It has been awhile since I’ve done a pop culture and money episode. There’s just so much going on right now so it’s hard to keep up with everything. But, this week I have two really interesting situations that I would like to talk about in the following episode. First is the Ryan Coogler arrest at his bank as he tried to withdraw funds from his account. The second situation is Kim Kardishian pissing everyone off in an ill-advised let them eat cake moment emphatically insisting that no one wants to work anymore and that if they worked harder yada yada yada. I actually needed some time to reflect on these two crazy situations and I also wanted to see how other people were reacting and it was fascinating to see what people had to say.
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I’m struck by how often people express shock when Black and Brown folks talk about the ongoing racist treatment and profiling we are often subject to. It’s as if, unless a situation occurs directly in front of them-they just don’t believe what we’re saying.
There are many things that I dislike about technology and I don’t want to go down a dystopian rabbit’s hole, but one thing that I DO appreciate is that it’s easy for people to document in real time problematic situations. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Ryan Coogler situation, I’m going to briefly share what happened. Ryan Coogler is the director of the Black Panther. It’s very easy to say that Ryan Coogler has some in his bank account. He went to his bank to withdraw around $12,000 in cash.
A couple of important things to point out:
- He was wearing face mask due to COVID
- He provided a withdrawal slip in order to secure his funds
- He had provided his i.d
$12,000 is not an unusual amount of cash to be withdrawn from an account. In fact, small business owners every single day withdraw larger sums of cash like this for their coffee shops, restaurants, hardware stores, etc. So, why did the teller call the police on him?
One other piece of information that’s important-he wrote a note saying that he was WITHDRAWING the money and to please be discreet handing it to him because-walking around with that much cash could be dangerous and who knows who was in the bank. This note, that said “withdraw” not rob was what apparently triggered the teller to call the police on him.
The police who are known for escalating non-violent situations and killing Black and Brown people in a blink of an eye. In fact, the city of Denver introduced a program to respond to non-violent mental health emergencies in order to proactively prevent the likelihood of police interactions with mentally unwell folks that could escalate and end in a tragedy.
When I share that I love FinTech there’s a reason why. It can often provide a barrier between me and bullshit. Because when I’m outside of my hometown where I know my tellers, etc. I really want to lower my interactions with people who may racially profile me when I’m trying to do a mundane task and they can’t imagine that I have the money to withdraw, buy the product, or eat at the place.
What fascinated me was the reaction to the situation. I learned a lot about people. I learned that Americans are clearly no longer as familiar with the process of withdrawing CASH from a teller at the bank. There’s a process and with large amounts such as the one Ryan Coogler requested you would provide an i.d. Which HE DID.
He provided his I.D., his account pin number a withdrawal slip and did everything correctly.
Financial profiling is real.
In the past couple of months there have been several banking while Black stories. Remember the surgeon who was refused service at a bank when she tried to open an account with a $16,000 check.
On Twitter many people brought up that a customer providing a note during a transaction isn’t as unusual as one would think. Some folks may have difficulty speaking, be hard of hearing, or just want to provide clarity of expectations during a transaction.
Over and over again it was clear that many people are so out of the habit of withdrawing cash directly from a teller that they didn’t even realize their bad takes about the situation.
What myself and other people immediately thought of was what if something had gone wrong? What if he hadn’t remained calm? What if they weren’t able to resolve the situation quickly and weirdly, maybe it was a good thing that Black officers responded because they were more likely to be familiar with who he was. Also, other people of color can be complicit in profiling behavior for whatever reason.
I also want you to watch the Amazon Go skit from this week’s Saturday Night Live. I’ve included a link in the show notes and when I say I felt that skit to the marrow of bones-I did. There are just some things I’m just not going to feel comfortable doing and contactless shopping is one of them.
Let’s Talk About Kim
Then, there’s Kim Kardashian and her Stop Being Poor moment. Kim is interesting to me in that I do think she has a good work ethic. But, I also think she is inconsistent. There are many women of color who have been associated with the Kardashian family who would argue that a lot of their fame and ideas came from them without being recognized for their contributions.
But, what really struck me about her “People don’t want to work” comment and “Yeah” in the background from one of her sisters to the comment is the complete lack of self-awareness that they seemed to have about their own lives.
Kim was Paris Hilton’s personal assistant during The Simple Life years. Kim’s father, Robert Kardashian, a famous or infamous Los Angeles Lawyer. She has staff-house cleaners, nanny’s and other folks to help her do what she does.
There are people in other countries producing her Skimms
And at the time I’m recording this, the family’s production company was looking for unpaid interns. I won’t even go through self-checkout because I’m not working at grocery store.
What exactly does she think the rest of us are doing? In between work homeschooling kids during a pandemic, cleaning, doing meal prep and hoping that one ill-fated accident doesn’t wreck our financial world?
What fascinates me about this disconnect is thinking about it through the lens of her social justice work. I feel like the capacity is there for her to become more self-aware but that would mean having conversations that she’s uncomfortable with and talking to the people that she’s trying to help.
While Kim annoyed me with her comment, the truth is there are a lot of everyday people who spout this bullshit on Twitter, in conversations with their friends and family and at work. They will say “Why do people need to earn $15 an hour? It’s not like they’re working hard”
“Why do people need health insurance outside of work?”
“What are people complaining about?”
Ironically, the price of gas might help people to make the connection that you can work hard and that low wages impact everything. I know that I’m asking a lot.
The person that I would really like to have a conversation with in that family is Kris Jenner. She’s the one who married rich and leveraged every opportunity she could for her kids and I’m not mad at her for it.
In a country that celebrates wealth and celebrity I’m happy to see increased pushback on bad financial takes such as the one that Kim made. What’s interesting about the situation is how people can be multiple things at the same time. They can be well-meaning in some ways such as her social justice work which I really do think she has a passion for and completely out of touch in other ways.
It will be interesting to see if she learns something from this situation. Or, if their team will start paying their interns.
Listeners what say you?
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