Leadership Lessons From The Great Books – Their Eyes Were Watching God (Part 1) by Zora Neale Hurston w/Tom Libby

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Hello. My name is Jesan Sorrells, and this is the Leadership

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Lessons from the Great Books podcast, Episode number

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108. Let me look at my my notes here.

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With our book today, a

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story that represents what I think is

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the height of what a novelist trained in the space of

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anthropology and anthropological research and a master

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of deep linguistic understanding can do with her

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writing talent at the height of her power.

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This author, based it in the culture of the post civil

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war and Jim Crow South, never once renounced her

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past or allowed her past to define the direction of

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her talent or the focus of her life, much

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to the dismay of many of her literary peers

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at the time. Her most famous quote

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from many famous quotes is as follows.

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Quote, sometimes I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me me

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angry. It merely astonishes me. How can any

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deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It’s beyond

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me. And, quote, but

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I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed

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up in my soul nor lurking behind my eyes. I do

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not mind at all, close

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quote. Today, we will be

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feasting and focusing and talking about the ins and the

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outs of one of what I think is one of the most important

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novels by any female author of the

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early 20th century, including, Virginia Woolf,

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Catherine Ann Porter, Pearl Buck, who we’ve all covered on this podcast,

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and, of course, many others. 1930 seven’s

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Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora

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Neale Hurston. Leaders,

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take a stand for principles, but also know where you came from.

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Of course, as usual, we will be joined in our conversation

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today by our regular co host, Tom Libby. How are you

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doing, Tom? Every day is a good day,

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Jesan. I’ve just I’m doing very well. So

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Tom just, came came traversing back from a

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college graduation. That was both exciting and

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enlightening for him. So congratulations to his daughter for

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graduating graduating college. By the way, what degree Sorrells

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she attained, if you don’t mind us asking or might be asking?

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She has a, she just got her bachelor’s in

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psychology with a minor in Native American studies.

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Alright. Psychology and Native American studies. Okay. So in other

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words, she’s gonna be able to help out our family a lot because we need

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a lot of psychological help. And then she cheated on getting a minor because a

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minor in Native American studies was basically, like I mean, she could’ve done it with

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her eyes closed and walking backwards. It was not even a challenge.

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It was an unfair she had an unfair advantage. Advantage. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And she

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had a she was a ringer in that class. Exactly. So

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alright. Well no. But but that’ll be good. So is she gonna go into therapy,

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or is she gonna just sort of stay in a readers, or she just she

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not decided yet? So I because

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there’s so much of the past. Yeah. There’s a lot of it depends going on.

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Let I’ll just put it that way because she doesn’t wanna go into therapy

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from a standpoint of the way she words it, I really

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just cannot sit and listen to people complain about their lives for 8 hours a

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day. She goes, because half the time, I’ll just wanna I’ll just wanna tell

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them words I can’t say as a therapist. Sure.

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She goes, but that doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t look at

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therapy from, like, people who, like, really so she we have a we have a

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state mental hospital that is relatively close by our our

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house that she thinks that she might wanna at least start with because people

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who are actually mentally ill and are hospitalized due to mental

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illness Mhmm. That is interesting to her and try to try to help

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those people versus people just complaining about their day, complaining about their job,

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complaining about their wife or husband. She goes, that stuff is just not

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relevant enough for her to worry about. So she was thinking and

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fourth readers your point, to your to your statement a second ago, or

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research is really intriguing to her, but she knows if she goes into

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research that this bachelor’s degree is not gonna be worth anything. She has to go

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back and, and actually even a master’s degree in

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research in psychology research, even a master’s degree is not,

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is not really even worth anything. She has to go back for a PhD in

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order to do that. So there’s a lot of it depends going on right now.

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I think she’s just happy to be done with this part of it, and,

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I think she’s just gonna wanna go do something until she figures it out. Yeah.

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Absolutely. Well, congratulations to her. We’ve minted one

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more bachelor’s degree holder in, the United States of

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America. Yay for us. This is this

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is the the time of year when we, when we do

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meet them all, we do churn them all out. And,

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you know, book. One of the books they should be reading, whether they

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are graduated with a bachelor’s degree in psychology, or they are a

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mere humanities major like myself, or even if they, you

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know, didn’t go to college, right, is,

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is their eyes were watching God. I I, I was telling Tom before

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we, hit the record button on this

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sucker for today, that, I probably should have

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read this book, like, 10 years ago, and I didn’t read

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it because well, because of my own personal biases and

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prejudices around

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reading different interpretations of Zora Neale

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Hurston’s, work, and quite frankly her life and her

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her artistic choices, without having the full context of

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the background of who she was, which we’ll get into today on the podcast, and

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what she was seeking to accomplish with her work, which I think has relevance

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around it. This is why I said leaders have to have Sorrells, I think

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there’s relevance around that that position or not position,

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that posture towards principles. And so where this

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ties into to Tom’s newly minted graduating daughter is

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that it’s a good idea to figure out your principles before you go off and

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take a position on anything. You know?

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And so I would recommend more of that for folks in general

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in our country today. So opening

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with their eyes were watching god. Now,

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this book was published initially,

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as I said, in 1937. Currently,

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the copyright it was renewed in 1965.

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And, the the copyright is, for this edition is owned

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by HarperCollins Publishers, and so we will not be reading directly

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from the book. Instead, what I’m gonna do is I’m gonna sort of do a

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spark notes overall summary. I’m going to point

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out some salient

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high points from the book. I’m gonna encourage you to get it.

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Go out and buy it. Go out and read it. And then I’m going to

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gonna make some comments, and and Tom and I are gonna have some discussion about

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what leaders can take, from the work of

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Fourth Neale Hurston. So the book

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opens with, Janie, and, and

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we meet the character Turning,

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with the line, and I and I think I can I can

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successfully or or safely read this line? It is the first line of their eyes

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are watching god, and it does tie into, what happens to

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her much later towards the end of the book. But it is and it

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is an iconic line that opens up this, this novel.

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It says ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board.

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For some, they come in with the tide. For others, they sail forever on the

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horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the watcher turns his

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eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked by

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death mocked to death by time. That is the life

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of men. So we start off very

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soberly, and we meet

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Janie, and we meet, her friends. We meet Phoebe Watson.

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But most importantly, we meet Janie’s grandma. And

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Janie’s grandmother is a very powerful character,

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in this, in this book, and

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she determines Janie’s life, at least the first part of

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Janie’s life, as she moves from being a child into

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being a young woman. And this is a huge transition for

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for for all women. I have a couple of daughters, and Tom was just

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talking about his daughter graduating. It’s it’s a huge transition Graduate

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from college. It’s a huge transition to watch a

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young woman go from being, you know, 10, 11, 12 years

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old, knock me a little girl to

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now you’re 14, 15, 16. Now we’re moving into that woman that

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that stage of womanhood. So we we walk

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through that in the first couple of chapters as well as the fact that,

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Janie, who was raised by her grandma, is a light

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skinned African American woman living in West Florida.

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This is important because in the post civil

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war era, North Florida, West Florida,

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the area up near Jacksonville, and near southern,

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Alabama and Georgia. That area, a lot of, a

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lot of African Americans, who had been enslaved

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moved down into that area of Florida and

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began to, intermingle and intermix with some of the

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Seminole Indians. By the way, the Seminole Indians are referenced in book. It’s interesting when

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the hurricane comes through, which we’ll talk about that a little bit later.

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But the the the African Americans in here,

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Fourth puts, I think, what was dominant African American thought

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at that time about the Seminole Indians into their mouths,

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and has them speak, about that.

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Janie’s first marriage, is to a man named Logan Killicks,

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who is someone her grandma picked for her, because her

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grandma didn’t basically want her to have children out of wedlock. That was really kind

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of really the the key thing there and wanted her to be a a moral

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woman. And that relationship with her grandma, that relationship

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with Logan, becomes fraught with challenges

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and fraught with fix friction, particularly during the 1st

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year. As a matter of fact, the grandmother

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is so how can

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I put this? So strong a force

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in Janie’s life that in chapter 3 of their

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eyes were watching god,

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the grandmother, Danny, basically

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prayed for their marriage. And as a

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result of her praying hard for their marriage, she

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had a stroke and, died a month later.

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She prayed herself right into death.

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Janie’s marriage to Logan Killicks ends in

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chapter 4 when she meets a man named Joe Starks. And that

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begins a journey into Janie’s second

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marriage and longest marriage in the book,

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and switches her or transitions her. And Zora Neale Hurston does a really

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excellent job of this, transitions her from being a,

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fourth being a a a a dewy eyed young woman who’d been

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married a year to a young woman who was really trying to figure out

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what love is, and what love actually

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means. That’s the first fourth chapters of

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their eyes are watching God. Lot of interesting things happen

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in there. Now one of the things you’re going to notice when you read this

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book, and we’re gonna come back to this again and again and again, is the

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dialectical choices of the language and the dialogue in Their Eyes Are Watching God.

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So if you do pick this up, you will notice that most of the speech

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is broken. Most of the speech is broken English, what we would

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call, these days broken English. My grandmother

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not remembering this now. I hadn’t thought of this until just now.

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So when I was when I was was was coming up,

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my grandmother, lived

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in my house. Right? We had a multigenerational household. And my

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grandmother’s, grand my grandmother’s father was a sharecropper,

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1 generation away from slavery. And, my grandmother was one

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of, like, 12 kids, and started taking out the washer fourth she

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was, like, 8. And she would object to me saying,

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like, you know, quite a bit. My grandmother raised

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me to speak in what is

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commonly known these days as a flat midwestern vernacular.

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She wanted me to speak as if I could come from anywhere

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and go into anything. And if you had don’t have a video of me or

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you haven’t actually seen a picture of me online, you’d be able to listen to

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my voice and not tell if I was African

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American or Hispanic or white or what.

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And by the way, this has been a tool that I’ve used not to give

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away the the inner game a little bit, but I’ll give you a little insight

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baseball. This is a tool I have used over the course of my life

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to flummox people because very often, when they have spoken

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to me on the phone and they have not met me and have not researched

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me online or don’t have a video of me or never seen a picture,

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I speak like this. This is just how I talk.

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And we’ll talk about the dialectical choices of Zora Neale Hurston here in a minute,

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but I’ve talked like this for years. It was pounded into me by

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grandma my grandma who said, and I quote, there will be no dis here

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and dat dare in my house.

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So when you speak without dis here and dat dare, when you

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speak in a flat Midwestern dialect,

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well, it gets you into everything, in

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particular business dealings. And so it’s always been very interesting when I speak to

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people on the phone, like, when I was first starting my business, first starting my

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consulting business way back in the day. I would talk to people on the phone,

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and then I would show up, and the look of shock on their face would

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be unbelievable. They say, yes. You called me on

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the phone. It it’s not I I I gotta I

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gotta say something to this. Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah. I I feel I feel like

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it’s really funny that that that as far

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away as we are from the this is and that’s of of

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that that error because if you think about it, it it it’s not

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as predominant today, but it’s still around. But it’s not that it’s not that

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predominant as it was back then. But the Boston accent, by the way,

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is living strong. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. And I and I have I

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have a very similar reaction from people when

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they find out that I’m from the Boston area because they go, oh, where did

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you live before that? Because, you know, I don’t have a very strong Books

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Boston accent. And don’t get me wrong, it comes out every once in a while.

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Usually, when I’m when I’m heightened of some sort of emotion, either overly

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upset, overly angry, really happy, whatever. Anything

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that’s exaggerated, you lose a little bit more of the that self

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control of of conversation. But, but for the most part,

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as I just said part, like, for the most part, I pronounce my r’s. Right?

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Like, I I I try to speak very clearly. And people find out I’m from

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Boston, they go, oh, where are you from originally? I go, no. No, Boston. Born

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and raised here. It’s just that I was so tired of people

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making fun of the Boston accent that I just didn’t wanna have one. So I

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made a very conscious effort to not do that. But, but, yeah, I

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so I I understand where your grandmother’s coming from for sure. Yeah. Well, she was

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she would it’s interesting. The choices that her said

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made in re in, and, and when you start reading

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it, the way my internal dialogue books. And this is, I think fourth a lot

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of people, I don’t think I’m unusual in this. We, we revert

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back to whatever our natural speech is in our internal

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dialogue. And so when we’re reading something that’s from a dialogue or a

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dialect or a linguistic style that is different, but

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yet is fundamentally English. We’re now doing an interpretive

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dance in our head. So we’re trying to interpret the

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words on the page. It’s like reading a foreign language. We’re trying to

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interpret the words on the page, reading them in the foreign language. And then I

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imagine foreign language speakers do this, fourth people who speak English or native English

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speakers do this when they when they learn a second language and then try to

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read a book in that second language. You’re converting what’s in that book

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into your language. Right? So that you can understand it. And we’re doing the same

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thing with the dialects here. And Hurston really pushes that mode here in,

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in their eyes are watching dialogue. I was gonna I was gonna use the second

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language as as an example as well because I think it goes one step further

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than that. Because if I hear, like, Spanish from Spain

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is very different than South America, so So sometimes I’ll hear something from

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Spain, and I have to interpret it into South American Spanish before I can

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interpret it to English. Right. Like so it’s like

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a like so, yeah, I I I I was I was gonna use the foreign

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language part as an example as well. But for me, it’s just it’s in

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addition to the like, even the foreign languages have their own accents

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and even some of the accent stuff, I don’t understand until I

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revert it back to something I understand, and then I revert it back to English

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to make sure I understand even, like, fourth that level. So yeah. Well, it’s very

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interesting. Well, when I was reading the book, and we’ll talk about this a little

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bit later, on today. But, when I was reading the book, I

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was doing that code switching, and I’ll talk about code switching here today as well.

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But but I was doing that code switching in my head and it was interesting

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how folklore and

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and and again, the readers that Kersten did

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into folklore, which I’ll talk about her background here in a minute, but that

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she did it to folklore, that she did into linguistics, that she did it to

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dialects, the level of anthropological understanding that she had about what those modes actually meant.

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And then her ability to convert that into fiction in order to get,

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generalized to all people, regardless of how they speak, that’s the

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brilliance of this book. Yeah. That’s the brilliance of this novel.

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Speaking of the, the author, so Zora Neale Hurston

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was born January 7, 18, 91, and

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died January 28, 1960.

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As I’ve said before, she was an American author, anthropologist,

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and also a documentary filmmaker. So, she she

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definitely got around. If she’d been born a couple of generations later, she probably

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would have gotten a MacArthur or a Guggenheim award and never would have had to

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work for the rest of her life. Unfortunately, she was born when she was

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born, and so she struggled,

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not all of her life, but all of her career to actually make a

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living off of her writing and off of her research.

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She was born in Notasagoula, Alabama,

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in 18/91. And then in 18/94, she moved to Eatonville,

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Florida. Now Eatonville is a very important character turning

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Their Eyes Were Watching Podcast as

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it was a black community that was

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designed by black people in Northern Florida that Hurston grew

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up in. Matter of fact, her father, I believe, if I remember correctly from my

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research, her father was, either

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in the city government there or something like that. But she was quoted as saying,

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you know basically saying, and I’m gonna paraphrase her quote,

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that she saw black people operating competently regardless of how they talked

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in order to design the city, run the city, make sure the services ran ran

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in the Libby, and everybody had pride there.

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And the kind of pride that later on would be referenced

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in the 19 sixties 19 seventies civil rights movement.

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But it was, you know, it was pride in a segregated all black

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town where white people refused to live.

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And this is one of those dynamics that,

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is not often talked about in,

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in in American culture

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where the the pre

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19 fifties and and Richard Wright and I’ll talk about some of Hurston’s

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literary battles with Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison. But we

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and and I referenced a little bit of this bifurcation when I talked about W.

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E. B. Du Bois, Booker t Washington with Darolo Nixon on

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our episodes that we did with recovered souls of black folk and,

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up from slavery back in February. You might wanna go back and listen to those

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episodes. But in the 1930s, there was a definitive bifurcation

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between,

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academicians and civil rights activists and those kinds of

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books. And then folks who were like, who were representing people

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who lived on the ground and actually had to go and farm and had to

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go and live I had to go and make a living and didn’t have

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a whole lot of education and didn’t have a whole lot of opportunity. And there

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was a bifurcation there that is still reflected in the African American community today

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in America. But that bifurcation

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created Eatonville and Eatonville came out of that as a result.

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Eatonville was a place where, you know, working class African

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Americans could build their own thing and be competent and be

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considered competent. And Hurston saw that up close and grew up with that,

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as a child and as a young woman. In her early

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career, Hurston conducted anthropological and ethnographic

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research, as a scholar at Barner College and Columbia

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University. She had an interest in African American and

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Caribbean folklore, including hoodoo, voodoo,

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witchcraft, conjuring, root work,

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all of that. Anything that had to do with,

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Fourth of nature leadership, pagan worship, a combination of pagan

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worship and Roman Catholic worship, all of that kind of stuff. She was interested in

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all of that. And as a matter of fact, while she roundly rejected

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religion during her time, as a matter of fact, she said she didn’t really believe

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in an all loving god or a god of any kind.

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She did believe that there were demonic I won’t say

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demonic. There were other forces in the world, and

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she did participate in those rituals in order to, I

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think understand the the the

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ethnography, understand the emotions behind the

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research. I think that was the primary reason she was engaged in that.

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And of course, how these practices in these spaces

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contributed overall to a community’s identity.

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She also wrote about contemporary issues in the black community, in the 19

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thirties 19 forties and became a central figure of the Harlem

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renaissance. So that’s where she ran into Richard Wright. That’s where she ran into Ralph

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Ellison. I’m sorry. That’s where she ran into the jazz

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singers and all those kinds of folks. She was

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a a raconteur and a woman about town in Harlem. And

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whenever she would go out and when she would walk into a room, she

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would, she would announce herself,

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white individualistically. Persson’s work

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concerned both the African American experience and her struggles also as an African

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American woman, which is either a subset or a dominant part

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00:23:51,360 –> 00:23:55,200
of the African American experience depending upon who you ask. Now

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her novels went relatively unrecognized by the literary world

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for decades turning in the 19 forties and oh, 19 fourth,

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19 fifties and 19 sixties and even the 19 seventies,

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for cultural and political reasons. As a matter of fact,

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In the version, the 75th anniversary version of their eyes were watching God.

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And I’m going to ask Tom here a question in just a minute.

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The afterward is written by Henry Louis Gates junior.

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He of the person he’s the person, if you’re not aware, who does

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DNA tests on African Americans, and then they find out how much

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00:24:30,725 –> 00:24:34,485
well, they find out how much all of us here are interrelated to each

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00:24:34,485 –> 00:24:38,024
other, in all of our genetics.

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00:24:38,430 –> 00:24:42,110
He does this on PBS if you have not ever seen this this this

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show. I mean, it’s not just African Americans that he does this research with.

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It’s also white folks and Asian folks

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because we’re all we’re all we’re

395
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all a multicultural mix here. One of the points that

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he makes here in, in

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the afterward, is this

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one. And I quote,

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Hurst’s achievement in dust tracks, is twofold.

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Dust tracks is one of her books. First, she gives us a writer’s

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life rather than an account, as she says, of, quote, unquote, the

402
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Negro problem. So many events in this text are figured in terms of

403
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Hurston’s growing awareness and mastery of books and language and language and

404
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linguistic rituals as spoken and written by both both by masters

405
00:25:35,320 –> 00:25:38,220
of the western tradition and by ordinary members of the black community.

406
00:25:38,875 –> 00:25:42,554
These two speech communities, as it were, are Hurston’s greatest

407
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sources of inspiration, not only in her novels but also in her autobiography.

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00:25:48,120 –> 00:25:51,960
The representation of her sources of language seems to be her principal concern as she

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00:25:51,960 –> 00:25:55,695
constantly shifts back and forth between her literate narrator’s voice and a

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00:25:55,695 –> 00:25:59,235
highly idiomatic black voice found in wonderful passages

411
00:25:59,774 –> 00:26:03,280
of free indirect discourse. Hurston

412
00:26:03,419 –> 00:26:07,100
moves in and out of these distinct voices effortlessly, seamlessly, just as she

413
00:26:07,100 –> 00:26:10,539
does in Their Eyes Were Watching God Tom chart Janie’s coming to

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00:26:10,539 –> 00:26:14,185
consciousness. It is this use of a divided voice, a double

415
00:26:14,185 –> 00:26:17,945
voice unrecognized and unreconciled that strikes me as her greatest

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00:26:17,945 –> 00:26:21,760
achievement. A verbal analog of her double experiences as a woman

417
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in a male dominated world and as a black person in a non black world.

418
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A woman writer’s revision of W. E. B. Du

419
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Bois’s metaphor of, quote, unquote, double consciousness fourth the

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00:26:33,235 –> 00:26:35,575
hyphenated African American,

421
00:26:37,540 –> 00:26:41,320
Close quote. However,

422
00:26:41,620 –> 00:26:45,305
during the time that she was actually writing and alive, Henry Louis Gates is

423
00:26:45,305 –> 00:26:49,145
writing this afterward many, many years after her death. By the way,

424
00:26:49,145 –> 00:26:52,350
she was buried in an unmarked grave that Alice Walker had to find in the

425
00:26:52,350 –> 00:26:55,710
19 seventies after having died in an old books’ home

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00:26:55,710 –> 00:26:58,210
unrecognized in the 19 sixties.

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She was criticized, Herston was, for her use of this double consciousness

428
00:27:03,225 –> 00:27:06,845
and this double voice, and for actually publishing this out loud

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And for her anthropological and linguistic references by writers

430
00:27:11,130 –> 00:27:14,845
like Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison during her time. And she

431
00:27:14,845 –> 00:27:18,365
got into literary battles with these guys because she wasn’t gonna back down to

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00:27:18,365 –> 00:27:21,424
nobody, if I may be so bold.

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00:27:22,680 –> 00:27:25,960
And so that’s Zora Neale Hurston. That’s a little bit about her. I would encourage

434
00:27:25,960 –> 00:27:29,160
you to go look at her just as a, just as a character in her

435
00:27:29,160 –> 00:27:32,995
own. Right. But to get Tom in

436
00:27:32,995 –> 00:27:36,674
a little bit more here, I know you didn’t know you’ve you’ve been

437
00:27:36,674 –> 00:27:39,575
very busy doing a lot of things, graduations,

438
00:27:40,530 –> 00:27:43,990
traveling. Recently, we’re in the Dominican Republic,

439
00:27:45,170 –> 00:27:48,930
came book. Book. Not tanned or fit, but, I mean, you

440
00:27:48,930 –> 00:27:52,715
came back. I came back in one piece. That was a little You came

441
00:27:52,715 –> 00:27:56,315
back in one piece. Right. Right. So

442
00:27:57,510 –> 00:27:59,990
and I know that you had mentioned that when you looked at this, you’re like,

443
00:27:59,990 –> 00:28:03,190
oh my gosh. I should have read this. But, what are some of your thoughts

444
00:28:03,190 –> 00:28:06,835
after sort of I laid out some of these ideas from their eyes are watching

445
00:28:06,835 –> 00:28:10,135
god and Zora Neale Hurston? What are some of your initial thoughts?

446
00:28:11,840 –> 00:28:15,600
Well, I think the first thing that pops into my mind is

447
00:28:15,600 –> 00:28:19,360
something that you said. I think I I I think of it a little differently,

448
00:28:19,360 –> 00:28:23,085
but you said something to the as you were talking, earlier

449
00:28:23,085 –> 00:28:26,785
and you said something about the fact that you like, had she been born today,

450
00:28:27,085 –> 00:28:30,179
this would have been a very different world for her because she would’ve never had

451
00:28:30,179 –> 00:28:33,059
to book, and she would’ve made a lot more money. And I agree with all

452
00:28:33,059 –> 00:28:36,120
that. And in the in that

453
00:28:37,405 –> 00:28:41,165
in that Guggenheim Tom Guggenheim or a MacArthur Guggenheim Fellowship or

454
00:28:41,165 –> 00:28:44,845
a MacArthur grant. Somebody would get their money. Yeah. Somebody would get you’re right. So

455
00:28:44,845 –> 00:28:47,809
what I was what I what I would say to that too is, like, not

456
00:28:47,809 –> 00:28:51,010
only did I think she was before her time in a lot of respects of

457
00:28:51,010 –> 00:28:54,230
how she handled herself, the way she presented herself, the way she, you know,

458
00:28:54,769 –> 00:28:58,355
came across, But I love the idea of the

459
00:28:58,355 –> 00:29:02,195
writing coming from an anthropological standpoint. Like, she

460
00:29:02,195 –> 00:29:05,980
wasn’t afraid to do the research and just

461
00:29:05,980 –> 00:29:09,179
show it, and and you and I were talking about this before we hit the

462
00:29:09,179 –> 00:29:12,700
record button. It was refreshing to me that it was just so matter of

463
00:29:12,700 –> 00:29:16,385
fact and not coming from a place of sorrow

464
00:29:16,445 –> 00:29:20,205
or pain or book at look at what I

465
00:29:20,205 –> 00:29:23,505
don’t mean that this please don’t take any disrespect to this, but, like,

466
00:29:23,940 –> 00:29:27,380
she never had this feeling or thing that

467
00:29:27,380 –> 00:29:31,059
somebody or anybody owed her anything. It was like, I am who I

468
00:29:31,059 –> 00:29:33,975
am. We live through what we live through. I’m gonna write this the way it’s

469
00:29:33,975 –> 00:29:37,654
supposed to be written, and I’m just gonna move forward. And I love that about

470
00:29:37,654 –> 00:29:40,534
her. I I just thought that was incredible when I was redoing some of the

471
00:29:40,534 –> 00:29:44,270
stuff, and I was like, I this is a you know how you you’re

472
00:29:44,270 –> 00:29:46,750
always asked that question about, like, oh, if you can go back in history and

473
00:29:46,750 –> 00:29:50,110
meet anybody you want, who would it be? Blah blah blah. And everybody says, like,

474
00:29:50,110 –> 00:29:53,615
the obvious. Right? Like, pick a point in history, whether you

475
00:29:53,615 –> 00:29:56,995
pick, you know, FDR

476
00:29:57,054 –> 00:30:00,820
or Abraham Lincoln or Booker t Washington or Benjamin

477
00:30:00,820 –> 00:30:04,580
Franklin. Keep going back in time. Julius Caesar and what pick whoever

478
00:30:04,580 –> 00:30:08,375
you want. I’m really thinking that this should be the one for me. For

479
00:30:08,375 –> 00:30:11,195
for for me anyway. Yeah. Yeah. Like,

480
00:30:12,455 –> 00:30:15,915
because she just reminds me of somebody that is just so

481
00:30:15,975 –> 00:30:19,630
genuine. Somebody you could talk to about anything. And

482
00:30:19,630 –> 00:30:23,470
then if she is going to have an opinion about something, it’s

483
00:30:23,470 –> 00:30:27,265
gonna be based on. It’s not just

484
00:30:27,265 –> 00:30:31,105
simply based on a thought. It’s based on it’s based on science for

485
00:30:31,105 –> 00:30:34,544
her. Like and and for those of you who are not aware, anthropology is a

486
00:30:34,544 –> 00:30:37,480
science. So I just wanna make sure. It is. It it is.

487
00:30:38,340 –> 00:30:41,480
Some some archaeologists beg to differ, so I just wanna make sure that is clear.

488
00:30:42,740 –> 00:30:46,315
But anyway, like so I I just I thought it was fascinating. She

489
00:30:46,315 –> 00:30:49,995
reminded me in in what like, because I read a couple of synopsis, a little

490
00:30:49,995 –> 00:30:53,169
brief history of her. I I didn’t read the the full book here, but I

491
00:30:53,169 –> 00:30:56,450
did read a a quick synopsis of the books I wanted to at least understand

492
00:30:56,450 –> 00:30:59,429
what what the book was getting at before I come on the podcast.

493
00:31:01,905 –> 00:31:05,105
But she just presented herself as some I I think the other

494
00:31:05,665 –> 00:31:09,265
something else that you said I thought was interesting where, Gates junior was

495
00:31:09,265 –> 00:31:13,050
talking about how, you know, she was a a woman in a male dominated world.

496
00:31:13,050 –> 00:31:16,670
She was black in a non black dominated, environment.

497
00:31:17,645 –> 00:31:21,345
But she was also a woman writer that spoke her mind

498
00:31:21,485 –> 00:31:25,210
and her truth in a time when a lot of writers

499
00:31:25,210 –> 00:31:28,810
in general, not even just women writers, but writers in general, were

500
00:31:28,810 –> 00:31:32,410
being pressured or coerced or whatever into writing

501
00:31:32,410 –> 00:31:35,995
certain styles or certain like, you had to fall into certain categories and, like, there

502
00:31:35,995 –> 00:31:39,675
was all this kinda weird I don’t wanna maybe not weird. And it

503
00:31:39,675 –> 00:31:43,035
certainly wasn’t weird at the time. People kind of felt it was normal. But she

504
00:31:43,035 –> 00:31:46,640
was just like, to heck with all that, I’m just gonna be

505
00:31:46,640 –> 00:31:50,400
me. She would’ve fit in Yes. Perfectly well with today’s Gen z’s. Right? Like Oh,

506
00:31:50,400 –> 00:31:54,185
yeah. Oh, yeah. You do you do you, and I do me, and

507
00:31:54,185 –> 00:31:56,345
we’re gonna be happy. And if you’re not happy with me, you go work over

508
00:31:56,345 –> 00:31:59,820
there, and I’ll go work over here. Like, that’s sad. Well well, Gates talks about

509
00:31:59,820 –> 00:32:02,700
it also in the afterwards. So let me give a long quote here because it

510
00:32:02,700 –> 00:32:06,475
backs up exactly what you’re saying. Right? He says it is and I quote from

511
00:32:06,475 –> 00:32:09,995
Henry Louis Gates or the afterward, from their eyes are watching

512
00:32:09,995 –> 00:32:13,375
god. It is clear, however, that the loving, diverse, and enthusiastic

513
00:32:13,730 –> 00:32:17,570
responses that Hurston’s work in genders today were not shared by several

514
00:32:17,570 –> 00:32:21,250
of her influential black male contemporaries. The reasons for this are

515
00:32:21,250 –> 00:32:24,794
complex and stem largely fourth what we might think of as their,

516
00:32:25,095 –> 00:32:28,855
I love this, racial, quote, unquote, racial ideologies. That’s how he

517
00:32:28,855 –> 00:32:32,299
just sort of decides to frame it. Part of the frames that because he put

518
00:32:32,299 –> 00:32:35,059
that more eloquently than I just did. But He did. He’s he’s a good he

519
00:32:35,059 –> 00:32:38,115
he knows how to use the words. He’s he’s good. He’s good with that. Part

520
00:32:38,115 –> 00:32:40,775
of person’s received heritage and perhaps the paramount

521
00:32:41,955 –> 00:32:45,570
received notion that links the novel of manners in the Harlem

522
00:32:45,570 –> 00:32:49,250
Renaissance, the social realism of the thirties, and the cultural nationalism of the Black Arts

523
00:32:49,250 –> 00:32:52,690
Movement was the idea that racism had reduced black people to

524
00:32:52,690 –> 00:32:56,514
mere ciphers, to beings who only react to an omnipresent

525
00:32:56,575 –> 00:33:00,355
racial oppression whose culture is, quote, unquote, deprived were different

526
00:33:00,414 –> 00:33:04,160
and whose psyches are in the main, quote, unquote, pathological. Albert

527
00:33:04,160 –> 00:33:07,840
Murray, the writer and social critic, calls this the, quote, unquote, social science

528
00:33:07,840 –> 00:33:11,680
fiction monster. Socialists, separatists, and civil rights advocates alike

529
00:33:11,680 –> 00:33:15,505
have been devoured by this beast. This is Gates writing this. And I go

530
00:33:15,505 –> 00:33:19,024
further. Hurston thought this idea degrading its

531
00:33:19,024 –> 00:33:22,510
propagation, a trap, and railed against it. It was,

532
00:33:22,510 –> 00:33:26,350
she said, upheld by, quote, I love this quote, the

533
00:33:26,350 –> 00:33:30,110
sobbing school of Negro hood who hold that nature somehow has

534
00:33:30,110 –> 00:33:32,515
given them a dirty deal, close quote.

535
00:33:33,775 –> 00:33:37,555
Unlike you want this woman to be alive today. Honest to god. I real like,

536
00:33:37,775 –> 00:33:41,530
can we can we can we bring her back? Like, I’m

537
00:33:41,530 –> 00:33:45,177
just Unlike Hughes and Writers, back to Gabe for just a Jesan,

538
00:33:45,530 –> 00:33:49,210
Hurston chose deliberately to ignore this, quote, unquote, false picture

539
00:33:49,210 –> 00:33:52,675
that distorted freedom. She wrote in

540
00:33:52,675 –> 00:33:56,435
Moses, man of the mountain, quote, was something

541
00:33:56,435 –> 00:33:59,975
internal. The man himself, remember, said she was an individualist.

542
00:34:00,340 –> 00:34:04,100
The man himself was make his own emancipation. As she

543
00:34:04,100 –> 00:34:07,700
declared her first novel, a manifesto against the fourth, unquote arrogance of

544
00:34:07,734 –> 00:34:11,485
writers, assuming that, quote, black lives are only defensive reactions

545
00:34:11,485 –> 00:34:15,085
to white actions, close, quote. And then Gates closes with this

546
00:34:15,085 –> 00:34:18,625
line. Her strategy was not calculated to please.

547
00:34:22,190 –> 00:34:26,030
The woman was a puncher. She

548
00:34:26,030 –> 00:34:29,795
punched left and right. And we put it there, you know, political terms in

549
00:34:29,795 –> 00:34:33,635
the post a post 19 sixties, post 20th century kind of environment because

550
00:34:33,635 –> 00:34:37,420
that’s the only context we know. She was thinking of it, I

551
00:34:37,420 –> 00:34:41,260
think, in a much broader contextual kind of way of I

552
00:34:41,260 –> 00:34:44,219
think of that song, the what was that? What was that? They were that they

553
00:34:44,219 –> 00:34:48,065
were that band. Clowns Tom left to me.

554
00:34:48,065 –> 00:34:51,105
Jokers to the right. Oh, right here, I mean, stuck in the middle. Stuck in

555
00:34:51,105 –> 00:34:54,145
the middle with you. Okay. That was her. That would have been her theme song.

556
00:34:54,145 –> 00:34:57,940
Like, I got these idiots and I got these clowns and Bolton, neither of

557
00:34:57,940 –> 00:35:01,380
you can see reality. And what are we actually doing

558
00:35:01,380 –> 00:35:04,895
here? So I think it goes one step even beyond that because I agree with

559
00:35:04,895 –> 00:35:08,175
you. Like, I I I love the idea that she was like, I’ll punch to

560
00:35:08,175 –> 00:35:11,619
the left, punch to the writers. But she also was like, I’m gonna punch white,

561
00:35:11,619 –> 00:35:15,300
punch black, punch red, punch yellow. Like, she did Oh, yeah. It was like

562
00:35:15,380 –> 00:35:19,005
that that’s kinda what I’m saying when when I said that, like, I love the

563
00:35:19,005 –> 00:35:22,685
fact that she was writing from a standpoint of just matter of fact. Right? Like,

564
00:35:22,685 –> 00:35:26,445
it was just this just it is like, people, it is what it is.

565
00:35:26,445 –> 00:35:29,498
Like, we can’t run from it. We can’t hide from it. It is what it

566
00:35:29,498 –> 00:35:32,561
is. Can we just talk about it or write about it or, like, you just

567
00:35:32,561 –> 00:35:35,815
go go play in your own sandbox? Like, Right. Ex exactly.

568
00:35:36,435 –> 00:35:39,795
Well, she, she she

569
00:35:39,795 –> 00:35:43,349
represents she

570
00:35:43,349 –> 00:35:47,030
represents all of

571
00:35:47,030 –> 00:35:50,650
the different stratifications or as many of the different stratifications

572
00:35:50,710 –> 00:35:53,995
in their eyes are watching god, as she

573
00:35:54,535 –> 00:35:58,135
as she could that she had direct contact with.

574
00:35:58,135 –> 00:36:01,815
Right? So there are there’s a white doctor in their eyes are watching

575
00:36:01,815 –> 00:36:04,770
god that, that diagnosis,

576
00:36:06,510 –> 00:36:10,234
that diagnosis, tea

577
00:36:10,234 –> 00:36:14,015
cake, who will Libby later on, but who diagnosis tea cake with

578
00:36:14,075 –> 00:36:15,775
a disease that fundamentally

579
00:36:17,589 –> 00:36:21,270
fundamentally leads to him being taken off, taken out of the

580
00:36:21,270 –> 00:36:24,805
narrative. So there’s a white doctor in there.

581
00:36:25,125 –> 00:36:28,665
There are peep there, you know, there’s stratifications even among

582
00:36:29,045 –> 00:36:32,484
even among the working class and lower class and poor black people. There are

583
00:36:32,484 –> 00:36:36,150
stratifications even there. One thing that I’ve I’ve often pointed

584
00:36:36,150 –> 00:36:39,910
out to folks, and I do I’ve done a lot of a lot of I’ve

585
00:36:39,910 –> 00:36:43,665
done my fair share of social justice work and bias training. And one of the

586
00:36:43,665 –> 00:36:46,865
things that I always point out to folks in those in those trainings, and usually

587
00:36:46,865 –> 00:36:48,965
most of those folks are middle class folks, is

588
00:36:50,900 –> 00:36:54,120
people in the lower classes, people who are working class,

589
00:36:54,580 –> 00:36:58,395
they have their own culture that deserves to be respected.

590
00:36:59,575 –> 00:37:02,475
You may not like it. If not a culture you would pick,

591
00:37:03,415 –> 00:37:06,640
you’re middle class. You’ve picked your own culture. You’re upper class. You You picked your

592
00:37:06,640 –> 00:37:10,480
own culture. That’s fine. Right? But there are

593
00:37:10,720 –> 00:37:14,535
there is a for want of a better term, I’m gonna

594
00:37:14,535 –> 00:37:18,375
use the Marxist Tom. There is a class conscience among people who

595
00:37:18,375 –> 00:37:21,975
are poor fourth want of a

596
00:37:21,975 –> 00:37:25,710
better term. Are we not to respect that? Not to say

597
00:37:25,710 –> 00:37:29,490
that we are not raising people up, but are we not to respect that?

598
00:37:29,789 –> 00:37:33,255
Because you can’t really raise up somebody who you don’t respect.

599
00:37:33,875 –> 00:37:37,715
You look at them through a lens of pity fourth grievance, which was the

600
00:37:37,715 –> 00:37:41,155
words you were looking for earlier, but you probably didn’t wanna say, I’ll say

601
00:37:41,155 –> 00:37:44,820
it, you know, victimhood, which is another word we’re kind of

602
00:37:44,820 –> 00:37:48,260
dancing around, but I’ll say it. If you’re looking at people through those lenses, how

603
00:37:48,260 –> 00:37:51,845
are you going to treat them as individuals? How are you actually going to help

604
00:37:51,845 –> 00:37:55,685
them emancipate themselves? And I I don’t know how you

605
00:37:55,685 –> 00:37:59,390
can do that without seeing people as human beings. I’ll gladly use those

606
00:37:59,390 –> 00:38:03,230
words when we talk about a native book. How’s that? Okay. Alright. That’s fine.

607
00:38:03,230 –> 00:38:06,945
That’s fine. How or whatever we can we’ll we’re gonna cover I think

608
00:38:06,945 –> 00:38:10,465
it’s, we’re gonna cover empire of the summer moon later on this year. So, yeah,

609
00:38:10,465 –> 00:38:14,225
go ahead. Yeah. But, I mean I I I try not to use that type

610
00:38:14,225 –> 00:38:17,830
of stuff when I’m when I’m talking about a a a group of any group,

611
00:38:17,830 –> 00:38:20,870
but not just racially, but just in a group of people that I I’d I’m

612
00:38:21,110 –> 00:38:24,615
I I haven’t walked a mile in their shoes. So Right. You know,

613
00:38:24,615 –> 00:38:27,735
something some something from the outside looking in, they were like, oh my god. They’re

614
00:38:27,735 –> 00:38:31,570
they’re acting so victimized. To them, that might not be what they’re

615
00:38:31,570 –> 00:38:35,250
they’re trying they’re trying to portray. It’s just an interpretation of what I’m

616
00:38:35,250 –> 00:38:38,690
seeing or or hearing. And I I so I don’t like to classify things like

617
00:38:38,690 –> 00:38:42,325
that. But again Well, when Hirston was Yeah. Yeah. Well, in

618
00:38:42,325 –> 00:38:46,164
Hurston was inside of that group, and Hurston wasn’t allowing anybody to get any get

619
00:38:46,164 –> 00:38:48,930
away with anything. She’s like, no. I’m not gonna let you get away with anything.

620
00:38:49,089 –> 00:38:52,930
Like, this is this is what is real here. This

621
00:38:52,930 –> 00:38:56,665
is the emotive nature of all of this. And

622
00:38:56,665 –> 00:38:59,945
and this is why her work is, I think, not I think. This is why

623
00:38:59,945 –> 00:39:03,545
her work is, particularly their eyes are

624
00:39:03,545 –> 00:39:07,060
watching God. I think her work is going to be

625
00:39:07,060 –> 00:39:10,660
read for multiple generations throughout the rest of

626
00:39:10,660 –> 00:39:13,535
this century because there’s a universalism

627
00:39:14,474 –> 00:39:18,095
that she has hit on and that her writing hits on

628
00:39:18,395 –> 00:39:22,120
that is relatable to every body regardless

629
00:39:22,260 –> 00:39:25,560
of their station or their melanin level in their skin.

630
00:39:25,940 –> 00:39:29,775
And that that is how you define a

631
00:39:29,775 –> 00:39:33,475
classic when it’s relatable to everybody, when everyone,

632
00:39:33,615 –> 00:39:36,675
regardless of station, can get something out of it. Okay.

633
00:39:37,599 –> 00:39:41,359
Now you got something there. Now you’re on the mount. And I and I

634
00:39:41,359 –> 00:39:45,040
think I think their eyes are watching god, and I would I would suspect all

635
00:39:45,040 –> 00:39:48,375
the rest of the books in her in her portfolio,

636
00:39:49,395 –> 00:39:53,075
and along with her ethnographic research, her anthropological considerations, her

637
00:39:53,075 –> 00:39:56,780
linguistic her ability to handle linguistic detail. Like, she

638
00:39:56,780 –> 00:39:59,520
she wrote this book in, like, 6 weeks.

639
00:40:00,540 –> 00:40:04,240
Oh, Jesus. Like, it’s insane. That is totally insane.

640
00:40:04,300 –> 00:40:07,295
Like, she just it just because it just poured out of her because she just

641
00:40:07,295 –> 00:40:10,974
had it. It just poured out. I

642
00:40:10,974 –> 00:40:14,194
wonder I wonder how quickly so

643
00:40:14,860 –> 00:40:18,540
she she not only lived it, but observed it. Right? So she observed it

644
00:40:18,540 –> 00:40:22,140
and lived it and then studied on it. Yep. I was I was thinking in

645
00:40:22,140 –> 00:40:25,265
my brain, I was trying to compare her to to Pearl Buck a little bit.

646
00:40:25,265 –> 00:40:28,665
Mhmm. But I I also recognize that there’s a distinct

647
00:40:28,665 –> 00:40:32,265
difference where Pearl Buck wasn’t of the

648
00:40:32,265 –> 00:40:36,000
race that she was writing about. Even though she did actually live it, she

649
00:40:36,000 –> 00:40:39,626
lived it, experienced it, and, you know, it was the same. But there was a

650
00:40:39,626 –> 00:40:43,315
a a a stark difference to me and and and even the

651
00:40:43,315 –> 00:40:46,595
styles. So, like, when I was looking at the 2, I was like, okay. Because

652
00:40:46,595 –> 00:40:50,195
I I I respected Pearl Buck quite a bit Tom. But, again, when I go

653
00:40:50,195 –> 00:40:53,820
back to, Hurston, I was like, Pearl Buck would be kinda

654
00:40:53,820 –> 00:40:57,420
cool. I think that would be but first, I wanna meet her. I I I’m

655
00:40:57,420 –> 00:41:01,225
so sad that she’s gone. Like, I just really want I would love to

656
00:41:01,225 –> 00:41:04,525
meet her. She reminds me of my grandmother. Like, my because my grandmother

657
00:41:05,305 –> 00:41:09,070
similar situation. Like, I’d come home from school and I’d be like, oh, you know,

658
00:41:09,070 –> 00:41:12,270
I called my grandmother Gigi. I’d be like, oh, Gigi. Like, we we were talking

659
00:41:12,270 –> 00:41:15,230
in US history today about natives and I brought up that I was native and

660
00:41:15,230 –> 00:41:18,795
everybody laughed. And, like because it for those of you

661
00:41:18,795 –> 00:41:22,315
watching the video, you’ll see the color of my skin and that you’ll understand where

662
00:41:22,315 –> 00:41:26,130
I’m coming from. And and she would always

663
00:41:26,130 –> 00:41:29,970
say stuff like, well, that’s their problem, not yours. Like,

664
00:41:29,970 –> 00:41:33,705
she would always give me, like, so why are you why are you making that

665
00:41:33,705 –> 00:41:37,485
your problem? Like, that’s their problem, not yours. And if you internalize

666
00:41:37,625 –> 00:41:41,329
it, then you start, again, I won’t go into the

667
00:41:41,329 –> 00:41:44,609
whole details here, but the conversations I have with her feel like it would be

668
00:41:44,609 –> 00:41:48,230
very similar to with Hurston. To with Hurston. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

669
00:41:49,745 –> 00:41:53,425
Well and and Hurston was not you know, sometimes

670
00:41:53,425 –> 00:41:56,645
you’re too early. Like, we know this as entrepreneurs, people who build businesses

671
00:41:57,185 –> 00:42:00,930
Yeah. You know, been involved in projects. Sometimes you’re just

672
00:42:00,930 –> 00:42:04,690
too early to the game, and you can’t help it.

673
00:42:04,690 –> 00:42:08,505
You have this thing that’s gotta come out of you, and, you know,

674
00:42:08,505 –> 00:42:11,865
you do get a sense. I’ve had this sense on projects that I’ve worked on

675
00:42:11,865 –> 00:42:15,660
where I’ve been too early where just I was ahead of the market, whoever

676
00:42:15,660 –> 00:42:19,020
the market or whatever the market was. You know, you get that sense at a

677
00:42:19,020 –> 00:42:22,700
certain point in the project that maybe this

678
00:42:22,700 –> 00:42:26,275
isn’t gonna white land, but you’re

679
00:42:26,275 –> 00:42:29,955
so committed to doing

680
00:42:29,955 –> 00:42:33,740
it. You’re like, ah, screw it. I don’t care if it doesn’t land

681
00:42:33,740 –> 00:42:37,500
right now. Like, the the the you you have that moment where you’re like, where

682
00:42:37,500 –> 00:42:41,135
you think I don’t want to conform to my

683
00:42:41,135 –> 00:42:44,755
environment. My environment is going to conform to me.

684
00:42:45,535 –> 00:42:49,380
And now you’re in a fourth Jack Nicholson in the Departed. You’re, you know, you’re

685
00:42:49,380 –> 00:42:52,980
you’re you’re you’re you’re killing people and you’re like, you know, whatever. We’re we’re here

686
00:42:52,980 –> 00:42:56,745
now. Yeah. We’re here now. We’re we’re here. Exactly.

687
00:42:56,745 –> 00:43:00,425
We’re here now. You know, you’re having Matt Damon infiltrate the the Boston

688
00:43:00,425 –> 00:43:03,965
Police Department. But

689
00:43:05,700 –> 00:43:09,540
she was early, I think, and she couldn’t help it.

690
00:43:09,540 –> 00:43:12,840
Like, she but she had this thing in her. She had to get it out.

691
00:43:13,125 –> 00:43:16,805
And at the time and and Gates is correct. Thirty

692
00:43:16,805 –> 00:43:20,565
social realism from you know, I mentioned Catherine

693
00:43:20,565 –> 00:43:24,290
Ann Porter, the writer of pale horse, pale rider. Pale, Catherine

694
00:43:24,290 –> 00:43:27,890
and Porter was riding in the 19 thirties, in in so in the social realism

695
00:43:27,890 –> 00:43:31,350
space. And she went and met, you know, Diego Rivera.

696
00:43:31,955 –> 00:43:35,555
Frida Callow was operating during that period of time. There

697
00:43:35,555 –> 00:43:39,255
was a sense in the west that

698
00:43:41,230 –> 00:43:44,990
communism was working. Socialism was the next step up

699
00:43:44,990 –> 00:43:48,370
from capitalism. We could get to that utopian paradise.

700
00:43:48,944 –> 00:43:51,664
Walter Lippmann was writing in the New York Tom. This is where we put some

701
00:43:51,664 –> 00:43:55,184
historical context around this. Walter Lippmann was writing in the New York Times about the

702
00:43:55,184 –> 00:43:58,770
greatness of Stalin’s 5 year plan and

703
00:43:58,830 –> 00:44:02,510
how awesome everything was when he went to Moscow and how everybody looked

704
00:44:02,510 –> 00:44:06,270
happy. And there were no gulags, and that was actually, he didn’t

705
00:44:06,270 –> 00:44:09,295
mention that word because they never saw it on the tour.

706
00:44:10,315 –> 00:44:13,915
You know? It wasn’t an and by the way, this was the golden era

707
00:44:13,915 –> 00:44:17,760
before before World War 2 really

708
00:44:17,760 –> 00:44:21,440
kicked off, you know? Yeah. There was some rumblings about

709
00:44:21,440 –> 00:44:24,875
some wackadoo named Hitler in Germany,

710
00:44:25,015 –> 00:44:28,775
but, like, that was a European problem. So the 19 thirties were

711
00:44:28,775 –> 00:44:32,615
this were this weird sort of golden era of, like, social realism in

712
00:44:32,615 –> 00:44:36,150
the arts And this idea that you could ascend from

713
00:44:36,850 –> 00:44:40,530
capitalism to communism and achieve utopia because it had already

714
00:44:40,530 –> 00:44:44,255
happened in in in the Soviet Union. So there was the United States was

715
00:44:44,255 –> 00:44:47,635
right there, and then the rest of the west was right there.

716
00:44:49,750 –> 00:44:51,850
And Hurston looked at all that, I suspect,

717
00:44:53,670 –> 00:44:54,410
and went,

718
00:44:57,350 –> 00:44:57,850
no.

719
00:45:01,175 –> 00:45:04,695
And then just sort of said, I’m gonna do my thing over here and sort

720
00:45:04,695 –> 00:45:08,270
of walked away this way. And that’s why I say she was early.

721
00:45:09,450 –> 00:45:12,990
You know, because the things that we would find out much later around

722
00:45:14,085 –> 00:45:17,925
All of those areas, political and cultural kind of put paid to all of that,

723
00:45:18,244 –> 00:45:21,765
for the rest of the rest of the 20th century. So I can forgive those

724
00:45:21,765 –> 00:45:25,500
people. And I’ve often I’ve said this on the podcast before. I can forgive people

725
00:45:25,500 –> 00:45:29,180
for having for having the idea that communism was gonna be the next great

726
00:45:29,180 –> 00:45:32,182
thing up until about 19 fourth,

727
00:45:33,005 –> 00:45:36,605
maybe. But then anybody born after fourth? Come on. What are we

728
00:45:36,605 –> 00:45:39,345
doing? Writers, stop. Stop it.

729
00:45:40,077 –> 00:45:43,630
Tom. Stop with the Marxist rhetoric. Come on. We know where that

730
00:45:43,630 –> 00:45:47,470
leads Tom. Quit. We we have this. We have the receipts as the

731
00:45:47,470 –> 00:45:48,690
kids say these days.

732
00:45:53,474 –> 00:45:56,275
You know? We we’ll look at the tail of the tape as I said during

733
00:45:56,275 –> 00:45:59,910
my time. Okay. Of course,

734
00:45:59,910 –> 00:46:02,630
we’re a leadership podcast. I wanna turn the corner here because we have a limited

735
00:46:02,630 –> 00:46:05,270
amount of time. I have a limited amount of time Tom, unless I’m gonna do

736
00:46:05,270 –> 00:46:08,395
a 2 parter on this, we may very well do a 2 parter. We’ll see

737
00:46:08,395 –> 00:46:09,755
how far we get. But,

738
00:46:12,395 –> 00:46:16,030
what can leaders you think just for your initial thought, like, what can

739
00:46:16,030 –> 00:46:18,930
leaders potentially take from person’s writings?

740
00:46:22,270 –> 00:46:26,015
So I know it’s a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, so because

741
00:46:26,015 –> 00:46:28,815
I think there’s a lot there. I think there’s a lot there to unpack too.

742
00:46:28,815 –> 00:46:32,415
Right? Like Right. So and and some of it goes to what you were

743
00:46:32,415 –> 00:46:36,260
talking about with the entrepreneurial, situation, but some of it doesn’t. Like,

744
00:46:36,260 –> 00:46:38,440
I think I think there’s something to be said about

745
00:46:40,500 –> 00:46:44,325
about knowing and understanding the pulse of your business, how the pulse of

746
00:46:44,325 –> 00:46:47,464
your business interacts with the with the the rest of

747
00:46:48,244 –> 00:46:51,605
the stakeholders, whether it be the community that it sits in, the

748
00:46:51,605 –> 00:46:54,900
customers, the employees, and so on and so forth.

749
00:46:55,440 –> 00:46:58,880
And being able to look at somebody and I have I have this moral principle

750
00:46:58,880 –> 00:47:01,059
that I’m going to leverage with my company

751
00:47:02,325 –> 00:47:06,005
and not waiver from it based on the impact of those other

752
00:47:06,005 –> 00:47:09,845
stakeholders. Mhmm. Because sometimes the impact of the stakeholders can

753
00:47:09,845 –> 00:47:13,350
be very strong, especially in today’s cult cancel culture. Are you kidding?

754
00:47:13,801 –> 00:47:17,510
Writers, we’ve seen giant organizations almost

755
00:47:17,510 –> 00:47:20,994
get obliterated by the way that cancel culture

756
00:47:21,694 –> 00:47:25,454
just, like, gets blasted through social

757
00:47:25,454 –> 00:47:28,974
media. Mhmm. You could be on the top of the world one day, have one

758
00:47:28,974 –> 00:47:32,720
comment quoted or misquoted or whatever, and all of a sudden

759
00:47:32,720 –> 00:47:36,160
vilified, and now all of a sudden fourth stocks are tanking and all this other

760
00:47:36,160 –> 00:47:39,954
stuff, and you have to react to that. So I think one

761
00:47:39,954 –> 00:47:43,315
of the lessons that she could probably I was actually gonna ask you. I was

762
00:47:43,315 –> 00:47:47,140
gonna flip this on you a little bit and ask you, what what

763
00:47:47,140 –> 00:47:50,740
kind of consultant would she be if she were our age today? And I

764
00:47:50,740 –> 00:47:54,505
think I think it would be we don’t have to answer that

765
00:47:54,505 –> 00:47:57,705
right now. That could actually be a podcast all by itself. Podcast all by itself.

766
00:47:57,705 –> 00:48:01,005
Wow. Okay. I’d love to see I’d love to see Jesan as a DEI consultant

767
00:48:01,305 –> 00:48:05,010
in today’s world. If she was, like, 45, 50. I

768
00:48:05,010 –> 00:48:08,770
think anyway, we could talk about that later. But but but, anyway, go

769
00:48:08,770 –> 00:48:11,730
back to what I I I do think that that if you if you read

770
00:48:11,730 –> 00:48:15,505
this and you understand her and you understand her life and the style of

771
00:48:15,505 –> 00:48:17,744
her writing and where she’s coming from and how

772
00:48:19,345 –> 00:48:22,780
what impacted her, Again, it wasn’t just her community, but

773
00:48:22,780 –> 00:48:26,220
science impacted her. But it wasn’t just science. It was

774
00:48:26,220 –> 00:48:30,055
also spiritual and religion,

775
00:48:30,115 –> 00:48:33,815
and there was a lot of impacts to her, but she had this

776
00:48:34,755 –> 00:48:38,480
principle about her that was unwavering. And I think

777
00:48:38,480 –> 00:48:42,240
if you as a leader if if now that

778
00:48:42,240 –> 00:48:45,785
being said, I’m not suggesting that you don’t challenge your own principle to make sure

779
00:48:45,785 –> 00:48:49,545
that it is a true north guiding light for you. But as

780
00:48:49,545 –> 00:48:53,080
long as you feel comfortable and confident that and and you’ve you’ve had

781
00:48:53,080 –> 00:48:56,920
it tested and you’ve succeeded with that test, then she

782
00:48:56,920 –> 00:49:00,600
teaches you to follow that that Fourth Star.

783
00:49:00,600 –> 00:49:04,075
Right? Like, she she teaches you to not waver based

784
00:49:04,075 –> 00:49:07,835
on other people’s opinions. Like and and and we’ve seen

785
00:49:07,835 –> 00:49:11,640
people do that. Right? We’ve seen the battles between the Elon Musks

786
00:49:11,640 –> 00:49:14,780
and the Jeff Bezos of of the world and, like, those kinds

787
00:49:15,400 –> 00:49:19,005
of mega power people. And then you got Warren Buffett going, you guys do what

788
00:49:19,005 –> 00:49:22,405
you’re gonna do. I’m just gonna be over here being rich. Right. Yeah. I’m gonna

789
00:49:22,405 –> 00:49:25,845
invest in DQ in the 19 eighties and be fine. It’s fine. You guys have

790
00:49:25,845 –> 00:49:28,670
fun doing whatever. Not gonna care. You guys can have all the technology you want.

791
00:49:28,670 –> 00:49:32,510
I’m still gonna make shit a crapload of money without ever like, he just I

792
00:49:32,510 –> 00:49:36,350
screamed. Right. Because because he had his principle. Like and it was like he

793
00:49:36,430 –> 00:49:39,935
and he just went forward. I think I think that, you know,

794
00:49:39,935 –> 00:49:43,295
leaders can take something from that, and I think she was that kind of writer.

795
00:49:43,295 –> 00:49:46,495
I think if we look at if we if we learn anything from her, it

796
00:49:46,495 –> 00:49:50,079
is not to allow not to allow other

797
00:49:50,079 –> 00:49:53,760
people or outside influences waiver your own principles and

798
00:49:53,760 –> 00:49:57,295
moral and moral guidance as long as

799
00:49:57,454 –> 00:50:01,055
like I said I mean, you don’t wanna be driving down the wrong way on

800
00:50:01,055 –> 00:50:04,414
a one way street. Let me let’s put it that way. Right? So let’s, like,

801
00:50:04,414 –> 00:50:07,940
just let’s let’s just make sure that you’re that you’re validating

802
00:50:08,400 –> 00:50:12,240
your your Fourth Star, so to speak. But once you can validate it

803
00:50:12,240 –> 00:50:15,040
and you know that it’s right and it’s right for you, it’s right for the

804
00:50:15,040 –> 00:50:18,865
people that are important to you, then go and don’t let

805
00:50:18,865 –> 00:50:22,245
these other people worry about about what you’re saying.

806
00:50:23,830 –> 00:50:26,710
I don’t know the show very well, but we were just talking about that same

807
00:50:26,710 –> 00:50:30,550
principle with Larry David. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. With Curve Your Enthusiasm. Yeah. He’s

808
00:50:30,550 –> 00:50:34,365
been speaking his truth for 40 years, and he’s never been canceled for it. Never.

809
00:50:34,365 –> 00:50:38,100
Never. He yeah. Larry will never it will never happen because

810
00:50:38,100 –> 00:50:41,860
one of them, what his show is over right now. But number 2, there’s a,

811
00:50:41,860 –> 00:50:45,140
I haven’t seen the last season of curb, so don’t ruin it for me. People

812
00:50:45,140 –> 00:50:48,805
who are listening. I’ll see it later, but apparently there’s a

813
00:50:48,805 –> 00:50:52,325
scene where he like leans over to some kid in

814
00:50:52,325 –> 00:50:56,010
like a baby carriage or something. And he’s like, I’m 76 years old.

815
00:50:56,010 –> 00:50:57,310
I’ve never learned anything.

816
00:50:59,610 –> 00:51:02,590
Exactly. He just walks away and I’m like, that’s

817
00:51:04,215 –> 00:51:07,815
yes. That’s a principle. Now it might be a

818
00:51:07,815 –> 00:51:11,275
principle you don’t agree with. I I personally think, well,

819
00:51:11,980 –> 00:51:15,359
it’s funny, but I don’t know if that’s a principle I would wanna live by.

820
00:51:15,819 –> 00:51:19,500
But we have a principle of freedom that allows us enough space in this

821
00:51:19,500 –> 00:51:22,385
country to have all those multivariant

822
00:51:23,245 –> 00:51:26,845
sort of ways of approaching this thing called this

823
00:51:26,845 –> 00:51:29,985
hard, complicated thing called life

824
00:51:30,690 –> 00:51:34,099
and to figure out what our principles are. And then as leaders,

825
00:51:34,450 –> 00:51:36,891
look, I I’m a big fan of principled leadership.

826
00:51:38,444 –> 00:51:42,045
But I’m not a big fan of leadership that

827
00:51:42,045 –> 00:51:45,880
says it’s principled or tries to put put

828
00:51:45,880 –> 00:51:48,380
its its waffly wavery positions

829
00:51:49,480 –> 00:51:53,240
underneath, a thin sheen of principle. I’m

830
00:51:53,240 –> 00:51:56,975
not a fan of that. Not only am I with you not only

831
00:51:56,975 –> 00:52:00,655
am I with you on that from a leadership, even from a parenting perspective. Like,

832
00:52:00,655 –> 00:52:04,310
I never ever ever once said to my kids, well, do as I

833
00:52:04,310 –> 00:52:07,750
say, not as I do. Yeah. Like, you know, don’t do that because I said

834
00:52:07,750 –> 00:52:10,390
so, not because it’s the right thing to do. Just do it because I said

835
00:52:10,390 –> 00:52:13,965
so. I never had I never wanted that. I wanted my kids to be in

836
00:52:13,965 –> 00:52:17,725
any company that I’ve ever worked for. It’s okay to

837
00:52:17,725 –> 00:52:21,350
challenge me. I’m not gonna back down from my principal. It’s okay to challenge me.

838
00:52:21,350 –> 00:52:23,830
But at the end, you are eventually gonna do what I want you to do.

839
00:52:23,830 –> 00:52:26,710
But I want you to understand why. I want you to understand why it’s important

840
00:52:26,710 –> 00:52:30,475
to move forward. I want you to understand whether you think

841
00:52:30,475 –> 00:52:34,235
it’s the right decision or not. It still follows

842
00:52:34,395 –> 00:52:38,235
again, I just keep using the phrase Fourth Star. It follows our North Star.

843
00:52:38,235 –> 00:52:41,960
It follows in line with our North Tom. So we’re just gonna that’s why

844
00:52:41,960 –> 00:52:45,720
we’re doing this. Right. If we if we go with your suggestion or

845
00:52:45,720 –> 00:52:48,355
if we go with it your way, we have to change our North Star. And

846
00:52:48,435 –> 00:52:51,075
in order to change our north star, we have to go through a whole big

847
00:52:51,075 –> 00:52:54,755
process. That’s that’s changing principles. It’s changing the whole dynamics of the

848
00:52:54,755 –> 00:52:58,250
company or what have you. And if that’s something you wanna do, that’s

849
00:52:58,250 –> 00:53:01,850
okay, but you have to change the North Star before you start playing

850
00:53:01,850 –> 00:53:05,535
around with the the the the other, you know, suggestions and stuff like

851
00:53:05,535 –> 00:53:08,895
that. Yeah. Yeah. So, again, to your to your point, though, like, I I’ve never

852
00:53:08,895 –> 00:53:11,860
bought into that. I’d never liked the even the leaders in companies that are like,

853
00:53:11,940 –> 00:53:14,500
Yeah. Just go do this because I think it’s a good idea and go do

854
00:53:14,500 –> 00:53:18,020
that. Well, no. If it doesn’t follow the principles of the company, then why am

855
00:53:18,020 –> 00:53:21,800
I doing it? But I want I want people that work for me

856
00:53:21,895 –> 00:53:25,494
to do that for me. Yeah. Notice I said do that for me, not to

857
00:53:25,494 –> 00:53:29,015
me. Not to you. I did notice that. There’s a there’s a

858
00:53:29,015 –> 00:53:32,480
distinct difference there. Right? There’s a distinct difference. When you do something to me,

859
00:53:32,480 –> 00:53:36,319
it’s challenging, it’s combative, it’s unproductive. When you do

860
00:53:36,319 –> 00:53:39,765
something to me, I have to defend myself. When you do something for me, I

861
00:53:39,765 –> 00:53:43,365
have to justify my thought process. And in doing so, I

862
00:53:43,365 –> 00:53:46,965
can make sure that everybody does and and and flows the same

863
00:53:46,965 –> 00:53:50,650
way and go and kinda goes with it. So it’s it’s a big difference

864
00:53:50,650 –> 00:53:54,410
between doing something to you and for you. So it’s interesting that you bring up

865
00:53:54,410 –> 00:53:58,085
that difference because if we go back to the book,

866
00:53:58,184 –> 00:54:00,845
Janie is about to meet a gentleman named Joe Starks.

867
00:54:02,345 –> 00:54:05,839
So in chapters 5 through 9 of their eyes are watching god, we

868
00:54:05,839 –> 00:54:09,540
begin the journey in Janie’s marriage

869
00:54:09,760 –> 00:54:11,060
to Joe Starks.

870
00:54:15,785 –> 00:54:17,965
When Joe meets her, he basically

871
00:54:19,625 –> 00:54:22,980
takes her away from her first husband. They don’t get a

872
00:54:22,980 –> 00:54:26,440
divorce. It’s sort of the formalized way that we do divorces

873
00:54:26,500 –> 00:54:29,994
now. He literally walks in, flashes well, not even

874
00:54:29,994 –> 00:54:33,355
flashes a bunch of money. He, he tells

875
00:54:33,355 –> 00:54:36,875
her, a bunch of

876
00:54:36,875 –> 00:54:37,375
stories,

877
00:54:41,550 –> 00:54:45,310
and then, she’s accused because she believes these

878
00:54:45,310 –> 00:54:48,665
stories by her husband, Logan, her first

879
00:54:48,665 –> 00:54:52,505
husband, of thinking that she’s white because of the way that

880
00:54:52,505 –> 00:54:55,565
she acts. Oh,

881
00:54:56,680 –> 00:54:59,880
I’m gonna, I’m gonna get into that a little bit here in a minute. But

882
00:54:59,880 –> 00:55:02,280
let me, let me, let me stay focused on the book for just a moment

883
00:55:02,280 –> 00:55:05,345
because that’s, that’s an important distinction that I wanna bring up because there are some.

884
00:55:05,905 –> 00:55:09,505
Some interesting dynamics there that is revealed by that that I know about being an

885
00:55:09,505 –> 00:55:13,185
African American, that maybe, another reader from another

886
00:55:13,185 –> 00:55:16,940
ethnic group wouldn’t wouldn’t understand it. So I did laugh through that

887
00:55:16,940 –> 00:55:20,300
actually myself. You just gave away you just gave away your voice secret that you

888
00:55:20,300 –> 00:55:23,495
said earlier. Earlier in this episode, you said you weren’t gonna do, but you just

889
00:55:23,495 –> 00:55:26,935
did it. Anyway, go ahead. I know. It’s fine. It’s whatever. It’s fine. It’s

890
00:55:26,935 –> 00:55:30,375
fine. I think I think the secret’s probably out these days, so it’s

891
00:55:30,375 –> 00:55:33,870
fine. Besides, AI is gonna take off my

892
00:55:33,870 –> 00:55:36,930
voice and go do a whole bunch of other things with it, so whatever.

893
00:55:39,144 –> 00:55:42,525
So she meets, she meets a man named Joe Starks who takes her off,

894
00:55:43,224 –> 00:55:46,204
on a train, and he takes her to

895
00:55:47,569 –> 00:55:50,790
a, place, where

896
00:55:53,250 –> 00:55:57,015
he can begin to be a

897
00:55:57,015 –> 00:56:00,375
boss man, as we would say these days. He Jesan to be somebody in

898
00:56:00,375 –> 00:56:03,895
charge. He takes her to a place that is developing in

899
00:56:03,895 –> 00:56:07,630
Florida called Eaton Ville. Now

900
00:56:07,850 –> 00:56:11,630
at the time when he runs across it, Eaton Ville isn’t anything.

901
00:56:11,690 –> 00:56:15,425
It’s, it’s a couple of different little Sorrells that are rubbed

902
00:56:15,425 –> 00:56:18,325
out of dirt, and you’ve got a bunch of people sitting around,

903
00:56:19,105 –> 00:56:22,625
just basically BS ing and, and, sitting on the front

904
00:56:22,625 –> 00:56:26,210
porch, not really to the front porch of a store, not really doing anything.

905
00:56:26,430 –> 00:56:30,110
And Joe Starks comes in. He buys 200

906
00:56:30,110 –> 00:56:33,815
acres and he begins to set himself up as a power broker

907
00:56:33,815 –> 00:56:37,335
in the town. As a matter of fact, he’s such a good power broker in

908
00:56:37,335 –> 00:56:40,474
chapters 5 through 9, that he is declared not elected,

909
00:56:40,980 –> 00:56:42,760
declared mayor of the town,

910
00:56:46,339 –> 00:56:49,655
which is a nice little turn of

911
00:56:50,035 –> 00:56:53,875
Zora Neale Thurston’s or Zora Neale Hurston’s thoughts on political power in the

912
00:56:53,875 –> 00:56:57,650
United States. As Joe stays in

913
00:56:57,650 –> 00:57:01,010
the town, the town begins to grow. They get a light, which is

914
00:57:01,010 –> 00:57:04,310
dedicated in a very hilarious fashion by

915
00:57:04,575 –> 00:57:08,335
by Joe. And as he

916
00:57:08,335 –> 00:57:12,015
begins to expand his power, Janie begins

917
00:57:12,015 –> 00:57:15,859
to understand what being an entrepreneur and a store owner really

918
00:57:15,859 –> 00:57:19,220
means as she begins to behave entrepreneurially. This is a woman

919
00:57:19,220 –> 00:57:22,905
who is portrayed initially in the first chapters of the book as having

920
00:57:22,905 –> 00:57:26,345
no more than maybe a 3rd or 4th grade education. And

921
00:57:26,345 –> 00:57:29,405
yet Joe Starks puts her in charge of the store

922
00:57:30,090 –> 00:57:33,930
and sets her up in that space and lets her manage this

923
00:57:34,010 –> 00:57:37,790
well, not lets. Empower not even empowers. That’s not really the word.

924
00:57:38,335 –> 00:57:42,174
Complies her, and I’m using those words in that order for that for a particular

925
00:57:42,174 –> 00:57:45,990
reason, complies her to manage the store. And the

926
00:57:45,990 –> 00:57:49,750
store becomes the center of the town. And as the town grows and because

927
00:57:49,750 –> 00:57:53,130
we’re prosperous, so does Joe Starks. Until eventually,

928
00:57:55,155 –> 00:57:58,755
Janie begins to realize, and this is the journey,

929
00:58:00,355 –> 00:58:04,150
that the inside state of her marriage

930
00:58:04,150 –> 00:58:06,970
and the outside state of her marriage were 2 different things.

931
00:58:07,750 –> 00:58:11,109
So the b s ers on the front porch of the

932
00:58:11,109 –> 00:58:14,695
store who could toss dice and talk the

933
00:58:14,695 –> 00:58:18,375
dozens, they saw

934
00:58:18,375 –> 00:58:22,110
her in one sort of way. Joe saw her in another sort

935
00:58:22,110 –> 00:58:25,790
of way. Matter of fact, there’s a telling incident that occurs. I believe

936
00:58:25,790 –> 00:58:29,395
it’s in, chapter 6 late in chapter 6, early in

937
00:58:29,395 –> 00:58:32,055
chapter 7, where she’s basically

938
00:58:33,155 –> 00:58:36,900
told to shut up and go back inside the store because she has

939
00:58:36,900 –> 00:58:40,740
position in the town now. Joe tells her that you’re the

940
00:58:40,740 –> 00:58:44,484
mayor’s wife. Your job is to merely stand there and

941
00:58:44,484 –> 00:58:48,244
look nice and manage the store. And as

942
00:58:48,244 –> 00:58:51,500
the inside state of her marriage and the outside state of her marriage begin to

943
00:58:51,500 –> 00:58:55,020
separate and by the way, this is what I think Alice Walker and other

944
00:58:55,020 –> 00:58:58,860
post 19 sixties 19 seventies feminist writers got from Zora

945
00:58:58,860 –> 00:59:02,705
Neale Hurston was her separation in herself as a woman from

946
00:59:02,705 –> 00:59:06,465
Joe Starks as a man regardless of race. This is where

947
00:59:06,465 –> 00:59:10,060
this sort of really begins to happen in chapters 5

948
00:59:10,060 –> 00:59:13,500
through 9 until eventually, Joe

949
00:59:13,500 –> 00:59:17,235
Starks, well, he gets sick, and I

950
00:59:17,235 –> 00:59:20,935
won’t, I won’t get into why he got sick.

951
00:59:21,395 –> 00:59:23,880
But he gets sick And,

952
00:59:26,420 –> 00:59:30,260
well, as he does and this is on page, well,

953
00:59:30,260 –> 00:59:34,025
this is on late late in chapter 8, in their eyes are

954
00:59:34,025 –> 00:59:37,865
watching God. As he gets more sick, he begins to become

955
00:59:37,865 –> 00:59:40,445
more violent and abusive towards Janie.

956
00:59:41,700 –> 00:59:45,460
And there’s a scene that occurs and they’re

957
00:59:45,460 –> 00:59:47,630
basically yelling at each other. And,

958
00:59:49,335 –> 00:59:53,095
this is noted by Hurston and I quote times and scenes like that.

959
00:59:53,095 –> 00:59:56,670
Put Janie into thinking about the inside state of her marriage Time

960
00:59:56,670 –> 00:59:59,550
came when she fought back with her tongue as best she could, but it didn’t

961
00:59:59,550 –> 01:00:03,310
do her any good. It just made Joe do more. He wanted her

962
01:00:03,310 –> 01:00:06,095
submission, and he kept on fighting until he felt he had

963
01:00:07,055 –> 01:00:10,115
it. So gradually, she pressed her teeth together and learned to hush.

964
01:00:10,815 –> 01:00:14,515
The spirit of the marriage left the bedroom and took to living in the parlor.

965
01:00:15,150 –> 01:00:18,430
That was a hell of a line, by the way, it was there to shake

966
01:00:18,430 –> 01:00:22,190
hands whenever company came to visit, but it never went back

967
01:00:22,190 –> 01:00:25,965
inside the bedroom again. So she put something in there

968
01:00:25,965 –> 01:00:29,725
to represent the spirit, like a Virgin Mary image in a church. The

969
01:00:29,725 –> 01:00:33,210
bed was no longer a Daisy field for her and Joe to play in. It

970
01:00:33,210 –> 01:00:36,510
was a place where she went and laid down when she was sleepy

971
01:00:36,970 –> 01:00:39,550
and tired. Close quote.

972
01:00:42,285 –> 01:00:43,905
Joe dies, of course, because

973
01:00:45,965 –> 01:00:49,630
in novels written by women, men die and they die

974
01:00:49,630 –> 01:00:53,329
early and often. So he dies

975
01:00:54,910 –> 01:00:58,575
and this allows her,

976
01:00:59,915 –> 01:01:03,615
such as it were like a flower, to begin to bloom

977
01:01:04,075 –> 01:01:07,650
into her late forties or not late forties, I’m sorry, early

978
01:01:07,650 –> 01:01:11,170
forties as a widow. And that’s sort of where

979
01:01:11,170 –> 01:01:14,905
chapter 9 really trends downward. And

980
01:01:14,905 –> 01:01:17,545
we get into the back, 3rd of the book.

981
01:01:20,185 –> 01:01:22,530
A lot of different things going on in the middle parts of that with the

982
01:01:22,530 –> 01:01:26,369
Joe Starks marriage. We already talked about Zora Neale

983
01:01:26,369 –> 01:01:29,855
Hurston writing in the dialects of the people that she, that she

984
01:01:30,075 –> 01:01:33,115
led. One point that we didn’t or that she that she lived around and that

985
01:01:33,115 –> 01:01:36,795
she researched and that she studied, one of the things that we didn’t

986
01:01:36,795 –> 01:01:40,200
talk about, and I think it’s important to bring this up, and I kind of

987
01:01:40,200 –> 01:01:43,960
obliquely referred to it when I talked about how I talk, is

988
01:01:43,960 –> 01:01:47,585
that we have in our brains, whether we like it or not,

989
01:01:47,585 –> 01:01:51,025
and linguists like John McWhorter talk about this and other linguistic

990
01:01:51,025 –> 01:01:54,725
researchers talk about this. He’s a professor at Columbia University.

991
01:01:55,160 –> 01:01:58,060
He co hosts a podcast, with Glenn Lowry,

992
01:01:58,840 –> 01:02:02,380
another, black, intellectual economics

993
01:02:02,520 –> 01:02:06,245
researcher. And I occasionally will listen to that podcast, The Glenn Loury Show. He’s

994
01:02:06,245 –> 01:02:08,645
got a new book out, by the way. This is not an ad for him.

995
01:02:08,645 –> 01:02:12,245
Just go read his book, confessions. I think it’s confessions of a black conservative, I

996
01:02:12,245 –> 01:02:14,650
think, is what it’s called or something like that. Anyway,

997
01:02:17,029 –> 01:02:20,650
McWhorter as a linguist points this out in Hurston’s work,

998
01:02:21,190 –> 01:02:24,615
and he points it out as a larger trend that we actually see in not

999
01:02:24,615 –> 01:02:26,955
only American culture, but worldwide culture

1000
01:02:28,695 –> 01:02:31,435
where language is

1001
01:02:33,430 –> 01:02:36,869
changed for cultural or folk reasons, the

1002
01:02:36,869 –> 01:02:40,710
dominant dialect tends to look upon the minority dialect, and

1003
01:02:40,710 –> 01:02:44,175
this is in all cultures, as being less than. And the

1004
01:02:44,175 –> 01:02:48,015
speakers of that minority dialect as having less

1005
01:02:48,015 –> 01:02:51,610
than well, having less than in an intellectual capacity.

1006
01:02:52,150 –> 01:02:55,370
And we don’t like to talk about this in America because it seems

1007
01:02:56,535 –> 01:03:00,135
vaguely prejudicial or somewhat biased, but it is

1008
01:03:00,135 –> 01:03:03,975
true. Just because it seems prejudicial books doesn’t mean it’s not true. It just means

1009
01:03:03,975 –> 01:03:07,640
it makes us uncomfortable. And this is part of the reason I

1010
01:03:07,640 –> 01:03:11,080
think why my grandma and probably your grandma too,

1011
01:03:11,080 –> 01:03:14,605
Tom, we’re very

1012
01:03:14,605 –> 01:03:18,205
much. Consumed with the, at least my

1013
01:03:18,205 –> 01:03:21,800
grandma was consumed with the idea of language

1014
01:03:22,020 –> 01:03:25,619
as a proxy for intellectual capacity fourth even

1015
01:03:25,619 –> 01:03:29,395
worse. Whether we like it or not language as a

1016
01:03:29,395 –> 01:03:31,255
proxy for intellectual competence.

1017
01:03:33,234 –> 01:03:37,029
And we get really caught on that hook. And

1018
01:03:37,029 –> 01:03:40,710
even today we have issues and challenges with particularly in,

1019
01:03:40,710 –> 01:03:44,549
in black America. I mean, I remember a few years ago, I’ve been 15 years

1020
01:03:44,549 –> 01:03:48,305
ago. Now there was all this talk about. Black

1021
01:03:48,305 –> 01:03:52,144
English that we should be teaching this to kids in school fourth we

1022
01:03:52,144 –> 01:03:55,890
should write or rappers. You see this with rap music, but something

1023
01:03:55,890 –> 01:03:59,490
weird happened about 15 years ago, maybe 10, where we stopped

1024
01:03:59,490 –> 01:04:03,010
talking about this. And I think it’s because Kanye West sort of went off the

1025
01:04:03,010 –> 01:04:06,765
rails a little bit, but bra rap music has sort of shifted around, and

1026
01:04:06,765 –> 01:04:10,285
they were the more popular purveyors of this sort of idea of a

1027
01:04:10,285 –> 01:04:13,830
particular linguistic flavor that that wasn’t tied

1028
01:04:13,830 –> 01:04:16,730
to intellectual capacity, but was instead tied to entertainment.

1029
01:04:20,265 –> 01:04:24,105
Competency and language have to be teased apart by leaders, I think. And

1030
01:04:24,105 –> 01:04:26,825
this is actually one of the challenges, and I think this is the core challenge

1031
01:04:26,825 –> 01:04:30,599
that the eye is trying to solve. It’s this idea that we have in

1032
01:04:30,599 –> 01:04:34,200
our heads, which is deeply embedded. I think McWhorter would say that into almost our

1033
01:04:34,200 –> 01:04:37,714
biology, that anyone who talks different must be

1034
01:04:37,714 –> 01:04:41,555
different all the way down. It’s not

1035
01:04:41,555 –> 01:04:45,230
just, oh, they talk a little bit of a different dialect, but

1036
01:04:45,390 –> 01:04:48,750
they have the same intellectual capacity and competency as me, so I should just trust

1037
01:04:48,750 –> 01:04:52,350
them. I think that we fight against our biology and that all and our

1038
01:04:52,350 –> 01:04:54,855
psychology and that all the Tom, and I don’t know how to solve that problem.

1039
01:04:54,855 –> 01:04:58,615
I don’t think a DEI program solves that problem. I I I

1040
01:04:58,615 –> 01:05:02,150
also think there’s something to be said about the way

1041
01:05:02,150 –> 01:05:05,910
that we categorize or classify some of this stuff too. Right?

1042
01:05:05,910 –> 01:05:09,734
Like, so for for example, like, somebody like, you you 2

1043
01:05:09,734 –> 01:05:13,494
people from the exact same family, right,

1044
01:05:13,494 –> 01:05:16,935
could be oh, like, well, he’s really book smart, but he’s street

1045
01:05:16,935 –> 01:05:20,780
smart. Right. And so we we we say it’s almost like that that pat

1046
01:05:20,780 –> 01:05:24,560
on the head. Right? Like, that’s his that’s that’s his her his participation

1047
01:05:24,780 –> 01:05:28,615
trophy that, you know, he may not be book smart, but he’s street smart. If

1048
01:05:28,615 –> 01:05:32,455
I’m stuck in the middle of nowhere, I would rather be with this family

1049
01:05:32,455 –> 01:05:36,099
member than that one because but if I’m at a cocktail party,

1050
01:05:36,240 –> 01:05:39,520
I want that family member with me because it’s gonna make me look better. It’s

1051
01:05:39,520 –> 01:05:42,740
gonna make me feel better. It’s gonna make me think think I’m smarter or whatever.

1052
01:05:42,825 –> 01:05:45,945
I I I think there’s a lot of that kind of stuff too that kinda

1053
01:05:45,945 –> 01:05:49,785
has a little bit of a play in this. What I think we neglect to

1054
01:05:49,785 –> 01:05:52,765
think about, and go back to the DEI thing in leadership

1055
01:05:53,610 –> 01:05:57,230
today. And and that whole idea, to your point about somebody who

1056
01:05:58,330 –> 01:06:01,984
somebody who speaks differently has to think differently. And if they think

1057
01:06:01,984 –> 01:06:05,345
differently, then they they may or may not fit. And what we what we

1058
01:06:05,345 –> 01:06:08,785
sometimes forget to think about is sometimes though those

1059
01:06:08,785 –> 01:06:11,670
differences give us advantages

1060
01:06:12,370 –> 01:06:16,130
because they’re they may not be looking at the problem the same way we are,

1061
01:06:16,130 –> 01:06:19,490
and that is not necessarily a bad thing. Mhmm. Like, so

1062
01:06:20,275 –> 01:06:22,755
and again, I don’t think I don’t know if this is a DEI thing or

1063
01:06:22,755 –> 01:06:26,515
not. I I I don’t really know that, but but I often find myself

1064
01:06:26,515 –> 01:06:27,974
thinking that

1065
01:06:31,359 –> 01:06:34,799
intellect does not happen at school all the

1066
01:06:34,799 –> 01:06:38,099
time. Intellect intellect can be somebody

1067
01:06:38,525 –> 01:06:41,965
who goes out and learns on their own. Somebody who goes out and figures something

1068
01:06:41,965 –> 01:06:45,485
out. Somebody that’s a somebody could be a problem solver without having a

1069
01:06:45,485 –> 01:06:49,212
PhD. Like, they don’t need a PhD. They They don’t need to speak the way

1070
01:06:49,212 –> 01:06:52,715
we speak in order to be a real problem solver. I I believe I forget

1071
01:06:52,715 –> 01:06:56,025
who I think it was Steve Jobs once said, if I want the easiest way

1072
01:06:56,025 –> 01:06:59,145
to do something, I find the laziest person in the room and ask him to

1073
01:06:59,145 –> 01:07:02,265
find a way to do it. Right? Like, it’s because the laziest person in the

1074
01:07:02,265 –> 01:07:05,680
room is probably gonna find the simplest way to do something because they don’t wanna

1075
01:07:05,680 –> 01:07:09,380
do the work. They’re lazy. They’re inherently lazy. That doesn’t make them unintelligent.

1076
01:07:09,840 –> 01:07:13,635
That doesn’t make them Right. Well, it’s, like, it’s linked to

1077
01:07:13,795 –> 01:07:17,075
it’s the part of it is the Protestant work ethic. So

1078
01:07:17,235 –> 01:07:20,770
look. We we we try to talk around this

1079
01:07:20,990 –> 01:07:24,830
and not directly address it. And the fact of

1080
01:07:24,830 –> 01:07:28,355
the matter is whether we whether we are

1081
01:07:28,355 –> 01:07:32,115
happy with it or not, our emotions don’t factor

1082
01:07:32,115 –> 01:07:35,575
in. The people that came

1083
01:07:36,190 –> 01:07:39,890
to this country from Europe had a very specific

1084
01:07:39,950 –> 01:07:40,690
world view,

1085
01:07:43,825 –> 01:07:46,964
And their worldview was based on Protestantism.

1086
01:07:50,065 –> 01:07:53,680
And specifically, German Lutheran

1087
01:07:54,059 –> 01:07:57,519
Protestantism tied to the idea

1088
01:07:57,660 –> 01:08:01,195
that you work along

1089
01:08:01,195 –> 01:08:04,875
with getting the grace of Jesus to get into heaven

1090
01:08:04,875 –> 01:08:08,395
and improve the world. We don’t like that in our

1091
01:08:08,395 –> 01:08:10,460
postmodern era, that makes us uncomfortable and

1092
01:08:17,100 –> 01:08:20,715
America, now I can’t speak for other countries. Obviously, Canada is

1093
01:08:20,715 –> 01:08:23,455
different. Mexico was different with the Spanish.

1094
01:08:24,850 –> 01:08:28,370
You know, Canada’s different with the French, and then other countries forget it. Like, I

1095
01:08:28,370 –> 01:08:32,210
I can’t speak to any of that. But in America, that

1096
01:08:32,210 –> 01:08:35,795
idea is so strong that it

1097
01:08:35,795 –> 01:08:39,635
impacts how we think regardless of book

1098
01:08:39,635 –> 01:08:43,255
smarts, street smarts, race, class, whatever.

1099
01:08:43,930 –> 01:08:47,689
It impacts how we think of what people produce as far

1100
01:08:47,689 –> 01:08:51,290
as work. Because Joe Starks one of the fascinating things about Joe Starks said their

1101
01:08:51,290 –> 01:08:55,015
eyes are watching god. He goes off and buys 200 acres to expand the

1102
01:08:55,015 –> 01:08:58,635
town of Eatonville, and he’s a competent mayor.

1103
01:08:59,655 –> 01:09:02,939
He knows his crap. He’s an incompetent husband.

1104
01:09:05,000 –> 01:09:07,100
He doesn’t know how to lead his wife,

1105
01:09:09,575 –> 01:09:13,175
but he knows how to be a politician. And by the way, it’s never really

1106
01:09:13,175 –> 01:09:16,695
clear where his money comes from. That’s the other thing. You Tom about being

1107
01:09:16,697 –> 01:09:20,330
Libby? Yeah. It’s not clear where his money comes

1108
01:09:20,330 –> 01:09:24,090
from. And Zora Neale Hurston isn’t saying he gets his money illegally, but

1109
01:09:24,090 –> 01:09:27,575
he literally just shows up to Jamie’s With with money.

1110
01:09:27,975 –> 01:09:31,575
With money. And, like, it’s never explained. And she doesn’t

1111
01:09:31,575 –> 01:09:35,335
ask. She’s just so excited that he showed up with money because she’s

1112
01:09:35,335 –> 01:09:38,899
like a 17, 18 year old girl. Yeah. And over the

1113
01:09:38,899 –> 01:09:42,279
course of, what, 12 years,

1114
01:09:44,179 –> 01:09:47,845
she doesn’t ask it’s not in the book. She doesn’t

1115
01:09:47,845 –> 01:09:51,365
ask, where’d you get your money from? She doesn’t ask that question. She

1116
01:09:51,365 –> 01:09:55,019
just observes how he uses his power, how not

1117
01:09:55,019 –> 01:09:58,699
power, how he uses his competency to get power, and then

1118
01:09:58,699 –> 01:10:02,300
how that power gets him more competency. She observes that

1119
01:10:02,300 –> 01:10:04,475
vicious cycle. In America,

1120
01:10:06,695 –> 01:10:10,535
because of how everything else is layered on top of the Protestant work ethic, we

1121
01:10:10,535 –> 01:10:12,635
have a real hard time teasing apart all that.

1122
01:10:16,080 –> 01:10:19,440
I I and I think because we have such a hard time teasing apart all

1123
01:10:19,690 –> 01:10:23,195
because that bowling not not bowling ball. I think of it like a, like a

1124
01:10:23,195 –> 01:10:26,415
ball on a billiard table. That billiard ball hits a bunch of other different balls.

1125
01:10:26,715 –> 01:10:30,110
Yeah. And cause and effect for us doesn’t just as human beings, just in general,

1126
01:10:30,110 –> 01:10:33,790
doesn’t we we struggle with cause and effect. Yeah.

1127
01:10:33,790 –> 01:10:37,235
I I think part of it too is I think we’re we are also you

1128
01:10:37,235 –> 01:10:41,075
know, we’re having less and less children, which gives us

1129
01:10:41,075 –> 01:10:44,595
less and less exposure in a very private setting to

1130
01:10:44,595 –> 01:10:48,260
different personalities. Right. Like like I said, I mean, I I

1131
01:10:48,260 –> 01:10:51,940
have 5 kids. All 5 of my kids are very different. Oh, yeah. I

1132
01:10:51,940 –> 01:10:55,700
got 4. Yeah. They’re yeah. And I think parenting also gives

1133
01:10:55,700 –> 01:10:59,435
us a a much more clearer indication of how we can

1134
01:10:59,435 –> 01:11:03,215
have the same rules for everybody, but treat people as individuals.

1135
01:11:04,000 –> 01:11:07,599
Right? Because the idea of treating all your kids the same to me is

1136
01:11:07,599 –> 01:11:11,199
ridiculous. My kids are different people. I have to yeah. Exactly. You can’t do

1137
01:11:11,199 –> 01:11:14,375
it. They have different personalities. They have different likes and dislikes. They have different, like

1138
01:11:14,535 –> 01:11:17,675
but they can all have the same rules. They can all follow the same rules.

1139
01:11:17,815 –> 01:11:21,280
They can all follow the same pathway when it comes to moral guidance, when it

1140
01:11:21,280 –> 01:11:25,040
comes to principles. They all they all were taught the same level and

1141
01:11:25,040 –> 01:11:28,020
the essays, but I interact with them differently.

1142
01:11:28,515 –> 01:11:32,355
Running a a company is no different Right. To me. Like, you you have

1143
01:11:32,435 –> 01:11:35,960
all your employees have to have all the same Sorrells, but you that doesn’t mean

1144
01:11:35,960 –> 01:11:39,340
you can’t interact with them on their level, at their at their

1145
01:11:39,720 –> 01:11:43,400
at on their in their space, at their whatever. However you wanna word

1146
01:11:43,400 –> 01:11:47,065
it. But I I I think that that’s that’s something

1147
01:11:47,065 –> 01:11:50,425
that’s you can’t teach that in a in a

1148
01:11:50,425 –> 01:11:54,220
corporate environment like that. It’s not it’s not that simple. If you don’t

1149
01:11:54,220 –> 01:11:57,900
grow up with it or have it in your own home,

1150
01:11:58,000 –> 01:12:01,500
turning, like, okay. So you’re one of 6 or 5 5 or 6

1151
01:12:01,500 –> 01:12:05,235
siblings or you grew up to have 5 or 6 kids. If

1152
01:12:05,235 –> 01:12:09,074
we maintain this 1 or 2 per like, right now, we’re down

1153
01:12:09,127 –> 01:12:11,840
Tom, like I think when I was a kid, we were like I think it

1154
01:12:11,840 –> 01:12:15,540
was something like 2.8 children per household. So basically,

1155
01:12:15,600 –> 01:12:18,900
everybody was basically having 3 kids, which is okay.

1156
01:12:19,395 –> 01:12:23,074
The generation before us was having 4 or more. The generation before

1157
01:12:23,074 –> 01:12:26,915
them, like, to your point, Harrison was one of, what, 12, I think you

1158
01:12:26,915 –> 01:12:30,020
said fourth something like that? My my grandma was 1 of 12. But, yeah, Hurston,

1159
01:12:30,020 –> 01:12:33,520
I mean, like, her yeah. So we went from

1160
01:12:33,580 –> 01:12:37,225
12 kids to, like, 5 kids to 3. Now we’re there are

1161
01:12:37,225 –> 01:12:39,785
plenty of families out there that don’t have kids at all. They’re just like, oh,

1162
01:12:39,785 –> 01:12:43,545
we don’t want kids. We’re we’re still on with this. So how do you take

1163
01:12:43,545 –> 01:12:46,780
those people that have one kid or no kid? Even 2 2 kids, I think,

1164
01:12:46,780 –> 01:12:50,620
is not enough because how do you expect them to be good leaders

1165
01:12:50,620 –> 01:12:54,215
of a a a 100 person company, 500 person company,

1166
01:12:54,375 –> 01:12:57,574
and be able to I just I don’t I find it difficult. I find that’s

1167
01:12:57,574 –> 01:13:01,275
where some of our difficulty is. 3 kids is your I tell this to everybody.

1168
01:13:01,655 –> 01:13:04,900
3 kids. 3 kids is the minimum.

1169
01:13:05,600 –> 01:13:08,960
Minimum. Not max. Minimum. You need

1170
01:13:08,960 –> 01:13:12,100
3. And I know. I know. I know. I know. Your career

1171
01:13:12,974 –> 01:13:16,335
and the Kansas City Chiefs kicker and da da da da da. I don’t

1172
01:13:16,335 –> 01:13:20,100
care. I don’t care. Book Like, I was

1173
01:13:20,100 –> 01:13:23,940
talking yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I’m not gonna go too deep into this. No. I

1174
01:13:23,940 –> 01:13:27,740
won’t. And he was at a Catholic college. What

1175
01:13:27,740 –> 01:13:31,445
do you think he was gonna say? I right? I Why

1176
01:13:31,445 –> 01:13:35,225
is everyone surprised? Stop it. Fake outrage. Get get out of town.

1177
01:13:36,405 –> 01:13:39,640
Again, critical turning. Context, environment.

1178
01:13:40,580 –> 01:13:43,620
Like, come on. Yeah. You didn’t see anybody from that commencement, by the way, get

1179
01:13:43,620 –> 01:13:46,660
up and walk out either. No. No. They may have all had a problem or

1180
01:13:46,660 –> 01:13:49,705
someone may have had a problem, but their butt stayed right there. Right. They weren’t

1181
01:13:49,705 –> 01:13:53,545
going nowhere. Let’s move on. Anyway, let’s move on. But but,

1182
01:13:53,545 –> 01:13:56,980
you know, I’ve even told my kids this. 3 is the minimum. If you can,

1183
01:13:56,980 –> 01:14:00,440
3 is the minimum. Because guess what? If you have one kid,

1184
01:14:01,140 –> 01:14:04,575
that kid isn’t gonna learn anything about competition, and that kid isn’t gonna learn

1185
01:14:04,575 –> 01:14:08,335
anything about having to do deals or do negotiation. They’re just not.

1186
01:14:08,335 –> 01:14:11,989
They’re gonna grow up being doted on. And, yes, even a highly

1187
01:14:11,989 –> 01:14:15,670
conscientious parent who tries not to do that with their kid, with one child where

1188
01:14:15,670 –> 01:14:18,945
all your energy is going towards that one child, we just know what human beings

1189
01:14:18,945 –> 01:14:22,704
are. Not just your energy. The grandparent energy, the aunt, uncle energy, like,

1190
01:14:22,704 –> 01:14:25,985
all of it. The other parent energy, all of it. Go into that one kid.

1191
01:14:25,985 –> 01:14:29,790
You’re gonna dump all your resources into that one kid. Emotional, psychological, financial, all

1192
01:14:29,790 –> 01:14:33,630
of that one kid. And we’ve seen the outcomes of 1 parent, or

1193
01:14:33,630 –> 01:14:37,185
not sorry, not one parent, but one child families. Not great. Those

1194
01:14:37,185 –> 01:14:41,025
kids tend to knock about really, really ridiculously hard. Usually

1195
01:14:41,025 –> 01:14:44,865
starting in college when people start pushing against them going, oh, well, that’s interesting,

1196
01:14:44,865 –> 01:14:48,200
but this isn’t how it works out here. Okay. Yeah. 2 kids, 2 kids will

1197
01:14:48,200 –> 01:14:49,560
split you down the middle and what will wind up happening is 1 kid will

1198
01:14:49,560 –> 01:14:50,310
be favored.

1199
01:14:53,992 –> 01:14:57,705
Libby kid will not be favored, or will feel as

1200
01:14:57,705 –> 01:15:01,545
if they are not favored. And there’s no ameliorating, to use a

1201
01:15:01,545 –> 01:15:05,090
word my grandma would have used, ameliorating middle. There’s no

1202
01:15:05,090 –> 01:15:08,850
middle ground there. Plus they could split the parents. The mom’s gonna favor 1.

1203
01:15:08,850 –> 01:15:12,585
Dad’s gonna favor 1. If there happens to be a divorce, now they’ve got,

1204
01:15:12,585 –> 01:15:15,885
now they’re doing manipulations with the it’s all kinds of different things,

1205
01:15:16,265 –> 01:15:19,980
but with 3 kids, here’s

1206
01:15:19,980 –> 01:15:22,640
what happens with 3. That kid in the middle,

1207
01:15:24,860 –> 01:15:28,035
that kid in the middle, That kid in the middle ain’t putting up with any

1208
01:15:28,035 –> 01:15:31,795
shenanigans. That kid in the middle and I

1209
01:15:31,795 –> 01:15:34,675
know because I was a middle kid. That kid in the middle ain’t gonna put

1210
01:15:34,675 –> 01:15:37,420
up with any nonsense. That kid in the middle is going to, to my point

1211
01:15:37,420 –> 01:15:41,260
about Hurston, punch both left and right. Clowns and

1212
01:15:41,260 –> 01:15:44,625
jokers. That kid in the middle is going

1213
01:15:44,625 –> 01:15:48,165
to keep the older kid level,

1214
01:15:48,625 –> 01:15:52,250
but also encourage that older kid to be a leader. They’re also

1215
01:15:52,250 –> 01:15:55,770
going to domineer. They’re gonna

1216
01:15:55,770 –> 01:15:59,475
domineer that younger kid. They are to the best of their ability. And by the

1217
01:15:59,475 –> 01:16:02,935
way, with that younger kid then learns that they can use mom and dad

1218
01:16:03,395 –> 01:16:07,155
to kind of leverage that middle kid. Oh, forget it. Like, it’s game on at

1219
01:16:07,155 –> 01:16:10,130
that point. Now we’ve got some game on things and you have 5 kids. You

1220
01:16:10,130 –> 01:16:13,010
watch this happen. I have 4 kids. I’ve watched this, you know what we’re turning?

1221
01:16:13,010 –> 01:16:16,290
We know what we’re talking about here, but that third kid, that middle kid, that

1222
01:16:16,290 –> 01:16:19,405
middle kid is critical. And by the way, when you look

1223
01:16:20,105 –> 01:16:23,864
at the research around, where children go in birth

1224
01:16:23,864 –> 01:16:27,420
order, most middle kids. That’s where your entrepreneurship

1225
01:16:27,560 –> 01:16:31,239
comes from. That’s where your disruptors come from. Do you know where your CEO class

1226
01:16:31,239 –> 01:16:34,775
comes from? The older kids, the first

1227
01:16:34,775 –> 01:16:38,315
kid. Do you know where most of your worker class comes from

1228
01:16:38,534 –> 01:16:41,540
in general? It’s younger kids fourth middle kids who couldn’t make it, who couldn’t figure

1229
01:16:41,540 –> 01:16:45,140
out how to like fourth of navigate that. 3 kids is the

1230
01:16:45,140 –> 01:16:48,980
minimum. That’s the breakdown. Now, if you go past that, now you’re into just you’re

1231
01:16:48,980 –> 01:16:52,499
into the wild. I, I was one of 4 kids, please.

1232
01:16:52,527 –> 01:16:56,195
We created alliances. We did all kinds

1233
01:16:56,223 –> 01:16:59,892
of shenanigans. It was ridiculous because now

1234
01:16:59,920 –> 01:17:03,199
you’ve gone beyond the 3. Now you’re into 4. You saw this with your kids

1235
01:17:03,199 –> 01:17:06,880
with 5. I mean, now the challenge there with parents, particularly

1236
01:17:06,880 –> 01:17:10,675
younger parents, I think, is that they sometimes feel surrounded,

1237
01:17:12,095 –> 01:17:15,635
with more kids. But you know what? As long as you’ve established who’s

1238
01:17:16,495 –> 01:17:19,489
and you know that whenever the Marxist revolution comes, they usually come fourth,

1239
01:17:20,670 –> 01:17:21,889
you’ll stay on your toes.

1240
01:17:24,565 –> 01:17:28,245
For sure. From a parenting perspective, this this is actually simple for

1241
01:17:28,245 –> 01:17:31,850
me. I I don’t know anybody if you guys if anybody knows

1242
01:17:31,850 –> 01:17:35,290
football, I’ll tell you. I I played for a very long time. I played at

1243
01:17:35,290 –> 01:17:39,050
a pretty high level. I played semi pro for 10 years, and I I

1244
01:17:39,050 –> 01:17:42,895
always I always I I pull a lot of my life back into

1245
01:17:42,895 –> 01:17:46,735
football. Like, football is is a lot I tell everybody that I learned everything

1246
01:17:46,735 –> 01:17:49,920
I needed to know about life by playing football. There you go. Because

1247
01:17:50,159 –> 01:17:53,460
anyway, as you’re if if you’re a parent,

1248
01:17:54,320 –> 01:17:58,065
you are playing defense. Let’s just if you’re Okay?

1249
01:17:58,605 –> 01:18:02,284
When you have 1 kid, this is simple. You have double coverage. It’s like 2

1250
01:18:02,284 –> 01:18:06,115
defensive backs covering 1 wide receiver. Easy. That guy’s that guy’s

1251
01:18:06,115 –> 01:18:09,718
never catching a ball. Let’s put it that way. Right? 2nd

1252
01:18:09,718 –> 01:18:13,322
kid comes, now you’re playing man to man. You got 1,

1253
01:18:13,322 –> 01:18:17,025
I got 1. After 3 kids, it doesn’t matter because you’re playing zone

1254
01:18:17,025 –> 01:18:20,305
defense no matter what. Zone all the time. I got this half the room. You

1255
01:18:20,305 –> 01:18:24,050
got that half the room. Whatever kid falls into that zone is your responsibility.

1256
01:18:25,070 –> 01:18:28,750
Deal with it. Let me tell you that. Let me tell you something. The hardest

1257
01:18:28,750 –> 01:18:31,285
thing is as your children leave the house, this is happening to me and my

1258
01:18:31,285 –> 01:18:34,405
wife right now, as your children leave the house and get to migrate out, when

1259
01:18:34,405 –> 01:18:38,165
you have to go from playing zone for years to

1260
01:18:38,165 –> 01:18:41,989
now playing double coverage. That’s the hardest thing. Like, you would think

1261
01:18:41,989 –> 01:18:45,750
it would be easy, but it’s actually not. Like, the spaces in between, you’re

1262
01:18:45,750 –> 01:18:49,025
like, oh. Oh. Yeah.

1263
01:18:49,645 –> 01:18:53,485
Oh. So I I would put that more in, like, a Tampa Tom where

1264
01:18:53,485 –> 01:18:56,659
you got one parent that passes off to the other. Like, it’s Yeah. Mhmm. It’s

1265
01:18:56,659 –> 01:19:00,100
double coverage, but it’s still like it’s a different it’s a different different form of

1266
01:19:00,100 –> 01:19:03,699
double coverage. There you go. But anyway, but I also

1267
01:19:03,780 –> 01:19:06,805
so I also think the rule like, this this this thing flips too. Right? So

1268
01:19:06,805 –> 01:19:09,685
now all of my kids are basically out. Like, I have one kid at home,

1269
01:19:09,685 –> 01:19:13,045
but I mean, he’s a full blown adult. I don’t have to worry about him.

1270
01:19:13,045 –> 01:19:16,550
But so essential and he kinda comes and goes as he please. He he’s essentially

1271
01:19:16,550 –> 01:19:19,590
lives on his own just in my in my house. Mhmm. So I look at

1272
01:19:19,590 –> 01:19:22,710
it differently. Now I’m on offense. I don’t have to worry about defense anymore. I

1273
01:19:22,710 –> 01:19:25,575
don’t have to protect you anymore. I don’t have to cover you anymore. Now I

1274
01:19:25,575 –> 01:19:28,775
get to play offense. So now I’m like, oh, I wanna come take the grandkids

1275
01:19:28,775 –> 01:19:31,255
and spoil the crap out of them, and good luck to you when I take

1276
01:19:31,255 –> 01:19:33,115
them when I bring them home because that’s

1277
01:19:35,880 –> 01:19:39,095
I’m receiving the child, and then I’m passing the child back to you. Look at

1278
01:19:39,095 –> 01:19:42,885
that. That’s right. I I have been saying for the last for

1279
01:19:42,885 –> 01:19:46,244
a few years now well, not a few years. Really started saying it this year.

1280
01:19:46,244 –> 01:19:49,545
I’ll probably say it more as I get more gray hairs. That’s coming.

1281
01:19:49,844 –> 01:19:53,420
But, like, the lack of

1282
01:19:53,420 –> 01:19:56,940
pressure of being a

1283
01:19:56,940 –> 01:20:00,400
grandparent, I don’t I’m I don’t think I’m ready for that.

1284
01:20:00,955 –> 01:20:03,675
I’ll be honest. I don’t really think I’m ready. I don’t think I’m ready for

1285
01:20:03,675 –> 01:20:07,195
that lack of pressure. I’m ready. I’m ready right now. I’m I’m still in

1286
01:20:07,435 –> 01:20:09,639
and by the way, I’m speaking as a person who has, like, a 7 year

1287
01:20:09,639 –> 01:20:12,360
old. I’m gonna be in the pressure hooker for Yeah. Please give me a break.

1288
01:20:12,360 –> 01:20:14,599
You’ve got another 10. You got another 10. 10 to the 10 years. I got

1289
01:20:14,599 –> 01:20:18,060
10 years in the pressure hooker, but I realize how fast 12 years goes.

1290
01:20:18,315 –> 01:20:21,755
And I’m like, well, at a certain point, there won’t be, wow. What am I

1291
01:20:21,755 –> 01:20:25,450
gonna do then? Like, that’s gonna be insane. I’m like, somebody

1292
01:20:25,530 –> 01:20:28,330
somebody asked me once if I was worried about empty nest syndrome and I went,

1293
01:20:28,330 –> 01:20:32,090
empty what? Right. Yeah. I like, I I don’t even notice that they’re gone at

1294
01:20:32,090 –> 01:20:35,625
this point. I have so much going on. Like, I I’m just happy. I was

1295
01:20:35,625 –> 01:20:38,985
happy when they hit, like, mid to late teens, and I didn’t have to, like,

1296
01:20:38,985 –> 01:20:42,680
have my thumb on them all the time. I was like, alright. Good. Now I

1297
01:20:42,680 –> 01:20:46,440
know I I know I have a relative idea where you are. That’s enough. That’s

1298
01:20:46,440 –> 01:20:47,820
enough. That’s enough.

1299
01:20:50,360 –> 01:20:54,165
One One other point about this that I want to bring up, and then, actually,

1300
01:20:54,165 –> 01:20:57,364
we are gonna have to do a 2 parter because I’ve got another appointment today.

1301
01:20:57,364 –> 01:21:00,650
Look at that. Are gonna have to do a 2 parter. Oh, that’s okay. We’ll

1302
01:21:00,650 –> 01:21:04,410
come back. We’ll finish out. Their eyes are watching god is so good. We’re gonna

1303
01:21:04,570 –> 01:21:07,370
we’re at the right of the midpoint of the book anyway, so we’ll we’ll finish

1304
01:21:07,370 –> 01:21:08,430
out the book. Perfect.

1305
01:21:11,115 –> 01:21:14,575
Yeah. So when I was a kid, because of how I talk,

1306
01:21:15,195 –> 01:21:18,090
I was often accused by other kids

1307
01:21:18,949 –> 01:21:22,790
of talking white. And this is a phenomenon. And by

1308
01:21:22,790 –> 01:21:26,175
the way, Hurston mentions this in her book, like, out of one of her character’s

1309
01:21:26,175 –> 01:21:29,695
mouths, and not just once, but several times, putting on airs,

1310
01:21:29,695 –> 01:21:32,755
acting white. There’s a character in here named miss Turner

1311
01:21:33,330 –> 01:21:36,630
who is, light skinned just like,

1312
01:21:37,250 –> 01:21:40,849
Janie is and goes on a rant about how she doesn’t

1313
01:21:40,849 –> 01:21:44,465
like dark skinned black people and and how she wants to separate away from

1314
01:21:44,465 –> 01:21:47,745
them and tries to get Janie to leave Tea Cake and go, because Tea Cake’s

1315
01:21:47,745 –> 01:21:51,345
dark skinned, her third husband, and get her to go with, miss

1316
01:21:51,345 –> 01:21:55,170
Turner’s, brother, who is, light skinned

1317
01:21:55,170 –> 01:21:58,690
and has straighter hair. This is a dynamic in the black community that,

1318
01:21:58,690 –> 01:22:02,525
again, very rarely gets talked about, or or maybe

1319
01:22:02,525 –> 01:22:05,965
it I wouldn’t say very rarely. In the past was rarely talked about and now

1320
01:22:05,965 –> 01:22:09,804
is probably talked about Tom, as black Americans and

1321
01:22:09,804 –> 01:22:13,550
African Americans become just Americans. I I

1322
01:22:13,550 –> 01:22:17,090
think we’re we’re we’re well down the road to migrating towards that,

1323
01:22:18,430 –> 01:22:22,244
whether whether we like it or not. But

1324
01:22:22,244 –> 01:22:25,925
that phenomenon happened in my lifetime or and to me and my life

1325
01:22:25,925 –> 01:22:29,540
where because of the way I talk and not just myself,

1326
01:22:29,540 –> 01:22:32,680
my siblings as well, because we were all raised underneath the same,

1327
01:22:33,380 –> 01:22:36,840
gentle regime of language by my grandma,

1328
01:22:38,575 –> 01:22:41,635
I didn’t drop my r’s. I didn’t engage in,

1329
01:22:42,895 –> 01:22:46,660
code switching easily. I did a lot more when I was in my twenties because

1330
01:22:46,660 –> 01:22:50,260
I actually understood what the what the deal was at a conscious level, but as

1331
01:22:50,260 –> 01:22:53,815
a teenager and it was and particularly as a young kid, I

1332
01:22:53,815 –> 01:22:57,574
just, this is how I’m living my life. Right. And I would get a lot

1333
01:22:57,574 –> 01:23:01,094
of flack from other people. Matter of fact, I’m

1334
01:23:01,094 –> 01:23:04,840
writing, writing about a particular incident that occurred with

1335
01:23:04,840 –> 01:23:08,680
my mother, where she was accused. She disciplined us in

1336
01:23:08,680 –> 01:23:12,040
public and she was accused by another woman who was

1337
01:23:12,040 –> 01:23:15,755
also African American of, raising my

1338
01:23:15,755 –> 01:23:19,215
kids, raising her kids to be white. And and my mother

1339
01:23:20,350 –> 01:23:23,790
had an unpredictable reaction to that. Let’s just let’s just say

1340
01:23:23,790 –> 01:23:27,310
that. Is it really unpredictable? Well, not from my

1341
01:23:27,310 –> 01:23:29,945
perspective. No. I kinda knew which way the wind was blowing, blowing, but that lady

1342
01:23:29,945 –> 01:23:33,545
didn’t. It was unpredictable for her. Okay. Okay. I get that. I

1343
01:23:33,545 –> 01:23:37,305
get that. There there were multiple viewpoints on this particular incident that

1344
01:23:37,305 –> 01:23:40,190
I remember, and this had to have happened when I was maybe about 7 or

1345
01:23:40,190 –> 01:23:43,630
8, you know, so things were well well boiled

1346
01:23:43,630 –> 01:23:47,425
in by that point. But I’ve

1347
01:23:47,425 –> 01:23:51,105
often been accused of talking writers. And I’ve

1348
01:23:51,105 –> 01:23:54,485
often Tom other black people never by other white people. Never.

1349
01:23:54,785 –> 01:23:58,440
Never. But by other black people accused of going above

1350
01:23:58,440 –> 01:24:00,300
my earrings, being too smart,

1351
01:24:01,800 –> 01:24:05,575
overthinking things, talking white, acting white. That was a big one when I

1352
01:24:05,575 –> 01:24:09,114
was a kid and a teenager. And

1353
01:24:09,335 –> 01:24:13,100
Hurston touches

1354
01:24:13,100 –> 01:24:16,880
on a lot of this because it is a dynamic that runs through African American

1355
01:24:17,020 –> 01:24:20,764
culture, and we see it in rap culture publicly. We also see

1356
01:24:20,764 –> 01:24:24,445
it in hip hop culture. But it’s this

1357
01:24:24,445 –> 01:24:28,220
idea that it’s somehow to be racially authentic, which I’ve

1358
01:24:28,220 –> 01:24:32,060
never understood what that means. But in order to be racially authentic, you have to

1359
01:24:32,060 –> 01:24:35,420
conform to certain modes of language and behavior, which

1360
01:24:35,420 –> 01:24:39,205
again don’t necessarily imply competency or intellectual

1361
01:24:39,345 –> 01:24:42,705
capacity. And for me, I’ve always prioritized competency and

1362
01:24:42,705 –> 01:24:46,140
intellectual capacity, rather than

1363
01:24:46,600 –> 01:24:50,440
conforming. And this is probably why her son and I would hang out rather

1364
01:24:50,440 –> 01:24:54,085
than conforming to some arbitrary BS meter

1365
01:24:54,785 –> 01:24:57,585
that quite frankly, at the end of the day, none of the people who ever

1366
01:24:57,585 –> 01:25:01,125
accused me of acting or talking or speaking or thinking white,

1367
01:25:01,810 –> 01:25:05,650
not one of those people would I recognize on the street now, if I

1368
01:25:05,650 –> 01:25:09,170
could throw a stick at them. I wouldn’t, they faded into the

1369
01:25:09,170 –> 01:25:12,895
background. I don’t know what they’re doing, but I’m gonna bet that

1370
01:25:12,895 –> 01:25:16,494
I put my resume against their resume, and I’m gonna win the Pepsi

1371
01:25:16,494 –> 01:25:17,554
challenge on that.

1372
01:25:21,710 –> 01:25:25,070
That’s a dynamic that again, never really gets talked

1373
01:25:25,070 –> 01:25:28,210
about a contemporary culture because it’s so

1374
01:25:30,364 –> 01:25:33,965
it’s so challenging to how we think about race. Yeah. It’s so

1375
01:25:33,965 –> 01:25:36,385
challenging to how we think about class too.

1376
01:25:38,219 –> 01:25:42,060
Well, it it it I I first of all, I I agree with you. I,

1377
01:25:42,060 –> 01:25:45,825
you know, I I think it’s really sad that we’re having a

1378
01:25:45,825 –> 01:25:49,665
conversation like this about, you know, your own, you know, your

1379
01:25:49,665 –> 01:25:52,645
own race and cultures saying that you’re not black.

1380
01:25:53,350 –> 01:25:57,190
Right. That’s that’s precisely right. I I but I I just And

1381
01:25:57,190 –> 01:26:00,070
and, you know, and it’s happened by the way, it’s happened less and less as

1382
01:26:00,070 –> 01:26:03,875
I’ve gotten older and older. Sure. Because, you know Because you then select

1383
01:26:03,875 –> 01:26:07,715
who you’re who you’re hanging around. It’s not so much yeah. So I I agree

1384
01:26:07,715 –> 01:26:11,440
because in school, again, the comment I made earlier about bringing, you know, to

1385
01:26:11,440 –> 01:26:14,880
my grandmother saying, you know, they were we we have a

1386
01:26:14,880 –> 01:26:18,480
similar scenario in the native community, Ehsan. It’s not it’s not

1387
01:26:18,639 –> 01:26:22,455
and and it’s so I I’ve heard that about the black community in the past.

1388
01:26:22,455 –> 01:26:26,295
I’ve had several black friends that have said similar things, so it’s not

1389
01:26:26,295 –> 01:26:29,220
surprising to me that you would say something like that. But

1390
01:26:30,400 –> 01:26:33,520
in the native community, it’s not really talked about all that much. And in the

1391
01:26:33,520 –> 01:26:36,965
native community, when you’re you’re not native enough, the

1392
01:26:36,965 –> 01:26:40,324
difference is in the native community, they say you’re not native enough and they can

1393
01:26:40,324 –> 01:26:44,005
prove it because you I carry a

1394
01:26:44,005 –> 01:26:47,810
card that says, like, that that says I’m native and you don’t. So you’re not

1395
01:26:47,810 –> 01:26:51,330
as native as I am because I have a card and you don’t. And who

1396
01:26:51,330 –> 01:26:54,685
issues the card is the US government through

1397
01:26:55,385 –> 01:26:59,225
tribal governments. But, like, the tribal gover they they want you to think that the

1398
01:26:59,225 –> 01:27:02,890
tribal governments are the ones that yes. I will say, the tribal government’s the

1399
01:27:02,890 –> 01:27:05,610
one that hands the card over to you. They’re the ones that give you the

1400
01:27:05,610 –> 01:27:09,450
card. But the US federal government kinda dictates to

1401
01:27:09,450 –> 01:27:12,315
what we do with these cards and how we do this and what the rules

1402
01:27:12,315 –> 01:27:15,594
are. And there’s a lot of there’s a lot of BS that comes around with

1403
01:27:15,594 –> 01:27:18,955
this. So and and and I’ll just say it right here for the

1404
01:27:18,955 –> 01:27:22,770
record. I am eligible to have a card. I refuse

1405
01:27:22,770 –> 01:27:26,450
to own one because I’m not gonna allow anybody to tell me who I am

1406
01:27:26,450 –> 01:27:29,805
and who I’m not and whether I am or I’m not native enough or whether

1407
01:27:29,805 –> 01:27:33,565
I am or not whatever. I just I refuse to allow

1408
01:27:33,565 –> 01:27:37,179
the federal government to dictate any of that to me. So but

1409
01:27:37,179 –> 01:27:40,940
that stuff happens in our community as well. It’s and it’s and

1410
01:27:40,940 –> 01:27:43,199
again, like I said, it’s it’s a little bit more

1411
01:27:47,145 –> 01:27:50,525
literal. Right? Turning, like and what you described,

1412
01:27:51,160 –> 01:27:54,620
if you surrounded yourself around 25 of your

1413
01:27:55,960 –> 01:27:59,400
black friends that spoke the same way you did, act the same way you did,

1414
01:27:59,400 –> 01:28:03,035
and another black person came in and said, you know, none none

1415
01:28:03,035 –> 01:28:05,755
of you none of you are really black, and the rest of you were like,

1416
01:28:05,755 –> 01:28:09,447
go fry. Like, who cares? You’re not you can’t you can’t say

1417
01:28:09,447 –> 01:28:13,166
that. What are you using as a barometer here? You? Are you using yourself

1418
01:28:13,166 –> 01:28:16,886
as a barometer? Because quite honestly, we don’t really care about your opinion. In

1419
01:28:16,886 –> 01:28:20,215
the native community, it’s like, you’re not native enough. Oh, yeah? Well, yeah, I I

1420
01:28:20,215 –> 01:28:22,854
could prove it. I have one of these cards and you don’t, so go fry.

1421
01:28:22,854 –> 01:28:26,550
Like Right. And we and they could be talking about, I use

1422
01:28:26,550 –> 01:28:30,310
the I use 25 in your example. In our community, you could they could

1423
01:28:30,310 –> 01:28:33,925
be 10 of you, 25 they could be 25100 of you, and they don’t care

1424
01:28:34,005 –> 01:28:37,545
because they still say the card wins over the 25100 of you.

1425
01:28:38,165 –> 01:28:41,925
It’s very weird for me. It’s very weird. Essays. That

1426
01:28:42,085 –> 01:28:45,900
so that that is nearly, not nearly, that is equally

1427
01:28:45,900 –> 01:28:49,520
as insane as what I have described. For sure. For sure.

1428
01:28:49,660 –> 01:28:53,395
And the fact that Hurston saw that insanity

1429
01:28:54,575 –> 01:28:58,275
and was able to put it in an anthropological and ethnographic framework,

1430
01:28:59,055 –> 01:29:02,570
and then actually write about it in an emotive way. Yeah.

1431
01:29:02,929 –> 01:29:06,610
That ring that brilliant. That rings down through Tom 70, 80

1432
01:29:06,610 –> 01:29:10,230
years to me, that’s that’s please. That’s brilliant.

1433
01:29:10,585 –> 01:29:14,264
That’s that’s that’s art. Yeah. That’s art.

1434
01:29:14,264 –> 01:29:17,625
And I do and I’m not even dude, I am not kidding. I wish you

1435
01:29:17,625 –> 01:29:21,060
were alive today. I would love to have met this person. I really would have.

1436
01:29:21,280 –> 01:29:24,340
She was a genius. She was a genius.

1437
01:29:25,120 –> 01:29:28,775
And she also and I’m gonna close on this. She also had principle.

1438
01:29:29,235 –> 01:29:32,594
The essays principle that Tom talks about about not getting a card, the same principle

1439
01:29:32,594 –> 01:29:36,340
that I have about And for me, it’s a a metaphorical

1440
01:29:36,480 –> 01:29:40,240
and an emotional and a philosophical rejection of the position. I

1441
01:29:40,240 –> 01:29:43,905
just reject your position. I don’t accept your premise. And by the way,

1442
01:29:43,905 –> 01:29:47,184
you don’t even wanna talk about what your premise is underneath. You just wanna make

1443
01:29:47,184 –> 01:29:50,945
your statement and tag me and then put me in a box and

1444
01:29:50,945 –> 01:29:54,620
then move on. No, I don’t accept the premise.

1445
01:29:55,560 –> 01:29:59,400
That is what principle walked out actually

1446
01:29:59,400 –> 01:30:03,025
looks like. And it’s the principle of, and it’s the same

1447
01:30:03,025 –> 01:30:06,785
principle that Hurston had in her own life. It’s the principle of the individual over

1448
01:30:06,785 –> 01:30:10,480
the group, the individual over the collective. You need to get to know me

1449
01:30:10,480 –> 01:30:13,460
as an individual just like I need to get to know you as an individual

1450
01:30:14,320 –> 01:30:18,080
before we can bring individuals together and successfully lead

1451
01:30:18,080 –> 01:30:21,435
them towards anything. And if we don’t do that hard

1452
01:30:21,435 –> 01:30:24,974
work, then we fall into biases and prejudices

1453
01:30:25,514 –> 01:30:29,060
that are even more pernicious and endemic and

1454
01:30:29,060 –> 01:30:32,820
continue to lead to problems that were were I

1455
01:30:32,820 –> 01:30:36,260
think we were doing our human best anyway to actually try to

1456
01:30:36,260 –> 01:30:39,995
solve. I’d like to thank Tom for coming

1457
01:30:39,995 –> 01:30:42,795
on the podcast today. We’re gonna do a part 2 of this. We’re gonna come

1458
01:30:42,795 –> 01:30:45,620
back and revisit this because we only got through half half of the book. So

1459
01:30:45,620 –> 01:30:49,300
this is part 1. I think I would enjoy that, actually. Yeah. Well, you’re you’re

1460
01:30:49,300 –> 01:30:52,740
gonna be back for part 2. So, like, I’m gonna I don’t know where you

1461
01:30:52,740 –> 01:30:56,575
think you’re going. So this

1462
01:30:56,575 –> 01:30:59,615
is I’m not doing this without you. Come on. Give me a break. We’re already

1463
01:30:59,615 –> 01:31:03,210
halfway down the road, sir. You have a lot of other very

1464
01:31:03,210 –> 01:31:06,890
well educated, cohosts that I wasn’t sure if that would fall under. You know?

1465
01:31:06,890 –> 01:31:10,355
I I do. But a different kind of version of a hey. I’m just saying

1466
01:31:10,355 –> 01:31:13,235
that. I’m I’m happy to do it. I’m I’m very excited about it. Not only

1467
01:31:13,235 –> 01:31:15,975
are you happy, you are doing it. You’ve already been tagged and bagged.

1468
01:31:19,460 –> 01:31:22,900
And, and, yeah, you’re you’re already you’re already in the you’re already in the car,

1469
01:31:22,900 –> 01:31:26,580
so it’s too early. Okay. Alright. The Blues Writers are going down the we’re

1470
01:31:26,580 –> 01:31:30,365
going down the street. And so with that, I’d like to

1471
01:31:30,365 –> 01:31:33,905
thank Tom Libby for coming on the first half of our podcast today.

1472
01:31:34,365 –> 01:31:37,345
Their Eyes Are Watching God was wearing a Hearst in part 1

1473
01:31:38,210 –> 01:31:41,570
ending right here. And,

1474
01:31:41,970 –> 01:31:44,630
well, we’re out.