Latest / 22 Panels - A Comic Book Podcast / 22 Panels & Psychocomicology: Joy, Resistance, Hope, & Survival Book Club & Support Group #9 - Big Jim & The White Boy

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22 Panels & Psychocomicology: Joy, Resistance, Hope, & Survival Book Club & Support Group #9 - Big Jim & The White Boy · 22 Panels - A Comic Book Podcast

0:02
Tad Eggleston: Good evening, everybody! Welcome back to the
0:06
Tad Eggleston: Joy, Resistance, Hope and Survival Book Club, and Support Group with Psycho Comicology and 22 Panels. We took… we took December off, cause… cause, Lee and… Lee and…
0:20
Tad Eggleston: Dr. Ramos discovered that opening a comic shop required more of their time and energy than they had anticipated.
0:28
Tad Eggleston: Which is awesome, because it means they have a comic shop for me to go to, but… but it also… it also means that they were tired. And they're still tired. I'm looking at Edgar's face, and it's… it's tired.
0:44
Dr. Edgar Ramos: Yeah, I can't lie, huh? I'm tired.
0:48
Tad Eggleston: Lee's too young for his own good.
0:51
Tad Eggleston: He doesn't… he doesn't look as tired?
0:54
Larry Woods: Good! Well, I just got done sipping on the coffee up until about 7 o'clock, and I've got some sugar in my system now, so…
1:01
Tad Eggleston: There you go! I'm still gonna blame it on you just being too young for your own good.
1:07
Larry Woods: I will take that.
1:11
Tad Eggleston: You guys got to meet my grandkids and my kid today, and my mom and my brothers, so say hi to Adam and Mom.
1:19
Tad Eggleston: Cause they'll be listening.
1:22
Larry Woods: Hello, thank you.
1:23
Tad Eggleston: Thanks for…
1:24
Larry Woods: Coming in.
1:26
Larry Woods: Pleasure to meet y'all.
1:27
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, they bought stuff, too. They gave you money.
1:31
Dr. Edgar Ramos: That's always a positive.
1:32
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mom wouldn't even take my discount.
1:36
Dr. Edgar Ramos: Really?
1:37
Tad Eggleston: Well, I mean, it started with Lee forgetting to give it to her, but…
1:42
Tad Eggleston: No, it was a long day.
1:46
Tad Eggleston: Well, and she did go up there after I was done, before I came back with Jonah to make certain that he got the discount, so she kind of, like, slipped in.
1:57
Tad Eggleston: But…
1:58
Larry Woods: Thanks, Mom.
1:59
Tad Eggleston: You know. Yeah, thanks, Mom.
2:01
Tad Eggleston: Anyway… Big Jim and the White Boy, which, I'm excited that we
2:08
Tad Eggleston: re-read this, because I… I love it, love it, love it some more. And I've talked about it a ton, multiple times, so I'm gonna… I'm gonna ask you guys for your take first, because I'm… I'm curious…
2:22
Tad Eggleston: Curious as to what you thought, what your impressions were, etc.
2:30
Larry Woods: I'll jump in, because it's… thinking about the group.
2:34
Larry Woods: the podcast that we're on, Joy, Resistance, Hope, and Survival, Tad, I think you did an excellent job of highlighting all four of those in this book.
2:44
Larry Woods: And, without going too much into it quite yet.
2:48
Tad Eggleston: I mean, it has been out for a year, so we can spoil some.
2:52
Larry Woods: That, that's fair. Yeah.
2:54
Larry Woods: Is that, yeah, it definitely spoke of survival.
2:58
Larry Woods: In many ways, especially the sort of,
3:02
Larry Woods: reimagination of, Huckleberry Finn, but also Like, much more of that… humanistic side of Jim.
3:12
Larry Woods: And what it's like to be a slave, and especially, specifically within that Missouri…
3:20
Larry Woods: Kansas region, which was something that I was not necessarily the most well-read on.
3:27
Larry Woods: But… through that sort of journey, I saw the… Hope?
3:34
Larry Woods: the story that he kept saying over and over about his wife and kids, and I think he even said… no one knows how many people he told, but the fact that he kept saying it as a way to keep that story alive, and
3:49
Larry Woods: keep that hope, I thought was very profound, until,
3:54
Larry Woods: Until later events in the book happened.
3:57
Larry Woods: But yeah, for me, I definitely felt…
4:00
Larry Woods: Some things, especially when it came to the stories that…
4:05
Larry Woods: Huck and Jim were telling as older individuals, and especially when it came to those tough times.
4:14
Larry Woods: and how they got through it, and it definitely evoked some emotion within me as I read it.
4:20
Tad Eggleston: I really like that framing device, too, where actually they have the dual framing device, because on one level, it's the descendant of Jim.
4:30
Tad Eggleston: Telling her granddaughter the story.
4:35
Tad Eggleston: But she's telling the story that her… Grandfather Jim.
4:41
Tad Eggleston: told her…
4:44
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, I thought that was… That was a cool framing device.
4:51
Tad Eggleston: How about you, Edgar?
4:54
Dr. Edgar Ramos: I, I enjoyed it. I thought it, it was an, it was an interesting take, to say the least. It was definitely an interesting take in seeing how, essentially role reversal.
5:05
Dr. Edgar Ramos: is what I thought was interesting, is, you know, and we see that, we're seeing that
5:12
Dr. Edgar Ramos: a lot is the other perspective, and I think it speaks to this… the idea or ideology of
5:17
Dr. Edgar Ramos: history, or quite simply, his story, in that we're looking at the perspective of his story from the other side, and I thought that's what was beautifully done. I was telling Lee that, I'm like, look, it's an easy read, and I don't mean easy by any means, that it's just a simple read. I mean easy in that once you start to read it, you're just gonna keep going and finish it in one shot. Like, it's just…
5:40
Tad Eggleston: Right.
5:40
Dr. Edgar Ramos: straight forward, I can just…
5:41
Tad Eggleston: You won't put it down.
5:42
Dr. Edgar Ramos: Yeah, and I mean, that's… that's how it was for me, at least, and I figured, I mean, I would assume we would find it that way as well, so I thought that was… that was what was cool about it, and it's just the storytelling, and it's so symbolic of our cultural roots, of how it's a story… it's a telling of a story through storytelling.
6:01
Tad Eggleston: Right.
6:01
Dr. Edgar Ramos: And I thought that was very, you know, like, that's pretty damn cool, like, you know, because that's… that's how our history was preserved, you know, like, you know, everything else was taken, you know, all written… the written word was… was decimated, to say the least, in many of, you know, our cultural groups.
6:20
Dr. Edgar Ramos: But to see… to see the storytelling is always like, yeah, that's how we keep our culture alive, that's how we keep our story alive, and that's how he kept his story alive, is through his granddaughter, and I thought that was just beautiful. So, yeah, so to start off, yeah, I'll say that is… it was well done, very well done.
6:39
Tad Eggleston: So, this came out… roughly the same time as Percival Everett's… Pulitzer Prize-winning James.
6:48
Tad Eggleston: Which is one of the reasons I don't think this has got its due yet, because James came out a little bit earlier, and there's always… always more fanfare around the… the novel than the graphic novel, because, like, the world doesn't get it yet, and, like, comics are where it's at, and…
7:07
Tad Eggleston: I don't know how many times I can shout that from the rooftops before people start listening. But…
7:14
Tad Eggleston: Both of the books… You know, I try very, very hard to be…
7:25
Tad Eggleston: open-minded, and see things from other perspectives, and aware of my privilege, that sort of thing. And both of the books
7:35
Tad Eggleston: made me…
7:41
Tad Eggleston: Think about, my privilege…
7:47
Tad Eggleston: Just from being a semi-affluent white guy, and really, the semi-affluent part barely matters, just from being…
7:56
Tad Eggleston: a white American, right?
8:00
Tad Eggleston: in a different way, because of one thing, and this is where I'm going to ask Lee a question, because I'm assuming that Dr. Ramos is going to have a slightly different answer, because he's not from the dominant
8:16
Tad Eggleston: I'm a white American. The world was made for me.
8:24
Tad Eggleston: I'd read Huckleberry Finn a lot of times. Never before…
8:29
Tad Eggleston: James, and then Big Jim and the White Boy, had I even thought about…
8:36
Tad Eggleston: Why does… why does Jim stay with Huck?
8:40
Tad Eggleston: Why doesn't Jim get the fuck away from this boy that's just gonna get him killed?
8:46
Larry Woods: It had never crossed my mind.
8:49
Tad Eggleston: That there was anything weird about
8:53
Tad Eggleston: The runaway slave sticking around and helping the poor white boy.
9:02
Tad Eggleston: But both of the books…
9:05
Tad Eggleston: decided that that was a major question that needed to be answered. And this is where I'll say… again, I've said it many times,
9:16
Tad Eggleston: this one answered it in both a more realistic and a more daring way than James did, because in…
9:28
Tad Eggleston: In James, it's… I think in James, it was actually his son?
9:38
Tad Eggleston: And it was involved, like, it was the consensual relationship that obviously they… you weren't allowed to have, because a white woman wasn't allowed to have. But… but they decided that since the boy could pass, he could grow up with…
9:52
Tad Eggleston: Whereas here.
9:55
Tad Eggleston: you know, it's been long enough that I'll go ahead and get… give it away. Like, it's the product of…
10:01
Tad Eggleston: Jim's sisters.
10:03
Tad Eggleston: Rape.
10:05
Tad Eggleston: At the hands of a white man.
10:08
Tad Eggleston: So the fact that, okay, we've got the family tie-in, that's… That's enough to get him…
10:16
Tad Eggleston: To stick around, but it also creates that whole other level of…
10:21
Tad Eggleston: whatnot. I mean, it makes me laugh that the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel for adults, I thought, took the safer route than
10:31
Tad Eggleston: And, YA graphic novel.
10:35
Tad Eggleston: That didn't even win an Eisner, sadly. It was nominated!
10:40
Tad Eggleston: But Gene Lu and Yang couldn't lose last year.
10:45
Tad Eggleston: So, I mean…
10:50
Tad Eggleston: I guess I'm asking both of you, but Lee in particular, I mean, was that something that struck you the way it struck me? And was it something… I mean, what experience with Huckleberry Finney had you had before? And had you ever really considered, okay, so why is Jim… why does Jim care?
11:07
Tad Eggleston: Like, it shocked me when it, when it, like, sunk in that, like, oh, like…
11:13
Tad Eggleston: This is a central question for any Black person reading this book, and one that never even occurred to me.
11:21
Tad Eggleston: I'm like, okay, this is a new definition of…
11:25
Tad Eggleston: privilege to me, is when I'm suddenly confronted with the question that's blindingly obvious, but never occurred to me.
11:34
Tad Eggleston: Until it was, like, spelled out.
11:38
Larry Woods: Yeah, as I sit here and kind of reflect on part of your question, I'm thinking about the first time I read it, which is a… was a part of my, I think, either middle school or high school… Right.
11:51
Larry Woods: things, and I definitely remember…
11:57
Larry Woods: I just remember not really thinking too hard about it, and I think at the very least, it was…
12:06
Larry Woods: Jim was… Being loyal to this white kid?
12:10
Tad Eggleston: And just taking care of this white kid, because at the…
12:13
Larry Woods: Base level of it, it's a kid.
12:16
Tad Eggleston: That's how I…
12:18
Larry Woods: If I.
12:18
Tad Eggleston: But I barely even thought of it as a white kid. It was Jim taking care of a kid. Of course he's taking care of a kid. Why wouldn't you take care of a kid? You know, because it didn't go through my head. Because if you get caught taking care of the kid, you're gonna get hung from a tree.
12:33
Larry Woods: Yup.
12:35
Larry Woods: Yeah.
12:36
Tad Eggleston: Because they're gonna decide that you kidnapped the kid!
12:40
Larry Woods: Yup.
12:41
Larry Woods: Which played a scene in one of the.
12:44
Tad Eggleston: I did!
12:45
Larry Woods: there, so… So, as I think about it now, is that… Yeah, I can see that…
12:54
Larry Woods: connection, and I am one of those people that when I read books, even watch movies, for that matter, I… my suspension of disbelief is so good. Like, you can walk me through so much, and I'm right there with you, so long as it's not incredibly ridiculous. So, like, for me.
13:12
Tad Eggleston: So, like, Spider-Man just doesn't work for you, because, like, a radioactive spider… I mean, come on!
13:19
Larry Woods: It's like, okay, man, like, I get the spider bite, but… I know that Edgar's tired, because I didn't even get a grin there.
13:27
Tad Eggleston: He's like, Spider-Man? Yeah.
13:31
Larry Woods: 3 muscles.
13:34
Dr. Edgar Ramos: I'm a Captain America fan, what can I say?
13:37
Tad Eggleston: Well, I mean, that's… that doesn't require the same levels of… of disbelief, because, I mean, I can totally believe that… that,
13:46
Tad Eggleston: you know, you could come up with the super soldier serum. Particularly when you add in the first soldier one, where it turns out that they've been testing on Black people for years before getting it right, you know.
13:59
Tad Eggleston: That makes sense to me. What?
14:02
Dr. Edgar Ramos: You mean steroids?
14:03
Tad Eggleston: Well, that too.
14:06
Dr. Edgar Ramos: Essentially is experimenting on steroids, you know?
14:11
Dr. Edgar Ramos: Yeah, I, I know you didn't directly ask me the question, but I…
14:16
Tad Eggleston: No, it's to you two.
14:17
Dr. Edgar Ramos: I guess I…
14:19
Tad Eggleston: You just… you're kind of the other side of it.
14:21
Dr. Edgar Ramos: Yeah, it's funny.
14:24
Dr. Edgar Ramos: And I'm…
14:26
Dr. Edgar Ramos: And I'm trying to watch my words carefully, because I do try to see all the sides, and the.
14:32
Tad Eggleston: I mean, this is a safe space, you can, you can, you can, like…
14:36
Dr. Edgar Ramos: I'll say it, I'll say… I'll say it this way.
14:45
Dr. Edgar Ramos: I want to choose my words judiciously.
14:49
Dr. Edgar Ramos: So, obviously I have, you know, friends of, you know, of varying backgrounds and whatnot, and…
14:57
Dr. Edgar Ramos: even when you think you know somebody, and are comfortable with somebody, like, that you know them, like, you've known them for years, or, you know, like, you've broken bread with them, they know your family, like, you're like, oh man, I know this person, you know?
15:12
Dr. Edgar Ramos: You still see, like, Wow, and I don't know how vulnerable I want to be, because…
15:18
Dr. Edgar Ramos: It'll be two things. The thing that always bothers me is that when we speak to white privilege, it's always the persons of color that have to expose themselves and be vulnerable and show their stuff.
15:29
Tad Eggleston: Oh, yeah.
15:30
Dr. Edgar Ramos: And that's why I've always been hesitant to always, like, participate. It's just like, I'll listen, and I don't. So I'll put that on the line. It's us that always has to teach to and speak to, you know, to white privilege. And it's not our problem, it's, you know, for Black.
15:44
Tad Eggleston: It's our problem. It's our problem.
15:47
Dr. Edgar Ramos: We're the ones that have to, like.
15:48
Tad Eggleston: Lee and I have the problem, you don't have the problem.
15:52
Dr. Edgar Ramos: educate, and speak to it, and then show our vulnerabilities and what it does to us. It's just like…
15:56
Tad Eggleston: Right, right.
15:56
Dr. Edgar Ramos: shit, you know, like, why the fuck does that work that way? But, irregardless, you know, obviously I know both of you very well, so…
16:02
Dr. Edgar Ramos: And I really can't see all the audience, so they're gonna be lucky.
16:08
Tad Eggleston: Well, I mean, you did meet Mom and Adam. They're generally good people. They try really hard, too.
16:14
Dr. Edgar Ramos: They, they seem… and if, if, you know.
16:16
Tad Eggleston: And I gave them this book last year, so they learned the lessons already.
16:20
Dr. Edgar Ramos: So… so…
16:22
Tad Eggleston: Or at least a couple of them.
16:24
Dr. Edgar Ramos: It's funny that no matter…
16:27
Dr. Edgar Ramos: what, and how good of a person you are. It's that old cliche of when people, when I hear…
16:34
Dr. Edgar Ramos: people that… I call them OTMs, other than Mexicans. That's my running joke, is that no matter how long and how, you know.
16:44
Dr. Edgar Ramos: informed they are, and you know, whatever word, you know, some people say how woke or whatnot, is that no matter what, is that at the end of the day, if they grew up in this country, they still have it in them. It's still so deeply seated and in there, is that
17:02
Dr. Edgar Ramos: privilege is still there, no matter how, like, well, I work on it every day, it's like…
17:07
Dr. Edgar Ramos: So going to my initial story without saying…
17:12
Dr. Edgar Ramos: and, you know, busting out who I'm talking about, is that I recently experienced a good friend of mine, who I'd say, a very good friend of mine, and I saw microaggressions, you know, of that behavior, and I'm…
17:26
Dr. Edgar Ramos: And it's funny, because it… and I hope that we can swear on this, it's Sean…
17:30
Tad Eggleston: Absolutely.
17:31
Dr. Edgar Ramos: Fuck out of me, it was just like…
17:33
Dr. Edgar Ramos: get the fuck out of here, like, is that really, like… to where I…
17:37
Tad Eggleston: And this is where I'll tell you, as I've told Marcus, like, if you ever feel like I'm making a microaggression or whatnot, please call me out. Because I am so aware that I don't know everything, and while I don't want it to be your job to call me out.
17:54
Tad Eggleston: like, so you don't feel like you have to call me out, and you certainly don't have to tell me, you know, you can make me go figure it out on my own, but, like, I also don't want to make you feel bad, and sometimes it's just as simple as…
18:09
Tad Eggleston: and this is why I love good literature so much, is it's a way to feel other people's…
18:20
Tad Eggleston: Beings. Right.
18:22
Dr. Edgar Ramos: Yeah, see, and that's… and that's the struggle, though, is that it's always… it's the…
18:27
Dr. Edgar Ramos: do I have to educate? Do I have to teach? It's like, should I say something? Should I not say something? It's, you know, it's a lot of work to carry that.
18:37
Tad Eggleston: Yeah?
18:38
Dr. Edgar Ramos: There's a lot… it's like, you know, and it's funny, because it's like, I have to worry about what neighborhoods to go into.
18:46
Dr. Edgar Ramos: I have to think about that constantly, like, oh, I'm here, like, even the comic book shop, I'm like, are people gonna be okay with, you know, with me? You know, are they gonna feel anything? You know, I have to think, like, things like that that others don't necessarily have to think about, and it's just like…
19:00
Dr. Edgar Ramos: then to add that onto, like, alright, do I say something? Do I not say something? And then it was… it's funny, because, you know, I mean, everybody knows my personality. I'm like, man, fuck that, I'm gonna say something, because I'm like, you know, we have a good, you know, relationship where I can say it, you know? And I'm never really…
19:16
Dr. Edgar Ramos: Well, I'm always, like, you know…
19:18
Dr. Edgar Ramos: pretty blunt, but I mean, with the person that I'm referencing, I'm like, yeah, we're cool enough where I'm like, I could just say what, you know, like, hey, you know, I noticed, you know, and you didn't notice what was going on, and they were very receptive to what I said, which was… made it very easy and comfortable, but I'm like, I guess the point is still, like, damn, like, even when you know someone, it's like.
19:36
Tad Eggleston: It's so deeply seated inside…
19:41
Dr. Edgar Ramos: our culture here, and I throw myself in here as our culture, because it is our culture, too, is that it's so deeply seated that it's… it permeates your being, you know? And it's just like, to a degree, you have to kind of…
19:53
Dr. Edgar Ramos: I almost… it's not that I feel bad for anybody, but I almost… I… I understand it, like, I do understand, like…
20:01
Dr. Edgar Ramos: it's gotta be hard to be in… in your guys' shoe, as well. Like, and it's… it's seeing that side, too, is that…
20:09
Dr. Edgar Ramos: you don't mean for that to happen, you don't… you don't have ill intent, and I'm not trying to speak for the two of you, but I would assume that neither of you have ill intent, you know, just from the way I know for you guys, like, there's.
20:19
Tad Eggleston: I mean, sometimes when I talk about, Lily Whiteboy Lee here, but, I mean…
20:25
Dr. Edgar Ramos: I mean, outside of that, I mean, there's, like, there is…
20:28
Dr. Edgar Ramos: no ill intent, but there's… it's so deeply seated that you don't see it. It's like, man, like, it's funny to me. It's just like, wow, like, that's where I feel like…
20:38
Dr. Edgar Ramos: Yeah, you're also a product of the culture.
20:43
Dr. Edgar Ramos: And I think that's where sometimes it's coming with an open mind and understanding that, like.
20:48
Dr. Edgar Ramos: there's two sides to every story, but unfortunately, there's a third side that unfortunately tells both of our stories, too. And that's the side that we don't recognize or see sometimes. We forget that side, is that there's a third perspective, that's…
21:01
Dr. Edgar Ramos: That's the toxic one that's invaded both our sides, you know, and sometimes pins us, or pits us against each other, and, you know, like.
21:08
Dr. Edgar Ramos: And that's dangerous, but… but obviously the book sparks great conversation like this, and it sparks the idea to think and look at, like, wow, you know? But a part of it, to kind of bring it back to the hope and resilience, is that
21:23
Dr. Edgar Ramos: Irregardless of the story, it was that… it was also a story about a relationship.
21:30
Dr. Edgar Ramos: And it was a bonding relationship that, you know, may have been predicated on…
21:36
Dr. Edgar Ramos: ill factors or ill events and whatnot. It was still a relationship and a bond, and that's why I was speaking to, like, man, just the other day, you know, my guy, you know, who I love very much, did a microaggression, and he was unaware of it, you know, and I'm like, and I had to call him out.
21:52
Dr. Edgar Ramos: But I still love them.
21:53
Dr. Edgar Ramos: Like, it's just, you know, we're in that culture, and you just got to, yeah, so it sparked a lot of thoughts for me.
21:59
Tad Eggleston: I mean, as, and I'm so glad… we've just been joined by, Eisner Award-winning
22:05
Tad Eggleston: creator and artist on this book, Marcus Kwame Anderson, and I'm glad, because I was about to paraphrase something that he said a long time ago at a milestone book club, so if I get it wrong, he can… he can fix it for me.
22:21
Tad Eggleston: But in another one of those cases where we were talking
22:28
Tad Eggleston: Talking about privilege, but also talking about, like, it was as important to get the minority creators to write
22:38
Tad Eggleston: minority things, and I forget if it was Ted or I that, that, that, that asked about, like.
22:47
Tad Eggleston: And we weren't asking it in, like, the All Lives Matter way, we were asking it in the…
22:57
Tad Eggleston: we know that it totally works for Black men to write the white characters, or whatnot, you know, how, you know, what it would take, and, you know, again, Marcus, correct me if I get any of this wrong, but Marcus essentially told us that, like.
23:14
Tad Eggleston: No, see, we HAVE to learn how you work.
23:20
Tad Eggleston: It's part of our growing up.
23:24
iPhone: Yeah, I mean, it's… I think the only, and thank you for the introduction, but… but no, I think that's pretty much what I said. It was just more a matter of the fact that,
23:34
iPhone: you know, for Black people and a lot of other marginalized groups of people, Because our cultures aren't centered.
23:42
iPhone: You know, and you know, like.
23:45
iPhone: quote-unquote white culture is centered in our media, in our country, you know, there just is a familiarity that's just natural. You don't even have to try. Whereas for other groups, you know, people oftentimes have to, have to learn or try to put themselves in their shoes. But yeah, that's what I said, pretty much.
24:04
iPhone: And, hi, everybody.
24:07
Dr. Edgar Ramos: Hello, if I can speak to that, because it's… it's interesting…
24:12
Tad Eggleston: Really quick, I'll make introductions. This is Dr. Edgar Ramos and Lee Woods of Psychocomicology. I know that I've mentioned them many times to you before, but I don't know if I've ever put the three of you in the same room, so I'm glad to finally have you all together.
24:28
iPhone: Glad to be here. Hi, guys.
24:29
Larry Woods: Pleasure, man.
24:30
Dr. Edgar Ramos: The pleasure is mine.
24:31
Tad Eggleston: So, with what you guys are speaking to right now, I find it interesting because, see, that's…
24:37
Dr. Edgar Ramos: It's so true, is that…
24:39
Dr. Edgar Ramos: it is, it is centered on, you know, on OTM culture, like, there's such a center on white culture, that's the reality of it.
24:48
Tad Eggleston: You missed our short… that's Edgar for Other Than Mexican.
24:53
iPhone: Oh, okay.
24:53
Tad Eggleston: GM. I like it, I like it.
24:55
Dr. Edgar Ramos: OTM, because they're other than Mexican.
24:57
iPhone: Right. So…
24:58
Dr. Edgar Ramos: I remember going to school, like, or, you know, going through the doc program, through all these problems. I had to learn how to do therapy, testing, all these dynamics, all these, you know, theoretical foundations, and the… and I'm gonna swear I'm sorry, and the fucked up part is, is that I had to fucking translate all that to be able to work with
25:18
Dr. Edgar Ramos: other people.
25:19
iPhone: And my own people. It's like, I had to translate all of it and go.
25:24
Dr. Edgar Ramos: yeah, that doesn't apply, that doesn't work, well, that's not the way it works here. Like, I had to redo the whole fucking thing to, you know, to work in a culture that I called my own, you know? It was like… and it's so crazy, because it's like, well, you know, one month out of the year, we get all these cultures, you know? You know, we get Hispanic Heritage Month, which isn't even one month, it's split between two months.
25:43
iPhone: Right, right.
25:44
Dr. Edgar Ramos: every month. Like, you have all these months, and that qualifies
25:50
Dr. Edgar Ramos: The dominant culture to work with all of us.
25:54
Dr. Edgar Ramos: But we don't get that, you know, and, you know, we have to retrain, relearn, adapt, interpret, and then be able to go out there. And it's… it was a hard thing, like.
26:06
Dr. Edgar Ramos: it is a hard thing to do, like, it really is… from down not only to theoretical foundations, but even medically, like, understanding our physiology isn't the same. There is different things that we have, our diets are different, and it's like, it's never really fully discussed… I mean, I'd like to believe that now, maybe, that it's gotten better.
26:26
Dr. Edgar Ramos: But I mean, I'm a little older than some of you, that it was so hard to do. But even our storytelling, my point to that, is that
26:34
Dr. Edgar Ramos: even our storytelling is very different, and how we read is very different, like, and people always laugh, or never understood what I mean. I'm like, in our culture, and I can only speak to, and I'm not speaking for, but I can only speak to the culture that I'm in, is that when I read a story, we start from the end.
26:50
Dr. Edgar Ramos: So there's this prince and, you know, and princes that are married, and then we go backwards, like, and this is how it happened, but every other book I used to read was Once Upon a Time, and it's just like, motherfucker, why do I gotta start this long, you know, long fucking story? Like, you know, like, because my brain… that's not how we… that's not how our families taught us stories. It's like, this is how you got here, you know, it's not… this is where, like, it's such a different way of storytelling and reading that it was…
27:14
Dr. Edgar Ramos: it's so different, yeah. I was saying earlier is that the… how the book is… it's a… it's a storytelling while storytelling.
27:22
Dr. Edgar Ramos: And I thought that was…
27:25
Dr. Edgar Ramos: Fucking beautiful, like, that's a great way, you know, to see that, because that's… that's so pivotal in our cultures, is that…
27:31
Dr. Edgar Ramos: we had a lot of our cultural written work taken from us, and to be able to, you know, retain that is… it was through our mouths, through our verbal, through storytelling, and that's the only way we were able to do it, so seeing that really reinforced that, and I don't know if that was your intention, but I'm gonna imagine that that was probably the intention, is that that's how you kept that culture alive, is, you know, all our cultures, so…
27:52
Dr. Edgar Ramos: It's beautifully done.
27:54
iPhone: Yeah, I can actually speak to that a bit. So, and it's cool that you just mentioned, you know, the idea of, you know, your cultural experience of starting stories from the end, because it makes it so, like, you know, I'm not going to totally spoil the end of the book, but I will reference the end of the book, and in the end of the book.
28:14
iPhone: what we did… so what you said is right on about the idea of, the stories within stories.
28:21
iPhone: And that… that line that Professor Almina says about the story won't tell itself is… it's the central premise of the book, you know what I mean? And the conversation, the very last conversation that Almina has to end the book, it really…
28:38
iPhone: Speaks to the idea that, just like you're talking about, like, yes, we have all these disparate cultures, and… and there are wonderful elements to all of them, and for each of those cultures, we have to,
28:51
iPhone: to tell the story, you know, to keep the story alive. So, yeah, while the central narrative of the book is absolutely about
28:59
iPhone: the Black experience, the Black enslaved experience, and also the ways that it still impact… Enslavement impacts us on a generational, level. You know, it also speaks to the fact that even beyond Jim's experience in Almina as, the one who is the bearer of her family's story.
29:19
iPhone: even beyond Jim and Almina, you know, Almina has a conversation with a young Vietnamese woman, who's
29:28
iPhone: speaking to her about how the story spoke to her, you know? And,
29:33
iPhone: And Almina tells her… well, I am spoiling the end of the book, but Almina tells her to… it's still worth reading, it's available everywhere books are sold, but Almina tells her that, like, you know, she should write about her grandfather, and that, you know, so his experience as a Vietnamese, man is, you know, it's as relevant, and it's, like, really…
29:53
iPhone: That was one thing we wanted everyone to take away, is that we all have personal histories.
29:58
iPhone: You know, or family histories, and that if we don't tell it, you know, who is going to tell it?
30:05
iPhone: The other thing is, so I know, and I'll speak for David, too, while he… since he's not here, but David definitely has spoken a lot about how his grandmother, and a lot of the women in his family were real… real historians. Like, you know, they were actively keeping
30:24
iPhone: Their personal family history alive, and he was able to draw on that.
30:28
iPhone: And, it influenced his love of history. So when it was time to, create the character of Almina, and we had a lot of conversations about Almina.
30:38
iPhone: And, you know, who she would be, what her role would be in the story, and as… as…
30:45
iPhone: you know, we worked on the book, we realized that, her role needed to be bigger than just somebody who gave context to the history, and… because I don't think initially David had planned for her to be a descendant of Jim, but then it just made sense as he thought about
31:00
iPhone: the women in his family, and his grandmother, who had passed down so much history to him, you know? So, yeah, I mean, I…
31:09
iPhone: All of those things are in there, but it's, like, that idea…
31:13
iPhone: of keeping our histories alive. So it just kind of was natural from there to have a story within the story.
31:20
iPhone: because, you know, Almina… it allowed us to do two things, to, yes, tell a fictional story, which is, you know, a reimagining of a fictional story, but also to,
31:34
iPhone: to, really dive into real history as well, you know? And so having a historian, personal and professionally at the center of it was, it was… it was… it just made sense.
31:49
Dr. Edgar Ramos: If I can ask you a question, if all the story… with all the stories to tell, and all the stories that…
31:57
Dr. Edgar Ramos: Are passed down just from your own perspective.
32:00
Dr. Edgar Ramos: Why that one?
32:03
iPhone: Well, so that's… so, you mean specifically reimagining Huckleberry Finn, or you mean…
32:09
Dr. Edgar Ramos: That, yes, correct.
32:10
iPhone: So, so the way that started is that started because, David had, years ago, I want to say over 10 years ago, started writing,
32:21
iPhone: just a novel script for a book that would have been a reimagining of Huckleberry Finn, and that started very much because, you know, Huckleberry Finn is one of these celebrated works that,
32:36
iPhone: that has a lot of love, but also raises a lot of questions. And so, he initially wanted to, you know, challenge it and reimagine it, but it was one of those things where, as a writer.
32:48
iPhone: it wasn't like he had a publishing deal for it, so he… he ended up, like, I think not coming back to it, you know? He started it, and then, fast forward, our editor, who we worked with on the Black Panther Party.
33:01
iPhone: with 10 Speed Press,
33:03
iPhone: came to David, and asked if he'd be interested in reimagining a classic work of fiction. So then, it was like a no-brainer, because he had had the idea, we love working with our team at 10-speed, and
33:18
iPhone: so… so he… he really wanted to do it. But I guess the quickest answer to your question is because it was a big challenge. And, like, for both of us, we really like…
33:29
iPhone: I don't know, we liked the idea of this big, ambitious challenge. For myself, personally, since, like, the idea was pitched with David initially, and David was like, well, Marcus needs to be the one to draw this.
33:45
iPhone: I always say that it's a book that I needed to do that I didn't know that I needed to do, in the sense of, I wasn't… definitely wasn't sitting around saying, man, I'd like… I'd love to reimagine Huckleberry Finn.
33:59
iPhone: But when, when it was presented to me, I was like, oh, yeah, because, you know, I… I was familiar with the book, you know, just from growing up in America in English classes, but I never, like, had a particular affinity for it, or, you know, I didn't…
34:18
iPhone: hold it in really high regard, like a lot of people do.
34:23
iPhone: And it's funny, because, like, the one way that people's issues with the book, it always centers around, you know, racial slurs that are very prevalent in the book, and it's not just that. Like, that's not my only issue. Like, the…
34:39
iPhone: the very things that we're dealing with, like Jim's representation, maybe how much thought is given to his perspective in the original novel, how much thought is given to the experience of
34:50
iPhone: Black people, enslaved people in general in the novel, these are all things that I would… when I heard the pitch and the idea of centering it based on Jim's story, I was like, oh yeah, like, that sounds like an incredible,
35:05
iPhone: an ambitious idea that I'd like to tackle, so… I mean, that's what it was for me. I looked at it as an opportunity. I'm very interested in history in general, so…
35:16
iPhone: And a lot of these elements are history that aren't always focused on, you know, they don't always receive enough focus, so I think just the opportunity to kind of dive into a lot of that history, through a fictional lens, but also,
35:32
iPhone: Through a real historical lens as well, just was a fun challenge to me.
35:37
Dr. Edgar Ramos: Thank you. Hi.
35:38
Dr. Edgar Ramos: Gives me a little insight, I appreciate that.
35:40
iPhone: Yeah, no problem.
35:41
Dr. Edgar Ramos: I gotta get a charger, sorry, excuse me, guys.
35:44
Tad Eggleston: Isn't gonna die on us. Yeah.
35:49
Tad Eggleston: We were talking about the perspective before you got here, because that's still what… I mean, I love the book on so many levels, you've heard me gush about it a ton, but like…
36:01
Tad Eggleston: I mean, and I thought about it again as you were talking, you know, in some ways, you know, if you want to put Huckleberry Finn in the most charitable light, it was, you know, written for white people to humanize
36:21
Tad Eggleston: at least, you know, because it's got… one of the reasons it's taught is the climactic scene where Huckleberry Finn can't understand why anybody would need to be a slave, that sort of thing. And… and, like…
36:37
Tad Eggleston: Again, like, the most charitable view is that it was written for white people to make them question this institution at a time where it wasn't being questioned enough.
36:48
Tad Eggleston: But then what you guys do, particularly by having what I always call a conversation with the original book, rather than a replacement of the original book.
37:00
Tad Eggleston: is… is you're like, okay, we asked the easy questions, now let's ask some harder questions. Now that you've gotten over that hump, and you're like, oh, oh yeah, black people, people too, now let's… let's have you go…
37:17
Tad Eggleston: Right. What does that mean?
37:21
iPhone: Yeah… Yeah, oh, I'm sorry, I didn't cut you off.
37:24
Tad Eggleston: No, that, that, that was… I… I was… I was in… on one level, filling space, on another level, just, like…
37:33
Tad Eggleston: That… that… I spent a lot of time lately, it's part of the reason this group exists.
37:43
Tad Eggleston: Bending over backwards to… individualize and humanize as many people as I possibly can.
37:52
Tad Eggleston: both… both in… in privileged… I mean, I was talking with… Eric Reynolds…
38:00
Tad Eggleston: on Friday, and then again, it came up in today's episode, like.
38:07
Tad Eggleston: One of my favorite single issues of this year was… was… our crumbs… Tales of paranoia, and, like…
38:16
Tad Eggleston: Part of the reason was, like…
38:21
Tad Eggleston: I mean, it deals with his… I mean, it's hard to tell whether he's actually a hardcore anti-vaxxer, or being a… a…
38:32
Tad Eggleston: satire of anti-vaxxers, or he leans towards anti-vaxing, and…
38:41
Tad Eggleston: And conspiracy theories, but is self-aware enough that, like, he writes and draws in a way that you're supposed to question him, as well as the vaccines and whatever other conspiracies he's spouting off.
38:54
Tad Eggleston: Whatnot, but, like, what the book accomplishes, if nothing else, is, like, particularly as…
39:05
Tad Eggleston: a liberal white male in this country, the one group that it's really easy for us to decide to.
39:14
Tad Eggleston: individual… or de-individualize, if not completely dehumanize, is non-liberal white males. To go, oh, they're all just asshole idiots, blah blah blah. And I'm speaking, again, for myself and… and…
39:31
Tad Eggleston: for enough of the people who look and are from similar backgrounds to me that I talk to, you know?
39:39
Tad Eggleston: But I don't like doing that either, so I like to individualize everybody, so that's… that's what I love about… I mean, this book challenges you to individualize every character in the book. You've got…
39:57
Tad Eggleston: so many different… I mean, you don't have a wasted character in this book.
40:04
Tad Eggleston: But, but…
40:06
Tad Eggleston: But, you know, you've got the slaves that just want to get away, you've got the slaves that want to fight, you've got the free men that want to fight, you've got the free men that want to just be… I mean.
40:18
Tad Eggleston: And again, just going back to my initial premise, like, if Huckleberry Finn makes you ask the elementary school question, oh, aren't they human too? Big Jim and the White Boy takes it to the next level, where it's like, okay…
40:36
Tad Eggleston: What does being human mean to you?
40:39
Tad Eggleston: You're completely willing to differentiate, you're a white person, he's a white person, that doesn't mean you're identical. Can you do that for two black people?
40:49
Tad Eggleston: You know, that sort of thing. And I appreciate that.
40:53
iPhone: Thank you. Yeah, I… I just wanna say real quick, like.
40:58
iPhone: Well, just before… before I, you know, kind of respond to what you're talking about, like, I think a lot with… so with the last two books that I've worked on, which deal with history, which deal with…
41:10
iPhone: Race and history, in this country.
41:14
iPhone: I always say that I long for the day when, like, these books won't be as relevant, you know, which might sound counterintuitive.
41:23
iPhone: But it is, and like, so it's like, when I look at what's going on in our headlines right now, you know, for so many groups of people, it really underscores the fact that, like… like, as you were saying, like, the, the well-meaning but, insufficient…
41:40
iPhone: way in which, you know, Twain tackled, Black people's humanity, and the, you know, I'm gonna keep it real, kind of timid,
41:52
iPhone: challenging of enslavement, you know, it wasn't enough, right? And when you look at
41:58
iPhone: what happened after, you know, Reconstruction, and the ways in which…
42:04
iPhone: you know, Black people, despite all of the oppression, all of the lack of access to… or just the illegality of them learning to read, like, and write and all of these things, we still managed to do so many things, and then the response was swift and violent, and we haven't completely recovered ever since. And I'm thinking about, like, today's headlines, the ways in which,
42:29
iPhone: you know…
42:31
iPhone: you got ice doing what it does every day, and yes, you know, a lot of us, like, when we see…
42:40
iPhone: videos where, like, community members actually intervene and, you know, do something, it's hardening, but it's,
42:51
iPhone: All of this is made possible by people's,
42:55
iPhone: lack of willingness to not… to see beyond basic, like, humanity, because in some ways, it's like, yes, seeing somebody's humanity.
43:03
iPhone: You know, the group of people's Humanity is one thing, but, like.
43:07
iPhone: it has to go further to, like, you know, what would I want for myself, for my loved ones? Like, you know, it's the golden rule. And it has to go further, even further than that, in the sense that, in my opinion, it has to go even further than that, in the sense that…
43:23
iPhone: it's even more than just, like, you know, you should want to help people, because that's what you would want for yourself. It just really comes down to decency to me, and it also requires us to understand
43:35
iPhone: the history of our country, and what it's done to many groups of people, you know what I mean? So,
43:41
iPhone: I just… I think we… we still have a long ways to go, and I think that,
43:46
iPhone: Like, yeah, that is where… that is… that is why…
43:50
iPhone: Books are being challenged, have been challenged for the last 10 years, and are more challenged than ever right now.
43:57
iPhone: And it's because, like, you know, a well-educated public, is harder to control. You know, books can really help to build empathy and understanding, you know, across cultures.
44:11
iPhone: And, it's more important than ever, you know? And, that's why I'm grateful that, like, you know, Penguin, who published this book, I know they're…
44:21
iPhone: suing the… they're having the legal battles with the Trump administration, because they're basically refusing to bow down to these, like, just authoritarian, just, you know, disgusting attempts to control,
44:34
iPhone: what the public reads, you know? And,
44:38
iPhone: So yeah, anyway, I said a lot, but I just, I just think that's important, like.
44:42
Tad Eggleston: That's why you're here. You didn't bring a glass of water?
44:46
iPhone: I did, actually, yeah.
44:48
Tad Eggleston: Okay, good.
44:52
Tad Eggleston: Edgar, and Lee as well, because Lee, I mean, you don't have your doctor, but you've got the experience.
45:02
Larry Woods: Thank you for letting me, thank you.
45:04
Tad Eggleston: I feel like, I'm hearing more talk of individualization than I ever have before.
45:12
Tad Eggleston: war. And part of that is because we have an administration that is, like.
45:17
Tad Eggleston: uniquely willing to say the quiet part out loud and go, oh, one Hispanic person did this, we need to throw all Hispanic people out of the country. One Somali did this, all Somalis are bad. One white man did this, well, you know, he had a rough childhood. He doesn't represent all white men.
45:39
Tad Eggleston: And that's… that's one of the big…
45:44
Tad Eggleston: public questions for the first time in my life of privilege right now is who gets to be treated as an individual rather than part of some group? Is that…
45:56
Tad Eggleston: Is that unique to major… In groups, or is that… like… Super unique to just… idiot.
46:10
Tad Eggleston: white men.
46:13
Tad Eggleston: I mean, like, if we went into Mexico, would they look at gringos as one…
46:21
Tad Eggleston: one unified group, or… I mean, I don't know how to ask this best. I hope I'm not coming off offensive in terms of the question.
46:34
Tad Eggleston: But, but, like… I find myself wondering how much of this is actually A result of this…
46:47
Tad Eggleston: Western European culture that's supposed to be so great, and how much of it is just the natural…
46:54
Tad Eggleston: whatever the dominant group is tends to look at lesser groups that way. And I don't know what, if any, research there is on the psychological side.
47:05
Dr. Edgar Ramos: If I could say something, and Lee, I don't mean to cut you off of your…
47:09
Tad Eggleston: No, no. I was mostly asking you. I just… I always feel bad when
47:14
Tad Eggleston: I exclude Lee from the psychological questions? No, no.
47:19
Dr. Edgar Ramos: No, that's okay, and Lee's well-versed, that he is, but you struck a…
47:24
Dr. Edgar Ramos: A thought in my head, or a chord, because…
47:29
Dr. Edgar Ramos: It's a dangerous question. It's a dangerous question, and I don't mean it negatively. I mean, it's a dangerous question in how it's responded to, or how it's spoken to, because
47:40
Dr. Edgar Ramos: That's the question that leads to, well, if, let's say I were to say, well, there's, you know, racism exists in all cultures, or, well, you know, and some would argue it's more, it's a caste system, and blah blah blah, is that what happens is then they go, well, see, you guys do it too.
48:00
Tad Eggleston: Right.
48:00
Dr. Edgar Ramos: And that's why I said it's a dangerous question.
48:03
Tad Eggleston: No, I get that, I get that.
48:04
Dr. Edgar Ramos: No, and that's why I'm like, I… I was… I almost hesitated, like, I'm not gonna say nothing, but then I'm like, well, you know, I do gotta say this, because is there systems in place in other countries, at least in Mexico, that… that…
48:17
Dr. Edgar Ramos: symbolically, you know, are similar. Well, yes, of course, because we're always trying to be… as a human species, there's an innateness to want to be different, and… but then there's just that innateness that difference is also challenged, so there is a unique human experience to difference, like, that's just human.
48:36
Dr. Edgar Ramos: how people are treated and how it's permeated the culture, is different. And that's why I said it's… it's… it's not necessarily the same, and that's why it's a careful thing that we're… we can't say it's like, well, you know, they do it too, because
48:51
Dr. Edgar Ramos: You don't see it.
48:52
Tad Eggleston: Well, and that is why I was trying to ask the specific question, not… not the…
48:58
Tad Eggleston: not strictly the cast system, like, but… but do they assume that every person in the cast is essentially identical? Because that seems to be a huge portion of…
49:12
Tad Eggleston: You know, for good or bad, you know, if we flip it over. Democrats don't think they should have to work for the black vote, because why on earth would a black person vote for a Republican? Why on earth would a Hispanic person vote for a Republican? You know, and then they're shocked that, oh my god.
49:31
Tad Eggleston: not all Hispanic people are alike.
49:34
Tad Eggleston: You know, I mean, if there are two things to me that… that represent…
49:42
Tad Eggleston: the… the alpha group as… as…
49:46
Tad Eggleston: As embodied by our current regime.
49:50
Tad Eggleston: It's, it's the first, every group that's not our group.
49:55
Tad Eggleston: is completely… .
50:02
iPhone: homogenous?
50:03
Tad Eggleston: Projitas. Yes, that's the word I'm looking for. And…
50:09
Tad Eggleston: Whatever the worst thing that we would do is, or whatever we would do, period, no matter how bad it is, is…
50:15
Tad Eggleston: Obviously, what anybody else would do.
50:19
Tad Eggleston: I mean, they justify so many things by, oh, we know it's terrible, but if we don't do it, they'll… I mean, they seem to truly believe that whatever their worst impulses are, are also everybody else's worst impulses, and that those people have just as much or more trouble controlling their worst impulses.
50:37
Tad Eggleston: And particularly on that one, it feels patently false, so I'm just… I'm wondering how much is human nature, and how much is just a definition of that culture.
50:48
iPhone: Hey, can I jump in real quick?
50:50
Tad Eggleston: Please.
50:51
iPhone: I, I think it's… so…
50:53
iPhone: it comes down to power, right? Like, to me. Because…
50:58
iPhone: And it, you know, I, I, and I, I, I, I agreed to,
51:05
iPhone: with what you said, Edgar, because it's like… the… It's, it's, it's definitely not…
51:12
iPhone: one-to-one, and, in a lot of ways, for oppressed groups of people, or marginalized, however you want to use it, all of these terms are imperfect, but, like, for groups of people who are
51:26
iPhone: have been the recipients of oppressive structures, right? It's almost never helpful
51:35
iPhone: To try to get into the nuts and bolts of the, mindset.
51:42
iPhone: Of the people who are in the larger privilege group, you know, or not even just the group, but those who are actually…
51:52
iPhone: enacting the oppression, you know? So… so, for instance, like, the example… I feel like your question about, like, the Democrats and, the ways in which, while they do more.
52:08
iPhone: than the Republicans, it can be very, very disappointing, you know, and in the sense that it's like, yeah, there is this assumption, like.
52:18
iPhone: We know that the Republicans want to do actual harm to us on legislative levels and other levels in many ways, so it's kind of like, well, what else are you guys gonna do?
52:31
iPhone: I think that's one question. I think the… The idea of maybe…
52:39
iPhone: Do other groups kind of, like, think, like.
52:43
iPhone: the people who have colonized and harmed and, you know, oppressed people, I think… I don't know, I just… I can see… I agree that it is a dangerous question, not that you intended it to be dangerous, but I think it's maybe not the… the…
52:58
iPhone: the question that's most relevant from the perspective of marginalized people. So for me, and I mean marginalized in every way, gender.
53:07
iPhone: culture. So for me, it's most useful to,
53:12
iPhone: For us to try to understand what…
53:17
iPhone: groups of people have been through, because that's the most effective way to actually reverse the harm, you know what I mean? And, like, and I try to do it myself, like, you know, because I'm,
53:31
iPhone: Because everybody's… almost everybody's got privilege over somebody, in one way or another, even if it's within your own group.
53:39
iPhone: And so, I try to, you know, be informed about what people are going through. So, I guess what I'm saying is, it's almost like maybe flipping the lens, because when we ask a question about, like, do the things that, say, in this country.
53:57
iPhone: white Republican… right, white conservatives, or the Heritage Foundation, those types of people do, is that something that's, like, just human nature?
54:08
iPhone: I just feel like it's… in order for us to get anywhere, we have to be looking more at, like,
54:15
iPhone: how has this all happened, you know? And what can we do about it? Because…
54:20
iPhone: Yeah, like, Edgar already said it, like, there are people in our different groups that do bad things, you know, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's the same, you know what I mean? The impact is different, yeah.
54:33
Tad Eggleston: And this could be an equally… Dangerous question, I don't know.
54:39
iPhone: That's what you're gonna ask it, though.
54:42
Tad Eggleston: I am, I'm gonna put it out there, because A, I just don't know how not to, and B,
54:50
Tad Eggleston: I mean, if I can't ask this group of people, I don't know what group of people I can. Yeah, I believe so.
54:58
Dr. Edgar Ramos: Good.
54:59
Tad Eggleston: what about…
55:04
Tad Eggleston: you know, because I do… I see this… this is probably the group that I see the most, like, both personally and…
55:12
Tad Eggleston: And, on, like, kind of the surface level, the people that…
55:20
Tad Eggleston: will… will absolutely say that whatever Trump or Rubio or whoever said, that's ridiculous, but…
55:27
Tad Eggleston: But, you know, not everybody in government is bad, and mostly they're doing what I like, even though, you know, there's mounds of evidence that they're not helping them. So, I guess what I'm saying is that rank and file, that… that…
55:43
Tad Eggleston: is happy about ICE, because they buy the idea that all immigrants are doing this, but somehow still completely differentiate in their own group to be able to say, well, this person… I don't really agree with them, but… I mean…
56:03
Tad Eggleston: Because a lot of those people are also people who feel marginalized. Whether they're marginalized in the same ways or not, they feel marginalized, they define themselves as feeling marginalized, they define themselves as being…
56:18
Tad Eggleston: And then they, they… because… Because they'll look at individuals in their in-group.
56:27
Tad Eggleston: And look at only homogeneity in their outgroups.
56:31
Tad Eggleston: they'll… they'll buy the idea that it's that homogenous out-group that is… that is why they have problems. Because even if… even though they know the guy that's cheating.
56:44
Tad Eggleston: On… on welfare.
56:47
Tad Eggleston: he's just one guy cheating on welfare. Most of the other people they know that are white people don't cheat on welfare. But… those Filipinos, they all… and I'm just coming up with random examples. Filipinos do not cheat on welfare. I'm being that random dumbass.
57:08
Tad Eggleston: Please don't clip that, that moment and go viral with it, Mom, Adam.
57:17
Tad Eggleston: Yeah…
57:22
Larry Woods: Well,
57:23
Larry Woods: If I can chime in here, because I think I understand the sentiment of what you're trying to get at, and the two things that sort of come to my mind here are the fearmongering, or it's just the weaponization of fear among the masses, right, from a social perspective.
57:38
Larry Woods: And then there's the…
57:42
Larry Woods: I mean, and social psychology is referred to as sort of us versus them, the in-group versus out-group.
57:48
Larry Woods: And the word that keeps coming up is, Homogeneity.
57:55
Larry Woods: which, to me, I'm hearing, like, homeostasis, right? It goes back to that sort of status quo, as it were.
58:01
Larry Woods: So…
58:02
Larry Woods: which comes back to that aspect of power, right? The people in power want to sort of keep that power, the people that have privilege want to keep that privilege. So then anything or anyone that sort of threatens that…
58:14
Larry Woods: Hence, the fearmongering is a way to help Keep that power… Theirs, right, in their possession.
58:23
Tad Eggleston: Okay.
58:23
Larry Woods: So, at least that's how I understand it.
58:27
Larry Woods: So…
58:28
Larry Woods: is it an individual process versus a social process? And this is where I kind of get caught up between the two, because
58:34
Larry Woods: Before I started doing clinical work, I was actually very interested in social psychology, so understanding the social processes as it impacts individual behavior. So…
58:45
Larry Woods: Yeah, it seems like at the macro level, it is those people that are in power, so if we just stick with the example that you put forth of Trump and ICE?
58:56
Larry Woods: Is that, generally, it's… A certain people that look and think a certain way.
59:02
Larry Woods: Generally.
59:03
Larry Woods: And then… that idea of, hey, this black person did this, we need to keep our streets safe.
59:13
Larry Woods: This one Mexican did this, we need to keep our families and neighborhoods safe, say.
59:20
Larry Woods: So, there is a perceived threat Even though it may be…
59:26
Larry Woods: The underlying thing may be their position of power.
59:31
Larry Woods: it's…
59:32
Larry Woods: masked under this sort of idea of fear, or a threatened of safety… a threat or a lack of safety, as it were. At least that's how I understand
59:44
Larry Woods: Some of these things that are happening now.
59:52
Dr. Edgar Ramos: Edgar's had an interesting look on his face.
59:55
Dr. Edgar Ramos: I'm… I'm taking it all in, no immediate thoughts.
1:00:00
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, I mean.
1:00:01
iPhone: Yeah, I…
1:00:02
Tad Eggleston: Go ahead, Marcus.
1:00:03
iPhone: Oh, no, I was just gonna say, yeah, I mean, fear is absolutely central. It's…
1:00:11
iPhone: And it's weaponized, and you just… you see, and I'm not a psychologist, but I… I just know from life… no, I just know from life that, like, fear is just so much more powerful. It's funny because, like, a lot of times, a lot of us who are…
1:00:27
iPhone: progressive and are trying to fight the good fight. We… we try to appeal to ideas, we try to appeal to context and everything, and…
1:00:36
iPhone: It's just hard because, those things definitely work with some individuals, but others, just fear is far more just,
1:00:48
iPhone: Just powerful and immediate, you know?
1:00:52
iPhone: That doesn't mean we don't keep fighting the good fight, but it's,
1:00:56
iPhone: It's like being up against Goliath in some ways, especially when…
1:01:01
iPhone: You know, so many people who mean… who mean ill, for others, like, just are so intentionally activating the fear of others, you know?
1:01:13
Dr. Edgar Ramos: So, I agree, by the way. So, I gotta say, because I was like, how do I phrase this in that…
1:01:20
Dr. Edgar Ramos: Not sound, well, I mean, we know I'm pretty brash, so I'll sound the way I…
1:01:29
Tad Eggleston: You also are the highest educated person in the room. It is not even close.
1:01:35
Dr. Edgar Ramos: I'm just a man, trust me. So, here's my humble thoughts, is that…
1:01:43
Dr. Edgar Ramos: Language is a powerful tool. Extremely par… it's probably the most powerful weapon that we have, which is why I love storytelling, and I love reading. The written word, the spoken word, I mean, you can…
1:01:56
Dr. Edgar Ramos: you can create and destroy, you know, in one word, if chosen wisely. And… power.
1:02:08
Dr. Edgar Ramos: is that powerful word. It's an extremely powerful word, because it's…
1:02:13
Dr. Edgar Ramos: you know, it's interesting how that word is thrown around or utilized, because power is perceived, it's perception, on what it is and how it is. And it's funny, I was listening to Lee, like, you know, people in power, when we talk about people in power, and it's just like.
1:02:30
Dr. Edgar Ramos: when I give… when I say someone's in power, I've given my power up.
1:02:35
Tad Eggleston: But, right.
1:02:35
Dr. Edgar Ramos: The term minority, it's like, if it's a numbers game, there's more of us than there is of you.
1:02:40
Dr. Edgar Ramos: so I won't even use the word minority, you know? Even the word Hispanic, I'm like, I'm nobody's Hispanic, especially not his.
1:02:48
Dr. Edgar Ramos: So, language to me has always been, like, you know, growing up, you know, good guys wear what?
1:02:57
Tad Eggleston: I mean… Right.
1:02:58
Dr. Edgar Ramos: And bad guys work?
1:03:00
iPhone: We're black.
1:03:01
Dr. Edgar Ramos: What kind of lie is bad?
1:03:03
iPhone: Oof.
1:03:04
Dr. Edgar Ramos: What's a good lie? A little what?
1:03:06
iPhone: Little white lie, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:03:08
Dr. Edgar Ramos: And for things to go bad, they become tainted? Beautiful.
1:03:12
Tad Eggleston: Right?
1:03:12
Dr. Edgar Ramos: Words are rooted in cultural, you know, decimation, and rooted in stereotype and racism. Our language is already rooted in that way, and we permeate it, and we continue it, you know, with the ideology of power. And it's funny, because I'm like.
1:03:29
Dr. Edgar Ramos: I don't…
1:03:31
Dr. Edgar Ramos: I won't succumb to the ideology that, you know, well… and for… to keep it straightforward, like, well, there's, you know, white people are in power. No, they're not. They may think so.
1:03:44
Dr. Edgar Ramos: But they're not.
1:03:44
Tad Eggleston: I hope… I hope we're not.
1:03:46
Dr. Edgar Ramos: Because if… once I… once I say that or do that, then they own it.
1:03:51
Tad Eggleston: Right.
1:03:52
Dr. Edgar Ramos: And I can't succumb to that, so I've never… I've never really kind of put myself in this… well, I mean, obviously, as I've gotten older, I haven't put myself… when I was younger, I was an angry little kid, let me get… let me tell you. But I… when I started accepting that, I have power to…
1:04:04
Tad Eggleston: By younger, he means, like, 40, 45.
1:04:07
Dr. Edgar Ramos: You know, I mean, I'm an old man.
1:04:10
Dr. Edgar Ramos: It's the idea of how, you know… so, most people… I'm second-degree black belt in jiu-jitsu, and…
1:04:15
Dr. Edgar Ramos: Power is all about perception. It's how you present it, and how and what you say and do.
1:04:21
Tad Eggleston: I'm confident in my… I didn't even know that.
1:04:24
Dr. Edgar Ramos: Like, I don't…
1:04:24
Tad Eggleston: You're a black belt, too?
1:04:26
Dr. Edgar Ramos: Oh, I mean, I do, you know, I can't stop you.
1:04:29
Tad Eggleston: You fix motorcycles, you have your own psychology practice, you just bought a comic shop, and you're a black belt in jiu-jitsu.
1:04:38
Dr. Edgar Ramos: So, like I said, power is.
1:04:40
Tad Eggleston: Look at this guy. What are we doing with our time? Oh, wait, Marcus has an Eisner, so… Lee, Lee, what are we doing with our time?
1:04:48
Dr. Edgar Ramos: If you burn power, look at that! No, I'm just kidding.
1:04:50
Larry Woods: I'm running coattails with this guy, like, what are you talking about?
1:04:54
Dr. Edgar Ramos: Yeah, I don't want to monopolize the time, it's just, yeah, like, it's… our words are so dangerous and so rooted, and that's why, like, I… I… yeah, the idea of power, it's like…
1:05:05
Dr. Edgar Ramos: It's thought that way, but it's not that way.
1:05:10
Dr. Edgar Ramos: I think it's the idea of victimization, and sometimes we victimize ourselves when we say that others have more than we do, and it's just like, no, we don't. They want us to believe we don't, because that keeps us enslaved. It keeps us psychologically enslaved, and I always, like, no.
1:05:24
Dr. Edgar Ramos: No, I haven't. And I think, Marcus, you said it well, is that that's how… that's keeping up the good fight, is that…
1:05:31
Dr. Edgar Ramos: I'll always fight, you know, I'll always say, like, no, we're always gonna fight, and we're always gonna maintain that fight, you know, because the day I say, you have the power, I lost.
1:05:41
Dr. Edgar Ramos: You know?
1:05:42
Dr. Edgar Ramos: You know?
1:05:43
Dr. Edgar Ramos: Yeah, sorry, that's just my…
1:05:45
iPhone: No, I'm…
1:05:46
Tad Eggleston: I'm gonna, you know, as we… as we start to wind down, because so many of us have to go back to, like, work after, after…
1:05:56
Dr. Edgar Ramos: Hi.
1:05:57
Tad Eggleston: time… time off for… for holiday breaks, that sort of thing. I do wanna… I wanna, touch on… on…
1:06:07
Tad Eggleston: the power of words in a couple of different ways, because the way that I've been thinking…
1:06:12
Tad Eggleston: About the most?
1:06:14
Tad Eggleston: lately, just in a personal sense, is, like, how much words can represent change? How much the… words can be scary because they
1:06:27
Tad Eggleston: create new things, except that they're not necessarily new. Like, I've always been autistic, but I wasn't… autistic…
1:06:38
Tad Eggleston: Until I got a diagnosis at 45, and for that matter, because of the evolution of autism and the DSM, I couldn't have been autistic until I was, like, 32.
1:06:51
Tad Eggleston: And… And if I was… if I was, like…
1:06:57
Tad Eggleston: 85 rather than 45, even though I would have been autistic when I was a kid, I couldn't have been autistic when I was a kid, because there WASN'T autistic when I was a kid. Like, like, particularly when I hear everybody getting upset about, like.
1:07:19
Tad Eggleston: asexual, or transsexual, or all of these new words, blah blah blah, and it's like, we didn't have those! It's like, yes, you didn't have those, except that you did, you just… they were just really uncomfortable, because they didn't have a word for what they were.
1:07:35
Tad Eggleston: They had that much more trouble describing
1:07:39
Tad Eggleston: Who and what they were, because the language wasn't there.
1:07:45
Tad Eggleston: So, so that's one of the amazing powers of language.
1:07:50
Tad Eggleston: But then the other power, and you touched on it with the book, is the…
1:07:59
Tad Eggleston: The way you can…
1:08:02
Tad Eggleston: tear somebody down with language. One of the things that we haven't talked about in the book yet was, like, the opening
1:08:13
Tad Eggleston: David wrote a…
1:08:15
Tad Eggleston: wonderful essay to open the book, dealing with whether or not you were going to use the N-word.
1:08:20
Tad Eggleston: And you did.
1:08:22
Tad Eggleston: And was it David's call or your call to kind of do it?
1:08:27
Tad Eggleston: like… Scratched out.
1:08:31
iPhone: It was both of ours.
1:08:32
Tad Eggleston: Okay.
1:08:32
iPhone: It was both of ours, just real quick, the thought being that,
1:08:37
iPhone: It is one that… and this ties in perfectly to what you're saying, what Edgar was just talking about, about…
1:08:43
iPhone: the power of words.
1:08:46
iPhone: The word in itself, it's not… it's not about, like, stamping it out or erasing the word, but it is… so we want… we felt like it was…
1:08:54
iPhone: realistic, to the story. It also was, one of many weapons that were used to dehumanize Black people. So it needed to be in the story, in the context of the story. But we also wanted Black people
1:09:11
iPhone: Who are all carrying our own traumas in a different way, to not have to…
1:09:18
iPhone: look at the word over and over again if they didn't want to, you know what I mean? So…
1:09:23
Tad Eggleston: Well, Carlos.
1:09:23
iPhone: That was the creative decision to…
1:09:25
Tad Eggleston: I'm gonna… I'm gonna say I love that perspective, whether it was deliberately because of this or not, I think…
1:09:34
Tad Eggleston: for me as a white person reading it, and I… it…
1:09:40
Tad Eggleston: it did make me look at it. It made me look at it hard, and realize that I wasn't allowed to read it. I forget who it was that was talking about…
1:09:50
Tad Eggleston: No, even if you're singing along with the song, if you're a white guy, you can't use that word, and you should think about it. And you should think about… you should think about it every time you are silent while you… while the song is…
1:10:07
Tad Eggleston: You know, why you have to be silent. And for that matter, then you also actually had the scene.
1:10:15
Tad Eggleston: You know, where, where… Hawk addresses it, and Jim's like.
1:10:20
Tad Eggleston: Well, if I were to call you.
1:10:22
Tad Eggleston: Well, I think I'd get upset. There you have it.
1:10:28
Tad Eggleston: So, yeah. I guess that's what I wanted to do, is wrap up by talking about…
1:10:37
Tad Eggleston: Words as power.
1:10:41
Tad Eggleston: And I, I also, because this is a joy, Resistance HOPE!
1:10:47
Tad Eggleston: And survival. Joy and hope are in there,
1:10:51
Tad Eggleston: Before we go, I want everybody to share
1:10:56
Tad Eggleston: A word that makes them feel…
1:11:04
Tad Eggleston: positive.
1:11:06
Tad Eggleston: Doesn't have to be powerful. Can be powerful, but… but, like…
1:11:10
Tad Eggleston: Just a word that means something good to them, so that we can go out on a happy note.
1:11:17
Tad Eggleston: But, but first, just any, any, any contact, or any more, more comments?
1:11:22
Tad Eggleston: on… The power of words.
1:11:27
Tad Eggleston: The use of words, new words, How that affects…
1:11:34
Dr. Edgar Ramos: Society, understanding, psychology, whatever.
1:11:38
Dr. Edgar Ramos: If I could just say, about the book, at the end… at the end,
1:11:48
Dr. Edgar Ramos: It was touching to see the relationship.
1:11:51
Dr. Edgar Ramos: That relationship that was had, it really… you… you felt the relationship, you visualized the relationship, and, you know.
1:11:59
Dr. Edgar Ramos: I couldn't put the book down, I had to read it in one shot, like, alright, I'm gonna… I'm just gonna read it, like, it was good. But it was just, like, seeing that in… in… I don't know how much I can spoil or… or say.
1:12:11
Tad Eggleston: been spoiling.
1:12:12
Dr. Edgar Ramos: So, at the… at the end, like, when, you know, he's in the chair, you know, he just, you know.
1:12:18
iPhone: Hmm.
1:12:18
Dr. Edgar Ramos: It was just like, fuck, you know, like, you know, that was just like, motherfucker, you know, like…
1:12:25
Dr. Edgar Ramos: I agree, like… Okay, but…
1:12:29
Dr. Edgar Ramos: and I don't know, but it was almost symbolic, because in death, there was birth, is when this young lady was looking to write the story about her grandfather, and it was like, there's the birth of a new, like, new idea, a new story, and it was just like…
1:12:43
Dr. Edgar Ramos: okay, like, you kind of breathe, like, okay, it's gonna… it keeps going, it just keeps growing. Now it's somebody else's story, so it was… it was… if I can… it was beautifully done. It was beautifully written, beautifully drawn, it was… I… I wish it was given more credit than it is right now, like, I don't know…
1:13:00
Tad Eggleston: get there.
1:13:00
Dr. Edgar Ramos: Yeah, I…
1:13:01
Tad Eggleston: I mean, it gets a fair amount of credit. I just think it should be the most talked about comic out there, but part of that's I love Marcus.
1:13:10
Dr. Edgar Ramos: Yeah, well…
1:13:11
Tad Eggleston: Thank you.
1:13:13
Dr. Edgar Ramos: It's great. Just directly, fucking great book, man. It was a great book, you know, and I don't think it was an issue necessarily that has to be about black and white, because neither nor, or both. It was just a great fucking read.
1:13:28
Dr. Edgar Ramos: touching, telling, significant, so I just thought I'd add that, my four cents.
1:13:36
iPhone: Thank you so much. Thanks.
1:13:39
Dr. Edgar Ramos: Oh, and my word is hope, by the way.
1:13:42
Tad Eggleston: Hope's a good word.
1:13:45
Larry Woods: After all that, more to hope.
1:13:48
Larry Woods: Right.
1:13:49
Larry Woods: Yeah, Marcus, I… just because I had the opportunity to speak to you directly, man, it was very…
1:13:55
Larry Woods: and I said this before you got on the call, so I have no problem repeating it, is that it made me emotional.
1:14:03
Larry Woods: Going through this now.
1:14:05
Tad Eggleston: he cried.
1:14:06
Tad Eggleston: I, I, I teared up. He's a white man, he has trouble saying that out loud.
1:14:11
iPhone: I cried while working on it, too, so it's a safe space, you know.
1:14:15
Tad Eggleston: Fantastic.
1:14:17
Larry Woods: Well, yeah, it was a wonderful book, because,
1:14:23
Larry Woods: and I'll tie this into my word, is gratitude.
1:14:26
Larry Woods: is that…
1:14:28
Larry Woods: I'm always grateful to be a part of these conversations, to be in the room with the creators, and…
1:14:34
Larry Woods: like, brilliant minds that can think about these things differently. One… a story that I haven't read since middle or even high school.
1:14:42
Larry Woods: to look at this and explore it in a much different way, and I'm looking at this word here, radical retelling.
1:14:48
Larry Woods: of the American Classic. So, like, for me, it was such a different way.
1:14:53
Larry Woods: to think about things and challenge how I think or perceive.
1:14:57
Larry Woods: how these stories I grew up with.
1:15:00
Larry Woods: So I'm… grateful, I have gratitude that
1:15:05
Larry Woods: Ted recommended this book to me, man, and yeah, it…
1:15:10
Larry Woods: It struck me on several different levels, emotionally, psychologically, mentally, just all of it, man, so thank you. I really appreciate you sharing this story with the world.
1:15:19
iPhone: Thank you so much. I think…
1:15:22
iPhone: You know, when it comes down to it, like, I already spoke a lot about how important just books are, period, not just our book, obviously, but I… books are nothing without… without readers, and, you know, and we… when you are creating a book, you just hope on some level, even if one person…
1:15:41
iPhone: you know, connects to it on… on an emotional level, intellectual, all of the above. So, yeah, it just means… means a lot to know that
1:15:51
iPhone: That it's resonating,
1:15:54
iPhone: So, yeah, it's… And I would say that my… well, you know, Tad, you had brought up, language, and I just think that,
1:16:01
iPhone: Yeah, you know, you brought up great points.
1:16:04
iPhone: About the way the language is addressed in the book.
1:16:07
iPhone: I think that, yeah, I talk about context a lot as well, because, you know, there's language.
1:16:16
iPhone: And I think one of the things that too often in our society gets missed is context, you know? Even when we're… even when we're unpacking language, you know? So, I think that, just…
1:16:30
iPhone: Just for anybody listening, just like, yeah, continue to… Be curious, and
1:16:35
iPhone: And just, just consider context, and never stop learning. And, you know, my, my, my word is, is potential, and I think about that in the sense of…
1:16:48
iPhone: you know, Like, I definitely,
1:16:51
iPhone: faced, like, life and family challenges this past year, and I think… I see a lot…
1:17:00
iPhone: everybody is alive, so that's potential right there, you know what I mean? Because it's like, you face scary things with loved ones,
1:17:08
iPhone: And so, you know, I'm just grateful for every day.
1:17:11
iPhone: And I think about the… just what we face as a society, and peoples, and cultures,
1:17:20
iPhone: And despite everything that we're up against, there's a lot of potential. There's potential in people,
1:17:27
iPhone: And there's a potential for us to grow and to… to help one another. So, yeah, so potential is my word.
1:17:34
Tad Eggleston: Alright, now, now I feel like I've got the, the, the…
1:17:39
Tad Eggleston: the lacking word, but I'm gonna go with it anyway, just because it's a word that I love.
1:17:44
Tad Eggleston: on multiple levels.
1:17:46
Tad Eggleston: My word is whimsical, and I love whimsical because…
1:17:55
Tad Eggleston: As much serious as there is in the world, as much as we have conversations like this one that are incredibly important and serious,
1:18:03
Tad Eggleston: I like the idea that some things are just…
1:18:09
Tad Eggleston: silly and fun, but I like whimsical as the way of saying it.
1:18:14
Tad Eggleston: Both because it feels more poetic, and therefore, not quite… the same…
1:18:24
Tad Eggleston: not quite dumb fun. I don't think you could… I don't think you could be… be mean with your humor and have anybody call it whimsical, that sort of thing. But also, just because whimsical sounds musical, and that's another thing that makes me happy.
1:18:42
Tad Eggleston: So, so, you guys have much more important words than me, but I'm sticking with my word.
1:18:49
Tad Eggleston: Whimsical is the word that just makes me happy. I use every, every…
1:18:54
Tad Eggleston: excuse… every excuse I can to use it,
1:18:59
Tad Eggleston: Whimsy as well, but whimsical is better. You just have to have the right tense to be able to use it. But that's just… that's autism brain going off, so that means it's definitely time to let it go. For Dr. Edgar Ramos, for Lee Woods, for Marcus Kwame Anderson.
1:19:18
Tad Eggleston: This has been the Joy, Resistance, Hope, and Survival Book Club and Support Group.
1:19:24
Tad Eggleston: On 22 panels with psychocomicology.
1:19:27
Tad Eggleston: And we will see you after the next page.