Hi, I'm Jesse Hirsh and welcome to another episode of Metaviews, coming to you live from the Academy of the Impossible, where the goats are running to see if they can find a seat, but there are no seats. And today we've got my great friend Tamika where we're gonna maybe talk about dialing an ancestor.

This is where I have to tell you, Tamika, we have a very spontane to the way in which we evolve. And every episode is kind of an iteration of the entire show, as it were.

And we're now in a kind of game show mode, which before we begin to give you a heads up, I tend to pick three pillars that I start, that I frame the conversation around. In your case, I've chosen Anthropology, America and Ancestors, partly because I'm a big fan of alliteration.

So once I get going on a few letters, it's hard to stop. But we do practice spontaneous conversation here.

So I have no idea where we are gonna go with today's chat, but we do have segments and we start every Meta Views episode with the news, partly because we publish a daily newsletter on substack called the Future of Authority.

Today's issue looks at the perils of automated just which is really about corruption and a false accusation being scaled up to the level of an automated system, which is rather dystopian. But Tameka, the real purpose of every news segment is actually to throw to our guest.

And this is meant to be an intuitive exercise where whether it's personal news, whether it's world news, whether it's industry news, we're really asking our guests, what are you paying attention to these days? But more importantly, what do you think our audience should be paying attention to?

And this is where it is kind of a game show segment because we did have a guest who didn't make it past the news segment. And I mention this because it is currently our most popular episode. So there is a little bit of pass fail to this. No pressure, but what is it?

What are you looking at these days? And again, what do you think our audience should be looking at these days?

Okay, firstly, lovely to be here. And this does feel like a genuine conversation that we have pretty often. So it's lovely being here. This is.

Okay, the thing that I am partially obsessed with at the moment is a booklet from the predecessor of the CIA's like strategic services pamphlet. And part of it, if I remember correctly, this was for managers and kind of operations.

It was about what to do to very simply sabotage organizing work. And when I read It. A friend sent it to me. I don't know where they got it from, but a friend sent it to me.

And as soon as I read these Simple Steps for Sabotaging Organizations, I was like, oh, this is what corporate America, whatever we. We do to ourselves over and over again, it's become like a.

It's almost read like a playbook for, like, the way that work should be done, you know, and it's simple things such as, like, referring back to decisions that, like, have already been made, or questioning the lexicon and the language of every single element of the.

The meeting or the conversation or, you know, things that make sure that there are at least seven people in a meeting at any one time and have no idea what the kind of dynamics or power structures or decision making is. So I read it, and I think it's from the 60s. I might be lying, don't remember it.

Might be 50s even, maybe.

Why do you say that, though?

Well, because the Office of Strategic Services, which was the predecessor to the CIA, it's Hait was in the 40s and 50s. Like, that's when it was really ripping and roaring before they kind of tamed it to become the CIA.

Because the CIA was the more institutionalized version of the oss, as more of a motley crew of ne'er do wells and schemers who was the Post World War II intelligence apparatus of the US.

This makes a lot of sense. So I saw this and I was like, oh, wow. Like, how much of our kind of like David Graber esque jobs, right?

It's like, wow, this has become like a mass way to control our time and our sense of worth and our value. And I think I'm thinking about this a lot at the moment, particularly because I am observing Ramadan.

So I am not Muslim, but I think as a spiritual practice, it is. There's a lot of, like, potential and possibility there. So I'm really thinking about the way that I manage my time and my energy at the moment.

So kind of reading this as of late. I'm very sensitive to it at the moment. I've also just watched the soundtrack to a coup d'etat. Have you heard of it?

No, no, no, no, it's okay.

So it is about the assassination of Patrice Lumumba and the part that the CIA played in it when it came to kind of like the. The struggle for Africa and this kind of like Pan Africanism movement that came from, you know, the early 60s.

And it's about America's role in using what I would consider cultural and artistic strategy as a political strategy. So basically Louis Armstrong was used as a puppeteer to kind of distract from this thing that was happening in Sub Saharan Africa.

Right on. A few quick responses before I go to our next segment.

To your point, I love to point out to people that the core element of fascism is the corporation and corporate control, that we are so used to thinking of authoritarianism as like the Soviet kind, that there's this big apparatus of the state. But fascism's mechanism of authoritarianism is the corporation is the corporate workforce.

And I think that's part of why America has slipped into this so easily and so rapidly. I do, when we get into anthropology. Want to hear more about your Ramadan experience, because I think that's absolutely brilliant.

But I do want to share my own thoughts around work lately in that I love my dogs, I spend most of my time around my dogs, and I've been trying to articulate a dog philosophy of work, which is, on the one hand, very committed. Like, you love your job, you want to do your job, but A, you do it on your terms, B, sleeping on the job is a prerequisite.

And like it is entirely done with your character, your style, you poop, you pee when and where you want. But there is still that commitment to the job. There is still that, like that ethic of work in which it's on your terms.

It's not lazy, but it's restful. Yet it is still fundamentally productive. They still get the job done, like all the time, 10 out of 10. So still in my formation stage.

But I like this idea that we need to radically rethink the culture of work and come at it free from the corruption of corporate culture and the way in which it's tainted it, especially in our contemporary mood. But on that point, I segment to our second element of meta views, which is our WTF or what's the future?

And this is where again, we have to center ourselves as a future centric podcast and we believe in participatory futurism, where every guest who comes on our episode is a kind of futuristic. But of course, in your case, Tameka, you are a veteran, a futurist.

You've rolled with some of the most exciting, interesting futurists I think out there. No pressure, but the question really, like the first one is what's on your event horizon?

Like when you look into the future and it could be short term, could be long term, could be fictional, could be personal, it's up to you, but what do you think our audience should be Looking at what do you think they should be seeing in our collective sense of if there's nothing inevitable, provided we're willing to pay attention.

I love that, I love that the first time that I started really understanding a future like futurism as a discipline or an element, the first, I don't know where, who to attribute this to, but the future's here. It's not very evenly distributed. I don't know who that comes from has stuck in my mind, but that is a close second.

I think this idea of like mimetic culture is really interesting. I've got recency bias because I listened to the creator of an Instagram account called Nolita Dirtbag speak yesterday at an event.

And his event was titled Kind of Cultural Anthropology, which was the hook in. But it was mainly about like the, the behavior that he's observed within a very small area of the Lower east side in New York City.

And he's got like, I don't know, hundreds of thousands of followers, not that that means anything to me. Big data right now, very little context and sensitivity.

So I, I hope that the future has more kind of people that anthropology has a lot to answer for as like a history.

And I think it is a discipline that is really scared of its own potential, so plays small and to the edges quite a bit, understandably because we, we see race and class and power dynamics and in absolutely everything. So I think anthropologists often like ask the right questions, but then are scared to move into kind of like action. But anyway, mimetic culture.

He was talking mainly about the memes that kind of like pop off and go viral.

But I think this idea of kind of like absorbing and co opting and having a looser relationship with ownership, I think is a one of the glances into the future, at least like the glances of the. Into the future of the people that I spend a lot of my time and life with.

I think there's a move away from this kind of constipated idea of like having to hold on very closely and like own your ideas.

And constipation is such a great way of framing it. Please continue.

Like, girl, are you so constipated? Like, do you not believe in your source? Like you. You're gonna generate so many more ideas and thoughts if you continue to pay attention.

Like, I really believe in you. Why do you not believe in you? You know, so.

But not just to tease it out, because I love toilet humor. Like we shit all the time and if you don't, that's really unhealthy like if you hold it in, you are going to have so many medical complications.

So move on, right? Keep creating, keep moving forward. I love the power of that imagery.

I love the power of the imagery of shit same. But I think it really does work. But I, I hope that that is one element of the future.

And I think this is kind of like with the downfall of cryptocurrencies or like, you know, people kind of being taken in by snake oil salesmen. I hope, and I've always got a hopeful view of the future.

I think, I think you have to, I, if you're gonna be alive, like find the pockets, find the people, find the patterns and the, the blueprints that at least are a shade of the future that you want to see and like keep working like within them.

So yeah, I'm hoping this like, yeah, constipated ownership moves into a more participatory and like mimetic way of being, which I think the Internet and like the tools that we have kind of help facilitate. And that's part of Dial and Antis.

I say all the time, like open source babe, like icons, ways of working blueprints, like I will give you everything that I know. I want it to be co opted and appropriated over and over again because it's not come from me.

I am not the purveyor of this like idea or this baby movement in any way, shape or form.

And it was on at the moment in New York for a little while. And I had so many texts from people being like, Tamika, this person stolen your idea. It's Dial and Poem.

I didn't realize but like when Dial and Ancestor came out, I was like, oh my God, there's someone that is like literally done this thing before. And my response to it isn't like, oh no, I am the owner of Thailand. Dial and Answer.

It's not mine, it's actually ours and has come from a lineage of people who have done so much thinking and making and doing an experiment in beforehand. So the amount of texts have been like this person's stolen your thing. I'm like, no, actually, if anything, I stole his thing, you know.

But the difference between it is I'm asking anyone who stumbles across it to see this existential trigger, usually like a wheat pasted poster, that is an invitation to ask people to consider their life, who they are, and that ancestry happens in the present rather than the past. And actually it's a public service telephone line, not unlike John's, but actually that's more participatory and democratic.

So I'm like, yeah, same, same kind of. But actually the philosophy of it, I think is really different.

And that's where, before we segue to digging into the anthropology, I would point out that in addition to being a cultural anthropologist, you're clearly a. I'm trying to mesh these two words in a way that I probably will mangle the first time.

But the philosopher provocateur, because you're trying to provoke philosophy, right?

You're not claiming to be a philosopher who has the answers, but you're also not the anthropologist who's kind of leaning back in the sense you're trying to provoke thinking, you're trying to provoke reflection. You're trying to provoke. Because your valid criticism or comment about anthropology is not just about anthropologists. It's.

It's about all researchers and academics that they, as I think a very prejudicial bias, think that they shouldn't be participating in the research that they're in. And that is wrong. That is morally wrong.

But to the concern where anthropology has been a force of terror in the past, I think the counter to that is nuance, right? I think the more nuance that is brought to research, to anthropology, to a researcher's life, and that could be humility of. As the researcher.

Here's Robert coming from. Here's my position, here's my perspective.

I think that nuance insulates against some of the abuse that a researcher can be in a position to engage in because of the power that comes from research, from thinking.

And that's where, to my point, that as the philosopher provocateur, you are trying to get people to be powerful, you are trying to get people to participate. You feel a sense of responsibility because you know the power of the researcher.

So you're saying to the people who are there and come on, take some of this power, will ya? Exercise some of this power, will ya?

As an invitation, I love. As an invitation. I love that so much.

I remember when you were asking me about my citizenship and where I saw my home A few years ago and I was trying to explain why, like America, just in spite of it all and in spite of like, I grew up in a very like radical socialist like environment. That's just that those are my people, that's my lineage, especially on my mum's side. Sometimes to our detriment.

We're very worth it and have been out of work and like banned from workplaces for like cars and a lot of our time. Exactly. Causing. So it doesn't always work out. And that's like, it's, it's sexy to be like, oh, like saboteur. Like, do you know what I mean?

Like, that's what we've been talking about this whole time. And sometimes it has real consequences. But I, I love, yes, this idea of like trickster energy.

So my dad's Ghanaian and I remember being like 6 or 7 years old and freaking my mum the out because my granddad has. He died before I was alive. And I remember telling my mum, like after I woke up one night that I'd learned all these stories about like a spider.

And he's a really naughty spider, he did this, that and the other. And I remember her face just going like, why? And she was like, what? What are you talking about? And she made me explain it more and tell the story.

And it was the stories of like Anansi, the spider who had that trickster kind of energy, who was just kind of like highlighting what is actually happening here.

And I think you make such an excellent point because as a researcher working with people that sometimes lead the research and are trying to like beat this idea of neutrality into you, it's like insanity. Like none of us, none of us are neutral. Like, state your positionality and your bias, that feels the more responsible thing.

And I'll go further. And when these words come out of my mouth, it's different when they come out of other people's mouths. So I have a different privilege.

And when I call people on this. But when people, when researchers in particular try to assert neutrality, that is colonization.

Exactly.

Like they are literally engaged in the colonization of knowledge, which makes anthropology so dangerous because you must have that positionality, you must have that ethics, that perspective that who you are in all fields, not just anthropology. This is true in fucking computer science as much as it's true in anything. But the quick pushback to that is. No, no, no, no, no.

This, we have to be doing this by rejecting neutrality. Otherwise our work is problematic, it's tainted, it's ethically immoral. Again, different people saying that has different effect. Right.

And that's one of the privileges I can have because I also have the language of academia. I know how to use their words in a way that they don't think I'm an outsider, even though I am. And so it's a paradox.

But before I move on to our feature conversation, you inspired me with something else that I want to try to articulate, which is imagine if there were, for lack of a better phrase, a vanguard. But vanguard's not the right word.

Imagine if there was a movement, a hip group of creators, diverse creators in the sense of musicians, artists, playwrights, actors, like all the talent who were making a move in industry, and they all rejected copyright. They all said, everything we are creating individually and together, go remix it, go share it, go pirate it, go sell it if you want to.

And they said, the reason we're doing this is A, we've achieved a level of success where we're eating well. And, and B, what we are interested in developing professionally is our reputation.

And we want to do this work because we believe that our reputation is what we can retire on. Our reputation is what will give us the stability of a career and the diversity of opportunities. Right.

And we're doing it together to make a movement. Fuck you, copyright. Fuck you, constipation. You know, we're doing this for culture Again, with your future lens.

Am I being crazy here or is this something that, that we could anticipate happening?

I think it is happening. You've reminded me of Mischief. I think they are very, very interesting.

I listened to a lawyer from the Mischief crew talk about the amount of cease and desists that they kind of received in the last few years from. Because they take this philosophy of like, ah, everything's everyone's anyway.

And I know that there's like some, yeah, light and shadow sides to that as well, but let's talk about the light side for now.

And all these cease and desists that have come from corporate institutions that have billions of friggin like surplus dollars that are talking to these like, bunch of like 6, 7, like arc, like art collective kids. And I know they're not kids, they're like adults, but I say that with reverence, youthful energy. Exactly.

I am going to be a kid until the day that I die with those cease and desist letters. It's like you can do three things for real. You can, like, hire a lawyer to get back at the big corporate, like, evil entity. You can ignore it.

Or thirdly, you can take whatever the cease and desist is and turn it into a, like embrace and play, you know, like. Yeah, yeah, how about I challenge you as a corporate company instead of like coming for my neck. Oh, please, I beg of you.

Like, here's, here's some of, here's some things of ours, like, feel free to like embrace and remix that. Like imagine if cease and desist turned into like the inverse, which is like the basis of your copyright idea, which I think it's fascinating.

Yeah, yeah. And to some extent the precedent here is the Streisand effect, Right? The Streisand effect in kind of Internet lore is. I forget what the. When this.

It was like maybe a decade, decade and a half ago, someone uploaded a photo of Barbra Streisand's house on the Internet and she got a cease and desist saying, you can't have that, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then everybody started uploading the photo everywhere on the Internet. Right. To your point, it was the opposite of the cease and desist.

They're like, somebody wants to censor this information. Okay, we're going to use the Internet to spread this information far wide. Fuck you.

Copyright and the Streisand effect for a while was this phenomenon that if lawyers overstepped, if a corporation overstepped, there was a culture of defiance that would completely disrespect that.

The reason I think that that cultural practice has radically diminished is automatic copyright enforcement that most platforms, algorithms control what is permissible. And so you get the copyright strike, they automatically remove it.

It's a cat and mouse game and TikTok is the best example of where the cat and mouse, the mouse is always ahead. Like there is always pirated content on TikTok.

There's always people ripping off, but you have to be clever and you have to evolve and you have like it's a game and it's a constant back and forth. So it's interesting.

I mean, I am going to press the button that brings us to the feature part of every part of metaviews where ostensibly we get into the anthropology America and ancestors, but in our usual non linear fashion. We've been doing that already.

But allow me to refocus it back on anthropology because as we've been talking so far, the thought that came to me was thinking about our last several conversations and kind of how I'm sensing an evolution in your perspective on anthropology.

And not just an evolution, I feel almost that you are appropriating it in a really powerful way and fitting it to your own kind of political, economic worldview that may be entirely unconscious on your part, but I am. Let's start by saying what is your current view or your current revolving relationship with anthropology?

Because it seems to becoming a really excellent source of power. And I'm curious if you feel the same way.

That's really interesting. I feel more.

You use the word power very often and very extremely explicitly in ways that even in the last few years has made me kind of question why I'm not. And again, this is back to our America question. But it's also so inextricably linked with the anthropological practice that I'm like in right now.

So I've sponsored myself to be in America under the guise of being a cultural and corporate anthropologist.

And here's the thing, I use titles very loosely as and when they make sense to me to be in the position or in the, in the place that I, I need to be to do the work that I need to do. So I'm not entirely like wedded to it.

However, I think through understanding the history of anthropology and where it's come from, I can see all of this like beautiful generative source material that's been like used in, at least from my point of view in a very dangerous, vitriolic and extractive way that didn't need to happen. And I kind of think everyone who's paying attention just like in a semblance of a way is a cultural anthropologist anyway.

But I've started playing with the title and seeing how people kind of react to it and it's fascinating because it does give me power. People are like, wow, you know, And I'm like, I just, I don't think it's that I wanted to go to school to go and do a social anthropology course.

I did like a six month course at Goldsmiths and an old client was like, Tamika, since the age of 19 you've been traveling around the globe like asking people a bunch of questions about a bunch of things like what are you going to try and get into debt for? Like that makes no sense. So instead I just tried on the title and saw what kind of happens.

And the thing is it repels some people who I'm working with in cultural and corporate spaces, which is fantastic. Love that baby. I'm not a strategist. Your frameworks are not going to save you.

I do not trust any strategist, researcher, insights person that has that skill set and doesn't use it for like, if you're not using it for commercial gain, then I just don't really trust you to be Perfectly honest. It just is such low hanging fruit. You can use this in so many different ways.

Like to our point, with great power comes great responsibility. And you have to distrust anyone who seeks the power and eschews the responsibility.

And that is very much the corporate world for most people in it and for legitimate reasons. If it's just your job, I get why you're taking this mercenary approach, but maybe you should quit the job.

The mercenary approach is so interesting. Going back to the film A Coup d'etat. So it's about two hours. It's really, really beautifully done. I really recommend it.

There was a tiny scene in which the mercenaries were in it for about 60 seconds.

And that was a gut punch for me of being like, I never in my corporate life want to be a mercenary who dehumanizes moves for like monetary gain only and then doesn't really know the war that they're fighting. Like, what war are you fighting? How are you being used and abused? Like, there's got to be a spiritual and psychic death there.

Agree. But allow me to indulge in the kind of conversations we have and flip that.

What about a mercenary who starts from the position that they understand the war, they understand the battle, and it's the organization and the institution who doesn't. And the organization and the institution is engaged in the dehumanization and the mercenary is brought in to humanize.

And then by humanizing helps them survive the battle, helps them not win the war because no war is winnable, but maybe helps them recognize how the hell they need to reorient themselves in their organization accordingly.

A thousand percent. So the words that I'm you, I love that at the moment is that I'm a professional trespasser. I've found myself like, we. That's what I do.

I'm like, how am I here? How did I get here? What's going on? Why are they listening to me? But to be in. And it's really. It's quite easy for me to do.

I think I've had the privilege and the luxury of mixed race background, mixed culture background, mixed languages, mixed ways of doing like, yeah, I've had the luxury of like growing up very working class.

Going to let me take one step back and make a comment about your choice of title because this goes to my point about the philosopher provocateur. You want to take a title because I think I identified with you when you said this.

You want to take a title that is inclusive, that anyone else can take. But then you want to demonstrate a Different way of being that title.

And so this is where you leverage your position on the periphery because you are an outlier, right? Fundamentally, you're always kind of on the outside, but you have the power and confidence to be like, no. And there's value in that, right?

And that is a major differentiator between everyone else on the periphery and the outlier who are fielding guilty or ashamed or alienated or excluded.

And perhaps because of your parents, because this is true in my case, and it was my parents who made me feel no fucking a better to be on the periphery. You have way more autonomy, way more fun.

And that's where I think the Professional Trespasser is a brilliant synthesis of those dynamics while still emphasizing the value and the power that you bring to the client, that you bring to the organization.

Thank you so much. I really appreciate that, like, summary. It really makes me, like, feel. Thank you, like, for seeing it and seeing me.

I really, really appreciate, like, the name of Corner Booth for that reason where, like, being on the edge or on the periphery, like, you decide where the center is. The center is absolutely everywhere. You just, you call it.

And that's like the part of the positionality of, like, naming who you are and where you are and where you're seeing from. But the reason that I do that is because there's no designated seat in, in a corner booth. Like, damn it, let's all get in.

If it makes sense for us to get in right now. And if it doesn't, maybe I leave for a couple of days, a couple of weeks, a couple of years, and, like, you'll run it, but from the corner.

I mean, it's the best seat in ever. Like, you get to see what's going on in the outside world.

You get to see the, like, social fabric and the contracts that we're all constantly creating for ourselves and each other. You get to peer behind the scenes and see the way that, like, the chef is operating with their team.

Like, you understand, like, we live in a very big data world, but very low context. And professional Trespassing is all about gathering the context.

And it's the context that makes people feel, like, uncomfortable a lot of the time and the contradictions and the nuances, and we're all in it. Like late stage capitalism. There's no getting out of it.

Well, and to your point, context makes us aware of danger. And most people prefer to be oblivious of danger, especially in the corporate context, especially in contemporary America.

I did the last episode of Meta Views was with this guy, Ted Whetstone. And he had a vision of leadership in which, as a leader, you don't expect people to follow you as a leader.

Your job is to make other people leaders, to empower them to be leaders. And the problem he's trying to present, which I think you are also in context addressing, is complexity.

That the consequence of the big data world is you get a lot of complexity. Complexity and context is the solution. Context is how you understand complexity.

Context is how you figure out what part of the complexity to deal with in your own little day, in your own little role. And I was joking with him that that is entirely foreign to organizational culture as we know it.

So that really leads me to my question still within our anthropology context, to what extent are you probing and engaging with organizational culture? And to what extent is the organization open to that?

Oh, my God, this is such a good question. This is it. This is what I'm going through right now.

So the best work will come from me having a period of time in the process that is just context gathering. That's what I call it. Stage zero. You. You gotta let me hang out. You have to let me hang out. It feels like they're.

When it does work, there is a leader who knows that, like, for lack of a better word, something's off. They're using their spidey senses and they're like, something's a bit off here, or they will very easily.

So I just before this was on a call with a creative director who's just been brought into a company that I'm working with.

And I don't usually work with the board, but I'm working with the board where I'm like, oh, my God, my eyes are opening the way that decisions, like, truly get made. And. And that is where.

That's where you need to be trespassing. Like, a trespasser doesn't just loiter in the lunchroom. You got to go to where the goods are. You got to go to where the money's hidden.

Anyway, please.

I am going to where the money is. And I was so naive, and I got into that boardroom, and, you know, there's certain boardrooms that feel very different compared to culture.

Anyway, a creative director has just been put into this role, and this was the zoom that I was on before this. And apologize. We've met twice in the last week and has apologized for using it as a therapy session. And I had to stop her.

I was like, you do realize that this is like the majority of my job. Job.

Like, you are giving me all of the Information that I need to be able to work in partnership with you to create a solution that like, genuinely works.

And, you know, we're talking about everything from like, style and fashion and money and the way that people spend their time and race and like, this is, this is a fashion brand.

But we need to talk about all of these things from an inside purview, what is happening, like inside the company and then what's happening on the outside world and like, where those golden threads and contradictions and tensions are. But that's my, like, dream client. Someone who just is like, I'm so sorry, I probably should send you an NDA.

Otherwise, like, there's, there's no point of me being here, you know, and allow.

Me to try to phrase this as a question, although I may fail in doing the therapy piece, I think is really interesting because I think on a generalized level, all consulting is a form of therapy. And the best consultants understand that and know how to make that part of their business offering of their productization.

But I wish we didn't have to be so coy about it. I wish we could be more open and transparent that that is exactly the value of the consultants.

The therapist is someone who is not your spouse, who you can spill all your shit to. And as a professional, they're there to advocate for you, to help you process your emotions.

I wish that we as consultants, as trespassers, could articulate that in a way that was non medical, but gave clients permission to do that. Because to your point, like copyright, the NDA is the enemy of good business.

They should dish, they should open, they should completely let the floodgates flow and trust that that is going to allow the consultant to do their job even better. How do you play with that emotional dynamic with your clients?

There's always a moment where sometimes I will explicitly say, I did it this morning. I was like, oh, gosh, you're new in your role. This is really difficult. I understand, like empathy, basic empathy.

I don't even know how to dress it up, basically, empathy. I understand where you're coming from.

I am telling you my positionality now I'm gonna step out of mine and try and step into yours and ask you, did I get that? Does that feel right? Is that, does that make sense?

Is there anything that I'm missing to literally just try and see things from their perspective for a minute.

And then I will explicitly say, when some people are nervous, did this yesterday, like, damn, I'm a consultant that like, comes and gets paid to like, be here when you're worried that I'm doing your job, aren't you? And people are like, yeah. I'm like, well, here's the thing. I say this all the time. I'm like, I don't know marketing, I don't know brand.

I don't know fashion, I don't know styling, I don't know tech. I don't know anything really.

But I'm really hot at, like, research and inside and, like, understanding how to disseminate that amongst people so it feels like theirs. So I, I'm gonna reassure you that, like, I'm. I'm not a threat to you.

Yeah.

I'm in partnership with you.

And, and, and that is an excellent strategy. Right. Of empathy and humility. But I still feel that there's some. And I, I'm.

I haven't had success with this myself, but I still feel that there's a permission piece that we can't give beforehand, because if we give it beforehand, it's like jinxing it. They're not going to do it. But there is that trigger in which, you know, okay, the floodgates are ready to be open.

And so empathy and humility is the nurturing prerequisite, the ingredients that make it happen. But I think we're onto something which gets to that flipped mercenary. Right.

Where we're approaching the organization with a radically different philosophy. Right. Methodology than consultants. Right.

Or even researchers who, you know, have some issues with the way in which historically they've approached this.

Completely agree. It gets easier the further along the process. You are the star.

I think I spend a lot of time, probably more time than I should of, like, this is how it will feel. This is how it might look like. Can I have access to your office to just, like, pull up and work there?

You know, like, I'm not saying why, but I'm like, you know, just like, makes sense. And then I can do, like, drop in interviews as and when.

But I'm like, my head's on swivel and I'm listening with all senses because what people say and what they do is, like, all of us drastically different.

But I think we can learn something from, like, performance artists in this space as well, where it's like one of the most successful presentations or like inside anthropology. Anthropology kind of like disseminations that I've done was where it was a while ago and a company was looking to speak to women of color.

And I explained why that is not going to work as a strategy first and foremost, or as like a language or a Lexus upon but you can. Again, this is academic speaking to academics, and I'm not an academic at all. But, like, people on the inside speaking to each other is really easy.

But I'm like, no, that's the brief. It's not. Tell us about 120, like, women of color from around the world. It's like, no. How.

The actual brief is, how do I get these people that make decisions every single day to understand that women of color does not make sense as a concept, a term, a label. Like, it's highly offensive and actually just bad for business as well.

Yeah.

So the way to do that was. So I presented the work, referring to everyone.

And of course, like, at that level, everyone in the room was like a white woman or like a white man, apart from, like, a few people dotted around the room that had allies that I told, like, I was going to do this style of presentation with, and they were on board. So I had people that were like. We had a little group that knew what was happening.

So in the presentation, I referred to all of the women that I spoke to as women of color, and I spoke to all of the people in the room as, like, people of no color. So I'm like, you have a position too, again, this neutrality. I'm like, you don't get to be nothing. No way. Like, so. And you'd see the bristling.

It's like, almost like you have to, like, play with it. I'm like, oh, my God, this is such a funny situation to be in.

Yeah.

Where there are two black women who are talking about women of color in a room with basically exclusively white men. Like, this could be tragic, or it could be really useful.

Yeah.

And, like, what are the small tools that make people feel. Feel the insight as opposed to, like, read it in a 2D manner?

So people started bristling, and it took one person to be like, hey, I just find that term really offensive to open the floodgates. So it's like, oh, yeah, you probably felt really othered. You probably. Your blood was probably boiling unintentionally.

That's what you've been doing for the last 10 years in this way, this way, this way. I'm going to continue my presentation. So I think there's so much that we can learn from, like, artists who naturally take this kind of.

And to your point, what artists do is recognize that their work is primarily emotional, and even fucking advertisers forget that. And that is the basis of their whole industry.

It's crazy.

And this is for my own, where my Head's been at lately, I find, and I have become a bit of a hammer looking for a nail, that I am now obsessed with the role of emotion in the corporate workplace.

But it strikes me that the higher up you go on the hierarchy, the more that they expect other people to deal with their emotions rather than they deal with their emotions themselves. And that's part of what makes the situations you describe both an opportunity to make change, but also a lot of work.

This is where you're now a social worker, too, because you're dealing with their emotions and you gotta navigate their emotions.

And not everyone, I think, is ready to do that kind of work or has been trained or prepared to do that kind of work to segue to our kind of point, to my. Where I want to talk to you about America. America right now is a war of words.

Because often the words we use are so felt differently and heard differently than other people. And to your point about navigating of trying to help people understand that women of color is a phrase that they don't really want to be using.

It's not in their incentive. It is part of that linguistic negotiation. And you did it yourself just a little early when you're like, oh, I'm not an academic.

And I say that all the time, so I totally get where you're coming from. But, Tamika, I have to tell you, you are academic adjacent.

And you're academic adjacent because people are just gonna look at you, listen to you, hear the words you see, and go, oh, I don't know. You sound a little academic. And that's where, on the one hand, I like me, you're ridiculous.

Rejecting all the bullshit academia, all the corruption, all the nonsense. But on a certain point, we should, on a humble level, acknowledge we are appropriating academia for our own purposes. And that could.

It's the same way that the trespasser phrase is such a great trespasser.

We need to come with a better phrase that acknowledges how we are ripping off some of the academic culture, but at the same time giving it the big fuck you. And it's like the consultant flip. There's got to be something to play with there. I don't know what it is.

I'm raising the challenge generally, but you know where I'm going with this?

I love this so much. And I feel like, yes, this is. Jesse, this format is really great.

There is a framework that I'm obsessed with at the moment, and I'm not usually obsessed with frameworks by the Berkana Inside Institute. Who deal with organizational like culture and change. And I don't want to bastardize it, it's on YouTube, it's great.

But it's about what happens when there's like an old world that is dying that is being propped up by people that have all of the incentives to keep the status quo. The status quo.

And then when there's like a new one being reborn, what kind of happens in that, in between and shows the different roles that people play, which is what I'm most interested in.

Like the pioneers, the kind of stabilizers of the old world, the composters, which is the role that I think I'm playing right now, which is like, how do you take what you see as being like, maybe slightly archaic, like out of step? Because there's good stuff there.

There's good stuff in the old dying world that like, I'm like, okay, let me trespass over there and see what you've got going on and then flip it exactly. Like appropriate it to make sense for whatever the emergence thing is. And it's such a beautiful framework.

And I think it's also really dangerous if you don't put yourself in someone else's shoes looking at that framework, because I think it could be really easy.

I did a little community session about like creative tensions, like at the end of last year and someone came up to me and was like, oh my God, this is what's happening.

Like, like America right now, you know, like the old world is dying and like us like the people who are like, you know, radical and like mutual aid and like care about like, you know, working class in the emerging world.

And I was like, the way that someone who is like deeply conservative and like on the Trumpian stage looks at this exact framework and sees the status quo as being, you know, who we are, government, like all of those things and sees that they're creating an emergent world. They've. They're just doing the inverse as to the way that we see it.

And I think it's a useful framework, but I think it can be slightly dangerous if you don't also cry on for size through other people's point of view. Because it can just be like self fulfilling.

But exactly to your point, like the idea of a composter who is like, what have they got going on over there that I don't wholeheartedly like, believe in, but I can tape and appropriate to make sense for the futures that I want to kind of propagate.

Yeah. And that's a brilliant way of allowing me to Talk about why the okay, boomer phrase is so dangerous.

On the one hand, I love when young people rebel against their elders, rebel against convention, and there's a lot of truth to that kind of sentiment.

But dehumanizing an entire generation that also happens to be wealthy, that also happens to vote, that also happens to have the political power that they do. And it is. Not everyone wants to talk about this, but the boomers are a big part of Trump's power base.

And these were countercultural kids in the 60s who became yuppies in the 80s. And we sort of dismiss this stuff. But I say this because I, in my naive small d democratic way, think about how do we win them back, right?

Like, how do we, you know, the modern medicine is what it is. They're not dying anywhere. They're gonna have their wealth, they're gonna have their votes.

We need to get them back to maybe where they were as youth. To your point, they are anti establishment right now. They potentially see medicine as the establishment or democracy as the establishment.

That might be misguided, but I get it. I understand.

And rather than dismiss them, rather than dehumanize them, how do we create a culture in which, rather than be alienated, they come back? And allow me to segue that still under the America theme, to something else that I listened to a podcast this morning.

And the podcast made this rather interesting observation of American culture, which, you know, in American culture, identity is paradoxical because on the one hand, race is seen as incredibly rigid, right? That there is no escaping your race is kind of the American idea.

And right now, conservatives are freaking out because they think that gender is rigid, right? And that no way should someone be able to have flexible gender.

But yet the core of the American dream, as fucked up as it is, is that class is not rigid, right? In Britain, class is rigid. In Britain, the idea class is very fucking rigid.

But in America, the myth all along has been that class is the most fluid identity. And the idea being that poor people should vote for the interests of rich people because they one day will be rich.

And that is part of the logic of the MAGA movement. And I'm trying to wrap my head around this kind of paradox, this contradiction, because 100% I believe that gender is fluid and that people.

But his argument was that the people who are proponents of gender fluidity have fallen prey to their opponents arguments, because rather than them say that gender is fluid, they are now using the language of we were born this way way.

When instead what they should be arguing is anyone at Any time could switch sides, that if you feel like changing your mind, cool, do whatever you want.

And so I feel that this is one of the tensions right now in Trump's America is they are trying to dehumanize immigrants, they are trying to dehumanize trans folks, they are trying to dehumanize people who are flexible about identity, where they can't be flexible. They want to impose rigid identity in some cases, but not in others. Right.

And it is this weird kind of contradiction that, again, got my head thinking. So I'm throwing it to you, Tamika, because as my favorite anthropologist, I'm sure you got some crazy thoughts on this.

I love this so much. I've never thought about it that simply.

That is the thing that when I say I'm from a working class background, everyone in Britain who was born into a working class background is incredibly proud of it. No matter. No matter how much you kind of, you know, you start to. Here's the thing, it's so simple. In.

In Britain, like, you are working class, if you live paycheck to paycheck and you don't have any investments in order to pay your bills, like, that's just it. Like, yeah, so that is the majority of us.

Yeah, it's inclusive.

It's super inclusive. The pool is massive. And also, it's an identity that people are very, very like.

You hold on to it so tightly, no matter if it's even not true, and you start to pick that apart and you're like, wait, but don't you have, like, a freaking holiday home in the south?

A lot of British entertainers are guilty of that, right? Because their entire career and identity is based on that working class identity.

But their success, unfortunately, has meant that they have a upward mobility. But your point is very valid. It is a source of pride, right? A real source of pride, without a doubt.

But all of the backflips that I've had to.

This is the biggest thing, the backflips that I've had to do when I come to America, because classes, we talk about it all the time in the uk, we talk about class all the time. Race, not so much. Not so much. It's starting to change now. Whereas it's the opposite here. So I felt that very acutely when I first moved here.

I was like, oh, something's different. But you have to do backflips here. Like, people will be like, oh, I earned 3% more than the medium. You are working class. What the hell? This is insane.

Like, so I was sitting In Georgia doing some ethnographic research in August, September. And I was listening to Kamala and Donald talk, whatever the hell that was being dialogue with it. I don't know what it was.

And the gut punch for me, it was like, there's a predictability that comes with what Donald is going to say that is like, easy to kind of disseminate. It was really difficult for me to hear Kamala talk. And I don't usually post on Instagram that much, but I was three negroes down, so I was like, no.

Like, I was like, do you know what? Actually, the middle class. And I said it out loud. And the amount. I don't usually get this much interaction.

The amount of interaction I had from, like, friends here being like, what do you mean? I'm middle class? And I'm like, unless I've got something drastically wrong.

You're definitely not like, yeah, you have to look at the most, like, other vulnerable, like, purposefully.

To your point about out of power, to your point about paycheck to paycheck in America, the frame which people should be recognizing is they're way closer to being homeless than they are to being a billionaire.

That same with disability. I'm like, we're all kind of just temporarily, like, temporarily able. Temporarily abled. Yeah.

Like, everything's on this spectrum where again, it's like this weird constipation with the I'm this or I'm that or I'm not this or I'm not that. And I, again, as a like, mixed race black woman, like, very often. Oh, my God. So I just did this run. It was a 5k run in January.

And when I'm on Tinternet, don't know if you've heard of it. The www. Whenever I'm doing forms, I don't. Depending on what I think the form is being used for. I usually don't put my race and my gender or my age.

And I ran a 5k race with two of my friends. And at the end of the race, my friend messaged me and was like, you are in the top finishers for this 5k. I'm not a runner.

Like, I run, but I'm not a runner. Yeah, I was like, I was in Coral Sea. Like, I'm deaf. There's no way that that happened. I went on the leaderboard and I forget that sports.

Like, I'm not a sports person. I'm a dancer. So I'm like, oh, yeah. Like, people put things in, like quantification.

So I've been categorized as Like a gender fluid runner, which I kind of like. I'm like, why not?

Yeah, yeah, sure.

Like, I got this trophy through to my house saying that I was like, the first place 5k runner and had this maelstrom of, like, emotion. Whereas I know I kind of. I do feel that way. When I say, like, any and all pronouns, I genuinely mean it. Because also, I'm.

I'm being very serious about, like, what's happening to gender fluid, non binary and trans folk right now. I've been working with the Trans Oral History project a little bit over the last few weeks, which has been amazing.

And this is also the thing I just get in line, where people know what they're doing and how to organize. And, like, I'm like, I will do whatever you need me to do. Just put me in place.

Although I will point out that that is the privilege of New York City, that it collects a lot of people who know what they're doing. The rest of us in the hinterland, we're all figured out on our own. It's a whole lot messier, I'll tell you that much. But please continue.

No, that is so fair, and it's so real. And I forget that sometimes. I do.

And it was a very open dialogue between Amara Jones and a couple of other people that are Chanza Red Heart Transoral History Project. And they were saying that the art that they, like, partake in. Sorry, I'm going all about.

No, no, you're rocking.

The art that they partake in at the moment is, like, a lot of it is, like, musical, and it deals with archives and, like, how to turn those archives into works of art and music that people can respond to and be in space with other people.

This is also, I think, an antidote to some of this, like, okay, boomer shit, where it's like, intergenerational exchanges in physical spaces, I think, are the antidote to, like, a lot. Like, if you have a intentional and thoughtful process, I think you can learn. We can all learn so much from each other.

We don't have to start from scratch all over again. So I think they're doing incredible work.

But they were saying that there's, like, a young, like, white heterosexual man that's been working with them, and he's been quiet for the last year, and then out of the blue, he came out with this piece of work that he played for Amara, and she was like, this is incredible.

We thought you were just, like, asleep in the corner for the last year, but it's like this guy's like, no, I'd like I've been really absorbing and listening to like, you know what, you know, your community is kind of dealing with and going through at the moment. And, and they all said it really clearly. They were like, there's some funky shit that is about to happen in the next three years.

It is your job to get funkier. Yeah, get funkier.

Like, yeah, understand like to your point, like where soft power kind of like lies, understand how you can like form communities of like practice and nourishment. Like it's so clear.

And I think in answering the kind of challenge as brilliantly as you did, as spontaneously as you did, you offered indirectly a really powerful answer, which goes back to where we started with anthropology, that you have to position yourself that the anthropologist can't come in and start labeling people. The anthropologist has to come in and start listening to people to understand what they're talking about.

And part of the fascist nature of this political moment in America is the external enforcement of identity. You are legal and you are not right? You are this gender, not this gender.

And what we need is a situation in which identity self determination is actual self determination that people within reason. Cuz I'm still fine with banning Nazis and punching Nazis and you know, like there's limits to that.

But I do think that we have to get to a world in which rather than identity be this rigid concept, people are allowed to explore themselves through that fluidity.

That's where our trans comrades and our disabled comrades are leading the way because they are very much developing these types of inclusive communities and inclusive identities. But I want to, in trying to bring our conversation to an end because I could go on for hours and hours and hours.

Let me ask you the question that is kind of similar to how I started this when I did with anthropology. How has your view of ancestors or of ancestry or of kin relations evolved as you've been doing?

The Dial in Ancestor project, which you did talk about the project a little earlier in terms of alluding to it.

You're more than welcome to get into more description now, but in particular I'm always interested in how Tamika's changing because that's part of why I love you so much is you are the kind of person who, you know, there's the future is not evenly distributed. There's the nothing's inevitable, provided we're willing to pay attention.

And the other metaveugh's phrase that we say repeatedly on this show is those not busy being born are busy dying. And it speaks to how we constantly are reinventing and renewing ourselves.

So how has your thoughts on ancestry, your relationship with Ancestry evolved as you've been, I don't want to say curating, facilitating this phenomenal participatory project.

Thank you so much, Jesse. I want to get those three tenants, like written down and stuck up on a wall somewhere. It's amazing.

So, Diane and Ancestor is a hotline that is publicly accessible 24 7. It's really simple. You call a number. I should know the number off by heart. I'll do it later.

Although Google dial in Ancestor and the number will be made available to you.

And as you say that, I've been so enthralled with our conversation that I've been forgetting some of the showbiz elements that I do as part of the show. Like normally I bring up the guest website, for example.

And in this case I thought, oh, I'll bring this up first and then later I'll bring up the dial it Ancestor. So thanks, Jessie.

There's the number. So it's really simple. You call the number, you press 1 to listen to an ancestor and you press 2 to speak as an ancestor. Really?

This could be called anything. It could be called dial, a human dialog, whatever. It could be so interchangeable.

But quite understandably, when I say died an ancestor, there are several responses that are all perfectly logical. Ancestry is in the past. It's like dead people. What I'm asking people to do here is to play with their relationship to time.

And we think ancestry in the past. I'm asking people to think ancestry in the present and eventually the future.

So there's some people that have left messages that are no longer on this earthly realm.

And there are other people that are walking around alive, you know, and it's kind of an existential trigger to think about who you are and who you've become, who maybe you shouldn't have become and who you might want to be. You know, it's very, very open ended. And I listen to the voice recordings that come through like every Sunday or every other Sunday.

And in the pandemic where people had the luxury of kind of like time and insularity and, you know, not having pendulums sprung back to this insane kind of corporate land that everyone seems to have just entered back into. Like, anyway, people were far more introspective and quite philosophical with the messages that they were leaving.

As time has gone on, we like things that are new and that are novel. It's been around for like three and a half years and it doesn't exist on Instagram.

There's no, like, quantifiable data that comes with violent ancestor quite purposefully. And I didn't want a social media account attached to it. So I basically wheat paste in order to get the word out.

I live in Brooklyn, so there's only so far that I can go, but kind of word has traveled a little bit more, but there are fewer and further between recordings, which is like, absolutely fine, it's okay. But I think it. It surprises people when I say that the archive actually, like the physical, like, archive that exists, like on this hard drive.

It's not much more, like, complicated than that is of less importance to me than the somatic experience that someone is going through when they understand that they are a worthy and needed and necessary and vital human being who also has the propensity to leave something behind, but also, like, shape the future. It's quite powerful. So I say that the body is the real archive and it's the only archive that we really have.

And I'm really interested in facilitating some more kind of experiences that are intergenerational and that are in physical space around this idea. Because it's one thing to be on your phone, by yourself, in your bedroom, kind of doing quite an introspective thing.

But I think I want to expand, like the we element of dying ancestor. And also I want to get some recordings through that I fundamentally disagree with.

Right on.

I would say that's a challenge in framing, a worthy challenge in framing, because I think to the point of being a philosopher provocateur, that would be a very worthwhile experience, I would point out, as a kind of design element in that what you've created is a kind of ceremony. Right. That you're encouraging people to engage in this ceremony and that I love the idea of an intergenerational or a group configuration.

But I would argue it's a different ceremony and to think about how the ceremony should be structured to facilitate that. But you did, in a way, kind of dodge the question, or at least you obliquely, which is how has your thoughts on the concept of the ancestor evolved?

Or maybe it hasn't, but I get the sense that it may have that, you know, your concept has become more, I don't want to say, three dimensional, four dimensional, five dimensional, that, you know, perhaps. And this is why you desire the upsetting, the dissenting, the alternative narrative that hasn't manifested because you want it.

You want more honesty, you want more humanity in this ceremony and this practice of evoking ancestry of ancestry.

I love this idea of ceremony and I think there's so much of like, ritual is just the, like, offline version of an algorithm. Like, we also have the ability to do that through ritual and ceremony, and so many of us don't have it.

And to have that kind of time based, like, thread is. Is so important. But I'll tell a story about maybe where I think, like, I'm itching to move towards.

I did my first artist in residence, like, last year for three weeks, which was mind blowing to me. I thought I was doing it wrong for like the first 50 of the time because I was like, what the hell? Like, where's the trick?

Like, I'm just here and you're allowing me to do my thing. Like, what it was, Was this before.

Or after you came up with the phrase trespassing?

It was at the time. It was at the time because I was in Oregon, like in the middle of the forest in Oregon. And in induction, oh, man.

In the induction, they went through, like, how to, like, hike and how to navigate the snow and how to build a fire and all of these things. I've got so many stories, but I'm not going to tell you all of them.

And in our immediate gathering, the person that was kind of hosting us and responsible for our cohort, there was a gunshot in the background. And he was like, oh, if you hear that, don't worry about it. It's like, further away than it actually sounds.

Like there's this weird, like, perception, like, reality thing. But also, like, he brushed it off really quickly. I was like, america, America. I was like, nah, bruv, I am. I do not hear gunshots. Like, what the heck?

What? What are you talking about? And he was saying that there's a family that live on the outskirts of the property that own, like, a big property.

And they. They shoot. And he. I was like, oh, what's that family's name? Just like, off cutter.

So obviously I spent the next, like, three days understanding the land that I was on and how it had come to be. And what is it called? Like the. The colonized, like, railway colonization system Eminent domain program, maybe?

Like where they stole the land for the railway?

Exactly, yeah.

Eminent domain.

And then I learned about manifest destiny.

Yeah.

So having all of this time to trespass and think about how to, like, bastardize the concept of time meant that I can understand the dog whistles really quickly. And this is the language thing around what's going on right now.

So I started thinking about ancestry in a different way through Several different lenses, but one of them that was more personal. I go to a, like, energy healer who does, like, psycho. Psychotherapy, psychoanalysis and hypnosis. I was like, I've got time now.

Like, let's get a session in. And she asked point blank. She's like, we've done a lot of talking.

She was like, are you ready for the colonized part of yourself to talk to the decolonized part of yourself? I was like, what do you mean? Don't tell me that.

But I better just be like, no, not there yet.

No. I was like, yes. And here's the thing.

I remember vividly being 15 years old in high school and Angela Jabbar in our chemistry class turning to me and being like, ra. Like, quite literally your mum's people, like, probably colonized your dad.

Like Liverpool Port, you know, like, literally Gold Coast Ghana, like Elmina. Like, the route is like A to B. Yeah.

This is a metaphor. This is actual geography and history.

And it lives inside me. Back to the body is the archive. And, like, that's what ancestry is really complicated.

Like, I think being in America, specifically, understandably, like, there's a lot of Blackness is really complex. Blackness is really complex. And I understand, like, the. The needs and the necessity and the desire to, like, trace histories back as far as you can.

And it can be painful and it can be exhilarating, and it can help you understand, like, who you are and how you move through the world. But it's like, again, so nuanced, where there's usually a part, if you're tracing a family tree that you get to somewhere that you don't want to be.

You don't want to be there.

Yeah.

And like, it's. I don't know, like, it feels quite like Even though, like, 23andMe and like, the ancestry, all of this is like op movement. Like, I'm just. No.

What are you using this for?

I'm glad you went there because you reminded me and I. I got to be vague in terms of how I disclose this, but I.

In my corporate travels, I was in a position to see a brief from Ancestry.com because almost all of their clients are white. People, like, overwhelmingly stop. Not at all.

And as I'm sure you understand the language of advertising, marketing, communications, they were looking for people of color, and they were trying to figure out how exactly they could diversify their data set, because that's fundamentally, as a company, what their business is. They don't give a fuck who you're related to. They need a genetic data Set that as diverse as possible.

And it turns out it's only white people who are going, who am I? Where am I from? Who are my ancestors? Versus all non white people. They know where they're from. Right.

And I say this because the other thing that I've been thinking about to go back to our conversation on the flexibility of identity is I'm old enough to remember how the definition of white in America has changed. Changed and changed radically. Right. For a long time, it didn't include Cuban people. Now it almost sort of does.

It definitely didn't include Italians and Jews, but it sure does now. And the Jewish part is very much the colonialism of Palestinians. Right.

That in going from Jews as being not white to Jews as being white was very much part of the alliance between America and Israel. Right.

And the way that plays out, you know, the Italian piece, I'm not Italian, so I can't really comment to that, But I suspect it has a lot to do with the way that organized crime was essentially fought. Because in the early days of fighting organized crimes, Italians were definitely not white. Right.

The same way that Irish were not white for a very long time. And that part of American history is lost on people. The same way to Europe point.

The black American identity is incredibly complex because it's geographically dependent. There is no unified black American identity, as much as American culture might want to make it that way.

Brooklyn is completely different than Georgia, which is completely different than Texas, which is completely different than anywhere else.

And that nuance, white America acknowledges that white America gets into blue state and red state and, you know, middle America versus coastal America. So this is the contradictions and the paradoxes of Kind of America in its current existential angst, for sure.

And then it goes back to, like, those three very simple, like, gender, race, class. And it's like those things are so inextricably linked, but, like, who gets to benefit from it?

And then whose stories get, like, shoved, you know, beneath the carpet? Like, black American labor made this. I mean, they weren't even black American at the time. It was, you know, African peoples who made America.

The money, the wealth, like, all of it. And. And then were made to be black. You know, like, it. It's. It's all so tied up within each other. And I think that's why I'm, like, so geeking out.

And, like, I didn't use YouTube until about five years ago. Don't know what. I don't know. It just missed me. But I am, like, obsessed. Like Al Jazeera, the struggle For Africa.

I want to understand about the Cold War.

I want to understand about, like, Ukraine and like, how we've gotten to the place that we've gotten to now by, like, backtracking in a way that feels like, robust and useful. But yeah, the ancestry part is like, if our body is the archive and that is the only thing that we have that separates.

Like, there's so much that we inherit that we don't understand where it comes from. Like, there's only so much that people can say on this little hard drive that is gonna transmit to like, the next generation.

It's not gonna change too much, but on a like, day to day basis, like, triggers something in people, but the body is the thing that really does, and you inherit so much of that.

And I think the more that you can overlay kind of like historical movement and stories and like, ideas with like, thematic understanding of like the body that you inhabit, the more useful that's going to be for future generations. Because again, context.

And this is where I think you and I kind of vibe as researchers, as academic adjacent, is my rejection of academia. Part of the core reason that I feel that academia is one of the core engines of colonialization is the desire to record and archive everything.

Brav versus I am much more of an oral culture in which my, my brain, my body is what is absorbing this stuff. That's why I have dope conversations with dope people, because I don't need to reference some book. It's all coming from my intuition.

It's all coming from. And the more I talk to people, the more it passes on. This is why I fundamentally agree with you.

Intergenerational exchanges and culture and, and living is our antidote to this rising fascism. It's the antidote to the insanity and the anxiety that is taking hold of our culture and our public.

But I think there is a need to have anthropologists, have researchers, to have powerful people not writing shit down.

Agree with you.

And creating to the point of constipation, just throw shit out there, right? Get it out there. There's lots of ways in which the aural can be performed in the digital.

And you know, I was thinking this morning rather selfishly, that the biggest impact dial in Ancestor has had on me is I love creating content, I love creating podcasts, I hate promoting them. So my attitude is, I'm doing this for my ancestors. Let them find it. Right? You know, and that way it's just out there.

And to your point, the knowledge I get from phenomenal conversations, like we're Having right now is in my body. And that is where the, you know, Harriet is coming here to confer. Right, Harriet agrees.

Exactly.

It's in the body.

Exactly. We need some, like, non human voices on that, on that archive too, Harriet. So whenever you're ready.

Point taken. I'll do that. Yes. Once it gets a little warmer, once the snow melts a bit, then, yes, absolutely, I'll. I'll follow through on that.

But yes, I love that so much. And it's quite a paradoxical thing to say to people.

I'm like, yeah, like, you know, people be like, oh, this is my great grandma's, like, peach cobbler recipe. I'm like, are you sure? Are you sure you want to put that on, like, a public archive? Maybe that's not for.

Maybe that's sacred and that's for, like, you and like, your body and your, Your chosen family. I don't know, like, maybe think twice about those things. Also, it comes down to, like, status, right? And power. This is also the shadow side of it.

You document the thing, you put your name on it. You have ownership over it. Like, because, I mean, there's. I. That's also the other thing about, like, indentured servants and slavery.

Like, yes, bodies and like, labor, but also like, IP Man. God damn.

Like, so I understand where some of the, like, impulse to, like, over document comes from, but there's also such a thing as, like, you are so ungovernable if there are some things that you have for yourself and you keep sacred.

And to that point, the. And this is where fascism is, through its own contradictions, rising to power.

The primary governance of our world, of YouTube, of knowledge, of all the things we have had, has been copyright, right? Like the stuff you can see on YouTube and the stuff you can't see on YouTube has to do with copyright.

And that is a weird kind of knowledge bias that I would love to get past. But getting past that, of course, is a whole other conversation and a whole other challenge.

And I am conscious that we are taking up a lot of your time and I would love to have you back a recurring guest here on, on the podcast. But one last question before I sort of throw to our shout outs.

What's the vibe in Brooklyn these days vis a vis the larger American political situation?

I asked this because I wrote an issue of my newsletter about Boston, because Boston is really getting a kind of insubordinate, rebellious kind of culture that is flaring. You know, Brooklyn in particular has always had a very proud, a very defiant, a very independent Culture.

So I would love to hear from a Brooklynite, what's the vibe? What is the feeling there when it comes to the current political situation?

Because the paradox is you are on the periphery as someone who wasn't born in America, but then you're also on the periphery because Brooklyn is kind of on the periphery of America. So give. Give me and our listeners a sense of what it's like there right now.

I'm going to give you a sense of who our mayor is. Eric Adams, a former cop.

A Trumpian.

In his own right, Philly Trumpian, without a doubt, who is more likely to be found in the club popping champagne on a Friday night than anywhere else. So, like, that is. That's the. That's the person that's in charge here.

But I think that the counteraction of that is, like, I think there is a mass understanding that, like, Democrat land don't work in. And that they're trading in concepts and fluffy ideas as opposed to, like, concrete, actionable points. I mean, that's the thing.

You just, you went on and Trump's website and you went on Kamala, and I understand there were different kind of dynamics that they. And processes and timelines that they had, but let's just call it as it is.

Trump was saying very concrete, understandable things that everyone could get on board with. I think Kamala was. And the left were kind of running off of identity politics at. So done, like, to everything that we've talked about today.

And. And you're British, so I can say this without upsetting you. That wasn't the left. That was the center.

Yeah, for sure. Without a doubt. Like, without a doubt.

And I think people, at least the circle that I run in here, know that the only thing that we have is each other right now. So, like, mutual aid and like, grassroots movement is the only thing that we can rely on right now. So it feels like there's like a maybe. Yeah.

Now, I've only been here four years, but now more than ever in those last four years, there's a real willingness to, like, boots on the ground, find the ecosystem of change and know the role that you play really well. That is very. Like, I am. I have fresh food. I am going to put the food in the community fridge.

Like, yeah, the revolution ain't coming with a 501C status, babe. Like, it's not happening. So, yeah.

I had another guest on the show who organized. I sent you the event, I think Fugitive Futures, and.

And I thought that was such a great phrase that we're not going to do this within the system, right? Like we got to be outlaws, we got to be fugitives.

One of the things we've been getting into in the newsletter that I'd love to talk to you about at some point in the future because as a Brit, I think unlike Americans, you'd actually be able to. To discuss it intelligently. I think what we're witnessing is the death of liberalism, that the center is collapsing.

And unfortunately it's the far right who have seized the day, who, to your point, are speaking to the working class, who are speaking to the material reality of people's struggles. And we need the liberals to get the fuck out of the way.

We need the center to collapse so that the left can come back to its historical role of opposing fascism, opposing opposing capitalism and providing alternatives for the people again.

That's been my kind of research focus on a philosophy on an ideological level in addition to the cultural work that really motivates me and drives me. So I'd love to have you back to kind of get into that because I think as an anthropologist, you'd have really a lot of interesting things to say.

The other thing I'm going to flag now that we're at the end and I'm bringing up my wish list of future topics to discuss with Tamika. I've also been working, so big picture. I'm fully now an abolitionist in the sense of fuck prisons, fuck police, we need to close that shit.

And I think the reason it took me so long to get to that position is I needed the answer before I could commit.

And to me, the answer is a radical empowerment and scaling up of social work, that we use social work as a kind of frame to address the things that criminology would. Would focus on and that law and order would focus on again early.

I haven't written about it yet because it's still something that's working in my head. But I'm floating the idea to you so that when the next time we talk, we'll see how those things percolate and interconnect.

I love this. My friends just had.

Sorry, one second. I gotta let this pass. I want to make sure that you're heard. Go ahead. Because now you, when the thing was on your mic, wouldn't have heard. Go ahead.

Sorry. All good. I love that train of thought and would love to be back to discuss this with you.

A friend has just rejected like a quite substantial grant to make art inside a prison in New York for, yeah, several reasons. And she's deeply Abolitionist. So I. Yes, I. We have interesting conversations. Would love to talk to this about this with you. Maybe bring her as well.

I was gonna say if, if you wouldn't mind saying a good word to her and saying, hey, Jesse has a podcast. He'd love to have you as a guest.

I can give you her info because he's just turning on to the abolition movement and would love to learn more and promote more.

For sure. I absolutely will. Jesse. I have to run because I have to get on the mta.

So our last segment real quick is a shout out. You kind of just did it. But is there any one thing, person, concept, place that you would like to shout out in our last moment here in the show?

Yes. Oh, God, there's so many.

And while you think I will say, I will send you the three sayings that I repeated here on the show and I will actually give you the intellectuals who are responsible for them rather than just rip them off as the thief that I am. And I'll also resend you the calendar link so that you can put yourself in again for another session.

And at some point we got to talk about you have having a podcast. Because I would listen to that fucking podcast every single day.

The moment that those episodes dropped with all that delay, shout out any one thing, person, fictional, real, dead, living, that you think our audience should be paying attention to.

Go Google American Artists. That is their legal name that they have. Yes, that they go by now.

They do a lot of work using Octavia Butler's kind of archives and ideas on what the future is. Parable with the soa. Like ultimately change the way that they think about their work.

I don't know them personally, but I've loved seeing what they're doing.

Those are the best shout outs guaranteed. And I actually was part of a dystopian reading group at the start of the pandemic, which obviously included Parable of a Sword and others.

And it really bothers me how prophetic all that shit was. But I think with more conversations like this, the dystopia is coming to an end. Our last episode was called the Last Gasp of Authoritarianism.

I suspect this one might be about trespassing. I never actually titled the episodes until I listened to them again and kind of allow them to percolate. But thank you, Tamika.

This has been fantastic. Tameka can be found at cornerbooth, dot work and dial in Ancestor. We will have those URLs in the show Notes.

Meta View is available on all platforms, everywhere. This has been the best episode yet does mean our next episode might suck. Manage your expectations, folks, but we'll be back soon. Thanks again.