Reparations Daily (ish) Vol. 61
In a 90's Kind of World: A Conversation with Erika Alexander
Happy Friday!
The 90s was a special and much simpler time. Smartphones didn’t exist, hip-hop was taking over, the internet was just coming to life, and T.V., particularly Black TV, had arguably its greatest decade ever.
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Martin, A Different World, Family Matters, the Wayans Brothers, Sister Sister, and Living Single. I watched all of them with curiosity, often wondering what my life would be like as an adult.
Would I be a talk-show radio host like Martin? Or rich like Uncle Phil? Would I live in New York City, and more specifically Harlem, like Shawn and Marlon? Maybe I’d start my own lifestyle magazine like Khadijah or be a lawyer like Maxine.
None of these came to fruition exactly. I live in New York City, but not Harlem. I was never on the radio, but I briefly hosted a podcast (shoutout to my cohost Maria). I’m certainly not rich, but I’m comfortable. I haven’t started my own magazine (yet), but I did start this newsletter, and while I’m not a lawyer, today’s edition features someone who played one on T.V.
Erika Alexander, AKA Maxine Shaw, Attorney at Law, sat down with me earlier this week to tell me a bit about her life and the storytelling work she’s engaged in to support reparations for Black Americans.
She is the Co-founder of Color Farm Media, whose mission is to “build an ecosystem that fosters greater equity inclusion, and diversity in media that empowers and elevates voices who are underrepresented, overlooked, and undervalued.” Self-described as the ‘Motown of film, television, and tech,’ they hope to serve as a bridge from “the street to the mainstream.”
Her podcast, The Big Payback, which she hosted alongside award-winning filmmaker and educator Whitney Dow is an immersive narrative podcast that uses storytelling to explore the arguments for and against reparations for Black Americans. It’s a fantastic piece of work that brings some humor and levity to a serious topic. It also features folks I’ve had the pleasure to sit down with, including Dr. William Darity (Vol. 31) and Dr. Mary Frances Berry (Vol. 57).
We could’ve chopped it up for hours, but we only had about 45 minutes.
She’s as funny, brilliant, and thoughtful as she appears on the big screen, and it was such an honor and a pleasure to meet her.
If you aren’t big into reading (which would be a little weird since you’re following a newsletter), you can watch her interview with The Breakfast Club she did last year to promote the podcast. Or you can head to the Hot Takes section to read our conversation in full.
Here are some articles I recommend you check out today:
As I already tweeted. When Jamelle Bouie writes something, you read it. His New York Times column today focuses on a new data set with information on the domestic slave trade.
There’s so much about affirmative action going on right now. I hope to dedicate one of next week’s editions to how the upcoming SCOTUS decision will impact the reparations movement. First, I’d read this ABC News article that gives you a run-down of the current state of affairs, and then I’d read this New York Times opinion piece from Jay Caspian King, a reporter who has covered this issue for years.
Shirley Weber, California’s Secretary of State, weighed in on who specifically should receive reparations yesterday, as detailed in KCRA.
See you next week!
With radical love,
Trevor
National News
New York Times: Is Slavery an Evil Beyond Measure?
NBC: Experts say framing affirmative action as anti-Asian bias is 'dangerous'
New York Times: It’s Time for an Honest Conversation About Affirmative Action
ABC News: What's at stake as Supreme Court revisits affirmative action in college admissions
L.A. Times: Op-Ed: If the Supreme Court bans affirmative action, it continues the U.S. legacy of racial discrimination
Washington Post: The very selective effort to cast Biden’s Supreme Court pick as an affirmative action hire
MSNBC: Asian Americans 'will not be used' by conservatives attacking affirmative action
The Conversation: The 13th Amendment’s fatal flaw created modern-day convict slavery
Chicago Sun-Times: Getting it wrong about critical race theory
Business Insider: TikTokers say thousands of them are spamming the tip line set up by Virginia's GOP governor to report teachers over critical race theory
Nonprofit Quarterly: Can a Foundation Collaborative Advance Economic and Racial Justice?
Chronicle of Philanthropy: Grant Makers Facing Racial-Equity Fatigue Should Rethink Approaches That Are Blocking Progress
Roll Call: Many still waiting for Biden’s promised racial equity reckoning
Nieman Lab: A new report shows the impact of racial justice protests in 2020 on three local newspapers
Salon: White women and fascism: Seyward Darby on how right-wing women embrace their "symbolic power"
The Guardian: ‘We are desperate for new people’: inside a hate group’s leaked online chats
Regional News
KCRA: Reparations are for descendants of Black slaves, Weber says
Fox 6: Critical race theory ban: Wisconsin Senate sends to Gov. Evers
Daily Advertiser: Critical race theory battle brewing in Louisiana Legislature; divisive debate on horizon
Orlando Weekly: House bill barring critical race theory in Florida public schools moves forward
KBPS: Who deserves reparations?
Associated Press: Activists call on Boston to apologize for slave ties
Religion News Service: Princeton Theological Seminary removes name of slaveholder from chapel
WRIC: Unanimous vote: Richmond Confederate monuments going to Black History Museum
International News
BBC: Bristol: Slavery-linked society called on to hand over Clifton Down
BBC: Gloucester families who helped end slavery to be recognised
Hot Takes
The following conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Trevor: So I watched the Breakfast Club interview you did on reparations, and I’m surprised they didn’t ask you this question since they’re a music show, but I’m assuming that the podcast's name was inspired by James Brown album/song The Payback. Would that be correct?
Erika: When we first started thinking about doing a reparations documentary, I had not partnered up yet with anyone. It was just something that I thought I should be doing with Color Farm, just after the John Lewis adventure. So I talked to Joy Reid, and she told me that I needed to speak to Whitney Dow. She said he was a professor at Columbia who did a lot of race-related projects, and he makes documentaries. So I talked to Whitney, we decided to do it together, and when we got to the point of deciding what to name it, Whitney said we should call it ‘Appropriate Remedies.’
I said to him, do you want anyone to watch it? Appropriate remedies sound like some laxatives. I said there is no way that I am going to be involved with something called appropriate remedies.
So long story short, I said we should call it ‘The Big Payback.’
When people think about reparations, they think about money, even though it involves so much more. And I said if James Brown, the Godfather of Soul, says something, then people pay attention, and he already created a space to have that conversation. And the Big Payback just sounds Black, and to me, it’s the perfect phrase for something that means so much more. But I also didn’t want our show to sound like a laxative.
Trevor: Well, I’m glad that I picked up on that, and you know, James Brown is before my time, so I’m proud of that.
Erika: You know, James Brown doesn’t have a time, Trevor. He’s timeless.
Trevor: That’s true. Fair enough. So can you tell me a little about your childhood and your family history? Why do reparations matter to you and your family?
Erika: Sure, that’s an interesting question when you put it that way. So, my background is that both of my parents were orphans. I’m one of six. I spent the first eleven years of my life in a motel called Starlite off of Route 66; that’s where we lived. My father was a Church of God and Christ preacher, and my mother was a teacher, and that is a tough way to grow up. You’re basically a tipped-waged earner, and if you have six kids and a bad heart, it’s nearly impossible to sustain.
Luckily for him, the German Lutherans liked his style of preaching and very charismatic way, especially in the 70s when they were looking to experiment and have these experiences with Black people, so they sent him to the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, and suddenly we weren’t in Flagstaff, Arizona, up in the mountains, but we were in Philadelphia, with Black people.
It also gave me an opportunity to suddenly be in a performing arts school program as a young person. In the fifth week of a six-week program, a movie came to town called My Little Girl, and I auditioned with hundreds of other girls in the tri-state area, and I got the role, which is near to impossible to say that you get discovered off the street, but that’s how I got started in my career.
Suddenly, I was in a union and had an option for a career path, and it changed a lot of my possibilities, but it didn’t change my life.
My dad was still going to die a few years later. My mother was still inundated with the burden of being Black and raising six kids and a nontraditional student. She didn’t go to school at regular times. She had three jobs. She’d do her social work job during the day. At night she would go and be a caretaker for an older white woman, and on the weekends, she would also work. She would go to school when she could see in between those times. But there were no loans for people like that. She had to be very clever with how she got grants to get her masters. But in the end, when she was 52, they told her that she was too old, and it broke my heart.
By that time, I had started to pay more attention to the government and ask questions like why my father’s healthcare was so bad, especially before he got into the Lutheran system, and why our options were so limited. He worked for the Urban League, and we were still on food stamps and collecting cans. Till this day, I’ll pass a can, and I see 2 cents or 5 cents, and I can’t get out of that mindset.
So why do reparations matter to my family? Because my family wasn’t free negroes who had a leg up on slavery, you could tell they were coming off of the plantation or sharecroppers of some kind. You could tell they had nothing because they were inside of a system that was inside of a system.
We have been uniquely shaped by slavery and its evil structure, and no matter how hard you try to work out of those things, you are affected by them. So I think there should be justice for the ancestors and the descendants.
Trevor: Wow, great answer. I’m wondering, what’s the most important thing that you learned through doing the podcast?
Erika: I always say that the most important thing that I learned is that it’s not just about personal admission or just an apology. It’s more than just a monetary thing too. There’s a moral debt. So, I was convinced by other educated people who knew better, committed that having just a money-centric point of view was too limiting.
So if the debt resides in the moral fabric of America, which it does, then it’s the government’s debt to pay. So, this doesn’t excuse the obligation of institutions like banks or educational institutions. But, it does signal to the American public that they don’t have to agree because it is the government that owes this debt.
Trevor: So, you’re also big into Afrofuturism. What role do you think Afrofuturism and films like Black Panther should play in the reparations movement?
Erika: Well, let’s talk about Black Panther. Its thematic question is, “am I my brother’s keeper?” They left Killmonger in the hood even though he was royalty, and when he comes back, he’s angry and on a mission of vengeance. So that right there is a question of reparations and human history, are we our brother’s keeper?
If we look at reparations, we have to look at the idea of American accountability, British accountability, and African accountability. What do they owe the diaspora? What can they owe? And what do we owe ourselves? So that’s the idea of reparations. You don’t just save the people you harmed; you save yourself.
Trevor: Interesting, and you know I was going to ask this a little later, but you started to get into it. When you have a conversation about reparations, it tends to veer in a few ways, one of which is the question around who gets it. A part of my job is to investigate the narratives behind questions like these. I’d love to hear from you; why do you think the conversation veer into this question of who should get it almost immediately?
Erika: That’s an interesting question. I think it’s just a matter of wondering that the sin of slavery here in the United States is done to a very specific group, but its effects have harmed everyone who was an ‘other.’
So if you think about the Holocaust, we can see what the harm did to whole generations of Jewish people, and Germany made an effort to repay reparations, both to the Jewish community and within their own community.
So, I think it’s right to have a conversation about restitution to a specific group, but this will affect everyone like all policies. So, I don’t think it’s wrong to talk about it, but it is a distraction if we don’t get anywhere. And frankly, it’s easy to figure out who those people are.
Trevor: Tell me a bit about how you got involved in the California Reparations Taskforce? Also, what’s the conversation around reparations in Hollywood?
Erika: For a lot of people, reparations are like flashing a gang sign, you know, they flash it, and it’s like some badge they wear, and that’s it.
For many people doing the work and who have been doing it for so long, it’s taken over their lives, and they are passionate about it, but those people are few and far between. There are people in Hollywood that believe in it, but they don’t know how to join some active movement.
For the California Reparations Taskforce, I got invited to do expert testimony, and I decided I wanted to do it, but I wanted to do a storytelling version of how to approach it.
Too often in policy and legislation, the method is not creative enough. One thing Black people do well is that we are great creators. If we told a better story and understood it was a story we had to tell to get it into people’s hearts, we would actually create the movement, but we have to approach it as a storytelling challenge.
I started by quoting one of the best storytellers, Rev. Barber. In his mind, we are in the third Reconstruction.
The first was after slavery, the second being after Martin Luther King’s death, and if this is the third Reconstruction, then we are all its architects, and that right there calls people to come forward as more than themselves.
This time we have to do it well.
Suppose we could reframe this effort as another Reconstruction. In that case, we need to take that framework and ensure that everyone understands that reparations are part of the architecture to build a better America and build a better world.
If America wants to lead in anything, it must try and exhume its lost moral standing.
Trevor: So you’ve moved from in front of the camera to behind the camera. What needs to change on the production side to ensure more stories about reparations are getting told?
Erika: The issue is that people aren’t educated about reparations. They can’t create something on a subject they don’t know about. There are a lot of housewives series because we’re educated about materialism. If we want to have a conversation about reparations on T.V. that speaks about it, but we don’t know it’s about it, then we have to have these storytellers funded and educated.
In the 60s, there was Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (RIP Sidney Poitier), and even the Blaxploitation movies had much more consciousness in them. But look at what they were being fed.
Everyone was talking about MLK and Malcolm X, but then somehow the 70’s cut it off and said, let’s go disco, and everyone started doing drugs, and then we were in a drug culture, and we haven’t recovered.
I think we are in recovery, and people like Shonda Rhimes have power, so it’s not totally hopeless. But if you had three generations that were fed stories of gangsters, drugs, and materialism, that’s what you get.
We need to tell bigger stories, and not just of our neighborhoods. We need those stories where we can see the African influence inside our culture and not just the Greek influence.
Trevor: Last question! What can you tell me about the documentary you are producing?
Erika: So the documentary is called The Big Payback, and Robin Rue Simmons is the main character we have been following. She is a former Alderwoman of Evanston, IL,
We’re also following Congresswoman Shiela Jackson Lee, who's in charge of H.R. 40, and we were able to document how she got Juneteenth established as a federal holiday. I know some people were upset about that. But to me, it’s a storytelling machine.
Just like Valentine’s Day and Christmas, it’s a day that we can tell better stories. If you want to win hearts and minds, you have to tell them a better story.
So as far as I’m concerned, those white congresspeople who thought they could just give us Juneteenth and we’d be quiet are mistaken. They set off a bomb in their backyard. We bout to Juneteenth that thing out, you hear me? And they did it to themselves, but the insolence of office is always destroyed by the creativity of man.
Trevor: Well, you know I agree with you, and that’s what I’m trying to do in my role and through this newsletter.
Erika: You know, I wanted to ask you a question. I love that your title is Director of Narrative Change. I love how that exists. How did you decide to go that route?
Trevor: Yeah, so my background is predominantly in communications and media strategy, and I was in a traditional philanthropic role for a little bit. I was at the ACLU of N.Y., and I worked on various campaigns; a cash bail campaign, a marijuana legalization campaign, and others. And we won on bail. They passed a bill that essentially ended cash bail, but immediately after that bill was passed, conservative media latched on to these stories that just cast the legislation in a bad light.
So maybe someone would commit a minor crime in the morning and go to jail. Then, they would get out on bail and then commit another crime by the end of the day. The conservative press just pummeled us with these stories and the narrative that the new bail legislation was making the city unsafe again.
So within three months, legislators up in Albany folded and amended the bill that we just passed. So to me, narrative change is the work that most communications teams need to shift to. Instead of Communication departments, we should have Narrative Change departments because we can win on those short-term campaigns, but unless we do the long-term narrative change work and change the hearts, minds, narratives, and mental models behind all of these issues, we’ll just keep seeing the same thing.
We even see it at the Presidential level. We had Barack Obama for eight years, and then we had Donald Trump. So that just tells you right there that we aren’t investing in the long-term narrative change, and that’s why arts, culture, and entertainment are so important.
Erika: I love it, I love it, I love it. I keep thinking about how Republicans are good at storytelling, even though their stories are foolish and dumb.
Trevor: Aint that right. I’m going to leave the audience with what might be the best introduction theme song ever made.