BRITTNEY GRINER FREED; Big Finance Bankrupting Black America w/ Emily Flitter | MR LIVE 12/8/22

Fun Half Link

Emma hosts Emily Flitter, finance reporter for the New York Times, to discuss her recent book The White Wall: How Big Finance Bankrupts Black America. First, Emma discusses this morning's news of President Biden announcing that WNBA star Brittney Griner has been released from Russian custody. Then, Emily joins and speaks about the current NYTimes Guild walk outs and what this means for the Times workers fight for better pay and better benefits. Afterwards Emily and Emma dive into her book, starting off with a general primer on the enormous racial wealth gap in the U.S., and how that wealth gap has persisted and even widened over the past 50+ years. She then touches on how banks have attempted to use a narrative of "racial progress" to buttress their social justice bona fides, without acknowledging the massive financial inequities that exist for Black Americans, and especially without acknowledging some significant banks like Citi's direct roots in slavery. Emily then speaks to the large amount of emails between bank tellers of numerous bank branches and how they showed a disproportionate emphasis on scrutinizing black patrons attempting to cash checks. They then turn to algorithms, how banks use them, and how they are utilized to continue to perpetuate the myth that algorithms are race blind and race conscious because they lack the same human error that produces racism, a claim that is blatantly false (algorithms aren't omniscient and don't appear in the world fully formed.) Emily ends the conversation by touching on her reporting on cryptocurrency, specifically FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried's attempts to assist with cities' guaranteed income programs in order to curry favor with Washington politicians, attempting to give impoverished people crypto, being told that poor people shouldn't be given an enormously speculative and unstable asset, agreeing to give them cash, then shuttering before handing over a single cent. Afterwards, Emma discusses further the passage of the Respect For Marriage Act, and Republicans insane reaction to its enshrinement into law.

And, in the fun half, Emma is joined by Matt Binder and Brandon Sutton, where they break down the "next entries" in the so-called "Twitter Files", Jack Dorsey's skepticism of Elon Musk, and Candace Owens claiming she doesn't believe in conspiracy theories, that the term "conspiracy theory" were created by the CIA, then begins to spout the conspiracy theories she believes in. Dave Rubin excitedly announces he tested positive for COVID, Dennis Prager's latest therapy session (his show) involves him thinking good male relationships involve being mean to each other, leading him to believe trans people can't truly become men, + your calls & IM's!

Check out Emily's book here

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