You're Wrong About - Desperation Pie with Sarah Archer

Episode Date: April 28, 2026

What would you do for a desperation pie? Kitchen correspondent Sarah Archer is here to talk with Sarah about the American food trends that marked the 20th century and how they related to the political and cultural changes of a nation in need of constant culinary inventiveness. They discuss the specialties of the barren Depression Era, the food-related propaganda and rationing of the wartime years, the meteoric rise of post-war disposability, the premade mixes and “exotic” dishes of midcentury housewives, and the special tastes of Soviet Cold War diplomacy. Throughout the episode, they discuss the messages these eras transmitted to the women in charge of the kitchen and draw parallels to our new era of trad wife cooking and carnivore dieting. Digressions include the unique features of Star Trek aliens, why cottage cheese is the Cher of foods, and how ironing sheets can be a potent tool for procrastination.More Sarah Archer:https://www.sarah-archer.com/Design for Dreaming 1956 appliance fantasy film: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/design-for-dreaming-1956/Midcentury Menu exhibition at the MFAH: https://www.mfah.org/art/exhibitions/midcentury-menu-dining-in-the-atomic-ageMeals with a Foreign Flair: https://archive.org/details/mealswithforeign00desmEdited + Produced by Miranda Zickler:http://linktr.ee/mirandatheswampmonsterMore You're Wrong About:Bonus Episodes on PatreonBuy cute merchSupport the show

Your Honor, my client, you could kill him by putting a scratch and sniff sticker at the bottom of a pool. Welcome to your wrong about April Madness, where we talk about American legal history and we're the only brackets we're seating are flower beds. Oh, boy. And with me today is Princess Weeks. Princess, hello. How are you doing? I'm doing so well. I'm so happy to be here.

and I love you. So this is great. Happy April everyone. I love you. And I love April. I feel, because we're both April birthdays. We're just talking about sort of the chaos of this month inevitably, because I think it's when the energy that springtime gives to people, at least in places where it like hits you hard and you get more daylight hours and stuff. We like suddenly have more energy and then we like do a lot of stuff with it. And you crash more because your body is still adjusting. Like the way like today it's 80 degrees right you you misjudge yeah like today's 80 degrees in new york yesterday it was 50 like that's very different yeah you're like what if I keep walking forever yeah you know forever ever ever you're also one of the few people I can think of who I know you would appreciate my observation that it's hard to say like well time for my long walk because it always makes you think of Stephen king oh yes teenage boys walking their legs down to stumps and you know what I literally just finished reading that book. I love that book. I loved it. I'm thinking about doing a video about teen dystopians. And so I was like, oh, good. And I just was like, it's such an early king book because

the boys are so horny even though they're about to die. It's so delightful. And he wrote it in college from what I remember, right? Yeah. I think he wrote it before Carrie, but it wasn't published until after. Right. And it was like a Bachman book, which is like when he had written something particularly anti-social. They were like, oh, it's Bachman. Exactly. And it's like, does it end in a way that we understand? No. It's like very like, you know, Raymond Chandler of him. Like everything means seven things at once. I haven't read that book in a long time, but I've always appreciated it as like, just thinking of like being like a college student like at kind of the height of the Vietnam War and being like, oh my God, how can I reflect this in my art? Exactly. And for what, you know, and Stephen King

takes a lot of big swings. And I haven't seen the movie. of that yet. I feel like it was maybe divisive, but I like a big swing in literature. I have the movie on my computer. I wanted to wait until after I finished reading it to watch it. But I will say, like, having read it so soon before, I was like, oh my God, it's this guy. It's that guy. And I instantly got sad. It's very much like the hundred games of like, oh, my God, it's, oh, no. So it's very effective. Well, I really hope you do a teen dystopia video because I feel like that is like a really interesting topic. And I wonder if there are like various pronounced like waves of it throughout history and not just in the like, I guess, early 20 teens as we now remember.

Yeah. It's really interesting because I was like it ties into so many different levels and like the teen dystopia versus the adult dystopia and like who's responsible for everything. It's very interesting. But this is why we do what we do because we just like to go down a rabbit hole and never. Escape. We'll have a theme. Which is how I found the subject of this episode. Yeah. So what's our topic today and where are you going to be taking us? So we are going back to the 1920s to the then infamous case of Rhinelander v. Rylander. Many people, if you're in the United States, are familiar with Loving v. Virginia. It's a Supreme Court case that made interracial relationships

legal all across the United States. But that was in the 1960s, which is more recent than we would like to think. Yeah, I mean, I feel like it would be worthwhile to compile a list of like things that are not younger than loving the Virginia. And it would include our president. Yeah. And also just things, you know, like twixt bars or something. Like I don't have that date in front of me, but like things where you're like, oh, huh,

that really makes you think. Yeah. And nothing makes me think like, I don't know, the dates at which candy bars were released, I guess. Which is delicious. Yeah. And so, and so, and, but, well, how did you find this particular rabbit hole maybe to start? Because I'm curious about that. And also, I feel like I should ask you to introduce, like, the kinds of topics that you find particularly interesting historically and that, like, make you want to go down that, that rabbit hole when you see it.

Well, it was funny. I became aware of this case when I was working at the Strand bookstore. and I was cleaning up like the history section. And so I would just end up stumbling across a book. And I found this title. It's called Love on Trial, an American Scandal in Black and White, by Earl Lewis and Heidi Artizoni. And it was about this massive divorce trial and then 1924 between one of the oldest and richest families in New York, where the white man accused his wife that he was divorcing of committing racial fraud. And I was just like, that is crazy.

And at the peak of that was when Megan Markle and Prince Harry were getting married. And that was its own sort of like discourse about interracial relationships, how people perceived Megan Markle as a mixed race black woman, how she was perceived by British audiences and American audiences. And so when I was reading about this case, it really just brought to the forefront how America in particular has just very unique racial structure. Because unlike a lot of other places where slavery happened, where the transatlantic slave trade happened, America did not have like a mixed race identity.

Like other places, they would be sort of like mulattoes or free blacks as their own ethnic group. But with America, it's always been very black and white divided. And so when you have a situation where you have mixed race people, in America, where do they kind of fit into that racial dichotomy when it's not simply one or the other? And the case to me is just really interesting because I had never heard of it before. And I feel like after the last couple of years, it's become a slightly more popular topic. I've talked about it before. But it is just so relevant to the ways in which that we're still sort of unpacking race as a phenotype, as a visual element,

as well as just what you are genetically. Yeah, and there's, I mean, also I think within American legal history, there is a tendency to use the law as ablugion when you can get away with it. And especially as we're trying to legislate who does or doesn't get civil rights, it feels like the ways that people attempt to and often get away with using the law in bad faith that like, I don't know, that you kind of grow up studying American history and reading about times when everyone would. was like just seemingly operating without the fear of anyone looking over their shoulder. And then you're like, oh, we have, we have the, this is that. And it feels like we're having similar kind of legal trends. Yeah. And that's a very scary thing. Because, you know, there's scales involved in the imagery for a reason. It's actually supposed to be a moderating structure rather than one that's weaponized by special interest groups, including racist ones. Exactly. And so I think a good

place to start in this conversation is actually doing a little historical deep dive into sort of like historical. Yay. Oh, no. Oh, no. Not a historical deep dive. Oh, no. Yeah, I'm so happy.

Well, let me ask you this question. Do you know what the first recorded interracial marriage in the United States was? I don't know, but I would bet that it probably happened in like Jamestown in 1609 or something. You are very correct. So the first interracial recorded marriage in the United States was John Rolf and Matawaka, better known as Pocahontas, in 1614. And this marriage is very unique because overall marriage laws in the United States are done in a state-by-state basis, which means that in some places interracial marriages were illegal and some places it wasn't. In the particular way that Matawaka was used by the English government, which was she was. She was presented as this ideal civilized savage.

And in doing so, she was appropriate into whiteness. And they made exceptions so that descendants of John Ralph and Pocahontas would be considered white, whereas other native descended people would not be. And so their family is one of the first families of Virginia, which would also include eventually Edith Wilson, the wife of Woodrow Wilson is one of, of their descendants. So there are a lot of, you know,

Virginian families that claim ancestry to Matawaka, even though they are perceived as white. And some of them were part of the Confederacy because they don't really have racial solidarity. And so I think it's also important to note that when we talk about mixed race marriage, they didn't just want to stop it between white people and non-white people. They also did not want native indigenous people or black people to marry either.

because they were afraid of coalitions forming, especially because they didn't have the numbers necessarily to compete with, you know, these newer influxes of enslaved black people and the tribal people. So they very much were invested in ensuring that they couldn't marry either. And so in 1666, they passed a series of codes which prohibited interracial marriage and made it a fine of 10,000 pounds of tobacco if you did do it. Oh, that's so much tobacco. That's a lot of tobacco. That is many, many

bales of tobacco. You're going to be working forever. I mean, a bail of hay weighs about 200 pounds, I think. So it was an intense fine. And then in 1691, it expanded so that, quote, and this is from the Jim Crow Library, it required that any woman who bore a mulatto child pay a fine or face indentured servitude for five years for herself and 30 years for her child. Similarly, in Maryland, a woman who married a Negro slave had to serve her husband's owner for the rest of her married life. It seems like the goal is to terrify people out of interracial relationships by making it this like pennywise storm drain entrance to slavery.

Exactly. For you and your child. Yeah. Right. And especially they mentioned like white women, especially because that's, was their underlying fear. They weren't really concerned because of enslavement. They were like, white men are going to do whatever they want. But we don't want white women to leave.

Right. So that was a way of maintaining control and threatening them. Well, women always want to get married and stuff. Exactly. Women love men. Women be marrying. Women be having kids. Men can fall in love for like a whole weekend and then be like, ah.

Bye. Bye. It's like, anyway, I got to go now. see you on the block. So it definitely was a way of disincentivizing even free white women from being with Negroes that were enslaved. And if they weren't enslaved, they would still have to pay a fine. And so it didn't matter if that black person was free or not. There was going to be a penalty for that relationship. It's interesting how I feel like the law, I think, in the post-civil rights America, like, tends to be extremely discriminatory. But it's interesting.

knows that it can't be transparently so. And so there's been like such a, an interesting, I guess, like 75 years-ish of like dog whistles and camouflage in the language of this type of rhetoric politically and also legally. And it's just like interesting to compare it to when, and I guess for the majority of this nation's history, when it was like, we need to make it so that there are harsh legal consequences for people forming any kind of meaningful social bonds. outside of the racial categories we've imposed on them. And this is how we're going to do it. Thank you.

Exactly. And the United States specifically was very invested in that so much so that even after slavery, there were these anti-misinidation movements that were created as part of the like anti-Lincoln campaign that were afraid that the mixing of races would put white women at risk and dilute the white race. And of course, this is like racist pseudoscience. There is no evidence about this. And because like creepy white male legislators and like plan members are always like, we're so scared about white women.

We're so afraid for the white women. Someone think of the white women. Look at them over there. They're so innocent. No one thinks of the white women. It's like, well, no one thinks about the white women when their own husbands specifically are coming after them. But you've got, you know, overly racialized imaginary crime pretty much locked up.

got to say. Exactly. Consistently so. Exactly. So it wasn't until 1967 with Loving v. Virginia that these laws were taken off the books. And just for fun for the audience at home, here are some actors who are older. So Loving Vigginia was passed 59 years ago. So some people who were alive before interracial marriage was the law of the land. Merrill Streep, who was born in 1949, Julie Andrews, Dame Julie Andrews, who was born in 1935, Viola Davis, who was born in 1965, Samuel L. Jackson, who was born in 1948,

and Denzel Washington, who was born in 1954. We have so many people in, like, living memory, who grew up with this kind of legislation, being a part of our society. Can I do one? Oh, yeah, please. Charlie Sheen, we're in 1965. Yeah, older than interracial marriage being the law of the land in the United States.

This is Charlie Sheen. I'm pretty sure every living president right now was born before interracial relationship was legal, including Obama. Yeah, because I think Obama was born, yeah, in 19. 65, right? 61. All right. Keeping it tight. Anyway. So he was, he barely got in there. So we don't have a living president that was born after Loving v. Virginia was put into law. So just as a scope of understanding that this is very recent history. We probably should. Right. We probably should. We probably shouldn't have them be this old if I'm going to be controversial here. But anyway, Because you know what younger people do is they very rarely post AI images of themselves as Jesus.

Isn't it so bizarre to think that Bill Clinton is still younger than Trump? It's just, I mean, I feel like Jesus is younger than Trump at this point. That's why he felt so comfortable to do with the AI picture. Like, it's the same person. Yeah, he's like, we knew, we knew each other. We know each other. We're draft doctors. We got, we go.

We got weight back. Oh, my gosh. So while this was the case, there were still inter-richer relationships, including in New York City. And in New York City, during the period of this Rilander v. Rylander case, it's quoted that around 1% of the registered marriages in New York City during this period were black-white unions. And in Boston, it was about 10 and 13% of marriages were interracial relationships.

So in the Northeast, our liberal coastal elites, that was definitely more of a normative thing. However, it didn't mean that everyone in those places were willing to have their family legacy be quote unquote tainted with interracial relationship. Enter one of the players in this story. Leonard or Leonard, whichever one you prefer. Kip Rhinelander. I'm going to call him Kip. Kip. All right.

That's what everyone else called him. So you're in the right place. Perfect. So Kip was the youngest of five children from a rich New York elite family known as the Rhinelanders. And he was 21 years old at the time of this marriage. According to the New York Times, the Rhinelanders arrived in America around 1686 and began buying land and property so that, after the Aster's, like Mrs. Aster, the Gilded Age, they were the second largest New York City real estate owners. And by the 1920s, their holdings were worth nearly $100 million or $1.6 billion

in today's money. So the Rylander family was very much old-school American royalty. So they're like rich at the level that they can do truly whatever they want. Exactly. Like they were married to like everyone in poor. Or in during the Gilded Age, they were married to the Hamilton's. They had people who fought in the American Revolution. Edith Wharton, the great writer, was related to them as well. They were a huge family. They also bought a lot of property.

There is a town in Wisconsin called Rhinelander, Wisconsin, which was named after the Rhinelander family when they tried to get railroads built in that area. So were they like, were they railroad magnates too? or they just wanted to get in on that? They were trying to be. They were trying to be. They weren't as successful yet. Why not?

Why the heck not? Why not? They were more real estate magnets than anything. And lawyers. The crypto of its day. Exactly. Exactly. I mean, I've just been reading about how like the Dakota land rush was caused to some great

extent by railroad companies being like, hey, go farm this land that we have millions of acres of that definitely won't get enough rain and you'll deplete the topsoil. and you won't ever be able to really grow enough crops to survive on. It'll be incredible. It's going to be wonderful. We have so much of it to sell. Take it. For God's sake.

Please just take this land. No, it's so true. And so much of the impact of their land is still there. So the Holy Trinity Episcal Church in Manhattan, which is on 316 East 88th Street between 2nd and 1st Avenues, that land used to belong to the Rhinelander farm. And it was gifted to the church and turned into this beautiful church that exists today.

And I'm going to send you a link so that you can see how pretty it is. And it's perfectly bright in the upper east side. So it probably was on episode of Gossip Girl at some point. I was just wondering if this was maybe where Big takes his mom and sex in the city. Oh my God. His mom's star of death.

trap, Marian Seldo's. Right. Okay. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's beautiful. That's what I... Yeah. I'm making indecent noises about this.

Yeah, that's almost... I mean, look, I don't know Jack about cathedrals, but that's got, like, Notre Dame energy as far as I'm concerned. You're like, that's a pretty good cathedral. That's a pretty good cathedral. That's a hot... I would date that cathedral. They also have a chateau, which also still exists by Madison Avenue, which I am sending to you now as well.

Oh my gosh. It's called the Gertrude Rylander Waldo Chateau, which is, I think it sits on top of a Macy's. Wow. That really is a chateau. I mean, it looks like, I mean, look, not to, this is like when when someone who's like, you know, made a billion dollars on like something that you have to have explained. he three times, like, builds something way too big in Pennsylvania. That's what they're trying to look like, I would say. Exactly.

If that's not too weird of a reference. Yeah, it looks like it was built on a big sprawling field and then New York City just happened around it. Literally. Wow. Ralph Lauren ended up buying it in the 80s, 1980s, and renovating the chateau. And now it's the flagship location for the brand. That's nuts.

And now they sell blazers. And now? Nothing gold can stay, pony boy. It's like you two could build empires that become Ralflorish. But I also love that like an enterprising polo shirt making guy who I have to assume the original Rhinelanders would have perhaps not wanted a Jewish guy to have their big castle. I was going to say it. It is giving, reclaiming. And also he's from the Bronx.

So I'm always going to be happy to see a Bronx boy pull up. There you go. He's who Jennifer Lopez thinks she is. Exactly. Don't be fooled by the rocks that they got. And so, yeah, it's just this beautiful building. Last time I saw it, I was just like, damn, rich people used to just be here. And now we sell purses.

And also, the final piece of interesting real estate is. that there is a castle in Germany. Why not? In the upper middle Rhine Valley. Great. That the Rilander family bought from the town in the late 19th century and restored it. Classic. And then they sold it back to them in the 1950s.

So I'm going to send you this last thing. They flipped it. They flipped it. They flipped it. Okay. If there was a show called Castle Flippers and. It was just like some couple from Laguna Beach, like being backhanded at each other, but they were in like Bavaria. Oh, my God.

Oh, yeah. That would be the best thing that could ever be. So good. Okay. Oh, oh, look at that. Oh, my. God. Yeah.

I feel like that castle was used in the establishing shot of every fantasy movie I watched growing up. It's the Schernberg. Yeah. Something like that. First mention in history between the years 9-11 and 1166. Somewhere somewhere in there. There you go. Ah, I want a castle.

I know. Just a little one, not even a nice one. We could get a tiny, we should just invest. We're going to buy a tiny castle. Even just like a really drafty tower, you know? I could do a drafty tower. Let's invest. Yeah.

We could do so much with a drafty tower. We can co-op together, put our, put our Patreon together, just be like a rotating castle. Everyone gets to stay. We can make a new castle, a new Patreon. It says castle. Mm-hmm. Please.

Someone, do you want to sell us a castle? Castle, please. Castle, please. This is a way of just illustrating that this family had Boku money. Yeah, they can afford to not screw someone in the pre-nup, which is maybe a relevant observation. Yeah. And also, this is the kind of thing where, like, you feel like if you fuck with them, you might find out that they are part of, like, an ancient satanic lineage.

And I mean that not in a satanic panic way, but in a ready or not kind of a way. Exactly. Which is which you know what? Fair enough. I think Chelsea and I talked about this in a bonus episode where we both watched him and we're like, well, I liked it. Because it's just the whole thing of like, isn't the NFL kind of satanic? And you're like, yeah.

Yeah. It is. Jinks. That all scans. It's perfect. Exactly. Yeah. Anyway. No, it's perfect. So that's the Rhinelander family. So that's part one. Part two, we have Alice

Beatrice Jones. Who has no castles probably, like most people don't. Who has no castles. But she's just like us. Yep. She was a nanny and the daughter of English immigrant parents, one of whom was considered white and the other in certain lenses considered to be colored. She was a few years older than Kip and she was just a regular girl who just one day happened to meet one of the richest men in the country. This all feels a little pretty and pink, honestly. It is the dark side of pretty and pink. It is the Cinderella story gone kaput.

Yeah, as can happen. So essentially Kip was someone who struggled with shyness and a stutter. And so he was working at an inpatient clinic to try and deal with that because they were like, you're a rich boy, we need you to be better at talking in person. So he was sent there to kind of work on the stutter in Stanford, Connecticut. And she was also working there. And they met. And they ended up having a on again, off again relationship for three years before they eventually got married. Around 700 letters were collected to have been between them. And in terms of everyone who, who was giving testimony about the case.

This was a serious relationship. They were both really infatuated with each other, and it was genuine. Kip's father, however, was not enthusiastic about the relationship. Even back when he thought she was white, there was also just the issue of class. She didn't come from a good family. She wasn't anybody of consequence. And so they were reticent to allow this. And previously, Kip's own uncle had been disdain.

inherited for marrying a woman of low social standing. And that woman was white. So it was very much like, you are our only son. You need to get this shit together. Yeah. And I imagine this idea of, you know, both kind of a general sort of eugenic way of seeing things, eugenicist, one might even say, which is like more innate to sort of white American history than I think a lot of people want to admit. And, and also, you know, also this idea of marriage existing partly as a means of consolidating power and money and social influence, you know, and in the fairy tale scenario that the guy is perhaps according to the family missing his shot. And so eventually the two would get married. After three years of

courtship in October 1924, on their marriage documents, they both listed their race as white, which, again, this is in New York, so it wasn't necessary, but it was what Alice presented herself to be, according to Kip. And despite attempting to keep the marriage quiet, society could not help but find out that this happened. They want to know, well, who married one of the richest men in the city? And so on November 13th, 1924, just four weeks after the wedding, the new Rochelle Standard Star broke the story, and the front page headline said, Rhinelander's son, Mary's daughter of colored man. Wow. And this was the beginning of all of the back and forth.

And again, to everyone was saying, there was nothing illegal about the marriage. It was not illegal in New York to be in an inter-risha relationship. Okay. It was just that the scandal of this person who is, again, one of the biggest families, most richest families in the country married someone who was considered colored. And that being just, you know, that's the news item. Exactly. They don't have to say anymore.

And it was kept quiet. Like, it's not like, you know, like, it's not like Megan and Harry were we all saw them together. And it's like, oh, this is interesting. This is different. Like, no one really knew who she was or anything like that. Right. And so they tried to keep their marriage a secret.

They tried to play things down. But essentially, once it came out that Alice's father was considered a colored man, Kip's family decided that they needed to do something about this and that if he didn't stop marrying her, he was going to be disinherited. So he stayed strong for two weeks, but he is 21 and rich and a boy. So Kip decides that he is going to leave Jones and wanted to file for an annulment complaining that she had. been hiding her true race, and that she was attempting to pass for a white woman. And was this like recognized his grounds for annulment, or was this like a new concept that he was trying out? Basically, he was saying that it was fraud, is basically what he was accusing him, that it was racial fraud. And that was means to annul it because she had not been honest about

her background, which is grounds for an annulment. Okay. And so that was his big deal. And so another thing that I think is important to kind of recognize in this particular environment is the one drop rule. As illustrated in showboat. Exactly. And the thing about the one drop rule, and I talked about this in a previous video about the tragic mulatto on my own YouTube channel, but it's not a real doctrine of law, but it is based around this idea that if you have any drop of black blood, depending on whatever the laws that. create blackness in that state, you are black. And this was established during the case of Plessy v. Ferguson that established a doctrine of the idea of separate but equal. So Homer Plessy was this French-speaking Creole man from Louisiana. And he would have been categorized. And mind you,

this is not a word we would use now, but as an octaroon, someone who was seven-eighths white and one-eighth black. So like one black, great, great-parent. is the kind of word that one encounters in John Irving novels nowadays. Exactly. Maybe it's the one. But I right, yeah. Why did no one stop me from reading the world according to Garp in ninth grade? I guess they hadn't read it.

Because they knew you needed to have it. That's true. Letters scare the bejesus out of herself about many different things. Anyway, what kind of mindset does this reflect in your opinion? So a lot of the mindset around this was just attempting to deal with the fact that post-slavery. There were huge populations of black people who were now free and were able to have political power. And so Jim Crow laws were a way of maintaining the racial caste lines in the country without having to sort of rewrite everything. But what it did do was it made it so that

even in places like Louisiana, which had some of the more lax racial categorization, because it was owned by the French for such a long time and did have a mostly like free black societies. It was able to have a little bit of more flexibility in terms of racial categorization. But because of the changes in reconstruction, a lot of white politicians were just like, we cannot allow black populations in this area to get any kind of serious political power. And so they would do these black codes. And these black codes then needed all of these people who were lighter-skinned black people to still be perceived as black, even if they didn't necessarily look black. And so the reason why Homer Plessy was picked.

So to kind of set it back, when we have sort of these like civil rights cases, a lot of them are quote unquote orchestrated in the sense is that they are situations where someone is picked to be the representative of a certain. topic. And so with Homer Plessy, he was only one eighth black. He was from a free person of color family. And he was picked because of his phenotype and his features. And so on June 7th, 1892, he bought a first class ticket on a train from New Orleans and sat in the car for whites only. And the committee that was trying to challenge the segregation laws hired a private detective to take Plessy off the train to ensure that he was charged with violating the state's separate car law so that they could take it to the Supreme Court. So the whole idea was we're going to pick somebody that doesn't really fit the definition of blackness. And so their argument that

they were making in defense of Plessy was that Louisiana did not have a legal definition of blackness and that there was no legal reason why someone who was seven-eighths white should not be defined as white. That was the argument they were trying to make in front of the court. But what the court said was that segregationist is the law of the land and they were not going to answer the question of whether or not Plessy was or should be considered black. The point is that in that state, with his background, he was legally black. This has the worrying ring of arguing with your dad where you're like, what about a compromise? And he's like, no, I'm actually going to insist on something so much that I sound Completely insane.

It makes no sense. But this is what the standard was. And then by 1924, 29 of the then 48 states in the Union of the United States. I don't know why I wrote Union. That just makes it sound very pretentious. Yeah, it's just fun to say. It's fun to say the Union. Yeah.

Had a legal definition of blackness. So in Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Virginia, any black ancestry, no matter how remote made you legally black. Which is interesting because then if you don't have records of your ancestry, then like, who can say, right? Exactly. And that's why if you could pass for white, you would just start categorizing yourself as white.

But in Alabama, Florida, Indiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Tennessee and Texas, a person who was one-eighth eighth or more black was black. So in those places, Homer Plessy would be black. But if he had a child with a white woman, those children would then legally be white. Yeah, which I feel like this whole thing gets into like, well, if it seems nuts to draw the line anywhere, maybe just not bother with the whole thing is where it's all going. And also like, versus America, we don't know how much one eighth is? At least it's not the metric system.

I don't know what one eighth of a person looks like. I don't know what the fuck that means. Yeah. Well, and also that like the, you know, I mean, America is just like, I don't know, fascinating in its sort of cultural contradictions. And one is, I think, the idea that like America is supposed to be the place where you can rise above your circumstances and where like class doesn't matter. But you can forget about it racially, except that you maybe, you can probably, you probably

get away with it, but maybe, you know, because the way we undermine that promise is really, I don't know, we do it a lot. It's dumb and it's also arbitrary because on top of that all, in Kentucky, Michigan, Oregon, Plessy would have been considered legally white. So within the United States, within 29 of the states, this person would be black or not black depending on where they were in state lines. Because ultimately, the one-drop rule is not. about blackness or about black ancestry. It's about keeping whiteness as pure as possible. And that means making you have to forsake any black ancestry at all, either lie and completely forsake it, or if you claim any of it that you can't have access into white spaces at all. Right. And so when you have

mixed race people at this time period, in many ways they were kind of seen as a threat to white supremacy because so much of white supremacist thinking was that the races were different species and that the black race is inherently inferior. But then when you have, you know, attractive mixed race people that are intelligent proving the opposite, it's like, wait, what do you mean we're not two different species? And then they're not even infertile. Come on. They're not even infertile. And this, and the thing about too, like, you think, oh, this is so silly. But I bet if you went on Twitch, you can see someone saying that right now. Well, exactly. Well, right. Just look at how silly racists are today. It's like it never, the right is like mind-bendingly stupid kind of.

at any point in time if he got, you know, into the right conversations. Yeah. Which is nice. You know, if they, if they sounded good, it would. Exactly. I don't know. Right. And the preservation of power and kind of the, and I don't know, a lot of what we have

in kind of like conservative discourse, conservative being a weird word for it in this circumstances, like kind of alcoholic dad logic where it's just like, I'm going to come up with whatever I have to say to protect my own ego. And it might not even make sense, but that is not. really what we're after, you know? Exactly. And so because Alice Jones's race was not clear, it made her proceed as a threat because what if she hadn't gotten caught? You know, what if she had injected this family with their colored DNA? What if she had a child who inherited all of this, all of these castles for heaven's sakes? Exactly. The castle could be black.

And then what would we do? I think everything would be the same. Everything would be the same. for the person who got the castle. But, you know, but yeah, let's freak out about it. It's okay, yeah. And if we look at Harry and Megan, the chances are the kid would look white anyway. But that's neither here nor there. God bless Archibald. I mean, and it turns out that the thing we needed to be worrying about was, you know,

the castle being full of Trader Joe's pretzels that had been put in new bags. I'm sorry to make the one millionth reference to that, but it will never stop being funny to me. It's so good. She's like, listen, Megan Markle with that show has brought me more. joy than almost any single person around right now. So, you know, thank you. I've had the tea. I have the jam. Listen, Megan Markle, if you hear this by any chance, if you want to start a book club, let me know. I will run it for you. Oh, she should. Yeah. For just love of the game, I'll do it. Just call me, girl, anytime. Yeah, do the Reese's book club thing, Megan. Yes. You got to do it.

The Duchess's book club. There's a lot of domestic thrillers being published and I don't know which one to prioritize. Right? Yeah, the Duchess's Book Club. That would be so good. All right. Call me, Megan. But what is interesting about Alice and her family? And this is taking from a recent New York Times article that was dissecting the case is that according to records, Alice and her family didn't necessarily see themselves as black. And so this is quote from the Times article. They brought a home in a white neighborhood, sent Alice and her sisters to nearly all white public schools, and attended a well-to-do Episcal Church whose members were white. Like most white people at the time, the Joneses avoided social contact with black people. When Alice's older sister Emily married a black

man against their wishes, they exiled her for two years, allowing her back into the family only when their granddaughter was born with light skin and arborn hair. So Alice says that her father, like, never pursued himself as being colored. Now, I sent you a picture in your email of Alice Reyn-Lan and her parents. So you look at that and you tell me what you see. No judgment. Let's see. Yeah.

I mean, I see a woman with like a Penny Lane type fur jacket with big furry cuffs and a collar who is sitting with her parents standing behind her and her mom looks like a nice farm wife, I would say. I mean, that is a big compliment. And her dad, I would say, has like pretty European facial structure, but has darker skin. And she has, you know, I mean, this is a black and white photo, but it looks like she has what would maybe be described at the time as like maybe more of an olive skin tone or like. A little swarthy. Yeah. To use the language of the time. I'm like, yeah, falling into the.

Because also the 1920s, I think about like Rudolph Valentino and Theta. and like the sort of grand silent film tradition of like Italians pretending to be Arab shakes and stuff like that, you know? Exactly. And that like anyone with kind of like an olive complexion could like, and maybe this was the point that in the sort of like time of the minstrel show, we also had like in a less obvious way like the romantic roles for people of color played by white people who maybe were like Greek or something. Right. And that being, again, like part of the American dream, if you can get away with it, is like also using like racial ambiguity to like get ahead and within the sort of like wild American logic. I agree. I'm also now going to send you a picture of her sisters next to her. And I think when you look at them all together, like from my perspective, they look like a mixed race Caribbean family. Like, like, like, African, Indian, Caribbean family is what they look like to me. Like, I look at that of their features.

I'm like, if you said that they were Guyanese, I would believe you. Let's see. Yeah. And I guess I feel like my perspective is that I couldn't tell you what background I think any of them are from. But I also feel like I'm not used to trying very hard. Right. Because it's ridiculous. Yeah.

But I do think that there is sort of a visual otherness that. is very apparent, especially if he's met all of the family members, which he claims to have. Because I just don't know how you could see the father and be like, this is a capital W white family. But there's also, there's like these waves of like assimilation in the United States. And it feels like, yeah, like as, I don't know, I wonder what's going on for KIP because I feel like if I met someone and I really had feelings for them and I was like a racist young. man who was living in that world and where these were the stakes, I would maybe just be like, I'm not going to worry about it. Right.

I don't know. Because I think that like if you believe something that makes you unable to see the person in front of you as an object of love, then maybe you just like choose to ignore it in this circumstance, which is like not like a good or like right thing to do. It just feels like the brain protecting itself from the insanity around it, if that makes sense. No, for sure. That's pure speculation.

That's my Wadpad fan fiction. I don't know. I think that you have a really good point about it. And I also think that like, and this is not necessarily to erase responsibility. But he was very young relatively to the time period. He was 21 years old. He was in love. But this would be used in the trial.

Well, and people with rich families are often being piloted around like those little robots, you know. Exactly. He had to look at the Titanic, per little robot. Exactly. He wanted to be Rose and Jules. Jack. He was like, I can do that. He didn't have that dog in him, unfortunately. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. And so the case did go to trial. On the attorney for Kip was a man named Isaac Mills. And he presented Kip as this weak, fragile, innocent boy who was taken in by this older

woman and that she misrepresented who she was and that Leonard had married her believing she was white and he would not have married her if he had known otherwise. And he said that by looking at Alice, you couldn't tell what her race was and that the whole family had attempted to hide evidence of their race to purposely find white men. Because that's hard to do. A white man. You got to trick him. To quote Schmidt, a white man.

No. Oh my God. It's also interesting because it's like criminal. The criminalizing the behavior that American law has incentivized to this point, you know, as you've been saying, where it's like you have to abandon your roots in order to pass effectively. And therefore, that's like what you're supposed to do. But in this case, it's fraud actually. Yeah. So it's almost like you can't win.

Exactly. But that couldn't be. Not in America. Right. Exactly. It can't happen here. Not here. Not guns in our area.

Mills described Leonard as like. feeble-minded because he didn't have a mommy growing up and that his blood was made hot by this vampy woman, this older dusky woman. Oh, yeah. There you go. Dusky. And he said, how could a youth with such a sense of personal inferiority help but succumb to and be delighted in the company of an adoring, attractive girl whose social inferiority was in a way a charm? Which I got to tell you, that's not really a defense. Yeah, aren't they just saying that he fell in love with her and that was wrong of her to be lovable, actually? Yeah. And the defense is that the girl can't help it. Exactly. I mean, look, I know this is all very serious and horrible, but it's like, you guys, you sound

idiotic. It's so dumb because they took it so seriously. And also, when you look at pictures of Kip, which I will show you one later, I'll say it's a very rough 21. I mean, I'm imagining Kip from Napoleon dynamite and I'm enjoying mental image as well. I will show you the picture of him afterwards, but it's very much like, huh, 21, you say.

But graduating class of 2026, wear sunscreen, yeah. Exactly. Every day. The fence, which was Alice's side, essentially opened their testimony with a bang by saying,

all right, Alice admits that she's colored, which before she had been denying it, she was like, colored. What does that even mean? I don't understand. But now they're like, she's like the Jones family admits that she has some quote unquote colored blood. And that in itself is like an ambiguous dedication. But the defense was attempting to say, if you look at Alice, her father and her siblings, this is clearly a mixed race group of people. And that part of why they were confused is because the racial categories in America were not the same as they were in England. And in England, George Jones, you know, Alice's father, had been accepted as an equal by the whites and that he was like East Indian and that he would

never have perceived himself as having black ancestry until they arrived in the United States and they were considered black here. Which then brings us. to the issue of, was this even a black family to begin with? And we don't know. It's not something that, like, you know, they didn't do like an ancestry.com about it. And after the trial, they would make a lot of ambiguous statements about it. But ultimately, what this case illustrates is that in America, you were at large, either black or white. And that if you were going to try and gain rights in the country. You had to align yourself more with being white than being black. And so what mattered is is that some people would look at them and perceive them in that way. But what the lawyer for Alice was

trying to prove is that Kip had been in a relationship with her for three years. They had been intimate together. And so there's no way he did not know that this is what she looked like. I don't know. I find that it's like this is becoming like a grad school seminar. I feel like this whole trial because it feels like, I don't know, that this is like perhaps undermining the whole concept of racial categories in the United States because it feels like one of the questions it's asking is like, well, if you don't notice yourself being racialized or like placed in categories by the people around you, then like, is that different? I mean, what do you think about this whole conversation that you can see people having through all this? Well, it's interesting

because it's still kind of happening. Right. It feels like it is. Like we're seeing this sort of revive itself. Yeah. And like people like still using weird racial science. Like people use the term monoracial sometimes. And I'm like, huh.

I hadn't heard that one yet. That's weird. Yeah. It's a weird thing. And like most people are not monoracial. Like that's like we are all like. That's like bragging that you're like more easy to be taken out by a virus or something. It just, it's a way of trying to this.

I think it's a, it's a response. to the fact that we have a lot of for people of color, a lot of mixed race people who become sort of the icons and the archetype of that ethnic group and wanting it to be more reflective of people who have two black parents who did not necessarily come from like an interracial mixing. However, like, that's an issue largely of like colorism and phenotype, not necessarily anything to do with like racial purity. And I think rather than actually have a much larger conversation about what features get highlighted and like what features are common amongst which groups of people, it becomes

like monoracial and it's like, unfortunately, I think we've lost the plot in certain ways about that. And it really just pulled from this same racialized language that the Rhinelander family was attempting to use in this case. idea of like you can just tell and it's like clearly you can't right yeah i also misunderstood initially and thought that that was a new term that white people were pulling out to i don't know no everyone everyone is kind of using it and i feel especially what we've had like the far right podcasters using like christian nationalism and like what's white culture like we're seeing it all across the board

i think in the states especially is everyone trying to define their version of americans identity and how it intersects with their racial identity. And it's a mess because these people don't read books. Well, and also because I feel like we're in the sort of the great nuance flattening time where not that I think that like a conversation at a certain scale like inevitably loses some degree of nuance and I don't know what to do about that. But yeah, I don't know. It is clear to me that Christian nationalism as a phrase is just like a cover for white

supremacy. Yeah. And not a very clever one. And an a historical one because it's like, God forbid, you tell them that Thomas Jefferson was a deist and they're like, but that's the same thing. It's like, no, no, it's not. Yeah. Yeah. It feels like the way that American law is trying to define blackness and whiteness ever since, you know, the Civil War and Reconstruction is in relation to slavery. And it feels like that is part of this like national. construction of race that we don't necessarily articulate but seem to often be pointing towards in cases like this. Exactly.

And the idea of like if you come from a culture that has a different relationship to slavery and one that ended a longer time ago and that people in South Carolina still refer to it as if it's within living memory today, then, you know, then yeah, then how I don't know. And then the fact of like our beliefs about race still relating. specifically to slavery, I feel like our, I don't know, that's my read on it. It's, I don't know, it feels like we're still, and when you're talking about Jamestown and the kind of, you know, miscegenation laws that existed then, it felt like what we're kind of seeing thinly veiled behind this rhetoric now, which is this idea of like, well, white people are going to become a

minority. And it's like, oh, yeah, why are we so worried about that? Why are we afraid of being outnumbered? What did we do? The scariest thing about studying any kind of history is when you realize, oh, we've been doing this over and over again, like, Eurytese and Orpheus. Like, it never, it never stops. Yeah. And what, also, what's the deal in mythology with women not being able to look back? Women like looking back.

It's fine. We're pensive. But then you become salt. You're going to be salt if you look back. Come on. She just wanted to see it the one time. No, you're going to be salt. You have to listen.

What if she was making sure they didn't forget something? Nope. Salt. Okay. So is this like a huge news story as well? It's a massive news story. Black and white papers are all covering it. The South is like, you see, this is what happens when you don't have laws on the books.

Oh, no. Black women get castles. Exactly. Oh, dear. This black woman almost made her way into the coffers. And the black newspapers are like, what is this all white male Jerry going to say? Because it's just an interesting conversation of like, well, what is going to happen? And like, how are they going to present themselves?

What if they, too, love her pretty face? Exactly. And so it was interesting because Kip then takes the stand. He was the first. And the defense really tore him apart because his lawyers presented him as this kind of like bumbling, you know, soft-spoken guy. And he's just kind of like a normal. dude. I do love it when you see a lawyer take the approach of like, Your Honor, my client,

you could kill him by putting a scratch and sniff sticker at the bottom of a pool. Exactly. And one of the things that really made the case so prolific is they published some of the letters that Kip wrote to Alice in the news. And I'm going to send you a passage right now. Wow. This really is. great news. Okay. Oh my God. All right. So this is Kip. Yes. This is Kip. He writes, All day long, I have been dreading this very moment and thinking, how can I ever write Alice tonight? Because, dear, do you realize this will be the last letter you will get from me for probably two weeks? That's the reason, darling. I hate to sit down at this desk tonight because it will be

a long, long time before I can mail you another one. And dear, it will be a longer time still. I'm sorry to say before that letter reaches you. Last night, sweetheart, after writing three full pages to you, I undressed and scrambled into bed, but not to go to sleep. No, baby. Do you know what I did? Something that you do when my letters arrive at night. It is like, it's.

it's also there's something so kind of like eternally voyeuristic about like looking at this relationship that used to have people so gaga for each other or at least him and then ended up in court and just being like ah how does this happen right because you know in this case of racism partly but yeah that's uh wow that was great i liked it i know and men should write more letters they should women just love a letter exactly and so now I'm putting this passage to you. And I'll be Davis. You can still be Leonard. Leonard. Oh, my God. Great. And so this is their back and forth of what happened after he read the letter. This is great. So Davis is the lawyer for Jones. Didn't you do this to excite her?

I had no way of relieving my emotions except in my letters in which I put my whole heart and soul. Is that really an answer? How did you relieve your emotion? before you met Alice. I didn't. You realize this was just smut. Yes, I was trying to keep my word of honor. In order to keep your word of honor, it was necessary to write this smut? Yes.

Did you mean what you wrote? Yes. Then you admit you were tempting this girl. No, I was merely asking a question. Did you want an answer? No. And so it was and so everyone hearing this was like, oh my God. And yeah.

There's another portion where he says he wanted to have sex with that woman he married. Oh my God. He wanted to have sex with her. And he wants to pretend that he didn't know. She was colored. And so he talks about when he bathed her and the first time they made love and that they would never forget as long as they lived. And so the court is hearing these lessons. And people are saying that he released these letters as a way to shame her and that it was indecent. And that because it's not

gentlemanly for him to have released these letters, it actually goes against her that he did that. All right. 1924. Yes. And my favorite thing that he wrote is, lay it on me. Ha, is right here. This is going to be the last thing I just got you. Romance. Okay. Oh, sweetheart.

Many, many nights when I lay in bed and think about my darling girl, it acts the very same way and lungs for your warm body to crawl upon me. Take it in your soft, smooth hands and then work it up very slowly between your open legs. Three exclamation points. Oh, my God. I think he's talking about sex. That's how you know it's good. That's three exclamation parts.

Mm-hmm. Ah, that's, it's so cute. It is like, it's very 21-year-old, I think. I know. And then in another letter, he goes, Do you remember Honeybunch? How I used to put my head between your legs. When my lips and tongue were making you so happy,

you used to say to me, Oh, Len, you were in heaven, dear. And at this time, oral sex was a criminal offense. Oh, my God. Let's do an episode on that next. Mm-hmm. Man. A reporter said that the second letter was the most unspeakable document that was ever introduced into a court record.

Oh, an enthusiastic description of going down on your girlfriend. All right, whatever. Exactly. And as the Times article says is that Leonard's delight in providing sexual gratification to Alice earned him universal condemnation in the press as abnormal and perverted. Okay. It's great. It's so funny because they're just like, the lawyer will go, so you loved her and he's like, yes.

And you wanted to be with her. Yes. But not if she was colored. And he's like, also yes. And I was just like, sir, get a clue. I mean, what's your personal opinion? Do you think that he knew all along and then went along with his family? I would say so.

Yeah. He claims that he thought that she was Spanish, like, as in from Spain. But I definitely feel like, especially with how it took him a few weeks to get through it, I think he assumed that his parents would eventually just be okay with it, that they would love him, and he's the baby boy, and he would be able to do it. And the fact that they would not acquiesce, I think that's when he really realized that he really did not have the ability to be disinherited. Hmm. Yeah. I mean, that's like, I don't know. a classic American story of a guy biting off a lot more than he can chew and real people paying the consequences and just, I don't know, weakness.

Exactly. Rich kids, et cetera. Yeah. And I think that's also why people were so surprised and are still sort of like, you know, how people talk about Harry leaving the royal family and how they make it all about Megan. Because the idea that he willingly, quote unquote, gave up being a royal for her. It could never be like his own autonomy. It has to be like she forced him to do it. I kind of feel like maybe he was like, I mean, who wants it?

Looking for an escape route. Right. Exactly. And with this, he got to be like, I'm protecting my wife. That's my wife. Right. Don't touch my wife. You know, and it can be heroic as opposed to him having an emotional need, which God

knows is illegal. Right. Exactly. You know, it's like there's so many reasons why you would not want to live that life anymore. That's for sure. Exactly. And I think so many people want to be. blame Megan Markle because I always joke that people can't believe that a man would actually sacrifice

something for a woman that he respected. And I'm like, that's just because you're used to the usual machinations of the British Royal family, where they're just having a fair and be miserable for thousands of years. But no, sometimes a man can choose to put his wife first and learn lessons from history. Who would have thought? Yeah, well, nothing makes us more hostile than growth. Yeah. So what all of these letters did, and what I think is interesting, about this case from a gendered perspective is that what worked in Alice's favor is that she performed gender very well. Like she was very embarrassed. She was very shamed by the letters being presented. She dressed very nicely. So while Kip is kind of fumbling and drinking a bunch of water and getting

nervous, she's very demure. She's being very much flustered. And that really played well to the jury. And so all these letters are being sent out through the press in the magazines. But the biggest thing that happened is Alice, in order to prove that there is no way that Kip could not tell her race removes part of her clothes. So they get rid of the press. Wow. And it's just a jury. And she partially disrobes bearing her breasts back and legs before the court. And whose idea?

Is this a defense's idea? It is their idea. Huh. What do we know about what she thinks about doing that? What we can infer from it is that she was clearly embarrassed by it. Yeah. That it was embarrassing. But her lawyer felt like that was the strongest piece of evidence to prove that she wasn't

deceiving anyone and he spent days convincing her to submit it as a quote unquote color examination. I know. I know. And it's so there were there were no reporters or photographs in the room. But she was weeping. She was crying. She had her underwear on and a long coat. And it's really gruesome to think about. And there's this great line from Love on the trial, which I think kind of encompasses what I think the trial says about race in America and what it means for Alice to have done that. And I'm going to put that in the chat right now. Yeah. Would you like me to read that? If you don't mind, my dear. Yeah, of course. Okay. The book says, even if she had no ancestry that tied her to an African past, she was black in the eyes of most

who read or heard about the deliberation in the Westchester County Court. Alice was neither the first or the last African-American woman asked or forced to bear her body to satisfy the needs and curiosities of white men. In an insidious fashion, the viewing of Alice's body, the fact she didn't speak, the extent to which others redramatized the moment, truly objectified Alice and made her an item to be viewed and desired. In effect, the display of Alice became pornographic. But her ordeal was intended to help her win the case.

What did Davis think the jurors would see? And so after it was over, she put her coat back on and Leonard and the jurors came back into the courtroom. And Davis, Alice's lawyer, asked one final question. Your wife's body is the same shade as it was when you saw her in the Marie Antoinette Hotel with all of her clothing removed. Yes, Leonard replied, that's all. And so the jury retired on Friday, December 4th. 12 hours later, they emerge with a verdict. Do you want to guess what happened?

Oh, my God, I have no idea, but I just feel like maybe it's not going to work out for Alice because when does it ever for women? I'm going to be hopeful. I'm going to say that they found in her favor somehow. Did they? They found in her favor. Oh, my God. They, except for one holdout. Hmm, of course.

They all agreed. Twelve angry men. Exactly. It's always, they all pretty much said that, like, if you looked at her, you would be able to tell what her ethnicity was. That she wasn't white, essentially. They basically said that did she hide the fact that she was brown? No. Did she conceal her race? No. Had he married her thinking that she was white, no. Would he have married her knowing she was colored? Yes. So essentially, like, he knew. that she was this, he wanted her, he wanted her sexually, and now he was attempting to discard her because it was inconvenient. So it was wokely racist. And she was found, you know, to be in favor. And W.E. Du Bois said of the event, quote, if Rilander had used this girl as a concubine or prostitute, white America would have raised no

word of protest. It is when he legally and decently marries the girl that all hell breaks loose and literally tears the pair apart. Yeah. Well, and I mean what and who knows what clenched it right? But I mean, what do you make of the question of like, okay, so they got that result. But if they had to have her show her naked body to the jury in order to get there, then was that worth it? I mean, I know that's impossible to answer. But yeah, I guess what do you think about all that? It's hard to decide, right? Because in many ways, she beat them. Right. And the legal profession involves making horrible choices all the time. Exactly. So it's not like there's like a secret great way through a lot of the time, I don't think. Exactly. I think what she went through was extraordinary dehumanizing. It's like no matter what result the jury

comes back with, like the trial has fulfilled the job of dehumanizing her. Exactly. And do to her own counsel's decisions too, which makes it worse in a way, maybe. Yeah. And it's worth noting that Kip appealed the verdict several times, but it was upheld every time. And he disappeared from public life and ended up living in Nevada. And Alice remained in New York. And she filed a separation suit against him, charging him with abandonment. And in December of 1929, Kip was granted a divorce by default.

fault in Las Vegas, but it was not recognized in New York. Eventually, Kip was ordered to pay Alice a lump sum of $3,600 a year for the remainder of her life, which was $300 a month. In return, she forfeited all claims to the Rhinelander estate and agreed not to use the name or speak publicly about it for the rest of her life. Well, that's a terrible deal, I think. She She can't even do a one-woman show or write a memoir. I know. So that was the agreement that she made. But things did not turn out perfectly for Kip anyway.

He passed away fairly young. Basically, it seems that he did regret that he broke his vows. And he once did write to Alice, but he died of Famonia at the age of 32. And she outlived him. She never remarried. She died September 13th, 1989 at the age of 90. But she said to a reporter afterwards, I never loved anybody but Leonard and I will never love anyone else. And when she was buried, her headstone says Alice J. Rhinelander.

And Kip is buried at his family plot in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, which I went to a few years. years ago and I saw and it is very nice actually. If you're going to be dead, honey. I know. I walked all over that goddamn cemetery because it's huge. If you've never been to Woodlawn Cemetery, it's incredible how many people are buried there. So many historical figures, so many rich people. And it's just in the Bronx. You can just go there for free. I want to go. When you come visit, we should go. We can go peruse. I would love that. It's a nice. walk. We can take the train up. So essentially that happened. And after the trial, no one tell Ryan Murphy about any of this. Oh my God. You know, you know it's coming. Yeah. It's coming. I mean,

whatever. Nisi Nash needs money. Good for her. Listen. And that's who we're rooting for. So at the time, this was like, again, a very big trial. It's mentioned in the book passing by Nella Larson. Oh, wow. She mentions the Rilander case and part of dialogue. It also is in two Oscar Michelle films, the black filmmaker. It appears in The House Behind the Cedars and 30 years later, which are two very early silent films. Wow. They're considered lost films, but we do know from records that they've dealt a lot with these kind of misnigation issues and like the one drop rule.

And also it was the basis for a movie called Night of the Quarter Moon starring John Drew Barrymore, where the premise is a young man returns home with a new bride, but his family objects when they learn she is of mixed race. Oh, boy. I probably should see that. I have not watched it yet. And I was like, but so we can do that together as well. Because it's Julie London playing the mixed race woman.

Now, she does not look mixed race, but she does look fabulous. I'll give her that. And, you know, we'll take it. I mean, what do you think? Because I don't know, this is just like such a, this feels like a revealing story to try and digest. And I feel sort of like there's just so much to it that my brain is still trying to put together. But I mean, do you think that you became really focused on this because it revealed to you something about who we are as a country that we're maybe not talking about as my, although, of course, everyone knows like, no one is talking about this. And it's like, I don't know how much stuff we're supposed to be talking about the entire time.

But I mean, yeah, do you think it shows something about our character? So the reason why it was so interesting to me is because it primarily because it took place in New York. And people who know me know being a New Yorker is a big part of my personality. And we usually talk about race and issues of races being primarily an issue in the South. And I think it's always important to remember that these issues of race are very much a countrywide issue that even in, you know, liberal places where again, interracial relationships were not illegal. There was actually no legal reason why he had to annul the marriage. He only did it because his family was opposed to him mixing racially with this woman. no matter how minute that mixing was. And I found that to be very significant.

And, you know, we talk about Loving v. Virginia. And I think even now, people on Black TikTok and Black Twitter, will make kind of jokes about how lot of interracial couples make it their entire personality that they are in an interracial relationship. And that is funny. Those are good jokes. But I do think that we don't necessarily understand how radical it is to choose love over money. that while this relationship didn't work out, there were couples that did choose to marry and be together

and make that choice and take on the persecution that came with it. And that that is something that happened within many of our lifetimes. And that even now, we still do not see women getting chosen and black women getting chosen in that same kind of way. And I also think what it matters to me is like at the time where Megan Markle and Prince Harry were married, even though there was so much discourse around like, you know, is Megan Markle black? You know, is she a black woman when she is this lighter skin? And also what Obama was running for president. I remember right now, which is just like, what are we doing? We had so little horrible things to talk about. We really got what we were asking for. Yeah. But I think the conversation happens, not just in white spaces, but also black space. of like, who is, how do we consider blackness? And I think they serve as a reminder that doesn't matter how much white ancestry you may have. If you are perceived as black, seen as a black person in mainstream society, you will still get treated with anti-blackness.

Alice was a woman who, by her own testimony, had not dealt with racism. And so now all of a sudden, she has to be naked and essentially put herself in a metaphorical slave block. Because also, as one article brought out that I thought was really important, this is not that far removed from the slave trade. Right. There were definitely people alive whose parents had been enslaved, who had dealt with those kind of situations,

both white people selling and black people being sold. So she's not even separate from that. Like, these things are still proliferating. Even when you think this is the north and people are free, these elements are still so there. And I think it also just speaks to, Kip's personality. Like, I can't imagine loving someone and putting them through that.

No. I think it speaks to his weakness of character. And I think that's also why the jury didn't side with him. Because I think fundamentally that that thought he was, you know, forget my language. I thought he was being kind of a little bitch. They're like, we're racist, but be a man. Yeah, literally. Like, you're supposed to be the white man and you're out here, like, talking about oral sex and being like, I didn't know she was black.

I think, and this was a rare case where they were like, sorry, you're not performing your gender as a white man properly. I guess it feels like a telling thing about this as far as I can tell that no matter how the jury finds, you have to return to the auction block again and be assessed, you know, naked and be dehumanized. And so no matter how the trial goes, it like serves the needs of racism. And it also feels like these conversations and these laws and, you know, during this period and I think in many ways now are often about sort of policing what whiteness is supposed to be as well. And that sort of, I don't know. I don't think I have an observation beyond that, but just that it's, it sucks and it's. gross. It sucks and it's gross. Yeah, that's all. Yeah. It sucks. It's gross. And it also, I think sometimes we talk about like Cinderella stories and these class stories and we're like, love prevails. Love doesn't always prevail.

Right. And I think that's sad. I do think that that's the sad part of it is that sometimes there's a trial. Yeah. Like I think that even if they did for a one point love each other, the fact that they were pushed apart is tragic. and that he was so weak of character that he could not, you know, he couldn't love her and be there for her and allowed himself to be pushed out of the family. You know, even though Wallace Simpson was an evil Nazi, the King of England still stopped being the King of England to marry her. You know what I mean? Like, have some dignity. Right. I guess it's, it maybe is like the most revealing thing or it kind of puts the society that created this whole thing on trial to.

have a world where that was a legal matter to begin with or where this argument of fraud makes sense. I don't know. Yeah, I just think it's very telling. I feel like the kind of historical record that we preserve is based a lot on the kind of biography that we're trying to write about ourselves as a country. And I think that that's probably why history never stops being interesting. Because there's, you know, this, I, look, there are better students than me and a whole lot of them too. but this is not a story that I ever heard about that I can recall until you mentioned it to me, you know, and I imagine it's not something that came up for you in like a high school curriculum either. Yeah, and I think the fact that we can still find all these things and learning is just, I don't know,

it's incredible and I love it. And I'm glad that we could talk about that. Yeah. Especially because it's a bonus episode. It's light and it's fun. But I think it's also just, it's so relevant to the way in which that we're still, figuring out as a society how to talk about race and gender and the performance of those things. So, yeah. And enjoying having sex with your wife. Go down on your wife.

Can you imagine? It's like the Sopranos episode. Do your part for America or whatever country you're in. It's like in the Sopranos when they fed out that like Uncle Jr. And they're like, whoa, literally the same energy. This is like, I don't know, I guess I'm asking you to like sell history, which is a funny thing. But like, I don't know. Just like I find history to be very comforting in this like particularly in this absolutely

most dramatic season ever of the United States, at least within living memory. And I wonder like, I don't know, for people, for my hypothetical person out there who's like, oh, shucks, but why study history? Isn't it just a big drag? Like, what would you say? Oh, my God. What would you say to Timmy? To me, the answers are right there.

Funny enough, to give a perfect example, I was just watching a series called Outrageous, and it's all about the Midford Sisters, which for those who don't know, is like... Oh, yeah. They really got up to a lot. Yeah, it's this family, this British family of aristocratic girls who half of them became Nazis. One of them became a communist, and it's a fascinating look at how. how fascism develops in a family and how, like, you don't realize what's going to happen until it does.

Because you watch it and you, and they don't know World War II is coming. They don't know what Hitler's going to do. But we as an audience know. And just seeing how gullible they are and how I think one of the most surreal things right now is how dumb this era of fascism is. But that's real. It's almost always like this. And it always has been.

It's almost like fascism. is the, you know, political belief system of people who don't think things through very well. Yeah. It's unnerving. And it just shows that like, unless you learn the dog whistles, unless you learn the issues, you're all, the mistakes are going to keep being repeated. Right. Because you have to really sit with the discomfort of what it means to, to have survived something terrible so that you don't do it again. Yeah. And I feel like, I don't know, I find it empowering in the sense of like pretending I'm like Clarice Starling or something. Like I'm sure we all like to do.

We're like, you know, especially looking at American history, the same culprits recur over time. And it's, you know, often corporations who built a lot of people with like pretty horrific consequences for the people they fooled. But like some nice profit for the people who fooled them. And that really happens over and over. And just, you know, the idea of cutting labor costs and the sort of. and the sort of the dynamics that appear again and again. Like, if you can understand these cycles, then I think that you have at least a sense of where to put your energy

when you see them recurring the way that they do. Exactly. It's worth it. Yeah, it is. What are you working on? What do you have out that people should enjoy? You do a lot of great stuff. Oh, thank you. I currently have, as a great pairing for this,

a video currently out about the Tragic Malado, but I am right now currently editing a video about AI and romance chatbots and like this era of loneliness and longing for companionship that we're dealing with. And then hopefully I'm going to talk about child run dystopias because, you know, there's a new hunger games coming out. We got a new Laura the Flaws coming out. Oh, boy. We got a lot to discuss about the kids are not okay. Yeah. And I'm really excited for that.

And I love everything you do. And I love you. And I love you. And let's just like talk about lots more horrifying history all the time. Hell yeah.