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Why the Stories Working People Tell Ourselves About Ourselves Matter · The Real News Podcast

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Speaker 1: I got working people.
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Speaker 2: All right.
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Speaker 3: Welcome, everyone, to Working People, a podcast about the lives, jobs, dreams,
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Speaker 3: and struggles of the working class today. My name is
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Speaker 3: Maximilian Alvarez, and today we've got a little delayed Labor
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Speaker 3: Day special episode for you guys. Over the Labor Day weekend,
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Speaker 3: I had the honor of speaking at the Ruther Polak
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Speaker 3: Labor History Symposium. in Wheeling, West Virginia, organized by the
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Speaker 3: Wheeling Academy of Law and Science, or WALLS Foundation. The
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Speaker 3: symposium happens every year, and this year the theme was
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Speaker 3: the art of labor. And I got to speak alongside
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Speaker 3: a truly incredible lineup of artists and working class warriors,
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Speaker 3: including Tabitha Arnold, the great textile artist and tapestry maker,
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Speaker 3: Eric Ruin, printmaker and shadow puppeteer, Sean Slipher, a multidisciplinary artist,
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Speaker 3: and the creative director for the West Virginia Mind Wars Museum,
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Speaker 3: which is an incredible museum that everyone should check out.
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Speaker 3: So here's the recording of the talk that I gave
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Speaker 3: at the symposium, which was called Working Class Literature, Why
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Speaker 3: the Stories We Tell Ourselves About Ourselves Matter. It is
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Speaker 3: genuinely an honor to be here on these hallowed grounds
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Speaker 3: with all of you in Wheeling, West Virginia.
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Speaker 2: It really, really means a lot to me to be
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Speaker 2: here with all of you.
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Speaker 3: So, and I guess just before I really get rolling,
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Speaker 3: I really appreciate, you know, when Vince or anyone else
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Speaker 3: tells me that that interview with my dad meant something
1:43
Speaker 3: to them because it meant everything to me. It started everything.
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Speaker 3: I didn't start being a labor journalist or doing... You
1:51
Speaker 3: know interviews with working people reporting from working-class You know
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Speaker 3: areas around the country on the front lines of a
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Speaker 3: class war that is hitting all of us in Similar
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Speaker 3: in different ways. I didn't start out to be or
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Speaker 3: do any of that. I started because I didn't want
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Speaker 3: my dad The greatest man I know to go to
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Speaker 3: his grave feeling like a failure after we had lost
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Speaker 3: everything during the recession just like millions of other families
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Speaker 3: and and have continued to struggle just like millions and
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Speaker 3: millions and billions of us have continued to struggle. And
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Speaker 3: so to be here standing in front of all of you,
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Speaker 3: having started the show back then as a ruse to
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Speaker 3: get my dad to talk about something he was so
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Speaker 3: deeply depressed about and wouldn't talk about means a whole
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Speaker 3: lot for me and my family. So I really do
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Speaker 3: want to thank you all for being here. And of course,
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Speaker 3: I want to thank Sean and Vince and everyone at
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Speaker 3: the Wheeling Academy of Law and Science Foundation for bringing
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Speaker 3: us all together here. Please support them. If you're watching
2:56
Speaker 3: this later, please come visit, support, review, like. We got
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Speaker 3: to support each other. I came here today from Baltimore
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Speaker 3: to talk with you all about why stories matter to
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Speaker 3: me and why I believe they matter to us or
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Speaker 3: that they should matter more. I wouldn't be here without
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Speaker 3: the stories that made me. And the same is true
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Speaker 3: for all of us and every single one of us.
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Speaker 3: And when I say I wouldn't be here to start,
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Speaker 3: I mean it literally. I quite literally and very quantifiably
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Speaker 3: would not be standing here right now speaking in this
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Speaker 3: room with all of you alongside all of these incredible people.
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Speaker 3: None of you would have ever had to hear my
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Speaker 3: name or see my ugly face if I wasn't such
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Speaker 3: a hopeless, relentless, lifelong lover of stories. Parentheses, I apologize.
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Speaker 3: I am no Kim Kelly. I am a fill-in for
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Speaker 3: Kim Kelly. But I am a third of the tattoos
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Speaker 3: and a third of the talent. So that's what you're
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Speaker 3: getting today. I wouldn't be doing the work that I
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Speaker 3: do now as a journalist and as a director of
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Speaker 3: a news organization, I sure as hell wouldn't be doing
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Speaker 3: it the way that I do it. I would not
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Speaker 3: have pursued all those ill-advised degrees in literature before that.
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Speaker 3: I would not have written or said or filmed all
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Speaker 3: the things that I have and will. If I wasn't
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Speaker 3: an eternal believer in the awesome human making history, making
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Speaker 3: and society-making power of stories. Whether I'm reading them, writing them,
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Speaker 3: watching them, listening to them, studying them, teaching them, recording them,
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Speaker 3: filming them, remembering them, dreaming about them, thinking about them,
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Speaker 3: or thinking through them, I love stories, and I need.
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Speaker 2: Stories to live.
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Speaker 3: I always have, and always have ever since I can
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Speaker 3: remember remembering anything. And like any fool in love would do,
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Speaker 3: I followed that need wherever it took me. I have
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Speaker 3: madly chased it headfirst into the best and worst times
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Speaker 3: of my life. It got me to the most beautiful,
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Speaker 3: ivy-covered college campuses that I've ever seen. And it got
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Speaker 3: me through the most body-crushing, mind-numbing, soul-rotting jobs I've ever had.
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Speaker 3: It led me to my wife and fellow literature dweeb Meg,
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Speaker 3: who's sitting back there. And it opened up the path
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Speaker 3: for me to make the purpose-filled life that I have
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Speaker 3: now and to do the purpose-filled work that I do now.
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Speaker 3: I've continued to chase that love and that need for
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Speaker 3: stories headfirst into the best and worst places in the world,
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Speaker 3: where the best and worst of humanity is on display,
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Speaker 3: from picket lines to protest marches, from union halls to
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Speaker 3: student encampments on campuses, from the horror-filled halls of courts
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Speaker 3: where masked federal thugs are kidnapping and disappearing innocent people
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Speaker 3: who look like me and my family every day, to rural, urban,
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Speaker 3: and suburban communities fighting data centers all over the country,
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Speaker 3: from deep red Texas to deep blue Maryland, from occupied
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Speaker 3: Palestine to East Palestine, Ohio, from communities that have been
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Speaker 3: devastated by poverty, industrial pollution, and organized abandonment and disinvestment,
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Speaker 3: to communities that have been devastated by.
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Speaker 2: Plant closures and school shootings.
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Speaker 3: From poisoned coal mining towns here in West Virginia to
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Speaker 3: poisoned neighborhoods in South Baltimore, where that very same coal
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Speaker 3: ends up at the giant coal terminal pier right next
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Speaker 3: to people's houses, 20-minute drive from where we live, and
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Speaker 3: it ends up in the poisoned lung tissue of the
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Speaker 3: people who live there and have been inhaling that toxic
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Speaker 3: coal dust for generations. I have followed my need for
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Speaker 3: stories and our people's need to have our stories told
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Speaker 3: and heard I followed that need to wherever I need
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Speaker 3: to be. And I followed it all the way here
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Speaker 3: to Wheeling, West Virginia. Give it up for Wheeling, man.
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Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, you're talking about stories. There are few
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Speaker 3: more storied places than this. And it is truly an
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Speaker 3: honor to be here with all of you. And I'll
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Speaker 3: be honest, you know, though it has frankly caused me
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Speaker 3: and my family more pain and grief and debts and
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Speaker 3: disappointment along the way than I can ever possibly some
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Speaker 3: up to you, I have learned to check myself by
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Speaker 3: asking myself, if that need that I have, if the
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Speaker 3: love that I followed brought me to this beautiful place
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Speaker 3: and gave me the chance to be here now with
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Speaker 3: you beautiful people, then how can it be wrong? If
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Speaker 3: it has led me to my life's continuing work of
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Speaker 3: lifting up the stories of our fellow workers around the
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Speaker 3: United States and around the world, of using every medium
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Speaker 3: and platform and every tool and skill I have to
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Speaker 3: offer to help people find confidence in their own voice
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Speaker 3: and share their story in their own words, of reporting
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Speaker 3: the news from the front lines of the class war
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Speaker 3: through the stories and voices and faces and lives and
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Speaker 3: bodies and souls and firsthand realities of the people at
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Speaker 3: the center of the story. if that absurd, magical, lifelong
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Speaker 3: pursuit of stories has in any way helped me help
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Speaker 3: other working people like me and my family believe that
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Speaker 3: their stories are actually worth telling and hearing and remembering,
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Speaker 3: that their lives truly do matter more than this world
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Speaker 3: has led us to believe, and that we all truly
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Speaker 3: do deserve better than what this world has forced us
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Speaker 3: to accept. And if it has helped me help others
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Speaker 3: see that we can get better and make a better world,
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Speaker 3: the better we are to each other and the more
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Speaker 3: we share our stories and listen to each other's stories.
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Speaker 3: If my love and my need for stories and my
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Speaker 3: belief in stories has contributed at all.
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Speaker 2: To that, how could it not be worth it?
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Speaker 3: But when I say I wouldn't be here without the
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Speaker 3: stories that made me, I also mean that in the
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Speaker 3: sense that I wouldn't be the I that I am.
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Speaker 3: I am me because of the stories that made me.
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Speaker 3: The stories that made me more than who I was
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Speaker 3: before once I experienced them. The stories that continue to
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Speaker 3: make me who I am now and who I will
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Speaker 3: be in all those future versions of me to come.
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Speaker 3: I come from a family of storytellers and being here
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Speaker 3: in West Virginia, I got a sense that you guys
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Speaker 3: will know what I'm talking about. Something West Virginians and
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Speaker 3: Mexicans got in common. I am the me that I
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Speaker 3: am because of the people who raised me, the people
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Speaker 3: who are and continue to be my whole life, the
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Speaker 3: people who taught me how to live and be a
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Speaker 3: person and become a self through their presences, their absences,
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Speaker 3: and their stories, the stories they told and the stories.
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Speaker 2: They showed us.
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Speaker 3: Stories that hit back to the deepest end of my
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Speaker 3: childhood beginnings of consciousness. Stories that built my consciousness. Stories
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Speaker 3: that brought me out of human mud and into human beings.
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Speaker 3: For the same reasons I can always remember it being
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Speaker 3: just such a natural feeling to, you know, look out
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Speaker 3: of car windows, just like my wife and I were
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Speaker 3: doing on the drive here. It has always felt naturally
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Speaker 3: ever since I can remember looking out of car windows
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Speaker 3: to look out and be fascinated and dazzled by all
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Speaker 3: the warm lights of being out there. All those other
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Speaker 3: homes and other lives, people like me, but not me
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Speaker 3: are living. For the same reasons I've always wondered about
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Speaker 3: those homes and lives and people. For all the same
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Speaker 3: reasons I have always projected myself outward onto them and
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Speaker 3: reached out to them and thought about them out of
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Speaker 3: a genuine curiosity and interest and goodwill. And for all
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Speaker 3: the same reasons that I myself have grown as a
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Speaker 3: person the more that I consider selves and lives that
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Speaker 3: are not mine. I have always been naturally drawn to
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Speaker 3: stories as a life source. Stories my family told me.
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Speaker 3: Stories I heard on the radio or saw on the TV.
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Speaker 3: Stories I read or created in my head. Stories about
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Speaker 3: human beings like me but not me. Living in selves
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Speaker 3: and bodies like mine but not mine. Living in times, places, circumstances,
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Speaker 3: and worlds that are not the ones I live in
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Speaker 3: and experience every day. Stories that take my life world
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Speaker 3: and my perspective and open them up Open me up
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Speaker 3: to lives like mine, but not mine. To human perspectives
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Speaker 3: other than the only perspective I can ever have and
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Speaker 3: have ever had ever since I was born. And ever
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Speaker 3: since I've been me, Maximilian Lee Alvarez.
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Speaker 2: Shout out.
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Speaker 3: All those stories now live on in me and will
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Speaker 3: continue to live on in me so long as I
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Speaker 3: live on as me. Those stories live on through me
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Speaker 3: in the impressions they have left on me, and they
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Speaker 3: will continue to live on in me as formative parts
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Speaker 3: of the person I became once those stories and my
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Speaker 3: experiences of them became part of me. And they will
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Speaker 3: continue to be part of me in every version of me,
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Speaker 3: all those selves I'll ever become, so long as I
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Speaker 3: am gifted to live on this earth as me. These
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Speaker 3: stories live on in the words I say and in
12:45
Speaker 3: the stories I tell to others because they have shaped
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Speaker 3: the me that I am and the ways I use
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Speaker 3: language to communicate with others and with myself and the
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Speaker 3: ways I use language to communicate myself to others and
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Speaker 3: to myself. They live on in the ways I cope
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Speaker 3: with pain and failure and what I learn from those things.
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Speaker 3: Those stories live on in my thoughts and in the
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Speaker 3: way I think. Now and for the rest of my life,
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Speaker 3: they have their place in the vast, dazzling multiverse of
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Speaker 3: mind stuff that my mind has to draw upon and
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Speaker 3: remember from and think and dream and imagine with. Over
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Speaker 3: my lifetime, the stories I've found and the stories I've
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Speaker 3: been told have shaped, challenged, corrected, sharpened, and reinforced my
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Speaker 3: internal sense of right and wrong, good and evil, beautiful
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Speaker 3: and ugly, And what it means to be good, do good,
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Speaker 3: and live a good life. And if you're feeling lost
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Speaker 3: about those things right now, go to our stories. We
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Speaker 3: are not the only ones to face hard times. Our
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Speaker 3: ancestors who faced such times left us their stories so
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Speaker 3: that we would know what to do now.
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Speaker 2: Right? Don't let those stories go to waste. We have
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Speaker 2: power in them. More on that in a minute.
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Speaker 3: Those stories live on in the ways I try and
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Speaker 3: have tried and will try to live and act and
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Speaker 3: see and be in the world in the ways I
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Speaker 3: try and have tried and will try to see and
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Speaker 3: treat other people and other life.
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Speaker 2: And again, what I am saying is true.
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Speaker 3: For me is I fully believe true for each and
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Speaker 3: every one of us. And that on its own, even
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Speaker 3: if you just take this room, is a miracle of
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Speaker 3: life and nature and God and a joyous wonder to
14:43
Speaker 3: behold on par with gazing out at the stars in
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Speaker 3: the sky. And we take it for so granted every
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Speaker 3: single day. I don't think that we appreciate this enough
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Speaker 3: about stories and the roles of stories play in making
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Speaker 3: us human. And just like we have been trained and
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Speaker 3: trained ourselves to accept an unacceptable culture of violence and
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Speaker 3: mass death that takes and destroys life everywhere with the
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Speaker 3: kind of scale and self-serving abandon that.
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Speaker 2: Would make the ancient gods of old blush.
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Speaker 3: We have also lost touch with the magical life-giving force
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Speaker 3: of stories. And our life-sustaining love for stories has been
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Speaker 3: beaten out of us by an AI slop in a
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Speaker 3: shitty culture industry and living under capitalism.
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Speaker 2: I get it.
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Speaker 3: But there's something really wrong there. And I think that
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Speaker 3: we have been trained and trained ourselves to let stories
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Speaker 3: like our air and water and soil and atmosphere be
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Speaker 3: poisoned and polluted for so long that we will at
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Speaker 3: worst cheer on its destruction or live without any sense
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Speaker 3: of duty or need to stop the destruction. And both
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Speaker 3: of them lead to the same place, our own peril
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Speaker 3: as a people, a society, and a species. And that's
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Speaker 3: why I think we miss the magic of stories and
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Speaker 3: the magic in stories that's all around us, available to
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Speaker 3: us in so many forms, living in our heads and
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Speaker 3: shaping who we are every single day. That's why I
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Speaker 3: think we tend to look at stories and the stories
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Speaker 3: of others so mistrustfully or disinterestedly or scornfully or selfishly.
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Speaker 3: We tend these days to not look for stories at all.
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Speaker 3: let alone stories that challenge us and grow us. We
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Speaker 3: don't give them the time. And when we do, we
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Speaker 3: often look for the stories that we already know and
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Speaker 3: stories that ultimately serve to stop us from growing and
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Speaker 3: knowing and that serve to stunt our being and reinforce
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Speaker 3: the selves and prejudices we already have.
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Speaker 2: And what a waste of good magic.
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Speaker 3: What a waste of something that we humans have and
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Speaker 3: take for granted in such a ridiculous way. Of course,
17:04
Speaker 3: you know, we all, we're all people living in a
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Speaker 3: shitty time. So, you know, we all want stories that,
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Speaker 3: you know, do that. And, you know, we all have
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Speaker 3: certain relationships to certain stories, you know, like that to
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Speaker 3: some extent. Like we all watched The Office five times
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Speaker 3: during COVID. Like I, that's fine. But I think what
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Speaker 3: I'm talking about goes much deeper And I'll use myself
17:28
Speaker 3: as an example and vamp here a bit, because then
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Speaker 3: I want to sort of round things out and.
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Speaker 2: Talk to you all.
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Speaker 3: But like, you know, I grew up in Southern California,
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Speaker 3: post-Cold War, in the 90s, middle class, you know, immigrant family,
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Speaker 3: like we were the American dream. And that's why my
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Speaker 3: dad and my family were so depressed after the crash
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Speaker 3: and the recession, because we had and lost the American dream.
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Speaker 2: And that does a number on you and your soul.
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Speaker 3: And, you know, like, but that was the age in
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Speaker 3: which a lot of dreams that I was foolish enough
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Speaker 3: to have still felt possible. And I think a lot
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Speaker 3: of us have come to the awakening that they're not
18:12
Speaker 3: over the past 25, 30 years. There's a gift in
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Speaker 3: all those different selves that I've been, including the deep
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Speaker 3: red conservative Orange County dumbass, you know, like who didn't
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Speaker 3: know much about life. But I also had a lot
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Speaker 3: of right reasons for believing the wrong things. Right. And
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Speaker 3: I still have so many good parts of me that
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Speaker 3: were there when I was a conservative that are here
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Speaker 3: now as a lefty nut job, like because they're just
18:37
Speaker 3: good things about being a good person.
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Speaker 2: I don't care who taught them to me.
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Speaker 3: Um, and so I don't see people those ways and
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Speaker 3: I try not to see myself those ways. And I
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Speaker 3: definitely don't like to see stories that way, but that
18:50
Speaker 3: is the way that we have trained.
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Speaker 2: Ourselves to see each other and ourselves and stories.
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Speaker 3: I remember as a younger, more conservative type person saying,
19:00
Speaker 3: go into a Barnes and Noble and saying like, I want.
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Speaker 2: Good classic literature.
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Speaker 3: And they're like, oh, do you want like French literature,
19:06
Speaker 3: Spanish literature, feminist literature, Latin?
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Speaker 2: I was like, no, no, no.
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Speaker 3: I just want, I want literature. I don't want any
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Speaker 3: of those special interests. You know, that was a very,
19:16
Speaker 3: you know, like a juvenile way that I felt about
19:20
Speaker 3: those things. But I think a lot of us can
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Speaker 3: sort of relate to that feeling. And over time, I'm
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Speaker 3: so grateful to literature especially, but like to all the
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Speaker 3: storytellers in my life and that I've come across in
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Speaker 3: my life for constantly like reminding me that that's not
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Speaker 3: what stories are there for. What a way to cheapen
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Speaker 3: the relationship and the potential and the beauty and the
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Speaker 3: magic that we have when we connect with a story,
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Speaker 3: whether it's an old one or a new one or
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Speaker 3: one that we're creating.
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Speaker 4: Right?
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Speaker 3: And so I learned a very valuable lesson early on
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Speaker 3: in life that literature about other people, stories about other people,
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Speaker 3: from other people's perspectives, about the ways that they are
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Speaker 3: living as people in this world, they're not a threat
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Speaker 3: to who I am.
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Speaker 2: You know, they... They make me who I am. They,
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Speaker 2: they grow who I am. Right.
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Speaker 3: And like, it's for those reasons that it seems so
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Speaker 3: clear to me when I say I wouldn't be here
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Speaker 3: without the stories that made me, we can all think
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Speaker 3: of those stories that like still live in your head today.
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Speaker 3: You still talk about with your siblings, you still have
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Speaker 3: living somewhere in the recesses of your memory as like
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Speaker 3: warm pockets of being, when you were reading a good book,
20:35
Speaker 3: watching a good movie for me, it's like watching the
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Speaker 3: movie glory with my family.
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Speaker 2: Why did we connect with that movie?
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Speaker 3: I could go on a whole dissertation about why we
20:44
Speaker 3: connected on that movie, but I won't.
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Speaker 2: Do it here.
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Speaker 3: But like, you know, whether it's that, the movie Glory
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Speaker 3: about the 54th Massachusetts, i.e. the first black regiment to
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Speaker 3: fight in the Civil War, we bawled our eyes out.
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Speaker 3: Like we saw so much of ourselves, the Americans we
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Speaker 3: believed we were, the America we believed in and believed
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Speaker 3: we were a part of in that movie.
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Speaker 2: And we clearly weren't the only ones.
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Speaker 3: But like for the same reasons, And it doesn't matter
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Speaker 3: that I don't know what it's like to be a
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Speaker 3: black slave in the Antebellum South. That doesn't threaten my
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Speaker 3: understanding or sense of being.
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Speaker 2: It enhances it.
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Speaker 3: It gives me more access to beings and lives, not mine,
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Speaker 3: that then become part of my experience and shape who
21:27
Speaker 3: I am and how I am in the world, right?
21:29
Speaker 3: And that's part of the magic I'm talking about that
21:32
Speaker 3: we just take for granted. It's like we put on
21:34
Speaker 3: glasses that took it all away from our vision, but
21:37
Speaker 3: it's there. It's there when I listened to Tracy Chapman,
21:41
Speaker 3: you know, Fast Car. I think it's one of the
21:44
Speaker 3: most beautiful working class stories.
21:47
Speaker 2: And anthems like ever told in our language.
21:50
Speaker 4: Right.
21:50
Speaker 2: And like, give it up for that song, man. It's
21:53
Speaker 2: so freaking good.
21:55
Speaker 3: And like, even as no matter what stage of my
21:56
Speaker 3: life I was in, it didn't matter that I didn't
22:00
Speaker 3: know what it was like to live as like a
22:02
Speaker 3: black working class lesbian, you know, in like the industrial
22:06
Speaker 3: Midwest around the 80s and 90s, who as a human
22:11
Speaker 3: being hasn't feared, you know, making the wrong decision when
22:16
Speaker 3: Tracy says, we got to make a decision, leave tonight
22:18
Speaker 3: or live and die this way. A life wasted, happiness
22:23
Speaker 3: chosen or happiness not chosen. Like I could relate to
22:28
Speaker 3: that as a kid. I relate to it so much
22:30
Speaker 3: more now as an adult. And it gives me so
22:33
Speaker 3: much more capacity to feel empathy and solidarity with those
22:37
Speaker 3: who are having that taken from them. Those who live
22:41
Speaker 3: in circumstances where their love and flourishing is beaten.
22:46
Speaker 2: Out of them or kept away from them.
22:49
Speaker 3: You know, how can I feel anything but that kind
22:52
Speaker 3: of natural human solidarity and be grateful for the sort
22:58
Speaker 3: of different forms that these human struggles take that are
23:02
Speaker 3: not mine but like mine, that are enhanced and even
23:06
Speaker 3: more dramatic versions of things that I've experienced. Those are
23:09
Speaker 3: not reasons to say that's not my story. Those are
23:13
Speaker 3: reasons to connect with another person's story. And that's kind
23:16
Speaker 3: of where I wanna go here, but I would be
23:19
Speaker 3: remiss if I didn't sort of link this back to
23:21
Speaker 3: two other really important stories that I think about and
23:25
Speaker 3: feel about this way.
23:28
Speaker 2: You know, first, I already mentioned my beautiful wife. She's
23:31
Speaker 2: back there.
23:31
Speaker 3: She just translated this book. It got published by Penguin
23:34
Speaker 3: Random House.
23:35
Speaker 2: Give it up. And it's a beautiful, incredible book. Everyone
23:42
Speaker 2: should go buy it.
23:42
Speaker 3: It's a Catalan novel about Spanish Civil War times.
23:46
Speaker 2: I don't know what the hell that's like.
23:49
Speaker 3: But for the same reasons that my Mexican ass got
23:53
Speaker 3: two useless.
23:54
Speaker 2: Degrees in Russian literature... Uh, like I, I don't care.
23:58
Speaker 3: I don't need anyone's cultural permission to connect with my
24:01
Speaker 3: fellow human beings.
24:03
Speaker 4: Right.
24:03
Speaker 2: And like, that's okay.
24:05
Speaker 3: Um, and, and it, because I think it's only ever
24:08
Speaker 3: given me light and good things. Uh, it's never taken
24:13
Speaker 3: anything away from me or made me a worse off person.
24:16
Speaker 3: And so, you know, I think all of us over
24:18
Speaker 3: time do the things that work and make us better,
24:22
Speaker 3: but like reading this, being transported to the mind of
24:26
Speaker 3: a trapped woman whose husband is like a tyrant and
24:32
Speaker 3: makes her feel powerless. And then he is suddenly missing
24:36
Speaker 3: after a bombing and she is wandering the streets of
24:38
Speaker 3: Barcelona looking for him. And you see the damage of
24:42
Speaker 3: his tyranny on her mentality. And you see the fear
24:46
Speaker 3: or you feel the fear in the way she's trying
24:48
Speaker 3: to describe what she's going through. Again, that's the raw
24:52
Speaker 3: human stuff that makes me feel as close as I
24:57
Speaker 3: can get to living and seeing through the head of
25:01
Speaker 3: another person. And that's a real gift, right? And it's
25:05
Speaker 3: a real necessity, especially in times like these where we
25:09
Speaker 3: are so far away from each other, where the space
25:13
Speaker 3: between the heads and shoulders sitting in this room feels
25:18
Speaker 3: as far away as the moon, right?
25:21
Speaker 2: We have stories to bring us closer.
25:25
Speaker 3: And yet we continue to let capitalism, society, and the
25:28
Speaker 3: wickedness of the powerful push us away from each other.
25:34
Speaker 3: And I hope that the stories that I have helped tell,
25:37
Speaker 3: that I've recorded and published, and will continue to, just
25:44
Speaker 3: remind people of that and remind people of who we
25:48
Speaker 3: are and who our neighbors are and what this is
25:52
Speaker 3: all about. And what a gift it is that we
25:54
Speaker 3: are all here. And what a tragedy on the cosmic
25:58
Speaker 3: level that we allow.
26:00
Speaker 2: Life to be treated this way.
26:02
Speaker 3: That's why I interviewed the family of a Kroger worker,
26:06
Speaker 3: Evan Seyfried, who committed suicide after being bullied by his
26:09
Speaker 3: management and not helped by his union just like an
26:13
Speaker 3: hour north in Milford, Ohio. So I thought of him
26:19
Speaker 3: and the Seyfrieds when I saw that other news story
26:22
Speaker 3: this past week of that poor boy who committed suicide
26:24
Speaker 3: in Springfield because our government slapped a criminal ankle bracelet
26:31
Speaker 3: on him and told him he was a worthless cockroach.
26:35
Speaker 3: I know what that feels like. Everyone here has some
26:39
Speaker 3: way of trying to understand what that feels like. But
26:42
Speaker 3: we don't try enough. Stories help us and they get
26:47
Speaker 3: us better at trying.
26:49
Speaker 4: Right.
26:49
Speaker 3: And like, that's what I just really want to kind
26:52
Speaker 3: of end with is that like, I don't look for
26:54
Speaker 3: stories in.
26:55
Speaker 2: A sort of like one way transaction anymore.
26:58
Speaker 3: Like I did that one time at a Barnes and
27:00
Speaker 3: Noble where it's like, I want stories that are going
27:01
Speaker 3: to reflect me back to me. Right. I like, I,
27:06
Speaker 3: I don't just gravitate to stories that I gravitate to
27:10
Speaker 3: because I see something of me reflected in them. I
27:13
Speaker 3: gravitate to them because a light in them reflects in
27:16
Speaker 3: me and stays with me.
27:18
Speaker 2: After I connect with them, right?
27:21
Speaker 3: And every great human-made creation, construction and operation embodies a
27:30
Speaker 3: whole that would not exist but for the sum of
27:33
Speaker 3: every worker and every ounce of human work that contributed
27:36
Speaker 3: to its existence.
27:38
Speaker 2: And the same is.
27:39
Speaker 3: True at the level of individual artistic creation and experience
27:43
Speaker 3: and at that most basic level of stories, telling and listening.
27:50
Speaker 3: All those workers with all their lives and all their
27:52
Speaker 3: labor contributed to bringing all these magnificent things into existence.
27:57
Speaker 2: And all us.
27:58
Speaker 3: Workers with all our lives and all our labor contribute
28:01
Speaker 3: to them by keeping them running. So too have all
28:05
Speaker 3: these stories contributed to bringing the me that I am
28:09
Speaker 3: into existence. And they and other stories will continue their
28:12
Speaker 3: work of shaping how I live and act and see
28:16
Speaker 3: and feel and think. Stories have been and continue to
28:20
Speaker 3: be the most ever-present, ever-abundant, ever-beautiful reminder that I need
28:27
Speaker 3: other people to live, to be, to be me. And
28:33
Speaker 3: the ever-present, ever-abundant, ever-beautiful number and forms of human stories
28:39
Speaker 3: all around us, all the stories that have been told already,
28:44
Speaker 3: all the stories yet to be told, that live on
28:47
Speaker 3: in our books, our films, our songs, our campfire stories.
28:51
Speaker 3: Each and every single one of them is a reminder
28:54
Speaker 3: to us and to each other that we need each
28:57
Speaker 3: other too.
28:59
Speaker 2: Thank you.
29:06
Speaker 3: All right, gang, that's going to wrap things up for
29:08
Speaker 3: us today. I want to thank Sean Duffy, Vincent DeGeorge,
29:12
Speaker 3: and all the good folks at the Walls Foundation for
29:16
Speaker 3: bringing us all together for the Ruther Polak Labor History.
29:19
Speaker 2: Symposium this year. And thank you to.
29:22
Speaker 3: Everyone who came out in person and came up and
29:25
Speaker 3: talked to me and shared your stories with me. I mean,
29:29
Speaker 3: it was really a special event, and I am just
29:33
Speaker 3: so honored to have been a part of it. And
29:35
Speaker 3: of course, I want to thank you all for listening,
29:38
Speaker 3: and I want to thank you for caring. We do
29:40
Speaker 3: this work for you, and we cannot do it without you.
29:44
Speaker 3: Working People is brought to you in partnership with In
29:46
Speaker 3: These Times Magazine and The Real News Network. This show
29:50
Speaker 3: is produced by the great Jules Taylor and is a
29:53
Speaker 3: proud member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network. We'll see
29:57
Speaker 3: y'all back here next time for another episode of Working People.
30:01
Speaker 3: And in the meantime, go explore all the great work
30:04
Speaker 3: that we're doing weekly at The Real News Network, where
30:07
Speaker 3: we do grassroots reporting that lifts up the voices and
30:11
Speaker 3: stories from the front lines of struggle around the U.S.
30:14
Speaker 3: and across the world. Subscribe to our YouTube channel. Check
30:18
Speaker 3: out our great podcasts like Under the Shadow and The
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Speaker 3: Mark Steiner Show. and connect with us on social media
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Speaker 3: do more work like this by going to therealnews.com forward
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Speaker 3: slash donate and becoming a supporter today. I promise you guys,
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Speaker 3: it really does make a difference. I'm Maximilian Alvarez. Take
30:41
Speaker 3: care of yourselves and take care of each other. Solidarity forever.
30:50
Speaker 1: When my face you no longer see, I live on, yes,
30:54
Speaker 1: I live on. Wherever we go, we are going to
30:59
Speaker 1: roll the union on.
31:00
Speaker 4: It's on, I live on, yes, I live on.
31:04
Speaker 1: Wherever hungry, hungry are we, just as hungry as hungry
31:08
Speaker 1: can be.
31:09
Speaker 4: It's on, I live on, yes, I live on.
31:14
Speaker 1: Where mean things are happening in this land is read
31:18
Speaker 1: a song, I live on, yes, I live on. Wherever
31:21
Speaker 1: the book mean things are happening in this land is read, I.
31:26
Speaker 4: Live on, yes, I live on.
31:29
Speaker 1: Wherever the videotape of me is shown, I live on, yes,
31:34
Speaker 1: I live on. If I have help to make this
31:38
Speaker 1: a better world to live in, I live on, yes,
31:42
Speaker 1: I live on.
31:43
Speaker 4: When my body is solid and in some bones and grave,
31:47
Speaker 4: I live on. Yes, I live on. When my songs
31:52
Speaker 4: and poems are read, I live on. Yes, I live on.