Richard Pryor in the Morning? That’s a Sex Act
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Ladies. Hi. Hello. Dramatic pause this time. Dramatic pause, right? I was like, oh, you're giving Michael Barbaro. Pregnant pause. Oh. I'm Sam Sanders. I'm Saeed Jones. And I'm Zach Stafford. And you are listening to Vibe Check. Vibe Check.

I've been watching comedy specials all morning, so I'm feeling a little punchy. I was watching Richard Pryor while drinking my coffee. I'll explain later. Wow. Oh, so you're coked up. You are. You did a line. Wait a minute now. Wait a minute now. Oh. Woo.

Richard Pryor in the morning. That's a sex act. You got laid. Richard Pryor in the morning is a sex act. Wow.

I'll say it's because of one of this week's topics. I just decided to watch Hasan Minhaj's special and 20 minutes in, I was like, I can't do this. And so I found a Richard Pryor special instead. Anyway, this week we are talking about Hasan Minhaj recently admitting to major story embellishment in his standups. Did he admit to them? Because reading that whole profile, I was kind of like, I'm not really...

I'm not really getting a lot of self-reflection here. He used the phrase emotional truth. And that's the thing the man says when he's cheated, right? The number of times, I have my notepad here. The number of times I like circled, underlined emotional truth and the thoughts I have on it as someone who's written a memoir. Oh my gosh, it was driving me crazy. So we're going to talk about all of that. And then we're also going to talk about

I can't even say it without laughing, which I think says a lot of perhaps about our feelings on the topic. Shoplifting. Girl, the girls are mobbing. The girls out here getting their luxury goods. Apparently it's on the rise. Take it all. Yeah. Corporations, politicians, red and blue are apparently very upset about it. And so we're going to talk about it. We're going to talk how we feel about it, why it's going on. I don't want to presume to know what you two think, but I kind of feel like there's shoplifting and then there's real theft. Yes.

Yes. And I think we know who the real thieves are. Is that fair? Okay. So, but before we get into all of that, friends, how are we feeling? Cycle, let's start with you. How are you doing, baby? I feel so calm and recharged.

Must be nice. It's nice. You know, it's nice. I spent the weekend doing nothing in Ojai. Some friends of mine, they moved there recently. So Ojai, California, it's a valley north of LA, near Santa Barbara. It's a very like hippy-dippy place. Lots of great energy. There's a vortex there. It's like an anthropology store in the woods. Truly that. So anyway, they are living there now. So we spent the weekend up there and I had

no idea that Ojai is where the rich and famous go to hide and not be seen because every place I went I saw Sandra Oh I saw her last night at a premiere but I saw her there I ran into Liv Tyler at the front of a restaurant I saw Donald Glover's black ass hanging out at breakfast I was like what

What is going on here? So I guess it is like the place, if you want to hide and not be seen and be left alone, you go to Ojai, California and you get your crystals and you chill. And I feel great. I feel wonderful after that. They call it Ojai. They should call it Ojai. Ojai. Okay. All right. Ojai. But it was really nice. But also what it reminded me of is I think we've all hit an age in our lives where we know

what certain friends do for us. Like, you know, you have your friend that you go out with. You have your friends that you party with. You have your friends that you do a podcast with. These friends are my friends that I can go sit with for three days and talk about nothing but talk about everything at once. And it's the most lovely thing. And there's no stress. You're not worried or anything. So I think like, you know, I have that with you all when we go on trips, but it's like- Sounds like a multiverse vibe check.

I mean, it's straight. It's like Vibe Check Straight Edition. It's like really, really weird. But I would say everyone, take stock in the friends that you can just sit with and just enjoy the vibes and like go on a trip with them. Go to somewhere quiet. It's really nice. Sam, honey, how are you doing? I'm good. So I was in New York this past weekend for a dear friend's wedding. Two dear friends' wedding. Congratulations, Caitlin and Daniel. But I happened to be in New York in the run-up.

to the UN General Assembly, which is usually a big deal. It began this week, and it's supposed to be a meeting of all the major world leaders to tackle tough problems and get stuff done. Lots happening out there. A lot's happening, but the thing with UNGA, as they call it this year, that really is affecting my vibe...

is that no one's showing up. So Joe Biden is going, but four other world leaders are skipping. The leader of China is skipping, the leader of Russia is skipping, the leader of the UK is skipping, and Macron from France is skipping. Wow. This is a big deal because the whole point is the UN General Assembly shows how the world will work together to tackle big problems, but they can't do that if no one shows up.

And what makes it really interesting is that this year, members of the quote-unquote global south, these are countries south of the equator, they've been saying this UNGA should be about us because the war in Ukraine has shown that the global north still likes to focus its energy and resources and care on problems facing the global north, not the global south. So how interesting that the time that it's supposed to be about the

the black and brown countries south of the equator, a lot of these northern leaders just don't come. It's wild. And when I think about that and what's going on here in America as well, several states trying to get Trump off the ballot before next year, lots of folks saying Joe Biden is too old to run for president. Thinking of all of this together, it's got me saying when it comes to like the world order,

Who is in charge right now? Who is running the ship? And is anyone charting a path for like all of us to move forward? Doesn't feel like that. So my vibe is off this week. I agree. I've been following the UN news because last night was also Broadway for Biden. So while Biden's in town to speak to the UN, he did a Broadway event. That'll get him. Yeah, that will get him.

Which I like lots of friends are part of it. Lots of great money. He's doing a ton of fundraisers. But I was like, huh, that and the UN world order. Interesting combo there, President Biden. But I'm just confused again, like what is going on in the world? Because like no one's showing up. When I heard that the news, I was like, wait, you can just not show up to this. Especially the week in which Trudeau's accusing another world leader of killing someone.

Trudeau has accused India of killing a Sikh activist in Canada. He has sent an Indian diplomat back to India and was like, we're fighting now. This is wild. It's too much. The state of the global order is in retrograde. Do we have a sense of why they're skipping it?

They've all refused to say why. The French prime minister said he had a previous engagement with Prince Charles or something, but none of them have actually given real answers. It proves that they know that the UN has become largely ineffective. And a lot of the things that the UN could do, it gets blocked by the UN Security Council because a nation like Russia or China can veto anything whenever they want. So for the last decade plus, the UN has just been...

this cesspool of inaction. And then once you realize that, it tracks that these leaders aren't showing up because they ain't doing shit there. It's really frustrating too, right? Because just to focus on climate change specifically,

We're at this point, right, where scientists are like, look, man, there are some really important deadlines coming up that are going to require. I guess I'm less interested in who's the leader, but I'm more interested in where is the substantive collaboration, right? We're reaching this point where it's like, no, I'm sorry, we literally are going to have to sit down together and to make some substantive commitments regarding things like carbon emissions and everything like that. And if people aren't sitting down at the table, right?

Yikes. Yeah. Well, and then in the absence of leadership from actual world leaders, you got folks like Elon Musk basically studying war policy for the war in Ukraine. You know, he is a supplier of satellites and Ukrainian forces, and he has been not just talking to Putin as well, but throttling satellite access to give Russia advantage on the battlefield. Yeah, when he literally throttled several Ukrainian drones that were about to lead an attack, I was like, oh,

I was like, oh my God. In the absence of world cooperation, people like Elon step up and it's not good for anybody. Don't give me this talk. There is a vacuum of leadership. Yeah, yeah. What's your vibe, Saeed?

Okay, I'm going to try to be nice because I got to keep a lot of bullets in the chamber because I have a lot to say about Hassan Banash. I'm like, let me be nice to everyone else. I, over the weekend, binge watched a television show that was not good. I'm not going to tell you what it is. But after I finished the show that was just like absurdly not good, I was like, okay, what is something that was critically praised that I'm pretty sure would be great to invest in? And I decided to finally start watching Fleabag. Oh!

White British people, are you okay?

Are y'all alright? Wait, wait, Saeed. Oh my goodness. When you tweeted that, I just threw my phone at Craig. I was like, look at this. Let me tell you something I will never do. Speak ill of that show on the internet. Don't do it. Look, here's the thing. They will kill you. So I watched all of, I watched an entire first season. And it's interesting because as I started, I was posting about this on Blue Sky. I basically started like live tweeting on Blue Sky as I was watching this. I call her Flea Lady. Flea Lady.

It seems that the consensus is that, and I agree with this, that season one of Fleabag, it is too intense. It's almost like emotionally mean in terms of everything it's throwing at you. But people were like, but season two is triumphant. I'm a couple of episodes into season two. The premiere of season two is easily one of the best episodes of television I've seen in a very long time. Wow. In a very, very long time. But it's interesting seeing like,

The show's doing a lot of things, but it's interesting seeing this, I guess, gender-flipped dirtbag. You know, like the drink too much, fuck too much, makes jokes at the wrong time, farting. Usually that would describe a straight white male protagonist, I think. Usually when you kind of hear that kind of behavior, and then it's like Flea Lady doing all of that. It's really good, but man, it was stressing me out is what I'm trying to tell you. And then I love Olivia Colman.

And she is so mean on the show that it almost led me into an existential crisis because that's how much I love Olivia Colman. It's just a lot. I was shook. That's what I'm trying to tell you. I'm shook. I,

I feel like white people want their prestige television to give them, like, to existentially punch them in the face. Like, when I think of, like, the shows that get the critical praise from predominantly, like, white gatekeepers, the shows are, like, about mean, unhappy people and kind of brutal narratives. It's been that way since The Sopranos. Tony Soprano ushered in that era of anti-hero, and I'm tired of it. Mad Men, Breaking Bad. Yeah.

It's succession. But the British really love like kind of mean. You know, before Fleabag was the show Flowers, which Olivia Colman's in, which is an equally complicated British show that is like you watch it. You're like, why is she so awful? What is going on? But I don't know. Brit humor is about that darkness. Well, if we have any, I mean, I'm sure we have many fans of Fleabag, but if we have Fleabag,

of British comedy. Is it even a comedy? I don't know. So I just feel very like out of sorts. How the show ends though is fabulous. It's fabulous, I think. So the end of season two is fabulous. I might watch it. I don't think you should. I don't think you would like it. Okay. I don't think you would like it and I don't need to be, I don't know if I could handle you being stressed out in this way about the show. She cares about me. I do. I care about me. I care about me.

Well, that's where we are for now. Before we get into the rest of the episode, we want to thank all of you who sent us fan mail, reached out on social media. We absolutely loved hearing your messages. Keep them coming at vibecheckatstitcher.com. For now, let's jump in. Let's get into this mess, shall we? Let's do it. Let's do it.

Let's jump right into the arms of Hasan Minhaj. I'm jumping right out of his arms. I don't trust that man to hold me. He is going to hold you. If we've learned anything about Hasan Minhaj in the last week, he'll say, jump, jump, Sam, and then not catch you. And then talk about how you mailed him anthrax the next week. But at least I'll be in his comedy special. I'll be famous in that way. Anywho, what we were talking about is...

is award-winning comedian, actor, talk show host Hasan Minhaj recently in some trouble.

There was a piece in The New Yorker this past week that basically said a lot of what he's been telling us in his comedy specials isn't quite true. So Assaminaj made a name for himself with comedy that touched on his own experiences with anti-Muslim discrimination to point out some larger truths about American culture. But turns out a lot of the stories he used to make these points in his comedy are not actually true.

The New Yorker fact-checked a bunch of the stories, and what they found was troubling. In one of his specials, Hasan said that someone sent a white powder to his house in the mail, which he thought was anthrax. He said his daughter was exposed to it and had to go to the hospital for possible anthrax exposure. Turns out his daughter was never exposed to a white powder and never hospitalized, though he does still claim that a letter with white powder was sent to his house.

In another story, Hassan talks about an FBI informant who infiltrated his family mosque in Sacramento. He says a white man who claimed to have converted to Islam would try to get men in the congregation to talk about jihad.

And then in the special where he talks about this, Hassan says a joke that he made to this informant about training for a pilot's license that ended up getting Minaj's body slammed into the hood of a car by police. Guess what? That never happened. The informant in question never even worked in Sacramento. Then there was a third situation where

in which Hassan said that he roasted Jared Kushner at a Time magazine gala after Kushner sat in an empty chair reserved for the murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi. That empty seat never existed. When asked about all of these mistruths, Minaj told The New Yorker that his stories are, quote, grounded in truth and based on, quote,

Emotional truths. Emotional truths. Y'all tell me, how should I feel about this? Because I already feel some kind of way. I feel icky. I feel icky. How do y'all feel? What did Kellyanne Conway call it? I'll turn it to facts. Facts. I'll turn it to facts. I was like, that was not a name I expected to hear.

Well, let's start with his formula. Because in the article, in an attempt to explain his fabrications, which are not unusual to comedy, and I think that's a lot of this conversation, is like, what are our reasonable expectations for fabrications in stand-up comedy, and then what begins to push the line? But I thought it was interesting because...

Hasan Minhaj defines his work as like a kind of Arnold Palmer in the piece. He says it's 70% emotional truth. Emotional truth is his phrase. Emotional truth. That just feels so gaslighting. I'm sorry. I think you're right. And then 30% hyperbole.

Because, like, I talk to people a lot, like, when you're writing, you know, memoir, nonfiction, personal narrative, which obviously has actually a lot in common with, like, stand-up, you know, I'm like, there is, you know, there's factual truth.

You know, my name is Hasan Minhaj. I am from, what, Davis, California. That's a factual truth. And then there's an emotional truth, which is different. It's not the same thing. The emotional truth is it is difficult living in America as a Muslim American. It's difficult, you know, living in the wake of the war on terror as a brown person. We often have had to deal with being profiled, and that really impacts you and shakes you up. That's an emotional truth.

Lying about facts to get to emotional truth though is like, what are we doing here? Yeah. And to add to that, there's a lot of work currently in the Zeitgeist that does use emotional truths to build out the story, the worlds around it. One of them is A Strange Loop, a show I've worked on for a while and continue to work on. Michael Jackson says in every interview, this is an emotional autobiography.

I did not go through these exact same beats of the story as a black queer person, but a lot of it has touched my life. He experienced Inwood Daddy. I'm sorry. He probably did. Many of us have, but, but, you know, he, he said up front, like, Hey, here's the, the expectation. This is how we're gathering together. This is based off something I emotionally felt, but Hassan has worked as a journalist comedian for years. Well, before we even get to the journalist thing, and I like that you used that Michael R. Jackson example, um,

Michael R. Jackson in interviews when asked about his work shows us the boundary, shows us the bright lines. And I think that's really important. Hasan Minhaj has continued to lie and uphold fabrications in interviews until this New Yorker story. And here's the thing. It's not just that he kept lying. He refused to acknowledge what was truth and what was fiction in different contexts.

The thing that complicates all of this is that Hasan Minhaj is not just a comedian. He used his comedic chops and his comedic popularity to parlay his way into a current event

late night talk show called Patriot Act, where he was talking about politics and current events in the way that someone like Jon Stewart does. Yeah. And won an Emmy Award for it. Yes. And so if you are using stories about your life to establish yourself as an expert on current events, given your experience with anti-Muslim discrimination, we expect the stories to be true. And if you never tell us they aren't,

It cheapens the journalistic work that you've done after that because all of that was informed and in part given to you because of these lies.

Yeah. It would be like if you woke up tomorrow and read a variety that every little thing, like our entire friendship wasn't real. Like we knew each other, but we just put it together. Yeah. That like even my story at the beginning that I went to Ojai with friends wasn't real. Actually went there. Like, it's like that is what's happening in this instance is that like part of it is true, but the complete isn't true. And you as a fan, as an audience member are being told as you enter a space like his show, our show, that this is authentic and then finding out it's not. And that just feels bad. Yeah.

Yeah.

Hasan Minhaj is not that funny. He's not that funny. He's very pretty. And let's talk about it. He's not that funny, but he's very handsome. And I think that's significant. I feel that Hasan Minhaj overly relies on identity politics, newsworthiness, and autobiography because I think he understands that his jokes alone aren't that funny.

And then the second problem is that if you're trying to build to a pointed argument using false facts, that undermines the argument at the end. Well, and this is the thing. This affects real people in his life. So one of the big stories in one of his recent specials was all about how he wanted to take this white woman to prom. And then right before prom, she dumped him because she didn't want to take a brown guy and her family didn't want her to take a brown guy to prom.

She always claimed that that wasn't true, but he identified her in this special clearly enough that other people found out who she was and were doxing her for years. She still experiences it. She talked to the New Yorker about this and said it was so unfair and he knew it wasn't true. And then she says, yeah, in fact, I married an Indian guy. It was never about that. And so like this woman, this white woman who was like nowhere in his mess is now in his mess. And like, this is a thing. It's like,

You stop just being a comedian when you set yourself up as the preeminent spokesperson for anti-Muslim sentiment in the country. You take on a different role, and we expect you to tell the truth if you're in that role. After I read the profile, I decided to watch some of his new special. I think the title is like King Jester on Netflix. And I watched about 20 minutes of it. And I was like, this just isn't... I was just like, you're really handsome and charming, right?

It's like that thing where it's like, is it funny? No. Does it make you like kind of chuckle or smile as you're listening to him before? Are you entertained? Yes. But is it laugh out loud? Funny? No. And so I changed and I watched Richard Pryor's live in concert from 1979, which is on Netflix. And it was so interesting because in the first episode,

Five minutes of his special, Richard Pryor is talking about a man getting arrested in Long Beach, California and beaten up violently by cops. Like he's talking about similar to Hassan, a very high stakes newsworthy issue. This is 1979 in California. Shit was hot.

And it was just so interesting that I was like, yeah, there is absolutely a way to talk about the FBI infiltrating mosque or to talk about what happened with these anthrax incidents. Literally just saying, you know, like Richard Pryor would just like frame it as a story or frame it in second person. Like, oh, you got to be careful in Long Beach. You know what I mean? You don't have to make yourself the center of a news story. Yeah. I also, I want to ask about this and like whether...

Hasan deserves to be cut any slack because I've been thinking more about how someone like Hasan Minhaj fits into the culture. He is one of the few men of color who has been given something resembling a late night talk show. You know, that realm has been ruled by white men for as long as it's existed. And I think he's still in the running for The Daily Show.

even as of this morning. He used to be on the Daily Show. And I wonder, though, how much of the sell of someone like Kassan Minaj to occupy a role that a John Oliver or a John Stewart occupies, how much of that has to be

buttressed by this idea of brown authenticity. How much of the sell of Hassan in this cultural moment is, well, he's better than John Oliver and John Stewart and Jimmy Kimmel because he's brown and he went through this hardship. And how much of what Hassan was doing was fitting into that cultural landscape where the expectation for public intellectuals like him is

is that what gives them a cut above at an edge is how they and their bodies have lived out these traumatic experiences. There's an expectation that any Muslim we see on screen has gone through it, that any black person we see on screen has gone through it. And how much of it was him being a prisoner to that expectation?

Oh, I think 100% it's him being a prisoner to that expectation. That's why I have a little empathy in this situation because he saw it scale over time. We forget that he began on The Daily Show, which was him among many people of color fighting for one slot for airtime. And a lot of them used their personal experiences to amplify the comedy they were doing. I mean, that's what John Cena was really famous for, deploying those correspondents to go into the world. So I think he realized really quickly, you know, I'm a beautiful, charming, articulate person.

Muslim man, if I map the horrors of this experience at large in America onto my body, I will be heard louder. And it shows that he had to do that. It's really complicated that he had to do that. Jon Stewart didn't. Jon Stewart as a white man got to just talk about it.

he's not even American. Not even American. He's never had to experience being American. He's gone through no real major hardships. Oh, I see. He's never had to personally align himself. Yeah. And there is this pressure on creatives of color, especially folks that deal with current events. There's an expectation that the story must live on and in our body.

And I feel bad for him because of that. Yeah, and I remember when I, at the height of my crime reporting, I would be on BBC or whatever talking and every time the interviewer would ask me, as a black man, how does it feel to watch black people get killed all the time? And my white colleagues never were asked that. And yes, there's a reality to like,

my body looks more like the person I'm talking about. But the fact that consumers, that media wants us to kind of be in the violence itself, I think is part of what Hassan did. And that's what he was navigating in this water. So I have a little empathy for him. That's kind of interesting because it makes me think of James Baldwin. One of the ways he distinguished himself very early on is he went for Richard Wright's throat. I'm basically saying that the way American culture and certainly literature was set up

then, and I would argue often still now, that a lot of artists have to become a race man. Like you race first kind of in your work. And he certainly said that Richard Wright did that with Native Son because that's the only way to kind of gain intrigue. The only writers of color that would gain the attention of like the white gatekeepers are those who would be like, I'll be your official black person. I'll be your official brown person. Also significantly, one other thing I do want to point out with Hasan Minhaj is

I think we also need to think about the time. In 2019, he was one of Time Magazine's most influential people. And Trevor Noah wrote, quote, we've needed Hassan's voice since...

Donald Trump came down that golden escalator. And we didn't need it before? Exactly. Turned immigrants and Muslims into his target. So I just want to point out that also, and I think this is bigger than Hassan, and I think actually this is bigger than racial politics. Hannah Gadsby, Lin-Manuel Miranda, like it's actually when we look

post-2016, there were a lot of big names that emerged in pop culture whose work maybe isn't being looked upon as fondly now because we're beginning to have more perspective about how we feel about art

Does that make sense? Yeah. It was like Hannah Gadsby raging against Pablo Picasso. Lin-Manuel Miranda being like, what if all these slave owners were played by people of color? Like, I think at the time, and let's say 2017, 2018, up to 2019, we were so...

for work that felt like a panacea to how Trump made us feel that I think we kind of had some blinders on. Well, and we were convinced, and I think part of this was informed by this beautifully utopian view of America that Obama introduced to us. We had eight years of post-racial Obama-ness. Yeah, it was like a throwback to that. Yeah, and it felt like there was an expectation that the pop culture and art that would come out of that era would

would have artists like Hasan, like Hannah, like Lin-Manuel, in which their art was their art, but their bodies were also part of the art and it was all political. And I think that is too much pressure to put on marginalized creatives because it's a pressure that white creatives don't have to deal with. And as idealistic as it seems, this Lin-Manuel landscape is...

It's not fair to expect people like Hasan Minhaj or whoever else to wear an entire community's trauma on their bodies, especially when it didn't even happen. I hope what we get from this is, one, an ability to have a bigger and better bullshit meter on all these celebrities. If the story is too good to be true, it might just not be true. And two, how do we free creatives from the expectations we place on their identities? Right.

How do we free them from that? I want to be a black creative who gets to be a creative. I'm always black. It's always part of the work. But don't expect me to perform trauma. Don't expect me to perform a certain presentation of blackness because that's the box y'all think I should fit into. I think that's what Hassan's story is telling me.

I think Hassan's story is telling me be funny. Like, like if the, if, if the praise and the accolades for you as a standup comedian is like, he's funny and he has a good point about some Siri. I'm like, no, just be funny, man. Just be funny. He will stay pretty. He's very beautiful. That's all I care about today.

You'll always have that, Hasan. You'll always be beautiful, Hasan Minhaj. All right, listeners, let us know how you feel about this Hasan drama. Let us know about how much truth we should ever expect from performers in the public eye. And let us know what comedy specials you're enjoying these days. And especially like truth from stand-up comedy. I mean, I think we all give them like a little wiggle room, right? Yeah, yeah, totally. Also, I want to be fair to Hasan. He issued a response to Variety this week. And he said, quote,

All my stand-up stories are based on events that happened to me. Yes, I was rejected from going to prom because of my race. Yes, a letter with powder was sent to my apartment that almost harmed my daughter. Yes, I had an interaction with law enforcement during the war on terror. Yes, I had varioso repair surgery so we could get pregnant. Yes, I roasted Jared Kushner to his face.

I got to say, not a great statement. I think Drew Barrymore wrote that one. We'll be right back with another kind of theft. Oh, yeah.

This message is brought to you by McDonald's. Did you know only 7.3% of American fashion designers are black? Well, McDonald's 2024 Change Leaders Program is ready to change the face of fashion. The innovative program awards a monetary grant to five emerging black American designers and pairs each with an industry professional to help them elevate their brands. I

I know specifically and distinctly how McDonald's can support and empower not just black Gen Z, but black people. My first job was McDonald's. I learned a lot there about customer service and how to relate to people. I still love that place and go there very often. Look out for the change of fashion designers and mentors everywhere.

at events like the BET Awards and the Essence Festival of Culture. And follow the journey of the 2024 McDonald's Change Leaders on their Instagram page, We Are Golden.

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All right, we are back and we are switching gears. We're talking about retail theft in this segment. So to get us going, I just want to go through a few facts and a reason why today we're deciding to talk about this. And the big reason is because this week, Governor Gavin Newsom announced that the state of California would provide almost $270 million dollars

to police forces across the state to help them expand their arsenal in combating what they're calling retail theft or smash and grab robberies happening across the state. California isn't alone in this. Nine other states have passed new laws cracking down on retail theft and Congress is now considering

two bills that would make this a federal issue. So things are getting pretty, pretty hot. A federal issue is kind of a scary declaration. Right. A federal issue. You know, this has become a really big story, mostly because TikTok, I would argue, videos of people mobbing places like Louis Vuitton, Yves Saint Laurent, other luxury stores, just running into them with masks, grabbing thousands and thousands of items and running out have become a really common thing to watch on

Have y'all seen this on your TikToks? I have to be honest, I haven't seen this. You haven't seen this? I'm on TikTok all the time and I haven't seen this. Oh my God, I see them constantly. It's always so weird when it happens, the security guards pretend to run a little bit and then they're like, girl, go on ahead. Look,

Go on. Go on. And they progressively have been like, they come in and it seems like every worker is like, girl, fuck it. Like, I just go for it. It's not worth it. I'm on break. I'm on break. And it's really not worth it. The moment you leave, walk out that door, you are no longer my business. Girl, truly. I'm not paid enough. It's like, I can't even work in here by that bag. Why would I risk my life for a setback? Which we're going to get to that.

So, you know, there is a lot of like controversy around is this a thing? Is it not a thing? But the data we're getting from a lot of retailers and watchdogs is showing that there is a rise. And what they're calling it is that there's a rise in what we know as shrink. And that's a term retailers use, meaning it's the recorded difference between inventory you think you have and what you actually have.

And that's becoming a huge gulf between those things, resulting in almost $90 billion in losses in the past year, which is a lot of money. So what do we think about this high level before we get to the details? Do we care about these thefts? Is it hurting us as a society? What do you think? Well, I just want to start. These companies are fucking lying because we already have learned in the last couple of years that these companies were blaming Shrink.

on theft and that wasn't that's not actually the case right they were blaming these losses on theft and that's why if you've gone to a duane reed in the last year or so and you've gone to get shampoo or something like that entire aisle will be behind plexiglass when actually theft is happening it is but it's not actually taking away so much money from these companies as they would like to believe i think their shareholders are i am just shocked by the imagery

You know, you look at what's happened to America post-COVID. During the pandemic, we had the largest number of Americans taken out of poverty in decades because of COVID assistance. That assistance was allowed to lapse, and now America's poverty rate has skyrocketed again. Hasn't, like, child poverty doubled in the last year? Exactly. And so when I see these images of, like, baby formula behind a cage inside of a CVS or a Walgreens...

I'm not mad about the baby formula possibly being stolen. I'm mad about mothers not being paid enough to support their kids. I'm mad about mothers not having food assistance for their kids. I'm mad about mothers not getting paid maternity leave to take care of their kids. It's not about the stolen formula. It's about systems and structures in a society that doesn't help parents be parents and doesn't help low-income people live a life.

And so for me, the larger question is, why do so many people feel the need to steal? Why do so many people feel the need to steal? And as soon as you unpack any of the numbers, you realize they have a lot of reason to do so. On top of just Americans minimum wage, not keeping pace with inflation at all. We have an issue in which American companies are.

take billions in wage theft from U.S. workers every single year. According to The Guardian, quoting a study from the Economic Policy Institute, workers in the U.S. have an estimated $50 billion plus stolen from them every year through wage theft. And that surpasses all robberies, burglaries, and motor vehicle thefts combined.

And this wage theft can include many things. Employers not compensating for time worked, not given minimum wage or overtime, misclassifying employees as independent contractors, not providing meal breaks, confiscating tips.

et cetera. That kind of theft, nobody wants to talk about. And that's bigger. So as long as that's still happening and we don't pay people enough to live, I will never get upset about someone stealing baby formula from CVS. I just won't. And just to add to that, only 10% of all thefts reported are luxury items. The rest are Walmart, Target, goods, like health goods,

beauty products to wash your hair, take care of your babies, all that. That's the majority of them being taken. What seems significant to me is that

Wage theft, like Sam is talking about, you can't visualize it, right? Like wage theft exists in documents, in spreadsheets. There's never going to be a video or photo of wage theft happening, which I think makes it difficult to perceive. It literally makes it more difficult to perceive. And so I feel that corporations and politicians then...

It's not just that someone stealing an item from a grocery store, like there is footage, you can visually perceive it. I think it's fear mongering because what is actually effectively happening is that people who are looking to have confirmation bias kind of

you know, further juiced up are getting the fuel they need. And so you're seeing, I mean, this happened a few weeks ago here in central Ohio, near Columbus, where I live, a 21 year old pregnant mother was shot to death by police in a Kroger parking lot. Her name was Takia Young. And it started as one of those incidents. She was accused of stealing something from the Kroger and

And, you know, the altercation and confrontation made its way into the parking lot and she was shot through, I believe, the windshield window of her car and killed. She died. Her unborn baby died. And it's like, over what?

over a product that it won't even make a line item for the corporation of Kroger. It's just not worth it. There have been stories about grocery store security guards have actually killed a couple of people chasing them into the parking lot. Cops feel more justified in their abuse. Neighbors begin to kind of surveil each other. To me, I just feel like

There's no there there. But the result is that we're essentially policing each other in often lethal ways. Well, and I want to point out here, even if you take out all the wage thefts,

The amount of money that America pays its lowest earning workers is still criminal. So according to the Economic Policy Institute, our current federal minimum wage, $7.25, it is now worth adjusted for inflation $10.

just about what the minimum wage was in February 1956. In 1956, the minimum wage was 75 cents per hour, which translates now to $7.19 in June 2022 dollars. So basically, low-wage workers haven't gotten a real wage increase since 1956. Mm-hmm.

And we have the audacity to tell anybody in that cohort who's taken diapers from a grocery store that they're the wrong ones. I don't think so. I just don't think so. And the other part of this that politicians are focusing on, they call it organized crime. So what they're saying is that mobs or gang networks are organizing mass groups of people to go into Walmarts, take a ton of product targets, etc.,

and then resell them online. But the emergence of e-commerce has made it really easy for us to sell goods online and less likely to be busted up by the police. Like when we saw, it was very common in a lot of bodegas that sometimes was stolen goods that were brought into bodegas in low-income areas and resold. So,

People are pointing to that being like, look at them, they're making money, look how bad this. But I'm like, to Sam's point, they're making no money at the jobs if they have that job. So if they're able to steal some diapers, sell it for less than what inflation's put it at, make it more accessible for their community to buy and then also have a little bit of profit, I get why. And I think we as a society need to be more empathetic to these quote unquote criminals who

when they're doing street-based crimes, quote unquote, to just stay alive. It's like, this is what they're having to engage with. These are the types of economies they need to create for them to breathe another day, to eat another day. And we see the direct impact when corporations don't think about how we're eating or breathing, in Walmart especially. You look at Chicago earlier this year,

Because of theft in four stores on the south and west side of the city, they shut them down. By shutting down those Walmarts, those areas no longer have any access to fresh food. So the deserts of Chicago have expanded tremendously. And now people can't even eat well and are struggling even more. Well, and then what's happened is like these companies, these major corporations want you to feel sympathy for them. They want us to feel sympathetic for CVS, for Walgreens, for Walmart, for

Those chains have decimated local businesses for decades, local businesses that have forged relationships with their communities to avoid things like rampant theft. Part of why you see all this theft happen in stores like that is because those companies have no real ties to their communities, and they are predatory against their own communities.

They're like, these are faceless people. Like this isn't, you know, aunt Sue down the street running the store. This is, you know, a Bentonville HQ making a ton of money by jacking up the prices of diapers. Like that's why we're going after them. Yeah. It's interesting to me, the frequency with which when I'm in one of those big box stores, those big companies, I go look. And for me, it's always, I'm like, I'm looking for like a conditioner or shampoo or something like, you know what I mean? And I can't get to it.

Because first of all, I am never... I'm just never going to call to the front of the store. And have one of those people... And so to me, I feel like these companies are trying to use this theft stuff as an excuse to get us to just become online customers. You know what I mean? I feel like something bigger is going on. Because often what happens is like, damn it, I guess I'll just get this conditioner on Amazon Prime. It'll be easier to just have it delivered. You know what I mean? To me, I feel like...

Poor people and these imagined thieves are being used as pawns in a bigger scheme. And we're going to look up five, ten years from now, and as consumers, the landscape is going to be very different because of it.

Yeah. And we should definitely, you know, a big kind of yes and to what Saeed just said, whenever you see the expansion of the police as a response to something like this, you should be like, wait a minute, something must be larger at play because these are structures expanding and changing. So for instance, in Georgia, we're finding out that a Walmart there is wanting to block

potential theft. They're not even open yet. They're like, we're opening a store, but to block potential theft. It's not even open yet. They're like, we're going to build a police station inside of it where police can hang out and just watch and do clerical work. George is so funny. They're like, y'all heard of Cop City. How about Cop Suburb? Like, what is going on? Cop Suburb.

we know historically police do not act right on the job. So yeah, so this idea that, you know, oh, to save our profits, let's put in a system that is actually really violent on every level is really concerning. I do want to end this by just talking about things that we can do to fight some of this stuff. One, the biggest answer for me is shop local.

Shop at places where there are people you know in your neighborhood where the money is going to the neighborhood. Two, give to your local food bank. You'd be surprised at how many people in America right now today are hungry, do not have enough food. And three...

Call your congressperson and ask for an increase in the minimum wage. It's too low. It's too low. That's my two cents, three cents. Something I'll add about the food bank, though, take it two steps further. Do a little bit of research. And I learned this during the pandemic when, for me, around Thanksgiving, I definitely try to think more about donating to food banks. And just because a food bank has a bigger name in your region or community because of advertising, it doesn't mean it's the best.

So I think I would say do a little bit of due diligence. And this is often true with nonprofits and community. It's a whole thing. But I would just say it's something I learned that someone was like, X group, they get a lot of funding and actually they're not very helpful. But this other group is more on the ground really helping. If you're going to take the effort to donate to a food bank, I think obviously you want to make sure the stuff is actually reaching people. And sometimes it's not.

Sometimes it's not. Yeah, and also pick a place that you, like an issue you really care about. Mutual aid groups is a great resource. But find nonprofits that you want to have a relationship with. I think if you're thinking, if you're inspired today to be like, I want to give to food banks, go find one that does a local drive and get to know the staff. Get on their...

Like I'm currently, I'm very passionate about the IOTC food drives that are happening. So IOTC is the union that does, you know, the caterers, the grips, the electricians on sets. They're not the sexy part of the strike that's happening in Hollywood that the people were forgetting about. So me and other producers have been, you know, every month, you know,

getting food and bringing it to our local chapter where everyone's working. My brother's an IOC and, you know, having some issues with jobs because they can't work. And it's like, you know, I get an email once a month letting me know what do they need. And if I can help, then I will help. So I think just like to Sam's point, know your community, know the needs, step up. And a lot of these other issues I think would go away, hopefully. All right, with that, we're going to take another quick break, but don't go anywhere. We'll be right back with our recommendations. ♪

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Okay, we're back. And before we end the show, we'd each like to share something that's helping us keep our vibes right this week. Zach, you want to get us started? Yeah, I'd love to. So something that's helping me get my vibe right this week is rewatching a movie I've seen a few times now, which is called Theater Camp. It just came out on Hulu. It was in theaters for a little bit, but like every movie these days, it stays in theaters for like two days and then goes straight to a streaming platform.

which is a whole other conversation. It's really wild. But the movie stars Molly Gordon, Ben Platt, Noah Galvin. It is a mockumentary about a theater camp in upstate New York. A bunch of young, mostly queer kids going to theater camp. And the theater camp is under financial duress. So it's about that. But it's like the funniest little thing. It's so fun. If you like Bested Show, which was the mockumentary in the early 2000s about kids

a dog competition you will really love this and I also would say like it is the best usage of theater kids ever like there's a lot of Broadway stars in it and they are fantastic in it so definitely check it out it's fun 90 minutes I love a 90 minute movie these days bring back 90 minute movies please I laughed out loud it was cute and knew exactly what it wanted to be also Ayo's in it and we love her Ayo's currently in like three movies out right now she is working she is everywhere yeah cool Sam what about you

I want to recommend the new album from an R&B singer called Cleo Sol. S-O-L. The album is called Heaven. Heaven.

It is just like some soothing, soothing R&B. Yes. It's so good. Some of y'all might know Cleo Soul. She is a voice on a lot of albums from Salt, this very secretive black funk soul collective. Oh, you mentioned Salt last week when talking about Jungle. Exactly. Cleo Soul has also worked with Jungle before. Okay. But she has a voice...

That sounds like incense and a 90 minute deep tissue massage. It's just smooth and black and soulful. And this is like R&B for like the Erykah Badu set for the motherfuckers who burn incense in their home and who want to just center themselves. Put this on to vibe and thrive. It is a wonderful wind down. Cleo Soul's new album. I can't say enough about it. It's good.

We love a neo soul. Yes, that's true. And I mean, I always do, but especially this time of year, easing into fall. Saeed, what's keeping your vibe right? So I thought I would do something a little different this week and read a poem that's been on my mind.

While I was in Argentina earlier this summer, I spent a lot of time listening to Kevin Young. He's the poetry editor there. Really great guy. He does the New Yorker Poetry Hour where he talks to poets and they read a poem from the archives and the conversation is just really great. So this poem came up in one of the episodes I listened to.

And I just kept listening to it, kept listening to it. I keep reading it. It's just beautiful. It's by Tracy K. Smith, an award-winning poet. She was a poet laureate a few years ago. The title of this poem is We Feel Now a Largeness Coming On. Being called all manner of things from the dictionary of shame, not English, not words, not heard, but warned.

Born, carried, never spent. We feel now a largeness coming on, something passing into us. We know not in what source it was begun, but wrapped. We watch it rise through our fallen, our slain, our millions dragged, chained. Like daylight setting leaves alight, green to gold to blinding white, like a spirit caught.

flame in flesh. I watched a woman try to shake it once from her shoulders and hips, a wild, annihilating fright. Other women formed a wall around her, holding back what clamored to rise, God, devil, ancestor. What black bodies carry through your schools, your cities. Do you see how mighty you've made us?

All these generations running. Every day, stealing ourselves against it. Every day, coaxing it back into coils. All the while feeding it. All the while loving it.

That's We Feel Now, A Largeness Coming On by Tracy K. Smith. It's in the November 16th, 2020 issue of The New Yorker. I love it. Why do you think that's been sticking with you so much? I mean, one, I just think it's beautiful. I love the music of the language. It really sings from line to line. But I think, you know, I just...

Being black is such a miracle in my life. I am so grateful. But it's a complicated miracle, you know? And so I just... There's something in the way...

You know, she's not like pointing to history dates and facts and figures, but she finds a way to capture, which to me feels like the swell of history within us, within our blood. You know, do you see how mighty you've made us, you know, even with all the complication? And I just, it's just beautiful. One is just beautiful, but I just, that's a feeling that's been on my heart a lot lately. Yeah. Yeah.

Love it. I love it. Thank you. And I loved that. Yeah, you're reading of it. I was like, let me just lean back. Come on. Come on. Yeah, I love it. I love it. Well, friends, what are you feeling or not feeling this week? What's your vibe? Check in with us at vibe check at Stitcher dot com. And that's that's the show. That's it. We did it. We made it. Yeah.

Another week, another week a lot. I'll never stop saying we did it, Joe. I'll never stop saying it's pretty fun. It's pretty good. All right. Well, thank you listeners for tuning into this week's episode of Vibe Check. If you love the show and want to support us, please make sure to follow the show on your favorite podcast listening platform and tell a friend, write a review, post, do all the things. Do all the things.

Huge thank you to our producer Chantel Holder, engineers Sam Kiefer and Brendan Burns, and Marcus Holm for our theme music and sound design. Also, special thanks to executive producers Nora Ritchie at Stitcher and Brandon Sharp from Agenda Management and Production. And friends, don't forget we want to hear from you. You can email us at vibecheckatstitcher.com. Keep in touch with us on Instagram. We're still on Twitter too. I'm on Blue Sky. I'm on there.

Okay. Have fun with the spider webs over there. The cobwebs. They know what's going on over there. It's exciting. Elon is going to start charging everybody for Twitter. Watch. And I'll be back on GeoTips. Oh, my God. You can find us at The Ferocity, at Zach Staff, and at Sam Standards. Use the hashtag ViveCheckPod. See you all for another episode next Wednesday. Bye. Stitcher.

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