Episode

12/8 BRITTNEY GRINER FREED; Big Finance Bankrupting Black America w/ Emily Flitter

December 8, 2022
0% buffered00:00Current time00:00

Download MP3

Emma hosts Emily Flitter, finance reporter for the New York Times, to discuss her recent book The White Wall: How Big Finance Bankrupts Black America. First, Emma discusses this morning’s news of President Biden announcing that WNBA star Brittney Griner has been released from Russian custody. Then, Emily joins and speaks about the current NYTimes Guild walk outs and what this means for the Times workers fight for better pay and better benefits. Afterwards Emily and Emma dive into her book, starting off with a general primer on the enormous racial wealth gap in the U.S., and how that wealth gap has persisted and even widened over the past 50+ years. She then touches on how banks have attempted to use a narrative of “racial progress” to buttress their social justice bona fides, without acknowledging the massive financial inequities that exist for Black Americans, and especially without acknowledging some significant banks like Citi’s direct roots in slavery. Emily then speaks to the large amount of emails between bank tellers of numerous bank branches and how they showed a disproportionate emphasis on scrutinizing black patrons attempting to cash checks. They then turn to algorithms, how banks use them, and how they are utilized to continue to perpetuate the myth that algorithms are race blind and race conscious because they lack the same human error that produces racism, a claim that is blatantly false (algorithms aren’t omniscient and don’t appear in the world fully formed.) Emily ends the conversation by touching on her reporting on cryptocurrency, specifically FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried’s attempts to assist with cities’ guaranteed income programs in order to curry favor with Washington politicians, attempting to give impoverished people crypto, being told that poor people shouldn’t be given an enormously speculative and unstable asset, agreeing to give them cash, then shuttering before handing over a single cent. Afterwards, Emma discusses further the passage of the Respect For Marriage Act, and Republicans insane reaction to its enshrinement into law.

And, in the fun half, Emma is joined by Matt Binder and Brandon Sutton, where they break down the “next entries” in the so-called “Twitter Files”, Jack Dorsey’s skepticism of Elon Musk, and Candace Owens claiming she doesn’t believe in conspiracy theories, that the term “conspiracy theory” were created by the CIA, then begins to spout the conspiracy theories she believes in. Dave Rubin excitedly announces he tested positive for COVID, Dennis Prager’s latest therapy session (his show) involves him thinking good male relationships involve being mean to each other, leading him to believe trans people can’t truly become men, + your calls & IM’s!

Check out Emily’s book here: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-White-Wall/Emily-Flitter/9781982183240

Get tickets to the “Give Them A Revolution” live show! https://www.ticketweb.com/event/this-is-revolution-left-reckoning-cutting-room-tickets/12706315

Become a member at JoinTheMajorityReport.comhttps://fans.fm/majority/join

Subscribe to the ESVN YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/esvnshow

Subscribe to the AMQuickie newsletter here: https://am-quickie.ghost.io/

Join the Majority Report Discord! http://majoritydiscord.com/

Get all your MR merch at our store: https://shop.majorityreportradio.com/

Get the free Majority Report App!: http://majority.fm/app

Follow the Majority Report crew on Twitter:

@SamSeder

@EmmaVigeland

@MattBinder

@MattLech

@BF1nn

@BradKAlsop

Check out Matt’s show, Left Reckoning, on Youtube, and subscribe on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/leftreckoning

Subscribe to Brandon’s show The Discourse on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/ExpandTheDiscourse

Subscribe to Discourse Blog, a newsletter and website for progressive essays and related fun partly run by AM Quickie writer Jack Crosbie. https://discourseblog.com/

Check out Matt Binder’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/mattbinder

Check out Ava Raiza’s music here! https://avaraiza.bandcamp.com/

The Majority Report with Sam Seder – https://majorityreportradio.com/

Past Episodes

In addition to Trump's erratic trade policies, Republicans are also working to defund vital programs like Medicare and Social Security in their upcoming legislative push. AOC has an explainer on how the GOP is looking to cut nearly a trillion dollars out of Medicare and give it to ...
It's a Sam-solo casual Friday and Digby is here to wrap up the week that was. Sam takes in the Fox News discussion about the pope, which acknowledges that Jesus would be on the side of migrants if he was alive today, but also wonders whether he'd be as political as some of the leaders of the ...
Trump is touting his trade deal with the U.K., which he bragged will lead to an increased influx in the number of Rolls Royces to the U.S.  He also says that the mounting crisis at America's ports, which could lead to people losing their jobs, is proof that the U.S. economy isn't losing money. ...