Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: In this episode, we discuss Jay Z's deal with Target to release the 30th anniversary edition of his first album In Light of the efforts that have been made to boycott Target and consider whether this represents the disintegration phenomenon Eugene Robinson talked about in his 2011 book by the same.
Hello, welcome to Call Like I See it podcast. I'm James Keats, and joining me today is a man who may have some strong takes, but he can certainly walk it like he talks. Tunde. Ogunlana Tunde. Are you ready to give us some culture today?
[00:00:48] Speaker B: Yes, sir. Let's go.
[00:00:50] Speaker A: All right, all right. Now before we get started, if you enjoy the show, I ask that you subscribe, like the show on YouTube or your podcast platform, please. Doing so really helps the show out. And we're recording on June 23, 2026. Antunde. We did a show about a book a few years ago back in our audio only days. The book was Eugene Robinson's 2011 book Disintegration the Splintering of Black America. And this book laid out how black America is no longer a monolith, but rather has splintered into four separate groups which he called the mainstream, the transcendent, the abandoned, and the emergent. So when we saw this recent Jay Z controversy over the deal he's doing with Target to exclusively release the 30th anniversary of reasonable Doubt, despite the ongoing efforts from black activists to maintain a boycott against Target because of its rollback of DEI initiatives, we both noted that it looked a lot like an actual factual dispute between two of these splintered black American groups, one being the mainstream, as Robinson identified, being kind of a middle class majority who has like a full stake in the American society. You know, just a middle class group of people, but a large group and then a small group of that are that he considered transcendent, which is like an ultra successful group who in many ways their wealth and their status puts them in a place where they transcend black America, so to speak. So now before we get any further into that, Tunde, I want to get your reaction on the Jay Z deal. You know, so, so what are your thoughts on Jay Z's deal with Target? You know, has. Has Jigga sold out black America by taking the bag and giving Target racial cover?
[00:02:35] Speaker B: I don't think so. That's my opinion. But you know, I know we're going to discuss that for an entire show, so.
[00:02:42] Speaker A: Well, why don't get into the.
[00:02:44] Speaker B: We'll get into those details. No, because I think he's more of an opportunist. I mean, that, that's. He appears to me that's more of a capitalist move he made or just saying here's an opportunity.
Almost like, you know, looking at a wounded animal when you're a predator. Right. Target was limping as relates to this topic of the way it handled its rollback of DEI due to pressures, political pressure and all that stuff in early 2025, as opposed to other retailers like Costco, which stood behind its DEI efforts, and Walmart through Sam's Club and others as another example, which got rid of its DEI but didn't half step about it. So neither Walmart nor Costco suffered anything, seems like, with the public. But Target suffered a bit because they have stepped. They first tried to fight DEI rollbacks and then decided to capitulate and go in on it. And it seems like that's what got the ire of the public was the lack of consistency more than anything else. So I look at Jay Z's move as more of an opportunistic play, looking at a wounded corporate giant that's saying, hey, we're grabbing at straws and if anyone can help us maybe redeem ourselves with this community, we'll throw an opportunity your way. And Jay said, okay. Jay Z said, okay, I'll show up and take the opportunity.
[00:04:03] Speaker A: So how big? How, how many zeros?
[00:04:06] Speaker B: That's what I mean. And, and to the point that you and I talked personally in preparing for,
[00:04:11] Speaker A: for this, I was going to say. Let me, let me respond to that. Yeah, I think you raised, I think, well, remember, and I think you were probably about to go into this, but just to kind of the. You and I had an interesting discussion about this offline and basically it was about the death. What, what do we mean by selling out? You know, and so like, when I look at this, I would say what you just described is selling out the black community, like quite literally now. But as we talked about before, there's like the selling out. Like the traditional capitalism selling out. Like you see with music artists. Like, oh yeah, your sound was one way before, and then now you make your sound another way so that you can sell more records or something like that, where you make your, your stuff more quote, unquote, accessible. So in order to. But not artistic enough, you know, like, you think of people who won't sell out. It's like Nirvana with like Kurt cobain in the 90s. And that's a dated reference, but nonetheless, they were going to stay pure to the music. They didn't care how Big the dollars were if they did something else. And so in that capitalist sense, I think that that's exactly what Jay Z did. The opportunity was that they needed a black face to help give them cover. And he was like, okay, well, if you pay me enough, I'll be the. I'll help give you cover with the black community.
And so like, by that definition, I think that yes, that's a sellout. That's somebody who sold out the black community, so to speak, or this mainstream group of the black community. Now the question of whether, like Jay Z's kind of said he's been about this the whole time, this is the guy that said I dumbed down from my audience to double my dollar.
And he has many lyrics that talking about how he could go harder on the lyricism side or do this or do that. But everybody wants to say holla, you know, and. But the other form of selling out, which I thought you pushed back on and made a good point, was like the specific to the black community, kind of like the Uncle Tom, Uncle Tom's Cabin, you know, like with the sellout in that sense, where you're actually going to become part of the oppression, you know. And so what Jay Z is doing now isn't necessarily that you could connect dots along. You know, if you make a long enough connection, you say, oh, well, he's part of the oppression because he's given targeted out and yada, yada, yada. But he's not directly, you know, becoming what is considered, you know, actually being a part of the oppression necessarily by this. He's being opportunistic, you know, from a capitalism standpoint, capitalist standpoint, which like I said, by one version of selling someone out, that's kind of that. And by the other it's probably not, you know.
[00:06:33] Speaker B: Yeah, well, one thing I'd say is a couple things come out of my thoughts with that Is one is there's a conversation that's been going on in our greater society in these recent years of the idea of kind of billionaires. Jay Z, clearly I think he's worth somewhere between two and a half and three billion right now. And I believe that's without his wife's also net worth combined. And she's worth I think around a billion or more. So the idea is that clearly there's a certain mindset that it takes to get to that kind of wealth where you are focused a lot on growing your money.
And that is not for me to make an opinion on in terms of does that make someone a good or bad character.
But it does tell us that where these opportunities are seen by people with that mindset, they're going to go after them. Right. That's how you got to being a billionaire in the first place. But another thing, as you're talking, James, makes me realize, and I wouldn't mind your thought on this, I think a lot of times, especially when we're talking about the subculture of black America, which, again, is not a monolith, and I know we're going to get into that. It is much more diverse in terms of how there are different actors and players within the black diaspora in today's world. Much more so than, let's say, 50, 100 years ago.
How come we don't look at Target as well? Right. Meaning as a collective community, we're sitting there beating up, not me and you, but just saying a lot of people are beating up Jay Z about calling him a sellout and things like that.
But what about Target?
Why don't we ask Target of why do you guys think this guy represents all black people? If you're trying to make up for a snafu on how you handled your response to pressures about DEI, why did you pick a rapper from 30 years ago? Right. Like. Like Target, I'm looking at why did you assume Jay Z was going to be some guy that's going to help you, you know, kind of get out of this cultural mess?
And I think we don't ask those questions enough.
[00:08:32] Speaker A: No, I mean, I don't think that that's a legitimate question. I mean, Target is literally being boycotted right now. So it's not like people are letting Target.
[00:08:38] Speaker B: That's my point is why are we looking at.
Well, hold on. You said I don't think that's a legitimate question. So let me respond and I'm gonna
[00:08:44] Speaker A: explain why, though, like you. Okay, but let me explain myself.
[00:08:48] Speaker B: If you're gonna challenge me that I didn't ask legitimate question. I'll tell you why it's legitimate. It's legitimate because we are looking at a large corporation and we're not asking it. Why'd you pick him to represent what you think is black people? That's all.
[00:09:00] Speaker A: But. Okay, so the reason why that's like, where. So you're saying. Are you saying that there is a black person that represents all. No, they're saying, here's a popular guy, he can help us with some people. They're not saying it's going to appeal to everyone. They're saying it's going to appeal to a Lot of people he's popular by definition. That if he's popular by definition, that means it's going to appeal to some people. Clearly they chose right and that he's made a move that is blatantly selling people out and you got a lot of people lining up to defend him. So clearly he's very popular within the black community and they chose someone. If this was somebody who didn't have as high of approval letter level as in the black community already, there would be much more condemnation of the guy. You know what I'm saying? So the fact that he's. That this person created this schism shows the level of popularity. This isn't saying all people are going to like Jay Z. They're saying that there are a large number of people that will. So I don't know what more, where
[00:09:54] Speaker B: I disagree is that what more heat
[00:09:56] Speaker A: other than boycotting Target, which is still going on, you're supposed to give to them. The person who's changed the status quo here is Jay Z. So of course he's going to get more ire people then Target, who again is already in the bullseye.
You're saying, oh, they should be more in the bullseye. Well, they already are in the bullseye. You want them to double the boycott? It's already happening.
[00:10:16] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean that should be. Look, I guess my point is this.
First of all, there's a lot of other black Americans we could discuss that could be picked for this and may not be seen as selling out. Because part of the wind up to this discussion was that Jay Z has been seen as doing this before this in terms of taking opportunities to have a greater conversation than this.
[00:10:39] Speaker A: Let's identify that. Actually while you bring it up the other big time, there's been a couple of times, one time with Barclays and the regentrification that was going on in Brooklyn and he's teaming up with the people doing the regentrifying in Brooklyn. The other big one that people talk about is when Colin Kaepernick was kneeling in the NFL and was creating a lot of issues with the players. More players started kneeling, you know, all this other stuff. Then Jay Z comes in, the NFL comes in and pays him a big money to be the one who runs the halftime shows. And so that was again seen as giving cover to someone who was having problems with black, with black people in their sphere. You know, so that just for the purposes of just all in the same, that's good.
[00:11:21] Speaker B: And so my point is, and I don't want to start naming Names, because we could all have opinions about who could be a good spokesperson or not. But the point is just saying that Jay Z does have a bit of that baggage with the culture. That's what I'm saying, that someone else,
[00:11:33] Speaker A: he's somebody that's willing to do this. So if you're saying that.
[00:11:37] Speaker B: And that's why I don't want to name names and get into, you know, speculating on who could do a good job. I'm just saying that with a different rollout, maybe a different character, this could have been received differently by a lot of people in the community. And I think that's why, you know, it's not that people.
I'm saying this. People give. Because I think there's something like the parasocial relationship that a lot of people have with an artist like Jay.
They see this and they immediately look at him. And I'm saying, like, nah, you're right. My opinion would be, then I would double boycott Target over this. Because I'll say, well, why are you
[00:12:10] Speaker A: assuming double boycott doesn't make any sense. You're already boycotting them. Like, this would be. If you're boycotting Target already, then if Jay Z gets in the bed with them, then the question isn't, what else do we do to Target. The question is, what do we do with Jay Z? Like, that's. I don't understand, like, what you're. Like, it's not like they saying, okay,
[00:12:27] Speaker B: well, then there's no real conversation in the pen. Because, well, then, then, then I mean, I would say this. There's no real conversation for the public to have. Because why even talk about Jay Z? Well, because that's just an example of the.
[00:12:38] Speaker A: Because he crossed. He sold out black people. So you talk about that and say, okay, is one. Is it legitimate, the anger that's had, you know, the people that are angry about him doing this, is this legitimate anger or is this just a result of a parasocial relationship, which you've talked about how? Well, Jay Z and I mentioned it earlier. Jay Z's always kind of been, hey, I'll sell out whoever for an extra dollar. So whether that may be consistent with him, it still could be dirty. And then the other piece, though, is whether this expectation. Because here's the piece I think that's really interesting about this. The expectation that Jay Z, only because he's black, the only reason why he has this expectation is because he's a black man. You shouldn't, quote, unquote, cross when somebody's getting boycotted. By black folks, or when the NFL is having trouble with black folks, you shouldn't show up, tell them to write a bigger check, because basically you're leveraged now to your initial point, you are in a position where you need me more. And so to a capitalist, what do you do? You say, okay, well you gotta pay me double, you gotta pay me triple than you otherwise would have. Cuz you're compromised, you're leveraged in this situation. So he shows up, uses maximum, uses the leverage that the pressure from the black community is creating to exert maximum pressure, maximum leverage to get a bigger, bigger bag. But again, the only reason why people say he has any obligation to the, or people are holding him to this standard where he shouldn't necessarily leverage that for a bigger bag is because he's a black man. So is it unfair to him to say, okay, well because you're black, we're talking about all this stuff like hey, don't, don't make people, people shouldn't have to do stuff just because they're black or not have to do something just because they're black. It's like, well, you're. The people who are upset at Jay Z are explicitly saying because you're black, you shouldn't be doing this. And is that fair? So there are a lot of angles that, to talk about this from beyond just trying to excuse Jay Z, like Jay Z. To me, the easiest part of this is that Jay Z did black folks dirty. The question is whether actually it's fair to him to expect more from him than we would some other billionaire who would happily. There's plenty of billionaires doing business with Target. So whether it's fair to him to put that on him. And just in general, like I said, the conflict between he's getting the biggest bag while other people are trying to make social change. And that's, that's a conflict, you know, I mean, so, so yeah, I mean, I think there are plenty of conversations that can be had that are, that are worthwhile, that aren't just kicking on Jay Z, you know, just kicking Jay Z or circling, you know, kind of old debates, you know, but for you in particular, because I know that, you know, like your approach on this or your thought process has been one that hey, this Jay Z's being Jay Z, so to speak. So do you think that the expectations, you know, from, you know, these activists or from whoever's looking at this with Jay Z are their expectations unfair? Because again, the only reason why these expectations are on him is because he's Black. And so it's like, well, hold up.
We're holding this dude to a different standard specifically because he's black. Is that cool?
[00:15:28] Speaker B: Is it cool?
It sounds like you want a yes or no on that one. I mean, I was going to say that's maybe the ultimate question. Right.
So I'd say, personally, I don't think it's cool, but I get it that.
You know, because this gets complex. So one is this idea of black people.
Right. Let's just go there. Right. What does that mean? You and I are considered.
[00:15:51] Speaker A: That's. We're about to.
[00:15:52] Speaker B: Yeah, you and I are considered black people in the United States, but. And we're considered the equal kind of black people.
[00:15:59] Speaker A: Right.
[00:15:59] Speaker B: Both of us have been called the N word since the time we were kids by non black people who want to put us in a certain place in the. In the caste system, in our society, in our culture. Right. But you and I are very different human beings. You're from Ohio. You come with the lineage of Jim Crow and slavery and all that. The true. What I would call a true African American, if we can say it that way.
I'm the son of immigrants. My mom's from Europe, my dad's from Africa, and I was born here in the 70s after they both immigrated here after the Civil Rights act, when it allowed people of different parts of the world to move to America.
And that wasn't the case prior to the 65 Civil Rights Act. So just in that example, you and I are both representative of two totally different backgrounds. But in the United States culture, we're lumped together as just black people.
So what do you do with that? Because as human beings and our cultural history and all that, we're actually different people. But we have something in America that is kind of special, which is called solidarity. Because of being black in this country.
[00:17:06] Speaker A: Well, that's the question, actually. It's the solidarity is not from anything inherent about us other than how the rest of society looks at us.
[00:17:15] Speaker B: Correct. That's.
[00:17:16] Speaker A: So solidarity is kind of forced on us. And so the answer to the question with Jay Z is just. It depends on how much mileage the idea of if black people, generally speaking, are people that America does. Goes out of its way to do dirty, then how much solidarity is forced on them and in the past? So this will allow us to transition to the book. The book Disintegration.
[00:17:37] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:17:38] Speaker A: Essentially points out how at a certain time and most of throughout American history, all black people, from the way the rest of society treated them, were Treated as second class citizens or third class citizens or whatever you want. And so there was no escaping that. And so everyone was forced together. You all had to live in the same neighborhoods, whether you were successful, whether you're not, whether you immigrated or whether you're six generations in. And so everybody was forced together. And so after, you know, the 60s and civil rights stuff and you know, things start opening up more 70s and everything like that, different groups that are treated differently in some respects by the larger culture and then that have, that don't necessarily see things eye to eye between them. And so he has the mainstream group that I already talked about in transcendent group that I talked about, but he also brought out the emergent group which you would qualify what you just talked about, your background that's mixed race and, or immigrant, recent immigrant, first generation and that type of stuff, which don't necessarily see things the same way and don't have the same experience as, as black Americans who have been here for generations and so forth. And then the other being what he termed the abandoned and meaning that those who, the mainstream are the people who have made it up a little bit and have integrated into American life and may own homes or you know, things like that, whereas the abandoned, the group that he talks about that are the ones who haven't been able to really get a foothold in American society. And so he's looking at, he, he separates these groups and says all of these groups, while there may be some level of solidarity that still exists amongst all of them, there's no just black America though. It's like all of these groups actually view issues that come up differently. And so in this case in particular with Jay Z, we're talking about somebody who is, would be considered transcendent, viewing this differently than what the, the mainstream blacks, those who may be agitating for further progress or to not or fighting the rollback of what may be, consider they may look at the same situation differently. And that's what it seems like we're having here is this dispute right now.
[00:19:36] Speaker B: Let me just add this. Yeah. Because I was reviewing the book, the last chapter to read the title. It's called We Know who We Are, but who Will We Be. And I thought that's interesting because that shows that kind of fracturing of what used to be a monolith for the reasons you mentioned historically, out of the need for solidarity due to survival. Right. And so I think that, I think that that brings with it a lot of interesting realities. Like you said, there's, there's a cultural realities of those of us who may have different cultural backgrounds but are all still considered by everyone else in the country who's not. I would say this not even just black of the African kind of diaspora descent because I've seen people from India with darker skin than me. But they don't get considered black in America. Right. Even though they're black skinned people.
So when we talk about black, it even kind of out of the caste system created in our culture, it's a certain type of human from a certain region which is generally West Africa. Even if that the slave ships brought them through, let's say Brazil or Dominican Republic. Right. When they get to America, they see them as, you know, everyone's lumped in this one group as black.
[00:20:59] Speaker A: Well, other people see them as that, but they may not see themselves, you know, like they don't see themselves as being from whatever country they're from, you know, like and so forth.
[00:21:08] Speaker B: Or that was one of the things
[00:21:09] Speaker A: that emergent group, you know.
[00:21:11] Speaker B: Yeah. So, but that's the thing is that I think that that's all swimming within the greater American experience that everybody's kind of having because I think there's a, we're having like a national identity crisis.
Because a lot of people remember the like old American culture is like you're black, white and then there's a small sliver for Hispanics. But, but you know, today what does that mean? Right? Because what's a white person, are they Arab? I've seen people like Italians be calling themselves white and I'm like, man, I'm old enough. Italians, they weren't considered, they weren't let into country clubs when I was a kid. They weren't white. So it's like, you know, what is going on here? It's all, it's really about power and proximity to whoever is considered the upper caste in the society. And that's a human thing.
[00:22:00] Speaker A: That's every society, whoever has access to the privileges of full privileges, you know. And then because our American society has granted privilege or access to things and throughout its history based on made up concepts like race, then yeah, you'll see like at a time, you know, Eastern European, a hundred years ago, Eastern Europeans aren't considered white. And then it's like, well now they are. It's like, well that's because you know, they were able to work the system,
[00:22:28] Speaker B: you know, like now, you know, it's funny James, that's what happened to my mom. So my mom was Eastern European and post Civil Rights act of 1965. They started letting these Eastern Europeans in because between 1924 and 1965, there was a Chinese Exclusion act. They didn't let any African immigrants come in and they didn't really let Eastern Europeans come in. They just got a little bit of sympathy after World War II on that. But they didn't really open it up till after.
[00:22:56] Speaker A: Well, no, I remember you called out when we did the eugenics crusade, and you were saying how one of the things that stood out to you was that going back 150 years, the people that were doing all the eugenics stuff, they actually had the Eastern Europeans under the Northern blacks.
So it was. So everything's all like. It's all because it's made up. It changes from time to time based on the cultural practices.
To me, I think being defined in part how the larger society treats you is one thing you have to get your head around that is that that is a numbers game, so to speak. So I'll say if you're a minority group, and I don't say minority group, and like a lot of times, minority group has baggage. When you say that people like, oh, minority meaning poor, or minority meaning, you know, not part of the normal part of society or whatever, but I mean like minority meaning majority, minority like numbers. When you're a smaller group in a larger society, then sometimes the way you see yourself can be defined by the way you, as a minority group is treated. You know, and this is a phenomenon that happens in all countries, you know, and that could be religious minorities, that could be, you know, cultural background, minorities, anything, any kind of. It could be some made up stuff, it could be real stuff, you know, it could be whatever. And so as a result, I think what we're seeing, the phenomenon that disintegration, what he's doing is putting a structure on a. Like, what's happening, the direction that things went in. If you go from 1965-20, 2011, when the book came out, and how the specifics, kind of a structure of the groups that it broke into, but the fact that it broke into groups really was something that was dictated internally.
And so how much mileage you get on. Okay, so black people in the mainstream, when they moved out of segregated neighborhoods, might not have identified individually, like internally as much with the black folks that lived, that remained in the segregated areas, or the transcendent black folks that went above and beyond. It can go and get into any room anywhere. They might not have identified with the mainstream anymore. They might not have identified. And so that internal kind of who you identify with yourself is what we're talking about when we talk about this disintegration. But the question how much mileage you get on that, and this is relevant to the Jay Z thing, even depends on ultimately how outwardly you're treated, like not internal, how you feel about yourself, but how you're treated externally. And so ultimately when, if a rule is made that where, hey, we're going to try to get black people off the voting rolls, then that's something that conceivably is like, okay, well, you need to have more solidarity at that point. That may force you back together. Even with people you don't have a ton of things in common with in your day to day life anymore. But it really depends in that case, if you're not facing group attacks anymore, then yeah, you separate out, you're in. You have your own identities, your own thing that's important to you, things that you're worried about and so forth. And so when things are happening with dei, for example, some groups may not be worried about that that much. And other groups might like, yo, this is the craziest thing in the world. Some groups of black people, I should say, maybe not worried about it. And some groups of black people may be like, yo, this is crazy. We got to do something about this. You know, so it's interesting to see. I think Robinson did a good job. We were not going to do the book again. We had done the book, but he did, he put a good framework on how it was, how things had had diverge, or he called it has splintered, so to speak. But the phenomenon of observing how people may see themselves internally versus how society may look at them, you know, may look at them all together is something that, I think that tension still creates kind of friction, you know, and that can create friction between the groups.
[00:26:33] Speaker B: Well, you know, it's interesting as you were talking there, made me realize this solidarity. Another good example between two groups that had solidarity in prior decades in America and no longer do as much, unfortunately, are black Americans and Jewish Americans. Yeah, because to your point, back during pre civil rights era, pre kind of, you know, the late 60s and all that stuff, antisemitism and anti black racism kind of went hand in hand. We look at groups like the Klan and all that and there was a lot of, if you look at old, just go Google, people can Google images of just say segregation signs from the 1950s or something, and you'll see restaurants had signs that said no blacks, no Jews, no dogs.
[00:27:15] Speaker A: Honestly, you're correct. Except that I'd say if you ask the University of Florida, you know, young Republicans, I think, based on their.
And all that stuff.
[00:27:26] Speaker B: Don't, hey, don't forget my alma mater, Florida International University as well.
Their group chat got let out in
[00:27:32] Speaker A: many right wing circles. Apparently they still are looked at in
[00:27:36] Speaker B: hand, as hand in hand and as, I mean, and unfortunately, by kind of after the mid-70s, late 80s, when again, there was no more that need for that solidarity, the two cultures began to separate a bit. So I think you're right, James. This is what we're seeing maybe internally in the black community.
But it's interesting because is America mature enough to handle something like that? You know what I mean? Is, is America mature enough to look at black people and not assume that they're all the same and be in a monolith.
[00:28:05] Speaker A: Well, and are even black people?
And does that, you know, like, is that a betrayal then at that point if a person who would be considered a transcendent black person turns on or, or uses the struggle of the mainstream black to advance themselves further. And then you had mentioned, you know, like just kind of. I always, I always, you had talked about, you know, being a billionaire two, you know, two, $3 billion, like to get that level, like you're not, you're not friendly, buddy, buddy with everybody. There are some people you had to step over. There are some people you had to take advantage of. So, you know, like, that may just be, if you're going to be on the path of the billionaire, then it may not be. That may just conflict with the idea of, hey, I'm not, I'm going to try to, you know, as I go up, I'm going to try to make sure I at least don't step on, you know, black folks or I don't step on this. And that, like, that may not be possible if you're trying to continue to grow because other billionaires don't have those same constraints, you know, So I don't know, and I'm not saying that to excuse it. I think like I said earlier, I think equivocally what he's done is wrong.
But whether something's wrong and whether something's understandable or whether there's a greater discussion about, hey, what's going on around here, about, you know, what, what does this reflect is even something different. So I do want to get out of here. But you know, I do want to ask you, the book suggests that from the perspective of black Americans, that black Americans have splintered. But what do you Think as far as, like, how this splintering, so to speak, may extend to or just reflect how American society generally, you know, broader, if we look broader than just the black community. Like how this kind of an idea of splintering may not be that foreign.
[00:29:43] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that that's a great point, James. And I think this is why this era reminds me a lot of the Pre World War I era, because it's about the technology.
Because if we look, I mean, there's these subcultures throughout America, so there is a splintering in kind of some of the Christian nationalism versus other Christians. There's a kind of a fracturing of the dialogue around Christianity in this country right now.
I just think there's a lot because of the Internet, and I think the Internet has influenced a lot of our dialogue and has allowed a lot of actors to come over the gates, so to speak. You know, it was hard to get a broadcast TV license 30 years ago, you know, but it's not that hard for guys like you and I to have a YouTube channel and hundreds of thousands of other people to speak into the void and for millions and billions of people to hear it.
[00:30:31] Speaker A: And it's not that hard to know if you want to disturb people and get attention. It's not that hard. Yeah, exactly. Trigger them. Having content that. That isn't just aimed at disturbing people for eyeballs is actually much harder versus just, hey, if you disturb people emotionally, you can get a lot of eyeballs. You can get a lot of viral moments and so forth.
[00:30:47] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think that brings up a lot of opportunities for misinformation, propaganda, all that, which then gets people to kind of retreat in their corners. And then something else I want to say, too, about Jay Z and this specific conversation. One is I was reminded in preparing for today about the show we did, I think, a year or two ago about Mackenzie Bezos. Right.
And this is just to talk about wealth and billionaires. Mackenzie Bezos divorced Jeff Bezos, and I think got around 26 or $29 billion in her portion of the divorce settlement. And then when we did the show, she had already given away $29 billion to charitable and philanthropic endeavors, but her NET worth was 30 trillion. 30 billion. So what it.
[00:31:34] Speaker A: What it.
[00:31:35] Speaker B: Again, and you talk about this a lot. And when we do these economic talks, which is once you reach a certain level of wealth, your money kind of keeps stacking. So she's a contrast. That's what I was thinking of is, you know, you got people like. Who are opportunists, like Like Jay Z, you have other people like Mackenzie Bezos who look at their wealth and say, hey, you know, I want to do something to help other people, not necessarily be opportunistic for myself all the time.
So I thought that was a contrast. Just to say it's not about beating up billionaires here, it's really about looking at the mindset. And then the second thing was.
Sorry, go ahead.
[00:32:05] Speaker A: Well, no, I just, I didn't know how many. I didn't know you had another one.
[00:32:08] Speaker B: Go ahead. No, no. And just to finish up was really about, you know, just looking at kind of, I guess, really the technology and the ability for us to have this misinformation swimming all over the place allows, I think, like you said, just for us to be more fractured.
[00:32:26] Speaker A: So, yeah, I think I looked at it differently. And actually I got my idea on looking at this from you.
I was surprised you didn't go this direction. But to me, the splintering seems to reflect kind of an economic thing, you know, like, and even the groups, and now not the emergent group, which we didn't talk about a lot, but like I said that was. He identified that as mixed race people. And also the people who are recent immigrants who don't have the same, like going back looking at civil rights, you know, like their grandparents weren't talking about the civil rights movements or anything like that. Now honestly, as we get further away from living memory there, that's gonna, that's gonna break a tether as well, but not losing this. So, you know, when you're talking about the abandoned, the mainstream, the transcendent, those are economic strata, you know, and so, and that does kind of, that sounds a lot like, you know, the, the economic stratification that we have with, with regular, you know, with mainstream America in terms of, you got the super duper elite, you got the middle class, you know, working class people, people who work and so forth and have a level of success. And then you have the people that aren't truly engaged and don't have a lot of opportunities in the society due to however many factors you want to talk about and so forth. So I think that it's no coincidence that that would be the way it splinters. I mean, and this is again another one of the things that you've talked about before. But integration worked in that sense that once without, with segregation, black folks were forced into one group regardless, because the challenges you face, the true challenges you face on a day to day basis were similar regardless of your economic condition for the most part. You know, Jack Johnson, you know, the heavyweight champion of the world, was facing harassment from the police and all these other types of stuff. Just like somebody didn't have anyone, you know, on the side of the street. And so, but as, as integration worked and people aren't necessarily backed into those same places, then the, the, the, the splintering, so to speak, starts to resemble America, you know, so to speak, in a more, in a more true way. So whether that's. Now this is where you get into conversation. People saying, oh, you know, black folks were better off before integration, you know, yada, yada, yada, which we're not gonna get into that now, you know, but that's the underlying basis of conversations like that that you see is that people see how the. There were benefits to that solidarity, so to speak. I mean, it came at a huge cost. So I'm not going to get into that. But, but nonetheless, how it has broken apart to me is something that, it's interesting on itself because, yeah, now you have a. Jay Z is a true capitalist being, like, hey, why are you mad at me for getting a bag here? You know, like it's, I'm not directly hurting anyone, you know, like, you're talking about abstract stuff, so to speak. And I may disagree with that. But from his perspective, I cannot say that it doesn't make sense, you know, like, so it is what it is, you know, in that kind of sense. So. Last thought before we wrap up, man.
[00:35:17] Speaker B: Nah, man. I think that's well said that just class is the real distinction in this country. And race was kind of created as a way to fracture the working class.
[00:35:32] Speaker A: And blacks now are buying into kind of that same, that, like those, that same kind of stratification, so to speak, that. That would be the integration piece of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:35:42] Speaker B: I mean, Jay Z and black people are humans. So when you, when you allow them to participate fully in a society, we can expect that's why society is good.
Disintegration, right? Like, meaning blacks are not a monolith. I mean, that's kind of the proof that blacks are equal humans. Right? Because if you had 60 years of integration and blacks were still all just in the ghetto and there was no such thing as any blacks with wealth, then you could say, okay, that they deserve to be there. But the fact that 18. I looked at the number 18% of black Americans live below the poverty line, which means that. What's that, 82% live above it. So there's ways that we can focus on some of these statistics and ways that we talk about our fellow Americans that could present them in not such a negative light all the time and not people making assumptions that by selling sneakers and by having a mug shot that somehow you're going to create solidarity with an entire group of Americans.
So that's it. You know, that's about those.
[00:36:48] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:36:48] Speaker B: And actually disinformation.
[00:36:50] Speaker A: Even if that happens, even if, you know, like, you have this integration and you get over some hurdles, that doesn't mean that everybody's gonna hold hands and sing Kumbaya.
[00:36:58] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:36:58] Speaker A: There's still. People still find a way to disagree about stuff and there's gonna be friction, I mean, because that's also part of the human experience. So. So I think we can wrap from there. We appreciate everybody for joining us on this episode of Call Like I see it. Subscribe to the podcast, rate it, review it, tell us what you think. Send it to a friend. Till next time. I'm James Keys.
[00:37:13] Speaker B: I'm Tunde Ogamara.
[00:37:14] Speaker A: All right. We'.
