Hello. My name is Jesan Sorrells,
and this is the leadership lessons from the great books podcast,
episode chronologically number 111.
But this is actually going to be part 2 from episode
number 108, where we will continue with
our conversation with Tom Libby around Zora
Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching
God. When we stopped our previous
conversation in part 1, which has already been released, you should go back and listen
to it. We had been talking about,
several different areas that were involved with the book,
including the links between language, dialect, and intellectual
capacity. This idea among the African American
community of talking white or acting white. And, Tom had
brought up the idea of identity based on a card
coming from the federal government. And we both came to the conclusion
that these are nonsensical ways of viewing identity
viewing group, group,
what's the word I'm looking for group loyalty or measuring group loyalty,
or even just strange ways of
looking at class and looking at
class structures. And we were moving
very gradually into the back end of their eyes were watching
God and really exploring, Janie's
Jesan marriage, the back end of her Jesan marriage,
and then the beginnings of her connection to her
to her 3rd marriage. So Janie's Jesan marriage, just so that
you can all get caught up, was Tom Joe Starks. Joe
Starks moved Janie in their eyes were watching God to Eatonville
in writers Florida. In Eatonville, he set her
up as a well, as
a fourth of a kept lady, operating the store in
Eatonville while Joe went out and moved and
shook as an entrepreneur and eventually put the first light in the
town, set the first road and became its first mayor,
which is a role that I've said this before on the podcast that I
often aspire to. I aspire to no higher
than mayor of a town. Don't wanna
be mayor of like Boston or something. That's insane. I don't wanna actually have to
run things, but you're ever a small town? That's
kinda cool. That would be that would be
that's a I think if you just buy a if you buy a big enough
piece of property, you could be the mayor of your own town. How's that? Well,
I'm buying 5 acres coming up here fairly soon, so I'll be the mayor of
my 5 acres. It'll be and Libby be outside the county so no one can
tell me what to do anyway.
Yeah. One of our colleagues actually were talking with him the other day
on another project that Tom and I are involved in. He has a,
large tract of land that is is called a compound.
Yeah. Hashtag not a cult.
Anyway, back to the book. So Jamie
Jamie's life with Joe Starks.
Jamie's life with Joe Starks turned on turned turned
well, on the one hand, was sold to her. Right? Because Joe Starks is a
good salesman, was sold to her as being one turning.
But ultimately and fundamentally, Joe and Janie wound up hating
each other. And that's explored in the book. And she talks
about how the spirit of the marriage left in the bedroom,
and, you know, it moved into different parts of the house and
eventually moved out of the house altogether. I think that's a very
stunning way of explaining how love
can die in a marriage or the beginnings of love can die in a
marriage. And, based off of what 2 people are doing
to each other or not doing for each other in that
in that situation. Janie's marriage ended with
Joe's death in the book and her moving from being a
young married woman to an old widow.
And I put old in quotation marks because I am 5 years
older than Janie is in the book. And I don't feel old
when she is widowed in her forties.
This is a period of Tom. And Zora Neale Hurston explores this.
And, in the back half of their eyes were watching
God, in chapters 9
through 13, where
she looks at and where she begins
to understand after Joe's funeral that she has a certain measure of
freedom that she never had
before, not even with her grandmother when she was 16, not in her first
marriage when she didn't really understand love, and definitely not in her Jesan
marriage gradually over time, with, with Joe
Starks. She
one of the lines that Zora Neale Hurston has, and I've underlined it in their
eyes or what she got. I'll quote from it just very briefly. When
Janie emerged into her morning white, she had hosts of admirers in and
out of town, everything open and Frank men of property
Tom among the crowd, but nobody seemed to get any further than the store.
She was always too busy to take them to the house to entertain. They were
also respectful and stiff with her that she might've been the empress of
Japan. They felt that it was not fitting to mention
desire to the widow of Joseph Starks. You spoke of honor
and respect. And all that they said
and did was refracted by her inattention and shot off towards
the rim bones of nothing. Close
quote. At this part
of the book, this part of the story, Janie is in a weird spot because
she's single for the first time in a very, very long
time. She's not looking to overthrow social
conventions, but she's also not looking to go along. But just
being what she is, being in that turning space is a space
of throwing off social conventions in and of itself. Yeah. I get the feeling
that she didn't feel compelled to worry about social conventions just out of
the simple fact that, like, she wasn't because all of a
sudden, she's not poor. All of a sudden, she's not for
wanting. Like, she's she's very comfortable in her situation,
so she really doesn't care what anybody else thinks at this point. Right. But she
can't say she doesn't care. Right. But she can't say that, right,
to the culture. She can't be like, ah, I don't really care. She's she's
not in a space that we are in in our culture right now, which is
why I guess it resonated with me in this part of these chapters. She's not
this space that we're at in our culture, which I described a few
years ago as the I do what I want kind of culture. Yeah.
Which Tom me strikes me very much as like the fourth to 7 year
old's approach to life. Whereas
Hurston's writing about or portraying Janie
in a way that is counter to the convention of 1930s
African American culture, which is, and by the way, not just
African American culture, just 1930s culture, period. In general. Yeah. In
general, writers? Where there are certain proprieties you will
uphold. You will you will wear black in mourning, not white.
And by the way, wearing writers, just like that threw everybody off in in Eatonville.
But you will wear black. You will show appropriate deference,
to the death of your husband. And then, of course, the thing that will happen
at the back end of that is because you're a woman of property and means,
you will, of course, get married because a woman of property and means can't possibly
manage that herself. And by the way, you'll marry someone that's socially acceptable to
all of us in the community because we have a vote. Which is why she
was getting courted by all the, quote, unquote, right people. Right? That's correct.
That's right. Exactly. Exactly.
And so I kinda like the way that that, that,
that the author I I I just lost her name. I apologize. Fourth, the others.
Zoran. Yes. To Earth Thurston. I like the way she just kinda was like, just
gonna write this how I want. Yeah. I'll do what I want. Well She she
basically did the same thing writing it as her character did in the book. She
just said, I'm just gonna do it the way I want. This is I'm gonna
pretend I'm in New York Libby. I'm doing it my way. This is this goes
along with who she was. I mean, one of the things that Hurston said, and
this is one of the things that you note fourth of about her life, and
it ties in at a deep level into their eyes are watching God,
particularly later on when she's in her finally in her third marriage to Tea Cake, because
we'll talk about that today. But there was a
moment where a hurricane comes, comes through west Florida.
And, we'll talk about this a little bit more, but there are Indians or Seminole
Indians that are escaping the hurricane. And she
has interesting thoughts about the Indians, which I want to get
into that, that Hurston puts into Janie's brain, basically.
But one Tom, and I'm tying these 2 ideas together. One Tom, I think Hurston
was interviewed and she said that, like, yeah, I
couldn't couldn't find the quote on Google. Someone will go out and find it for
me. But she said something to the effect of I've been the only
African American in the room that didn't have that
didn't have, that didn't have a teepee or feathers in my
background or something like that or didn't claim it because every African
American claims that there's some Indian in their background. Every
single one. I've never been in a room where there hasn't been one. It's weird.
Right? And she was very proud of that fact. She was very
proud of the fact that I can trace all my ancestry back to here, and
she was an anthropologist anyway. I can trace all my ancestry back to here,
and I'm not trying to claim and I I get a sense
this is what she meant. I'm not trying to claim extra oppression here to win
some weird game. I'm just I'm
violating social conventions by not doing that. Because everyone in the Harlem Renaissance
was running around claiming that they were really good, so they were really bad. She's
like, no. Come on. I guess, be real here, people. And so you get that
with Janie. You get that that that that flying in the face of social conventions
in, in this part of the book, which I love. Yeah.
Same. I love that.
In our time, of course, we're consumed more with race than we are with class.
We've kind of talked about a little bit on the podcast. We talked about a
little bit in, To Kill A Mockingbird, the episode that comes in between this
one, by Harper Lee. And, of course, we'll talk about it
again. There's no wants to talk about there's a loss of things
to talk about with that. But
I think the fact that we are consumed more with race than with class is
a triumph of the approach to culture, by those in the political
activist camp of African Americans, the W. E. B. Du
Bois camp. And
I don't know what to make of that. I think it's very interesting
that in
a class based life evolution occurs more
subtly. People adapt more subtly. And you
and I were kind of talking a little bit about this earlier.
You know, when you have the ability to when
you have the ability to take your life savings and put it into a business
take a business venture, that's a class based
act. There's something there that, quite
frankly, I mean, you mentioned earlier on this podcast
in the previous episode, but also subsequent podcast you've mentioned, you've talked
about this. And with To Kill A Mockingbird that you talked about this, Tom, how
you grew up poor. Right. I grew up working class. Like
my parents were turning class poor. Right. I don't think my
mother made it, made, made any more than $32,000 until the time she
was, like, 50. That's the same. Right? Yeah.
Uh-huh. And raised 4 kids and everything else. Right?
fourth years ago, $32,000 a year was actually not terrible.
Like, that was Not terrible? What No. No. No. Don't get me wrong. I'm not
I'm not saying that you were upper middle class. I'm just saying, like, it was
survivable is really what I should say. And let and let me frame this this
way. My kids know what arugula is.
Like, I get that arugula on it's very it's rolling fry. I
get that arugula on layaway.
So to your point, I mean, I grew up very poor. I didn't know what
quinoa was until I was an adult. My kids knew what quinoa was.
That's what I'm saying. They were. Right? Like, this so, yeah, I
get it. So it's only got better than we did. Oh,
what? Oh my gosh. Please. Please. A feast
of riches. I tell this to them all the time. When my when my boy
or not even my boy. I pick on him a lot on this. I do.
I I'd write him a lot. But but my middle daughter, my my youngest I'm
dumb. Not middle daughter. Youngest daughter, when she's laying on the couch
just, oh, should I watch, like, Avengers for
the 4th time? It's another 899 on Amazon.
Dear god. Yeah. How many
times you gotta watch Infinity War? You
already got the plot. Yeah. When my kid so to your
point, my kids are going, oh, should I watch cable or prime, or should
I find something on Netflix or Hulu? Like, no. I I'll check
Disney Plus. And I'm thinking to myself, I had, like, 4 channels, and they were
all just disgustingly staticky. The Remember
the remember the UHF channels? We didn't have a color TV in my house
until I was like, the until I was adults.
I knew it was out of control when I when at one point
in time and this doesn't exist anymore, but at one point in time in our
house, we had, like, 4 remote controls. Oh, yeah. I knew it was out of
control. I was like, this is this is this is this is nuts. This is
out of control. We gotta stop this. Like, somebody's gotta put the brakes
on this. But, yeah, like, your kids know what quinoa is. My
kids know what arugula is. I mean, they're living better
lives than we lived. And to to our
credit, I think that that's because we worked hard at it. I don't believe in
luck. For sure. But I also think
that there are certain evolutions that occur as you
move up or down the class structure. I think
Hurston was sensitive to that. I think any creative is sensitive to
that. And I think leaders should be sensitive to that. So
I guess I'd like to sort of officially open up the question
here.
Just like leading people in in with any other differences, right, leaders
have to be aware of class literature. But we have a real
struggle wrapping our mouth around those ideas, you know, in
America. Because I was telling you this is somebody who I was talking to a
few days ago who's from, who's a Dutch person from,
from, from England. And I had to
explain to him that everybody in America thinks they're middle class from bill gates
to the homeless guy in San Francisco. Who's mainlining, like,
you know, heroin with a touch of Fentanyl. Like, you know? Like
like, I mean, you know, he thinks he's middle class too. He thinks he's
just he's just one more syringe away from hitting
that middle class dream. And
so talk a little bit about that dichotomy because I've
never I came to that conclusion years ago that this is how people
think, but, I don't know if I'm
maybe I'm an outlier on that. So let's start with that. Like, what do what
do how do we think about class in America?
Well, I mean, you know, I I think it's funny. When I grew up, I
always I always had to hear about you know, there was the
there was the the low like, you had low class, then you
had lower middle class, then middle class, then upper middle class,
and then upper class, then you had rich people. Right? Yes, sir.
Turning about lower class, there was, like, there was even, like, these
subsets of lower class. Right? There was, like, you're just basically living in
poverty. Like that like or like or you're not even living at all. You're a
you're a homeless guy in in San Francisco. I mean, you've got nothing
except the shopping carriage you're pushing down the street. That was even different
than being poor because being poor just meant you didn't have extra money.
Right? Like, you you could you could survive on your basic needs, and
then that was it. That was like you you were literally living
day by day on whether or not you could or couldn't afford food, but you
still had a roof over your head and, you know, whatever. Right? So,
I I I think that I think that those most
I think we we've tried so hard to eliminate most of
those variances or subset of of,
of classes that, like, we just want there to be an upper,
middle, and lower class and that's it. Like, we just want it to be those
three things. And in in order in in trying to do
that, we've just blurred the lines even more. Like, we've just basically said,
you know what? The class you belong in is the class
that you feel most comfortable in. How's that? Like, if you if you made $40
a year and you think you're middle class, then go for it. Call yourself middle
class because nobody's gonna argue. Right? Like, that's kinda where we're at at this
point. It's essentially where you've declared yourself and not
really where fourth actual Well, except the problem
is reality with that. Right? Like, if I'm making 40,000 a
year, that means my take home is 40,000 gross. That means
my take home is, if I'm lucky,
32. I was thinking closer to 27 or 28, but sure.
32. Sure. That's why I said if I'm Libby, 32. Right?
Depending on and by the way, 32 in Arkansas goes a hell of a lot
further than 32 in Chicago. Absolutely. Yes. Okay.
Which is probably where really where more of what that comes from is what we
were talking about a few minutes ago. Yes. Exactly. You know?
So if I'm making 32 in Fayetteville, Arkansas,
my class is and by the way, Fayetteville is not a bad town. I don't
have a problem with Fayetteville. It'd be writers for Fayetteville. That's a great place to
live. Very inexpensive. I would encourage you go from Chicago,
not to move to Fayetteville, but, like, just consider
it. Anyway, get out of New York. Well, if at least if you're making fourth
grand a year in Chicago, you're not serious. Exactly.
Get yourself out of Chicago. My god. You're dying. You think it's a good year
in Chicago, you're living on south side. Right? Like, it looks like south side Chicago
that is not a very good neighborhood apparently. You might you might actually be
in one of those tents we're talking about earlier.
Because that's all you could afford. Yeah. But $32,000
in Fayetteville, Arkansas, $32,000 take home.
That goes a lot further in Fayetteville. Yeah. I I think
the challenge, particularly of the last 20 years in in our era, has
been the envy machine that is the mobile phone. Because I
can look around and see it was easier maybe
maybe 30, 40 years ago. In our historical memory, it was easier. Because
like when I was a kid, I didn't know that there were other
people who lived the way that I did that were like
across the world or across the country. I didn't know that. I just knew the
people essays thing with you. I just knew the people in my neighborhood. Like, I
didn't I'll be honest. Like, I didn't know you. Like, I like, the the
concept of talking to somebody. Like, my father
was a huge radio guy and would have loved the Internet, would have loved podcasts,
would have loved all this. Like, if I had told
him that I could have a chat with somebody in London, he'd be like,
why? It's Why do they what do you
care with somebody in London? Is that gonna change your life somehow?
Like, what do you and and he wouldn't have asked the why for, like, an
economic end. It would have been the why from, like, you're getting an
English degree. Why? You speak English? The hell's your
problem? Yeah. Yeah. So it goes
Tom that same space. And so where class ties into that is
when I can see someone that I use this example, because it's the most
recent one, but when I could see one of my quote unquote friends in Fayetteville,
who went to Little Rock this weekend to go see a Taylor Swift
concert and I know Taylor Swift tickets cost $1,000, and he
took 6 people to the Taylor Swift concert, and they took a bunch of pictures.
They took a bunch of videos, and I see the highlights. I can go to
Ticketmaster and see that those concert tickets are $1,000.
And now and I'm making $32,000 a year in Fayetteville, or I can
see that,
you know, Brad Pitt shot his new movie in Chicago when I can see all
the shots in Chicago because they're all on Brad Pitt's Twitter Twitter feed.
Right? I can see all of this stuff now. And so
the envy that maybe wouldn't have been there for that lifestyle, for
that class, now comes downstream to me.
And by the way, the biggest purveyors, I think, in our time of this crap
actually aren't the cell the cell phones. I think well, no. I think it's the
cell phones plus the Kardashians. I'll put those 2 together.
What the hell? I'll blame the Kardashian and all that and and and Fourth and
all that entire crew of nonsense that's going on over there.
Because I think those people made they made envy
cool. Sure. Them and the Real
Housewives of whoever the hell, wherever. Like, it's never the Real Housewives
of Fayetteville, Arkansas. It's never that. Right. Yeah. Like,
who cares? Like, you wanna see The Real Housewives of, like, Dubai. Well, why do
we wanna see The Real Housewives of Dubai? We went from lifestyles of the rich
and famous to the Real Housewives and Kim Kardashian. Can we just
say, like, I missed that show? I really missed that show. I don't know why.
House is rich and famous. Yeah. Maybe it's just Robin Leach's voice. I don't know,
but I actually do miss that show. And I think the
Kardashians ruined it because they basically became that show. Like, it took over
and whatever. But anyway Well, okay. Is that like what what
was it? The the MTV show about,
the the, the the the MTV show that that
toward the rich people's houses. Like, I forgot the name of Cribs. Thank
you. I love that show. Between that show and the Kardashians and Tom
My Ride, Robin Leach had no shot.
I wonder I wonder what Zora Neale Hurston would think of Pimp My Ride. I
wonder what she would think of that. I wonder what she would say. I don't
know the woman myself, but just based on some of the stuff I've read about
her, I think she'd had problem with this. She might've had an issue. She might've
had a challenge. If this was one of her children, I think she would've just
smacked it outside the head and said, what are you doing? Fix the car. Fix
the car. Stop it. Okay. So
what do leaders do with class envy then? Like, because we see
a lot of it now, and it's it's driven by this like you
said, we've tried to flatten everybody into the middle class, but then we have
that other tension on the other side, which is I can look at what everybody
else has. Yeah. And and and I think I think
that this beholds leaders to even be
more diligent about treating people based on their merits
and not Yeah. Yeah. Their not their optics. Right? Or
Yeah. Any optic, by the way. I don't care what it is. I don't care
if it's race, color, creed, class, whatever it
looks like from the outside, and basically being and and saying to
somebody that we are going to treat you
based on your actions, your
your actions and reactions and and how you and and how you perform for
the company. It's really that simple. And I think that leaders have to be
that much more diligent because it's so easy. Right?
It's so easy to get distracted with this other stuff that we're talking about. It's
easy to get distract my opinion this is
strictly opinion, by the way. If I as a leaders, as a person who
has run sales teams and so on and so forth, I refuse. I will
not go on anybody on any of my sales rep's social media.
I do not wanna see what they're doing on social media. Now if I happen
to see on our company site that they shared one of our company posts, I
might like it. Great. Put a thumbs up on there. But I'm not going
down a rabbit hole looking at their social media because that could potentially
very heavily influence the way I think about them the next day.
Right? And videos of them on the some table in a bar
drinking and whatever. And if I'm if I'm a recovering alcoholic, which I'm not, by
the way. I'm just saying, if I'm a recovering alcoholic, I see that kind of
behavior, I all of a sudden have this trip wire, and I don't like that
person tomorrow morning. Right. I have been pretty diligent
about not going down the rabbit holes of looking at social
media of my employees. And I think that that's wisdom. That could
potentially be something that other people don't do and gets them in some trouble.
So I think that's wisdom. I mean, a lot I train a lot of, a
lot of groups of employees and managers and supervisors,
And I've done that work for quite some time and through my
consultancy and particularly in the civil
service, like, it's it's they are encouraged to
keep their social media on lockdown, which is
hugely important. And
I know that when I was in higher education as well,
I was not and this is in the early days of social media before everything
sort of got to where it is now. But you could see you can begin
to see the clearing at the end of the path, you know, on some of
this. I was encouraged, and I took the posture with my
employees who were 18, 19, 20 years old. I said, I'm not gonna
be, we're not gonna be friends on Facebook. That was a big thing at the
time. We're not gonna be friends on Facebook until after you're graduated
and already done. Because I if you're drinking in your room with
peers or you're drinking in a place where you need to be drinking at and
you're doing it irresponsibly. I never said that. But if you're doing it irresponsibly, I
don't wanna know. Yeah. Right. I really don't wanna know because what I have
what I know about, I have to do something about. And if I don't know,
I don't have to do anything about it. I don't even follow my own kids
on on social media for the same reason that you just mentioned. I don't wanna
know. I don't know if they're doing it like that. Well, and for kids for
my kids, I I solved that problem in a different kind of way.
I just banned all cell phones. But, I'm working on I'm working
on a deeper cut than even that. But my point is that
those kinds of boundaries between leaders and
followers have to be maintained. But what do you do when,
what do you do when followers are friends with each other on social media?
And now because this has been happening quite a bit over the
last 5 to 7 years where I follow you
on social, I'm your co worker, and you post
something I don't like. Oh, yeah. The this
I can only imagine what some of the yeah.
Anyway, go ahead. Sorry. And that right. Right. Right. Right. Oh, you know where I'm
going with this. And and now we're all policing each other in this
weird pseudo virtual environment that, again,
doesn't have anything to do with with with the material
real world we're all living in instead is a reflection,
a highlight reel of reality.
But because human the human brain can't
distinguish between what's real and fake without being told, you have to be
told what's real or fake. Right?
People don't have good critical thinking skills to be able to tell themselves that or
to be able to make those delineations. And so, you know,
my my coworker posts essays, well, I mean, the month we're in,
so I might as well just go for it. My my coworker posts a rainbow
flag right in their bio or whatever fourth writes
some post about something. And I didn't know
that thing about my coworker. I never asked that thing about my coworker,
but I'm friends with my coworker. And maybe I have
a difference of thought. And so I write something
that's opposite to that. And I respond to my
coworker. By the way, these things happen. The leader
is usually the last to know by the time this stuff
explodes. What how do leaders deal with that? This is a huge Jesan this
stuff explodes? Because usually they're the last they're not invited they're not invited to the
original posting. I think,
I think one thing, you know, let let's let's take a step back for a
second. Sure. I I I think I think if you can
find a way, shape, or form Tom get ahead of
it with some really good written company
policy to begin with, this may not end
up becoming a problem in the first place. Right? So Yeah. What I mean by
this is, for example, you know,
maybe it's a a company policy of not I
don't know. Maybe I don't think we could do this, but I'm just saying, like,
you're not allowed to follow fellow employees that are that are
in the same group that you are. Like, again so, like, somebody in the
finance somebody in the finance department wants to be friends with sales and they follow
each other, fine. Because guess what? If they get mad at each other, they're probably
not impacting each other's day. Right? Like, you can you can stay away from each
other. But somebody on the in the finance department following another finance department
person may be a bad idea. Right? Like, so let's let's avoid that. Now,
again, I don't know if that's actually even legal, to be honest with you, to
tell somebody they can or can't follow each other on social media. But let's just
say that it's not legal and you can't do it that way. You
can still you can still put some sort of company policy in place that
says that fourth and and be very
clear about it. Your personal things,
where where again, whether it's your personal belief systems or your personal
social media, your personal family life, whatever that is, is not
allowed to implode the
the the workplace. And by implode, you list them out. Like,
if you see something if a coworker's doing something on social media you don't like,
that's okay for you not to like it, but it cannot impact your workday.
If and and literally list out some, like, really clear
versions of this. Now that being said, even in doing that, I don't know if
you're gonna avoid that problem. I still think there's a possibility you'll avoid that problem.
So in that case, but but at least the leader has
something to defer to as a guiding principle as to how to handle the
issue. Right? Sure. So employee a and employee b come into my
office. What's going on? Well, they posted something on social media and they posted
something on social media and we didn't like it. Okay. Let me refer to this
policy right here. Do you remember signing off on this? So tell me
what about this policy you can't live with and and and, like,
and kinda make it make it more a a matter of fact thing than
a, like, a personal attack on either one of their belief systems because you
certainly don't wanna get certainly don't don't wanna go down that rabbit hole because if
you attack either one of their or even if you allude to what looks like
an attack on either one of their personal belief systems, you forget about
employee problems. You're opening yourself up to lawsuits. So you
can't do that. But, again Well and this is and this is the brave new
world because you're also into, like again, remember I said, the
leader usually doesn't find out about this Yeah. Until after
the problem is already, like, begun. Right? And we're well
down the road. We're well down the road. I mean, I've read
stories about employees doxing and harassing each other,
you know, gaslighting, and just all kinds of nonsense. Right?
And again, the
manager, the supervisor, usually the last in line to even
realize that this is going on, although increasingly and a lot of this I think
was broken during COVID because
remote workers are working so much on instant messaging systems like
Slack or chat or whatever your internal system is. And
we saw this at Google actually with the employee, the employees who
organized and Google. So here's what Google. Instead of having
everybody follow everybody on social media or on Google because Google doesn't do social,
there are surveillance and data scraping company.
Instead instead, what they oh, everybody
knows. Instead, what, what they did was
they instituted sort of a Slack and internal Slack
where they allowed people to kind of blow off steam and kind of unite in
the internal Slack, thinking that that was going to be the thing that was going
to eliminate conflicts, particularly around 2020 and DEI
and social justice and all these other sort of hot button social issues that are
going on in the culture. And, of course, Google's in San Francisco. So, of course,
everybody's got an opinion about these Sorrells issues because they're not in Fayetteville,
Arkansas, where people would just be like,
go outside. I don't know. Like, leave it what?
Stop. Okay. So, and I'm not saying that
when you get people that would get upset about DEI, payable, Arkansas, but the the
vast majority of folks there are going to be probably a little bit more down
to earth than the folks who are in Mountain View.
Okay? Now
that didn't work out for Google. That internal
Slack channel didn't work out. As a matter of fact, it didn't work
out so well that some Google employees decided they were
going to protest, the Palestinian, Hamas,
Israeli, Gaza war in the offices
of people who weren't even in their work group, leaders who weren't even their leaders.
And so they went and they boycotted the offices or not boycotted, but they went,
they barricaded themselves in the office and basically
disturbed the workday. And I'll give you the punchline.
This happened probably about a month and a half, maybe 6 weeks ago, and all
those employees were fired.
I don't think Google had a policy for that. Google didn't
have the Google didn't have the Google didn't have
the the in case the people decide to take the thing off the internal
Slack and go and barricade themselves in the office of people who don't even supervise
them policy, I don't think they had that written down, and I don't know how
HR even covers that. Yeah.
Yeah. I I yeah. Good question. Right. I got it. I
I yeah. I don't know. But it was one of the more ridiculous things that
I saw, And I suspect that and again this
is related to class if you work at Google, you're of a
different class than someone who works in I picked a lot on Arkansas today, so
I won't. I'll move along. I'll move across the country. You you
probably are of a different think of yourself in a different
class structure or in a different class distinction than
someone who works in Memphis, Tennessee. For
sure. Good, bad, ugly, or indifferent, you probably think of yours even though you both
may make the same amount of money, you know, a $150,000
in Memphis, Tennessee and a $150,000 in Mountain View is still
$150,000. Alright. But in Mountain View, you're living in a shack, and
in Tennessee, you're living in a mansion. Correct. But you
still but living in that shack, you think that you're of a better class because
I work at Google. Meanwhile, the person in Memphis, Tennessee may work
for a plumbing company that's been there for 150 years.
For sure. So class is weird and I think Hurston hit on it.
By the way one last point on this, so I
follow a I follow
a magazine, I guess, a newsletter called Pirate Wires. I'm gonna give a shout out
to those guys here. They probably won't hear this, but I'm gonna give a shout
out to those guys. You should subscribe if you're listening to Pirate Wires Daily.
They are very, very book, and they track a lot of this sort
of in the sort of interesting things that occur
around, the intricacies of class
in tech, along with many, many other things in tech. And it's one of
those daily newsletters that I get. And Mike Solana is the,
the editor in chief. And, one of the 3 takes, I get a I
get a daily update. It's 3 take daily update. They have 3 articles in one
newsletter. And the one that I happened to see, dated,
today, got it at 5 am, 10 hours ago as of this recording,
which is, June 14th, flag day, 2024.
Mike Solana wrote yesterday scales and
scale as an AI company. I think scales, Alex Wang fourth announced
his company's new hiring policy. And we're talking about this
MEI fourth merit, excellence, and intelligence
explicitly banning race, gender, and identity based hiring from the company,
quote, that means we hire only the best person for the job,
the founder controversially explained, and, quote, hiring on merit
will be a permanent policy of scale, he further controversially added.
Partly a public gesture of this kind was inevitable following years of DEI backlash.
Partly, it's probably close to the law at this point following the supreme court's
ruling over Harvard's racist admissions practices.
But mostly, it's just interesting how few people melted down over his decision.
No massive media backlash, no staff exodus. The man
said, quote, we are hiring smart people. I don't care if they look alike. I
don't care what they look like. And everyone said,
okay. Then he got a bunch of love
online. Stay losing, Robin D'Angelo
obsessed HR cat ladies. It's the revolution of the same. That's
fourth Mike Salata. Those are not my words. Closed quote.
Merit, excellence, and intelligence, m e I.
I mean, welcome to the 21st century. Like, shouldn't everyone be out? What the hell?
Who can are we we're gonna applaud him for something that, like,
everybody should be doing anyway? What the hell?
This is where we're at. Something like that. He wants a button. He wants a
like button. Well but but see but see now you can you can look at
his posting, that was somewhere. I think it was on Twitter that he
made this announcement. And you can like it and or you can look at it
and not like it and feel envious. Hey.
Yeah. Hey. Sure. This is the envy machine of social media.
Oh my gosh. Alright. I lost
I lost the the ability to have envy when I realized that when I when
I was a kid that everybody had more than me, so I would be envying
the entire world if I like, it's a useless emotion. I'm
not gonna worry about envy anymore. Just skip it.
This is gonna skip envy and go straight to jealousy on the people that I
know I can support. There you go.
Well, this is One of the things I sometimes
will talk on our solo episodes, I sometimes talk about this, whenever
we talk about sort of more theologically oriented books like Mere Christianity
by CS Lewis, or we'll talk about Reinhold Niebuhr,
fourth even Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Right? You know, anything by a
theologian. I I
I'm fascinated by the fact that
almost no one in our culture, our modern postmodern
culture, uses those old school words like envy and jealousy
anymore, even though we know what those emotions are. Right? And we seem to
have lost that language. Greed. Oh, we know
that word fourth sure. Like, greed, please. I mean, who is it that said in
the 1980s, you know, quote, unquote greed is book? I think there was some movie
Wall Street. You know? Yeah. Oliver Stone put that put those words
in Michael Douglas's mouth. So greed, we absolutely know, and greed, we could
spot like dimes on the highway. But the other ones interchange greed with
capitalism. Right. But the other ones, we don't. We don't interchange,
like, vanity with the Kardashians. Right.
Like, we don't interchange envy with social media.
We don't interchange lust with pornography. We don't. No.
We don't do that. It's just empowered sex work.
Okay. Please, let's be real, People, come
on. And so we have all these old school human nature things,
which Hurston would appreciate because she came out of anthropology. And
there's nothing fourth. There's no other field, I
think, that clearly shows exactly man's inhumanity to
man at a visceral level than anthropology. Probably psychology
gets there too. But, like, human beings are driven by these
base appetites, and then we just try to put masks and levels and
layers on top of them. And and and those
masks and layers and levels we call civilization.
Like we just do. That's what we call civilization. Because if we if we strip
all that away I mean, we've seen this in war zones. You strip all that
away and the guy or the guy you're into something
else. The the take all those emotions, wrap them up in a in in a
version where you can control, and we call that humanity.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And things still and things still leak out the sides. Like,
forget it. You can't Yeah. Exactly. I mean, this is
why
this is why it's interesting that they're called the 7 deadly sins and not the
7 kind of fourth of maybe dangerous sins.
I mean, just take out all of the other vernacular. Just say the 7
dangerous sins would even be, like like okay.
They're kinda maybe not great. You don't wanna
maybe do this. No. Like, pride.
Again, the month we're in.
If we're using that term, when we really mean dignity,
we fundamentally misunderstood what's at the bottom of both of
those words. And we're literature leadership
podcast, so words matter. The word pride,
just like the word vanity or envy or lust or
jealousy, there's a darker thing at the root
of all of those words. But words like
dignity and honor and duty and,
well, and faith, there's something that's not dark
at the bottom and the root of those words. And we used to kind of
understand that, I think, in our culture. I I also think and I I
said it I I made this comment on the, episode,
the part one of this of this podcast episode with with Thurston.
Words have the power that we give them.
So if you're gonna take pride and turn it into a negative,
that's because we've given it that kind of negative power.
There's there's a there's there it's
not a sin to be prideful of something that that you have worked
your tail off to accomplish. Like, you can be being
prideful of that is not a sin, but we give
that word, that negative power or the sinful power based on
other things, not being prideful about something you've worked on. It's a different kind
of so we gotta be careful how we how we, assign the
words, basically, in in in the in the the
manner in which we're using them and deploying them for certain
things. Like, it that all matters. Right? Like, to Tom my point earlier in that
the first fourth first episode of this podcast, The words
have power that we give them. Like, it's we we give them that power. The
word pride does not have power all by itself standing there. The
the word dignity, the word the gluttony fourth any of the other
7, almost dangerous sins that we
we're we're giving them that power. It's it's us we're we're giving them
that power. It's not it's not as like, we can take
those same exact words and move them into a different segment.
It turns into something different. So I would like to use this opportunity to give
the to give the the makers of Ozempic some
marketing advice. Call it a
gluttony reducing medicine, and we will be fine.
People will line up around the block for it. That means fine.
Sure. Because what we're doing is
we're actually using this drug to reduce our
appetite so that we are not gluttonous,
Sorrells. I feel good about putting those two
words together. I feel just fine about that. So, you know, at the
dinner table or, you know, quite frankly, anywhere else. Yeah.
You know, I understand that there's many, there's very few
things, and this Seth Godin said this years years ago, we wrote it in a
book, fourth might have written it in a blog post or I might have heard
him say it. Might have been in a blog post or maybe a book. But
human beings don't like and you'll appreciate this, Tom, being in the
marketing space. Human beings don't like things being marketed Tom that marketed
to them baldly. They don't like being told the full
truth of a thing. That's why we have marketing. And of course
he referenced back to, as I always do, the graffiti on the
walls of Pompeii advertising ladies of the night. Like there's very
few things that human beings want to have marketed to
them as the truth of the thing.
But 99.9 percent of everything else,
people want a gloss on it. They don't want the word used.
That's why Ozempic is a weight loss drug, not a gluttony
reducing pill. That will probably screw you up later. By the
way, I'm waiting for Ozempic just like olestra. Anybody remember that? I'm
waiting for the for the devil to come due on that. Waiting for that class
action suit to be filled? Oh, I'm waiting. It's I think and I think I
I don't think I'm gonna have to wait really long. I think it's gonna come
right around the corner. Yeah. You might be right.
Anyway, back to the book.
Back to their eyes are watching God. By the way,
a great title, You might
wanna research where she got that where she got that title from. It's an interesting
little story. It's funny that you say that because I was gonna I was gonna
ask that because I found the I I didn't I didn't research where it came
from, but I remember thinking to myself, I really like to
know how she came up with it. Like, what what is the impact to her?
Because there there seems to be a story there for her on the title, not
for the story itself. Yep. Yep. Well, this is one of the
lines that that they actually
say here, in
the they could see is it close to the end,
Maybe. Yeah. Feet cake dies
and, and sort of the the
circle gets closed. Right. And she talks about
well, she essays, Jane Janie talks about several different or or not talks about
reflects, on her life and on the nature of her life.
And so that's sort of where that idea gets to
be gets gets closed in. The other thing is the end of the
end of the novel, which we're wandering towards the end of the novel, the end
of the novel and the beginning of the novel Libby together quite tightly,
which is just like just like the end of, the beginning of the end of,
To Kill a Mockingbird linked together quite tightly. And so which is the
sign of, a writer who did not lose the
thread, of the narrative. She didn't, she didn't
lose the, she didn't lose the narrative. And, I could
appreciate that. So the back half, right, of their eyes are
watching god. So Janie and TK get married. Well, actually, before that,
Janie meets a woman. Not meets a woman, but well, yes. She
meets a woman, and there's other people who are, like, sort of floating around her
turning to get her married off and and all this kind of stuff. And she's
like, I'm a woman in my forties. I'm really enjoying having this, having this
shop. I'm really enjoying having my freedom. I'm not really looking for a man. She
doesn't really say that, but that's what she Jesan. That's what she means.
And she's hanging out. And all of a sudden, this guy comes rambling down
the road. And his name is, I love this name, Virgible
Woods, aka
tea cake. And
he courts her not by chasing after
her money and not by chasing after her
body and not by chasing after
any of the sort of material things
that may be in an environment
like that, you would, you would anticipate that a man would come
along and chase after a woman if she had them. Right. He wasn't interested in
her class. He wasn't interested. And this is something that women need to pay
attention to. And I thought it was interesting how Fourth hit on this in
the book. Tea Cake was not interested in
Janie's money. Janie thought that Tea
Cake was interested in her money. As a matter of fact, there's an interesting literature
moment that they have when they move from
Eatonville to the West Everglades where Tea Cake is going to go make some money.
And, Janie brings basically her life savings pinned
inside of her dress And she wakes up and she finds out
that it sees that it's gone. And it turns out that,
he goes and gambles it and he loses some of
the money, but he brings back, you know, more, money.
And, you know, she's freaking out, you know, and she
doesn't understand that he's a gambler because he didn't tell her this from the jump.
He just sort of presented himself as being this jokester kind of
guy.
And she starts losing her mind about the money, and she starts losing her mind
about him going on and on with another woman. And he comes back to her.
He says, I don't really need I don't need your money. I just use it
as a stake to start me off, but I can make my own money and
watch. And he goes and he does. And he's a hard worker,
in addition to being a gambler. He's a guitar player
and, took any odd job he could possibly be offered to make
any money. And these days, Seacake would be called a
hustler, not a scammer, but just a hustler. Right?
Hustled into his work, did hard work, and he
was an honest hustler. Right? He was even an honest gambler, which
is which is so strange for Hurston to
structure TK's personality this way because I'm sure the
vast majority of African American gamblers she ran across
were guys who were on the make. Guys who were,
not to put you find a point on it, but guys who were pimps, writers?
Who were who were, were money
hustlers, who put on a good show but could lose it all on a
Saturday night. I'm sure that's the milieu that she was writing
against with Tea Cake's character. He also possesses a deep
devotion to being married to Janie in chapters 13 through
20, a devotion that runs so deep that when a hurricane comes through,
he tries to well, they try to move to higher ground.
Writers. And, they get the warning that the hurricane is coming, but they
don't they don't take it
seriously.
And and they don't take it
seriously because, well, because they're quite frankly, living
the high life. Writers. They're making friends with Bahamian workers.
They are figuring out how their culture goes. But as the
hurricane begins to draw closer, they notice that the animals are
starting to migrate. Right. And the workers are starting to really realize the workers who
are familiar with how hurricanes come through the Everglades are starting to pack up and
leave. And there's a moment that happens in Chapter 18
where Janie is at home and t k is off in the field
working, trying to get his last few dollars that he can get before the hurricane
comes. And this happens, which I thought I thought of Tom when I
read this actually, in chapter 18 and I quote,
so she was home by herself one afternoon when she saw a band of
Seminoles passing by the men walking in front and the
laden stolid women following them like bureaus like burrows.
She had seen Indians several times in the glades in twos and threes, but this
was a large party. They were headed towards the Palm Beach Road and kept
moving steadily. About an hour later, another party appeared and went the
same way. Then another just before sundown. This
time she asked where they were all going. And at last, one of the men
answered her. Going to high ground, saw grass book,
hurricane coming. Everybody was
talking about it that night, but nobody was worried. The fire dance kept
up till nearly dawn. The next day, more Indians
moved east unhurried, but steady, still a blue sky and fair
weather beans turning fine and price is good. So the Indians
could be, must be wrong. You You couldn't have a hurricane where you're making
7 $8 a day picking beans. Indians are dumb
anyhow. Always were. Close quote.
I did. I sat there, and I I underlined it, and I thought,
okay, Zohra. Alright.
But this is the overlap. I mean, we ran into this when we read black
Indian slave narratives. Narratives. Right? Like we this is the overlap between
cultures in America. And it's so subtle what
she's doing there. You know, Janie's perception
and then the Indians as the warning and not taking the warning
seriously. Like, why wouldn't you? Right? But then the Bahamians were
fourth the books from from the Bahamas who were there, they didn't take it seriously
either. They were staying out in the field, making 7, $8 a day.
And as that sort
of unwound, Hurston did a really good job in these back
chapters of the book, dripping
out that drama, that was happening. And so the
hurricane did come, and it did sweep away everything
that wasn't on high ground. And the Indians weren't dumb. They did
know things. You should have listened. You should have paid
attention. But it swept away everything and
fundamentally wound up, well, Tea Cake and
Janie tried to escape, successfully escaped for a little bit,
and then wound up in a spot where,
well, Janie almost drowned. And in the process of saving
her, tea cake got bitten by a rabid dog
in the face. No Jesan. Now
that bite doesn't kill him immediately. He shakes
off the dog, fights the dog, whatever. But it winds
up being a problem much leaders, as
rabies moves through his body.
And, eventually, Janie has to do the thing
that you do with a rabid dog, but she has to do it with tea
cake. By the way, after the hurricane
well, the physical hurricane anyway is over.
Their Eyes Are Watching God ends with Janie becoming
a whole Jesan, weirdly enough, and winding up back where she started
at her home where her grandma was.
And she becomes a whole person who
can live by the truth of herself rather than
seeing herself through other people.
And the challenge I think that Zora Neale Hurston puts forth in Their Eyes Were
Watching God is this one: how do you find meaning in relationships
with other people? And how do you in spite
of class, in spite of cultural differences, in spite of race,
in spite of how much money you have or don't have, where's the
actual meaning in a life? Right? Where's the actual meaning in a life
from, like, 16 to fourth or 16 to 50?
And the only place I think where you find that meaning is
in marriage. And I think Zora Neale Hurston was a big fan of marriage. I
think she thought that that was the social construct that was going to hold
together not only African American culture, but all cultures in general.
And we live in a weird spot where
marriage and familial behaviors and behaviors that lead to marriage have
been unraveling for about the last 100 years. And that
unraveling has created a sense of deep chaos between men and women. I mean, we're
seeing it right now in in gen z, you know, the youngest generation that's
in America right now. The rates of virginity are going
up. Like, it's not just not dating, people not
having sex. Now pornography use isn't going
down. You know, that continues to trend up as a matter of fact.
Studies show that in general this is why I banned
phones from my house. In general, a child,
a young man, has his first touch with pornography these days at the
age of 7, which is insane. And
for young women, it's at the age of 10.
There's something broken in that, and
I suspect what it is. Actually, I know what it is. I have a good
or I have a good idea of what it is, but you
can't in can't give that to a 7 year old or a 10 year old
via the dopamine inducing machine known as social media, known as the
cell phone, without creating downstream
chaos in an institution that's designed to find meaning.
And meaning is hard to come by a social and moral environment
where we don't want to sacrifice ourselves in favor of
responsibilities to somebody else. And even childbearing
itself is on the decline. I Jesan, the United States is now below replacement writers.
And what's weird is, globally, most
countries are below replacement rate. And this does not bode
well. I mean, Elon Musk talks about how to save civilization, you have to have
babies. Everybody laughs at him. He's right.
He's exactly correct. Now I have 5 kids my I have 4
kids myself. Tom had 5. I think Tom's got had 2 marriages under
his belt. You know, I was a divorce and family mediator for
many years. I saw people's marriages fall apart. And so by hook or by crook,
I'm staying married to this woman even if I gotta move into another how part
of the house. Like, it's gonna happen.
But I also think that this is an individual thing. Right? So the meeting crisis
is at the 50,000 foot level. Marriage and family is probably a little bit
above that, or or maybe it's right in there. But I think all these things
linked together in Hurston with Janie Was trying
to show I think that that marriage and family and and and even
children, even though Janie didn't have any, can drive
where you wanna go and can give you a solid life.
I don't know that love solves everything. I don't necessarily believe that. I'm
too old for that. But I do believe that relationships can be
the beginning of how you, well how you
can have your eyes watching God just in real
life. I think she makes that relatively evident by the fact that think of the
timeframe that this book was writers. The idea of a woman being married three times
was almost non existent, But she didn't she couldn't
envision a, a world with with this strong of a woman not
being married. So I to your to I think to your point, and and the
only relevance I'm making there is I think you're right that she valued
the institution of married very highly marriage very highly. And I think
she had I think she had, had tied that
to not just her own moral compass,
but what she felt should have been society's moral compass. Right? Like, she
felt Right. Because if not, then she wouldn't have written it in 3 times. Like,
she there was plenty of opportunity, especially when the second husband
dies and she's got that wealth status
money. She's got all that stuff that she needs. She's got everything she needs to
live the rest of her life in a in a positive
fashion, but yet still finds a way to get married
marries her off in the book to to another person. So I I do think
you're right. I think she does value that institute very highly. Well
and there's something else, and I think it's a subtle point that
most people miss in any kind of analysis of any form of
entertainment, whether it's, literature or
film or television. As forms
of entertainment, creators put forth ideas
into these vehicles that can move culture. We talked a
little bit about this with To Kill a Mockingbird. Right? Sometimes you're too early,
sometimes you're too late, and sometimes you're right on time.
And that individual creator
imbues that product with their own moral view.
Okay, cool. Atticus Finch. Right? Perfect
example. Into Kill a Mockingbird. Atticus Finch, you know,
raising 2 kids with Calpurnia, who's the
stand in for the mother because the mother died, and Atticus stands as
that whether we like it or not, I mean, he's the the paternal
moral compass of that book. Right? Whereas in
their eyes are watching God, Janie is the maternal
moral compass in this book. And
Hurston herself never had kids.
And I believe, if I remember her biography correctly,
she was no. I might be confusing her with Catherine and Porter.
I have to go back and look at that. But I don't I don't think
she was married fourth she was married. It was only once, and it didn't work
out. But be that as it
may, a good creator and this is a
subtle distinction in our culture, and I think we're missing it. A good
creator or creative looks at the
structures of culture and essays, even though those didn't work for me and
my individualistic situation, They are still good for the
vast majority of people. Yeah. Yeah.
And I think as our culture has become more and more individualistic and by the
way, individualistic, meaning because it's good for me, it must be good for society.
And so what's good for me has to scale up to society. But what's good
for society doesn't have to scale down to me. Screw those guys. They don't know
what they're thinking. It's it's the whole idea
that the state is is messed up and I'm fine. And
if the state would just change, then I'd be good. Except the
problem is you're screwed up. Like
like, we're all individual. I'm screwed up. Tom's screwed up.
All of our listeners, we're all screwed up in our own individual ways as Charles
Dickens would would say fourth Neil Tolstoy, actually. You know,
every family is, you know, uniquely dysfunctional in its own
uniquely dysfunctional way. Right? Like, we're all we're all
dysfunctional. We're all screwed up. But that doesn't mean that I can
take my screwed up ness to society and be like, it's your fault. Fix it.
Or the choices that I've made in my individual life
it would be arrogant to the point of unbelievable
to ask the laws to match my life.
And yet we do this all the time in our postmodern society, our postmodern
culture. And I think Hurst didn't re re I think she saw that
coming in the 19 thirties and the 19 forties, and I think she
rejected all of that in a way that, like, a Richard Wright
didn't, or the way that a Ralph Ellison
didn't. And I think that fundamentally was the
the the thing that caused Wright to have a problem with her and
Ellison Tom, like, just totally, completely kind of kind of book her off, kinda be
like, oh, that's interesting, but I'm I'm going in a different different direction. Like her
and particularly her and Richard Wright, they like they butted heads because they were like
they they fundamental their fundamental world views were just different.
How can leaders stay on the path with leadership
lessons from their eyes watching God? What what should leaders take from
this book, Tom? Well,
I don't know. We've talked about an awful lot with this. We have talked a
lot a lot all the time. It's, it's taken up, you know, 2 episodes of
the podcast. So, I'm I'm hopefully you know, the
the the problem for me is I I don't think I have, like, this
this epiphany about about leaders with this book other than the
fact that, like, some of the things that we've already talked about, like,
being able to judge people based on their merits, being able to
keep, you know, the keep the the the the the
insanity at bay by kind of
the the the whole, you know, lead by example situation where, you know,
she's writing this stuff because she feel we just talked just 2
seconds ago, She feels that the institution of marriage is important, so she writes
about it. She leads by example there. Like, she's trying to give everybody
some insights into her own, you know, her own, worldview.
And I think that leaders can do the same thing by by being
true to themselves and being able to I I think
there's a I think there's a really hard thing to
disassociate yourself from from the
the chaos, but still
be a guiding light to get people through it. I I I think there's a
very this very difficult version of people that they
we're all capable of it, though. That's the thing I find the most interesting about
us as, you know, as as a as a society in general. I think we're
all capable of it. It's just whether or not you choose to do it. And
I think for leaders today, they have not they have to they have to
be able to based and judge people on their merit and,
again, to your point a few minute a little while ago,
including things like their class, their social status,
their their social media activity, their race,
their color, the all of that. And and I we
kinda poke fun a little bit at that founder of of of scales there.
But the reality of it is that should be the norm. Like, we should be
able to do that. Like, why are we? Jesan.
I I I tell I made a joke one day. It didn't go over too
well. But, you know, one day I I said I
said, I'm not racist. I'm an equal opportunity hater. Right. And
people were like, wait. What? Like, I don't care if the person's black, white, red,
brown, whatever. If I don't like them, I don't like them. I don't care what
color they are or what race they are or whatever. And it it
struck them as because they were expecting me to say something different,
like, that, you know, that I'm not racist because I love everybody and all that.
None of that. I can I'm still allowed to not like people. I don't care
that they're a different color than me or a different like, that doesn't matter. I
still should I should be able to base that on your merits as a person,
not may base it on your merits as whatever race, religion,
color, creed, sex, whatever. If I don't like
you, I don't like you. And it the leadership should still look at that and
and from both sides of that coin. You should like or dislike your employees
based on their production, based on their importance to the company,
their willingness to be a company person, drink the Kool Aid, whatever
the however whatever phrase you wanna use. But most of those things
should apply to and and and warrant
your thought process based on their merit, not anything else. I
think I think Thurston as an author
kinda got that. I think she understood that. And and we talked
about her own quotes and her own life in the last section of the
episode. And I think just from her own statements
and her anthropological research and all this other stuff, she already had that
worldview in 1930. So, I mean, the the fact
that we're still talking about it in fourth, to me,
is completely and utterly asinine that we still
have people deciding whether they like or
dislike somebody based on the color of their skin fourth based on their their social
scale or based on their economic fourth socio Sorrells socioeconomical
situation, it blows my mind. It just blows my mind that somebody from
1930 can already have this thought and we haven't learned this lesson yet.
So I think I think we can learn something from her dramatically, actually.
Yeah. Yeah. I I agree. And I think that
I think that the only way we're going
to get there is
at a one to one level. Sure.
You know, if you wanna sure. Books,
movies, plays, operas, songs. These things
have meaning, right? These, these things have weight. They
influence and impact the culture. And And one of the things we've talked about this
month is sort of where do, where does a leader find their moral compass from?
We talked about this with to kill a mockingbird. You know,
we just, we just, came off of,
D day, the 80th anniversary of D day, a truly
amazing act of military
prowess, and just national will,
that we kind of don't understand, fully.
We are in June, so, of course, Father's Day is coming up. You'll probably
hear this podcast episode after Father's Day. So for all of you out there who
are fathers, including Tom, happy Father's Day.
I know. Worst there's a comedian, and I think I've mentioned this to
you fourth. Worst holiday ever. Like, worst
holiday ever. And you can go find that joke somewhere.
It's floating around TikTok somewhere. Or Instagram reels. I don't know. That might have been
where I saw it. But my point
is, when we talk about where
a moral compass comes from and when we talk about,
how do leaders get something and stay on the
leadership path while also treating everybody
equally, right? We have to acknowledge that
people have biases, and that's okay, by the way.
And our biases, I think, are strongest Tom
your point when they are against people who are just
not behaving well. And I don't think
it's hard for us to determine what bad
behavior is, but it's become harder over
time because we've allowed
I think, we've allowed the removal of
not just books but also ideas from our culture. We just talked about
the 7 deadly sins, you know, in this episode. Right? We've we've
removed that language, and so we struggle
to put words next to these things that we see. Or even more weirdly
enough, like vanity, we don't talk about vanity.
Like I, I, like I just mentioned, Ozempic should be like a gluttony
reducing, reducing disease. Well, you know, Botox should be a vanity
helping dizzy helping tool. It's a vanity helping tool. You wanna have thick
lips and you don't wanna, like, go have a baby with somebody else
who has thick lips genetically? Well, guess what? We're gonna help you out because you're
so vain to paraphrase from Carly's side.
Or or Kate Hudson from Or Kate Hudson. Sorry. Donathan's
got 10 days. Bro, that's right. Like,
we're not marketing it that boldly, but it is a vanity cure
fourth or or a, a comb over
or a, or a bald baldness treatment.
Right? These are all solutions to the problem of vanity. I
wanna look good to other people, but I also wanna
look good to myself. Right? And we wonder
why there's a rise in narcissism in our culture. Well, it's it's not really
an accident. So I think
leaders have to pay attention to these kinds of things. I think Hurston gives us
the way Tom your point about her her anthropological research. I
think that that that as I said all the way at the beginning of our
last episode I think that that undergirds everything
that she did. She she knew something deep about the human
condition. Yeah. And she tried to put that in her books and in
her writers. So hats off to her, and,
read the read the rest of her of her, resume. You know?
Get all of it underneath you. The more I the more I read about her,
I gotta be honest with you, the more she crept up my list of people
in history that I would like to have lunch with. You know, like, you always
ask that question. If you could pick one person from history, who who would it
be? And and my list is relatively long, by the way,
but she was not even on it. And now, like, I think she's crept up
quite a bit. I think Yeah. I think if I let let me rephrase it
this way. I would definitely not say no to it if if somebody
said to me, she's the only person you go back in history and have lunch
with. Would you be willing to do it? I would do it in a second
without even thinking about it. Yeah. Like so
She was great. She was great. Well, with
that, I'd like to thank Tom for coming on for part 2.
Oh, the leadership lessons from the great books, Their Eyes Were Watching God.
And, with that, well,
we're out.