The Daily Zeitgeist - Cancelling (Some) Debt, Decolonizing Language 08.25.22

Episode Date: August 25, 2022

In episode 1317, Jack and Miles are joined by Professor of Alaska Native Languages at the University of Alaska Southeast and host of The Tongue Unbroken, X̱ʼunei Lance Twitchell, to discuss... Byron Canceling Debt…Is It Enough? How Can We Use Technology for Language Preservation and Revitalization? And more! Student Loan Debt by Race Biden’s Debt Cancellation Program Check out Jennifer Younger's Tlingit art and designs here. LISTEN: Sereia Sentimental by SessaSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm Jess Casavetto, executive producer of the hit Netflix documentary series Dancing for the Devil, the 7M TikTok cult. And I'm Clea Gray, former member of 7M Films and Shekinah Church. And we're the host of the new podcast, Forgive Me for I Have Followed. Together, we'll be diving even deeper into the unbelievable stories behind 7M Films and Shekinah Church. Listen to Forgive Me for I Have Followed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti. And I'm Jemay Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. There's a lot to figure out when you're just

starting your career. That's where we come in. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in people who do, like negotiation expert Maury Tahiripour. If you start thinking about negotiations as just a conversation, then I think it sort of eases us a little bit. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Keri Champion, and this is season four of Naked Sports.

Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry, Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's basketball. And on this new season, we'll cover all things sports and culture. Listen to Naked Sports on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio apps, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Black Effect Podcast Network is sponsored by Diet Coke.

I'm Keri Champion, and this is season four of Naked Sports. Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry, Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese. Every great player needs a foil. I know I'll go down in history. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's sports. Listen to the making of a rivalry, Caitlin Clark versus Angel Reese, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Elf Beauty, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports. Hello, the internet, and welcome to Season 251, episode 4 of The Daily Psych-A!

A production of iHeartRadio. This is a podcast where we take a deep dive into America's shared consciousness. It's Thursday, August 25th, 2022, which means the day before my cool sister Shannon's birthday. Oh, shout out to MC Shannon. Shout out to cool sister Shannon. Okay, MC Shannon, shout out to you. Also, National Banana Split Day, National Kiss and Makeup Day, National Park Service Founders Day, National Secondhand Wardrobe Day.

I mean, those all work. Those all work. I feel like. You like banana? I'm not really a banana. A kiss and makeup day is good. That gives people an excuse to do something they've been putting off. Yeah, I guess so.

End a quarrel today, you know? Yeah. Reach out and love somebody. I think that's always good news. But I gotta be honest. I'm not really a big banana split fan. Huh. It feels, like, healthy.

I'm serious. I was like, because I remember as a kid, like, bananas were, like, a thing that, like, it's like, yo, eat your food, eat your bananas and stuff. So I was like, okay, fine. Eat your bananas and stuff. I have like one of those potassium allergies, like where it makes my throat itch. Oh, does it? Yeah, yeah.

Same with avocados, but I work through the avocado pain. Like it's a different thing. But like whenever I see a banana split, I'm like, that's vegetables on my ice cream. Let's just keep it as unhealthy as possible. An asparagus split. An asparagus split sundae that's my favorite with an asparagus straw asparagus shake uh anyways my name is jack o'brien aka yo jack horseman courtesy of miles gray yeah jack horseman and i'm thrilled to be joined as always by my co-host mr miles gray one cast the net into sea two make the turtles come to me three maybe add a few sharkies. And if we catch some tuna, neat. And four, toast yoga, Matt Pogge.

Five, scoop some tuna, then add cheese. Whenever they say my old sandwich is done, I'll order a second one. Okay, fighter of the night, man. Giving me Brian McKnight. Smashing it up with Subway tuna. Wow. Bless you. Two feet of Sunday tuna is where that. I'm assuming you're not ordering two six-inchers.

Oh, no, no, no. That's two feet. That's two feet. You are mostly turtle at this point, my friend. Yeah, and I love that. Shout out to Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello, Raphael, and Splinter and the crew. Damn, you can remember all their names. Yeah.

Well, that was like the real Loki. That was like the earliest Japanese representation I saw on TV, to be honest. I was like, yo, these ninja turtles? This motherfucker named Orokusaki. And that's Hamato Yoshi. Anyway, so I was acting like, yeah, I know those names. It's cool. But anyway, shout out them.

Well, I'm coming to you from Texas. Central time zone. Your future. I'm in the future. What's the future like in Dallas? Invest in cowboy hats would be my advice for the future. They're huge in the future. Very popular. I have not. Cowboy hats would be my advice for the future. They're huge in the future. You getting one?

Very popular. I have not. I've not bought one, but my cowboy hat stock purchases are in process. They're processing. Yeah. Supervisor Ana Jose snapped a low-key picture of somebody at the airport. She was like, I'm in Dallas. I got to dallas and she

snapped a picture and this person was wearing four cowboy hats there's one on top of the other was just like i'm finally home i guess as like a stunt or it's like this is how i get my four hats through on a flight like was it a life i think hats like that are hard to travel with because oh yeah you need a case yeah you can't like fold them up or like roll them up or if you do you are bad at traveling with cowboy hats so i think that's that's damn that's my see that's my my baseball hat privilege because you could go to like you could get a little case for like nine hats and that fits in a backpack but i'm not out here wearing those big cowboy hats. Well, Miles, we are thrilled to be joined in our third seat

by a professor of Alaska Native Languages at the University of Alaska Southeast, an expert of just many, many things, the host of the new podcast, The Tongue Unbroken, from Ana and Joel's NextUp initiative. Yeah. Please welcome Dr. Hunay Lance Twitchell! Hunay! What's the way, Johan?

What's the way? What is happening? Man, how are you, man? I've been sitting in this chair thinking about this show because I've been listening for a long time. So I've brought lists and lists of things because when you're indigenous, sometimes when people open the door, you're like, I got to put shit everywhere so that we can reserve some spaces for other indigenous people to come here. So I don't have an AKA.

I've got plenty of, I got quite a few indigenous names. I'm very honored to have names like Kechtuhin, which is claimed forever from an elder in Teslin named Anakha Hash, Sam Johnston, and my first Tlingit name, Khune. But I have two songs. I have two songs for an AKA. When I thought of this,

one is for the old metalheads who grew up in the 80s. Sorry. I'm Generation X. Yeah. I thought of this one is for the old metalheads who grew up in the 80s. All right. Generation X. Yeah. And so even some of the elder millennials might get the reference. And then I got kind of a newer one because I was getting my kids ready for school. And I thought, well, I better have something for the people of today. For the youngs.

Yeah. So we are not, by the way. We appreciate you looking out for us geriatric millennials i'm more in your column i would say but let's go okay here's the first one white man came across the sea he brought us pain and misery but what the fuck does this song mean give the land back and everything that's the old iron maiden song and i remember when i was i was probably 10 when that came out and i would think what is this and they would have weird video like if you ever watch the video it's just weird right and then they're then they're these white men who are

across the sea singing about white men coming across the sea. And when I was in college, and so I thought of this song, it's kind of weird. So I was in college and I walked past somebody's dorm room and it was a white guy and he was blasting this song. And I happened to walk by right when it said, white man came across the sea, brought us pain and misery. And I happened to walk by right when it said, white man came across the sea, brought us pain and misery. And I just kind of looked at him and he turned it down. He's like, oh, sorry, sorry, my bad. I was just, I was just vibing. Yeah. And I thought, this is a weird situation. And so, so here's the second one for, for the people of today. Okay. You got the thing. Yes. Sometimes all I think about is colonialism.

Late nights in the middle of colonialism. Colonialism been faking us out. Can I just fucking survive now? Hell yeah. Wait, who does that song now? Glass Animals. I'm thinking of you. That's it. Glass Animals. That's it, Glass Animals.

Oh, that's Glass Animals? Yeah. Damn, they got so many styles. Okay. I just know that song as being like, that's that song that's always on the radio. Yeah. Yeah, it really blew up. That's how old I am now where I used to be like, yo, that's that song.

And now I'm like, oh yeah, the one that's like, I don't know anything about you. And I'm like, I don't know anything else though. Where are you coming to us from? Yeah, I am in a place called Ak-Kwon-Ani, which somebody decided to name after a guy named Joe Juno. And we'll talk about this kind of stuff a little bit today. This is kind of my little narrative how this stuff works so ak kwan is the people of the little lake so i live on their land tlingit peoples are

divided kind of into states basically which are you usually have a place name so ak is the little lake and then kwan is the ancestral people of a place so So I live on their land. I'm very fortunate that they're wonderful hosts. Our ancestral homeland is a little bit north of here, but it's in Southeast Alaska. On a map you'll see it's called Juneau, Alaska. We're trying to get people to start using Ak-Kwan because that guy, he came here, sure. But I think it kind of works like this.

Let's say a long time ago, we're all in a boat. And we're all, for this scenario, we're all white people. And we're checking out these indigenous people's lands. And I'll say, well, I can go over here and talk to them. And I'll be right back. So I go talk to them. And I say, hey, what's that mountain call? And they'll give me a name, like, Kaxatunjin, right?

Hands at rest. And then I'll come back and they'll say, hey, what's that mountain called? And they'll give me a name like Kaxatunjin, right? Hands at rest. Right. And then I'll come back and they'll say, hey, what'd they say? I was like, they told me that name of that mountain is me. That's how I think it works. That's my mountain. Yeah. Reminds them of me.

Right this way. Yeah. My hands at rest in particular. Yeah. But anyway, you guys should come visit. We got whales, bears. We got all kinds of cool stuff here. Get a big salmon out of the waters.

Oh, I love that. Just reach in, pull it out with your hand, like picking apples off a tree. Like a bear? Yeah. All right. Well, we are going to get to know you a little bit better in a moment. First, we're going to tell our listeners a couple of things we're talking about. Joe Biden came through with the debt cancellation ish.

Like, I mean, he's definitely canceling some debt enough that it crashed the fuck out of the servers of the websites where people can go check that shit out. And yeah, it's still, it's 10,000. It's 10,000. That's not, I don't think it's what people were hoping for, but it is means tested.

It is nice, nicely triangulated to not piss off the people who donate to him. So we'll talk about that. Super producer, Tricia is going to come on and talk about using technology for language preservation and revitalization and just generally chop it up with Khudane

about his podcast and language preservation. Yeah. All of that. Plenty more. But first, Khudane, we like to ask our guest, what is something from your search history? Yeah, so the other day I was looking up this Raven t-shirt by an artist named Jennifer Younger, who is Tlingit. She lives in Sitka, Alaska. We call it Shi-Dekka.

And I was watching She-Hulk, Attorney at Law, which is fabulous. And I was watching She-Hulk, Attorney at Law, which is fabulous. And at the end, the Hulk is wearing this shirt with what looks like a Tlingit design on it. And so I was like, wait, wait, what? And so, and then she announced it a little bit after the episode premiered. And it was super exciting just to see, like, just to normalize, like, people wearing some of our stuff. However, like, our clans are kind of divided into raven side, and then there's another side, which is the eagle or wolf side. And you marry had to Google, well, how old is Mark Ruffalo then? Because we have these kinship terms like younger brother, older brother,

and he's older than me. So he could now be the incredible Hund, which would be the incredible older brother of the same clan. And so I'm going to have to patent that. What do you do? You mail it to yourself, draw a picture, mail it to yourself. Make sure nobody steals that from you. But do you mail it to yourself draw a picture mail it to yourself

make sure nobody steals that from you but we're always trying to name things like that little baby yoda when that came out we're trying to name that first and think the first one who named it like got bragging rights for a day so that's yoda yada child yoda so uh but shout out to jennifer younger and her work and getting it out there. And to those folks over at Marvel for putting some thinget stuff on the Hulk. That was pretty good. Yeah. Do you know how that happened? Like what the connection was that that shirt ended up being on the show?

Well, I don't know. I'll have to look into it. But I will say he wore two different indigenous shirts on the episode. And I think Mark Ruffalo, to his credit, when the Dakota Access Pipeline protests were happening, he went there. And it's something, a celebrity doesn't always go and suffer.

You don't suffer with the pepper spray and the attacking dogs and getting sprayed with a hose and shot with fucking rubber bullets. Yeah, and the freezing cold. But there were white people who went there and did suffer with the indigenous peoples who were trying to stop this pipeline development from happening on their land, which was going on at the same time, this is kind of jumping back a few years, same time as these white ranchers in Oregon are sort of occupying this national park.

And I remember watching the news, I was like, well, well where's their pepper spray and where's their rubber bullets and you know i do think one of them got killed which i don't want anybody to get killed but i do when i see stuff like that i just think you know white people just get a different life oh yeah and you know that's no secret the bundies is that i think that's yeah that's right the bundy clan and they just like went and like shit all over the that building that they occupied and then yeah one of them got shot but like when you read the story it's like they they were pulling a gun out i believe it was pretty uh yeah yeah i got a friend here who's in in news and she was talking about doing some studies on like both sides ism.

And, you know, and I was like, well, even like both sides, like there's more than two sides to anything. Right. You're usually going to exclude marginalized people if you just boil it down to one side or the other. Right. Right. But like I said, but you should look at this thing because I would have my students look at that. I was like, just go go study these two things and tell me what your impression is, both in terms of how it's being covered, where it's being covered, and also just what's going on in those places. But going back, he was there. And so that brings some attention to it. And that brings, you know, as celebrities walk around with magnifying glasses on them all the time so if they go and lend themselves towards things that are leaning towards equity then that's usually a good thing

right yeah that's dope is it are people able to like order that t-shirt yeah like it's it's actually hard i was just googling like mark ruffalo uh she hulk raven t-shirt and it was just a bunch of t-shirts of mark ruffalo as the whole basically yeah you know and so we want to get toward i think it's jennifer younger y-o-u-n-g-e-r raven shirt and that it should pop up it was like you knew i don't even know how to say the company g-i-n-e-w i think is the shirt company oh yeah usa.com there yeah and so uh good and her stuff is fabulous she's doing all kinds of engraving we got like amazing artists who are up here and it's just great to see their work like hidden you know and so other things that are going on like she hulk is is amazing but if if you're out there you should

check out reservation dogs you should check out Reservation Dogs. You should check out Rutherford Falls. And just to see Molly of Denali to have indigenous representation. We were talking a little bit about representation earlier. With indigenous peoples, all you had was just these buffoons in Bugs Bunny cartoons. And there's actually a Bugs Bunny cartoon where there's a documentary called Real Engines. And he's up there on a fort and he's shooting Native American peoples.

And so he fires his rifle, bang, bang, bang, bang. Then he goes, one little, two little, three little Indians. And then he says, oh, that one was a half breed. And he erases a chunk of it. And that's children's television. That's what I grew up with. He's mainlining that racist shit.

Kill them and make fun of them while you're doing it. And so to be in a different era now where you have not just shows that aren't about Native American people at all, but feature some Native stuff. And then you also have Native content coming up. Like the movie the movie prey i know someone was here last week with you guys kind of shitting on the movie prey which is fine i think everyone can have their own opinions i don't want to yuck anybody yucking anybody's yum but that's my yum like yeah like i would just want to yuck anybody yucking anybody's yum double Double yum. Name all the films that you could think of that have a Native American female as the lead character. Right.

There's none, right? For sure. And I think that's what's really, yeah, to that point too, right? With all the stuff that's out there is also kind of a smack in the face that Reservation Dogs got snubbed at the Emmys. Because we watched this show and we're like, this is one of the best shows that's come out because they're so authentically being like we don't like we want to tell a story from our perspective with our right like that's and it gave us something so new and original that i was completely immersed in the show but yeah i was like how the fuck does that not get nominated right which is you know pendulum swings back and forth i guess

all right we're gonna link off to uh jennifer younger's stuff in the footnotes what is something you think is overrated okay i got four things because all right okay i'll just sit around building lists getting ready for that i feel like you have something in common with that guy who got to texas and put on four cowboy hats. There you go, right? He was like, I got four of these. Just starts taking hat after hat. Top of the month. Okay, here we go.

Let's do it. So I think I did four, but then I'll talk about the last one. So colonialism, the improved order of red men, white people telling me where I belong, and naming the land after white men. And I know some people are going to listen to this and be like, oh, he hates white people. It's not true. It's not true. But I just think there's a lot of work to do. We have thousands and thousands of names on all these different points of land, and almost all of them have been systemically ignored. So I was looking up this guy named Mendenhall, right?

He's probably a fine person. Oh, the Mendenhall Glacier. Yeah, right. But he's like a physicist who had, I don't even think he ever set foot in this land. And he has like, like I was picking up this thing from a person. He's like, yeah, Eliphant,

there's so many mendenhall things here that if anybody says it you have no idea where to go oh it's like mendenhall glacier mendenhall boulevard mendenhall avenue mendenhall point road mendenhall flats and i'm like what's the deal like all these places had names and we can restore those names and then people can just speak our language which would be really amazing right such as such an easy thing to do where suddenly it's like oh i'm just by virtue of this real name i'm learning a language because it's a descriptor and it's not like and we celebrate this fucking guy also the name of the most terrifying human i've ever encountered which was my eighth grade

basketball coach but i had that name coach mendenhall yeah man whoo he was to ease your trauma we gotta get that name off of it get that name off that damn glacier get it out of here i mean sadly that glacier may just vanish anyway so it won't it's rolling back yeah uh what is something you think is underrated uh so underrate another list let's do number one big anti-energy so native american women laughing teaching you stuff guiding you uh there's so many aunties and who were mother figures to me who were just incredible and just the big the big loud cackle this there's a guy named don burnstick who's a native american comedian and he's got a bit which is the ways that native american women laugh and if you watch this with the with native women like they will laugh that way which includes punching you towards the end and doing all kinds of stuff.

And then my other items were indigenous languages, decolonization as life and function, and then like squatting. So I've been learning about squatting my whole life because, you know, we've got land and we also we've lost almost all of our land as Native people. But then sometimes you'll see someone who has a spot and you're like well how'd they get that nice house in that nice area and they just like went there and just it's called squatting where you just go and live somewhere and people can't move you i guess so i've been using this tactic at our university as we're growing like this indigenous studies program. So I'll just go grab a bunch of my stuff and put it in a different office and put it in a different office. And then I was like, I'm just going to hold this and then we're going to get someone a job. And then I'm going to take my stuff someday out of the office.

And so I learned how to squat from white people so I can sort of try and get our land back through. It's like a reverse squatting technique. Yeah, use the tools against them. Yeah. Does that work in a professional setting? Can you just occupy someone's office and they're just like, well, I don't want to have this conversation.

If your intention is you can only squat on a bend and things that nobody wants. But I'm trying to perfect my technique so that I won't be as good as some of these folks that came wants. But I'm trying to perfect my technique so that I won't be as good as some of these folks who are that came here. All right. We are going to take a quick break. We're going to come back. We're going to talk about canceling student debt and other stuff. We'll be right back. I'm Jess Casavetto, executive producer of the hit Netflix documentary series Dancing for the Devil, the 7M TikTok cult. And I'm Clea Gray, former member of 7M Films and Shekinah Church.

And we're the host of the new podcast, Forgive Me For I Have Followed. Together, we'll be diving even deeper into the unbelievable stories behind 7M Films and LA-based Shekinah Church, an alleged cult that has impacted members for over two decades. Jessica and I will delve into the hidden truths between high control groups and interview dancers, church members, and others whose lives and careers have been impacted, just like mine. Through powerful, in-depth interviews with former members and new, chilling first-hand accounts, the series will illuminate untold and extremely necessary perspectives. Forgive Me For I Have Followed will be more than an exploration. It's a vital revelation aimed at ensuring these types of abuses never happen again. Listen to Forgive Me For I Have Followed on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradente. And I'm Jemay Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, a new podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. When you're just starting out in your career, you have a lot of questions. Like, how do I speak up when I'm feeling overwhelmed? Or, can I negotiate a higher salary if this is my first real job?

Girl, yes. Each week, we answer your unfiltered work questions. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in experts who do, like resume specialist Morgan Saner. The only difference between the person who doesn't get the job and the person who gets the job is usually who applies. Yeah, I think a lot about that quote. What is it? Like you miss 100% of the shots you never take. Yeah. Rejection is scary, but it's better than you rejecting yourself.

Together, we'll share what it really takes to thrive in the early years of your career without sacrificing your sanity or sleep. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Keri Champion, and this is season four of Naked Sports, where we live at the intersection of sports and culture. Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry, Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese. I know I'll go down in history. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. Every great player needs a foil. I ain't really near them boys. I just come here to play basketball every single day and that's what I focus on.

From college to the pros, Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's sports. Angel Reese is a joy to watch. She is unapologetically black. I love her. What exactly ignited this fire? Why has it been so good for the game? And can the fanfare surrounding these two supernovas be sustained? This game is only going to get better because the talent is getting better. This new season will cover all things sports and culture. Listen to Naked Sports on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Exactly $10,000 worth of student debt. You know, better than nothing. I think that's his 2024 campaign. The Democrats fucking slogan forever. Hey, better than nothing. Better than nothing, right? Better than fascism, kind of. Right. Huh? Yeah.

Palatable fascism. Yeah. I mean, that's a good campaign, right? Like, we're not super racist, but we're also just dead in the middle we're not really doing anything yeah just we're not totally bothered by concerns on the margins but hey we're doing the best we can yeah i mean look it's another day another incremental attempt at solving a massive systemic problem that we have in the country and also not doing the best they can they're they're decidedly not doing the best no no no not at all That's the fucking frustrating thing.

No, there's so much triangulation going on. It's like, well, we can't have this group be mad and this group be mad if we want to address systemic inequality. Okay, well, you know, currently in the U.S., obviously, we have a terrible go into debt if you want a degree problem with our university system. It's basically like, you know, you're in and you're sort of socialized, inoculated with these thoughts of like, you got to go to college to enter the middle class. And then once you do that, you can have a regular consumer life because you have your paper degree to give you the good jobs. And that leads a lot of people going into pretty massive debt because of this, you know, this sort of cycle that we have. Right now, there's about 44 and a half million

Americans that are dealing with student loan debt, and many will feel relief from this. The administration says like a lot of people will have their debt canceled. But if you really, we'll dig deeper into those numbers because it does leave out mostly, you know, marginalized people. Here's what the bill actually does. Student debt payment pause is going to be extended through December 31st. If you have, if you got Pell grants, you can receive up to 20% in student debt relief. If you, uh, 10%, if you did not get Pell grants, all of the relief is going to be, again, means tested. So it's for individuals who make less than $125,000 and families who jointly make $250,000. There's a thing in the American Rescue Plan that says this is not going to be counted as taxable income. The loan forgiveness program applies to federal borrowers from undergraduate and graduate programs. And there is a new repayment structure

with a cap of like 5% of your income if you have undergraduate loans. Sure. Okay. Those are some things. And a lot of people are really looking at this $10,000 figure on the right. You just have people just pissed off in general because they like don't like anything that resembles an attempt at addressing inequality. So they're always going to be pissed off. And then there are many other people that you see on, you know, writing op-eds where it's like, well, what about the people that paid their debts? Or this isn't what about the people who, you know, all this stuff? Aren't they going to be mad? This is this is an attempt to try and address that. So I think the real concerns are that is about truly addressing inequality. And just to give you an example, black graduates are on average carrying about fifty two thousand dollars in debt and many of them are women. in balancing the scales, okay? Because Black and African American college students owe an average of $25,000 more in student loan debt than white college graduates.

So just put that in your mind too and think of that $10,000 and if that will actually make things equitable. Four years after graduation, 48% of Black students owe an average of 12.5% more than they borrowed because of interest rates. And it isn't just Black Americans. American Indian and Alaska Native students, those borrowers owe the highest monthly payments.

And Black and African American students are the second most likely to have monthly payments of $350 or more. And this is also causing things like people delaying having families. 33% of Hispanic student borrowers say they put off getting married due to their student loan situation. 66% of black student borrowers regret taking out loans because of the lack of mobility they have because they're so saddled with debt. So this is a ton of stress on people's shoulders. And people are just saying like, well, can this this does help. And people are just saying like, well, can this, this does help. But if the whole point is to try and say, Hey, unburden us with this debt. So we can begin to live lives that are a little bit seem seemingly more equitable, do something

that really addresses this. And I think that even the interest doing something about the interest would be a huge, huge step, but that's just still kind of, you know, floundering. So I guess if we can feel good about this, if we say, hey, this is a first step on a long road to really deliver real results for people, but if this is just going to be a, hey, vote for me in November type deal,

this is a terrible, terrible misstep, and we're just kicking the can down the road at this point. Was it presented as a first step? Was he like like and this is step one on a long-term thing because no but there was no well-defined thing you know much like how people were talking about the inflation reduction act and the climate stuff that was addressed in there were like many of the people like a lot of i think the more progressives were like hey you got to support this because it is the first step i think many people who are critical of this bill, like, you know, other senators are like, this has to be a first step. If you want to know how much more powerful capitalism is than democracy, like the we are looking out for debt collectors like that who don't poll very well. Yeah. Don't, they don't pull very well. Uh, when

you're looking at like democratically, you know, the opinion polls, debt collectors don't, don't pull that well, but we are looking out for them and ignoring just the majority of people. Uh, we're ignoring a step that would make our civilization, like demonstrably, would make our civilization work better. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because I think you're looking at a Band-Aid to a systemic problem. And a Band-Aid is something. Like if you're bleeding out and someone gives you a Band-Aid, you're like, oh, well, that's something. So. But I appreciate the thought. Do you have anything more for my sliced carot the thought. Do you have anything more than a band-aid? For my sliced carotid artery, do you have something more than a band-aid?

I mean, thanks, for sure. And they could have called it the payback better plan or the better payback plan. Right, right. But I think it systemic problems are we have an inequitable system of how people get money and maintain wealth and who gets access to it. And so the best schools are very expensive. And so the other thing is if you want to get an education, you've got to figure out how to enter into these loan systems that are predatory by nature. So I had a loan through the state of Alaska, which wasn't a whole lot of money because I had federal loans and federal grants and stuff.

And I paid those back. I had to get others. I still have student loan out there. I know people who have so much in student loans, like this would be probably maybe 20% of what they owe. be probably maybe 20% of what they owe. And so they're still going to have that. And so, but with the state, the state loan that I had, I paid that thing for probably 10 years and it never went down. Cause I don't understand, like, why is there even interest involved with this? If you want people to get an education, sure. Loan on the money, but don't be, don't put the points on there, you know, like the Sopranos or whatever. Got to be on that. Yeah.

On your education. Like when I went to college, there are all these booths there. They're like, Hey, get all this free stuff. We'll give you a credit card. Get this, look at this cool ass stuff. And you just hear, and then I would just spend that money. Cause I didn't know how that stuff worked. I didn't grow up with financial literacy.

Same. And, and, and so i think one is just trying to why don't we just protect our children while they become adults and then also just sort of have a system where it's a little bit easier to to move up and down but i think whoa whoa no that's that's not some colonizer mentality man we're here to fucking make as much goddamn money as possible i don't care if i'm silencing people with debt because they're financially illiterate. But yeah, that is, I mean, it's so true. Like we, we, at every turn, the United States is just completely incapable of doing what the humane thing is. Right. Without it being, without there being some calculus about what it does for the business class

or industry, rather than what is the correct thing for the human beings that are here right and it it's so mind-blowing because the solution seems so easy right we were just talking about this with gun control it's like we don't need less guns we need more robots and shit right and fucking drones that have tasers tasers are safer than guns at least they're not putting guns on the drones miles well it's just tasers for now republicans would call for them because the guns go on the boston dynamics robot dogs right yeah and those are the new teachers lower yes of gravity it is kind of a wild story because again like you even look at people who work in like health care and stuff people need advanced degrees

to enter public health too those jobs don't pay that much either and these are people who are dedicating themselves for like a public good and we're still like yeah i don't know here's here's 10 grand they're like i still owe 70 on top of that plus the interest this might as well not be anything we're going with the debt collectors over the social workers and like that actually probably isn't that unpopular when you think of just like how fucking warped our our current system is like yeah why'd they go into social work doesn't pay that well like what are they thinking right and you're like i'm sorry that's their fault it's like because they're empathetic people who want to help but yeah and you should fucking you should be out with me fracking. Fucking killing it right now.

It's like, you're losing the game. Yeah. That's right. Just extract until it's gone. Right. That's right. It's coming off the ground, man. I retweeted, I hope I say her last name right.

Shelby Nowellette yesterday said, just so we are clear, I will not be paying my student loans Until I get my land back Yeah, facts It's wild how much, again We look at the deficit That indigenous people Black people Who are brought over To do with chattel slavery and things like that

Not addressing that deficit that was created From any of that Of being dispossessed of your land or your liberty And still looking at it like i don't know what's wrong with them over there like we don't we're never we never have the sober fucking analysis of like yeah man this set people back fucking centuries and we're out here like sitting on our hands one like scratching our heads what the issue is you know what the fucking issue is it's as clear as day um but yeah it's it's yeah it's very frustrating to to live here education too for native american peoples was a tool of assimilation and genocide and so

some of the founders of educational systems for native Americans, they said, well, I heard this phrase that the only good Indian is a dead Indian. And I would counter to say, you can kill the Indian and save the man. And like, that's a phrase that was coined to really sort of energize the boarding school era. You had similar things in Canada with the residential school era. And so now we need to get an education in order to do all these different things. And I think people should get an education if that's what you want to do, but it shouldn't cripple you. And also it should probably just be free for Native Americans because of the educational system and what it's done to indigenous to indigenous languages, to indigenous cultures.

And just like, you know, just how much we are typically excluded from everything, education, entertainment. And until we get to a point where it feels like we're starting to see some equity, it should probably just be free for Native Americans. 100%. I mean, this is kind of what's amazing about your podcast, right? Because I, man, I, first of all, I gotta tell you, I was telling you before, I was, I was like overcome with emotion

listening to your podcast, The Tongue Unbroken. And thinking of like what it means for like these colonial forces to come or people taking you away from your land to be to like work this other place you can see you you're the the thrust of it is saying like i don't want to allow this to completely erase who we are what what our history is, our languages. And it really puts into context how delicate those things are and how quickly we lose sight of things vanishing before our eyes like that without any consideration, like the the process that it goes through. And there is a there's a moment in that first episode where you're speaking to your kids. And I was, I got really overcome with emotion listening to that because it was, I can hear from in your voice, how important

it is to you that the, that none of this is in vain, you know, that, that you, that your, your, your history and your languages are not, are not erased. And even you can hear it, that what you've transmitted to your children and the importance of understanding who you are and what that can offer to other people. And I think that's so beautiful. And I really just, I felt that as somebody who like speaks two languages. And I think about how much as a kid, I would hear Japanese and be excited to be like, Oh, wow, that's someone I've speak that too. That's something I can connect with. And, and even like other guests you've had where they're speaking with people in Cherokee and they're like, Oh, that's how my grandfather said something. There's so much, there's so much I realized too, even with something that seems so specific,

it, it's so easy to connect to this. And I don't know, I just, I just sort of, that was my very, uh, glowing way of trying to transition to talking about your podcast, because I think it really is fantastic. And I really urge the listeners to check it out because it's really amazing. It's cheese. Yeah. Our language is probably down to about 40 speakers, 10 that I would consider master level speakers that they're probably irreplaceable at this point. And we actually, we just lost one yesterday. Her name is Chiqui Klau, Irene Cadillac, and she was beautiful.

Like, it's so amazing when you do this work that, like, a whole library burns down and nobody really knows. But what I try to do is to connect with our students and say, okay, this is going to be one of the harder parts is you're going to learn this language. You're going to start speaking to these older people. And you're going to be one of the few people on earth who can understand them. And they're going to share a whole bunch of stuff with you that they don't have anyone else to share it with. And then you're going to lose them. But what you have to understand is you are now the bridge. You are becoming the bridge between them and the future generations. And I've got friends who are raising their kids in our language, but we probably went 60 years without raising kids in our language. And so we had to figure out how to do that again. And for a lot of Native American languages and Native American cultures, I just really want people to know that this is a thing. We're here. We've been here. We will be here. And we're trying to tell stories

about succeeding despite this huge genocidal effort, probably the largest in the world. It's not a bragging thing, but just to say we've overcome all of this stuff. And despite all these systemic efforts to completely annihilate us, we're right here, we're speaking, and we have kids and they can learn and we have adults who can learn and we can build programs. And so I'm just trying to find other people who I could talk to about this stuff. And I just talked to Ray Taken Alive, who's Lakota, and talking about what's going on with their language and how someone kind of tried to steal it from them and sell it back to them. And so there's all these wild stories that I think people should know,

because wherever you live in North America, there's probably a language right where you live that's in a lot of trouble. And then if we just think about it, and if we just think, what can we do? I think colonization dehumanizes indigenous peoples intentionally, but I think it also dehumanizes the colonizer because you're just not supposed to do that kind of stuff. And the act of decolonization rehumanizes everybody. And it's just, it's a better narrative than this one of westward expansion and manifest destiny and all this other garbage that was kind of invented to keep the momentum going. Yeah. You mentioned in your conversation with Ray taking a lot of this idea that colonialism makes you think everything has already happened, I think is how you put it.

It really resonated with me as somebody who was educated in the United States public school system. And just this idea that everything was settled law, basically, and that this was like, settled law basically and that this was like you know we're on this progressive march of like western expansion the western world is as good as it's ever been and we'd already figured we've already like figured everything out basically was like kind of part of the the story and then my continuing education like has been a process of unlearning all that shit and your podcast has been you know a huge a huge help in that department but i the more i've unlearned that stuff the more i can recognize how soul damaging like the the assumptions the core assumptions of like the colonialism are like just in terms of like how

you interact how i interact with the world around me and am like turned off to it and think that things are settled and like that these horrifying realities that we we live around are necessary, you know, as opposed to a bad, you know, consequence of like a particularly nasty eddy of human history that like just looks like the status quo because we're living with the world of history and culture written by colonizers. the world of history and culture written by colonizers. Yeah. And I think overcoming the great denial is a major part of it because I think colonialism also sells you this idea. Like if it's not this,

it's chaos. Before we came here, people were eating each other. They didn't love their children. And it was just, you know, and I think it's also just total lies like they were very sophisticated and rich things like we have so many people who came among us and said your

language is so simple and i'm like you can't even you can't even fucking talk it you're like it's there's so much to this language and there's so much i was in hawaii in a setting hawaiian and and uh i was sitting with someone at a bar and I left and I came back and someone else sat next to them, was talking to them. And we're saying, you know, Hawaiian is such an easy language. Like you learn it like a weekend. You know, so I said to him, oh, you know, Hawaiian, that's really cool. We should speak Hawaiian. I'm learning Hawaiian, you know? And he says, oh no, I don't, I don't know Hawaiian. I said, oh, well, you must know Hawaiian because you said how easy it is to speak Hawaiian. So you got to know it in order to know that, right?

Right. Oh, you know, so I think, but one of the things that I want people to know, and I think everybody should know through the educational system, if we can reform this big, ugly thing, it's like to actually do this work and to look at this stuff,

that's not the scary part. That like, if you can learn indigenous language and speak it, there's so much fun and loving stuff that happens and it's funny and it feels good. But to just ignore it and to let them die,

which I think is sort of the myth of modernity and the myth of cultural hegemony is like well it's well it would have been nice to do something but we can't do anything now but i think that's the system trying to sort of convince you to just let it happen but you don't have to because it's a choice and we could make a better choice yeah it's like you need even like that assumption that like things have like it's just settled and just accepted as they are. Like you're saying, it can even lead to people who do have backgrounds that are like originate from outside the U.S.

saying, well, I'm just American now, you know, like I'm here because this happens to a lot of kids with immigrant parents. They might tell you a lot or they might not tell you much about where you come from. of grandparents they might tell you a lot or they might not tell you much about where you come from i was very blessed to be like told like you're like this is japanese you're speaking japanese and i had the benefit of having enough media around that's in japanese that i could learn my own language very easily and even listening to your show i'm like damn man like so many of these opportunities are not available to many other cultures because of this like systemic erasure of it. And it, it, yeah, really like really has me thinking so much about how much more I can know myself or my own history, because especially with even being like,

you know, black and my grandparents coming from the Southeast, like I know that one of my great, grandparents coming from the Southeast. Like I know that one of my great, great, great, great grandmothers was, I believe married to a Cherokee man. And, but then that was gone. Like, that's just a, it's a picture and a memory. And then nobody talked about it. And then that, it took years for me to even know anything like that about myself. And it's wild how, yeah, how, how even how we just, even in our own lives, we'll be like, yeah, well that happened and I'm here now. But there is a process of like reclaiming and re, re-under, like actually relearning your history that you, you're sort of resurrecting.

Well, we got, uh, two people that I know of that can speak Japanese already and then learned Tlingit. So you could be number three and the Jack, you could, you come learn Tlingit too. You guys come here. We'll look at bears. We'll learn Tlingit. So there's all these good jokes in Tlinget. So you could be number three and then Jack, you could come learn chlinget too. You guys come here. We'll look at bears. We'll learn chlinget. There's all these good jokes in chlinget. There's all this funny stuff. Hey, I want to get punched by an auntie because she's laughing so hard.

Yeah. You had me right there. I'm like, hey, big laughs to count me in. Right. That happened to me one time. Someone teased someone and then she punched me. I was like, I didn't even say the thing. But she was laughing while she did it right she knew it was coming all right we are going to take a quick break and then we're going to be joined by super producer trisha to talk about how technology can be used in the the effort to preserve and revitalize and

some of the languages that you're talking about on your show. So we'll be right back. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradente. And I'm Jemay Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, a new podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. When you're just starting out in your career, you have a lot of questions like, how do I speak up when I'm feeling overwhelmed? Or can I negotiate a higher salary if this is my first real job? Girl, yes. Each week,

we answer your unfiltered work questions. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in experts who do, like resume specialist Morgan Saner. The only difference between the person who doesn't get the job and the person who gets the job is usually who applies. Yeah, I think a lot about that quote. What is it like you miss 100 percent of the shots you never take? Yeah, rejection is scary, but it's better than you rejecting yourself. Together, we'll share what it really takes to thrive in the early years of your career without sacrificing your sanity or sleep. Listen to Let's Talk Offline

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jess Casavetto, executive producer of the hit Netflix documentary series, Dancing for the Devil, the 7M TikTok cult. And I'm Clea Gray, former member of 7M Films and Shekinah Church. And we're the host of the new podcast, Forgive Me For I Have Followed. Together, we'll be diving even deeper into the unbelievable stories behind 7M Films and LA-based Shekinah Church, an alleged cult that has impacted members for over two decades. Jessica and I will delve into the hidden truths between high control groups and interview dancers, church members, and others whose lives and careers have

been impacted, just like mine. Through powerful, in-depth interviews with former members and new, chilling firsthand accounts, the series will illuminate untold and extremely necessary perspectives. Forgive Me For I Have Followed will be more than an exploration. It's a vital revelation aimed at ensuring these types of abuses never happen again. Listen to Forgive Me For I Have Followed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Keri Champion, and this is season four of Naked Sports, where we live at the intersection of sports and culture. Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry, Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese. I know I'll go down in history.

People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. Every great player needs a foil. I ain't really near them boys. I just come here to play basketball every single day, and that's what I focus on. From college to the pros, Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's sports. Angel Reese is a joy to watch. She is unapologetically black. I love her. What exactly ignited this fire? Why has it been so good for the game? And can the fanfare surrounding these two supernovas be sustained?

This game is only going to get better because the talent is getting better. This new season will cover all things sports and culture. Listen to Naked Sports on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Black Effect Podcast Network is sponsored by Diet Coke. I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that.

I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. One session. 24 hours. BPM 110. 120. She's terrified.

Should we wake her up? Absolutely not. What was that? You didn't figure it out? I think I need to hear you say it. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. This machine is approved and everything? You're allowed to be doing this?

We passed the review board a year ago. We're not hurting people. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from blumhouse television iheart radio and realm listen to dream sequence on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and we're back and we are thrilled to be joined by super producer trisha mccurdy hello hello how's your phone first of all that's how what i was gonna ask you

it is still with me jack but it is disintegrating unfortunately there's like those weird streaks coming in from the corners so it's haunted there Let's just admit, your phone is haunted and trying to leave this plane of existence. So, Tricia, you're bringing us a story about how we can use technology for some of the things that Khun Nei talks about in his show and also just to add to the conversation we were just having. Yeah, thank you for having me. And I'm just so happy to be here and be talking about language with you, Khun Neh. I was listening to your podcast the past couple of weeks, and it is incredible. And just like Miles said, definitely got a little teary-eyed. Yeah, I was just thinking about how in the end of the first episode when you're

talking with your kids and they know, I mean, obviously they're pretty young, but they know that their language is something that's important to them, something that's been disappearing and been taken away and been kind of stolen and erased. And I also, I mean, I didn't speak English until I was five. I spoke Bangla, but I've completely forgotten so much of it. I don't know how to read or write. So now it's like I'm in my 20s and I'm trying to relearn and reteach myself all these things, which is so much more difficult than just knowing it in the first place. Yeah, well, you know, we talk about this kind of stuff too, because I think if children grow up with a language, like they learn it really fast and then they sort of start to level off.

And if adults start learning, they learn pretty slow typically, and then sort of take off. And so we, one is as we're sort of building these environments where kids can be raised in the language, like right after this, I'm going to our language nest to go work with kids. And so it's funny because sometimes we're working with the kids and kids can just be a handful sometimes. They'll say, these kids are going to kill this language because they're so tough to do. But I'm just kidding. I love, they're so fun. They're so funny. And you know, like my kids, they make jokes all the time. If you spoke Tlingit, you'd catch my middle daughter was like I said and Tlingit what do you know about Tlingit and she says but you know so of course she says that right yeah oh man

resonates with me with a having a four-year-old and a six-year-old yeah we got all the fart jokes all the other things right and they're really fun but the other thing is like we do have adults who have a tremendous amount of trauma and i think people who sometimes come here to the united states can relate to this like sometimes your parents will stop speaking to you to protect you just so you don't have an accent and people don't, you know, people are just mean. And also they'll put you in ESL classes. I have a friend who's, he's Korean and they just, they put him in ESL because he's Korean. Like he spoke English just fine. And so there's these, you know, stigmas that are out there, but, and for Native Americans, like when, when folks went

to boarding school, they were tortured. They put chemicals in kids' mouths. They had them put their tongues on the frozen flagpoles, like they're picking them up by their hair, doing like such horrible stuff that a lot of folks, as they became parents, they said, well, I got to make sure that doesn't happen to my kid. And then as you grow up, like you're denied this stuff that is actually essential for your survival so sometimes coming back to the language it's not just the difficulty of learning a language but it's all this other stuff too as you have to heal and reconnect which is wonderful but sometimes you gotta overcome a lot of pain to do that and tr Trisha, you were looking into the double-edged sword that is

technology when it comes to this sort of stuff, right? Yeah, exactly. So as I was talking about, I'm relearning Bangla, which is my native language. And one thing that I've been doing recently to help me is that I downloaded the keyboard with the Bengali alphabet. And that just got me thinking about how I think the fact that so many people around the world have access to technology and the internet now, it's easy to think in English or to think in Spanish or Mandarin when these are these really big languages that a lot of people can use to communicate. I imagine if you're in a community without a ton of access to the outside world constantly, it would be much easier to just continue speaking

your native language. But just like we've talked about previously in the show, technology has a lot of negative effects. We've talked about mental health, we've talked about misinformation, We've talked about mental health. We've talked about misinformation. But I was kind of just thinking, how can technology be used to preserve languages and revitalize languages? And yeah, I was curious before I start kind of talking about my own research. Hene, what are your thoughts about technology? Yeah, I think it can lend itself in so many different ways. We connect through Zoom. We use Zoom in a lot of our classes. And we have been, even before the pandemic, we're using that because we have over many different sounds that all sound the same but they are distinctively different sounds and and you might be saying you know butthole instead of saying

something else right or feather and fart a feather is on like downy feathers and a fart is one and like that's such a those are so close together right and so we intentionally do you think they're intentionally close together because farts are somewhat soft and feathery well they can kind of yeah they can kind of float out there and come down to the surface but and and so i kind of became obsessed with finding really high fidelity so people can hear because we tried to teach through the telephone. And it was very difficult because some people couldn't even hear the end of a word. And then when sometimes things would come out through educational technologies, it'd sound like you're listening to some bootleg downloaded MP3, you know, just the way it's compressing the audio. And so we found that Zoom, you could get into the options and have it uncompressed audio. And that really helped. And then even going back, we've had languages recorded, you know, the earliest recordings we have are probably the late 1800s, early 1900s.

And those are on wax cylinders. And we had ones recorded on wires, then reel to reel. And so we have a lot of documentation of our language, thanks to technology. And now the technology is in these learning apps. Like there's a group that we work with and I'm on the board called 7,000 Languages that they fundraise and they say, if we raise enough money, we'll come in and develop a learning app for free. You know, like we will not, we're trying not to charge anybody.

But then sometimes if those technologies exist, people will be like, well, we almost died, but then we got Rosetta Stone. So, but then people don't do the work to learn the language and to use it. And so you have to, it has to be the human beings changing their lives, creating that room. But I think technology can be, as long as it's just a

tool in the box and it's not, it's not the car that, it's not the self-driving car that takes you there. Right. Yeah. So I was actually reading about something that sounds quite similar to what you're talking about. It's a website called First Voices. Have you heard of it, Rene? Yeah, it's great. Okay, yeah. So I was just going through and I thought it was so awesome. You can select a language and see different words, phrases, songs, stories, and the alphabet with pretty high fidelity recordings. And it's also so interesting that low quality recordings can just take away so much from a language. That's something that I didn't really think about.

And actually one interesting thing that I noticed on that website was, because I imagine in many realms, technology can be exploited. And as much as we want to preserve indigenous languages, we don't want them to be exploited. So as much as we want to preserve Indigenous languages, we don't want them to be exploited. So I thought it was this really cool feature where each tribe's archive has an administrator who can make certain recordings private so that only members of that community can access them. So they do this for things like prayers or sacred songs, so that only the people who are supposed to listen to them can, but they're still preserved and documented. And so, yeah, I was wondering, like, what do you think in terms of privacy or technology being used? You know, can it harm Indigenous or Native

communities if we don't know enough about their actual priorities and interests? Well, I think I'm always nervous about being exploited because it just tends to happen, right? And so this Raven shirt that was on the Hulk, like there'll probably be 50 copies of it made by, you know, non-Indigenous peoples tomorrow, right? And so that tends to happen. And we have these conversations too

because there's these databases one i think it's called mark kutu i might have said that wrong but where basically you can set access levels so if you're of the clan you can have access to a whole bunch more information and we have conversations like that as well where before not everything was for everybody, but then you also have a language that's really close or got close to death. And as we try to sort of push the language everywhere, sometimes we have to have conversations about, well, maybe it is for everybody now, but you just, you don't translate it because you've got full encryption. Like Tlingit is fully encrypted. And so we had code talkers who were in World War II and people couldn't,

of course you couldn't understand what they're saying, right? And so, but I think as we sort of look at those things to just store information, make it accessible, for me, I always want to say like, what's going to get people to it? And how can we remove any barriers? So like we fought for a number of years at the university of alaska southeast to say can't we just make these classes a free option like if

you want to learn your indigenous language why do you got to pay the state of alaska why do you got to pay tuition and so we we started supplementing that with lots of scholarships for indigenous peoples and then we just said if you don't want the college credit you could just join us it's free you could just check it out and just just try and create these safe spaces for learning these safe spaces for using so i i think it can be good and then you can have maybe information that's pretty sensitive because if we just told you in english like where one of our medicine people were buried, some would go and dig them up and steal all their stuff. That's just what happens to us. Like I was in this training and this is bananas.

So as in this training called the native American graves and protection act. And this guy said, uh, there's about 2 million native Americans today. This is 20 years ago. And there are more Native American human remains in colleges and universities and museums than there are walking the earth today. And I said, can you repeat that? Because I don't think it's not registering in my brain. And so he did. And so

for me, like everything that you could conceive of has been taken from us. And so I think what's important is technology and money and then totally reforming education. And I think the reform that I could imagine is like if you live in Alaska and you want to graduate high school, you got to take one semester of an Alaska native language. You just have to do it. And so for me, I think the technology can certainly help. I think sometimes we'll chase the technology and it'll sunset and then we'll lose, like we had a bunch of stuff that was in Flash and we can't do anything with it. You can watch it now, but you can't really do anything with it

like as far as an interactive platform anymore right yeah like i i think when i was growing up and fascinated to learn of the native american civilizations that were here before colonialization the narrative i always heard was but native american civilizations were like an oral tradition. So like we don't have any of like we don't have like their records, basically. from the history of indigenous tribes that like goes untouched or unexplored just because like to your point earlier about the languages not being used but being usable and translatable like that that feels like it should be the growth area of the future of academia is like there is a whole world that is totally that that gave us the many of the best ideas of the past 500 years like many of the ideas that

like america today is like we came up with this this is america's like grand tradition and we came up with democracy and like all these all the different like the the way that the checks and balances work and the contradictions of american government is like no that shit you stole that from indigenous and native tribal societies and then like just tried to bury them and tried to bury that reality and like the fact that it just sits there and is unstudied is like it i guess i don't know how academia like reconciles that other than to just ignore the fuck out of it yeah yeah i got i got a friend named mike navarro and we both work at the university and I always call him Dave Navarro like in meetings which is so yeah I'm like oh damn it no but he and I are writing a paper about

this saying like okay it's not too late for science to decolonize itself because science sciences and mathematics in America are super colonial by just excluding people and so you've got centuries where they could have been learning so much like we've been fishing and cutting fish right here since there were mammoths walking around like we were walking around with them speaking our same language doing our same same stuff, you know? And so with that unbroken chain of knowledge, like that could be coming into science in ways that doesn't threaten it. Like, so I had a dean who was not a good person to work with. And he said, indigenous ecological knowledge is a threat to natural sciences. And I said, what the hell are you talking about? Like, this is all additive stuff.

It's not a one thing or the other. And it's not ecological knowledge. It's just indigenous science. Like we have science too. We have knowledge. We have all this stuff. But I think it freaks them out because we'll say, oh yeah,

well, this guy got turned into a salmon and he was a salmon for a year and he came back and that's how we know this stuff. And that's just not acceptable for them. yeah underscores that mindset too it's like no this is the one true thing uh i don't know yeah maybe you've been looking at it for a long time either but that's a threat to my like supremacy ideology where i know everything so please like it it's such a transparent way to say that it's actually a threat to that right like i'm sorry how because then it because i feel threatened it upends the idea that uh we know everything

right and we're rightfully where we are because of that and not because we're stealing ideas and then absconding with them back to europe and be like i thought of something interesting when I was in the world, actually. Let me write this down. Yeah, I was kind of curious because there's a lot of linguistic theories out there. One of them is that the language you speak determines how you see the world. And I was wondering, Rene, can you tell us about some of the ways that speaking Tengit changes how you perhaps see the world yeah that's a really interesting question as when I was studying in Hawaii and I was learning Hawaiian and I was speaking with a guy who's uh Chamorro from Guam his name is Tene Pongi and this friend of mine Deho who's Mohawk and and I just asked him I said when you

speak your own language when you speak your own language, when you speak a different language, are you a different person? And we all had to think about that for a while. And most people said, well, I'm the same person, but I think differently. And so I noticed as I started to learn more and more Tlingit, like if I get really mad at a friend of mine,

I would speak to them in Tlingit first, even if they didn't understand it. And I would say, I need to ground myself in my language for a second before I talk to you about why I'm mad that we got in a fight while we're playing basketball. It's just like weird things. But then when you can talk to these elders, and for some of them, they're kind of on their deathbed and we're sending videos back and forth to each other through their family members. And just this idea, we can share stuff that it might be impossible to actually translate the impact of this stuff. And then we can sort of, there's a whole bunch of concepts, just concept after concept that I think doesn't always translate.

Because we're not just saying the same thing in a different language. We're touching base with these different realities and these different things. And then I had an uncle who was, his name was Paul Jackson. And his name certainly sounds like big rabbit, but he'd get mad if I said, is that big rabbit? He'd get real mad. He's like, don't be a rabbit. And it sounds like, But he was a wonderful teacher, but he would get mad if I wrote stuff down. Because I would write down everything I hear. I just carry these notebooks. And I would just go to the elders and talk to them and just write down everything and try and put these pieces together.

Because I felt an urgency to learn as much as I can so I can teach it to people. And he said, stop writing it down. Your brain's going to get weak. And then there was an elder who was Koyakon, which is a nation that's north of us. And she said, you know, people used to, her name was Catherine Atlet. She said, people said that we were inferior because we didn't write things down. But I could tell you a story that takes 10 days to tell. And you would have to read that story because you can't remember that amount of information anymore. And so it's also sort of challenging those types of things. it also, it just unlocks some stuff on the land. Like if a language has been in one place for over 15,000 years, like it is embedded in the landscape. Like we had a bear that chased us off a couple

years ago while we're smoking fish. And there were three of us there and we're all working on the fish. We got chased in this little garage. And so I decided to stay and work on the fish and just watch it and honk the horn. I was in a van. Like, I'm not going one-on-one with no bear. That's a loose situation. But yeah, I'd beep the horn and it would take off. And then this buddy of mine, his name was Wayne Price. He's an amazing carver.

And he said, well, Uncle Smitty said, if you speak Tlingit to the bears, they will leave you alone. And I said, of course I knew that. But the bear scared me and I forgot. Silly. So then not even 10 minutes later, I'm outside, you know, getting the smoke going again in the smokehouse. And that bear comes walking up. And I just said to it, so he said, this isn't yours. You know where your food is.

It's in the river. Maybe go to the river. Sorry, but this is for us. And the way it looked at me and left, I knew it was never coming back. And it didn't. Right. And so we have connections to things and people can be part of those connections. Like you can, you don't have to be a colonizing force. You have agency, you have decisions, but you also have to push back on these ideas that if we do it, something bad's going to happen. I used to argue with these politicians. if we do it, something bad's going to happen.

I used to argue with these politicians. So we had this wonderful, wonderful person named Elizabeth Perachovich. Her thingy name was Kachkash Ag. She was a pivotal member of an amazing team of folks who got an anti-discrimination bill passed in like 1947. And so these have signs up that said like, no Indians allowed and no Indians and dogs allowed. Like you could just put that up

at your businesses or whatever. And so the reason they passed this law is that you couldn't put those signs up. And this one like senator who has a street named after him, he said, he said, who are you to think you can come mingle with us with 5,000 years of recorded

civilization? And then they also said things like, if you put people together, you're just going to have more racial division and more fighting, basically. And then flash forward, like 70 years later, we're trying to get native languages made as the co-official languages of Alaska, which we did. One of the big arguments that this guy said, he said, if you try and make the languages equal, you're just going to have more racial division and fighting. And I said, 70 years, you can't even think of a new argument other than that foolishness. so yeah shows us yeah how how abstract a problem uh racism tries to solve by just being like i don't know man because if there's more equality it's gonna be bad look i'm this is already a bad faith argument i'm trying to make so don't expect me to have something better than that shit right like where it's like i don't know if people know each other and get along they're gonna like fight more makes sense it's

one step away from i'm the one who's going to be oppressed right no no no no no no no no no no no check the books check the receipts you're doing all right but i think this again i really want to urge listeners to check this show out because it like like I said, I couldn't believe how touched I was by being completely ignorant about the topic, but also realizing how any person who's had to move, who, who's, who's gone from one culture to another has immigrated, whatever that these, that it's so easy to connect to and also realizing yeah to your point of like man how it is an active process to be like okay how can i sort of reverse this cycle of colonization and it doesn't have to be this like monumental act it can be actually very

like very subtle things that you're sort of pinning together and you're, you're, you're, you're doing something much better. Um, so it's, it was a, yeah, man, I,

I, I gotta say congrats on the show. Cause it's, it's, it's true. Absolutely. And thank you so much for joining us. Yeah.

Where can people find you, follow you, hear more about you? Yeah. Well, folks should really check out beauty, translated black fat femme and, uh, folks should really check out Beauty Translated, Black Fat Femme, and Partition. This NextUp initiative has been just so amazing to just see. Then I think there should be four more podcasts, I think, at least coming out. as we sort of look at voices that have been marginalized to start pushing us, nudging us towards the center. It's just been a wonderful experience.

I'm on Facebook to stay connected with people. I'm on Twitter trying to make jokes and fight with racist people who just come out of nowhere and try to like, I don't know what they're trying to do. But you can find me under Du'ani Kaudenuk or Khone, which I think we'll probably have to link off. Unless your Tlingit spelling is aces, then good for you. This is just a pet. I guess we had an elder who said, a pet on the back never hurt

anybody. So good job spelling Tlingit. And then the Tong unbroken like there's there's a website there's social media both on facebook and twitter and i think instagram also i'm on instagram too like i do all those things ray taken alive is on tiktok i think i'm gonna someday make some tiktok videos but then i feel like i'm gonna be like i'm always disconnected like i'll sing an iron maiden song or prince lyrics and i'm teaching these 18 year olds who are like what you know so like whatever or they'll think you you wrote those songs is there a tweet or some of the work of social media you've been enjoying? Yeah, I got two. And so the first one is check out everything from Mary

Peltola. So she is, she won the primary in Alaska for a congressional seat and she's also leading the election to replace this guy named Don Young, who was a super interesting person.

He had a meeting with like these Gwich'in people. He's talking about their land. And they don't want Anwar. They're protesting stuff. And he says, you're not the people. I'm the people. Oh, man. It's like, all right, white man.

I've heard this narrative plenty of times. He's spoken like a true guy who pulls knives out to argue with other politicians in true Don Young fashion. Right. And like bruises their arms and stuff. Anyway, so. He's dead. Yeah, he's gone. Yeah. But the national headlines was like, Sarah Palin is in second place. And I'm like, of course, the story is about a white woman coming in second, right? And someone tried to come at me and say, well, you just think all Natives are liberals, and you didn't even mention that Sarah Palin's campaign manager is Native.

I said, are you trying to generalize me and indigenize Sarah Palin at the same time? Because that's ridiculous. Mary Peltola, she could be the first Alaska Native woman in Congress, and I hope it happens. I think it should happen. Another tweet that I think was great is from Autumn A. Blackdeer. And she said, I know I've said this before, but I'll say it again. Decolonization is not a synonym for diversity, equity, or inclusion. There is no decolonial checklist or afternoon training that will magically decolonize your syllabus, classroom, or organization as a whole. There you go. Super producer, Tricia, always wonderful having you

on the show. Where can people find you, follow you, hear you, all that good stuff? Thank you. Yes, it's great to be here. I do not have social media, but if you want to listen to more of my work, check out People Place Power. It's wherever you get your podcasts, and it is about activism by women, people of color, people in the global south, etc., and how they're creating change in their

communities. And is there a tweet you've been enjoying? I guess not, right? You don't fuck with social media? She's got a head on her shoulders yeah what what do you do then look out the window is there a site at your window you've been enjoying yeah so i am actually in um in colorado right now or on ute land actually is what it is and there's some beautiful beautiful mountains outside so I am enjoying

those amazing and where can what's their handle the mountains the mountains oh at the real mountains okay cool follow them it's the guy that played the mountain on Game of Thrones at real okay cool yeah follow them it's the guy that played the mountain on game of thrones

at real uh miles where can people find you what's the tweet you've been enjoying man find me on twitter and instagram at miles of gray check jack and i out on miles and jack got mad boosties if you like to talk basketball and check me out on uh if talking 90 day fiance on 420 day fiance that's my other podcast with Sophia Alexandra. Some tweets. I like the first one at Jessica one tweeted. A second set of pronouns has just hit the woke trade center. All caps.

Then another one from choo choo goo goo at choo choo goo goo tweeted. Parenthetical pointing to menu And the tots Are they tatered in house Which feels like a great one And at Ellie Cremendall tweeted The Biden administration is like And it's a picture of Lucille Bluth From Arrested Development

And it says It's one student loan Michael What could it cost $10,000 That's right and it says it's one student loan michael what could it cost ten thousand dollars that's right yeah anthony michael crease tweeted uh preemptively posting this and it's that meme of the trolley experiment with like a bunch of people having just been run over by the trolley and the person at the switch being like would it be fair to the people the trolley has already killed to divert it now

oh shit yeah and then uh anzu at anzu is online tweeted food for thought if the u.s cut just two percent of its annual defense budget it could afford to construct a colossal obsidian sphere in the san francisco bay on top of the obvious economic benefits it would be visible throughout all of northern california and emanate an ominous home exclamation point and they photoshopped just a giant obsidian sphere in the bay. I really enjoy that. You can find me on Twitter at Jack underscore O'Brien. You can find us on Twitter at Daily Zeitgeist. We're at The Daily Zeitgeist on Instagram.

We have a Facebook fan page and a website, DailyZeitgeist.com, where we post our episodes and our footnotes, where we link off to the information that we talked about in today's episode, as well as a song that we think you might enjoy miles what song do we think people might enjoy just some really it's like if james taylor was funky and brazilian this artist sessa s-e-s-s-a just there's i don't know it's like feels folky but it's got rhythm because you know brazilian music can't be like rhythmless. So this track is called Segeia Sentimental and it's by Sessa,

S-E-S-S-A. And check it out. It's a really dope track. And I'm getting into most of his other work and it's pretty fantastic. James Taylor is funky and Brazilian. Yeah. I don't know how it's described because it's like got like, if you like Jose Gonzalez, you're like Junip, that group and his it's very like singer songwriter but it's got like an edge

to it this guy's doing it in portuguese but also i like the way the drums are they're kind of it's just dope just check it out it's a hey i sent you mental but it's spelled s-e-r-e-i-a and then sentimental i'm sorry that i had to lean into that Portuguese accent. There you go. Alright, well go check that out. The Daily Zeitgeist is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. That's going to do it for

us this morning. Back this afternoon to tell you what is trending. We'll talk to you all then. Bye. Bye. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti. And I'm Jermaine Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. There's a lot to figure out when you're just starting your career. That's where we come in.

Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in people who do, like negotiation expert Maury Tahiripour. If you start thinking about negotiations as just a conversation, then I think it sort of eases us a little bit. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jess Casavetto, executive producer of the hit Netflix documentary series Dancing for the Devil, the 7M TikTok cult. And I'm Clea Gray, former member of 7M Films and Shekinah Church. And we're the host of the new podcast, Forgive Me For I Have Followed.

Together, we'll be diving even deeper into the unbelievable stories behind 7M Films and Shekinah Church. Listen to Forgive Me For I Have Followed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Keri Champion, and this is Season 4 of Naked Sports. Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry. Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese. Every great player needs a foil. I know I'll go down in history.

People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's sports. Listen to the making of a rivalry. Caitlin Clark versus Angel Reese on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports. I'm Keri Champion, and this is season four of Naked Sports. Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry.

Caitlin Clark versus Angel Reese. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's basketball. And on this new season, we'll cover all things sports and culture. Listen to Naked Sports on the Black Effect Podcast Network,

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