[Due to audio issues, only the transcript of this episode is available.]
K: So, lately I’ve been thinking about the… nature of privilege and… what is privilege? So… I’m… the reason I’m thinking about privilege is because… I’m in a really good place in life, but I don’t feel like I’m here because of any privileges. Does that make sense?
C: Yeah, that makes sense.
K: Because I think privilege in the way that I’m talking about is an unfair advantage based on birthright.
C: See, I’m not sure that “birthright” is necessary for it.
K: Based on birth circumstances? Circumstances of birth? Circumstances of family?
C: I think you can acquire and love privilege throughout your life, so I think it’s circumstance.
K: Okay. So, I don’t feel that any of the things that I have now are based on privilege, and so – this is how I get there that it’s not based on privilege. But I go back and forth. I call myself privileged all the time, but the – I don’t believe it. So, I don’t know. Am I being a fraud by saying I’m privileged? Because I don’t like this whole concept of “I’m lucky” or “I’m privileged” because my life has not been lucky. My life has been hard-won and planned out, and it doesn’t feel like my plans coming to fruition are luck or privilege.
C: But I think that that’s survivorship bias. I think there are a lot of people who work really hard and have good plans that just never come to fruition. So, it’s not saying that you would have this even if you hadn’t worked hard and hadn’t… planned and all of that. It’s saying that that was not sufficient.
K: But I have suffered terribly, and I have had everything taken away from me numerous times.
C: Yes, you have.
K: I’ve lost everything.
C: Yes. So
K: And I wasn’t born in lucky cir – in lucky circumstances. Okay, so here’s the thing: I get that I’m very light-skinned, and I get that I have light eyes. But I entered the foster care system before my first birthday. That’s not lucky. And I was in the foster care system until I was 12, and then I bounced around from – no, I was in the foster care system until I was 14, not 12. I moved out of foster homes into group – the group home system, and I was in the group home system until I was 14, and then I bounced around an unstable home and emancipated when I was 16. None of that was privileged. None of that was a privilege. None of that was lucky.
C: I agree that none of that was privilege. What I’m saying is something like the weak anthropomorphic principle for the universe, which is like – people are like, “oh, it’s so amazing that we live in a universe that supports life.” But it’s not amazing because if the universe didn’t support life, we wouldn’t be here to make statements about how amazing is it.
K: Correct.
C: So, I think that you were born…
K: To tragic circumstances.
C: To tragic circumstances and went through lots of tragic circumstances and came out well.
K: Yes.
C: I think there are other people who were born in tragic circumstances, went through lots of tragic circumstances, and either did not survive or did not come out well. So, I think relative to them, you are lucky.
K: Okay.
C: I am not saying that you are lucky relative to the general population.
K: So, the one thing that I do think I was very lucky about was the fact that I’m not a murder victim. I’m really surprised how many situations that I was in that, now looking back, truly terrify me. And I’m surprised how many times I’ve had a gun held to my head that was loaded that I haven’t been shot. So… I feel lucky that I’ve never been shot. I feel lucky that – I was doing things and in places where I could’ve ended up in prison, so I feel lucky that I’m not in prison.
C: And this is what I was saying about survivorship bias – and it’s literally based on it. Like, the people that you look at are the ones that survive.
K: Yeah.
C: And I think that – like, nothing annoys me more – lots of things annoy me, but
K: (laughs)
C: One of the
K: Thinking of one thing that nothing annoys you more than
C: Yeah, no
K: That’s a tall order.
C: I can’t say that.
K: Okay.
C: One of the things that annoys me are these memes like, “kids today are so coddled. In my day, we had polio and no seatbelts and all of that, and we survived.” And the answer that I always have – you survived.
K: Yeah.
C: You survived.
K: Yeah.
C: But there are – the people who did not are not here to dispute you, and it was a much higher rate than – than now.
K: So, you’re saying looking at foster kids and how many foster kids are in a PHD program that I am one of the privileged foster children?
C: I’m saying only 3% of foster kids ever get a bachelor’s degree.
K: Yeah.
C: So, yeah: absolutely, you’re one of the privileged ones among foster kids who have a fucked-up history of, like… instability in housing and abuse and
K: I have all of that.
C: I’m saying among that group
K: (laughs) I was a single mother who was homeless with a newborn baby. So…
C: Right. And, so, I’m saying among that you were lucky. Which is different than privileged.
K: Yes. But I feel like, for me, the – the way that I have privilege is my literacy.
C: Yeah.
K: I think my literacy creates privilege. And I’m highly literate because my life was so terrible.
C: Right.
K: That I escaped in books. And, so, the one thing that I think is lucky is that I was in a foster home where they forced us to get jobs – summer jobs – when we were 12. And through a program whose name I can’t remember, when I was 12 years old, I had a job at… the place that hired me was a library.
C: Mhm.
K: And I became a paige at a library. And that was a changing day in my life because it’s from working at that library – at the beginning, I just read every single Harlequin novel that was there. And the librarian said, “hey, let me turn you on to something else.”
C: Right.
K: And put really great books in my hands – so I read a lot of the greats. And, most famously, I brag about reading Moby Dick. Not because it was a good book but because I – that was my white whale (laughs) People are like, “whoa you read Moby Dick” yeah because it’s not that good. So… I said what I said. Moby Dick is not a good book.
C: You could’ve read Billy Budd: same author, much, much shorter.
K: (laughs) And, so… for me, I started reading legal books.
C: Mhm.
K: And everywhere I went, I continued to read. Because I realized that, through the library sharing system, that not every library has the same books.
C: Right.
K: So, I was always interested in what book does this library have, what knowledge does this library have. And because I was so well-read, adults enjoyed talking to me. And because adults enjoyed talking to me, people always told me about opportunities because I was always allowed to hang out around the adults when they were talking about and planning opportunities. Which led me to… be first in line for opportunities. Like being able to go to Disneyland twice when I was in the shelter and Knott’s Berry Farm and like a lot of… really cool – like always being able to go to the Nutcracker every year, and all of the culture things. I was able to do all of those culture things because I was around the adults when they were planning them, and I was like, “I wanna go.”
C: Right.
K: I was the first one to say I wanna go.
C: So, and that’s why I think that privilege is very flexible, and it’s very mobile. And it’s very conditional. And so that’s why I think that some people are born with a lot of privilege, and they retain it their whole life.
K: Yeah.
C: And some people are born with not much privilege, and they get privilege later.
K: Yeah.
C: And I think that some kinds of privilege you can get and lose, and other kinds you… you have them or you don’t based on your birth.
K: Yeah.
C: And, so, I think like me as a white guy – at least in the U.S. – I’m more privileged. Here in Japan, I am still more privileged. But when we went to the Bahamas, like…. I – I think that, as a tourist, I had that privilege.
K: Yeah.
C: But living there, I don’t think that I would have because all the government officials and everything were black. So, I think that… while there would still be
K: There were privileged white people in the Bahamas.
C: I’m not saying there’s no privileged white people in the Bahamas.
K: But you wouldn’t have been in – you wouldn’t have been in the racial majority.
C: Exactly.
K: And you’re not in the racial majority now.
C: Right. But I’m still – I feel like – more privileged here in Japan as a white guy than I would be as… somebody who is Korean. Ethnically.
K: Yeah. Absolutely.
C: And, so, I think that these axes are always changing, and so saying
K: Because you’re the preferred minority.
C: Right. I don’t think that you can put one number on it. I think, like, as a mathematician, I think there’s so many dimensions of privilege, and some of them… move, and some of them change in importance depending on your age, where you are in life, and all of that. I think that people talk about, you know, pretty privilege. Pretty privilege, like – if you’re 80, how much pretty privilege do you have? Because it’s outweighed by the… kind of lower social standing that people in their 80s have. I’m not saying old people in general.
K: Mhm.
C: I’m just saying there’s a certain age where people kind of discount you. Unless you’re, you know, a senator or something like that.
K: Yeah. Or unless you’re running for president in the United States. And then it doesn’t matter.
C: That’s why I said 80s, not 70s.
K: (laughs) So, just to give everybody context: we’re actually recording this on – what is today’s date? We’re actually recording this on
C: Today is the 7th
K: Yeah, today is November 7th. And so… it’s… the United States election still hasn’t been determined, and the reason why I’m thinking about privilege is because there’s been so much privilege that is influencing the election. So, for me… when we’re talking about vote by mail and how to cure your ballot – I’ve been doing a lot of education for people who don’t understand how to vote by mail. And I did a lot of education, when it as relevant, and I did a lot of education – even just today, I was helping people cure ballots. So… I was surprised because I’ve always known how to do an absentee ballot.
C: Yeah.
K: And the reason that I know how to do an absentee ballot is because I was – on my 18th birthday, I was confined to a mental hospital because I had tried to commit suicide. So, the first time I ever voted, I voted by absentee ballot. Knowing how to vote by absentee ballot makes me seem privileged, but the circumstances of why I know how to vote – it’s weird because the circumstances are not privileged, but they are privileged because I was in a private mental institution.
C: Right.
K: And I’ve always had the privilege of good healthcare because I’d always been on my mother’s healthcare. My mom couldn’t do much for me, but she always had really great healthcare. And I was able to basically be in this really great program that really helped me a lot therapeutically and was a privately owned hospital, and they ensured I did absentee voting. The fact that a lot of people didn’t know how to read the instructions who were in the hospital with me started my role as an activist when it comes to absentee ballot voting.
C: Mhm.
K: And I’ve really encouraged people to vote early – my entire life, I’ve encouraged people to vote early. I’ve encouraged people to take every opportunity to vote that they can and to track their ballots. And, so, this is nothing new for me. Like, helping people in Georgia, and I’ve learned a lot more about Wisconsin law because Wisconsin was not on my radar in terms of helping people with absentee ballots. And this year, it has been. And it’s made me wonder about the myth of privilege because a lot of these people are white and educated, but they don’t know how to vote. And that’s – that’s really blowing my mind. Because we’re taught, in the United States growing up, that if you’re white and educated, you’re privileged. And I think they do have a certain kind of privilege, but they don’t have tangible knowledge.
C: I think that knowledge and privilege are different, so I think one way to look at it – and I’m not saying this is the right way, but it’s one way to look at it – is that you say, “well… they didn’t actually need to know how to vote because no matter how it came out, they were going to be okay.”
K: Mm. But not with Covid.
C: Not with Covid. So
K: I think Covid’s the great equalizer.
C: But not really because you know, you and I – you especially being immunocompromised
K: Well, and too, in the United States, people of color are struggling much more.
C: Right.
K: And dying at a much higher rate. And, so, I’m not racially ignorant. I know that educated, wealthy white people in the United States are privileged. What I’m saying is that I’m looking at what does that actually mean?
C: Yeah, I think
K: I’m not confused that they’re privileged. I’m like, “what does that word mean?”
C: Yeah. And I wasn’t calling you that. I just think it’s much more fluid than people want to talk about because I see it used a lot as a cudgel in particularly online conversations.
K: Mhm.
C: To say, “you can’t know about this because you’re privileged.” And that’s why I say I think knowledge and privilege are separate things.
K: Mhm.
C: Because I know way too many… white dudes who are completely ignorant of their privilege.
K: Yeah.
C: It – their ignorance of it doesn’t stop it from operating for them.
K: So, here’s where it gets confusing for me: I guess I understand privilege on a couple of different levels. But I don’t understand once you go through the process of equalfi – equalizers rather not equalfiers. I feel like there’s a certain privilege shift that chains even racially once you get to a certain level of education.
C: Right.
K: I feel like there are still those racial divides, globally, but once you hit PHD level, the gap in between white and non-white shrinks considerably once you hit PHD. And, for me, I wonder what is that shrinkage? And is it an optical illusion or is it real? I don’t know.
C: I think it’s both. I think if you look on Twitter at the – what I think is like the academia too white – you’ll see like… if you’re a black woman with a PHD versus a white man with a PHD, in the American university system, the white man with a PHD is given a lot more credit for things that they do than the black woman who’s expected to serve on the diversity committee, to
K: Expected to do so much more at the university.
C: Right, and so I do think there’s a smaller gap between them than between, say, you know uneducated – high school or below – white men and black women. I do think it shrinks, but I think that you can’t assign, like a linear scale or a one number. I think there are, you know… one way to think of I tis like role playing games. Where you’ve got all these specific statistics, and you’re really high in some and really low in others. And they come to bear at different times. Like having skill – if you’re a smooth talker, and you can convince anybody of anything, that skill is completely useless when you’re not talking to anybody.
K: Yeah.
C: Or if you’re really strong – let’s say you’re like a weightlifter – and you’re super strong. If you are competing with somebody for a warehouse job, that’s going to be a huge advantage.
K: Yeah.
C: But if you’re both sitting behind a computer and working remotely, it’s completely irrelevant.
K: So, I guess, for me, it’s just been shocking. I’ve been looking at the world, not just the United States – I will say the American election did make me start looking at the U.K. and France and Germany. And looking into… the idea of white privilege and getting a different understanding of what it means because there’s been this sort of movement to disenfranchise a whole lot of white people.
C: Yes.
K: And… as… a woman of color, I’m like dang. That puts us further down the list, and with this dis – this movement to disenfranchise a whole lot of white people, it’s trick them into voting against their best interests to fight disenfranchisement. And that’s like – that – to me is so confusing. So, there’s this group – not all white people but globally – there is this group of… poor conservatives is how I think of them. They’re like really politically conservative, completely racist, and… they vote against their best interests because they’re more into the politics of winning and losing than of getting – making society better. And that just blows my mind. Like, I didn’t know that existed. So, it’s something I’m learning that’s new that’s really just tripping me out. You know?
C: Well, I think for some people it’s this unreasonable hope.
K: What do you mean?
C: The phrase that I’ve heard is that the – a lot of people act like they are a temporarily embarrassed millionaire.
K: Mm.
C: Like the Biden tax plan when he says, “well, if you make than $400,000, it’s not going to cost you any more.”
K: Yeah.
C: And you’ve got people who are making $4000, so you know ten percent of that going, “well, when I start making that money, I don’t want to pay higher taxes.”
K: Do you really think that’s it? Do you really think that the majority of those people are thinking that?
C: I really think the majority of those people are looking at “here’s the position that I deserve to be at.”
K: And so, by those people, yes, I’m talking about white racists.
C: Yeah.
K: And… specifically, poor white racists.
C: Right.
K: So, I’m talking about people that are… making $20,000 a year.
C: Yeah.
K: And do you really think someone who’s making $20,000 a year is thinking “when I’m making over $400,000 a year, and that’s within the next four years, that tax plan’s going to hurt me”?
C: Yes, I see that.
K: In the United States? Are you being serious right now?
C: I’m being serious, and I see your skepticism.
K: Yes. I’m completely skeptical.
C: Okay, but when I was 19
K: Mhm.
C: I was making $10,000 a year.
K: Oh my god. You’re a success story, but you’re rare.
C: No, no. I’m not even talking about that. I’m saying my coworkers were also making $10,000 a year.
K: Yeah.
C: And there were so many of them who were very concerned about what would happen when they hit it big. When they won the lottery, when their parents died and left them hundreds of thousands in life-insurance, whatever scheme they had that they thought was going to make them rich. That they were convinced was going to make them rich.
K: Mhm.
C: They were very concerned about, “well, what happens to that money?” Because they knew how little money they had, and they said, “if somebody took away what little money I have, I would have nothing.”
K: Mhm.
C: “And I want a chance to escape that, so I need that balloon to be available to me. I need to be able to make this massive amount of money” you know, I knew one person whose plan was to import LSD to Alaska and sell it.
K: (laughs) One person you were related to. (laughs)
C: Yeah.
K: A relative of yours had this plan. (laughs)
C: And that’s how they were going to, you know, became part of
K: Luckily, they married someone who talked them out of it because that was a bad plan.
C: Right. So, I do think that people vote against their own interests now thinking that it’s going to provide them a way to get to the point where they’re voting for their interests. Not thinking about the path. Just looking at the top of the mountain and saying, “if I was on the top of that mountain.” And I see it on Twitter in the number of people who will, like, leap to the defense of people who don’t even know they exist.
K: Mm.
C: Like, I just think of the number
K: So, we’re not even talking about politicians. We’re talking about people who like leap to the defense of celebrities. Specifically.
C: Yes.
K: Because there’s a lot of people who are like fighting for celebrities to have the right to say this or that or do this or that, and the celebrity doesn’t even know that they’re up in arms. And this is probably on Chad’s mind because I have a couple trolls that follow me around because I have one celebrity that – well, it’s not even a celebrity. But I’m supporting that I think are awesome who are against something that a celebrity’s doing, and every time I comment, they like – there’s a group of people that follow me around and like yap yap yap at me.
C: Yeah.
K: And I just ignore them because I don’t care – I don’t feed the trolls.
C: Or I’m thinking about all of the people who like spend a lot of their day trying to convince people that Elon Musk is the world’s greatest genius, and that he’s earned everything he has, and so what if the accident rates at Tesla factories are triple the average.
K: Didn’t Elon Musk make his money from PayPal?
C: Elon Musk made some of his money from PayPal.
K: Okay, well he earned his PayPal money. PayPal is awesome. I love PayPal.
C: But he didn’t make PayPal. He
K: But he earned some money from PayPal, and that money is righteous. I just want to say.
C: He used the money that he got from his parents who own an emerald mine in South Africa
K: Ohh, that’s bad.
C: That employs slaves – I say “employs” in quotes.
K: Yeah.
C: To invest in PayPal and then take it away from the people who created it, and that is where his money came from. And again, that’s in quotes.
K: So, if y’all don’t know, Chad has a grudge match against someone that doesn’t know he exists. Which confuses me as much as those who proselytize. So, like, both people are giving this person all of their energy, and I never even think about him unless you mention him.
C: I give him very little energy. Just in this – in this context, when we’re talking about do people really consider circumstances they’re not in when they’re voting. I think the answer is absolutely yes.
K: So, my thing is like I want to reduce the amount of racism in the world, and I want to reduce the amount of bigotry in the world, and I do think there is a group of people who vote conservative who are not racist who are not wealthy who… could be reached if we just sat down and had a conversation and said, “this is how we get from here to there.”
C: Right.
K: And if we had a plan to get from here to there – because I have a voting strategy. I’ve always had a voting strategy. And I have an activism strategy. I’ve always had an activism strategy. But I’m a strategic thinker. And I feel like all of this in-fighting – the people are the top are just laughing at us.
C: Yeah, I feel like, when you sit down and have that conversation with that person… there’s a bunch of people in power… screaming during that conversation. Yelling over and over “you only get $10 between the two of you. You’re fighting about how to allocate that $10. You only get it between the two of you. You’re fighting over how to allocate it.”
K: So, how do we get people to stop listening to the noise?
C: I don’t know. If I knew, I – I’d probably be doing what I’m doing now, but
K: (laughs) Because that’s what I’m struggling with in my activism. Because I have been tweeting about forgiving people, and forgiveness, and not thinking that everybody’s horrible and awful. And… thinking about how do we… how do we come together and how do we fix this. And… for example, I’m surprised by how many people were completely unaware that there was a major climate vote in Europe. You know, for the E.U.
C: Right.
K: That just were completely unaware of it
C: On the climate action plan
K: Yeah, the climate action plan. And it was really heartbreaking to me.
C: Mhm.
K: Because I feel like we’re all fighting over our little patch of grass, and we’re not seeing the forest for the trees. And pretty soon the forest and the trees are going to be gone, and there’s not going to be anything to fight over. And… I also get really bummed out because… people go on these tours, right, to go up to the Arctic to watch icebergs falling apart and crumbling and still want to deny the climate crisis. So, I’m looking at how do we get people that are completely juxtaposed to sit down and have a civil conversation with each other that’s not so… vitriolic. And that is talking about little things that we can do – because if everybody would just change the lightbulbs that they used.
Something small. Something everybody can do. It saves them money, saves them time, is good for the earth. All these things, but we can’t get people to change their lightbulbs. And if we got people to change the lightbulbs that they buy, we could get the manufacturers to make fewer lightbulbs.
C: Yeah.
K: I wonder why people don’t… do that. Everyone’s so disenfranchised, and I want to enfranchise everyone. And empower everyone. And say, you know what, you are a mighty force to be reckoned with. But I can’t get people to step into their excellence, embrace their awesome, and be like “look what I can do for good.”
C: See, for me, I think a lot of that is that, if you look down for most of us, there is no bottom. You look down, and – and it’s hard to see you would have anywhere safe to land that would not end up with you starving and homeless.
K: What does that even mean? How did we get from changing your lightbulbs to being homeless and starving? It saves them money off their electric bill. It saves them money on the cost of the lightbulbs.
C: But they have to buy the bulbs in the first place, so they have to make an investment. Trusting that their life will be stable enough for that to pay off. Because we replaced all of our bulbs with LEDs a couple of years ago. It’s still going to be a couple of years
K: Quite a few years ago.
C: I think it was three years ago that we did all LEDs.
K: Yeah because we were – we waited until lightbulbs burned out when we find out about them.
C: Right. So, I think it’s going to be a couple more years before that pays off versus having just installed new fluorescents. And… if they had been sold versus installing, incandescents. So, I think people have to have trust that in the future they will have stability. So, I think – in the U.S. in particular for me at least – there was no – it felt like
K: Did you not take the lightbulbs with you when you moved? I always took my lightbulbs with me when I moved.
C: No, I didn’t. I didn’t.
K: What? You left a working lightbulb in your house? You fancy. I was like “mmnnm. I paid for this lightbulb. This is my lightbulb.”
C: Well, I didn’t pay for the lightbulbs. They were there when I got there.
K: (laughs) What? Somebody left you lightbulbs?
C: Yes, they did.
K: For me, anytime I moved in a place that had working lightbulbs, I was like score.
(laughter)
K: I was pinching my coins. I was clutching every coin. And that’s what I don’t understand – because I’ve been dirt poor, and when I was dirt poor, I clutched every coin. Like, I never left a working lightbulb anywhere.
C: Yeah.
K: I took everything that was like legal for me to take. I took it if I moved.
C: Mhm.
K: So, I don’t understand what you’re saying, and I think that that confusion – if that confusion is enough to stop the conversation, what’s going on with us? Like, why are we letting – if we don’t understand someone’s point of view, why does that mean their point of view has no value? That makes me sad. That bums me out.
C: What I’m saying is I think that there are too many people in the U.S. and other places… who feel – sometimes correctly, sometimes incorrectly – that they are only one misstep form abject poverty.
K: I’ve been that person.
C: And I’ve been that person
K: Where it was real.
C: I’ve been that person, too. When my mom died, it bankrupted the family. Literally, we declared bankruptcy when I was a kid. You know, when you got sick, it cost us a lot of money.
K: Yes.
C: It really put us in financial hardship.
K: It bankrupted us. We can say it. I ain’t ashamed of it.
C: But we didn’t declare bankruptcy. We worked our way back out.
K: We were broke.
C: Yeah.
K: We just didn’t have any debt to declare bankruptcy on.
C: Right.
K: So….
C: So, I think that knowing that you’re just one wrong step from things, everything becomes high stakes. And I think people get choice fatigue. And they get… so tired of just constant being on the edge that saying, “let’s sit down and have a reasonable conversation about things you could do to make things better” is sometimes just that one thing too many for them. Sometimes, just that…
K: Now, I’m pushing for
C: I’m floating to stay afloat.
K: I’m pushing for everybody to lead with compassion.
C: Yeah.
K: Hello sibling, hello fam, I know you’re struggling. I know you’re hurting. I know times are hard. But I promise you, when you change the lightbulbs in your house, it will reduce your electricity bill. And I’m not saying do it today. If you’re got lightbulbs that have life in them, keep those lightbulbs in. The next time a lightbulb burns out, go buy a better, more efficient lightbulb. It’ll take less energy to run. It’ll last longer. It’ll save you money. That one thing that we all can do on this earth together, if we all untied and said, “you know what? We’re going to buy the longest-living lightbulb that we can find where ewe purchase our lightbulbs.” And we all made that decision, what a beautiful thing that would be.
C: And I agree with you, but I think this is where… the conversation goes in a different way, which is – I think we’ve talked some before about how expensive it is to be poor
K: Yes, it is.
C: Because each of the lightbulbs that we bought was about $15. An incandescent of about similar wattage is about 80 cents. Which means if I have $2, I can buy an incandescent bulb to replace it. I can’t buy an LED.
K: So, I didn’t say LED. There’s a lot of lightbulbs between LED and incandescent.
C: I understand.
K: So, I think that’s a false dilemma, and that’s why I said the most efficient lightbulb you can find where you buy your lightbulbs.
C: Mhm.
K: You know, and I should’ve added in your price range. Because I’m not trying to fault people for being too poor to make the most efficient choice. I’m not saying do exactly what we’re doing.
C: Right.
K: This is what’s working for us, and I – and we’re in Japan, so we actually get tax breaks from doing these types of things that aren’t available in other countries. So, we make up the money on the back-end kind of thing. And if – because if your electricity usage is below a certain amount, you get a rebate for it.
C: Right.
K: I get that we’re in, you know, I guess in this way privileged when it comes to energy policy because we’re rewarded for doing things that help… make the world a better place and help reduce our carbon footprint. We’re rewarded for that in Japan. Because I’m not so naïve to think other people are rewarded as well.
C: And so
K: So, I’m saying if we do things that – if everybody’s doing what they can at their level
C: I agree with you on that.
K: Yeah.
C: And when you say, “why don’t we just sit down and have a conversation about it?” I think if somebody could be guaranteed to sit down and have a conversation with you about it.
K: (laughs)
C: Right?
K: Not everybody would talk to me about it.
C: But I’m saying that somebody with your perspective, somebody with your compassion, with your understanding of it.
K: Somebody who had been dirt poor and could only afford the 80-cent lightbulb
C: Right.
K: And so…
C: Right.
K: Pick something else.
C: But how do you know in advance who you’re going to have that conversation with if you’re in a place of vulnerability?
K: So, that’s why I wanted to have this conversation about privilege. Because I want everybody to think about and ask themselves, “am I privileged?” And in which ways am I privileged, and how does that privilege bias me?
C: Right.
K: Because, when I start from a place of “I have no privilege” – I’ve been homeless. I started out with a rough life. I look at, okay, it makes me… actually do the introspection not be like, “it was luck.” I went down to the office on a random day, and I went down because I was in an abusive foster home, and they had a sweatshop in the foster home. But they were making curtains, and we would have to put the stays in the curtains. And I hated doing it. So, I had the gumption to prick my finger and bleed all over the sheers so that I would be fired from that sweatshop job. As a punishment, they made me go down to this place that was 5 miles – 5, 10 miles away – and wouldn’t give me bus money. But I had bus money. I got on the bus. Because, like, I was like, “I’m going to ride the bus all day.” And then I decided to go to the place.
C: Mhm.
K: Because the bus happened to stop at the place, and I was like, “oh, this is it.” I was curious. So, I went in because I was curious, but I had a little bad attitude. And they were like, “all we have left is the library.” Because all the fun places – like the recreational-based places – those jobs were gone.
C: How are those the fun places?
K: Right? I was like, library? It’s quiet. It’s temperature controlled. It’s… mellow
C: At least, at the time, it was mellow. I hear libraries are no longer mellow.
K: Yeah, they were mellow at the time. And it was really far away, but I liked riding the bus.
C: Yeah.
K: And it was awesome because I was going to work, hello. To pick up a new book to read on my bus ride home. And I liked challenging myself. “Can I read this book on the bus ride home?”
C: Mhm.
K: Or “can I read this book on the bus ride home and to work?” And the librarian tasked me with that, and then swapped out the – like, “why are you taking so many Harlequin novels?” And I’m like, “because I can read a couple of them on the bus ride home.” And she was like, “well, if you’re going to read books on the bus ride home, read this book instead.”
C: Yeah.
K: That was lucky, and – but it was born out of really horrible circumstances. But in unpacking all of that, I think about all of my foster siblings who were stuck in the sweatshop that summer.
C: Right.
K: And I wasn’t. And because… I wasn’t stuck in the sweatshop because I didn’t view the beating I would get for picking my finger because, for me, taking a beating was such a spiteful dynamic for me.
C: Mhm.
K: That that spitefulness and that desire to be spiteful – they didn’t have that. So, that’s down to my personality. And that personality difference changed my life.
C: Right.
K: Like, changed the trajectory of the resto f my life. Didn’t cure everything, didn’t make everything better. And I want everybody to kind of reflect on their own life and ask, “what” – where are the pivotal moments in their life. What is the difference between them and the person who was sitting net to them in that pivotal moment? And find our compassion in that.
C: And I think for me, find the way to try and make those moments available to other people.
K: Yes.
C: So, that’s why I would almost always have one and three grad students that I’m mentoring.
K: Yes.
C: And by the time somebody’s a grad student, I’ve already
K: And almost exclusively women. And the majority are women of color. And then you help them with their job search afterwards. You’re not going to toot your own horn, and you’re going to try and downplay it, but I’m your wife, and I can be like “this is what he does” because that’s who I am.
C: Yes.
K: (laughs)
C: So, I think that by the time you’re a grad student, you’ve already overcome a lot no matter how
K: Yeah, but you helped one person through undergraduate all the way through graduate school, so you stay with them at whatever place you find them.
C: Yeah, and afterwards I try and help them find jobs, and yeah if I mentor you, I’m going to be there for life.
K: Yeah.
C: And it’s not something I get paid for. It’s something I just do because I… I think that it’s necessary, and I feel like I was helped out by people who shared knowledge with me to know – who it did not benefit them to share it.
K: Yes.
C: It detrimental. It just… it wasn’t beneficial to them in any way.
K: Yeah.
C: They were just sharing it to share it with me, and I feel like… some of them only saw my potential because I’m a white guy.
K: Mm. I feel like that, too, a lot of people helped me out because I was a foster kid or former foster kid, and they wanted to feel good. I was inspo porn for them.
C: Right. So, I think there are probably people who could use me as a mentor that I’m overlooking.
K: Yeah.
C: And I’ll acknowledge that. And I try to pick just, like, statistically who’s most likely to need a mentor but not be able to find one.
K: Yeah.
C: And so
K: And you have a whole system in place.
C: Yeah, I do.
K: But if y’all want to be considered, hit us up on Twitter @TheMusicksInJapan
(laughter)
K: What?
C: (laughs) Yes.
K: What? You know I’m always promoting your mentoring services.
C: No, I know you are.
K: And I don’t know – it makes us no money – but I’m always out there getting you these mentees, baby. You need a mentee.
C: Yeah.
K: So, because that’s your activism, and I really love it. And I think it’s so beautiful. And I’ve seen how it changes people’s lives. And… getting a college degree is really lifechanging. It really does change what your options are in life and the way people look at you. And the way people treat you and how they approach you. And… doors you can’t even walk through.
C: Yes.
K: And, so for me, I’ve always been really humbled and honored all of the doors that – that my education has gotten me, and all of the doors that I can walk through. So, I’m always careful to leave the door open behind me and not be one of those gatekeepers that keeps people out. And I nudge those gatekeepers and say, “hey. Leave the gate open.”
C: Yeah. Yeah.
K: (laughs) Leave the gate open.
C: And I try to, too. I was 30 when I got my bachelor’s, so…
K: Yeah.
C: I graduated high school at 16, which is like “ohh. Aren’t you fancy.”
K: Yeah.
C: But then I didn’t get my bachelor’s until I was 30, and I had a lot of opportunities in that time that I did take advantage of, but there were some that I missed out on just because I didn’t have that degree.
K: Yeah. So, I guess in thinking about privilege… this is kind of a meandering more somber conversation, and I think it’s because of where my head’s at. And I think it’s no surprise to the Musick Notes that I kind of drive the topic (laughs) Because we start every episode off with “lately what I’ve been thinking about” and that’s just what’s been in my head and on my heart. Like, how do we – as a world, right – how do we change our collective activity to be pro-social and to stop this sort of dog-eat-dog mentality? And trust that there’s enough for everybody. That there’s enough to go around. And there – there really are. If
C: There is enough to go around, but that doesn’t mean that it’s distributed in such a way that everybody gets enough. And that’s
K: I get the problem with like wealth hoarding and all of that. Right? But I’m trying to look at… the places of hope.
C: Yeah.
K: Like, where do we get hope, and how do we build hope? And that’s the therapist in me. Because hope is such an amazing elixir. When people feel hope, they’re motivated. They take action. It’s way more motivating than fear. It really is. When we research it, we find that hope is way more motivating than fear.
C: Yes.
K: So, I want everybody to feel hope and know that tomorrow can be a little bit brighter than today. And I hope that our little podcast made their today a little bit brighter. I know I wasn’t laughing as much, so those of you who hate my laugh, you guys got a break from that. And those of you who love my laugh, I think I might be laughing more next time, but I don’t know. I don’t promise laughter. (laughs)
C: And they can go listen to an old and funnier episode if they want to.
K: (laughs) They can. They can. And those of you who are like relieved I didn’t laugh – I just cackled right there. So, whoops. But – so, we’ve been doing this new thing on the take two. I know we’ve been talking about it every couple of weeks. Or every week. I think for the past couple of weeks is what I meant to say. Chad has a book that we’re in the process of working with a press to put out, and it’s called Not My Ruckus. And it’s available for review on what? BookSirens?
C: Yeah. At the moment, on BookSirens.
K: So, it’s available for review on BookSirens. So, you can get – is it an advance? How does that work? I think let the people in. Don’t keep this as a patron exclusive.
C: Yeah, it’s an advance reader copy. So, you can go there, and you can claim a copy as long as you haven’t been doing things like pirating books and things. So, they have a little check system, but it’s – it’s basically just verify your email and don’t have… you know, gotten a bunch of books and put them on pirate sites. So, it’s not – it affects very, very few people.
K: Is it free?
C: It is free, yes. It’s not free to me. I pay.
K: (laughs) Yeah, we pay for the copies that you read. And is it BookSiren dot com?
C: BookSirens dot com.
K: BookSirens dot com. So, go check out Not My Ruckus. And… be sure to rate it and review it. And all of that good stuff. I think on BookSirens, if you check out the book, you have to review it. Or rate it? How does that go?
C: They ask you to review it, so they
K: So, you don’t have to.
C: You don’t have to. If you consistently don’t rate books, then they will stop giving you books.
K: Okay.
C: But you do not have to rate it.
K: And just to warn y’all, it is dark. And it will break your heart but in the best way.
C: Yes.
K: (laughs)
C: Of all the ways you want your heart broken, it’s a good one.
K: Yeah. So, it’s a really satisfying read. And… that’s – at least, that’s what the people tell us. So. (laughs)
C: Yes.
K: On that happy note, if you want to hear more about what’s going on with Not My Ruckus and the publishing process, please head on over – follow us on over to the take two, and if not we’ll talk to you next week.
C and K: Bye.