. I had to call them again and be like, yo, where is my money? And dig this here.
00:19:17
Speaker
It's a gift card, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. ah What I put on the gift card was $200. But the gift card actually cost $2.06. $2.06.95. two dollars six cents ah two two hundred and six dollars and ninety five cent Right. You got to pay some of the prices. There's service charge. Yeah.
00:19:33
Speaker
They sent me a check for $200. I want my $6.95. Yeah. yeah Where's my $6.95? Yeah. So you done made me wait damn near a month to get my money back. We're the 24. There's no 31st days in and June.
00:19:51
Speaker
But if there was, it would be a week from now. Yeah. Which then it would have been an entire month for me to get my money. Right? Yeah. Yeah. And you leaving out my $6.95? No. I want all my money. I need that $6.95. What they should have done is sent me an extra gift card to be like, we apologize. Because what happened now is because of this one instance and this horrible customer service experience, I will never get a gift card from Target ever again.
00:20:25
Speaker
Also, we supposed to still be boycotting them. Yeah, well, I forgot about that. We boycotting a lot of things and I can't keep up. I think that's just the one thing. No, it's it's always something.
00:20:38
Speaker
It's always something. It is always something. I can't exist in this country without us having to boycott something because we have found out Chuck Norris broke my heart. Yeah.
00:20:49
Speaker
Chuck Norris. Mine too. I was a huge Chuck. I love Chuck Norris. All his movies. Sidekicks. Come on. Next thing you're going to tell me, if Julia Roberts ever turned MAGA, especially after Martin Luther the King's family.
00:21:07
Speaker
No, it was Martin Luther the King. Martin Luther the King paid for her to be born. If she had ever turned MAGA, just go ahead and end our entire world tonight. Yeah. We don't even want it. I don't even want it no more.
00:21:19
Speaker
donating i Don't even want it no more. Throw the whole thing away. Not America's sweetheart. that I mean, is she America's sweetheart? I don't know. I think it's Sandra Bullock. um I don't know.
00:21:30
Speaker
I don't know, because she got that controversy from the blind side. That's true. I mean, ain't her controversy. Yeah, she didn't know. Yeah, she didn't know. But she associated
Income Classes and Economic Disparities
00:21:41
Speaker
with it. But, you know. She associated with it. And then she has her own black son, and it's like, Sandra. Oh, she's like, Sandra got a black son? Yes.
00:21:51
Speaker
Her son, Louie. All right. She could have a black man, too. Uh, Nat, no. Yeah. On that note, we're going to get into something that Jay wanted to discuss, and it's about money. Go figure. We're going to get into that next.
00:22:13
Speaker
All right, Jay, you sent me this interesting clip the other day, and it was talking about the income... What? Charts? The income classes?
00:22:28
Speaker
Yeah. all right. The income classes for 2026 in the United States. And it was interesting. and Some of it was factually incorrect. So I had to a little bit more research. course, it's the internet.
00:22:42
Speaker
But it was still interesting. Do you want to go into it or you just want me to just... give everybody the background because this is essentially okay all right you're push all the work back on me and it was your idea okay that's fine yeah um yeah you know what i do i send you something i say topic question mark and then you do all the work and then i come in and give my two cents and the audience loves it
00:23:13
Speaker
That's how it goes. That is the premise of this show. That's it. All right. So there is a chart going around claiming to lay out the 2026 income classes in America, poverty all the way up to upper income with the exact dollar cutoffs. We're going to run down a little bit of what it is. So the the the viral chart blends two real sources, the Federal Poverty Guideline and Pew Research Income Tiers. But inverse, extra categories, neither source actually uses. So this is what they actually, they they kind of... They made their own thing they made off of real sources. Yeah. So here's what's real.
00:23:55
Speaker
2026, the federal poverty line for one person, that's just a one-person household, it's just them living and surviving on their own. It's 15,960.
00:24:09
Speaker
There are people out there trying dollars. American? American. Per year. Per year. There's people out there. And they consider that the federal poverty line. Now, going to get into geography like later.
00:24:25
Speaker
Then Pew has real tiers, the national median household income, which is $83,730. And that's sized for three-person household. So what would typically be a mom, dad, and a child, right? Median is $83,730. Lower income falls roughly under $55,000.
00:24:48
Speaker
a year And median income ranges from the $55,000 of the lower tier to $167,000 a year, with the upper income above a year. okay What the did is it split up single middle income, to and built in three made- up tears but like lower middle middle and an upper upper middle And so basically they did like from 55 to 83 is the lower middle from 83 to like 115, 120 was the middle middle. And then from that number, 120 to 167 was the upper middle, which I mean, that, that kind of fits. That's not an official thing, but that kind of fits. Yeah. Yeah.
00:25:34
Speaker
Here's what's crazy, and I got to go back to 2024 to get these statistics. The median household income based by race in 2024. For black folks, it was $56,000 a year.
00:25:48
Speaker
For Native Americans, it was $59,000 year. For Hispanic, it was almost $71,000 a year. for hispanic it was almost seventy one thousand dollars a year For white folks,
00:25:59
Speaker
it was ninety two thousand dollars a year And for Asian folks, it was $121,000 a year. But dig this The wealth gap is even worse. The black median household net worth is $33,000 a year, as opposed to the group that has the highest net worth.
00:26:23
Speaker
Asian-Americans at $384,000 a year. The middle class has shrunk for years straight, of Americans down while the lower income and upper end care income tiers both grew so yeah that's what's going on in america today And when you look at those wrong numbers, it's $16,000 is the poverty line? No, it's not.
00:26:59
Speaker
You got to make another $20,000 to to hit poverty. That number is abysmally low. I feel like even if you live in a rural area and you have roommates, how much is your...
00:27:18
Speaker
rent to live where 15,000 is sustainable. Yeah, I don't know because you got to also think life is not just rent.
00:27:31
Speaker
We have a lot more expenses now than we did previously. We didn't used to in the fifties pay for cable. Nobody was paying the cell phone bill or internet bill.
00:27:43
Speaker
Now, what some people will say are though those are luxuries. You don't necessarily have to have any of those. Please, if you don't have a phone or internet, you can't work from home?
00:27:56
Speaker
Well, no, you can't work from home, but I don't think anybody making $15,000 a year is working from home anyway. Right. But was like, but you don't even have the opportunity to. ah Yeah. No, you can't.
00:28:07
Speaker
Well, the thing that... drives me crazy is $15,000 is not take home. That's what they make. Yeah. You still got to pay taxes even if you are $15,000. You still got to pay taxes. So I'm like, what are they bringing home? $1,000 a month? Even if your rent is $500 a month, you still got to pay for food.
00:28:28
Speaker
I think there should be a floor to paying federal taxes. I think there is? It needs to be a lot higher than whatever it is.
00:28:39
Speaker
oh Like, my thing is, you just because you don't want to pay federal taxes. No, like 30,000. If you make less than 30,000. You're exempt because, like, honestly.
00:28:53
Speaker
i think 30,000 still is got to be it's still going to be you in a low income area rural area, something like that.
00:29:06
Speaker
No, i think I think the floor for paying income tax, I don't know what it is, but it needs to be a ah lot higher than what it is. Because if you still have to pay taxes and you're at the federal the federal poverty line, that's wicked.
00:29:24
Speaker
yeah So get this. Under the age of 65, if you file single... It is you don't need to file a federal income tax return if your gross income falls below the IRS standard deduction limit, which is $15,750 for a single person. what the number gave? It was $15,000. The median income is $15,960.
00:29:43
Speaker
so what was the number that i gave it was fifteen thousand the median income is fifteen thousand nine hundred and sixty They got pay federal taxes. yeah that's not a lie but they got to pay it. It's not going to be a lot, but you have to pay it. And I think that that's act honestly ridiculous, especially when we see the income gap, the wealth gap continuing to expand. More people are following, falling into low income and upper income. But it's like, and I know it sucks, but if you make a bunch of money, you got give some of that back to the country.
00:30:22
Speaker
Yeah. But if you don't, So I often get into arguments with people that, you know, like, you know, I make i make the more money I make, the more money in the government gets. And I was like, yeah, okay. Like, I get it.
00:30:36
Speaker
I get it. But also you benefited from other people that paid taxes. What do you mean? i was like, you went to school, didn't you? Yeah. You driving a road? Thank people pay taxes. It ah goes towards everybody. So you got an opportunity to get a free education when you went to public school to give you an opportunity to make the money you're making the money now you got to pay it back you got to pay it forward or pay it forward you got to pay it forward that comes in paying your damn taxes and then you're a socialist probably i don't know I don't know the definition of it probably
00:31:16
Speaker
could look it up. i haven't. I don't know what any of that stuff means. I believe, yes. When you look at what you look at the ideology the ideology, what is supposed to be socialism, everybody will say... yeah everything in praxis is always breaks down. Even democracy. I'm sure you're right.
00:31:37
Speaker
the The idea of socialism is a utopia. The problem is there is always going to be somebody greedy. Yes. But we live in it. That's the problem with literally every kind of political structure. Is there somebody greedy?
00:31:52
Speaker
Always somebody greedy. But we already have socialist programs. Social Security is a socialist program. yeah So Medicaid is a socialist program. yeah Even though they're trying to get a snap, as a so we have socialist programs. The numbers that surprised me And I'm not attacking any racial groups out there, ethnic groups out there. No, you get your money where you can.
00:32:15
Speaker
How the hell are we the lowest median income household? Over... What, black? Black people? Yes. Look, I mean, okay. What you mean, how?
00:32:27
Speaker
I know how, but the Native American ones shook me because they literally, America threw them and gave them the worst land and they live in poverty, but I guess them casinos be hidden.
00:32:45
Speaker
ah Yeah, I mean, i don't I don't know. I don't know enough about... Me neither. I'm just making jokes, ladies and gentlemen. and I don't know why. I don't know enough about the economy of Native Americans in this country. but But as far as black people being at the bottom, I mean, that's by design. so yeah That's by design. And the fact that our net worth is $33,000...
00:33:12
Speaker
on On average? Or median? The median, not even on average. This is the word, the middle number. That means the network, if the middle number, the median, Mm-hmm.
00:33:28
Speaker
is 33,000. The spread of that ain't gonna be that wide. I mean, one, two, three standard deviations, the spread of that ain't that wide. I'm sure there's outliers of like people who are have absolutely no net worth and people who have a lot of millions, billions. I mean, because Jay-Z and Beyonce exist.
00:33:50
Speaker
They do. Okay, those are outliers. But when we look at that bell curve, or where people fall, like, it's abysmal.
00:34:02
Speaker
It's abysmal, but it's by design. You know, when you deny people access, when you institute ah things like redlining to keep us from home ownership, that's the main piece. To building generational wealth, to building wealth in general, but certainly generational wealth is homeownership. And so when you block people from homeownership, either by denying them access to neighborhoods, loans, what have you. or.
00:34:33
Speaker
or Saying their property isn't worth as much. Right. Taking down the property value of their home and their neighborhoods. Yes. Yeah. And then when they do, or or when we do build middle class neighborhoods and and towns and cities, you come and you raise them to the ground. So, like, when you keep denying people access to the things they need in order to build up a net worth and generational wealth, then...
00:35:07
Speaker
naturally we're going to be at the bottom. And again, that's by design. And i think,
00:35:15
Speaker
sorry, I lost my train of thought. Hold on. Damn. How'd you lose your train of thought? It that quick. It was that quick. Age. Age. I'm getting old. We were talking.
00:35:28
Speaker
I'm leaving this in. I'm leaving this in. Don't leave this in. No, because I lost my train of thought. Hold on. I was going to say something. I'm a filibuster until you bring back your train of thought. No, because when I mess up, you're like, no, leave it in. And you never leave it yeah Yes, I do. Every time I mess up, I be leaving it when I do the stumble stuff, not when I actually have to do the cuts. But when I do the stumble stuff, I leave it in. But you losing your train thought, they need to see it. that Look, they need to realize I'm out here doing all the work. All you got to do is come in and bring some damn opinions. And then here you are. And then lose my train of thought. Lose your train of thought. Well, in my defense, I've been thinking all day, right? Like, in my job, I think so all day, okay? I think all day. So, what you you asking me to do some more thinking. I'm asking you react.
00:36:25
Speaker
ain't got a lot of brain cells. They not firing on all cylinders, okay? Look, we were talking about we were talking about our Black people, right? don't have a lot of income, don't have a lot of wealth. That's that's what we were talking about. is it Is it coming back to you at all? Yeah, I think I made my point. i don't know.
00:36:45
Speaker
I think I made my point. That all of that, that that if you're surprised by the numbers coming out of Black households, you shouldn't be. This is by design. This is how America was designed. It was to have someone be on the bottom. And unfortunately...
00:37:04
Speaker
It's us. And they're going to continue to promote laws and systems and things like that that continue to keep us on the bottom because that lets them maintain and consolidate power at the top and wealth at the top.
00:37:24
Speaker
Somebody has to be at the bottom of this pyramid. But also the people at the bottom of the pyramid are what's holding it together. Mm-hmm. So once we recognize our collective power, like really, really tap into it, we can see these numbers shift.
00:37:44
Speaker
I agree with everything you're saying. Another thing that there are going to be some people in rural areas and look at eighty three thousand dollars. Yeah, that's a lot of money. And in some cases, it is a lot of money. Geography matters here. yeah You know, in the clip, it talked about, hey, New Jersey, New York. You can't live off sixteen thousand dollars and you can't.
00:38:01
Speaker
No, you can't. Maybe in some rural areas, there's a way that you can make it work. But hell, let me be real honest. Where I live, the median income, I believe, is $150 or $160. Or no. and that's for like a multiple family home. And that's just the the lower income just to survive. yeah And people are like, well, you could just move.
00:38:26
Speaker
Maybe. But you got to go where jobs are. Yes. If your job happens to be in a high income area, the hope is that your job pays you enough to live in that area or you got to commute. And in a DMV area, I know people that commute two hours, yeah three hours round trip to to work.
00:38:47
Speaker
and And it's still expensive even after commuting that three hours. So yeah it's for people out there that are just like, that's a lot of money. You can make it work. There's always going to be some people out there that don't want to put themselves in other people's shoes.
00:39:00
Speaker
Geography matters here. Yes, yeah it is great that in your rural town of Idaho, $20,000 a year, you got the four bedroom a house and and two acres, and you got a brewery in your backyard. Now, I'm exaggerating, but that's great, okay? Yeah, yeah.
00:39:19
Speaker
You can't have that here in the D.C. area. The rats won't even live where you're trying to live if you got $20,000 a year. You can't. So that so that matters.
00:39:31
Speaker
What it shows me, more than anything, is that America is American. And this is what I mean by that. Because you've seen the middle class shrink, so everybody in the middle yeah becomes smaller.
00:39:46
Speaker
and you And you see the haves and the have-nots expand. And that's how you get a tri-gribbly in there. Yeah.
00:39:57
Speaker
Not a trillionaire, a tri-gribbly in there. Yeah. purposely missaid that, ladies gentlemen, and make fun of the fact that we have a trillionaire. Actually, i don't know if he's a trillionaire anymore because them stock prices have dropped. They came back down.
00:40:11
Speaker
we're talking to Who are we talking about? ah That's South African. I don't claim him. I'm just talking about he's a trillionaire. He's he's the first trillionaire in the world.
00:40:23
Speaker
so hes He's the first trillionaire in the world. Well, I don't know. out of Is that true? How much money would Mansa Musa, like, if we took his wealth i don't into today, how much would he i don't i don't know.
00:40:39
Speaker
I don't know. Y'all stop buying them Teslas. What the hell? Why y'all still buying those? Stop. There's so many other EVs out there. and like Stop putting money in this man's pocket. that's not what keeping them That's not what's keeping them afloat.
00:40:53
Speaker
It's the Starlink contracts. SpaceX is actually... SpaceX as a product is actually losing money. Tesla is actually losing money. But his government contracts and Starlink, that's what that's what's propping up the entire thing. Sounds like me. It's a house on stilts.
00:41:11
Speaker
But regardless, it seems like the American economy is a house on stilts because you can't have the haves and the have-nots dominating while the middle class is at 51%.
00:41:24
Speaker
yeah can't have that can't yeah i think i think capitalism right is operating as as expected in this country yeah and that's why you're seeing the middle class essentially disappear i mean what's also crazy to me is that like ah So these pew ah real tears, like are these three-person households, they're saying middle-class income for three people, 55, starts 55?
00:42:03
Speaker
Yeah, because youve got you got to take into effect, once again, in the areas that you live, yeah, that's that's not a lot of money. But in other areas, it is. And it's the media, yeah right? He's taking in everything. So, yeah yeah. I mean, you're going to have, just like when we was in class and you had the grade on that curve, you'd be mad as hell when somebody, like, aced it. You're like, yo, you messed up the curve.
00:42:26
Speaker
Yeah. So you got these. Yeah. the Outliers need to drop them. You can't drop them, then that's not median. That's that's that's not what that is. That's not how you do calculations, okay? You can't just drop them outliers. No, you can't just do that. Just drop those outliers. No, I mean, that's really what median does. It compensates for that as opposed to them doing on the average, which would be much more highly affected by outliers. That's why they take the median, but that's...
00:42:57
Speaker
I feel like that's low. And that's maybe because I live... I've typically lived in areas that are expensive to live in Not currently, but in the past. So I... Well, Atlanta's not cheap. It's starting to get much more expensive. Yeah, no, it's starting to get expensive. I think also...
00:43:19
Speaker
What this thing showed me, there something I already knew from personal experience, is that income isn't the same as security, right? Like, the net worth gap, the actual cushion, like, a family or a person have is way more extreme than the paycheck gap. So, yeah, like, you could be living right next to your neighbor and y'all bring home the same paycheck, but...
00:43:41
Speaker
right Did they have help putting on that down payment? hu Or did they inherit that home? Did they inherit that home? Like, all that stuff kind of matters. I had a friend of mine who didn't... whose parents paid for them to go to college. They just wrote a check, and it didn't. So they came out of college with no debt, right? So they could start fresh and clean. Whereas me... And I'm not knocking to for that. God bless them.
00:44:05
Speaker
God bless them. Shout out to that. But I remember... when it was we got to adulthood and they were like, hey, i'm about to buy this place. And they was like, you should buy a place in the building too. It was this new condo building going up. They was like, you got it because you make more money than me. So you got it. So I don't know why you won't do it. I was like, man, I don't i got it like on a day-to-day basis, but it's not like I have wealth. Like I don't have a cushion. And like, yeah, you can move in and you ain't got no debt.
00:44:39
Speaker
Like, put in, and I'm coming in with debt already. So it's ah it's a little different of a ballgame. Yeah, you got to look at that whole balance sheet, not just assets. There's liabilities on there, too. So, like, when it when you get down to that bottom line, no, you're in a better position than I am, even if you have ah a lower income than I do. Yeah. Yeah.
00:45:05
Speaker
So people may look at these numbers and say, oh, i'm middle class. But are you? Because if you got a lot of debt, you ain't living like that. I know people that are in the middle class numbers, and it's just like check to check.
00:45:19
Speaker
Check to check. Check to check. You living check to check. Sometimes it's their own personal you know decisions. Sometimes it was stuff that was completely out of control. Life be lifing. Yeah. Yeah.
Crack Cocaine Documentary Discussion
00:45:39
Speaker
Jay, this was not going to be a topic, but I thought about it this morning, and I was like, no, this is going to be a whole segment. Because I think it ties in good to everything that we were talking about already. And you've been watching this do documentary, and the documentary is called Crack. Crack.
00:45:58
Speaker
Cocaine, Corruption, and Conspiracy. It's on Netflix. It came out in 2021. It's directed by Stanley Nelson, who also did Freedom Riders and the Black Panthers. yeah It's about 90 minutes, and it's divided up into, like, three different chapters. You were having a ball watching it.
00:46:17
Speaker
Yes. One, why were you having a ball watching this documentary? I think it's like weird to say, but it was oddly nostalgic ah because i i don't remember the 80s as well, but I definitely remember the early ninety early and mid 90s. And it was just like...
00:46:40
Speaker
I, ah i ah we knew people living living a good life until they wasn't, you know, involved with that crack rock as distributors. Yes, as distributors. I didn't know nobody living a good life smoking. No, no. But we also knew people that was users as well. yeah But, you know, like, it it it i I mean, I guess not nostalgic, but it was just like, oh, I remember that time and it.
00:47:12
Speaker
And for some people it was great until it wasn't, and then for some people it was horrible. And i think this documentary did a really good job of of talking about all the nuances of not just crack, but the drug war on drugs in general, how it started, the hypocrisy, the involvement of the US government in the proliferation of crack cocaine,
00:47:38
Speaker
in throughout the United States, but specifically how it ravaged urban areas, black and brown areas, to be quite honest, low-income black and brown areas. So I think it really did, it it gave ah you a good overview of like, yeah, we were living the high life and making money and this, that, and the third, but o there are places that, including where I live, that still have not recovered from the devastation that was crack.
00:48:12
Speaker
Yeah. So, like, it's divided up into three chapters. Greed is good. but They call it crack and street capitalists. And basically, they start out talking about America in eighty s the 80s, the extravagance, the lifestyles of the rich and famous. The people live in luxury lifestyle because there was a lot of disenfranchised white voters that And they voted to put Reagan in office, and Reagan did this Reaganomics type of economics. It's still trickling to the point now that's the reason why the wage gap is so disparaged and lower-income people and higher-income people have grown.
00:48:56
Speaker
as opposed and As opposed to the middle middle gap shrinking. And, you know, at that time, cocaine was just a luxury drug. Like, i i mean, it was expensive. It was expensive. People like AZ and Rich Porter were selling that powder.
00:49:11
Speaker
Yeah. On the corner. But, you know. ah But it was seen as a like in the 80s, cocaine was seen as a drug of the elite. It was expensive to get. And it was just a party drug. Like nobody, nobody was checking for cocaine at all.
00:49:30
Speaker
and the and and And it was the reason was behind who was using it. Right? Like, who was using it? The whole thing about the war on drugs, to me, has always been about where the money is going. Who is getting rich? And when you start seeing black and brown people getting rich, then people start to have a problem.
00:49:56
Speaker
It wasn't so... Yes. And it wasn't solely just that. Yeah. Was... Is powder cocaine... just as deadly as crack cocaine.
00:50:08
Speaker
Kind of, sort of, maybe not. i think correct I think crack devastates the body yeah in a way that cocaine might take a little longer to get you there. Cocaine just takes longer to get there. Crack faster. That's it. and and that And supposedly, I've never done either one of them, but supposedly the hit from crack It's quicker than the snort of cocaine. It hits your brain within a few minutes. But more importantly, what happened was is there was a flood in the mid mid ah early mid-80s of cocaine, and the prices dropped. And then they learned how to cook cocaine, which later became crack. Crack also, once again, that's a...
00:50:56
Speaker
politicized word, what nobody calling it crack on the streets at the time that it was that it was originated. It was had different names in different areas, but a lot of people was calling it base.
00:51:06
Speaker
Yes. yeah Base is what it was called. It wasn't crack. Crack was one of them words that somebody on TV said something, and then there and it just kind of took on the name. But what it did was create a a mass market because it was a lot cheaper. Instead of buying up a $50 ounce bag, a $50 bag of ounce cocaine, you can buy a $5 crack rock.
00:51:31
Speaker
And so that opened up the market. And so a lot of these young dealers was getting rich. And that was the part that was funny in the documentary. Yes. is These look former drug dealers talking about how much fun they had. We was having a ball. no like I was like, okay, when they're gonna get to the part where crack is devastating? Because right now it looks like a lot of fun. They were talking to former users and they were like, I mean, when it hits you, it's like, I can walk from here to the moon. And I'm like, okay, this sounds great.
00:52:04
Speaker
And so you you and I have had this conversation before of why I would never use cocaine. And it is because I know I'm gonna get addicted to cocaine. The first time I have it, I'm going to have such a ball. Like, going to have so much fun that I'll be like, oh, let's do it again. Next thing you know, y'all are staging the intervention. So I know I can never do cocaine. I know my personality.
00:52:28
Speaker
That I'll be like, it's a party. We agree on that as far as the powder is concerned. Yeah. That rock is something different because we grew up in D.A.R.E. We grew up in D.A.R.E. So yeah if if you are a millennial and you took D.A.R.E., they scared the hell out of you about crack rock. Yeah. Here's a cra here's a crazy thing.
00:52:48
Speaker
Not we're not promoting drugs, but here's a crazy thing. I know people who were casual crack smokers. They described it as as soon as you smoke crack, you addicted, and you're going to swell up and then start to want to give fellatio to strangers on the street for cash. That's what they described it as. Now, because that was my introduction, I will never smoke crack because I don't ever want to be, like Whitney said, crack is whack.
00:53:14
Speaker
i wouldn't There are certain drugs I would never do, like crack, meth, bath salts, just because of what they do to you physically. Uh-huh.
00:53:27
Speaker
You know, I don't want my teeth falling on my head, my skin all... I don't want you to look at me and be like, oh, she on that stuff. Like, I don't... No. Maybe that's vain. Yeah.
00:53:39
Speaker
But if vanity keeps me from doing hard drugs... You say you take it do that That's fine. That's fine with me. yeah ah also love how the documentary told the history of it. Now, yes did America flood the streets with cocaine? No.
00:53:59
Speaker
They just turned this way and looked over here while it was happening over here. it Did the CIA bring in drugs into the U.S.?
00:54:14
Speaker
Technically, no. Technically, yeah. No, technically, no. It was on the planes coming back. It was on the planes coming back. And they they loaded it onto the planes. ah No.
00:54:31
Speaker
They testified before the Senate that they loaded 17 duffel bags and a couple boxes. And what was in those duffel bags and boxes? Cocaine.
00:54:42
Speaker
But they could turn a blind eye if it doesn't get said what it is If you don't tell me what it is and I'm just moving something, I don't know what it is. I know what it is. He testified. He knew what it was. Yeah, okay. All right. So the CIA was bringing The CIA was flying them planes back over into the U.S. s So why would the CIA do something like that? Well, there was a thing called the Contras, and they were fighting a war down in Nicaragua?
00:55:09
Speaker
yes ni Yes, in Nicaragua. Because we wanted to make sure, it's the Cold War, we wanted to make sure that these Latin American countries don't become communists. So we're funding the Contras, illegally, might I add, because Congress had told Reagan he couldn't do this. yeah And Reagan was like, I'm to do it anyway. Or what they like to say is that Reagan was senile at this time and wasn't in control the people around him was the ones doing it. Whatever, it was his administration. Right. That that turned a blind eye Because they needed to supply them with guns.
00:55:41
Speaker
And so they were in cahoots with people that were drug traffickers. I mean, hell, Manuel Noriega, but who the U.S. put in power, come to find out was a narco trafficker. So, yes, as the government is saying, we have a war on drugs. They are literally like, ah well, the war on drugs is for them. yeah And then then we got to the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act, which which created that 100 to 1 ratio of citizen disparity. Now, I've talked about it before.
00:56:18
Speaker
I know this from knowing people who got wrapped up in in the dope gang, you know what I'm saying, and and and gets dead time. Whoops, sorry. yeah You didn't i made me drop my mic.
00:56:30
Speaker
but Because you just started talking different. As if you were talking from personal experience. Personal as in that new folks. There's people in the in a dope game, you know. Stop it. Let's bring the microphone up to your mouth when you're talking next time. Yeah. all right and and And I wrote a paper my freshman year in college about it, and it was called The and the Racial Inequality of Drug Laws.
00:56:52
Speaker
ah And my professor was an older white lady, and she was like, she gave me a C on the paper. Now, you proofed the paper, so I know it was at least a B paper. No. Yeah, that was an A paper. I'm sorry. Yeah, it was at least a B paper. And so she gave me a C on it, and I was like, no, I'm not going to accept this. She was like, I just don't believe it. I'm like, don't believe it. Like, had my thesis statement. I had backed up my argument. I got it appealed, and it went before English department head, and he gave me a B. He pulled me aside. It was like, the paper is good. I can't go any higher than because he basically, it was a brother. He was basically like, yeah, work here. I work with Yeah, it's politics. But I'm going to give you a B on this one. But it's a political paper. It is a political paper. And what it was basically saying is for every 100 grams of cocaine, you get the same amount of time as you would one gram of crack.
00:57:45
Speaker
ah And somewhere in my... paper, i brought to up put the argument, that's absurd. Because you can't have crack without cocaine. Right.
00:57:55
Speaker
Crack and cocaine are not different things. No. Crack is just cooked up cocaine. it's just It's just the salt has been cooked out of it and the leaves you with the base.
00:58:08
Speaker
And that's why it's just base. It's just base. So you can have, you can do cocaine. yeah Like, you could do cocaine, right? But you can't do crack if you don't have cocaine. So why would it be 100 to 1?
00:58:24
Speaker
right Well, because people being arrested were... black and brown that was using cocaine, that was using crack, and everybody else was using cocaine. And then Len Bias died, and and that was all. if Look, they passed laws in in the 1994 crime bill. That's the reason why all these brothers is in prison now doing basketball sentences, because they had a few grams of that crack rot.
00:58:48
Speaker
and And because it's 100 to 1 sentencing, they got 54 years, and that's what talking about, basketball. And, yeah, So that's that's what basically happened.
00:59:01
Speaker
Yeah. And, you know, 500 grams of powder of cocaine you can sell. Five grams of crack, you gonna do. So, you you know what I'm saying? You can sell five grams of crack too. But my point is, you're penalizing the user.
00:59:23
Speaker
The 100 to 1 sentencing disparity is a penalization of the user when what you should have done was got them the medical and psychological help and resources They should have put them into rehab because it is a it is a health crisis. It is not a criminal crisis. True. Okay. They engage in criminal activity to get the money to get crack. If you get them off crack, then they're not doing the crimes.
00:59:58
Speaker
But if you just round everybody up and throw them in jails and prisons, prisons and jails, by the way, which have crack, you still get crack rock in prison.
01:00:09
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Like, you're not solving the problem. And that's why we're here now 40 years later, and guess what? You still got folks on crack. Yeah.
01:00:21
Speaker
Also, what is not true is the narrative of the crack baby. Yes. This was a big thing in one of those media panics in the nineteen eighty s and nineteen ninety s and the public was told the crack would create a lost generation, children exposed in utero would suffer permanent developmental damage, and entire communities would be dealing with irreversible cognitive disabilities. And we all believed it. But years of longitudinal research failed to support the most extreme predictions. Most medical experts later found...
01:00:54
Speaker
FX existed but were less catastrophic than originally claimed. Poverty, poor health care access, and environmental factors often had larger impacts than these quote-unquote crack babies. And the media coverage largely ignored all of these later later foundings. But the mothers were treated as irredeemable.
01:01:16
Speaker
and So you have a whole segment of the population just being like, lepers. yeah you know We're not going to deal with you. And once again, this is not to say The smoking crack rocket and then having a baby is in any way a situation in which... Yeah, don't do it. Don't do this. okay Don't do that. Don't do this. Obviously.
01:01:39
Speaker
but what it does is it makes mothers, particularly black mothers, right? and Like you said, irredeemable. What it does is strips them of their humanity.
01:01:51
Speaker
Because now we label them and we label their children. So when they remain in poverty... When they don't have, and and me mind you, being impoverished means a lack of access, right? To healthcare, adequate housing, education, all of that.
01:02:10
Speaker
So when they're in poverty,
01:02:15
Speaker
after you've you've completely diminished their humanity and whatever results from that results, right?
01:02:28
Speaker
sometimes a life of crime, sometimes not. But whatever the end result is or the destruction of that community or whatever, you can now say, well, of course. And that's inevitable and we shouldn't care. Because they deserve it because they're crack mamas having crack babies. And these are not people anymore.
01:02:47
Speaker
They're not human beings anymore. And i'm not I'm not even absolved of that kind of thinking. Right. where, you know, I had a friend of mine say she found out a friend of hers smoking crack casually. And she was like, hey, uh, we can't be friends no more.
01:03:10
Speaker
and You know? and And even I had to catch myself, even I was like, yeah, i have he's smoking crack, he don't want crackhead around you. But because you can label someone like that,
01:03:24
Speaker
It diminishes their humanity and you forget that what they are suffering from is a health crisis. Right. And that what they need is rehab. What they need are social programs built into the community to help people get off of these kinds of drugs. And and if you cover that in the media, then people are going to start asking, well, why aren't we doing that?
01:03:53
Speaker
because And then the government has to do something. Yeah, but you bring up an interesting point. The economic conditions behind the epidemic of this drug use That was the crack era, right? Crack doesn't appear in healthy, thriving communities. Many of these neighborhoods were already struggling before crack arrived, you know, because factories had been closed, loss of manufacturing jobs, yes deindustrials deindustrialization,
01:04:23
Speaker
earl brought urban disinvestment, yes shrinking economic opportunities for young young people. Legal economic pathways were disappearing. So drug dealing became one the few visible ways to make money. Yeah. You you think that you you don't. A lot of people don't think about urban de deinvestment. Right. But it's something as simple as a grocery store.
01:04:50
Speaker
Mm hmm. Where you don't have, like, not even grocery store chains are investing in placing grocery stores where people can get fresh fruits and vegetables in the community. So we're all shopping at corner stores and bodegas.
01:05:05
Speaker
Right. You know, like, it's even something like that is so detrimental to a community that, But again, if media reports that actually what we're seeing is this an economic issue, this is a political issue, well then,
01:05:26
Speaker
Now the hand of the government is forced, right? Because then people are wondering, okay, well, why are we not addressing this as a health crisis? Why are we not addressing this as a political crisis? No, what they want is to be able to label and then dismiss a population of people. And then what results in that?
01:05:47
Speaker
the The income, the wage gap, a the wealth gap. Mm-hmm. all of these things tie into each other. Yeah. This was just another way to disenfranchise a community. And it was, and it wasn't purposeful. No, but I think for the powers that be at the time, it was a happy accident that we're going to get what we want to get done in Nicaragua done. And ha we can also wipe out the black community.
01:06:23
Speaker
They didn't know we're still here thriving. No, yeah because we ain't going nowhere. Like, it doesn't matter what you throw at our community. It doesn't matter. We're just going to continue to rebuild. Yeah.
01:06:37
Speaker
Sorry.
Reflections on the American Dream
01:06:39
Speaker
Jay, before we get out of here, what do you want to leave the people with? Your mama's on crack rock. That has been in my head ever since watching that documentary. I forgot all about that song. It was a terrible song. I don't know why that existed, why children were singing it in the video. like in the song like i don't It was a horrible song. but that is i now If I have that earworm, now the rest of you do too.
01:07:08
Speaker
So that's literally how you want to end that song. Okay. All right. Yeah. No, I don't know. What do you want me say? ah Hey, black people being disenfranchised in this country. News. That's not that's not a hot tape.
01:07:22
Speaker
That's not a hot tape. You're right. You're right. Well, for me, before we end, I want to come back to something I talked about in the first segment. That idea that America is Mike Tyson.
01:07:34
Speaker
I'm not going to do the whole analogy again. You already heard that. But the part that stuck with me throughout the rest of the show was when we started looking at these income numbers and when we started talking about the crack epidemic,
01:07:48
Speaker
I kept coming back to the same question. Does the reality still match the story? America tells a story about itself that most of us grow up believing. Work hard, make good choices, play by the rules, and you'll make it.
01:08:03
Speaker
That's the promise. But then we looked at these income classes and realized the deeper conversation wasn't really about income. It was about opportunity. It was about access.
01:08:15
Speaker
It was about whether the pathways people are told to take are actually available to them. We saw a shrinking middle class. We saw racial gaps in income.
01:08:25
Speaker
We saw even bigger gaps in wealth. become Because income tells you what comes in. Wealth tells you what you have to fall back on when life punches you in the mouth.
01:08:36
Speaker
Then we talk about the documentary and crack cocaine and that epidemic. And once again, the conversation comes back to opportunity. Not because dealing drugs was the right choice, not because people shouldn't be held accountable for the damage they cause, but because crack didn't appear in communities overflowing with opportunities. It appeared in communities where factories had closed, jobs had disappeared, investments had dried up, and economic pathways were shrinking.
01:09:03
Speaker
And into that vacuum stepped an underground economy, not because it was moral, not because it was good, but because people will always search for an opportunity wherever they think they can find it.
01:09:14
Speaker
And that's where I think we often get these conversations wrong. We want every story to be simple. We want heroes and villains. We want someone to blame.
01:09:25
Speaker
But life is usually way more complicated than that. People don't want to talk about this, but accountability and context are not enemies. A person can make a bad choice and still be operating inside of a bad system. A government can fail people without removing their responsibility for their own actions. A community you can be victimized and still have members who hurt that same community.
01:09:51
Speaker
Those things can be true at the same time. What struck me about both topics is how often Americans are told that success or failure is entirely the result of individual decisions.
01:10:02
Speaker
Once again, work hard, make good choices, pull yourself up by your bootstraps. But if that were the whole story, geography wouldn't matter. Family wealth wouldn't matter.
01:10:14
Speaker
Race wouldn't matter. i Access wouldn't matter. But clearly they do. The data we discussed today shows that. History shows us that.
01:10:25
Speaker
Our lived experiences show us that. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying America is completely broken. I'm not saying success isn't possible. I've built businesses. I've created opportunities for myself. I know success can happen.
01:10:41
Speaker
But if we're going to judge a system honestly, we can't only look at people who beat the odds. We also have to look at the odds themselves because some people are climbing a ladder.
01:10:51
Speaker
while others are trying to climb a wall? And maybe that's the real question underneath everything that we talked about today. America still sells a dream with the same confidence it always has. But does the reality still match the story?
01:11:05
Speaker
Not whether people should take responsibility for their choices. They should. Not whether people can still succeed. They can. The question is whether they're willing to be honest about the difference between what is possible and what is probable. Because those aren't the same things.
01:11:21
Speaker
It's possible to make it. It's possible to build wealth. It's possible to climb out of poverty. It's possible to beat the odds. But when millions of people are working, struggling, falling behind, and wondering the wondering why the promise never showed up for them, maybe the conversation shouldn't start with what they did wrong.
01:11:41
Speaker
Maybe it should start with whether the system is delivering what it promised. Because eventually, every nation, every institution, and every idea has to answer the same question.
01:11:53
Speaker
Are you living off your reputation? Are you living up to it? And that's the uncomfortable part people don't want to talk about.
Closing and Listener Engagement
01:12:02
Speaker
But on that note, ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank you for listening.
01:12:06
Speaker
I want to thank you for watching. And until next time, as always, I'll holler.
01:12:15
Speaker
That was a hell of a show. Thank you for rocking with us here on Unsolicited Perspectives with Bruce Anthony. Now, before you go, don't forget to follow, subscribe, like, comment, and share our podcast wherever you're listening or watching it to it. Pass it along to your friends. If you enjoy it, that means the people that you rock will will enjoy it also. So share the wealth, share the knowledge, share the noise.
01:12:38
Speaker
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01:12:49
Speaker
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01:13:05
Speaker
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01:13:32
Speaker
Thank you. Thank you for listening and watching and supporting us. And I'll catch you next time. Audi 5000. Peace.