Higher Learning

how's that? Well? Um? I mean this episode is not dedicated to that, so, you know, I don't want to speak out of pocket without you know, reading fully what's what? But more or less, uh Russia sent troops into the rebel controlled regions of Ukraine. Vladimir Crutain did like hour long speech and ship where he was pretty much justifying going in there. So they're doing it as a quote unquote peacekeeping mission to protect those uh new states that

they've recognized, the sovereign nations. And uh, it's kind of everyone's saying it's like a pretext to war. What are your what are your thoughts on it? It seems like everyone was like really freaking out about it. But then as the day went on, I guess not. But I mean, well, it's not like, yeah, I felt like we're like loading up aircraft full of you know, college kids to go over there and drop them out of plane in parachutes. Today,

you know, people started freaking out. But it remains to be seen how swiftly if any action will be taken. Particularly I guess um they're being pressure from you know, UK, NATO, other world UM leaders and allies of ours to see what happens with imposing sanctions. UM. So well, you know, we'll see how that plays out. I guess I give me some release relief as someone that identifies as anti war generally not really a big fan of them military

industrial complex. So um, yeah, that's where we had. Well, those sanctions are definitely going to start flying like hot cakes all over that place, man, um, I think it. That's definitely gonna have an economic impact on the US. I would imagine we'd imagine with like iron and aluminum, maybe wheat and stuff like that. Even if not, they're definitely gonna say it is to explain why no one can afford anything. We need to talk about the inflation

ship too. At some point when we need you to talk about the fact that Georgia rent has increased in the last three years, what we need to talk about is the fact that wages are not keeping up with

the natural rate of inflation in the first place. Like if we do talk about inflation, we need to become adding media narratives around the fact that it is to do with I don't know, workers getting fucking unemployment insurance or some ship and you know, actually take a look at the fact that the CEOs you know what we're talking about, types and foods or whatever are getting huge bonuses right now there and they're the costs of their

goods is going up. Now that's because of inflation, because they're just like paying officially because they have like all these corporations are having record profit years and ship some like a lot of this is they're doing to a large part, they're doing it. They're doing it. They're doing it to us. And then be like do you see peasants, you know, like this is what this is what you

have wrought with your labor shortage. How they're all of you have a safe plantation down price of stakes on the real though, like do you think that there's some spite involved in it for all of the lab um do you like on the real though, do you think there might be some spike in it involved It's it's interesting to me to consider to what degree in various UM government policies are latently like forms of disciplining the populace, like cutting off on employment insurance to like force people

back into an unsafely opened economy, etcetera. So I mean, I would not be shocked if that were a part of the calculus of like something like, oh, let's take okay, at least, like, let's take advantage of this moment everyone's talking about inflation, etcetera. You can probably just drive up the price of goods and no one will notice, and

everyone will blame it on someone else. So let's get that bag babe manufactured consent with the mainstream media, and then you can kind of you know, um, So let's let's get into you know we we will definitely dedicate something to talking about that speci quickly coming up soon. But what are we talking about today? We are talking about higher learning. Yes, I had not. I was not familiar with this UM film before because I was old

when it came out. Yeah, no, you hadn't seen it, like only Yeah, I mean all I knew of ice cube cinematic career was fucking Friday, And like, are we veryain? That's crazy? I mean, I'm not saying I'm not saying you're crazy, but I'm just saying, like, it's it's sucking wild to take that in that. It's like, man, you know, there's like a whole bunch of motherfuckers don't remember like when the ice Cube and nice Tea first started being in movies and ship like that, and you know, they

actually had some really good ones. But that was definitely one of ice cubes better. I want to say it's not really the star of it, but he's definitely one of his better films that I loved. I loved his his character, his acting in this. It was so dope. Anyway, Yeah, we get into high today. We're gonna, yeah, we're gonna be doing kind of a kind of review slash analysis and you know, dig into the movie Higher Learning, directed by John Singleton, starring Omar Epps, ice Cube, Christie Swanson,

Michael Rappaport, and Lawrence Fishburne. And if you look real close, you'll spot some cameos by a young Jennifer Connolly and a young Regina King and a young Buster Rhymes. It's pretty wild the way the way that is, I was um watching an interview with Michael Rappaport recently, and he was just talking about being on that set because like he's you know, bike a round for it's like hip hopped out, you know. Like so he was just saying, I was geeking being on like set with ice Cube

and Buster Rhymes and show. So that that's that's cool. But we're gonna check it out. The movie is about just to give you a little oh yeah, there's gonna be spoilers in this, so we're giving a spoiler warning, but just to give you a brief rundown before we get into the jump. The story follows three students in their freshman year to a fictional college, California college called

Columbus University. Uh. The film follows their differing struggles with identity and the real world, and their storylines you know, intermingled and intersect that it all comes to a climax that's pretty tragic, and you know, I guess the filmmakers are hoping that you get some lessons from it and it you know, the Mariah was five when it came out, but I was like twelve, I think, So we had Higher Learning dubbed on a VHS tape in between like

Married with Children and three Company and Ship. So it was like a movie that I watched quite a bit when I was younger, which watching it now is kind of like, but hey, but yeah, it's a pretty heavy movie. It's got a lot of heavy topics. I mean, we're going we're jumping all over the place from like race, sexuality, rape, white supremacy, the generation sheels, divide, class warfare. It's it's

got a lot to it. So we're just gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna go down and give our thoughts and then dig into what this film is about and how it portrays like college life and also I think like youth activism, um, and how that differs from how things are now. Um. So yeah, we'll be right back with that after the jump. All right, we are back. So, ladies and gentlemen, we are talking the film Higher Learning. If you guys haven't seen it, I mean we're gonna be spoiling the hell

out of it. So maybe you want to check it out and come back and watch listen to the podcast. But first going into it, I've seen it a bunch and I've got some thoughts, but this being your first time watching it, and then also for you, another thing to consider between the two of us that like, you're watching it for the first time as an adult. Yeah, so you know, having a having done and been involved

in the things that you've been involved in. So what's your takeaway from I mean, I felt like it was pretty blunt with like some of its themes, Like specifically, I think it's very well encapsulated in the scene where ice Cube and like all of the black students are chilling at the black hole and he's like, and there's the Mexicans and they're the Asians, et cetera, in a way that like today you might see more of a nuanced presentation, even if you're tackling the same themes of

like you know, racism and um, the stuff like that on a college campus. But then there were some subtle elements to it that I thought were really interesting, Like, I mean, maybe you could speak to this probably knowing the director better than I. John, what else do you do? Actually wait to hold on a second so John Singleton directed Boys and directed Baby Boy. He directed that ill

fated Schaft movie back in two thousand. Perhaps there was more of us in other films of his that I have seen, if I thought there was like a ton of like subtle justice. Yeah. So like from the scene where the white students are at the frat party and they're standing around and forcing a black girl to drink beer from a funnel with her feet in a bucket of ice, and the one dude, one white dude, pops

out and yelled, let's go cap us. Like I was like, this is both subtle and not subtle about like some real ship about like I think, more broadly, the abuse of black people, uh, you know, stuff like that. Like this one character I think it was, was it Remy He had like a white zombie poster in his room

and his in his norm was like white zombies. That's actually that's a that's a loaded that that whole scene actually because his Okay, you know what, well, here's a here's a good way to start this, right, how about we introduce everyone listening, give them a brief cap of the main characters the movie. Right, So you've got these three kids getting into college for their freshman year. So the first character is Malik, who's played by Omar Epps. You might remember him from House or Um. Yeah, House,

all right, I sus been a lot of stuff. I don't know why I'm blanking out right now. But so Malik is kind of like an outcast, goes to his own pace. He's one of those characters. There's a cool there's there's a really on the nose scene to introduce him, where the entire schools giving like their school you know whatever hand gesture, like you know, like their schools sports team hand jesterre and he's walking in the opposite direction

that everybody's standing, not giving the jester. And he's the only person in the frame who's not doing the same exact thing as everyone else. So to establish that he's

against the grain, he moves at his own pace. But he's a star track athlete, and I guess you could say his arc or his struggle in the movie is he struggling with um being a scholarship athlete and having to study and trying to do good in school at the same time, as well as I feel gradually throughout the movie becoming more radicalized in in black revolutionary politics with the more things that he reads and the more people that he's exposed and that's generally yeah yeah yeah.

And then like the remy guy is like getting radicalized into like Nazism. And then ah, the main white girl forgot her name, Christian Chris. Yeah, she's like getting into like feminism and so as I'll touch on later. It's interesting these themes and like what they mean about, um, the way folks have reacted to the um consciousness raising or quote or and or like radicalis and potential of higher education. Um, it's interesting to see those things play

on this one. So um, okay, so let's talk about Malik, right, So I just think that, you know, just to sum

up his art, it goes. It goes from him getting scolded by ice Cube's character, who will get into later, but it goes from him getting scolded by ice cubes character for wanting to read the autobiography of Frederick Douglas solely for a class to the last end scene he's wearing a black panther shirt and he's moved out of the dorms with he's you know what I mean, He's he's moved into an all black dorm and and and things of that nature. So like, what's your your initial

like feelings on that character. Do you think that because every every character in this movie, every you know, character is like an archetype of something, you know what I mean, kind of bothered me. But it's also like I get it. I mean, it's it's you know what, it's not like I think if the movie was like an independent film or like you know, like an art house film, I think it probably would have been dealt with, like with more nuance and so. But John Singleton at the time

was a big director. It was it was a pretty anticipated film as like his frollologue to Poetic Justice and stuff. So it was like a mainstream movie, you know what I mean. And I feel like some of some of those aspects of it, like some of the clunkiness of it, I kind of, you know, give it, give it the understanding that it's like a glossy movie, theater movie that they tried to like you know, ballsy, you know, dealing

with the subject matter that they were dealing with. But you know what I mean, it's kind of it's kind of like a a diet version of some real ships.

That makes sense, Yeah, Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, but I mean I think it's helpful to like with these archetypes then us see ourselves in the characters, you know, um, like be you know, being with like Molik in the elevator when like Kristin Line grabs her bag and pulls it closer her Like we've kind of all been in that sort of circumstance the professor, I mean, particularly in my experience of working as a writing tutor as an undergrad,

like that whole encounter he has with the Lawrence Fishburn character of like well your grammar and ship, like you know, he wasn't good enough so you got like anphoni paper

or whatever, though the content was like really interesting. Is something that like is a very real struggle for people that like professors, people of like how you're learning, um, want of discredit people's knowledge based on the way they present themselves, UM, which I think is a huge theme of the movie, just like people discrediting each other based on what they seem like and how they communicate themselves and not necessarily like what the people know or who

they are. What do you think about some of the back and forth between Laurence Fishburn's character and the lead because Laurence Fishburn's character is he's much more of a supporting role in this. I think he's only like five scenes or so, but he is a political science professor that several different you know characters in the movie. They attend this class and they have them as a teacher,

and they have scenes where they're talking to him. But his main dialogue between Malik in him, I guess could be summed up as he's like from an older pull it, pull yourself up from by your bootstraps generation and Malik isn't like I think like Malik is like a gen X version of like how a lot of a lot of young activism. Now it kind of feels I feels like he's like a precursor character character of that. Yeah, Malik is what Joe Rogan would call woke. You know

what I'm saying. Well, really it's what's his name? Fudge? Yeah, okay, so next next character is Fudge. That's all he goes by. There is no other there is no other Oh no, no, I think calls him Mr White. Yeah. Yeah. Character ice Cube's character, he's like a super duper senior. He's been there for like six or seven years. He's got a giant afro. He's super pro black. You don't take no ship. Party is hard, but he hits the you know, he's he's knowledgeable in in in the things that you know

he talks about. So what are your initial thoughts on ice cubes? I mean both, it was both an archetype and like handled pretty like definitely in that it seemed very real, like the moment when they're talking about Frederick Douglas and he's like, you've only ever read this for school, Like that's like a real conversation I can imagine someone engaging in, and like I think it's like a powerful lesson for the audience even like oh, like you can just learn. First of all, you just learned to learn

on your own. Also like um, school won't teach you what you need into a too in a sense, like you know the importance of self study. I thought you have little gems like that. I was like, okay, already see you all right. So next character is going to be Christian. So Christian is kind of if higher learning where the matrix and the college is like you know, the whole real world rabbit hole ship, then the character Christian kind of serves as our neo. You know what

I'm saying. She's like the vessel by which this like real world quote unquote situation is explained. She's the fish out of water from Orange County. And she doesn't, you know, he doesn't know how to socially interact with people. It doesn't know how to get around all that sort of thing. Um, her character aren't I don't even I don't even know if it's I guess her character more than anybody else in the movie is the one who's I guess going

through the identity crisis. Right. Um, So she gets sexually assaulted very early on in the movie, and that kind of sparks her into activism. But then she starts exploring her sexuality. It's not really it's not really dealt with I guess, like in In I mean, I think they could have gone in more on that storyline of her, you know, exploring her bisexuality. They have some fleeting lines, but there fleeting scenes between her and Regina King where you know Regina King kind of express How would you

describe that, like as playful? Playful? Uh, playful, biggest you know what I mean? Like, oh girl, you saw y'all holding hands and you know what I mean, that sort of thing. Um, what was what are you? What are your thoughts on the Christian character? I mean I felt like that whole storyline was like problem sort of problematic and fucked up. Frankly, Like, first of all, I realized, I'm gonna watch it goddamn fucking sexual salt scene, so

that was super fun. And then like the implication that like speaking out against sexual solve will drive you into the arms of a lesbian like thing. I was like, this is pretty whack. Um. That's so that's how to speak someone of her character as much as like how the characters are written, because I presume they weren't written by women, so that in itself it's like, well, what do you expect? Like, Okay, I mean, that's that's totally fair.

That was like I was watching it with my roommate who's also lesbian, and she had that same like from the moment, from the moment that Jennifer Connolly's character showed up to start consoling her, Like just the way that Jennifer Connolly's character was acting, my roommate was like, Oh, goddamnit, are they about to do what? I think the traumatized like sexual Salt Survivor, Like I don't know, that's all

the films. In the film's defense, just I'm just I've watched the movie a bunch of times, and I watched it a few times leading up to now. So in the film's defense, they do try their best within their studio film run time to have that like play out and not be as you know what I mean, not to be so oh, I don't I still got to get sexual and now I'm a lesbian, you know what I mean. It didn't. It doesn't really go quite like that where it like dives into it like quite head on.

But it is again clunky, you know what I'm saying for lack of better words. Um. The next character, and this is probably I mean just I don't know why I feel that this character is probably like the most interesting to me. But as the character portrayed by um Michael Rappaport, Remy, who is another fish out of water from Idaho, but he's much more on like the in cell you know, in cell type, and he he's pretty

much the inciting incident of the movie. So I think in order to explain Remy, We're gonna kind of have to just you know, pretty much give you a layout of the movie. Right. So we've got all these different characters that come into the school. There's the culture clash, there's everyone trying to find their identity, and there's this character, Remy, with an inciting incident of him being ice Cube's roommate. To start the movie. He's Fudge's roommate and Fudge has

a party. The party's raging. It's the first days class, so Remy calls the campus security to break up the party, and that you know, begins his ostracized ostracization from you know, his his dorm and he has to move out dorms, and then he ends up getting into fights with frat boys and finding himself walking alone at night, and he meets a group of neo Nazis and they bring him

into their pack. Um Uh. Run in with Malik's character leads to him pulling a gun on the leak and then running away and dropping out of school, which leads to a fight off of campus between Malik and his boys in this small skin head click, and then a retaliation of Remy going to the rooftop of the of a building on campus and shooting into the crowd with a rifle mass so mass shooting before I guess even Coliban happened. Um, yeah, so he is the inciting incident

or he causes the inciting incident of the movie. Um, what are your takeaway from that character? I mean, that's it's really spot I mean he's just like an awkward white boy, you know that like just doesn't have any social skills. Remember that the moment in the frat frat party where he's like John talked to this guy sitting next to him and he looks over again and the guy's gone, just sort of like social alienation, Like, yeah,

I'll drive people to crazy extremes. I think the isolation of the pandemic has demonstrated that to puttit of the way that you and on, etcetera has like taken off because everybody been sitting in their houses as hell, Like perfectly normal regular people with social skills that just like didn't have any social interaction got drawn into like insane conspiracytion.

So do you do you take at all any issue with the with how the movie chose to Do you think the movie chose to depict him too sympathetically or do you think no, I think it's good to humanize that perspective because those are people and understanding how we

how they get into that world. It's like a really important lesson for us because I don't know, I think it's really easy to Another interesting no, another interesting character that's related that that's related to Remy's character is the character Scott, who's the head of the Skinhead crew that brings them in, because he has this like I don't know, the way that I was reading it is he's got this sort of there's like this, at least for a

certain portion of the movie, there's like this actual, like genuine care or concern that he has with like Remy's. Like he's he's upset when Remy drops out of school because he's like, damn, man, you shouldn't dropped that, you know what I mean, Like you should have dropped out of school, and you did that. And he actually tries to like momentarily called the US prevent Reamy from going out and doing the shooting before ultimately giving him a

gun and aiding and a betting up. So that's not a good but I just I just thought that there was something, there was something that wasn't cartoonish I guess about Remy's character and really all of the characters too, for that example, because as much as everyone was like an archetype, I don't think that anybody was a stereotype in the movie, you know. And and and for me, I mean it's like I I would have to probably think about it more because I didn't even think about

this this like angle of it. But if I really sat down and assess, like just like how I formulated some of my you know, worldview just growing up as like a preteen and an adolescent in a teen you know, I'm sure all of the media and all the things that I like read and saw, I'm sure all that

influences influenced and built that net. And knowing how much I've seen this movie, I mean yeah, I mean like watching it, we rewatching it now recently, like as an adult and stuff, there is like a good amount of it. It's like, man like, that's oh, that's that's where I got that idea from him. That's that's talking about. Yeah, Like I I there's one thing, you know, I I grew up in a half African household, you know what

I mean. So two, to put it nicely, like homosexuality, especially when I was a little kid, wasn't necessarily like the most accepted topic or things like that within our

household and ship. But I remember being a kid and watching that movie, like watching it on my own, watching it with my parents, you know what I'm saying, And it's like like I remember, like like how it even affected them in shape, Like they're like I remember, like my mother like sneering at some of the lesbian sex scenes and then like crying out when the Nazis are beating up a gay couple, you know what I mean, Like through the journey of the movie and the ship

like that. So you know that's that's that's cool for some heartwarming points. Again, um so let's let's let's get into some of the like topics that the movie kind of touches on, because it's all over the place. For for film buffs and people who were really heavy on like story structure when they're watching movies and stuff like that, the movie is probably a mess, you know what I'm saying, because it is kind of all over the place in terms of the ideas. It's trying to communicate themes and

all that ship. But we're gonna try to touch on a little bit of those first. So one of the things that Mariah had down that also was like compelling to me as one of the first real scenes that you really really breaks down everything. And that's when ice Cube is breaking down the different demographic clicks within the school. Like he's he's sitting on the yard and he's like, over there's Chinatown. It's where all the Asian students are. And he's like, over there's Disney World. That's where all

the rich white kids are. He's over there south of the border. When where the black hole? You know? Um so, just so you being a professor, the statement that the movie made about self segregation and segregation segregated campuses and how you know, Remy makes the line about it seems like everybody's sticking to their own, everybody standing up for their own Like what are your thoughts? What are your thought?

So well, I feel like self segregation on college campuses, first of all, I mean there's a degree to which it's not really it's compulsory based on just like the material conditions of various students, Like some students can't get in to frast some students can't um like afford to live off campus, or when they do, they live in like just not very nice places and so away in which, like the economics and vary varying socio economic status is

of students on college campuses, segregates naturally. But then I would also say that, um self segregation is somewhat of a defense mechanism for certain groups when they try to venture out and you know, go to a frat party or go be involved in these predominantly white organizations or you know, experienced my fire aggressions in the classroom, the best way they have to defend themselves is to like

group up and stick together. Um So, yeah, to add to that, so I told you all about the scene where Remy and Malik get into a fight and Remy pulls a gun on Malik before he runs away and drops out of school. So Malik ends up leaving his dorm you know in his roommates is a white kid. They band up, forming like a little friendship off off screen, like you never get to see that friendship really, but

but apparently they're friends and ship. So when Malik is moving out, there's a scene where he's like, hey man, you know, I'm not like that. I'm not a white supremacist. Bla blah blah. You're you're treating me like like I'm that guy or something like that. And Malik makes the point of, you know, right now, I just feel more

secure and safe and comfortable around my own people. Yeah, damn, I mean that's that's kind of how it is, though, I mean, if you think, I mean even thinking of like a contemporary and different context example, like you know, with regards to gentification, which I'm experiencing a great deal over in the community I represent, like the the quote unquote infiltration of white people makes the legacy residents feel less safe because of criminalization, they have wild parties, you know,

changing even something as simple as the changing traffic patterns on the street making people feel less physically safe to ride their bikes with their kids, right, and so they just feel safer if we could just stay segregated and like not have white people live over here. Um, so do you think that best? Do you think? Like is what? Like what is that? Is it? Is that a good thing? That a bad thing? Is it? Just? Is it just

a thing? Like? I mean, I think there's a degree to which, like, um, there's so many levels to this, but like I mean like going back select the initial form of integration, school integration, you know, even MLK identified it is like, oh, I'm not sure we should have fought for this, because it's like integrating our people into a burning house and so um. With regards to gentrification, for example, it's like, oh, our neighborhoods are becoming diverse

and mixed income. It's like, well, not by choice, Like people are being forced to live in people and for with people and then forced out of their neighborhood by these people. And there's this I mean, I guess there's a sense to which like folks long for the good old days all the time, like, well, we just wish things could go back to the way they were before. Yeah. Part of it is not feeling safe, but part of it is because of criminalization. Part of it is awareness

of the displacement that comes with um, new folks moving in. Um. There may be a way to which like white supremacies internalized, like what we want to stay segregated. The same thing with like like interracial relationships canna look down upon like oh you marry us outside, you're the race that it's like, uh, did people not fight for and when this like right, Like didn't they people enforce antimigenation laws as like a means of oppression, and so people internalized dogs have been

a couple of people over that. Pretty pretty sure. Yeah, so I think it's it's a host of factors. It's like anachronistic just wanted to go back good old days, very real threats of like you know, small scale but very real like violence, and then some perhaps internalized webs from zine I don't know. So okay, so now jumping onto let's jump to another team that they hit. So this one happens even before the issue of segregation, so

this is off the bat. Like to start the movie off, Laurence Fishburn's character calls up a volunteer, which happens to be the leak, and the leak goes and starts reading off marked names off of a piece of paper, one of the names being his and christians Man. And after he's done reading it, Laurence Fishburn informs everybody whose name was just read that they have their financial aid didn't

go through and they hand them situated. Oh shit, Like just as a side story, my mom used to told me, like the graduation process in Liberia, you know, they make you do like like you don't know whether you graduate until the ceremony, you know, so like like you got like you gotta do like some like ceremony like walk and if you get there you didn't graduate, like go straight up tell your friend of like all your families and friends you did not graduate. You gotta go walk

back and sit down. That's just rutal. But anyway, like the topic of financial aid and students struggling to make ends meet and go to school and stuff like that, that's again it's it's very loosely touched on a gank. The only resolution that you get out of it is, uh, like one of the financial aid ladies tells Christian that she needs to get a job. Look so in the night that you never see her get. In the n nineties, tuition at four your public colleges was like three thousand,

two hundred dollars per year um. And so this is the time in which, like you could conceivably go get a job to like cover your expenses that weren't covered by your parents or financial aid or you know, student loans, which were still a relatively new phenomena at that time. Today, tuition had well I guess no, not even today. We're thinking like eleven years ago, tuition had risen two person sent so almost um to ten thousand dollars per year. Okay, well, no,

I'm trying to I'm getting my day to mix up. Okay, it's ten thousand longars per year at two thousand eighteen, which is still far far outpasting inflation and wage increases. And so imagine what that conversation would be for Chris kristen orm league today at the Financial Aid office, be like she should out of luck, bud, like they got a loan. I don't know the movie. In the movie when they show that screw, they show like the scream of the financial aid lady screen of how much money

molikos and it's like three gs. I'm like, yo, best can we takes three grand to be in one class at the University of Georgia right now? One class? No, not even one class. Its it cost me three grand to be listed as working on my dissertation. So I'm not even in class. It's just like to qualify that to like tell the school that I am writing in my own time. I mean the financial aid situations, why,

I you know, Unfortunately, dropped out of college. You know, my father wanted to try to pay for school, like out of pocket. Then he started getting sick and he wasn't able to so I had to apply for student loans like mid going to school, and I had to get a job, and it was just you know, I was, I was, I was working, I was going to school, and I started, you know, I started doing things outside there were of actual interest to me. So you know that's kind of alright. So next theme that we are

going to jump to that they talk about. So okay, so you mentioned, you know, I should have probably given you a trigger warning, not for real, like about the rape scene. I should have seen it popped up on the screen like in the beginning, like all the different like you know warning, but like I didn't really until

it happened. I was like skip skip skip skip. So but I mean, um, just like the you know, I know, you mentioned the the aspect of the fallout being the the lesbian relationship that aside, like the initial her getting raped, her roommate Regina King finding out about it, the incident between her and the rapists on the telephone where he calls Regina King a black bitch, which then gets all the black students to go over to the you know, the frat house and and and pull him out and

rough him up. What was your like, how do you feel felt that that went down? Because it definitely I'm sorry. So I will say that that was an interesting moment that like really underscored the power of like intersectional solidarity. So this guy that is arguing with softness because he just committed fucking, you know, sexual crime, is also demeaning to a black woman that he doesn't even know on

the phone. And so the homies rolled up and Pete's ass because he was demeaning you know, a black queen. It sound her. And so I was like, okay, so you got this white girl, you got this black woman, you got these black dudes. Like y'all come together and sure they didn't end up addressing like what happened to Kristen, but like together they could like take like take action and funk this guy up that was disrespecting all of them.

That they didn't but you know they didn't know that, right, No, they didn't know that, but like like they didn't they didn't know that she got raped. I know that I know that, Yes, yes, I know that so um but they all but like, oh, so all, y'all are getting

shopped on by these kinds of people. You might not even be aware of the ways in which some people are getting shoot on, but you recognize it's not cool because maybe in a peripheral ray, someone in your group has been impacted, like the Regina King character, so you roll up and fucking with his ass and like, I mean, I wish there would have been more justice for Christen, but like, yeah, that is actually one of the best

scenes in the movie too. It's it's a good mixture of like, it's you know, it's it's like a good dramatic serious within all. So it's got you know, there's an element to it that's really satisfying to see the rapist guy get roughed up by Buster Rymes and ice Cube that I can't I didn't ship. I just you know, I just said at the sentence, I just said, come on, man,

you gotta you want to see this ship. So okay, So the you know, there's no way that we can touch on every single of the little loose threads that they leave in this movie. But the last bit that I wanted to touch on is a theme that's ongoing.

I mentioned to y'all how Malik and Laurence Fishburn's professor character they have a back and forth several times throughout the movie, and for me, it seems to be like the the main through line for that storyline between those two is I'm having a hard time articulating this, but it's kind of like, is is our issue economic or

is it racial? With Malik feeling that it's a racial issue, and I guess Laurence Fishburn being the older character kind of you know what I mean, more so encouraging the idea that it's an economic class struggle that's going on. And it seems to be seems to be like those I mean, obviously it's both. I mean, it just seems to be like those two philosophies between those two characters are the ones that are budding head. It never gets a resolution, but at the end of it never gets

a resolution. But another cool thing that they did with it is they don't make it like one way or the other, where Laurence Fishburn enlightens of Malik onto you know what I mean, onto the class struggle, and it doesn't end with Malik showing Lawrence Fishburn, No, it's actually a racial thing. They go away from the movie with all the things that happened in the movie still believing what they believe, know what I mean, and just having

argued it out throughout the movie. But Malik, Laurence Fishburn is reading Malik's paper that he's been working on trying to perfect throughout the movie and ship like that. But he gets to this passage that Laurence Fishburn, while still disagreeing, he like nods with it, you know, happy that Malik is able to express, like what is like the ideology that he has a ship like that? And Malik says this passage that are wants run by Maran says it

is it is. It is my belief that the dread Scott decision, if was retried in contemporary American courts, the decision would remain the same, meaning that a black man, no matter what his class status, would still have no no rights that a white man, by law, would be bound in respect. The result would be the same, no matter what the law of the land states, because it was not written for the benefit of or by African Americans. The credo of justice and liberty for all is a

falsehood I would say that. I mean, the thing that strikes me about this quote, this passage is that if dread Scott okay, so are you saying if it was retried in contemporary American courts? I mean ship Supreme Court today, the Supreme Court to day. He might be fucking right. I don't know, Um. I mean I think the um, I think that the decision remains the same in practice, right, Um, no matter what the law of the land states, as he says, Um, because it was not written for and

by African Americans. It's a falsehood. Um, the Fredo of justice, of liberty and justice and liberty for all of fawsood. I mean I think that rings that that feels true to a degree today. What do you think about just the broader struggle between class or race? I mean, that's a fundamental struggle in ideological ideology today. The divide and conquered mindset of folks that only want to focus on class and folks that only want to focus on race is beneficial to the folks that benefit from both race

and class oppression. Um. That the that you know, working class white people see, you know, Mexicans and Niggers as their enemies rather than the fact that like, none of y'all make it any money because the CEO of Tyson Foods is jacking up the price of steaks or whatever eight percent, blaming inflation and buying another yacht. Um. So I think that, yeah, that's that central tension is still with us today in the way that people argue about

what is wrong with society. It is both racism and classism and often intertwined um, as seen in the character of Laurence Fishburne, where it's like, if you have a certain class privilege, your race doesn't matter as much anymore. In fact, you might emphasize um, your bootstrapping this as a way of distancing yourself from the people that are oppressed, so that you were like, oh, I'm not I'm not like them, I'm you know, I'm a self made man, etcetera.

So yeah, we're still Do you think there's uh, do you think there's anything being communicated by Laurence Fishburne's character being of obvious West Indian immigrant. No. I wondered what degree, like white people that aren't very familiar with the ways that a pressure to assimilate will sometimes produce like right wing thinking. Right wing thinking in some immigrants, um I mean and something I mean then not to like essentialize

their experience. Some folks that immigrate from Cuba, Venezuela, etcetera might just be like, Yo, I saw like leftis unveil. I don't want nothing to do with that ship. But then for a lot of people, it's like you, like you must live the American dream, like definitely gets some people's head that like, fun, I have to be like hyper capitalists and like ascend the ladder and put my foot on the boot on the necks of everyone below me in order to like fit in and have made

it in society. I think that, I mean, it could be true for like a variety of racial groups as well. But I want to say that like his character was an archetype of a certain kind of um immigrant. Yeah, I think you nailed it on the head about the

you know, racing classes. It's obviously both. But I gotta tell you, yo, I I really you know, you know how like you have that like you know, how like you got like that racism radar when like some shifts going off and you're like it's like it's not obviously like some racist ship and you kind of have an inkling in the back of your head, like, man, I think the ship might be racist, yet I know something

about like this new breed of like white leftists. Oh that's like, hey, the only thing that matters is class. Nothing else matters, nothing else is of important. Don't bring identity politics, don't bring it up. Don't bring it up that it shouldn't be about racist. That shipped to me seems weird. I don't know. It rubs me wrong and I don't funk with it, Like, but what do you think? Like,

am i am? I just is that like me just like not really having a full grasp on the issues or is there something to that this It just feels weird, you know what I mean. It's like when yeah, yeah, like the so called leftists that are like Joe Rogan's awesome, you know what I mean? That's well yeah, I mean, oh fuck, I mean you know what I'm working about. It's like, yeah, well, where we are we should we should we close it up? Yeah, let's wrap it up,

Let's wrap it up. You know what, Just we're just briefly, you know, this isn't really gonna be a music discussion. They just briefly I'll mention the soundtrack for Higher Learning. Yeah, if I gotta give my honest opinion, it stinks. It's not good. I'm giving up the title song by ice Cube Higher Learning. It's I like it, you know, the

Rafael Sadique joined on there's pretty flying. I mean, you know one thing I will give the soundtrack props for is that it definitely tries to capture the eclectic flavor of the movie, because, like we're talking, we're going from ice Cube and Raffael Sadiq to Tory Amos doing R E. M covers and Liz Fair. I even think Tory Amos got two songs on that fucking thing, you know what I mean. But all in all, it's it's not really

that good at the soundtrack. I mean, we we've discussed some movies before and some movie soundtracks, but just given it to you real like we we can't. We can't cue that music discussion beat to talk about the Higher Alerting soundtrack. It don't it don't have enough gun. Yeah, alright, let's I guess that's it for this week. Yeah, so I I just want to plug I got a new single that came out yesterday. It's called Bell Ringer Um if we could go ahead play it at the end

of the show. Go check it out. Music videos up on YouTube. Um you can go to a bit dot lee slash lf Bell Ringer to stream it or go pre order the album. Yeah, gotcha it out. That's my rats for this week. I got a new video that just came out too, for that song so nine one two that I can remember. Yeah, just dropped a new video for that, so y'all check that out. I'm sure Maria put the link on something like that and the thing.

All right, y'all, I guess get your earbuds ready and get your face properly prepared to be melted off, because we're about to jam that new Lingua Frankie, let's get it Ryan, I ain't never cheated. They never needed a lot of cheese, but at the mercy and not about the lot. I'm thirsty walking in the luger mark. This Asian lady spotted me, like what ship with us? Nika starting tick a target on me? If you got I'm seeing a cup of bottle that water be concoction by

the tram memory, show me some karaderie. We both have probably seen some muffle robberies and no less for keeping this teckle shart God, don't pray you that are ride it? You die, don't pay you better ride it. I die, don't pay you better ride it. If I die, don't play you better ride there. If you do, don't pay you that a ride if if my time, don't pray

you better ride it. I'm Luca cooler with nothing. I'm losing counter the collar takuzie who house, I'm rumbling to the center the sound of the class a gun gout. You're cropping like where they very you want the ground. I'm down in buday that I'm not like the buck be ch ot with. I'm the have bart bart bitch. Shut me off. Belaia takes several feet on the part, then put me and want you know without starting this, please call the places I don't in the part of

car and he die. Don't pray you better right? If I do, don't pray you that are ride it side that don't pay you better ride it. If I die, don't pray you better ride it. Die, don't pay it better right. If you're die, right, you better ride it. You know that groppy for keeping this single shot right? You know the grippery for keeping the single shot. You know that grippery for keeping this single shot. You know that where we were keeping the single shot, that gropp

we we're keeping the sidle shot. You know the grippy were keeping the single shot right right, Rye, don't you better? Don't done? That ship is what I call the definition of dough. Appreciate it work. My friend looking forward and on the streets is looking forward to this album. Everybody's everybody's waiting for it. So I'm sure you're gonna knock it out the part with us, but we gotta go. My name is Dope, not Frank. And you have been

listening to Waiting on Reparations. Take your sweet time, no problem, It's cool. See y'all next week. Listen to Waiting on Reparations on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.