Freedom Is Expensive: Michael Arceneaux Can't Die Poor

Poor Michael Arsenau, Thank you so much for joining PM mood. How are you doing? Thank you for having me. I am as well as can be an a pandemic in which we're all fearing for our laws. I'm grateful, yes, and I am grateful to have you on. It's wild because when I started PM mood, the idea was not to talk about current events and to explore different avenues of folks like yourself, who are super talented and offer

so much to explore different things. But we just we can't seem to escape the world that we are currently living in. So before we jump into your latest book, which in all honesty. The conversations around being in debt, going through variations and varied levels of brokeness is something that now more people than ever are probably sharing. In this time where ten million people have now applied for unemployment due to the coronavirus. That number is only going

to continue to go up. So many people are losing their livelihoods, their jobs, and so a public health crisis has turned into an economic crisis of epic proportions as well. So how are you navigating this moment as an author, as a content creator? How are you navigating this? Well? For me, like, I have a book coming out and I have to function, So am I worried about my health? Obviously? I'm in New York, which is not the best place

to be. The only other option I really have to go back to Texas, Artifa, Houston, which is not a good place to be, particularly even being around my parents. So I haven't following the news. I'm a news junkie, obviously, I mean obviously, but I'm a news junkie. So I've been quietly paying attention to this entire time, and then, just in my dumb luck, I've recently been to I've been in New York. I've been to New Orleans, and I've been to La all within March, and within like

the two weeks where everything basically shut down. I actually got to New York right before shut down. Here I am as then as can be. But that is because in a lot of ways, while I'm not used to the doomsday plot aspect of this, including the racist game show host kind of leading us to ruin, I do know what it's like to be constrained. I know it for one reason or another. I know it's like not

to have a lot of financial options and hardship. So I'm familiar with a lot of what people are experiencing right now, but I knew for me, like I feel very strange asking people to buy my book. I didn't invent capitalism, but I don't want to be squallowed whole by it either. But I really do believe in my book and the messaging of it, and so I to

be I mean, not to be honest. It's always challenging being black and queer and frankly not centering white people in your work, and me making sure my narrative is not consumed in a way I think sometimes otherness is, you know, it's it's hard for me in general just to get into certain spaces. So it was already challenging that the coronavirus, this has been even harder to kind of get my message out there and try to tell people about the book. So I kind of just turned

to myself. I'm going on Instagram. You know, I appreciate people that say you're like naturally good with this. I really, I mean, I would love to be doing more of it, but frankly, I don't always like doing it. Like I wake up every morning. You know, I thought I was handling it really well, and then you know, the third week, I've wiping up at like one o'clock and one thirty in the morning. I can't go back to sleep. I go to sleep at seven o'clock. I'm honestly, I hope.

I'm rambled. I'm doing the best that I can, and I have a schedule. I already maintained a schedule because I worked primarily from home. I've been more stringent about the schedule. But one thing that I allowed myself to do, which is what I didn't used to do before when I was really really struggling, I will say that I'm scared about what's coming. Yeah, but I'm in a much better space than I was yesterday and the year before, because last year, when I was writing this book was

back to a nightmare for me. It reminded me of the fragility of all of our situations. That aside, I stick to a schedule, But what I really do is that I allowed myself to bend from the schedule when mentally I'm not there. I try to be there for my friends, for who for them this is a new reality something my friends have been laid off. They don't have a freelance. They work about assurance. I try to be present for them, but I also pull away when

I can't do it because I have to function. Like when I have to function, I have to talk to you. I have to be clear headed. I have to promote my book in this message I really believe in it. I have to go online, I have to talk to people. I got to check on my family, got to please with my mom and everybody else, to stay home. I have to do all these things like everybody else, and still kind of promote. So I try to be disciplined about it. But if I'm like you know what, I

don't have it in me. Right now, I disconnect and I do whatever I need to do to calm down that moment and give myself space. Hopefully that makes sense. But yeah, I'm really big about giving space. It makes

a ton of sense. I think that. You know, there have been so many memes and challenges to try and uplift people's spirits, and you know, but in a way they also create a lot of pressure, right because there is this assumption that we all have all of this extra time on our hands and should be focusing on being as productive as possible and churning out content if that's what you do on a regular basis, And much like you, I find myself waking up zapped of any passion,

of any drive, of any focus, And on those days, I just have to be gentle with myself because you're not supposed to be creative and upbeat in the midst

of a global pandemic. And I think that we will all struggle through these different waves of this new normal and how to deal with ourselves and those that we love and care about, and for those of us that are still blessed to have work to do, to be able to do that work in the best way that we can, but understanding that we're under new circumstances, so we need to provide ourselves with the space and the flexibility and the compassion to just be because being right

now in this present state is really trying in and of itself. So I appreciate you so much offering some

reflection on how you are moving through. I think that one of the things that makes me really excited about PM mood and doing this particular podcast is the idea of offering people just something else, right, but like not denying the current moment and climate of where we are in anxiety that people are holding, so expressing that but also giving them an opportunity to see and do something else, just for a little bit that we all need to do.

So I deeply appreciate that, and hear you your new book, I Don't want to Die Poor, might as well be an epitaph that I will have on my headstone and hopefully I will have made it and I will not and I will not have died poor. Talk to me about the title and the premise of this book, because you know, I think that it is an act of courage and also defiance of the norms that we are not supposed to speak about our economic positions, our status.

We're only ever supposed to boast about it on Instagram and show the shots of vacations and new out fits and you know and this, that and the other thing. But most people don't share their vulnerability. So talk to me about coming to this place with I don't want to die poor. Thank you. That was really kind, you know. I write about how candidate Jesus, how you know there is a beauty and a freedom and deviating from what you would condition to believe about whatever it is your

identity is and forging it on your own. But the reality in life is freedom is expensive. Life is expensive. Choice is expensive. We're not all born into this world. We're all born free, but not that free. That really does depend on how much access and privilege that you are born into and with um. For me, I wanted to just really be honest, thank you. What really? If

I can curse? I hate them fucking narratives about millennials that were destroying the economy because the avocado toast or ye have paid off their loans like ninety six thousand dollars and eighteen months because all they ate was like tune up from like identic can and like get push offs. That is ridiculous. Like everyone is obsessed with wealth and presenting a certain way in this country, Yet people don't

really have any damn money. When you look at the median income and you look at certain things, and while I am very grateful that you know, I make more than the median income, I technically, on paper make a good living. But when you're black and you're born with like basically with no money, you go to college because for a lot of us, that is our actually we're told to have social mobility by means of higher education.

A lot of black people go, and they only can really go to more times they're not black schools, and if they go to majority schools, they're still not giving sometimes the same amount of resources. Then they get saddled with all this debt. Then they graduated the fact that like white people who have no college degrees can still get a job easier than they can. But even if they get the job, chances are, if you're an American, you're probably being grossly underpaid for your labor unless you're

the person responsible for that exploit. So you have all this debt. In my case and I have a privacy. The loon like. The thing is, you could have it on your tombstone if I got right now. My mom is still going to hook for that debt because of a two thousand and three bankruptcy build passed through by George W. Bush that Joe Biden had to roll in and you must atoned. But that's my reality and so for some pod it just to pick it back a little about the other question. One thing I've stressed online

is if you don't have to work. First of all, yes, if you can work right now, work from home, you are more fortunate than you can imagine, and especially if you are black, because very very complackt with can work from home. So take that in and be grateful for that. However, don't work yourself to death because these people will kill you and they don't care. Look at all these people

they have laid off. So many people in my life have rerouted their lives or so many things have happened, and they just let them go like it was nothing. And then some companies have been better than others, but for the most part, we punished the work or we don't pay people. It's been like what forty years now

since I was born in the nineteen eighties. Between Reagan, Clinton, Bush, Bush, all of them, we've been running to the ground and I just really Instagram, but I just really wanted to lend voice to something different, Like I don't really see a lot of black working class perspectives in media. The reality is most people who can afford to the sacrifices to be in media entertainment are middle class. To be a middle class in this country is to be a luxury.

I fink I gonna really believe in middle class, but you know what I mean, working class with like a little bit more income coming in. So you know, even me, I took out free internships, but that's only because my mom took out extra work to help me, and I was still having to do other stuff to like any money,

you know what I mean. Like it's just so much social ability is so much harder than people make it seem, and I really just wanted to offer, Like, look, I work really hard, but I punished myself in so many ways, not just to taste a dream, but to stay a float and not to let my decisions bring down my mother. We're supposed to be better than the next generation, yes, but like I've carried the burden with me. I've not wanting default on my loan because well, I don't come

from a lot of money. My mom is the only person, because of her good credit, who would broadly be able to help somebody because she was able to go to school. Who would I be to, Like, I'm supposed to be doing better than her, and I could be when that brings her down, You know what I mean, Like it's a lot of pressure. Well, the book is about debt, but I'm really writing about the emotional debt that I carry with me, the way so many of us carry.

And yeah, thank you. Very passive about the topic though I love what you just said, the phrase that freedom is expensive. Freedom is expensive, and I couldn't agree more. I think that what we're learning if we talk about the current global pandemic, right, and how it fits into the narrative that you are exploring around financial debt, emotional debt, and just the burden of trying to be right, of

trying to be better. This is the first generation, right Millennials zillennials that will follow behind them are the first generation that may in fact not do better off than their parents. Right. Part of the American dream that some of us have been fed is this idea that you're always working one step up, you're working one way up in the wrong. And for those people whose parents are middle class or you know, a little bit above working class, whatever those distinctions mean, you are set up in a

better way right than your parents parents were. But what I have come to understand, just in you know, the paying of my own student loan debts, the fact that I have multiple degrees and advanced degrees, the fact that my mother also has multiple degrees advanced degrees, and my sister does as well, that we have been able to do incrementally better, you know, than my grandparents who came to this country from Jamaica some you know, forty plus

years ago, because of education, because of the opportunities that were afforded and the ability to take small advantages like, for instance, a free internship. Right. I remember being in college and looking at everybody who was going to work on Capitol Hill because I was a political science major

who was going to do these things. And I'm thinking to myself, I'm fortunate and I can do this because my parents are like, oh, we have the money to be able to supplement you doing some shit for free, but a majority of people and people a color don't have that opportunity. And you just see how it's snowballs. And I think that that's what's really terrifying, is that you're told, just in the same way that I was told, go get an education, and the more education you have,

the better off you'll be. But what it's turned into is that the more education you have, the more debt you attain. Right. And you know, for me, I'm the child my mom helped desegregate her high school and she got HYELVI in first and then went back to school because we didn't have money, Like you know, I really

I come from. And I say this will probably like po folk, but people who work really really hard, but having given like the structure of even the help like her even being able to go to school to go back and be able to make more money, the cost situation now compared to what it was then might have kept her away, which means I might not even have the opportunity. Well, and I say, I says, like, I don't even come from people who can conceive a free internship.

I could not even conceive that. But what I had to realize is that that is the reality. Like I've already made a risk in trying to pursue something like this, But if I'm going to be doing like, maybe make it as much of a strategic risks as possible. And I know it has a lot to do with that.

But y'all will say, of all the internships that I did, and I'm very grateful to all of them, see Span, Blender, Magazine, Rest in Peace, MTV radio, warn all these places, because the place that I actually learned the most from was the one program I did that paid me, which I thought, and gave me housing. Chris Warrock used to have a comedy writing program the Comedy Central. I had housing. I was paid because I worked, and I worked on all those internships harder than I did on jobs who are

actually with video paid. But the one place I was actually paid to be there taught me so much more than anything else. More other than not, I was just kind of doing grunt work and they were exploiting my labor. And I don't begrudge anybody a part of it, because you know, system as a system, but I'm glad we're now in recent years. I applaud those interns that were just like just fuck that and breaking down those things

because people need to be paid for their work. The fact that and even with publishing like my book deal, I can't think Jesus was not. I'm glad it's done well. I'm really glad to do well. But I didn't get much money from that. I've made more money from speaking and frankly royalties, and I say this with most officers

don't earn royalty. But the reason why I got a lower advance and being honest, and I've said it before, as I'm black and queer, and people thought that was niche, which is a key way of you know, people saying they have their limitations about what they think a black writer, particularly one like me, can do. They lowered my commercial viability despite all songs to the contrary, laid out on paper and paid me less. That was a sacrifice. I mean, it's only wrong. You don't make a lot of money

off the bat to stuff. But I knew where I was, and I knew were other writers who's just so happened to be white, who are at my level a little bit you know, lower in terms of visibility, still got more money than me because the presumption is they still have more than we. I could have graduated debt free, but I'm still gonna be black, and I'm still gonna have to deal with certain stuff like this, and so

it's always some of the barrier. If it's not an internship, it's something else, like it shouldn't be this way for any of us. And that's just kind of like the online thing that I hope it's from the book from insurance to that you know this stuff, it shouldn't be this way. When people talk so much about why we don't have these perspectives, it's not just even read it. It's also just like class, because I also think just in terms of like class, I would still like to

see far more perspectives. It's all very frustrating. It is really frustrating, and I you know, I've been wondering, and I'll ask you this question. We have no idea. Obviously, we're literally in the midst of a global pandemic, right so we don't know how this ends. We don't know

when it ends. But one of the things that I have been thinking about is how the younger generations right who are the young kids right now in elementary school, in high schoo goal what they're going to grow up to become, because now they are living in a world

that is incredibly uncertain. So while those of us went to go pursue our passions right, whether that be in media, whether it is to write a best seller like you have, whether it's to start your own business, what the coronavirus has done is showed us exactly who is essential and who is not exactly just how a majority of us are one paycheck away or one job loss away from

losing everything. That's not security, right, and so understanding that we are all a lot much more vulnerable than I think that our imaginations allowed us to really wrap our minds around that most people couldn't go panic shopping and hold a bunch of supplies because you don't have that much money extra right to be able to go and do that. I wonder what these young people will grow up to be. I wonder if this pandemic will create

generations of risk takers. Are those that decide to cling to safety and stability because they know what it's like. They will have had the memories of their family members, their parents, their caregivers losing everything in the blink of an eye. What do you think, do you? I mean,

you know, and again we have no idea. So it's just you know, throwing out there a thought of World War one, World War two, how it created generations of people that had a certain perspective of the world and how to maneuver and how to make moves or what moves not to make. And I'm kind of wondering what this pandemic will do for younger generations of folks. Well, I'm thirty five and this is the second great financial crisis of my adulthood. So I still can't particularly call

how it looks with us. I mean, it's hard to predict, but I would just say they already are mirroring our generation in a lot of ways. It's like we're trying

to figure it out and adapting. I think they are too, but I don't know, like because because to me, I'm wrestling with the fact that, as a lot of my friends are right now, it's like, for the first times in our lives, we finally feel like we were having some semblance of security, and a lot of the ways what's been happening in stability has stunted not all, but a lot of our development of personal growth because we just haven't had the means to live in the way

we were told that that is what its actual life is supposed to look like in a fair society. And we're still adjusting. So I'm not sure how they will adjust, but I think, honestly, we're all kind of just for me. It's just like I fell into freelancing, not because of my choice, is because the Great Recession media was imploding, as I knew it. If the media still doesn't know

how to make money. So in a lot of ways I've been telling friends before, I'm like, you should really pay attention because they still don't know how to make money outside of advertising revenue, which is a Google Facebook thing. So expect the layoff soon. So even with George Bush, I mean Donald Trump, I always say this is like the Bush administration, except it's dumber, Boulder somehow, more corrupting racists, and it's on adderall with a reality show, so everything

is spet up. So I knew that he was going to run the country into the ground and turn into the tosh Ma Hall because like the tax cutting, all that other ship, well, I didn't expect was like this doomsday aspect. So you know, at least for me. I get up every morning. I'm doing the best I can. I'm trying to make money while I can, trying to promote my stuff while I can. I'm only trying to

do the work that I can do. It like in front of me with trying to think about tomorrow, but just realizing like I really can't call it because and I hate to bring him up, but just with Donald Trump, I just don't know what to do with that. Anybody know what to do with that? I've been I've been trying to figure out what to what to do with

that for three and a half years. And because I know, right, because I could easily say, you know, if we had like an actual person who with intellectual curiosity, we would sit down for a month. They would give people money and we would all take a hit, but we would readjust But because Batman is so hard to predict, I just don't know when it ends. And then I think once I have an idea of when, I don't know when it ends. So it's hard for me to say anything.

But I hope anyone is just trying to you know, I believe in taking risk, but you really should take strategic risks because if I'm being blunt, if I graduated right now, I would definitely go about writing a much different way. But to be fair, I've always been open to every type of pustle. I've never just been writing coach with criticism and political crementary. I write ad copy. I do all types of work. I've been work outside

of media. I've done every type of job that I needed to do to pay my bills and pursue my like not just a passion, but to like, I have a career and I wanted to keep it going and actually be secure. I really felt like I was getting to it at this point. But yeah, and then all this happened. Yeah, and then show host and then and then life happened. Yes, yes, go please so tell me this, Michael.

One of the chapters in the book that I thought was really good, and the title just in and of itself kind of brings again to the present moment, which is, I love Instagram. It sometimes makes me want to die. Um, talk about that, because social media in this moment has become more important and a lot more popping than it has been, because everybody is home and everybody is social distancing. Talk to us about this chapter in particular because I

know that myself. I love Instagram too, But some days I'm just like really really again, like we're doing it with the flat timmyt and like everybody having the same face, and like you know, the torquing for dollar bills, Like this is what we're doing. I have those moments I write a book. I worry we're all showing essentially the greatest hits of our lives, most of us anyway. Now, some people are more off the bat, just very blunt

about wherever they already in a given moments. Great for them, for real, but it's like, I don't think most people enter this wanting to show the worst of themselves or given false impression about the best of themselves. But the reality is that the medium is designed to show the best side of ourselves. So we're all showing ourselves our

best without being honest about our worst. And in many ways, again, when most Americans don't have four hundred dollars in that favors account and the meeting income is with forty two thous something like that, it's low, risch, relatively low. Somebody lying when you see all these products and nothing matches. And I've noticed of course, during the pandemic, a lot of people have tried to keep up their habits. I swear it's gonna say about I made it. People who

were showing, you know, off their bodies. The boys are still showing them, but you know, stills trying to get the attention that way. People who were talking about like the events or even like the personal branding stuff. Everybody's trying to keep up this certain idea of like how they think they should look. If you can, one, get off from social media, if it's not doing you any good, get off. I highly recommend it. If it's not good

for you. I have to be on it for work, you know, because if I didn't have a book from Ure right now, probably wouldn't be online as much. Be honest, I wouldn't. I would I would read a lot, I would keep inform I wouldn't really engage so much. I think for me, I'm while I want to keep in touch with my friends. Also could probably use a little

choirt right now because the news can be overwhelming. But I also realized, like many of us are isolated, so we need that connection the people who are you go on Instagram, which is what I've put my own words into practice. If I see something and I don't think it makes me come fool, make me feel away, either get off or I meet that person, because you know

you can't follow everybody feel away. But Instagram is essentially just a giant flea market at gossips and has great fitness tips and varying levels of adult entertainment and they try to sell you diaretic te correct. It's amazing, but it's also the worst thing, which is kind of like a lot of things in life. Everything should be in doses.

So I really hope people are doing their best right now because I just have to say, like, we're all connected, but so many people are so clearly missing what this moment is. It's about being less selfish, being lessened to self passionate, being more honest, and so again, whatever you need to do to stay sane, do it because Instagram will suck you up. Like I love Instagram too, but like, well, while it was hitting me up because I wasn't in a good place and what I should have done in

that moment was get off, and I didn't. So if you need to get off, get off. I'll stop preaching out. Yeah, no, I think that that's right. I think that there are so many or something sound like delaries, but there are

so many ways in which you know, we do. We start to what people refer to as yardstick, right, measure yourself up against everybody else and how everyone else is doing so in the midst of this pandemic, if I'm not getting my six pack abs and writing a bestseller right and offering inspirational quotes every day, then like I'm a terrible person, right, And I think that the beauty of your book, right, But I also think the beauty of you and general because I've been following you for

quite some time. Your Twitter is super prolific, and you're writing, you know, whether in books or the articles and the columns that you have done are just they allow people to feel normal. They allow us, yes, they allow us to feel like we are normal and that we're not crazy, and that we all have like interesting and fun quirks about us and there is more that connects us than that drives us apart. And I think that for me,

that's what I really like about your new book. I don't want to die poor because I think that too many of us are living with crushing debt, are living with so many burdens. But because we have this kind of stunting for the Graham type of reality that we're also living in. You you come into direct opposition with your vulnerabilities and your authenticity when you have to stunt and perpetrate in a certain kind of way. And it's

a weird juxtaposition to be in and to navigate. And I think that what your writing does and what you do in general, is you make that transition that we all have to live through and navigate on a regular day. You make it easier to bear. That genuinely means a lot for me. Thank you so much. I'm really grateful to even have a second book. And I just anyone listening, and I really do think it reads through my work.

It doesn't matter if you're like nothing like me, the general point of I can't make Jesus and I don't want to that poor, but particularly I don't want to that poor. No matter who you are, no matter you're raised, your identity, however, you whatever, you're more likely than not if you live in this country or any indidustrial like

you're not probably getting your fair share. We're all born into this world conditions to think we need to live up to a certain standard, and yet we're not giving the tools to even meet that a fair playing field, and that affects different people for different reasons. But I really do just speak for like folks. I just think we deserve our fair share, and we're so hard on ourselves and it's not all our fault. And I had to learn to forgive myself for a lot of my choices.

Like I did it with all the best intentions. It wasn't really like ego. It was one of the better life for my mother and me wrestling with the fact that maybe my good intentions could have kind of sank everybody. But I really thank you for what you said about my book. It really means a lot. It was healthy right because I was going through some of these things at a point where I didn't think I would anymore.

But once again, that speaks the fragility of many of our situations, because you could be making a whole lot more money, but a missing check is a missing check. It just means you ope more after a while. So thank you again for giving me space, especially during this nightmare.

That I hope with us being better, I hope that it ends Honestly, you're right with us being better and with us having a lot more gratitude and recognizing you know that some of us carry a lot of privilege, right, and so the idea that we're able to work from home, like you said in the beginning, for those of us that are able to work from home, for those of us that did have money in oursel savings, for those of us that have a place to shelter in place

are all various levels of privilege. And you know, the more gratitude and compassion that we can have in this moment, I think the better off we will all be. Michael, Before I let you go, one of the questions that I always end with PM mood is, you know, the idea of the show obviously is getting in the mood to use your social impact for something better and bigger. So how do you get in the mood to change the world. It depends usually music or you know, I can't,

Dad Jesus. It was a lot of queer black boys and nice older white ladies and a few black aunties who all sent me messages. One way I know that to confirm them my words meant something to them and help them either be better in their own lives or you know, want to be better to quick people in their lives. And then some days it's honestly just like maybe a Megan thee Stallion kind of Bob parting. I'll just I do my morning jig so you read my tweets. So my thought about the morning jig is that I

think the world can before you even eight am. I don't think most people wake up wanting to be sad. I wake up wanting to experience the best. But life can get hits you really hard quickly. But thinking of a student loan people person is harassing you on Christmas Eve because I write about it in the book. So I get up, I turn on my music and I bought because I allowed myself to experience from joy before the world tries to take it away and usually win.

In those moments when I try to have like that joy, I am grateful and I feel a sense of purposeness, and that is what makes me want to go online and spread some joy. I always just want to make people laugh and make people think, and dancing or sometimes people just reminding me of my own purpose reminds me to keep a fill in mind. Yeah, because I think gratitude can't cure everything, but it can definitely give you

perspective and help you get through struggle. And that's really I hope with my work in this book particularly points out thank you again for having me well. Thank you Michael for coming on to PM Mood. Thank you for the joy, the honesty, the vulnerability and the humor that you share with us on a regular basis. Again, folks, the book is entitled I Do Not I Don't want

to die Poor, So go and pick it up. It is available in all the places, and if you're not following Michael Arseno, you are missing out, and so do that now. Michael, thank you so much for all that you do and for joining us. Thank you, thank you, thanks for listening to this week's PM Mood. My political podcast, woke AF Daily is on Patreon for just five dollars a month. That's five new hour long shows every week

for just five dollars a month. Join the conversation now at patreon dot com slash woke AF and you can continue listening to PM mood every week absolutely free. Now more than ever, we see the importance of independent media, So thank you for your support and as always, stay in a PM mood, to change the world